Milgram’s obedience paradigm was designed to explain Holocaust perpetration

Evidence

[My] laboratory paradigm merely gave scientific expression to a more general concern about authority, a concern forced upon members of my generation, in particular upon Jews such as myself, by the atrocities of World War II… . The impact of the holocaust on my own psyche energized my interest in obedience and shaped the particular form in which it was examined. (Milgram, 1977, pp. 92-93) This concern about the suffering of his fellow Jews at the hands of the Nazis can be traced to Milgram’s childhood. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide, 596

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names the paradigm’s intended explanatory target — large-scale atrocity — which is the causal frame the reader’s scapegoating bridge needs.
• XREF: connects to: Browning’s account of Holocaust perpetrators emphasized obedience and conformity — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 316; Milgram reframed perpetrator compliance as situational deference, not coerced obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 46; Holocaust social psychology requires both ideological attraction and conformity obedience — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 851 (+1 more)