How far would you obey an order?

Imagine this scene:

A white room. A man in a lab coat. A desk. A pair of electrodes. In front of you, on the other side of a glass panel, a stranger writhes in pain. He screams. He begs. He bangs on the wall. He asks you to stop.

But you don't move. Because someone, in a calm voice and with absolute authority, says to you:
"Please continue."

Would you do it? Would you push that button again? How far are you willing to go to hurt another human being… just because you were told to?

You don't need to be a monster to do monstrous things. You just need to obey.

The Milgram Experiment: When obedience trumps morality

In the early 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram , a professor at Yale University, asked a disturbing question:

Are we capable of committing atrocities just by obeying orders?

The spark that ignited his curiosity was the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Nazi Final Solution. Eichmann didn't consider himself a monster. He didn't seem sadistic or evil. He described himself as someone who was simply "following orders." Milgram wanted to test that claim.

He designed an experiment as simple as it was disturbing.

How did it work?

• Volunteers (ordinary men, aged between 20 and 50) were invited to participate in a study on memory and learning.

• Upon arrival, they were introduced to a second participant (who was actually an actor). The roles were drawn: teacher and student . The draw was rigged: the volunteer was always the teacher.

• The teacher was to read a series of word pairs to the student. If the student made a mistake, the teacher was to administer an increasing electric shock, starting at 15 volts and going up to 450 volts .

• The student was in another room, out of sight. But his screams were pre-recorded.

• As the shocks increased, the screams intensified. At one point, the student begged to be released. Then, he became unresponsive.

• If the teacher hesitated, the experimenter, wearing a white coat and in a calm tone, would say phrases like:

• • "Please continue."
  • "It is essential for the experiment to continue."
  • "You have no choice. You must continue."

What was really at stake?

There were no real shocks. But the volunteer didn't know that. And most importantly: the test wasn't on the student, but on the teacher.

Obedience to authority, even when it conflicts with conscience, was the true goal.

What results did they expect?

Milgram consulted a group of psychologists, who estimated that less than 1% would actually apply the maximum shock.

The reality was devastating:

65% of participants applied 450 volts.

Almost everyone showed signs of extreme stress: sweating, stuttering, nervous laughter, trembling. But they kept going. Because someone in authority asked them to.

Real Cases: When Theory Comes to Life

Milgram's experiment was replicated, reformulated, and reinterpreted multiple times. The disturbing thing is that the results are repeated.

1. The televised replica (2009): "Le Jeu de la Mort" – France

A French documentary recreated the experiment in the context of a fictional game show.

The difference? This time, the authority wasn't a scientist, but a television presenter.

The results were identical.

Eighty percent of the participants made it to the end. The lights, the audience, the pressure of the show... everything was pushing them to obey.

2. Burger et al. (2006) – Modern replica

Psychologist Jerry Burger repeated the experiment, adapting it to stricter ethical standards.

It only allowed to reach 150 volts (the point where the actor shouted that he wanted to stop).

Still, 70% of participants showed an intention to continue further.
The trends were consistent with the original experiment.

3. In real life: Wars

The abuses committed by soldiers when they capture enemy soldiers or against the civilian population are a brutal example of the power of obedience and dehumanization.

Images of prisoners and civilians being humiliated, tortured, and raped by soldiers who later claimed to be simply "following orders" are chillingly reminiscent of Milgram's findings.

Conclusions of the experiment

Milgram's experiment not only revealed a dark side of human nature: it forced us to confront it head on.

• Most people will obey orders, even if it means causing harm, as long as the authority figure appears legitimate.

• Environmental pressure overrides personal morality. We're not as independent as we think: our environment shapes our decisions more than we realize.

• Obedience doesn't require conscious cruelty. It simply requires not questioning.

• No one is completely safe. Neither educational level, nor profession, nor age protected the participants from committing acts that, in hindsight, they would never justify.

Reflection on the experiment and society

Milgram held up an uncomfortable mirror to society. What it reflected wasn't an anomaly, but a universal truth:

The danger lies not only in authoritarian leaders, but also in obedient citizens.

We live in times in which power, whether political, media, or corporate, exerts influence in increasingly sophisticated ways. And obedience, more than a virtue, can become a double-edged sword.

When social structures reward conformity, punish dissent, and disguise authority as neutrality, the Milgram experiment doesn't seem like a vestige of the past. It seems like a script for the present.

The real lesson of the experiment isn't the 450 volts. It's our ability (or inability) to say "no" when ethics demands it.

References

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040525

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. Harper & Row.

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0010932

Beauvois, J.-L., Courbet, D., & Oberlé, D. (2012). The prescriptive power of the television host: A transposition of Milgram’s obedience paradigm to the context of TV game show. European Review of Applied Psychology, 62(2), 111–119.

Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Random House.