Faculty Forum “I Would Never Fall for That”: The Use of an Illegitimate Authority to Teach Social Psychological Principles Sally D. Farley 1 , Deborah H. Carson 1,2 , and Terrence J. Pope 1,3 Abstract This activity explores attitudinal beliefs and behavioral responses of obedience to an illegitimate authority figure in an ambiguous situation. In Experiment 1, students either self-reported the likelihood that they would obey a request made by a stranger to surrender their cell phone or were asked directly and in person by a confederate to relinquish their cell phone. The exercise revealed a marked discrepancy between how students predicted they would respond and how they actually did respond to the request. In Experiment 2, student learning was measured in addition to obedience. Although students exposed to the exercise had similar gains in learning as those exposed to a control condition, the mean obedience rate was a compelling 95.7%. Furthermore, students self-reported a greater willingness to obey the commands of an authority figure after learning about the Milgram study than before, thereby acknowledging their vulnerability to authority. We discuss the role of Milgram’s study in the psychology curriculum and provide recommendations for how this exercise might assist understanding of myriad social psychological principles. Keywords Hofling, Milgram, exercise, authority, obedience In the wake of the events of World War II, particularly in light of the atrocities suffered at the hands of Hitler’s fascist rule, the phenomenon of obedience became one of the predominant research themes of social psychology. From Asch’s (1951) con- formity and group pressure research to Charles Hofling’s hospital field study in obedience (Hofling, Brotzman, Dalrymple, Graves, & Pierce, 1966) and Zimbardo’s (1971) research into social roles and perceived power, psychologists sought to explain how under certain conditions seemingly ethical people could behave in a manner contrary to the moral norms of society. Perhaps the most notable study was Milgram’s (1963) controversial obedience research in which he stunned the scientific community by reveal- ing that while in the presence of a perceived authority figure, 65% of his study participants administered what they believed to be a potentially lethal electric shock to another person. Praised, yet highly criticized (Baumrind, 2015; Perry, 2013), Milgram’s work provided an applied psychological demonstration of how susceptible we are to authority and obedience. In this article, we present a powerful exercise that teaches students about blind obedience to a perceived authority figure. Fundamentally, we believe a strong rationale exists for teaching undergraduates about Milgram’s research, despite academic criticisms and the passage of over half a century since the now infamous shock study was conducted. Primarily, Mil- gram contributed invaluable theoretical knowledge to the field of social psychology, and his research has continued to spark scientific inquiry today. Researchers continue to produce var- iations on Milgram’s electric shock study, and while the ethical demands of the current scientific era prohibit exact methodo- logical duplication, recent studies have not only yielded results similar to the original (Burger, 2009) but also demonstrated that submission to obedience is not a culturally bound phenom- enon (Dolin´ski et al., 2017). In fact, Dolin´ski et al.’s recent partial replication of Milgram’s second study in Poland resulted in slightly higher levels of obedience; 90% of partici- pants, as opposed to the 65% reported in Milgram, pressed the 10th button on the shock generator, which in Milgram’s study corresponded to a painful shock in excess of 135 V. Conversely, Milgram’s research has produced a sea of con- troversy that provides opportunity for critical thinking and ethi- cal debate in the classroom. His methodology continues to 1 Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA 2 Current Address: Department of Experimental Psychology, Towson University, Towson, MD, USA 3 Current Address: Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Corresponding Author: Sally D. Farley, Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA. Email: sfarley@ubalt.edu Teaching of Psychology 2019, Vol. 46(2) 146-152 ª The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0098628319834200 journals.sagepub.com/home/top