Was shown to participant; had a row of switches each corresponding to a voltage value. Voltage ranged from 15 to 450 volts, in 15 volt intervals.
"Learning" Task
Participants were told that the shocks could be extremely painful but not dangerous; they were each given a 45 shock volt to demonstrate.
Silence?
oh no.. is he okay?
A wall separated the teacher (participant) and the learner (confederate). The procedure was administered by an "experimenter", played by a stern-looking 31-year old male Biology teacher.
Complete!
I don't wanna do this anymore!
I've already reached the maximum voltage!
The teacher would need to test the learner on how easily he recognizes paired words. If the learner gets wrong, the "experimenter" will instruct the teacher to shock the student, starting from 15 volts, and increasing the more mistakes committed.
do 30 volts for the next mistake.
what is the partner to __?
Wrong. 15 Volts.
If the participant refuses to shock, the experimenter will say a series of prods such as: "please continue."
ouch
When 300 Volts is reached, the learner was to stop responding. When shocked with 300 and 315 voltages, the learner pounded on the wall.
what is the partner to __?
Wrong. 300 Volts.
Each participant was considered to have completed the procedure either when he refused to give any more shocks, or when he reached the maximum voltage on the shock machine. Participants were then interviewed. During the interval they were asked to rate on a scale of 0-14 on how painful the last few shocks they gave were.They were told that the shocks were not real, and further debriefed.
