re has been many suggestions that Milgram’s subjects were merely pretending to believed that the learner was imperil. There is also the possibility that participants ‘may have assumed that shocks were painful but not harmful’. Nissani (1989) also points out that the "subjects probably believed that the university scientists were working under various legal and ethical restraints". It seems that had every reason to believe this, coming to participate in a scientific investigation at an impressive, well-equipped laboratory at Yale University. Another major criticism is the ecological validity of the studies. Many scientists have questioned whether the same results would be obtained today, or with other populations - eg, women. Remarkably however, similar results were obtained in the Netherlands in 1986, with female nurses as subjects.Although there have been many criticisms of Milgrams experiment, it has made contributions to our knowledge about Obedience to Authority.The obedience experiments are widely regarded as among the prime examples of how behaviour is powerfully responsive to situational variations. As Milgram stated, ‘often, it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act".Milgram’s experiment and following experiments have also given us insight into the role of personality in Obedience. According to Rotter (1971) interpersonal trust has potential theoretical relevance for obedience to authority. Haas (1966) also provided evidence that individual differences in hostility can account for variations in obedience.Finally Milgram’s experiment showed that training and conditioning causes the obedient person to shift responsibility for his actions onto the authority figure. Milgram called this transference "the agentic stage", and it was this that was partially responsible for the deaths of civilians by Nazi Germany.Al...
