Stanley Milgram and His Obedience Experiments

The social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, died on December 20, 1984, at the age of 51, after a series of heart attacks spanning a five-year period. But despite that relatively short life span, he was able to establish himself as one of the most inventive, important, and controversial social scientists of our time. Although he created a number of highly original research paradigms, he will always be remembered primarily for his seminal work on obedience to authority. In fact, the importance of that work could arguably be equated with that of Freud, in that both of them created profound alterations in our thinking about human nature.