摘要：This article challenges the most significant methodological criticism directed at Milgram’s obedience studies, namely, that they lack internal validity because most obedient subjects probably did not believe that the “learner” was actually receiving dangerous electric shocks (Orne & Holland, 1968). This criticism has been bolstered recently by data that claims to show that this was indeed the case (Perry et al., 2020; Hollander & Turowetz, 2017). We argue instead that while Milgram’s experimental paradigm has minor methodological flaws, the resilient issue of believability is actually a red herring, because Milgram’s procedure ensured subjects remained uncertain about the reality of the shocks they were ostensibly delivering. This uncertainty forced all subjects into resolving the experiment’s inherent moral dilemma. That is, would they prematurely end a potentially real experiment and secure the learner’s safety? Or would they continue to inflict “shocks” they believed were perhaps, probably, or even most certainly fake, thus still running the risk of potentially being wrong? We believe the obedience experiments remain, for the most part, internally valid, and that they continue to be externalisable to other moral dilemmas. They help in understanding the perpetration of the Holocaust, contrary to the opposite claim made by some of Milgram’s critics.
