Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist best known for his controversial experiments on obedience conducted in the early 1960s. His most famous study involved participants who believed they were administering electric shocks to another person as part of a learning experiment. The results showed that a significant number of people were willing to follow orders from an authority figure, even when it meant causing harm to others. Milgram's work raised important ethical questions about the treatment of participants in psychological research. His findings have had a lasting impact on the fields of psychology and ethics, influencing how studies are designed and conducted, particularly regarding the balance between scientific inquiry and participant welfare.