ABSTRACT
Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority remain one of the most visible and controversial set of studies in the history of psychology. Miller’s (1995) survey of 50 texts in social psychology, introductory psychology, and sociology published since 1990 documents a disproportionate number of pages devoted to this one series of experiments. Elsewhere, Miller, Collins, and Brief (1995) state that “the Milgram experiments… have stimulated thought as has perhaps no other single research program” (p. 2). Initiated the same year as the daring capture of Adolf Eichmann by Israeli agents and first published in the same year (Milgram, 1963) as Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Milgram’s work on obedience has been associated with the Holocaust from the beginning. Indeed, Miller’s survey also reveals that most texts (86%) make explicit reference to Nazi Germany in their discussion of the Milgram studies; 19% specifically mention Eichmann. These findings were supported by my own informal survey of introductory and social psychology texts that were displayed at the 1996 meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association.
