This quote, from Stanley Milgram (1974, p. 205), illustrates the debate that exists around the theme of obedience. Obedient behaviors were studied in Milgram's famous obedience experiments, and evidence of atrocities perpetrated following obedience can be seen in situations such as the holocaust of World War II (Mastroianni, 2000) and more recent events such as (My Lai). This essay will explain both sides of the debate, arguing for situational and individual factors that influence people to behave in a particular way. Therefore, an interactional approach is defended here, according to which the situation and individual influences cannot be dissociated. A brief explanation of Milgram's (1963) basic study will first be presented, before evaluating the different interpretations adopted by Milgram in subsequent years. These ratings will be used to display opinions expressed on both sides of the argument, in which the situation and the individual person both play a significant role in how a person will behave regarding obedience to the authority. The original basic experiment (Milgram, 1963), took place at Yale University, with 40 participants. Each participant arrived at the laboratory to meet the confederate (whom they thought was another participant). In the laboratory room was a "shock generator", billed as a machine capable of delivering a gradual amount of shock, increasing in intervals of 15 volts, with a maximum of 450 volts. In fact, it could only administer 45 volts, and this was administered to participants to convince them that the machine was real. The participant (who was the teacher) and the experimenter were in a separate room from the learner, with the participant asking the learner for a simple word association that...... in the middle of the sheet... ...T. (2009). From New Haven to Santa Clara: A Historical Perspective on Milgram's Obedience Experiments. American Psychological Association, 64(1), 37-45.Burger (2009)Elms (1995)Fennis and Aarts (2012)MastronanniMilgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. London: Tavistock Publications. Reicher, SD, Haslam, SA and Smith, JR (2012). Working toward the experimenter: Reconceptualizing obedience within Milgram's paradigm as identification-based tracking. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 315-324. Zimbardo, P. G. (2004). A situationist perspective on the psychology of evil: Understanding how good people become perpetrators. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 21-50). New York: Guilford Press.