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Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp641-1.pdf
Shocking study reveals people still willing to torture
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16312-shocking-study-reveals-people-still-willing-to-torture.html
“The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself responsible for his actions.” – Stanley Milgram.
Milgram’s 37 had its genesis at least six years before its release, while Peter was writing and recording tracks for Peter Gabriel [The song appeared on the album So].
http://www.solsburyhill.org/essays/so.htm#milgrams
In a study published in 1963, Stanley Milgram of Yale University investigated the human tendency to adhere to other’s wishes or orders, even when those orders directly violate one’s own ethical standards. Milgram’s study has become one of the most celebrated and controversial social experiements of our time. In the original experiment, 40 subjects were recruited from the community to participate in a “learning experiment” looking at the effect of punishment on learning. At the laboratory, the subjects were met by a grey-lab-coated experimenter and another “subject”, a 47 year old accountant (in fact the accountant was an actor and an accomplice of the experiment). Experimental roles were then “randomly” designated, although the draw was rigged so that the accomplice always became the “learner” and the real subject the “teacher”.
The accomplice was strapped into an electrical generator with the subject watching. The idea was that whenever the “learner” made a mistake on the questions to be asked, the “teacher” would then deliver a shock through the generator to the “learner”. The subjects were told that, while the shocks were painful, no permanent tissue damage would result. Once the “learner” had been strapped in, the subject was led to an adjoining room where the switches for the generator were housed, but where the “learner” could not be seen. There were thirty switches from 15 to 450 volts with rather helpful labels above stating at increasing voltages: “slight shock”, “danger: severe shock” and “xxx”. again all of this was phoney, but looked impressive and (more importantly) realistic, particualrly to the subject.
As the experiment progressed and the accomplice continued to get answers wrong, the subjects were instructed to increase the voltage with each wrong answer. The accomplice would scream and yell more loudly with each successive shock. At 300 volts, he began pounding on the walls and stopped attempting to answer the questions. At this, subjects usually turned to the experimenter who firmly stated that no answer was the same as a wrong answer and that stronger shocks should continue, even though the “learner” was now silent. If a subject attempted to stop the experiment they were flatly informed that “It is absolutely essential that you continue”. If the subject refused to cooperate further or once the maximum shock had been administered, the experiment ended and subjects were debriefed on what was really going on.
