Question 1

True or false: Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments had participants administer real electric shocks to learners.

Accepted Answer

False. No shocks were real; the learner was an actor. The deception was key to testing obedience to authority, not causing actual harm.

Question 2

True or false: Milgram’s study was inspired by the Holocaust to understand how ordinary people commit atrocities.

Accepted Answer

True. Milgram wanted to explain Nazi war crimes. He asked whether Eichmann and his accomplices were just following orders, sparking his famous experiments.

Question 3

True or false: Over half of participants in Milgram’s baseline experiment delivered the highest voltage shock.

Accepted Answer

True. 65% of participants went all the way to 450 volts, despite hearing screams. This shocked the world and showed powerful obedience to authority.

Question 4

True or false: Milgram’s experiments were conducted exclusively at Yale University.

Accepted Answer

True. The original experiments were run in Yale’s Interaction Laboratory. Later replications occurred elsewhere, but the classic study was Yale-based.

Question 5

True or false: Milgram’s participants were told they could leave at any time without penalty.

Accepted Answer

True. Participants were explicitly told they could withdraw, yet most continued under pressure. This highlights the power of situational authority over personal conscience.

Question 6

True or false: Milgram’s experiments were immediately banned by the American Psychological Association.

Accepted Answer

False. No immediate ban occurred. Ethical guidelines tightened later, but Milgram’s work was not retroactively banned; it remains a landmark, though controversial, study.

Question 7

True or false: Milgram’s obedience rate dropped to zero when the experimenter gave orders by phone.

Accepted Answer

False. Obedience dropped significantly but not to zero. When the experimenter was remote, compliance fell to about 20.5%, showing proximity matters.

Question 8

True or false: Milgram once conducted a version where participants chose the shock level themselves.

Accepted Answer

True. In one condition, participants freely selected shock intensity. Almost none went above 150 volts, proving that choice, not cruelty, was limited under authority.

Stanley Milgram Trivia Questions