Editing Stanley Milgram

{{Short description|American social psychologist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Stanley Milgram
| image              = File:Stanley_Milgram_Profile.jpg
| image_size         = 175
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| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1933|8|15}}
| birth_place        = [[The Bronx]], New York City, U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|1984|12|20|1933|8|15}}
| death_place        = [[Manhattan]], New York City, U.S.
| resting_place      = 
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| other_names        = 
| known_for          = [[Milgram experiment]]<br>[[Small-world experiment]]<br>[[Familiar stranger]]
| education          = [[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College]] ([[B. A.|BA]])<br />[[Harvard University]] ([[PhD]])
| employer           = 
| occupation         = 
| title              = Professor<ref name="google1">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NzgVCwAAQBAJ&q=stanley+milgram+%22two+children%22&pg=PA701 |title=Mental Health and Mental Disorders: An Encyclopedia of Conditions ... |page=70 |date=December 14, 2015 |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9781440803833 |last1=Sperry |first1=Len |publisher=Abc-Clio }}</ref>
| height             = 
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| spouse             = {{marriage|Alexandra Menkin|1961}}
| partner            = 
| children           = 2<ref name="google1"/>
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}}
'''Stanley Milgram''' (August 15, 1933 – December 20, 1984) was an American [[social psychologist]] known for his controversial [[Milgram experiment|experiments on obedience]] conducted in the 1960s during his professorship at [[Yale University|Yale]].<ref name="Blass, T. 2004">Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram''. {{ISBN|0-7382-0399-8}}</ref>

Milgram was influenced by the events of the [[Nazi Holocaust|Holocaust]], especially the trial of [[Adolf Eichmann]], in developing the experiment. After earning a PhD in [[social psychology]] from [[Harvard University]], he taught at [[Yale University|Yale]], [[Harvard University|Harvard]], and then for most of his career as a professor at the [[City University of New York Graduate Center]], until his death in 1984.

Milgram gained notoriety for his obedience experiment conducted in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at [[Yale University]] in 1961,<ref>{{cite web|last1=Zimbardo|first1=Philip|title=When Good People Do Evil|url=http://archives.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2007_01/milgram.html|website=Yale Alumni Magazine|publisher=Yale Alumni Publications, Inc.|access-date=April 24, 2015}}</ref> three months after the start of the trial of German [[Nazi]] [[war criminal]] [[Adolf Eichmann]] in [[Jerusalem]]. The experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of subjects would fully obey the instructions, albeit reluctantly. Milgram first described his research in a 1963 article in the ''[[Journal of Abnormal Psychology|Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology]]''<ref name="ObedStudy">{{cite journal|last=Milgram |first=Stanley |year=1963 |title=Behavioral Study of Obedience |journal=Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology |volume=67 |issue=4 |pages=371–8 |pmid=14049516 |url=http://content.apa.org/journals/abn/67/4/371 |doi=10.1037/h0040525 |citeseerx=10.1.1.599.92 |s2cid=18309531 }} [http://library.nhsggc.org.uk/mediaAssets/Mental%20Health%20Partnership/Peper%202%2027th%20Nov%20Milgram_Study%20KT.pdf as PDF.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150404094832/http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/social_dilemmas/fall/Readings/Week_06/milgram.pdf |date=April 4, 2015 }}</ref> and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, ''[[Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View]].''<ref>{{cite book |last=Milgram |first=Stanley |title=Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View |publisher=Harpercollins |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-06-131983-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/obedien_mil_1974_00_3145|url-access=registration }}</ref>

His other [[small-world experiment]], while at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], led researchers to analyze the degree of connectedness, including the [[six degrees of separation]] concept. Later in his career, Milgram developed a technique for creating interactive hybrid social agents (called [[cyranoid]]s), which has since been used to explore aspects of social- and self-perception.

He is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the [[history of social psychology]]. A ''[[Review of General Psychology]]'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Milgram as the 46th-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century |journal=Review of General Psychology |volume=6 |issue=2 |year=2002 |pages=139–152 |doi=10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139 |url=http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug02/eminent.aspx |last1=Haggbloom |first1=Steven J. |last2=Warnick |first2=Renee |last3=Warnick |first3=Jason E. |last4=Jones |first4=Vinessa K. |last5=Yarbrough |first5=Gary L. |last6=Russell |first6=Tenea M. |last7=Borecky |first7=Chris M. |last8=McGahhey |first8=Reagan |last9=Powell III |first9=John L. |last10=Beavers |first10=Jamie |last11=Monte |first11=Emmanuelle |citeseerx=10.1.1.586.1913 |s2cid=145668721 }}</ref>

== Biography==

=== Early life, education, and family ===
Milgram was born in 1933 in [[New York City]] ([[the Bronx]])<ref name="Analyse & Kritik">{{cite journal |last=Blass |first=Thomas |year=1998 |title=The roots of Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments and their relevance to the Holocaust |journal=Analyse & Kritik |volume=20 |issue=1 |page=49 |issn=0171-5860 |oclc=66542890 |access-date=January 14, 2012 |url=http://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/1998-1/AK_Blass_1998.pdf |doi=10.1515/auk-1998-0103 |s2cid=156831232 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105094821/http://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/1998-1/AK_Blass_1998.pdf |archive-date=November 5, 2013 }}</ref> to [[Jewish]] parents.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHgWLPas4bYC&pg=PA15|title=The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram - Thomas Blass - Google Books|page=15|date=February 23, 2009|access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9780465008070|last1=Blass|first1=Thomas|publisher=Basic Books }}{{Dead link|date=February 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> His parents were Adele (born Israel) and Samuel Milgram (1898–1953), who had immigrated to the United States from Romania and Hungary respectively during [[World War I]].<ref name="frostburg1">{{cite web |author=Dr. Megan E. Bradley |url=http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/stanleymilgram.html |title=Stanley Milgram |website=Faculty.frostburg.edu |date=August 15, 1933 |access-date=May 5, 2016 |archive-date=December 2, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171202174450/http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/stanleymilgram.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="bookref1">{{cite book|last=Thomas Blass|title=Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm|publisher= Psychology Press|date=November 2000|page = 1|isbn=978-0-8058-3934-0}}</ref><ref name="Scribner">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=N3URAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Adele+Israel%22 |title=The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives |first1=Kenneth T. |last1=Jackson |author-link1=Kenneth T. Jackson |first2=Karen |last2=Markoe |first3=Arnie |last3=Markoe |oclc=755235271 |isbn=978-0684804927 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |location=New York, NY, USA |date=August 1, 1998 |access-date=August 29, 2012}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a6k_O_IovwcC&pg=PA270 |title=Moral Education: M-Z |page=270 |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9780313346484 |last1=Clark Power |first1=F. |year=2008 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref><ref name="encyclopedia.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Stanley_Milgram.aspx |title=Stanley Milgram Facts, information, pictures &#124; Encyclopedia.com articles about Stanley Milgram |website=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref> He was the second of three children.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200203/the-man-who-shocked-the-world |title=The Man Who Shocked The World |magazine=Psychology Today |date=March 1, 2016 |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref><ref name="frostburg1"/>  Milgram's immediate and extended family were both affected by [[the Holocaust]]. After the war, relatives of his who had survived [[Nazi]] [[concentration camp]]s and bore [[Tattoo#Identification|concentration camp tattoos]] stayed with the Milgram family in New York for a time.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=31JEAHwiZ_EC&pg=PA164 |title=American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and ... |author=Kirsten Fermaglich |page=164 |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9781584655497 |year=2007 }}</ref>

His [[Bar Mitzvah]] speech in 1946 was on the subject of the plight of the [[European Jews]] and the impact that the events of [[World War II]] would have on Jewish people around the world.<ref name="frostburg1"/><ref name="uni-muenster.de">{{cite web|url=https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/sommersemester2012/schluesselstudiendersozialpsychologiea/blass_historicalperspmilgram_ampsychol2009.pdf |title=From New Haven to Santa Clara : A Historical Perspective on the Milgram Obedience Experiments |author=Thomas Blass |website=Uni-muenster.de |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref><ref name="google2">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHgWLPas4bYC&q=%22stanley+milgram%22+jewish |title=The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram |author=Thomas Blass |date=February 24, 2009 |publisher=Basic Books |access-date=May 5, 2016 |isbn=9780465008070 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> He said, upon becoming a man under Jewish law: "As I ... find happiness in joining the ranks of Israel, the knowledge of the tragic suffering of my fellow Jews ... makes this ... an occasion to reflect upon the heritage of my people—which now becomes mine. ... I shall try to understand my people and do my best to share the responsibilities which history has placed upon all of us."<ref name="google2"/>  He later wrote to a friend from childhood: "I should have been born into the German-speaking Jewish community of Prague in 1922 and died in a [[gas chamber]] some 20 years later. How I came to be born in the Bronx Hospital, I'll never quite understand."<ref>{{cite web |last=Tartakovsky |first=Margarita |url=http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/09/04/stanley-milgram-the-shock-heard-around-the-world/ |title=Stanley Milgram & The Shock Heard Around the World &#124; World of Psychology |website=Psychcentral.com |date=September 4, 2011 |access-date=May 5, 2016 |archive-date=May 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503015754/http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/09/04/stanley-milgram-the-shock-heard-around-the-world/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Milgram's interest in the Holocaust had its basis in what his biographer, Professor [[Thomas Blass]], referred to as Milgram's "lifelong identification with the [[Jewish people]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/psyifp/aeechterhoff/sommersemester2012/schluesselstudiendersozialpsychologiea/blass_historicalperspmilgram_ampsychol2009.pdf |title=From New Haven to Santa Clara : A Historical Perspective on the Milgram Obedience Experiments |author=Thomas Blass |website=Uni-muenster.de |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref>  Author Kirsten Fermaglich wrote that Milgram as an adult had "a personal conflict as a Jewish man who perceived himself both as an outsider, a victim of the Nazi destruction, and as an insider, as scientist."<ref name="google3">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=31JEAHwiZ_EC&q=%22stanley+milgram%22+jewish&pg=PA100 |title=American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and ... |author=Kirsten Fermaglich |page=100 |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9781584655497 |year=2007 }}</ref>  Alexandra stated that Milgram's Jewish identity led to his focus on the Holocaust and his obedience-to-authority research.<ref name="google3"/> He shared this as well with Herbert Winer, one of his obedience study subjects, who noted after speaking to Milgram about the experiment that "Milgram was very Jewish. I was Jewish. We talked about this. There was obviously a motive behind neutral research."<ref name="google3"/>

Milgram married his wife, Alexandra, in a ceremony at the Brotherhood Synagogue in [[Greenwich Village]] in Manhattan on December 10, 1961, and they had two children, Michele and Marc.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHgWLPas4bYC&q=%22Stanley+Milgram%22+synagogue&pg=PA74 |title=The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram |author=Thomas Blass |page=74 |date=February 24, 2009 |publisher=Basic Books |access-date=May 5, 2016 |isbn=9780465008070 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> At the time of his death, Milgram lived in [[New Rochelle, New York]].<ref name = NYTObit/>

Milgram's father worked as a baker, providing a modest income for his family until his death in 1953 (upon which Stanley's mother took over the bakery). Milgram attended public elementary school and [[James Monroe High School (New York City)|James Monroe High School]] in the Bronx. (One of Milgram's classmates at James Monroe High School was [[Philip Zimbardo]], the architect of the [[Stanford prison experiment]]. Milgram and Zimbardo also shared an affinity for the popular television program ''[[Candid Camera]]'' and an admiration for its creator, [[Allen Funt]].<ref name="ShockMachine">{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Gina |title=Behind the Shock Machine: the untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments |date=2013 |publisher=The New Press |isbn=978-1595589217 }}</ref><ref name="CandidCamera">{{cite book |last1=Milgram |first1=Stanley |title=The Individual in a Social World: Essays and Experiments |date=1977 |publisher=Addison Wesley |pages=324–332}}</ref>.)

By the time he was college age, his family had moved to nearby [[Queens]].<ref name="uni-muenster.de"/> In 1954, Milgram received his bachelor's degree in political science from [[Queens College, City University of New York|Queens College in New York]],  He also studied at [[Brooklyn College]] "Psychology of Personality" and "An Eclectic Approach to Social Psychology".<ref name="books.google.com"/> He applied to a PhD program in [[social psychology]] at [[Harvard University]], and was initially rejected due to an insufficient background in psychology (he had not taken any undergraduate courses in psychology at Queens College). He was eventually accepted to Harvard in 1954.

=== Academic career ===
In 1961, Milgram received a PhD in social psychology from Harvard. He became an assistant professor at Yale in the fall of 1960. He served as an assistant professor in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard from 1963 to 1966 on a three-year contract.  The contract was then extended for one additional year, but with the lower rank of a lecturer.<ref>{{cite web|title = Stanley Milgram|url = http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/stanleymilgram.html|website = faculty.frostburg.edu|access-date = October 23, 2015|archive-date = December 2, 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171202174450/http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/stanleymilgram.html|url-status = dead}}</ref>

In 1967 he accepted an offer to become a tenured full professor at the [[City University of New York Graduate Center]], and he taught at City University until he died in 1984.<ref name="Blass, T. 2004"/><ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sdYPAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA149 |title=OCR Psychology: AS Core Studies and Psychological Investigations |author1=Philip Banyard |author2=Cara Flanagan |page=149 |date= September 5, 2013|publisher=Psychology Press |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9781135049317 }}</ref> Milgram had a number of significant influences, including psychologists [[Solomon Asch]] and [[Gordon Allport]].<ref>{{cite web|author=Cary L. Cooper |url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=191535&sectioncode=30 |title=A sparky study that tests your blind obedience |work=[[Times Higher Education]] |date=October 1, 2004 |access-date=July 25, 2009}}</ref>

=== Death ===
Milgram died on December 20, 1984, aged 51, of a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]] in New York City. It was his fifth heart attack.<ref name="ReferenceB"/><ref name = NYTObit/> He left behind a widow, Alexandra "Sasha" Milgram, a daughter, Michele Sara, and a son, Marc Daniel.<ref name = NYTObit>{{cite news |first= Daniel|last= Goleman|title=Dr. Stanley Milgram, 51, Is Dead; Studied Obedience to Authority|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/12/22/obituaries/dr-stanley-milgram-51-is-dead-studied-obedience-to-authority.html|work=[[The New York Times]] |date=December 22, 1984 |access-date=August 7, 2008 }}</ref>

==Obedience to authority==
[[File:Milgram experiment v2.svg|thumb|200px|Setup of the Milgram Experiment]]
{{main|Milgram experiment}}
In 1963, Milgram submitted the results of his obedience experiments in the article "Behavioral Study of Obedience". In the ensuing controversy, the [[American Psychological Association]] held up his application for membership for a year because of questions about the ethics of his work, but eventually did grant him full membership. Ten years later, in 1974, Milgram published ''Obedience to Authority''.  He won the [[AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research]] in 1964, mostly for his work on the social aspects of obedience.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.aaas.org/awards.php?a_id=24 |title=AAAS Prize for Behavioral Science Research |website=Archives.aaas.org |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref> Inspired in part by the 1961 trial of [[Adolf Eichmann]], his models were later also used to explain the 1968 [[My Lai massacre]] (including authority training in the military, depersonalizing the "enemy" through racial and cultural differences, etc.).  He produced a film depicting his experiments, which are considered classics of social psychology.

An article in ''American Psychologist''<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|title = A cognitive reinterpretation of Stanley Milgram's observations on obedience to authority|last = Nissani|first = Moti|date = 1990|journal = American Psychologist|doi = 10.1037/0003-066x.45.12.1384|volume=45|issue = 12|pages=1384–1385}}</ref> sums up Milgram's obedience experiments: {{blockquote|In Milgram's basic paradigm, a subject walks into a laboratory believing that they are about to take part in a study of memory and learning.  After being assigned the role of a teacher, the subject is asked to teach word associations to a fellow subject (who in reality is a collaborator of the experimenter). The teaching method, however, is unconventional—administering increasingly higher electric shocks to the learner. Once the presumed shock level reaches a certain point, the subject is thrown into a conflict. On the one hand, the strapped learner demands to be set free, he appears to suffer pain, and going all the way may pose a risk to his health. On the other hand, the experimenter, if asked, insists that the experiment is not as unhealthy as it appears to be, and that the teacher must go on. In sharp contrast to the expectations of professionals and laymen alike, some 65% of all subjects continue to administer shocks up to the very highest levels.}}More recent tests of the experiment have found that it only works under certain conditions; in particular, when participants believe the results are necessary for the "good of science".<ref>{{cite web|title=The Bad Show|url=http://www.radiolab.org/2012/jan/09/whos-bad/|publisher=WNYC|access-date=April 19, 2012}}</ref>

According to Milgram, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer sees himself as responsible for his actions.  Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow."  Thus, "the major problem for the subject is to recapture control of his own regnant processes once he has committed them to the purposes of the experimenter."<ref>{{Cite book|title = Obedience to Authority|last = Milgram|first = Stanley|publisher = Harper & Row|year = 1974|location = New York|pages = xii, xiii}}</ref> Besides this hypothetical agentic state, Milgram proposed the existence of other factors accounting for the subject's obedience: politeness, awkwardness of withdrawal, absorption in the technical aspects of the task, the tendency to attribute impersonal quality to forces that are essentially human, a belief that the experiment served a desirable end, the sequential nature of the action, and anxiety.

A competing explanation<ref name=":0" /> of Milgram's results invokes [[belief perseverance]] as the underlying factor.   What "people cannot be counted on is to realize that a seemingly benevolent authority is in fact malevolent, even when they are faced with overwhelming evidence which suggests that this authority is indeed malevolent. Hence, the underlying cause for the subjects' striking conduct could well be conceptual, and not the alleged 'capacity of man to abandon his humanity . . . as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures.'"

Inspired by the horrific events of Nazi Germany, Milgram's obedience experiments have been used to explain a range of social influences on the individual—including how police interrogators can get innocent people to confess to crimes they did not commit.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Kassin | first1 = S | year = 2015 | title = The social psychology of false confessions | journal = Social Issues and Policy Review | volume = 9 | pages = 24–49 | doi = 10.1111/sipr.12009 }}</ref> At the same time, these experiments have come under attack. Some critics questioned whether subjects sensed the unreality of the situation. Others questioned the relevance of the laboratory setting to the real world.

The most devastating criticisms involved the ethics of the basic experimental design. Professor Milgram, for his part, felt that such misgivings were traceable to the unsavory nature of his results: "Underlying the criticism of the experiment," Milgram wrote, "is an alternative model of human nature, one holding that when confronted with a choice between hurting others and complying with authority, normal people reject authority."<ref>{{Cite book|title = Obedience to Authority|last = Milgram|first = Stanley|publisher = Harper & Row|year = 1974|location = New York|page = 169}}</ref>

Daniel Raver looks back:{{blockquote|Even though Milgram's personal interests were diverse, his greatest contribution to psychology came through one set of experiments, but in that set he contributed monumentally.  He helped justify a science some dismiss as unimportant, contributed to the understanding of humanity, and, even if by way of attacks against him, contributed to the consideration of the treatment of research participants.}}

==Small-world phenomenon==
{{main|Small-world experiment}}
The [[six degrees of separation]] concept was examined in Milgram's 1967 "small-world experiment", which tracked chains of acquaintances in the United States. In the experiment, Milgram sent several packages to 160 random people living in Omaha, Nebraska, asking them to forward the package to a friend or acquaintance who they thought would bring the package closer to a set final individual, a stockbroker from Boston, Massachusetts. Each "starter" received instructions to mail a folder via the U.S. Post Office to a recipient, but with some rules. Starters could only mail the folder to someone they actually knew personally on a first-name basis. When doing so, each starter instructed their recipient to mail the folder ahead to one of the latter's first-name acquaintances with the same instructions, with the hope that their acquaintance might by some chance know the target recipient.

Given that starters knew only the target recipient's name and address, they had a seemingly impossible task.  Milgram monitored the progress of each chain via returned "tracer" postcards, which allowed him to track the progression of each letter. Surprisingly, he found that the very first folder reached the target in just four days and took only two intermediate acquaintances. Overall, Milgram reported that chains varied in length from two to ten intermediate acquaintances, with a median of five intermediate acquaintances (i.e. six degrees of separation) between the original sender and the destination recipient.

Milgram's "six degrees" theory has been severely criticized. He did not follow up on many of the sent packages, and as a result, scientists are unconvinced that there are merely "six degrees" of separation.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uaf.edu/northern/big_world.html |title=Could It Be A Big World After All? |publisher=Uaf.edu |access-date=June 22, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301152432/http://www.uaf.edu/northern/big_world.html |archive-date=March 1, 2009 }}</ref> Elizabeth DeVita–Raebu has discussed potential problems with Milgram's experiment.<ref>{{cite web|author=Elizabeth DeVita–Raebu |url=http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/if-osama.s-only-6-degrees-away-why-can.t-we-find-him |title=If Osama's Only 6 Degrees Away, Why Can't We Find Him? &#124; Human Origins |publisher=DISCOVER Magazine |date=January 28, 2008 |access-date=June 22, 2009}}</ref>

In 2008, a study by Microsoft showed that the average chain of contacts between users of its '.NET Messenger Service' (later called [[Microsoft Messenger service]]) was 6.6 people.<ref>{{cite arXiv|eprint=0803.0939 |title=Planetary-Scale Views on an Instant-Messaging Network|author1=Jure Leskovec|author2=Eric Horvitz|class=physics.soc-ph|year=2008}}</ref>

==Lost letter experiment==
Milgram developed a technique, called the "lost letter" experiment, for measuring how helpful people are to strangers who are not present, and their attitudes toward various groups.  Several sealed and stamped letters were planted in public places, addressed to various entities, such as individuals, favorable organizations like medical research institutes, and stigmatized organizations such as "Friends of the Nazi Party".  Milgram found most of the letters addressed to individuals and favorable organizations were mailed, while most of those addressed to stigmatized organizations were not.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VDPftmVO5lYC |title=Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches |author=Harvey Russell Bernard |access-date=May 5, 2016|isbn=9780761914037 |year=2000 }}</ref><ref name="everything1">{{cite web|url=http://everything2.com/title/Stanley%2520Milgram |title=Stanley Milgram |publisher=Everything2.com |access-date=June 22, 2010}}</ref>

==Anti-social behavior experiment==
In 1970–71, Milgram conducted experiments which attempted to find a correlation between [[media consumption]] (in this case, watching television) and anti-social behavior.  The experiment presented the opportunity to steal money, donate to charity, or neither, and tested whether the rate of each choice was influenced by watching similar actions in the ending of a specially crafted episode of the popular series ''[[Medical Center (TV series)|Medical Center]]''.<ref name="everything1"/>

==Cyranoids==
{{main|Cyranoid}}
In 1977 Milgram began piloting an experimental procedure that aimed to operationalize the mind-body fusion fantasy explored in the [[Edmond Rostand]] play [[Cyrano de Bergerac (play)|''Cyrano de Bergerac'']]. In the story, Cyrano supplies Christian with amorous prose so that they may jointly woo Roxane (each being incapable, given their respective physical and linguistic limitations, of doing so on their own).

Milgram trained [[Speech shadowing|speech shadowers]] to replicate in real-time spontaneous prose supplied by a remote "source" by-way-of discreet radio transmission during face-to-face dialogue with naïve "interactants".<ref>Milgram, S. (1984). Cyranoids. In Milgram (Ed), The individual in a social world. New York: McGraw-Hill</ref> In homage to Cyrano, he referred to the hybrid agent formed by combining the words of one individual with the body of another as a "[[cyranoid]]". In his studies, interactants repeatedly failed to detect that their interlocutors were merely speech shadowing for third parties, implicitly and explicitly attributing to them communicative autonomy. Milgram referred to this phenomenon as the "cyranic illusion". This illusion held even in circumstances involving high disparity between shadower and source, such as when he sourced for child shadowers while being interviewed by panels of teachers (naïve to the deception) tasked with assessing each child's intellectual abilities.

Milgram hoped that the cyranoid method could evolve into a useful means of interactively exploring phenomena related to social behavior and self-perception (e.g., racial, gender, and age-based [[Stereotype|stereotyping]] and [[Behavioural confirmation|behavioral confirmation]]). Though he continued to develop the methodology through 1984 (the year of his death), he never prepared a formal publication detailing his cyranoid experiments.<ref>Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram''. New York: Basic Books</ref>

In 2014, social psychologists at the [[London School of Economics]] published the first replications of Milgram's original pilots.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Corti | first1 = K. | last2 = Gillespie | first2 = A. | year = 2014 | title = Revisiting Milgram's Cyranoid Method: Experimenting With Hybrid Human Agents | journal = The Journal of Social Psychology | volume =  155| issue = 1| pages =  30–56| doi = 10.1080/00224545.2014.959885 | pmid = 25185802 | s2cid = 12867973 | url = http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/59442/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Gillespie%2C%20A_Revisiting%20Milgram%E2%80%99s%20cyranoid%20method_Gillespie_Revisiting%20Milgram%E2%80%99s%20cyranoid%20method_2014.pdf }}</ref><ref>Miller, G. (September 2014). [https://www.wired.com/2014/09/cyranoid-experiment/ If Someone Secretly Controlled What you Say, Would Anyone Notice?]  WIRED</ref><ref>Neuroskeptic. (September 2014). [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/09/06/cyranoids-stanley-milgrams-creepiest-experiment/#.VDGo8ymSx4U Cyranoids: Stanley Milgram's Creepiest Experiment] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180801005617/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/09/06/cyranoids-stanley-milgrams-creepiest-experiment/#.VDGo8ymSx4U |date=August 1, 2018 }}. Discover</ref> Robb Mitchell has explored cyranoids as an experiential learning tool within the classroom (having children shadow for teachers during teaching exercises).<ref>{{cite web |last=Mitchell |first=R. |year=2010 |url=http://conference.pixel-online.net/edu_future/common/download/Abstract_pdf/pdf/DE04-Mitchell.pdf |title=Teaching Via Human Avatar: Enlivening Delivery Through Students Acting as Proxies for Remote Lecturers |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006095530/http://conference.pixel-online.net/edu_future/common/download/Abstract_pdf/pdf/DE04-Mitchell.pdf |archive-date=October 6, 2014 }} Paper presented at SOLSTICE 2010, Lancashire, United Kingdom.</ref> Cyranoids have also been used in installation art to explore social experiences whereby people encounter those familiar to them through the bodies of strangers.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=R. |last2=Gillespie |first2=A. |last3=O'Neill |first3=B. |year=2011 |url=http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2079246 |title=Cyranic Contraptions: Using Personality Surrogates to Explore Ontologically and Socially Dynamic Contexts|pages=199–210 |doi=10.1145/2079216.2079246 |isbn=9781450307543 |s2cid=6734259 }} Paper presented at DESIRE'11, Eindhoven, Netherlands.</ref>

==References in media==
In 1975, [[CBS]] presented a made-for-television movie about obedience experiments, ''[[The Tenth Level]]'', with [[William Shatner]] as Stephen Hunter, a Milgram-like scientist. Milgram was a consultant for the film, though the accuracy of the film has been contested by Milgram himself.

In 1980, musician [[Peter Gabriel]] wrote a song called "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)", referring to the number of subjects who administered the maximum shock in another one of the experiments - 37 out of 40.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.songfacts.com/facts/peter-gabriel/we-do-what-were-told-milgrams-37 |title=We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37) by Peter Gabriel |access-date=January 26, 2023}}</ref>  While it was played live on his 1980 tour, Gabriel did not release a studio version of the song until 1986, on his 5th album "So".

[[Milgram experiment|Milgram 18]] was reproduced to test the participants in a 2008 television special ''[[The Heist (Derren Brown special)|The Heist]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derren-brown-the-specials/episode-guide/series-19/episode-1 |title=Derren Brown: The Specials - Derren Brown: The Heist |publisher=Channel 4 |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref> Created by [[Derren Brown]] and [[Andy Nyman]] for British station [[Channel 4]], the Milgram experiment helped determine which would be given the opportunity to rob a (fake) armoured bank van.

Milgram is a character in [[Chip Kidd]]'s novel "The Learners" (2008), overseeing his experiments at Yale.

In March 2010, French television channel [[France 2]] broadcast ''Jusqu'où va la télé'', describing the results of a fake game show that they had run 80 times (each time independently, and with a new contestant and audience). The contestants received instructions to administer what they thought would be near fatal electric shocks to another "contestant" (really an actor) when they erred on memorized word-associations. The vast majority followed instructions even as the "victim" screamed.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7457780/French-contestants-torture-each-other-on-TV-Game-of-Death.html |title=French contestants torture each other on TV Game of Death |newspaper=Telegraph |date=March 17, 2010 |access-date=May 5, 2016}}</ref>

In 2015, an experimental biopic about Milgram called ''[[Experimenter (film)|Experimenter]]'' was released, directed by [[Michael Almereyda]].  [[Peter Sarsgaard]] stars as Stanley Milgram.

In 2020, an online project known as the MILGRAM project portrays how a human would act if faced with the decision of being a prison guard to 10 different murderers. The project is still ongoing and has yet to be confirmed on its roots.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}

==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=18em}} 
* [[Harvard Department of Social Relations]]
* [[Silent Generation]]
* [[Small-world phenomenon]]
* [[Breaching experiment]]
* [[Philip Zimbardo]] (Lucifer Effect)
* [[Stanford prison experiment]]
* [[List of ethicists]]
* [[List of experiments]]
* [[List of psychologists]]
* [[List of social psychologists]]
{{Div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Milgram, S. (1974), ''Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View'' {{ISBN|0-06-131983-X}}
* Milgram, S. (1977), ''The individual in a social world: Essays and experiments''. 3rd expanded edition published 2010 by Pinter & Martin,  {{ISBN|978-1-905177-12-7}}.
* Blass, T. (2004). ''The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram''. {{ISBN|0-7382-0399-8}}
* Milgram, S. (1965), ''Liberating Effects of Group Pressure'' [http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/grahamh/RM1web/Classic%20papers/Milgram1965.pdf]
* {{cite journal | last1 = Milgram | first1 = S. | last2 = Liberty | last3 = II | last4 = Toledo | first4 = R. | last5 = Blacken | first5 = J. | year = 1956 | title = Response to intrusion in waiting lines | journal = Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume = 51 | issue = 4| pages = 683–9 | doi=10.1037/0022-3514.51.4.683}}
* {{cite journal |title=Milgram und die Täter des Holocaust (1998 heft 1 abstracts) |trans-title=Milgram and the perpetrators of the Holocaust (1998 issue 1 abstracts) |editor1-first=Michael |editor1-last=Baumann |editor2-first=Anton |editor2-last=Leist |year=1998 |journal=Analyse & Kritik |volume=20 |issue=1 |page=49 |language=de, en |format=PDF |issn=0171-5860 |oclc=66542890 |access-date=January 14, 2012 |url=http://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/1998-1/abstracts.htm#148 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007220432/http://www.analyse-und-kritik.net/1998-1/abstracts.htm#148 |archive-date=October 7, 2013 }}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://library.yale.edu Guide to the Stanley Milgram Papers, Manuscripts and Archives], Yale University Library
* [http://www.panarchy.org/milgram/obedience.html Stanley Milgram, ''Obedience to Authority'' (1974)] Chapter 1 and Chapter 15

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milgram, Stanley}}
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