York St John academic awarded Leverhulme Trust Fellowship

The Fellowships, which are awarded on the basis of a competitive application process for applicants both within and outside higher education institutions across the UK, offer funding of up to £50,000 for a period of between three and 24 months to experienced researchers to conduct a programme of original research in any discipline.

Dr Gibson has been awarded £49,660 to examine the 'obedience' experiments of Stanley Milgram. This classic research in the area of social psychology demonstrated an apparent human tendency to obey orders given by an authority figure, even when the authority was demanding that seemingly harmful electric shocks be administered to another person. However, in many of Milgram’s experimental conditions, more participants defied than obeyed the experimenter giving the orders.

Dr Gibson’s research will explore the nature of defiance in these experiments by using audio recordings of the experiments held in Yale University archives. Through this research he will seek to explore how so many participants managed to resist the experimenter’s authority. The research will be carried out at York St John University, and will be facilitated by the archivists at Yale University in the USA.

Commenting on his Fellowship, Dr Stephen Gibson, Associate Professor in Psychology said: 

“Recent work on the Milgram archives has suggested that the 'obedience' experiments may not have been about obedience at all, but rather that participants had to be coaxed and persuaded into going along with the experimental procedure. The next logical step is to explore the many versions of the experiment in which the majority of people didn't go along with the demands of the experimenter, and the Leverhulme Fellowship will provide a great opportunity to undertake this research.”

Professor Howard Hall, Head of Research in the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences added:

"The award of the Leverhulme Fellowship is not only a significant personal achievement for Stephen, but it is a considerable honour for York St John University and further evidence that the excellent research being conducted at the University is recognised externally."

Dr Gibson is a recognised authority on Milgram’s work, having previously published on the subject in the Journal of Social Issues, The History of Psychology, and the British Journal of Social Psychology.