Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology

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  • "Experimenter": 2015 film on Stanley Milgram

    This is a beautifully shot film by Michael Almereyda, featuring Peter Sarsgaard and Wynona Ryder.
    “Experimenter” is based on the true story of controversial experimental social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who at Yale University in 1961-1962 conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans obedience. The film not only illustrates well the concept of the Milgram experiment, but also a few other experiments during his career.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1VOZhwRvWo

    Milgram was interested in finding out why people’s behavior changes when they know they are not responsible for something. When they do something because “they are told to”, they seem to be able to dissociate themselves form the consequences of their actions. (or lack of thereof).

    Milgram wanted to find an answer to the question: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”. This happened in the same period of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, which also revolved around the concept of following orders and thereby not being able to let own personal morals take the upper hand. The danger of which was discussed by Hannah Arendt in “The Banality of Evil”. (It is also worthwhile to note that earlier this year (2015) the movie “The Eichmann Show” appeared, from director Paul Andrew Williams. It tells what happened form the point of view of the person responsible for directing the televised, live transmission of whole trial which was broadcasted to the whole world. Earlier, in 2012 the same story was told form the point of view of Hannah Arendt, in the film with the eponymous name.)

    The Experiment goes as follows:
    A test person (T) in one room asks questions to another “test” person (L) in another room. L is punished with an electric shock administered by T if the answer is wrong. They cannot see each other, and communication only happens form T to L via a microphone. L answers to questions by pressing a button, which blinks a light in T’s room so he can evaluate the answer. If the answer is wrong, T is instructed to flip a switch that delivers an electric shock to L. There is a whole row of switches, each one with a higher voltage. T is instructed that after every wrong answer he must use the next switch, thus delivering a higher shock to L. The switches ranged from 15 to 450 volts.

    When T refuses to administer a shock then the examiner E gives him a series of orders/statements to ensure that he continues. There were 4 statements and if one was not obeyed then T receives the next statement:

    Statement 1: please continue.
    Statement 2: the experiment requires you to continue.
    Statement 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
    Statement 4: you have no other choice but to continue.

    Aim of the experiment
    See how far T is willing to go (up to the last switch), following the instructions/orders.
    See if and from what point T will decide to abandon the experiment for refusing to cause more pain to L.

    Outcome
    It was expected that many would stop when hearing L is in pain, but it turned out that most subjects T carried on when instructed to do so, even if they were manifestly displeased/uncomfortable and would have preferred to stop. At some point most did want to stop but they were just instructed they just had to carry on and follow the instructions of the experiment, that this is all part of the experiment.
    65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. T) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants continued to 300 volts.

    Conclusion
    People are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure, even to the extent of hurting an innocent human being. Obedience to authority is ingrained in most of us from the way we are brought up.
    People tend to obey orders from other people if they recognise their authority as morally right and/or legally based. This response to legitimate authority is learned in a variety of situations, for example in the family, school and workplace.

    Remarks
    (0) A newspaper ad asked for volunteers to participate in a scientific research experiment aimed at improving memory. It is form the responses that candidates were selected to be T. Participants were 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area.
    (1) It is presented to T as if both T and L are randomly selected and participating in the experiment. In reality L is an accomplice/confederate. There are two roles to be taken: the Teacher and the Learner. When T can chose a hand to determine who will be the Teacher and who will be the Learner, it is predetermined that T will have “Teacher” written on the little paper that is in the hand he selects.
    (2) The experiment does not revolve around two but three entities: the Teacher person (T) whose obedience is going to be tested, the other, fake participant Learner (L) who is an accomplice, and thirdly the conductor/leader/Examiner (E) of the experiment who sits in the same room as T and pretends to observe and take notes. He wears a lab coat so as to simulate the authority of an uniform. The role of E is crucial, as it fulfills the role of “commanding authority” to which T “must” obey. During the experiment some T asked who was going to take responsibility if something happened to L, and then they seemed to accept carrying on when the answer given by E was “I am taking responsibility”.
    (3) Even though L cannot talk directly to T, T does hear the noise L is making, through the wall. As a consequence, T will actually hear L screaming form pain and after a while begging to stop.
    (4) L does not really get electrical shocks, and the reactions/comments made by L with the intention to be heard through the wall by T, are actually prerecorded messages on tape.
    (5) In order to give T an idea of what these shocks feel like, before the experiment starts, T is administered a small shock of 45 volts. When asked to guess how much they had received, most of them thought it was more (eg. 75).
    (6) When both T and L visit the room where L will reside, L cares to mention he has a heart condition. This is done so as to add extra psychological weight on T’s conscience.

    A short presentation of the experiment:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyokVUs

    A 1962 documentary on the experiment:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXn2SZfwuSc

    More on the Milgram and other related experiments:
    http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

    The Agentic State
    Milgram defined this state as the one an individual is in when he yields to authority, and in doing so becomes alienated form his own actions. Typical statements we hear from individuals in agentic state are:
    – I’m just doing my job / It’s not my job
    – I don’t make the rules
    – I just follow orders
    – This is our store / company policy

    Other experiments shown in the film
    Milgram received quite some criticism about his experiment, mainly about it being unethical and forcing people to inflict pain and possibly causing psychological damage. In a later debriefing session whose purpose was to refute these claims, it was shown that
    – 84% of the subjects were glad to have been in the experiment
    – 15% had neutral feelings
    – 1.3% said they experienced negative feelings.
    74% said they had learned something important about themselves and about the conditions that shape human action.
    The debriefing meetings allowed to conclude that no one showed signs of harm or had been traumatised.

    The impact of all this was that Milgram had a hard time finishing the book that was supposed to document his experiment. He did finish it, and the book appeared in 1974: “Obedience to authority: an experimental view”. [1]
    During that pause between the experiment and the publication of his book he carried out or focused on some other experiments. The film also documents these. Some of them are:

    Experiment 1: Solomon Asch’s experiment of the effect of group pressure on conformity
    Solomon wanted to analyse the effect of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments.
    There is one test person (T) and 5 fake participants. A question is asked to all, and they give an answer.
    The goal is to observe the behaviour/response of T when after a while the other 5 participants start to give wrong answer on purpose. The initial experiment was visual: "which line on the right is of the same length as the line on the left.

    Initially the fake participants give the right anwer, which is in accordance with what T thinks. But after a while they all give the same wrong answer, and T starts doubting, but it happened more than expected that T chose to give the same wrong answer a well in order to “conform”.

    Experiment 2: Another of Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments was conducted as part of a 1962 Elevator Candid Camera TV show.
    Normally people who enter an elevator turn around to face the door. Here the test subject enters an elevator, and he notices everyone already in the elevator is facing the back wall. After a while, the test subject starts to face the same direction in order to feel more “conform”.
    http://vk.com/video_ext.php?oid=91077908&id=169731762&hash=04a77d473c63fa2e&hd=3

    Experiment 3: Lost Letter technique
    This is another experiment that is documented in the film. It consists of writing hundreds of letters, putting them in stamped envelopes addressed to the same address (part of the experiment), but distributed over 4 different “addressees”. Then the envelopes would be spread throughout the city, and the experiment was to see how many of them would arrive. The contents of the letters was a simple message from Max to Walter, proposing an upcoming meeting. The results for the 4 addressees were:
    – “Communist Party” : 25% got delivered
    – “Nazi Party” : 25% got delivered
    – “Medical research Associates” : 72% got delivered
    – “Mr. Walter Carnap” : 71% got delivered.

    Experiment 4: The Small World problem
    This is the experiment which illustrates that there are less than 6 degrees of separation between you and several million strangers whom you may or may not encounter in your lifetime.

    Notes regarding the movie:
    Note 1: the film quotes from Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiographical work “Speak, Memory”:
    The cradle rocks above an abyss and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

    Note 2: The same theme of “subjects obeying an authority” also is used in Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. There are several films about this:
    • 2001 : Das Experiment, by Oliver Hirschbiegel
    • 2010 : The Experiment, by Paul Scheuring
    • 2015 : The Stanford Prison Experiment, by Kyle Patrick Alvarez.

    _
    [1] Text version of the book: http://www.shimer.edu/live/files/338-obediencemilgrampdf

    #Philip_Zimbardo
    #Solomon_Asch
    #obedience #authority