Just following orders

[giggirl]

I was very very shocked when I first read about the Milgram experiments in the 1950s. They were very (in)famous experiments but, if you've never come across them, the basic premise is that it was an experiment to see whether one individual could be persuaded to torture another. Milgram concluded that yes, they could; quite easily. Shocking. Someone has replicated the original experiment and nothing's changed; we're still, apparently, ready to torture another human being if an authority figure tells us to.

I truly don't understand the results. I swear that if someone asked me to torture someone I would sit on my hands and tell them go fuck themselves. Am I kidding myself? Does anyone have better insight because I find this so depressing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7791278.stm

[david_carnell]

You're correct that it is a shocking experiment GG. When I first came across it I was horrified. But if you read more, inlcuding some of Milgram's original work, there are points of salvation that help you understand human nature more - and I think that can only be a good thing.

I'd start by just reading the wiki explanations of the interpretations and go from there. The Hofling Hospital experiment shows a similar real life version.

If you're interested in this sort of thing I'd recommend two other famous experiments:

The Rosenhan Experiment - concerns the validity of psychiatric diagnosis

Bystander Apathy - why we do nothing when witnessing crime(s)

Enjoy your new found insight into the human condition!

[Bellenden Belle]

I saw the documentary this article was related to.

It was indeed incredible to watch - it showed very ordinary people just following very simple instructions, focusing on the task (pressing a button to start an electric shock) and putting their trust in the "authority figure" in his white coat that told them that everything was going to be okay.

It's important to note that there was never any mention of the word "torture" and the experiment demonstrated more participants inability to question the consequences of their actions rather than demonstrating any inherent evil. It showed how the majority of participants, even when their instincts told them they should be concerned, were not confident enough to trust themselves and instead handed responsibility over to the person leading the experiment.

[legalbeagle]

Also take heart from one (albeit less scientific) observation of these experiments. Which is that if you are aware of the experiments and how human beings can behave, that in itself makes you less likely to behave that way should you ever be in such a situation. Which then points to the idea that education might be key to adjusting such behaviour.

[Sandperson]

I seem to remember from my A-Level Psychology that Australian women were the most likely to tell the man in the white coat to take a running jump when asked to up the voltage.

[Brendan]

You see! No bloody good will ever come from authority.

[Brendan]

Aussie chicks seem to know this.

[Brendan]

Considering this is there scope for me to start referring to people as Milgramian?

[david_carnell]

Only if we can refer to you as "a Sheila".

[Brendan]

Go ahead, they?re my favourite car insurance based band.

Way better than Iggy and the Stooges.

[HAL9000]

From a practical point of view, one of the most worrying aspects of Milgram's findings is how they relate to the conduct of criminal trials (in England and Wales).

In my view, many wrongful convictions arise because jurors tend to convict because they feel that that is what the authorities expect them to do even when the evidence is flawed or insufficient to support such a verdict.

Also, I think that jury polling should be introduced in England to ameliorate potential bias caused by effects such as, for example, conformity within juries during their empanelment. At the moment the deliberations of a jury are kept secret and it's against the law to make any enquiries or revelations about them.

[Andystar]

check this out

[ImpetuousVrouw]

I remember seeing this experiment and the people who refused were generally non-conformist types. I am sure as someone who is not in awe of authority, I would have made my own mind up and not done what was asked of me either.

I think it would be interesting to study the ones who refused and find out exactly what it was that made them different from the ones who just followed orders.

[Brendan]

Oh no. Don?t you know that non-conformists are just jealous malcontents, attention seeking exhibitionists or both who only subscribe to their own version of conformity?

Suggesting that they may somehow be more insightful than the general masses is an insult to all the good normal people out there who buy what they are told to, think what they are told to, dress how they are told to, listen to what they are told to, vote how they are told to?

and torture people when they are told to.

[legalbeagle]

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Oh no. Don?t you know that non-conformists are

> just jealous malcontents, attention seeking

> exhibitionists or both who only subscribe to their

> own version of conformity?

>

I've heard quite a few of them live in Surrey.

[Brendan]

Yah yah. So they do.

[giggirl]

Some good comments and lots to think about. I want to watch the TV programme - but I don't have a TV. Anyone know what it was called? I can try and watch it on BBC catch-up on my PC.

A huge round of applause for Aussie women everywhere. You rock.

[brum]

legalbeagle Wrote:

> I've heard quite a few of them live in Surrey.

Along with an increasing number of wild-haired springboks, hurdling hedgerows and the like.

[ruffers]

Apparently, according to today's Sun anyway, there was a programme in France recently on the same lines.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2896027/Torture-game-show-slammed.html#comment-rig

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Just finished reading a book by Mark Baker about US veterans in Vietnam. Quite ghastly in some places and obviously a few pyschopaths in the army. But this extract shows how ordinary men can descend into animals.

Finally, dawn came. The battle broke off. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of Vietnamese fleeing the area, any way they could. Panic. ... I don't know if they ran out of ammunition or what, but we were taking very little fire at that point and we were just killing everybody.

It turned into a turkey shoot. They were defenceless. There were three or four light fire teams working the area. Hundreds of people were being mowed down. ... I was in there with the best of them. Blowing people off the boats, out of the paddies, down from the trees. Blood lust. I can't think of a better way to describe it. Caught up in the moment. ... It was a slaughter. No better than lining people up on the edge of a ditch and shooting them in the back of the head. I was doing it enthusiastically.

You begin at that point to understand how genocide takes pace. I consider myself a decent man, but I did mow those people down from my helicopter. A lot of people we were killing in the morning were the same people who were trying to kill us the night before. I tried to compensate in my head that most of the people we were wasting were the enemy. But I could appreciate in a black way that you can take anybody given the right circumstances and turn him into a wholesale killer. That's what I was. I did it. Bizarre. That's what it was. It was very bizarre.