Milgram Obedience Experiment (1961)

Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiment at Yale found that 65% of participants delivered what they believed were lethal electric shocks to a stranger under authority pressure, designed to explain ordinary Germans' roles in the Holocaust. The experiment inflicted extreme psychological distress—with participants showing visible seizures, sweating, and nervous laughter—without adequate debriefing, sparking ongoing debates about ethics versus scientific insight.