Credibility and Incredulity in Milgram’s Obedience Experiments: A Reanalysis of an Unpublished Test Gina Perry 1 , Augustine Brannigan 2 , Richard A. Wanner 2 , and Henderikus Stam 2 Abstract This article analyzes variations in subject perceptions of pain in Milgram’s obedience experi- ments and their behavioral consequences. Based on an unpublished study by Milgram’s assis- tant, Taketo Murata, we report the relationship between the subjects’ belief that the learner was actually receiving painful electric shocks and their choice of shock level. This archival material indicates that in 18 of 23 variations of the experiment, the mean levels of shock for those who fully believed that they were inflicting pain were lower than for subjects who did not fully believe they were inflicting pain. These data suggest that the perception of pain inflated subject defiance and that subject skepticism inflated their obedience. This anal- ysis revises our perception of the classical interpretation of the experiment and its putative relevance to the explanation of state atrocities, such as the Holocaust. It also raises the issue of dramaturgical credibility in experiments based on deception. The findings are discussed in the context of methodological questions about the reliability of Milgram’s questionnaire data and their broader theoretical relevance. Keywords dramaturgical credibility, experimental deception, methodological dilemmas in assessing obedience, obedience to authority, Stanley Milgram Stanley Milgram’s obedience-to-authority experiments are undoubtedly the most famous research in social psychology. Naive volunteers allocated the role of teachers in an experiment purportedly about the effect of punishment on learn- ing were instructed to give a ‘‘learner’’ increasing levels of electric shock each time he failed to recall the correct answer in a memory test. Milgram concluded that the majority of subjects’ compliance with the experimenters’ commands was evidence of humankind’s innate capacity for obedience to authority. Given fresh impetus with the recent availability of Milgram’s research materials, the 1 University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2 University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Corresponding Author: Dr. Gina Perry, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia Email: gperry@labyrinth.net.au Social Psychology Quarterly 00(0) 1–19 Ó American Sociological Association 2019 DOI: 10.1177/0190272519861952 journals.sagepub.com/home/spq