Here Damo, it was called the Milgram study:
But still the most chilling study of all is based upon experiments conducted at the psychology laboratories of Yale University under the direction of the late Dr. Stanley Milgram.
In OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY (Tavistock, 1974), Dr. Milgram writes, "This is, perhaps, the most fundamental lesson of our study: ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work becomes patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. A variety of inhibitions against disobeying authority come into play and successfully keep the person in his place."
Dr. Milgram's experiments consisted of making unsuspecting university students participate in a "learning experiment". Under the orders of a scientist (Dr. Milgram), complete with white laboratory coat and surrounded by scientific-looking equipment, a student became the "teacher" whose task it was to administer steadily rising degrees of electric shocks to a "learner". The learner was unseen, but not unheard. The learner was supposedly strapped to a chair in a nearby room in front of a task to be "learned". The learner was to be "conditioned" by shocks to avoid errors ("to learn better").
Of course, the "teacher" was the real subject of Dr. Milgram's experiment. The object being to discover how far a normal person would go in carrying out orders by an authority--even though obviously injuring or killing another human being.
Unknown to the teacher, the learner was not being shocked, but merely acting the part--complete with cries, shouts, and pleas for mercy all coming from the next room. The learner was, in fact, one of Dr. Milgram's assistants.
The situation was made more realistic to the teacher by the elaborate, sophisticated-looking, supposedly "very scientific-looking" electric shock-inducing switchboard that was to be used. It had a keyboard with marked buttons ranging from "slight shock" to "danger--severe shock". And prior to the teacher administering shocks, Dr. Milgram gave each a tiny, genuine shock. Thus, they could understand what sorts of pain the learner would be receiving--but in ever-increasing doses.
Naturally, the learner intentionally made many mistakes so that the teacher would be called upon to administer numerous and steadily more severe shocks.
Therefore, while at one end of the experiment, there was a suffering victim evoking the humane urge to stop, at the other end there was the authority figure instructing the teacher to continue on at whatever cost.
The authority figure would first say "in the interests of science continue", then "please continue", then "the experiment requires that you continue", then "it is absolutely essential that you go on", and finally "you have no choice but to go on". This would proceed until supposedly fatal shocks were being administered--and when no further cries could be heard from the learner.
This experiment was repeated many times. Dr. Milgram found that ordinary young men would invariably obey what were, in effect, criminal orders to torture and murder a complete stranger--someone never even seen. He writes, "even with this low degree of expected zeal or commitment and without prior conditioning, not one participant refused ab initio to go on the moment he knew he was beginning to cause discomfort to another human being. Two-thirds of the subjects obeyed the experimenter to the last and severest shocks--so to speak against all moral imperative."
Dr. Milgram came to the horrifying conclusion that these subjects, just as the Nazi SS officers before them, behaved as "sadistic monsters" who were merely following orders. (1)
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/drstephenjuan/0405news.htm
