Intresting experiment

[changed]

Well i was learning about this at school but I forgot what it was called. It was this psychology experiment where they could see how far some one would go just because someone told them to. This experiment was banned because it would usually screw some one up mentally. Because they knew that they could kill some one just by being told to. So in my class we were showed a video of the experiment being used. What they did was tell someone who volunteered that this was a memory experiment using electricity. So every time some one answered a question wrong the amount of voltage goes up. This was just all and act and no one really got electricuted but 9 out of 12 people went up to the end which was 450 volts. If some one could tell me what this experiment was called i would post a video or something.

[Specialis Sapientia]

The Milgram experiment I have seen about 4 versions of that experiment, read about it and talked about it in psychology class. Very interesting experiment

[changed]

^^^^^^^^^^ THANKS Here is some stuff i found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment Here is part 1 of the video i watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk

[DuB]

Did you hear about this about a month ago? Caused quite a stir...

[Black_Eagle]

I never understood why people are so shocked and appalled at the results of this experiment. Obviously, the subjects, likely being completely ignorant to what voltage a fatal electrical shock is, would continue with the test assuming all safety procedures have been put in place and assuming that whoever set the experiment up knew what they were doing. The way it's worded whenever I hear about this experiment makes it seem like the subject, even if they knew undoubtedly that they were causing the other person harm and not just pain, would continue with the experiment just because a guy in a lab coat told them to. I'd like to see what happens when they test a batch of non-ignorant subjects.

[DuB]

Well, in the original experiments most subjects certainly believed that there was a very real possibility that they were harming the learner, perhaps even fatally. The experimenter is instructed to assure the subjects that "while the shocks are painful, they will not cause permanent damage"--however, early into the actual experiment the learner complains that he has heart problems and asks to be excused from the experiment (the experimenter refuses). About halfway through the shocks, after much howling and beating on the dividing wall, the learner suddenly falls silent and never responds to any questions or makes any movements for the remainder of the experiment. And it's evident from observing the extremely nervous behavior of subjects that most of them take the possibility of his being in trouble very seriously. But the key point is that they know, even if the learner has been badly harmed, that responsibility for his safety lies with the experimenter. They were just doing what they were told. One thing about the Milgram experiments that's rarely discussed is all his follow-up experiments. The point wasn't simply to be a demonstration of how potentially easy it is to get people to harm others, as the common perception goes; the point was to explore which conditions led people to harm others and which deterred such obedience. They used different kinds of authority figures, varied the set of instructions, added multiple "teachers," some of whom defied the experimenter and some who didn't, etc. In the original, classic experiment, 65% of subjects went all the way to the highest shock (ominously labeled "XXX"), but in subsequent experiments they had compliance rates that ranged from 0% to around 90%.

[Photolysis]

I never understood why people are so shocked and appalled at the results of this experiment. Because it shows how many people will do something evil because an authority figure told them to, and it shows just how weak-minded the general population is. It doesn't reflect very well on the human race as a whole.

[changed]

Did you hear about this about a month ago? Caused quite a stir... My teacher told us about this too.

[Alric]

Yea I hear about this one all the time. Though we all know how effect stuff is like that from peer pressure. If your idiot friends can talk you into something, then is it really surprising that a well educated person who is pushing all your buttons can talk you into something? What I take away from it however, is that its never 100%. So no matter how manipulative they may be, there are always some people who will do the right thing. If you watch videos like that, and you tell yourself that you are one of them, then you will be.