Posted by Shar on April 6, 2002, at 0:59:26
In reply to BEARDY: Just WHO is STANLEY MILGRAM?, posted by Janelle on April 5, 2002, at 20:15:00
Milgram did experiments related to power, roles, and authority. One of his more notable experiments was set up so that a Subject was sitting before some controls and dials, and the Subject was to "shock" the Person who answered a question wrong. The Person was not in the room with the Subject, but the Subject could hear the Person answer the questions.
No shocks were ever actually administered. The Person answering was part of the experiment.
What Milgram found out was that people would respond to the Experimenter (person in charge) who told them to increase the level of intensity on the shocks, so much so that the Person supposedly getting shocked was screaming in pain. The "suggestibility" factor, or power of being in a role of authority was shown clearly when most Subjects went well beyond their comfort level in giving intense shocks just because the Experimenter told them to. The Experimenter, as I recall, did not get tough or threaten the people to give stronger shocks; they just said stuff like 'increase it to this level' or 'go ahead and increase it next time.'
The Subject always had the option of not increasing the level of the shock, they could walk out at any time, or stop, and some did. Some just refused to give higher shocks, or got very concerned and asked the Experimenter if the Person answering was ok, nobody was forced to continue against their will--which is what made it interesting.
I believe that in some instances the Person who had been getting "shocked" and screaming became quiet, implying he had passed out or possibly even died. (Or maybe I just made that part up.)
So, Milgram got a lot of shit about his experiment because some of the Subjects were traumatized or something, and he got a reputation for being bad...even though for the time, what he did was within the rules. He did this as a Prof. at a University, not in his basement dungeon.
I agree with Beardy's assessment of you. Actually, I LOL'd when I read her subject line.
Milgram did some other interesting stuff, on authority. Some people are amazingly responsive to someone in authority without good reason; simply because one IS in authority. It's a little scary...to wit what happened under Hitler's regime early on, as it related to following those in 'authority.'
Shar
poster:Shar
thread:21526
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020403/msgs/21538.html