Which psychologist conducted the obedience study using electric shocks to examine how people respond to authority?

• A. Stanley Milgram
• B. Philip Zimbardo
• C. Solomon Asch
• D. B. F. Skinner

Answer: (A)

Obedience to authority is being tested here—how readily people follow orders from an authority figure even when those orders involve harming another person. Stanley Milgram conducted the classic experiment in which a participant acting as the “teacher” delivered electric shocks to a learner, prompted and urged by an authoritative experimenter. The key finding was that a large majority followed the instructions to continue, even as the learner’s protests and evident distress grew, illustrating how powerful an authority figure can be in shaping behavior.

The other researchers studied different social processes. Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study looked at how assigned roles and situational forces in a simulated prison could lead to abusive behavior. Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments explored how group pressure can sway individual judgments in apparently simple tasks. B. F. Skinner focused on operant conditioning and learning through reinforcement, not on obedience to authority. So the researcher most closely associated with the electric-shock obedience study is Stanley Milgram.