What the report covers

The assignment is a reading report on a popular book of forty-five experiments, with Milgram and Harlow as the cases to write in full. It is not a new laboratory study.

Go back from the popular summary to the primary papers before you quote a result.

Milgram, carefully

Milgram asked how far people would go in a laboratory obedience procedure when an authority figure instructed them to continue. The original report and the later book are the places to take numbers from. Variations later changed the rate; say so if you mention a figure.

The ethical problems — distress, limited debriefing by today's standards, and the power of the situation — belong in the same section as the finding.

Harlow, carefully

Harlow's work showed that contact comfort, in his rhesus design, could outweigh a feeding wire mother. It was used in later attachment discussions, but it is not a substitute for Ainsworth's human observational work.

The animal suffering involved is part of the historical record. A course report should say that, not only retell the cloth-versus-wire image.

Limits

A popular book can compress, round, or dramatize. If the forty-five-experiment text and a primary paper disagree, prefer the paper and say there was a discrepancy. Do not treat either study as a law about every classroom or every family.

Sources

1. Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378; Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. Harper & Row.
2. Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13(12), 673–685.
3. The named popular book of forty-five psychology experiments used as the course reading. Cite results only as that book and the primary papers state them;

Last updated: November 13, 2026