Chapter 4 begins the process of exploring the data by foregrounding the role of the experimenter. Most treatments of Milgram’s work have followed Milgram’s own gloss on the experimenter as having used a restricted and standardised series of ‘prods’ in his efforts to compel participants to continue with the experiment in the face of the learner’s protests. However, analysis of the archived audio recordings suggests a rather more complex picture. The standardised prods were used far more flexibly than is typically assumed, and indeed many other verbal and nonverbal tactics (e.g. going to check on the learner in the next room) were used in an attempt to keep the participant in the experiment. Moreover, the experimenter’s utterances – whether based on the scripted prods or not – were tailored to the specific context of their use. It is suggested that this necessitates a reorientation of our understanding of the experimenter’s role: he was not an impassive authority figure, but rather his role can be understood as involving persuasion.