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How many participants would follow instructions to the end, believing that they were delivering shocks up to the "danger" level of 450 volts to a person against their will? In a survey describing his experimental procedure, Milgram had asked this very question of a number of people, including psychiatrists, college students, and middle-class adults. Very few of the individuals surveyed believed that participants in this situation would administer shocks all the way up to the 450-volt "danger" level; the psychiatrists predicted that only a fraction of a percent of the population would be sufficiently sadistic or antisocial to go that far. So how did the participants in Milgram's study actually behave? Disturbingly, a full 65% of the participants in Milgram's study continued to "shock" the learners all the way up to the 450-volt level and beyond, despite the protests and screams of pain from their "victims".  This experiment, as well as several subsequent studies, found a far greater capacity for destructive obedience among "normal" individuals than anyone had imagined. Although many participants expressed concern over the welfare of the learner and appeared to find the experience distressing, the majority still acquiesced to the demands of the experimenter and continued to flip switches on the shock generator. Not one "teacher" ever attempted to find and help the learner even after the learner's outcries suggested that the shocks might have caused serious harm. Milgram's chilling conclusion was that even average, seemingly moral individuals, when faced with a powerful authority figure in a conducive situation, might harm an innocent victim if ordered to do so.
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