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Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist best-remembered for his now infamous obedience experiments.
His research demonstrated how far people will go to obey authority.
Learn more about his life, legacy, and influence on psychology in this brief biography.
Isabelle Adam/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Milgram attended James Monroe High School where quickly earned a reputation as a hard worker and a strong leader.
He completed high school in just three years.
One of his classmates was future social psychologistPhilip Zimbardo.
He earned his bachelor’s in political science from Queens College in 1954.
He earned his Ph.D. in social psychology in 1960 under the instruction of psychologistGordon Allport.
Milgram was inspired by the study and went on to perform a similar experiment that would make him famous.
Milgram began working at Yale in 1960 and started conducting his obedience experiments in 1961.
The experiments are well-known today, mentioned in virtually every introductory psychology textbook.
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Blass T.From New Haven to Santa Clara: A historical perspective on the Milgram obedience experiments.Am Psychol.
2009;64(1):3745. doi:10.1037/a0014434
Herrera CD.Ethics, deceptions and those Milgram experiments.J Appl Philos.
2014;9(4):e93927.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093927
Harvard University.Stanley Milgram (1933-1984).
Rogers K.Stanley Milgram.Encyclopaedia Britannica.Updated December 16, 2019.
