The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Milgram first described his research in 1963 in an article published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,[1] and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.[2]
The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the question: "Was it that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust had mutual intent, in at least with regard to the goals of the Holocaust?" In other words, "Was there a mutual sense of morality among those involved?" Milgram's testing suggested that it could have been that the millions of accomplices were merely following orders, despite violating their deepest moral beliefs.
Here is the complete Wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Stranley Milgram Obedience by djfaheezy
In those experiments it might be argued that the test subjects didn't really know enough technical info, and that they may have stopped if there was little or no doubt that they were doing grave danger to the faux test subject. The same cannot be said of the subjects in the Hofling Hospital experiment...
In 1966, the psychiatrist Charles K. Hofling conducted a field experiment on obedience in the nurse-physician relationship.[1] In the natural hospital setting, nurses were ordered by unknown doctors to administer what could have been a dangerous dose of a (fictional) drug to their patients. In spite of official guidelines forbidding administration in such circumstances, Hofling found that 21 out of the 22 nurses would have given the patient an overdose of medicine.
Here is the Wiki entry for that case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofling_hospital_experiment
Also see:
Stanford Prison Experiment
