Stanley Milgram

Stanley Milgram (August 15, 1933 - December 20, 1984) was a psychologist at Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. While at Yale, he conducted the small-world experiment (the source of the six degrees of separation concept) and the Milgram experiment on obedience to authority.

Although considered one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, he never took a psychology course as an undergraduate at Queens College, New York, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in political science in 1954. He applied to a Ph.D. program in social psychology at Harvard University and was initially rejected due to lack of psychology background. He was accepted in 1954 after taking six courses in psychology, and graduated with the Ph.D. in 1960. Milgram had a number of significant influences. Among his influences at Harvard were psychologists Solomon Asch and Gordon Allport (Milgram, 1977).

In 1984, Milgram died of a heart attack at the age of 51 in the city of his birth, New York.

In 2004, a biography of Milgram was published under the title The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram, by Thomas Blass.

Obedience to authority
Main article: Milgram experiment

In 1963, Milgram published the results of his Milgram experiments in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in the article "Behavioral study of obedience". In the ensuing controversy that erupted, the APA suspended his membership in 1964 due to questions about the ethics of his work. Ten years later, in 1974, Milgram published Obedience to Authority and was awarded the annual social psychology award by the AAAS (mostly for his work over the social aspects of obedience). He used his models to explain the My Lai massacre (including authority training in the military, depersonalizing the "enemy" through race and cultural differences, etc.). In 1976, CBS presented a movie about obedience experiments: The Tenth Level with William Shatner as Stephen Hunter, a Milgram-like scientist. Milgram himself was a consultant for the film.

A French political thriller, titled I... comme Icare ("I... as In Icarus"), involves a key scene where Milgram's experiment on obedience to authority is brilliantly explained and shown.

Some commentators have suggested that the documented abuses by US military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison, and the reported abuses at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and those at Bagram Airbase, further vindicate Milgram's work.

Small World Phenomenon
Main article: Small world phenomenon

The six degrees of separation concept originates from Milgram's "small world experiment" in 1967 that tracked chains of acquaintances in the US. In the experiment, Milgram sent several letters to random people, asking them to forward a letter, by hand, to someone specific.