Obedience to authority : an experimental view / Stanley Milgram.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-218) and index.

The dilemma of obedience -- Method of inquiry -- Expected behavior -- Closeness of the victim -- Individuals confront authority -- Further variations and controls -- Individuals confront authority II -- Role permutations -- Group effects -- Why obedience? -- An analysis -- The process of obedience: Applying the analysis to experiment -- Strain and disobedience -- An alternative theory: Is aggression the key? -- Problems of method.

In the 1960s Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram famously carried out a series of experiments that forever changed our perceptions of morality and free will. The subjects--or "teachers"--were instructed to administer electroshocks to a human "learner," with the shocks becoming progressively more powerful and painful. Controversial but now strongly vindicated by the scientific community, these experiments attempted to determine to what extent people will obey orders from authority figures regardless of consequences. "Milgram's experiments on obedience have made us more aware of the dangers of uncritically accepting authority," wrote Peter Singer in the New York Times Book Review. Featuring a new introduction from Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who conducted the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, Obedience to Authority is Milgram's fascinating and troubling chronicle of his classic study and a vivid and persuasive explanation of his conclusions.