Stanley Milgram and the Sonic Imaginary

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Abstract

This paper is part of the larger project of thinking through the implications of the new interdisciplinary field of “sound studies” for social science methodology. How does the emphasis upon sound change the way we think of, say, experimentation in social psychology? Taking Stanley Milgram’s early experiments as my example, I point to the crucial role played by sound in some of those experiments. Milgram’s Harvard PhD Dissertation in particular was based upon transforming Asch’s well-known visual experiment on conformity into a sonic experiment (by comparing the lengths of two sounds rather than two lines and by replacing confederates with tape recordings). Furthermore, sound played a crucial role in Milgram’s famous obedience experiments where the supposed working of the fake electric shock machine was simulated through sound effects and where the supposed trauma of the victim was again rendered sonically. This role of sound seems to have been largely ignored up until now and is worthy of attention.

Author

• Trevor John Pinch, Cornell University