California Researchers Reenact Milgram Torture Experiments
Researchers at California's Santa Clara University have replicated a controversial mid-century psychological experiment that tests subjects for their willingness to harm others for the sake of following orders, Reuters reports.
Largely known as the Milgram Experiment, this early foray into social psychology, while capturing the public imagination since its findings were published in 1961, has been looked upon as a gruesome episode in psychological research, blindly pursuing knowledge while ignoring the fragility of the human mind and conscience.
In the experiment, the test subject -- called a 'teacher' -- is given a list of word questions and a control panel, capable of delivering electric shocks. On the other side of a blind partition, a 'learner' sits and tries to answer the teacher's questions correctly, each incorrect answer warranting a shock of an increasingly high voltage. Unbeknownst to the teacher, the learner is in fact an actor, and not at all a subject of the experiment. While the learner is not in fact being shocked, the teacher is fully convinced that he is, hearing pained shouts following each flick of the switch. Researchers stand by to observe for how long these 'teachers' will inflict pain upon their 'learners,' simply for the reason that the researchers order them to continue.
Unbelievably, in those early experiments, 82.5 percent of the test subjects continued to deliver shocks after the 'learner' began hollering in pain. Most of them continued after he howled in pain, complaining of heart trouble. The above video, fourth in a five part series, fully documents those original experiments.
What's even more shocking than those figures is that Professor Jerry Burger, and his colleagues at SCU, have performed an experiment that so many within the scientific community have called unethical.
With the above video standing as evidence, the original Milgram experiments were very well documented, the experiments well conducted. We understand that recent events, involving terrorists, or U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib for instance, have again called to mind the malleability of the human will in the presence of authority figures. That being said though, we can find absolutely no reason for these experiments -- causing such terror themselves -- to be repeated.
[From: Reuters]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
salome said 10:30PM on 12-23-2008
"The Simpson's" did it the best,they shorted out the entire town's power supply !
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