Designing obedience in the lab: Milgram's shock simulator and human factors engineering. (October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Oppenheimer, Maya
• Other Names: Brannigan Augustine guest-editor.; Nicholson Ian guest-editor.; Cherry Frances guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Theory & psychology. Volume 25:Number 5(2015:Oct.)
• Page Start: 599
• Page End: 621
• Publication Date: 2015-10
• Subjects: affordance -- Alphonse Chapanis -- control panel -- design history -- experiment design -- human factors engineering -- Stanley Milgram -- modelling -- obedience; Psychology -- Periodicals; 150.1
• DOI: 10.1177/0959354315605392
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0959-3543

Abstract

This article probes the design history of Stanley Milgram's simulated shock generator by comparing drawings and notes from Milgram's archive in the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale with laboratory equipment and apparatus catalogues from the Archives of the History of American Psychology, University of Akron. By applying contemporaneous human factors engineering principles to the generator's control panel layout, sequencing, and display optimisation, an argument emerges that suggests the tailor-made device had an influential role in facilitating the behaviour witnessed in the laboratory and generalised as obedience. Such an approach puts forward a new reading of Milgram's experiment design, his penchant for dramaturgy, and reconsiders his generalisation of obedience to social authority.