Milgram Experiment

[LuisDantas]

Color me surprised.

 

[Valjean]

The military seems to have no trouble convincing people to behave in a manner diametrically opposite that advocated By Jesus on the mount and elsewhere. Even devout, church-going recruits seem to have no compunction about taking up the sword and weilding it completely indiscriminantly at whatever "enemy" an authority figure tells him to slay.

 

[rojse]

My point is that volunteering for any research project would appeal to people more compliant than myself. The only circumstance I can imagine participating in research voluntarily is if I were terminally ill and there was no cure apart from an experimental one. Even then I would probably nip off to China and sign up for 10 to 12 hours of targeted qi gong a day before volunteering for pharmaceutical trials. I'm stubborn to the core, and I can't think of a single instance of having "gone with the flow". I was never one of the people who would cheer from the sidelines at school fights, for example. I thought they were retarded and childish. And when I got targeted for fights of my own, I turned up (I refused to take the long way home or sneak in a window or whatever) but refused to fight despite the pressure from sometimes large crowds. In fact, I was so resistant to authority that by the time I was 15 my very authoritarian dad couldn't take it any more and moved out.

None of this means, of course, that I couldn't ever be tricked or intimidated into hurting someone else. But I think it's reasonable to say that I wouldn't hurt someone just because an authority figure demanded it, or because everybody else was doing it. Neither of those factors have ever motivated me, so I see no reason to expect they ever will.

I heard that some people in the experiment volunteered for the sake of money. One person said he received $5 for one hour's work, when beer was twenty cents a glass. Surely a base motive such as money might induce you?

 

[sandandfoam]

But I think it's reasonable to say that I wouldn't hurt someone just because an authority figure demanded it, or because everybody else was doing it. Neither of those factors have ever motivated me, so I see no reason to expect they ever will.

I admire your confidence. Milgram could manipulate compliance rates to over 90% of people continuing the 450 volt maximium.
I think his and subsequent studies demonstrate that we underestimate the power of the situation at our peril.
Look beyond experiments to real life - Reserve police battalion 101 in Poland during the Nazi occupation, a group of about 500 ordinary middle aged men too old for regular army duties murdered at least 38,000 people

 

[rojse]

I admire your confidence. Milgram could manipulate compliance rates to over 90% of people continuing the 450 volt maximium.
I think his and subsequent studies demonstrate that we underestimate the power of the situation at our peril.
Look beyond experiments to real life - Reserve police battalion 101 in Poland during the Nazi occupation, a group of about 500 ordinary middle aged men too old for regular army duties murdered at least 38,000 people

I think that is a good point to add to the discussion, Stephenw. Frubals.

 

[Alceste]

I admire your confidence. Milgram could manipulate compliance rates to over 90% of people continuing the 450 volt maximium.
I think his and subsequent studies demonstrate that we underestimate the power of the situation at our peril.
Look beyond experiments to real life - Reserve police battalion 101 in Poland during the Nazi occupation, a group of about 500 ordinary middle aged men too old for regular army duties murdered at least 38,000 people

I agree it's unwise to underestimate the significance of the findings in a societal context, but the question was what would we have done in the experiment. Not only would I not volunteer to begin with, I would not join a police force or army. All of these choices are rooted in my anarchic disdain for authority in all its forms. Granted not everybody has anarchic tendencies that can't be budged in the name of personal profit or scientific progress, but the experiment itself doesn't rule out the possibility that such people exist, perhaps in large numbers.

 

[Alceste]

I heard that some people in the experiment volunteered for the sake of money. One person said he received $5 for one hour's work, when beer was twenty cents a glass. Surely a base motive such as money might induce you?

It did once - I participated in a focus group. I still feel icky about it. I determined after the fact it was profoundly unethical to contribute to the PR industry in any way and will never do it again. Money doesn't have much sway over me though. If I have enough to live on, I don't go seeking more.

 

[LuisDantas]

PR meaning...?

 

[lilithu]

I admire your confidence.

I am alarmed by it.

I agree it's unwise to underestimate the significance of the findings in a societal context, but the question was what would we have done in the experiment. Not only would I not volunteer to begin with, I would not join a police force or army. All of these choices are rooted in my anarchic disdain for authority in all its forms. Granted not everybody has anarchic tendencies that can't be budged in the name of personal profit or scientific progress, but the experiment itself doesn't rule out the possibility that such people exist, perhaps in large numbers.

And my point was that even if you never volunteer for experiments or join the military that doesn't mean you wouldn't do something similar. The experiments point to something in our psyches of a wider consequence than just following the orders of a scientist or military officer. Authority comes in different forms, not just the obvious ones. For all you know you might one day get pressured to do something unwise by your anarchist buddies.

Your response reminds me of people who (believing in the devil) say that if the devil ever tried to tempt them they would surely resist. They don't realize that if the devil comes to tempt them, he won't be wearing horns and a tail. He will look like an ordinary person (or people) who will seem to be making a good point.

PR meaning...?

Public Relations.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I admire your confidence.

I am alarmed by it.

Precisely.

 

[Alceste]

I am alarmed by it.

There's no need to be. It only means I do my own thinking. There's no malicious or violent intent - just a disregard for artificial heirarchies.

And my point was that even if you never volunteer for experiments or join the military that doesn't mean you wouldn't do something similar.

True, but the fact that I have never done anything similar before is an even better indication that I wouldn't be likely to begin. Nobody lives a life free from interactions with authority figures, or free from peer pressure. We all have plenty of opportunity every day to guage where our priorities lie; to evaluate whether we are basing our moral choices on our own ethical principles, or whether we are acting on a visceral need to be loved, respected, admired or commended by other people.

I have had a good look, and I can honestly say I make the vast majority of my choices based on my personal ethics and not on a need to be socially included. If you knew me you would probably figure this out yourself based on the way I live my life, but as you don't know me all I can do is tell you how it is. You're more than welcome to be skeptical.

Authority comes in different forms, not just the obvious ones. For all you know you might one day get pressured to do something unwise by your anarchist buddies.

My "anarchist buddies" know me better than to expect I will respond positively to pressure or manipulation to do something that conflicts with my ethics. Keep in mind here we are talking specifically about hurting people just because somebody told you to, which is not a complex, subtle ethical question for me. I've tried all kinds of things (substances, mostly) I wasn't ethically sure about due to influence from my friends, but I have never hurt somebody to please somebody else. I do remember being asked to do something at work I wasn't ethically sure about (create export paperwork for a large donation of free hat and scarves for Israeli soldiers) and I very nearly quit my job because of it. (In the end I decided it's not all that unethical to contribute to keeping soldiers' heads and necks warm even if I profoundly disagree with what they are doing.)

I am not saying I would not hurt people in response to other motivators, like intimidation. Who knows? I probably would. I have also hurt people who physically attacked me. I'm also not saying that the findings of the experiment were not significant or meaningful, just that I wouldn't assume the statistical findings are perfectly accurate when applied to the general population because it is not a truly random sample.

 

[sandandfoam]

I wouldn't assume the statistical findings are perfectly accurate when applied to the general population because it is not a truly random sample.

Professor Zimbardo wrote "This large sample of a thousand ordinary citizens from such varied backgrounds makes the results of the Milgram obedience studies among the most generalizable in all the social sciences"

Put it in context. Look at other studies like Zimbardo's and June Elliot's.
Look at the genocide in Rwanda, the Holocaust. The evidence is there.

 

[Valjean]

The original public announcement offered $4.00, to be paid "as soon as you arrive at the laboratory," plus 50c carfare.

Our species, after two million years of living in bands/tribes, is exquisitely susceptible to authoritarian manipulation. It's hard-wired into our psyches. We will subordinate entirely our own personal interests to those of the band, as directed by the tribal leader. Couple that with an astonishing capacity to treat the other as entirely outside our moral universe and you have a species that can, with perfect equanimity, direct thousands of women, children and old men to the showers.

 

[Alceste]

The original public announcement offered $4.00, to be paid "as soon as you arrive at the laboratory," plus 50c carfare.

Our species, after two million years of living in bands/tribes, is exquisitely susceptible to authoritarian manipulation. It's hard-wired into our psyches. We will subordinate entirely our own personal interests to those of the band, as directed by the tribal leader. Couple that with an astonishing capacity to treat the other as entirely outside our moral universe and you have a species that can, with perfect equanimity, direct thousands of women, children and old men to the showers.

... with the occasional Schindler cropping up to throw a wrench into the works.

I'm suggesting there might something else hard-wired into our psyches that sometimes comes into conflict with the visceral urge to obey the alpha male primate for fear of getting thumped, and sometimes wins.

There is a reason the Nazis rounded up the dissidents, socialists, philosophers, artists and academics before they got around to the Jews, gypsies and homosexuals.

 

[sandandfoam]

I'm suggesting there might something else hard-wired into our psyches that sometimes comes into conflict with the visceral urge to obey the alpha male primate for fear of getting thumped, and sometimes wins.

There is a reason the Nazis rounded up the dissidents, socialists, philosophers, artists and academics before they got around to the Jews, gypsies and homosexuals.

I think coming at obedience as you appear to be is to come at it from the wrong angle. In the west we overemphasize personality in explaining behaviour while at the same time underemphasizing situational influences. I think you are making the fundamental attribution error in attributing to dispositions rather than situations.

 

[lilithu]

I think coming at obedience as you appear to be is to come at it from the wrong angle. In the west we overemphasize personality in explaining behaviour while at the same time underemphasizing situational influences. I think you are making the fundamental attribution error in attributing to dispositions rather than situations.

Exactly, and frubals.

It's too easy to think that the people who complied have some sort of deficiency in their character that caused them to do what they did. It means we don't have to look at that part we all have within ourselves that is capable of it. And THAT is what I find alarming.

 

[Alceste]

Professor Zimbardo wrote "This large sample of a thousand ordinary citizens from such varied backgrounds makes the results of the Milgram obedience studies among the most generalizable in all the social sciences"

Put it in context. Look at other studies like Zimbardo's and June Elliot's.
Look at the genocide in Rwanda, the Holocaust. The evidence is there.

I never said atrocities don't happen in the real world, but there are two sides to an authoritarian program of stamping out cultures or ideas: the stampers and the stampees. Since I have no respect for authority I am a natural stampee - highly unlikely to become a stamper solely due to the urging of an authority figure.

Many of the victims of various programs of atrocity around the world are people who resist the atrocities. A recent example would be when fascism came into vogue in America after 9-11, Americans who questioned the wisdom of bombing random middle eastern countries into oblivion were suppressed, attacked, ridiculed, and sometimes even lost their jobs. People who questioned the infallibility of Lord Bush were suddenly unpatriotic"terrorist sympathisers." Yes, Americans in general became monstrous, bloodthirsty and violent, but ethical and /or moral Americans did not cease to exist because of this development. They were silenced and / or pushed aside. The Nazis or Maoists would have had them imprisoned and / or killed, which is the way most authoritarian governments deal with people who refuse to stop thinking for themselves.

If the theory were true that we all tend to put our own judgement aside in preference of the directives of authority figures, what are we to make of Amnesty International, the underground railroad in Nazi germany and pre-emancipation America, people like Oskar Schindler, Nelson Mandela, Oscar Ramirez and Mahatma Gandhi? When you take an honest measure of yourself, where do you fit? Hiding Anne Frank in your attic or guarding the perimeter at Auschwitz, or somewhere else altogether?

I recognize people have the capacity for appalling acts. What I can't agree with is the fatalistic idea that if you think you wouldn't electrocute a man with a heart condition just because some ponce in a lab coat said so, you must be decieving yourself because of Milgram's findings. Apart from myself, I think of at least two other people besides myself on this forum alone who almost certainly would not.

 

[Alceste]

Exactly, and frubals.

It's too easy to think that the people who complied have some sort of deficiency in their character that caused them to do what they did. It means we don't have to look at that part we all have within ourselves that is capable of it. And THAT is what I find alarming.

 

[lilithu]

Your argument did not address my own but nice try.

I am willing to bet that a number of people participating in this thread can see how my argument is addressed to yours.

But since you are such an "independent thinker" so as not to be swayed by the influences of others, you can persist in believing what you want.

 

[LuisDantas]

Precisely.

Count me alarmed, too.