Poll: You're in the Milgram Experiment!
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I wouldn't keep going personally, i wouldn't even do the first shock - i was horrified just reading it. Though i have to say i personally am hyper emotional when it comes to these things infact i was given the chance to use a gun with blanks at army cadets and all that kept going through my head was the fact that this device could be used to kill another person (though we were aiming at trees) i cant even remember if i was about to shoot one or stopped after shooting one blank but emerged in tears there and then blaming it on all sorts of other reasons (homesickness, my ear guards fell off etc?)
So maybe a little TMI but its more to show what kind of person i am outside an experiment like this and how i think id be during it (not trying to be righteous just honest)
Also you can have my man card its long expired anyway.
So maybe a little TMI but its more to show what kind of person i am outside an experiment like this and how i think id be during it (not trying to be righteous just honest)
Also you can have my man card its long expired anyway.
No I know I would not. I've never been one to do as told anyway. Plus there no reason I'm not in harms way nor is there a reward.
Like everyone in the thread, I'd like to say I'd have stopped/flat out refused early on, but in reality who know? I only hope that if put in such a position I'm genre savvy enough to realise it's a trap.
The problem with imagining yourself in the Milgram experiment is that there'd no way you'd do it. Right now. You are a different person right now, sitting on your couch or at our desk, plinking away at a computer keyboard, than you are when a man in a white lab coat is asking you to do something you hold no legal responsibility for in the name of science, and you really have no choice but to continue.
If I had been put in the Milgram experiment before I took psychology, I would go very close to all the way, and probably go all the way. Now that I know of the Milgram experiment I'm much less likely to, of course, but that doesn't exactly mean that in a different situation involving authority I would be less susceptible, unless I could recognize the similarities.
Why judge people just for being who they are? Certainly it's fine to want them to change who they are into someone else, but it's not useful to slag them off as sheep or any of a thousand other cliches.
If I had been put in the Milgram experiment before I took psychology, I would go very close to all the way, and probably go all the way. Now that I know of the Milgram experiment I'm much less likely to, of course, but that doesn't exactly mean that in a different situation involving authority I would be less susceptible, unless I could recognize the similarities.
That's not what psychology tells us at all. People aren't sheep; people are just people. And we are different people when there are other people, or no people, although we become something much less than people when there are never any other people.Matt_LRR said:
Why judge people just for being who they are? Certainly it's fine to want them to change who they are into someone else, but it's not useful to slag them off as sheep or any of a thousand other cliches.
To be honest I've already heard of this experiment, and I have thought about it a lot.
My conclusion is that I would refuse, and probably attack the Psychologist.(If he pushed me too far that is.)
My conclusion is that I would refuse, and probably attack the Psychologist.(If he pushed me too far that is.)
I just learned about that experiment in my pyschology class last quarter. I think it's easy to say that you wouldn't continue on due to the inhumaness in it, knowing all the details. The experiment wanted to see how people would reacte if they didn't know it was an actor and believed that they would not be held responsible for what the end results were.
Would I go on?
Statistically yes, assuming we overlook cultural variables such as nationality and changes in attitudes from the 1961 and 2011.
I must admit I haven't read about the experiment in a number of years (and am to lazy to read the full OP). I think the original experiment looked at people who only had a basic education and the effects of a supposed doctor asking them to perform the experiment. As I am currently juggling dossing on the Escapist and writing an essay for my masters degree I guess I don't fall into that category. This fact can be compounded with the theory people are less dogmatic and malleable than they were fifty years ago due to changes in class relations and perceptions of the self.
On the other hand I am quite a passive and subservient person, I think I can quite easily be coerced in to doing things that I am not comfortable with.
All in all I don't know, I hope not but I wouldn't be suprised if I did. Then on it being revealed it was a test I would internalise the anger that perhaps should result in me headbutting one of the two actors or Milgram himself.
Statistically yes, assuming we overlook cultural variables such as nationality and changes in attitudes from the 1961 and 2011.
I must admit I haven't read about the experiment in a number of years (and am to lazy to read the full OP). I think the original experiment looked at people who only had a basic education and the effects of a supposed doctor asking them to perform the experiment. As I am currently juggling dossing on the Escapist and writing an essay for my masters degree I guess I don't fall into that category. This fact can be compounded with the theory people are less dogmatic and malleable than they were fifty years ago due to changes in class relations and perceptions of the self.
On the other hand I am quite a passive and subservient person, I think I can quite easily be coerced in to doing things that I am not comfortable with.
All in all I don't know, I hope not but I wouldn't be suprised if I did. Then on it being revealed it was a test I would internalise the anger that perhaps should result in me headbutting one of the two actors or Milgram himself.
I'm familier with this experiment as I studied it during my psychology degree so I'd know the set up. If I dodn't know though I'd like to think that since in everyday life I tend to challange authority figures if I think they are wrong that I'd stop and refuse to do it, but I can't honestly be sure as their can be a differerence between what you think you would do if you were in that situation and what you actually do when you are in the situation.
Wow, this thread was already won at the second post. Impressive! And yet here I am posting anyway.
I'm familiar with the Milgram experiment and I found it pretty fascinating. But since I already know about it, it's unlikely that I'd participate in a similar experiment. But I have thought about what I would have done if I had been put in a similar situation without that knowledge. It's an incredibly difficult question to answer, as shown by the fact that the majority of the psychologists involved in the original experiment VASTLY underestimated the amount of people that would go all the way to a lethal shock.
Still, though, over a third of the participants didn't complete the experiment, so it's not TERRIBLE odds to suggest that I might have done the same. I'm absolutely certain that I would have gone much further than I was comfortable with, but I think I'd probably have stopped once the guy stopped responding.
I'm familiar with the Milgram experiment and I found it pretty fascinating. But since I already know about it, it's unlikely that I'd participate in a similar experiment. But I have thought about what I would have done if I had been put in a similar situation without that knowledge. It's an incredibly difficult question to answer, as shown by the fact that the majority of the psychologists involved in the original experiment VASTLY underestimated the amount of people that would go all the way to a lethal shock.
Still, though, over a third of the participants didn't complete the experiment, so it's not TERRIBLE odds to suggest that I might have done the same. I'm absolutely certain that I would have gone much further than I was comfortable with, but I think I'd probably have stopped once the guy stopped responding.
I know I might be overestimating myself (yet still not), but I think I would be too much of a pussy to continue. I'm not exactly squeamish, but unless someone has done me great injustice, I seriously can't imagine hurting another person, even at authority's behest. Of course, what do I know? I'd probably freak the fuck out and go Shocker on him, since everyone apparently does.
Whilst i'd love to think i would stop i'm gonna be honest, i'd probably keep going.
I'm a sucker for a man in a scientist uniform ;D
I'm a sucker for a man in a scientist uniform ;D
This. If there's anything that gets to me, it's electric shocks and desperate screaming. I also really hate asylums. Not that I've ever been to one in real life, but after years of gaming and movies I really don't want to.Cheesus333 said:
I can withstand a lot of things, but those three... no way.
To answer your questions (in reverse order):Vrach said:Exactly why would one keep going? Or even agree to such a study in the first place?Matt_LRR said:
Oh and someone's been watching CSI: Miami?
One would participate in this study as a blind participant, unaware of what you were going to be required to do or what the purpose of the study was. (this study would not meet ethics standards any more, by the by.)
One would keep going, because, well, that's what people do - they succumb to the pressure being placed on them by a figure of authority, and proceed to inflict pain and torture (or so they think) on a victim beyond the point of unconsciousness or death - and in 65% of cases, right up to the maximum amount of punishment they are able and required to inflict.
this is a super famous experiment that's been repeated many, many times. It was undertaken to explore the kinds of situations that led to the actions of Nazi soldiers in world war 2, and has actually granted a great deal of insight with regards to how willing soldiers, and people in subordinate positions are to push past their own rationality to follow the orders of a superior.
The results of the experiment should be shocking and scary - because they reveal a very dark thing about human nature. The conditions that led to the horrotrs commited by the nazis are not that difficult to replicate, even among every day people.
-m
Well, now that you've read it to me, I would stop. But most likely, I would have continued. It hurts to say it, but yes.
Oh! I loved reading about this experiment in Psychology 101! You know why? Because exactly what the second post in this thread said. Most people will say that they'd stop, but when you actually enter the situation, you might not. Submission to authority was the point of the experiment. If the authority is there, you're more likely to listen to what they tell you.
Honestly, though, I don't know what I'd do if I was actually in it.
Honestly, though, I don't know what I'd do if I was actually in it.