Milgram's Experiment

Any acid is at some sort of dilution, though, so it's not like the automatic thought is going to be 'this is PURE ACID!'. Heck, orange juice is acidic :p That being said, no, it's probably not good practice to allow things on your skin in a chemistry lab that you don't know exactly what they are, but if you're told to do something by your professor you probably assume he/she already calculated the risk and found it lacking.

She of Short Stature & Impeccable Logic My Skating Liveblog

One can make a presumption that, due to issues of liability, nobody's going to run an experiment with a high probability of causing serious injury or death. Then again, the Milgram experiments were pretty damning of human social psychology.

edited 31st Oct '11 8:32:06 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

As far as this one is aware of, quite a few of Milgram experiment participants thought the same. Funniest thing? They were correct

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

On a very similar note (with Psychology studies bringing out the worst in people) has anyone seen Derren Brown's Gameshow Experiment?

The episode was basically a look at deindividuation due to being effectively anonymous in a crowd.

He was doing under the guise of a gameshow called 'Remote Control' where he got the audience to wear masks and vote on whether good things or bad things happen to an unaware guy on his night out.

All around the guy were actors that were in on the show as to make the situations happen according to the studio vote. To start with the choices given only had 'minor' outcomes, for example:

• Kind option - A girl flirts with him at the bar.
• Unkind Option - A girl accuses him of pinching her bum and the boyfriend has a go at him.

Over the course of the 'show' the audience always voted in the majority for the unkind option, it was seen as a laugh and all in good humour.
So this unaware guy had happen to him:

• Accused of touching up a girl and shouted at by a boyfriend.
• Charged for drinks he didn't buy, get vodka poured on him.
• Arrested for shoplifting. (Not really fake police but it looked real.)
• Being fired from his job. (Not really he was just told by a work colleague over the phone.)

At one point they had another presenter be shown round the house of the 'target' to 'help the audience' deicide which way to vote by learning about him.

The audience by this point was worked up enough to shout stuff for the presenter to do in the guy's house, starting at go through his underwear drawer up to actually smash the guy's TV. At this point they weren't being asked if they wanted to do this or given a choice but the audience were shouting it out freely.

Then the last option was, given a prize OR get kidnapped into a van and driven away to a warehouse, the audience picks the kidnap warehouse. They then show through the hidden camera the guy get grabbed by 'kidnappers' but the guy manages to slip out their grip, run away at full pelt down the road only to be hit by a car at the end.

Then Derren Brown acts all like 'OH shit' and the audience are pretty shocked too, after a bit of making it look like the show is being stopped (studio lights going to normal etc) Derren Brown then comes back and says the last bit was faked, they really dropped the guy off at home where he found a new TV and a note from Derren Brown explaining what happened.

The audience is looking pretty fucking guilty as he points out the whole show was really about deindividuation and their reactions to being anonymous in a crowd and the last bit was showing how easily crowd mentality like that can lead to terrible stuff.

edited 31st Oct '11 9:26:53 AM by IanExMachina

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

I think there was a point that the fact the tests were held at Yale University could've had an effect. There's obviously some benefit to the world if we electroshock this guy, would be the main thought of the Ps.

I think Milgram then moved to a shady downtown building, under the guise of "Researchers Ltd.", and did the exact same thing as in the original, but the amount of Ps who went to the end dropped to about 30-40%, IIRC.

Yeah, that's a rather good example of majority influence, especially conformity.

edited 31st Oct '11 1:51:09 PM by Inhopelessguy

I know how you find people to become test subjects for the experiment without knowing what it is. What you do is go to a physics department and get some students to volunteer for the ''Millikan experiment. Then you just have to find a way that trying to float oil drops is going to lead to electrocuting someone.

In fact such a thing might help to make a more defined test. Rather than the test is that you involve shocking someone as part of the parameters of the test, the shocks or other form of harm is a side product of the test. You can study the Knight Templar effect. Also: check how many people refuse to shock someone to find a better orange food dye against how many stop when they are being told it's the cure for cancer.

This may or may not be on topic, but believe it or not, I'm actually writing a paper related to Milgram's experiments. Specifically, it's about how people are willing to obey authority primarily out of a sense of trust rather than intimidation.

but HOW?

Trust is but one of the factors. There is also the good old "not my problem" thing going on, as well. After all, you're not about to carry the can, as there is somebody higher in the chain of command who is more responsible (presumably). It's a refined version of the Bystander Effect at work, as well, in short. And, that is not necessarily a part of trust, but Crowd Psychology.

In this case, an authority figure also plugs into a wider, if vague "crowd" of whatever institute you are in... which doesn't happen to exist in the room, at the time. After all, if this experiment was really as bad as it looks, it wouldn't be able to be run, right, as somebody would have nixed it already, surely?

edited 14th Nov '12 1:50:18 PM by Euodiachloris

First, there was another version of this thread that you might want to read. It had a lot of links to related research that you might find useful. Here.

Second, you should know that Milgram and his research team extensively interviewed the research subjects afterward in an attempt to account for their true feelings and motivations. They explicitly asked about trust and fear issues, and the subjects self-reported that their obedience was really all about the fear of standing up to an authority figure.

@Game Show:That, my friend, is GIFT.

Lukily I like to believe I was immune. The price to pay, however, when you're with a crowd with whom you are in dissonance, is feeling sick to your stomach, a deep, horrifying sense of inadequacy and danger.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.