What role did the confederate play in Milgram's study?

In Milgram's study on obedience, the confederate played a crucial role in creating the experimental conditions. The confederate, who was actually an actor, pretended to draw straws to determine roles, but this was part of the setup to make the real participant believe that the assignment of roles was random. This was important because the true aim of the study was to test how far ordinary individuals would go in obeying instructions to administer electric shocks to another person, under the direction of an authority figure.

By having the confederate engaging in this seemingly random function, it helped establish a framework in which the real participant could feel a sense of normalcy and legitimacy about their participation in the experiment. This setup was essential for the overall dynamics of the study, as it helped to obscure the actual nature of the experiment and increase the validity of the results regarding obedience.