ABSTRACT
Stanley Milgram showed that obedience to authority is influenced by the nature and position of the authority, the position of the victim, and the social setting in which obedience occurs. In response to criticism, Milgram conceded that his findings gave only a partial understanding of those who carried out the Holocaust. The secondary themes of Milgram's Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View involves the specific variables explored in the experiments described; there were 19 versions of the experiment, each designed to consider slightly different factors. Specifically, Milgram found that the nature and proximity of the authority figure, the closeness of the victim (or learner in this context), and the social setting in which participants found themselves were all especially important considerations. Milgram varied the location of the victim, and the nature of the interaction between the participant and the victim. The victim was strapped to a chair in a different room, and audio recordings of the victim's protests were played.
