Ordinary people will deliver lethal electric shocks if an authority tells them to.

Milgram (1963) found that a majority of ordinary volunteers, prodded by an experimenter, went on pressing what they believed were increasingly dangerous shock switches against a screaming 'learner.' The result is one of psychology's most cited, taken as evidence of how far obedience can override conscience.

The core phenomenon holds up: Burger (2009), running an ethically constrained version, found obedience rates similar to Milgram's up to the study's cut-off point. But interpretation is contested. Re-analyses of Milgram's archives show many participants doubted the shocks were real, obedience varied a lot across his conditions, and 'engaged followership' (belief in the scientific cause) may matter more than blind submission. So: obedience to authority is genuinely powerful, but the simple 'anyone will kill on command' reading oversimplifies what the data show.