... case for Milgram's obedience study (1963). Milgram had led participants to believe they were participating in an experiment to do with memory and that they were required to 'shock' (although no shocks were actually given) another participant (who was in fact a confederate) with increasing intensity if they got a question wrong. The huge ethical implications of the study could have been enough to propel it into the media spotlight without the actual contribution to social psychology playing much part in the publicity, and therefore it may not have unearthed anything we didn't know previously. However, contrary to this claim, the results this experiment generated surpassed even Milgram's expectations. Originally, rather than aiming to produce a theory of obedience, his plans were to test the idea that German people were different from others and would be much more likely to follow commands from an authority figure as this ...

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