Final answer:
The Milgram obedience experiments were controversial because participants believed they were delivering real electric shocks to other individuals due to instructions from an authority figure, causing them significant stress and ethical concerns arose from the deception used without proper debriefing.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Milgram obedience experiments were controversial because the "teachers" were deceived and frequently subjected to stress. During these experiments conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram, participants assigned the role of 'teachers' were instructed to administer electric shocks to 'learners' for every incorrect answer to a word-pair question. The 'teachers' were not aware that the 'learners' were confederates and that no real shocks were being administered. The crux of the controversy lay in the ethical concerns regarding the extreme emotional distress faced by 'teachers,' who believed they were genuinely harming the 'learners,' and the use of deception in the study without debriefing the participants about the true nature of the experiment immediately afterward.
Encouraged by an authority figure, Milgram's study found that a significant majority of the participants were willing to administer what appeared to be painful, and even potentially lethal, electric shocks. Nearly two-thirds of the participants (approximately 65%) followed through with the instructions to deliver the maximum voltage. These results raised important questions about human behavior, authority, and ethical practice in psychological research.