reaction toparticipating in the study Ialso excluded people not appear to resut in negative ough a who had more than two college-lev uncommon for peopl wher his participants to tho e ag also h mo s th id Mi to repl ript,shock One can spe at,words in memory task) This attent n to detail prot participants saw 10 out of 10 othe e nat might hav tive porm sisting confed although those confederates refused to ethnicity lucation. More con ence dent be that my might be offset by the tendency for to he les Milgrams obedence studies have maintained a plac 山p s and tex Thenbe such as atrocities ma cres. nd ior of ple wh rela th nust be Ho athic uch as ctance to continue gical factors that t contribute to peop ctance likelihood the well-beng ta lack o This latt ited research or nope futu 曲胶w rates in Milgram's here hat motivated Stan a century age this as found on e base REFERENCES mine this tendency.One possibility is that the base condi epre a m specu 1.N Steer,R.A. the 150-volt point and some unav betwe A.&G of the Bec 988 edures had on the ndings Blass oding beha For ethic asons, I e people with T.()Under the deemed might have negtive Blass." (200)TheM e things we 10 January 2009.American Psychologistthe one person they witnessed but that refusing to go on did not appear to result in negative consequences. Although a sample of one provides limited norm information, it is not uncommon for people to rely on single examples when drawing inferences. Nonetheless, seeing another person model refusal had no apparent effect on obedience levels in the present study. I interpret this high rate of obedience in the modeled refusal condition as a demonstration of the power of the situational forces leading participants to go along with the experimenter’s instructions. One can spec￾ulate that a stronger message about normative behavior would have had a noticeable effect on participants’ behav￾ior. For example, if participants saw 10 out of 10 other individuals refuse to continue the procedures, the descrip￾tive norm would be clear and the likelihood of going against this norm would be small. Milgram (1974) suc￾ceeded in lowering compliance when using only two re￾sisting confederates, although those confederates refused to continue in a dramatic fashion. I found no evidence for gender differences in obedi￾ence. Researchers have speculated that the tendency for women to be more concerned about the learner’s plight might be offset by the tendency for women to be less assertive than men when standing up to the experimenter. This may well have been the case in the present study. Then again, the finding may simply reflect the tendency for situational variables to overpower individual differences in this setting. There was some evidence that personality traits were related to participants’ reactions to the situation. However, the data were not entirely consistent or easily interpretable. Participants who were high in empathic con￾cern expressed a reluctance to continue the procedure ear￾lier than did those who were low on this trait. But this early reluctance did not translate into a greater likelihood of refusing to continue. This latter finding fails to support the notion that a lack of empathy explains the high obedience rates in Milgram’s studies. Rather, the results again are in line with those who point to the power of situational variables to overcome feelings of reluctance in this situa￾tion. I also anticipated that a high desire for control would increase the likelihood that participants would act on their own feelings rather than obey the experimenter. However, this effect was found only in the base condition. It is not clear why the presence of the refusing model would under￾mine this tendency. One possibility is that the base condi￾tion may have represented more of a me-versus-him situ￾ation that consequently triggered a desire to assert personal control. In sum, although I found evidence that personality traits play a role in participants’ responses to the situation, the relationship between personality and obedience remains speculative. I did my best to replicate Milgram’s procedures up to the 150-volt point. However, there were some intentional and some unavoidable differences between Milgram’s pro￾cedures and mine that should be pointed out. It is difficult to know what effect the screening procedures had on the findings. For ethical reasons, I excluded people with a history of psychological or emotional problems and anyone the clinical psychologist deemed might have a negative reaction to participating in the study. I also excluded people who had taken more than two college-level psychology classes. In addition, I recruited participants from all adult ages, whereas Milgram limited his participants to those age 50 and younger. I also had what was most likely a more ethnically diverse group of participants than did Milgram. On the other hand, great effort was expended to replicate the key features in Milgram’s study (script, shock genera￾tor) as well as many minor features (experimenter’s lab coat, words in memory task). This attention to detail prob￾ably goes beyond most efforts to replicate psychology studies. Although I cannot rule out all possible differences between the present sample and Milgram’s that might have affected the findings, all of the data fail to identify any such difference. Participants excluded during the second phase of the screening did not differ from participants who were not excluded on any of the characteristics examined—age, ethnicity, gender, education, personality variables. More￾over, I found no effect for education, age, or ethnicity on participants’ behavior in the study. In short, I am as con- fident as a psychology researcher can ever be that my findings can be legitimately compared with Milgram’s. Milgram’s obedience studies have maintained a place in psychology classes and textbooks largely because of their implications for understanding the worst of human behaviors, such as atrocities, massacres, and genocide. Indeed, Milgram frequently drew inferences from his stud￾ies to account for the behavior of people who went along with the Holocaust. Although one must be cautious when making the leap from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such as genocide, understanding the social psy￾chological factors that contribute to people acting in unex￾pected and unsettling ways is important. Since Milgram’s studies, concern for the well-being of participants has lim￾ited research on obedience to authority. I hope future investigators will utilize the 150-volt procedure presented here to address the weighty questions that motivated Stan￾ley Milgram nearly half a century ago.3 3 Researchers interested in borrowing the shock generator used in this study should contact the author. REFERENCES Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhuman￾ities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209. Baumrind, D. (1964). Some thoughts on ethics of research: After reading Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of Obedience.” American Psychologist, 19, 421–423. Beck, A. T. (1972). Depression: Causes and treatments. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Beck, A. T., Epstein, N., Brown, G., & Steer, R. A. (1988). An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Psychometric properties. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56, 893–897. Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Garbin, M. G. (1988). Psychometric prop￾erties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evalua￾tion. Clinical Psychology Review, 8, 77–100. Blass, T. (1991). Understanding behavior in the Milgram obedience experiment: The role of personality, situations, and their interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 398–413. Blass, T. (2000). The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we 10 January 2009 ● American Psychologist