Describe Stanley Milgram's classic research on obedience to authority. What was the setup of the study? What were the results? What are the implications?

What will be an ideal response?

a) Setup:
i) Word association task (ostensible study about the effect of punishment on learning)
ii) Learner and teacher; ostensible random assignment to conditions
iii) Exposition of the shock machine; trial shock; revelation of learner's heart condition
iv) Increasing shock levels required across learner errors; machine marked "Danger" and "XXX"
v) Participant can hear learner howling and begging for release from the study; learner goes dead silent and refuses to answer after a certain point (from the participant's point of view, he might have died or passed out).
b) Results:
i) 62.5% "went all the way" despite clear signs of distress and concern for the learner
c) Implications:
i) It should be noted that these results were completely unexpected by psychiatrists who, before the study began, were asked to predict its outcome. And virtually no one who is asked even today indicates that they would "go all the way" in such a scenario. So a key point here is that people are far more willing to obey authority figures—even when they have serious concerns about harm that they might be inflicting—than they realize. That said, the general tendency of people to obey authority is much more often than not played out for prosocial (or at least not explicitly harmful) outcomes.