Milgram experiment

Our ethics study was on the Milgram experiment. Stanley Milgram was a Yale professor that performed this experiment to find out how authority can affect a person's conscience. To sum up the experiment:

The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the subject believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks, but in reality there were no shocks. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.^[1] -Wikipedia

The results showed that an authority figure has a profound impact on a person's conscience. They were more willing to participate and give the shocks at very high voltages just because they are being told to do so. Even when some expressed a desire to quit, they continued on.