The man who shocked the world. Stanley Milgram.

ashleyd · Post by **ashleyd** » 01 Feb 2006 14:46

Hey guys, Im doing a project on the Stanley Milgram Experiment on Obiedience to Authority and I was wondering what you're opinion on it was.

If you dont know:
He created an experiment where test subjects where to belive they were giving real shocks to people if they answered a matching question falsly. The subject didn't know the other person was an actor, just acting hurt from the shock. Shocks went from 15 volts(harmless) to 450 volts(dangerous).

The actor would scream for himself to be let out, and complain of a heart condidtion. saying stuff like, "you cant keep me here!", "my heart is bothering me let me out!" and other stuff like that.
People still kept shocking him. But he was just an actor. The point is to see how far regular people will go when being under the pressure of the experimentor( authority)

Most people said they wanted to stop, but the experimentor said things like,
"please continue"
"the experiment requires you to continue"
and "you have no choice you must continue"
after that then they were allowd to stop shocking the actor. But usually they would continue with the shocks.

65% of people gave the maximum shock to the person.

so yeah, whats your opinion on it? Do the results outwiegh the ethics question? I mean, 65 percent of people gave a dangerous shock to a man begging to be let go because of his heart condition.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 01 Feb 2006 16:28

Interesting experiment. However, when you ask "do the results outwiegh the ethics question?", you must already know the answer because today, this type of testing , with either humans or animals as subjects, is not allowed. It is obvious that the ethics outweigh the results of the study.

Onto another topic, I was completely astonished when I watched actual footage from the Milgrim experiment. My entire class of 900 was pretty-much awestruck as to how human beings could "torture" other human beings, going completely against their morals, simply because another person in a position of power was telling them they needed to. We all felt that WE wouldn't have made the same decisions as the subjects, but 65% is a hefty number . . .

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 01 Feb 2006 16:32

Naw, people just like torturing people, so if the somebody tells you it's ok....ZAAAAAAPPPPP!

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » 01 Feb 2006 17:04

I think it is more of an experiment of what people are willing to do when they won't suffer any consequence!

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 01 Feb 2006 17:16

Americans are incapable of torture. Just ask Alito. The worst we do is, uh, extreme interrogation or something.

Zeb Jackson · Post by **Zeb Jackson** » 02 Feb 2006 14:04

the worst we do is attack other countries in self defense.....so guy from germany says "we did it first" and then were like v"BULL CRAP SIMPSONS did it first!" and then theres a war....

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 02 Feb 2006 14:22

I can see how other people would keep doing it.

I don't see how I could see myself doing it though. Especially since I don't like authority

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 02 Feb 2006 17:00

I think it was partly due out of curiosity.

NotHisRealName · Post by **NotHisRealName** » 03 Feb 2006 05:00

C-Fan wrote:Americans are incapable of torture. Just ask Alito. The worst we do is, uh, extreme interrogation or something.

I thought it was a case of 'Creative Questioning'?

Troyson · Post by **Troyson** » 09 Feb 2006 19:17

this experiment is a perfect example of what happened during the holocaust.

The Nazi soldiers were told to kill other people, and if they did not obey they would be killed or punished. It just shows how if people are given orders to follow, whether it is torture or killing, they will most likely follow through with it if there are no consequences for doing it.

Guest_2 · Post by **Guest_2** » 09 Mar 2006 16:36

Troyson wrote:this experiment is a perfect example of what happened during the holocaust.

The Nazi soldiers were told to kill other people, and if they did not obey they would be killed or punished. It just shows how if people are given orders to follow, whether it is torture or killing, they will most likely follow through with it if there are no consequences for doing it.

That's actually why he conducted this study. He wanted to know why the nazi's commited their atrocites

Brad_R · Post by **Brad_R** » 08 Jan 2007 15:24

yeah. I was just about to post a thread about milgrams article. This article is exaclty why the US. Gov. is so fearful of communism. I believe it is 66% that will torture (100-34). Hence my MSN name is 66% are sheep. This is what I think. Get the breakdown of the government. How many people are in leadership. I'm guesing it's going to be close to 30%. THey are the ones that give the orders. The rest of us take them. Prime example of this study in action, I believe it has been mentioned alread, the Iraq war. How the heck did that happen. Don't anwer that please, I'm sure that is another thread. Anyway, I believe our current goverment, and most govements are close to the ratios in the study. Am I a droog than? Are we all droogs? I don't think so, I think you take the ratio of people that are into footbag and divide that by the population you will get a number much less than 34%. Heck, steve goldberg could do the calculation(I have no computer skills). Anyway, I believe footbag players are indepened in their minds. Some say it hasn't been exposed. Kenny Schults-pdx barrage-'83. Also, I've been trying to pimp footbag in Iowa City for a while, and it surely isn't catching on. Does this make sense, I've been awake too long.

Brad_R · Post by **Brad_R** » 08 Jan 2007 15:28

oh yeah. If you haven't discussed this in your class, check this url out.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/view/
If your class was last semester, I havn't checked the date on this thread, i'm sorry for postig. However, I like to debate things even when I'm not in class

Brad_R · Post by **Brad_R** » 08 Jan 2007 15:29

March 10th last year, wow doggy.

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 11 Jan 2007 00:12

Senor Grommet wrote:It is obvious that the ethics outweigh the results of the study.

I disagree. No one got shocked, no one was forceably made to do anything other than to have someone verbally urge them to go through with the experiment. The worst thing to happen is that some people found out a little more about themselves and how bad they can really be when pressed by an outsider. I don't see an ethical issue here.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 11 Jan 2007 21:09

This test always seems like a bunch of bullshit to me like it proves something real big, when it really doesn't.

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 12 Jan 2007 11:52

BainbridgeShred wrote:This test always seems like a bunch of bullshit to me like it proves something real big, when it really doesn't.

I agree. This test doesn't prove anything. How many test subject were used? That's the main problem with "tests." There's never a substantial number of test subjects to make the results even close to being considered valid. You can't test 100 people and determine that 66% of all Americans are willing to kill eachother simply because they were told to do so. Those 100 people could've come from... Ah hell, I don't know, somewhere that has an abundance of stupid people or something.

The only way (IMO) to get substantial, valid test results, is to have at least 10,000 test subjects. Any less than that, and it's just bullshit.

Apparently, I'm a phsycotic retard, who has a 66% chance of torturing some dude I've never met just because I was told to, even though there is an absolute 0% chance of that happening. "LDRSHIP," it's drilled in my head. It simply won't happen.