... and he was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing killing for example, the Germans in WWII. Milgram mislead 40 male volunteer participants into thinking they were giving gradually increasing electric shocks to another participant, the actor during a word association task. The 'real' participant acted as the 'teacher' and the 'learner' was in fact an actor. In the condition, the learner was in another room, with no voice contact with the teacher. After each wrong answer an electric shock was delivered (although none were really given) with an increase of 15 volts each time up to 450 volts. All 40 participants continued to at least 300-volts level and 65% continued to the full 450 volts. Milgram extended his research to explore the different situational factors that led participants to obey or disobey. He found that the closer the 'teacher' was to the 'learner', the more likely they ...

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