“The last possible resort”: A forgotten prod and the in situ standardization of Stanley Milgram’s voice-feedback condition.

Abstract

This article uses previously unpublished data from Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments to draw attention to a hitherto neglected procedural innovation of the voice-feedback condition. In 3 experimental sessions in this condition, the experimenter responded to a participant’s attempted defiance by leaving the room, apparently to speak to the learner, before returning to assure the participant that the learner was willing or able to continue. This article documents the use of this tactic during the voice-feedback condition and highlights the negotiation surrounding the use of the tactic between Milgram and his confederate John Williams, who played the role of the experimenter. It is shown that the subsequent use of this tactic did not conform to the conditions for its use agreed by Milgram and Williams. Moreover, the tactic seems to have been dropped from both subsequent experimental conditions and Milgram’s published accounts of his work. These observations are discussed in relation to historical work on experimentation in social psychology, research on standardization in the sociology of scientific knowledge, and in terms of their implications for theory and research on dis/obedience.

The resistance experiments: Morality, authority and obedience in Stanley Milgram's account

“…Yet this is done at the expense of bracketing (if not at least dismissing) essential aspects of Milgram's findings (Gibson, , pp. 15–18; , pp. 188–192; ).…”

The repertoire of resistance: Non‐compliance with directives in Milgram's ‘obedience’ experiments

“…My research on resistance and dis/obedience in the experiments, in contrast to the more unilateral focus in the older Milgram literature on obedience alone, builds on these few prior investigations. In particular, Modigliani and Rochat (; see also Rochat & Modigliani, , ) and Gibson (, , ) demonstrate great sensitivity to the interactional dimensions of resistance. Modigliani and Rochat, noting that such attention is uncharacteristic of the Milgram literature (, p. 108), studied the temporally unfolding nature of obedience and defiance.…”

“…Using recordings from Conditions 2 (Voice‐feedback) and 20 (Women as Subjects), he has produced some fascinating studies of rhetorical strategizing and negotiating between experimenter and subject with respect to experimental continuation. This work includes analysis of a hitherto neglected practice for countering resistance (the ‘forgotten prod’) briefly used by the experimenter in Condition 2 in cases of subjects insisting he verify the learner's well‐being (), and of the role of invocations of ‘knowledge’ (or lack thereof) in experimenter‐subject negotiations (). Gibson thus importantly highlights the long‐neglected topics of resistance and disobedience (see also Reicher & Haslam, ) – ways of acting that I too put at centre stage.…”

Discourse, Defiance, and Rationality: “Knowledge Work” in the “Obedience” Experiments

“…Scholars have used these materials to explore a number of historical, methodological and ethical issues (Gibson, 2013a;Millard, 2011Millard, , 2014Nicholson, 2011;Perry, 2012;Russell, 2011). However, there have been relatively few attempts to use the archived data as the basis for secondary analysis (see Modigliani & Rochat, 1995 for an exception).…”