Alexander Y. Voronov’s personal page

Since 1990 Alexander Y. Voronov has been a pioneer in disseminating Stanley Milgram’s and his followers’ obedience research in USSR (and then in Russia) and in teaching of experimental Social Psychology using American programs at Russian State University for the Humanities, Lomonosov Moscow State University, State Academic University for the Humanities and at several Moscow high schools and lycées.

In August 1993 the premiere demonstration of Stanley Milgram’s film Obedience was aired nationwide on Russian TV channels. The translation of the film was made by Elena Baskakova (Editor A. Y. Voronov). Both before and after this demonstration the program organized a round table discussion on this epochal discovery of Stanley Milgram, which included American sociologists Miguel Angel Centeno (he has presented to A. Y. Voronov a copy of the film Obedience) and Deborah Kaple, the program host nowadays late Lev Nikolaev, and A. Y. Voronov.

Beginning since 1994 (and continuing to this day) A. Y. Voronov has been carrying out during the show of the film Obedience the trend survey of viewers (students, researchers and other personnel at Russian universities, high schools, and lycées). The goal of this survey is to study various aspects of perception by ignorant viewers of the behavior of the participants in the film Obedience and the general idea of the Milgram’s experiment. The survey includes three steps: respondents (viewers) fill certain questionnaires before, during and just after watching the film.

Together with D.I. Piontkovsky and V.J. Sinicyn he published the results of the field research on the role of personal and demographic traits in destructive obedience to authority in Russia, based on the studies of Military Service Call (October, 1996) in Moscow.

A. Y. Voronov developed and read the special course Psychological mechanisms of destructive obedience to legitimate authorities: Stanley Milgram’s experimental paradigm in Lomonosov Moscow State University and State Academic University for the Humanities (2006 – 2011).

April 23, 2009 he was invited to make the following report The Study and Development of Stanley Milgram’s Legacy in Russia (1990 – 2009) at Bard College / Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA [Andrew Jay Bernstein ’68 Memorial Lectures (Psychology Program Colloquium)].

August 6-8, 2013 г. he took part in The Obedience to Authority Conference: Milgram’s Experiments 50 Years On (Nipissing University, Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada), which integrated participants from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, UK, USA, and gave the report Some results on the development of Milgram’s experimental obedience paradigm in Russia (1994 – 2013).

For the last five years he has been performing the remake of Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments for a classroom, the goal of which was to give each student an opportunity to experience the feelings and emotions of naïve and of informed subjects during all of the continuum of social influence (from observation of group norm through weak and strong group pressure till obedience to the instructor’s authority).

A.Y. Voronov was the initiator and the organizer of three previous memorial conferences devoted to the personality and a creative heritage of Stanley Milgram:

1. The students’ conference Stanley Milgram and his contribution to Social and Management Psychology (to the 10th anniversary from the date of death of the outstanding American psychologist) at Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow (December 20-21, 1994).
2. The first obedience conference in Russia at Moscow City Pedagogical University (International Conference Conformity and Its Mechanisms, December 20-23, 2004, Moscow). The conference was devoted to the 20th anniversary of Milgram’s passing and the 30th anniversary of the publication of his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. The world’s leading expert on Stanley Milgram’s studies, Professor Thomas Blass (The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA) gave the keynote lecture, titled The continuing legacy of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority. The plenary lecture, titled The study and the development of Stanley Milgram’s experimental obedience paradigm in the USSR and in Russia, was given by Alexander Y. Voronov (Russia).
3. The International Seminar To the 50th anniversary of the first obedience experiments of Stanley Milgram (November 15-19, 2010; Kolomna-Moscow, Russia); for further information, please see 1, 2.