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Stanley Milgram (1933–1984), inspired by the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann modeled the Nazi approach toward authority for his research in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority. To the horror of researchers and society, he found that every person could, like the Nazis, do horrendous evil to please authority. The research was so disturbing that the APA held hearings concerning the ethics of subjecting people to this disturbing type of research and suspended his membership for a year. The Milgram laboratory, where the research occurred, is a powerful symbol of the shadow and unconscious forces of the human psyche.

In 1961, three months after the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann began, Milgram began a research study to explain psychological genocide. The disturbing research found that Eichmann had millions of accomplices who were simply following the orders of their superiors.