Are Milgram’s Obedience Studies Internally Valid? Critique and Counter-Critique ()
ABSTRACT
This
article challenges the most significant methodological criticism directed at Milgram’s
obedience studies, namely, that they lack internal validity because most obedient
subjects probably did not believe
that the
“learner” was actually receiving dangerous
electric shocks (Orne &
Holland, 1968). This criticism has been bolstered
recently by data that claims to show that this was indeed the case (Perry et al., 2020; Hollander
& Turowetz,
2017). We argue instead that while
Milgram’s experimental paradigm has minor methodological flaws, the resilient issue
of believability is actually a red herring, because Milgram’s procedure ensured subjects
remained uncertain about the reality of the shocks they were ostensibly delivering.
This uncertainty forced all subjects into resolving the experiment’s inherent moral
dilemma. That is, would they prematurely end a potentially real experiment and secure
the learner’s safety? Or would they continue to inflict “shocks” they believed were
perhaps, probably, or even most certainly fake, thus still running the risk of potentially
being wrong? We believe the obedience experiments remain, for the most part, internally
valid, and that they continue to be externalisable to other moral dilemmas. They
help in understanding the perpetration of the Holocaust, contrary to the opposite
claim made by some of Milgram’s critics.
Share and Cite:
Russell, N. and Gregory, R. (2021) Are Milgram’s Obedience Studies Internally Valid? Critique and Counter-Critique.
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
9, 65-93. doi:
10.4236/jss.2021.92005.