Special Topics in Social Psychology: Obedience

The course will represent an overview of research and theory in the psychology of "destructive obedience." Using Milgram's groundbreaking  series of obedience experiments (August 1961 - May 1962) and the international replications that followed as our points of departure, we will address the ethical, conceptual, and methodological controversies engendered by these studies and their implications for issues in the Holocaust research, moral philosophy, and contemporary politics. While obedience is the main focus, we will venture into other staples of psychological research of that era: conformity, brutality, and bystander apathy