Aim: The aim was to determine whether ordinary people would follow an unjust order from a figure of authority and cause harm or injury to an innocent individual.

Method: Milgram recruited 40 male American participants through a newspaper advertisement. These volunteers were compensated $4.50 for their participation and were invited to Yale University's prestigious laboratory, where they met the experimenter and another participant (who were both confederates).

To determine each participant's role, they "drew lots," although this was prearranged to ensure that the real participant always played the role of the "teacher." The experimenter instructed the participant to administer an electric shock of increasing intensity to the "learner," a confederate named "Mr Wallace," each time he made an error while recalling a list of word pairs. The "learner" was restrained in the next room, and the participant was required to test his ability to remember word pairs.

The teacher had to administer an electric shock with increasing voltage every time the learner gave an incorrect answer, starting at 15 volts and increasing in increments of 15 up to 450 volts. The participant was given a sample electric shock to make the shocks seem real. At 300 volts (an intense shock), the learner would start to bang on the wall and complain, and after the 315-volt shock, there would be no further responses heard from the learner. The experiment ended either when the participant refused to continue or when the maximum level of 450 volts, labelled "danger severe shock," was reached. If the participant tried to stop the experiment, the experimenter would respond with a series of verbal prods, such as "the experiment requires that you continue."

Results: Milgram's study revealed that all of the participants administered shocks of at least 300 volts, and 65% continued administering shocks up to the maximum level of 450 volts. In addition to the quantitative data, qualitative observations indicated that participants exhibited physical signs of discomfort and tension, including sweating, stuttering, and trembling.

Conclusion: Milgram concluded that individuals will follow unjust orders from a legitimate authority figure under appropriate situational conditions.