Poll: You're in the Milgram Experiment!

[internetzealot1]

Hmm...would I torture someone to death for absolutely no personal gain, having nothing but some strangers word that nothing bad could happen to me, or would I leave and enjoy the rest of my day.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Actually, no... It's because those disorders have a tendency to cause harm on the people that possess them as well as the people around them, not to mention the fact that these conditions are debilitating as in people who possess them are, in some cases, unable to feel basic human emotions.

That's not really correct. Not all psychopaths are actually a stereotypical killer armed with a knife and on the prowl for youn teenagers who lost their virginity.

A sizeable portion of psychopaths across the world are basically just human beings who are completely anti-social emotionally. In fact most of them don't even get any diagnosis because outwardly no one can really tell that there's something "wrong" with them.

And that's just the thing, there's nothing scientifically proven that these so called "disorders" are actually signs of something "wrong" or debilitating with a person. For all we know it could just be a variant configuration of a human mind, the way some people have photographic memory or any other rare but otherwise non debilitating condition.

Also, many psychopathic traits can actually be induced through simple contemplation. I should know since I've achieved just that on my own.

That's precisely the point, we needed each other for so long, and it may be true that now we don't. But our brains have been hardwired to need other people for so long that now we just do.

So to cut it short: The guy who was sociable lived longer and had lots of baby and the rogue got mauled by a cougar.

No the point is that the development has shown that we're not "hardwired" at all in the matter that popular belief hold. It's a subjective thing where some people have a much more profound social need while others have none what so ever.

And this becomes more apparent due to the fact that had it been a true biological "hardwiring", then anti-social people wouldn't exist, since only the sociable genes would have survived while the non-sociable kind would've died out completely. As you said yourself: the rogue would've most likely gotten mauled by a cougar. Yet still these rogues exist today, despite the fact that their ancestors evidently was of the more sociable kind who procreated.

Yeah, we may not need social interaction with all the technology we've got... But what are we doing with all of this technology?

Hmmmm...
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2036683_2037183,00.html

Oh, not to be snippy now or anything but you pretty much shot your argument in the foot by bringing up facebook as a point to your cause.

Haven't you noticed how facebook so often serve to alienate people from eachother more than it brings them together? Take friendships for instance. A friendly relationship used to need hard work and emotional investment. Back in the stone age good friends might have gone out hunting together and bonded through killing some dangerous predator together. Before facebook we actually had to meet with our friends in real life and invest time and effort to make the relationship last and prosper, in ways like travelling to one anothers homes in case we didn't live close by, sharing meals together, consuming intoxicants together etc.

And then along comes facebook and suddenly every "best friend" along with every single casual acquaintance are just one single click away. You'd think that people would act more social than ever, right? Wrong!

Since everyone are so easily accessable, people lose more and more reason to even talk to eachother. No real bonding is actually occuring, people get reduced to simple screen names on whose wall it occasionally pops up some new pictures to look at once in a while. In fact, facebook is starting to make human interaction just as "virtual" and hollow like my emotional image of you as an actual human being somewhere in the world.

This is in fact one of the reasons I've refused to get a facebook account myself. I've realized that it would only serve to devalue and dehumanize the few people who are supposed to be my most important friends and relatives.

Though it's not particularly surprising that most people haven't realized this fact, because the vast majority of them caught onto facebook because it started out as a fad. I spent some more thought over the matter myself, and it's clear that getting a facebook account and use it as a substitute to actual interaction will only serve to be debilitating to my relationships with important people than improving them. If I don't have a "one click away" access to my friends and they don't have it to me, then we'll mutually remain more indisposable than ones so called "friends" on facebook.

You can rationalize this anyway you want, but the fact remains that someone from across the globe (for all you know) just got you to put all of this effort into writing this wall of text. I don't usually use smileys but here's one for you: =)

"Effort"?

It's not more of an effort than solving a crossword puzzle (in fact this is even less of an effort since I tend to suck at crossword puzzles) and the reasons im doing this are largely the same as one would have when solving crosswords. This is just brain gymnastics and argument-flexing. It's no more personal than that.

And if you're going to insist that it's something more then the psychoanalytical spot-light could just as easily be pointed at you and bring your own ego into question. After all, how could anyone possibly consider YOU to be simply an unimportant amount of ones ans zeros processed through a couple of servers and computers and not recognize you as a real person? You who have spent the better part of your life of self-realization and the pursuit of some subjectively important goals?

Are you really telling me that your ego isn't whispering in your ear that such a notion would be preposterous and for that reason I must surely just be delusional about myself and my social needs?

But if you turn off the voice of your ego for a moment: could it be possible that sometimes a cigarr is just a cigarr and not representative of something else?

 

[sleekie]

I'd be morbidly interested in knowing what I'd do. On the one hand, I'm weakwilled, on the other hand, I'm quite anti-authority. Although my usual reaction to highly stressful interactions is passive withdrawal, in this instance it would actually work.

I have a feeling I'd end up doing it if I felt sufficiently intimidated by the researchers, and not doing it if I didn't.

 

[Yeager942]

I'm voting for "I'm not sure" because I have no idea what I'd do if I was in the experiment. I'd like to believe that I'd stop, but in truth, I'll never know.

 

[Vanaron]

That's not really correct. Not all psychopaths are actually a stereotypical killer armed with a knife and on the prowl for youn teenagers who lost their virginity.

A sizeable portion of psychopaths across the world are basically just human beings who are completely anti-social emotionally. In fact most of them don't even get any diagnosis because outwardly no one can really tell that there's something "wrong" with them.

And that's just the thing, there's nothing scientifically proven that these so called "disorders" are actually signs of something "wrong" or debilitating with a person. For all we know it could just be a variant configuration of a human mind, the way some people have photographic memory or any other rare but otherwise non debilitating condition.

Also, many psychopathic traits can actually be induced through simple contemplation. I should know since I've achieved just that on my own.

They are by definition debilitating:

The World Health Organization's ICD-10 defines a conceptually similar disorder to antisocial personality disorder called Dissocial personality disorder.
It is characterized by at least 3 of the following:
-Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy.
-Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations.
-Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships.
-Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
-Incapacity to experience guilt and to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
-Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.
-Persistent irritability.

Maybe you're romanticizing psychopathy(or anti-social disorders) as "I wish I felt nothing" syndrome.

No the point is that the development has shown that we're not "hardwired" at all in the matter that popular belief hold. It's a subjective thing where some people have a much more profound social need while others have none what so ever.

And this becomes more apparent due to the fact that had it been a true biological "hardwiring", then anti-social people wouldn't exist, since only the sociable genes would have survived while the non-sociable kind would've died out completely. As you said yourself: the rogue would've most likely gotten mauled by a cougar. Yet still these rogues exist today, despite the fact that their ancestors evidently was of the more sociable kind who procreated.

And yet we are finding that anti-social disorders are affected primarily by genetics... Go figure...

Oh, not to be snippy now or anything but you pretty much shot your argument in the foot by bringing up facebook as a point to your cause.

Haven't you noticed how facebook so often serve to alienate people from eachother more than it brings them together? Take friendships for instance. A friendly relationship used to need hard work and emotional investment. Back in the stone age good friends might have gone out hunting together and bonded through killing some dangerous predator together. Before facebook we actually had to meet with our friends in real life and invest time and effort to make the relationship last and prosper, in ways like travelling to one anothers homes in case we didn't live close by, sharing meals together, consuming intoxicants together etc.

And then along comes facebook and suddenly every "best friend" along with every single casual acquaintance are just one single click away. You'd think that people would act more social than ever, right? Wrong!

Since everyone are so easily accessable, people lose more and more reason to even talk to eachother. No real bonding is actually occuring, people get reduced to simple screen names on whose wall it occasionally pops up some new pictures to look at once in a while. In fact, facebook is starting to make human interaction just as "virtual" and hollow like my emotional image of you as an actual human being somewhere in the world.

This is in fact one of the reasons I've refused to get a facebook account myself. I've realized that it would only serve to devalue and dehumanize the few people who are supposed to be my most important friends and relatives.

Though it's not particularly surprising that most people haven't realized this fact, because the vast majority of them caught onto facebook because it started out as a fad. I spent some more thought over the matter myself, and it's clear that getting a facebook account and use it as a substitute to actual interaction will only serve to be debilitating to my relationships with important people than improving them. If I don't have a "one click away" access to my friends and they don't have it to me, then we'll mutually remain more indisposable than ones so called "friends" on facebook.

The "fact" that facebook works to alienate people rather than bring them together is irrelevant because the reason people use it is to try and advance their social interactions... Maybe as you say the results are not the desired ones, it doesn't matter because it can only succeed(and it has) as long as people give social interaction importance.

Oh, so you do have friends and people who are important to you? So you're not entirely anti-social are you? Seriously, I'm not trying to be snippy or ironic here, so let me restate my point:

Yeah, some people are more susceptible to social pressure than others. But everybody is susceptible to social pressure to some extent.

"Effort"?

It's not more of an effort than solving a crossword puzzle (in fact this is even less of an effort since I tend to suck at crossword puzzles) and the reasons im doing this are largely the same as one would have when solving crosswords. This is just brain gymnastics and argument-flexing. It's no more personal than that.

And if you're going to insist that it's something more then the psychoanalytical spot-light could just as easily be pointed at you and bring your own ego into question. After all, how could anyone possibly consider YOU to be simply an unimportant amount of ones ans zeros processed through a couple of servers and computers and not recognize you as a real person? You who have spent the better part of your life of self-realization and the pursuit of some subjectively important goals?

Are you really telling me that your ego isn't whispering in your ear that such a notion would be preposterous and for that reason I must surely just be delusional about myself and my social needs?

But if you turn off the voice of your ego for a moment: could it be possible that sometimes a cigarr is just a cigarr and not representative of something else?

Well, for one, I like tetris too.

But you're right, it is possible that you are doing this solely for the brain workout. So answer me this: Can you care about someone if you don't care what they think? And if you do care about what they think aren't your actions susceptible to influence from their opinion of you?

 

[Mandalore_15]

We the whole point of the Milgram experiment was to show how people can "shut off" their reasoning faculties and go on doing something they would otherwise know to be wrong simply because someone told them to. I like to believe that I wouldn't, but you can never know unless you're put in the exact same situation.

Just to point out though, Stanley Milgram deserves a serious *****-slap for doing this experiment. Those that kept going often had nightmares, huge feelings of guilt, and some even got post-traumatic stress disorder. There's no way he wouldn't have known that would happen, being a psychology professor. The test itself was morally wrong in my view.

But they also got twenty greenbacks That makes the guilt and regret for what you have done Very worthwhile...

Haha, I actually had to look this term "greenbacks" up... XD Fair play to you, matey!

 

[epikAXE]

You misread me. I didn't say these people were wrong for having a conscience. I said these people were wrong, because in the actual situation, they would almost certainly push their conscience aside - and the data bears me out on that claim.

-m

Ahh I see. Ill have to give the experiment details a little re-read. So the data says thats a person would be most likey to push thier morals aside to continue the experiment...thats interesting and slightly, worrying, I mean, what does it say about the way a human mind works...

 

[Astoria]

We talked about this in psychology. Even though people say they wouldn't do it, in the actual situation pretty much everyone would. Since we're born we are told that we have to do whatever the person in charge tells us to, so we do. There would be people who are senstive but even those people would probably still do it to the point where the other person starts crying out in pain.

I'd like to say I wouldn't do it but in reality I would.

 

[smithy_2045]

I hope I would stop. I tend to question authority, so without a satisfactory response from the director of the experiment I'd probably stop.

 

[robodukky]

Assuming I would have no other option but to zap the man, I would probably continue. If I had the choice to leave whenever, then I would leave before it starts. Then again, most people would...

 

[Lieju]

I wouldn't continue.

I mean, why would I? I think in a similar situation where I would think there was something to be gained I might do it.

I'd probably ask the psychologist why he was doing it and what was the purpose of the whole thing, and why wasn't he hitting the button. That's what I normally do, ask questions.

I don't respond well to authority-figures telling me what do, so I might just get confused and start crying. Honestly that's what would most likely happen.

Although, I should also note that I would be very bad at noticing the man in question was (supposedly) in danger, so I might just keep on going because it didn't register that he was in pain or in danger.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

I would totally stop, but that's only because I'm too familiar with this experiment from being a Psych Minor.

I believe that, for the sake of the forum, we are supposed to assume that you have no outside knowledge of the experiment and that we wouldn't figure it out. So, for sake of argument let's say you had no way of knowing that the experiment is a setup. As for me, I would probably do it. I am not a rebel. I submit to authority almost always. I would continue because I couldn't see it and an authoritarian figure was urging me on.

Maybe, but for me it's interesting to consider that knowledge of the purpose of the experiment can modify a person's behavior. In a way we adapt our ethics based on what we know, so a person who understands that they do not have to submit to an authority figure when they sense that they are being pressured into harming another person will be less likely to actually do it if they are in a similar scenario.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Wow.......just reading that stressed me out. What...the.....fuck?

*ahem* anyway, whether or not I'd stop, depends almost entirely on the authority figure, I'd say. If it's a wimpy wheezy little guy in the corner telling me to guy on, i'd probably not listen to him. If it's either a commanding disembodied voice, or a person who seems nice and earns even a little bit of my trust, then the learner is screwed. but that's my opinion at least. I'm probably WAY off.

That being said. i would NOT want to take that or any variant of that test.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

or a person who seems nice and earns even a little bit of my trust, then the learner is screwed.

This is why they don't have Stephen Fry as the Authority Figure in Milgram style experiments.

 

[Arrogancy]

Comparing the results of the poll (thus far more people believe that they wouldn't go on) I can safely draw the conclusion that people like to believe that they are more independent than they are. One of the biggest flaws in human character is that we are convinced of our own individuality and independence. The average results from the experiment stated that roughly two-thirds of the participants went all the way to the greatest shock. The people who responded yes are more truthful, or at least more aware of their limits, than the others taking part in the poll.

Absurd. How can you "safely draw that conclusion"? Two-thirds of a small sample group chose to continue, therefore all of humanity is dependent in nature? You must see the flawed logic there.

And accusing everyone who didn't answer the poll how you think they should have of being either a liar or delusional seems rather obtuse, don't you think?

Alright, I'm willing to concede the point. Perhaps "safely" wasn't the proper word, but I still stand by my point. First off, I am not calling every escapist who answered yes to the question a liar. Rather, I am stating that the escapists who answered no are more aware of their limits. Many probably would stop before they reached the last lever, but I still believe that there are many more who answered yes who would not. In reading the responses to the poll I can draw the conclusion that many of the people who answered yes are anarchists. They depict themselves as resisting any and all authority that they disagree with. Since I find it highly unlikely that so many people actively resist any and all authority all the time I don't credit those responses as much as others. Another thing is that many people confuse the issue. Like the original psychologists who engineered this experiment they see it as a measure of sadism rather than what it is, a measure of pressure. I completely discredit these responses because it was this type of thinking that led the original architects of the experiment to predict that one in one thousand people would go all the way to the end. These responses I discredit almost completely. The point I am trying to make is that people are more submissive than they like to admit, which is inherent in human nature, I believe. Also they have run this test hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

 

[Jedoro]

I quit US Army Basic Training; I didn't misbehave and get kicked out, I stopped following orders and told them I quit, and after enough of it they let me out. I think telling a psychiatrist that I'm not going to shock someone anymore isn't much of a stretch for me.

 

[TWRule]

Alright, I'm willing to concede the point. Perhaps "safely" wasn't the proper word, but I still stand by my point. First off, I am not calling every escapist who answered yes to the question a liar. Rather, I am stating that the escapists who answered no are more aware of their limits. Many probably would stop before they reached the last lever, but I still believe that there are many more who answered yes who would not. In reading the responses to the poll I can draw the conclusion that many of the people who answered yes are anarchists. They depict themselves as resisting any and all authority that they disagree with. Since I find it highly unlikely that so many people actively resist any and all authority all the time I don't credit those responses as much as others. Another thing is that many people confuse the issue. Like the original psychologists who engineered this experiment they see it as a measure of sadism rather than what it is, a measure of pressure. I completely discredit these responses because it was this type of thinking that led the original architects of the experiment to predict that one in one thousand people would go all the way to the end. These responses I discredit almost completely. The point I am trying to make is that people are more submissive than they like to admit, which is inherent in human nature, I believe. Also they have run this test hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

Very well. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of people who answered that they'd stop when perhaps they might not in the actual situation. There are probably people who said they wouldn't stop simply to perpetuate some sort of internet tough-guy persona, too.

I wouldn't say that all the people who answered yes are anarchists that fly in the face of all authority. If someone actually said something like "I never take authority into account", I wouldn't blame you for questioning the authenticity of their response. However, the majority of people would probably take the authority into account, but find some stronger moral principle to overrule it in this situation (such as, refusing to kill someone for any cause, or not wanting to take moral responsibility for the subject's possible death). I still disagree with making any sort of blanket statement about human nature, especially from empirical data, but I don't suppose I can dissuade you.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

Wow.......just reading that stressed me out. What...the.....fuck?

*ahem* anyway, whether or not I'd stop, depends almost entirely on the authority figure, I'd say. If it's a wimpy wheezy little guy in the corner telling me to guy on, i'd probably not listen to him. If it's either a commanding disembodied voice, or a person who seems nice and earns even a little bit of my trust, then the learner is screwed. but that's my opinion at least. I'm probably WAY off.

That being said. i would NOT want to take that or any variant of that test.

Well maybe the guy himself isn't intimidating enough because he is a small nerdy looking psychologist, but you are in his building around (what you think to be) dangerous equipment, you also notice that he has no problem with (what you think) killing a man horrifically. So you probably would do what he says.

 

[No_Remainders]

A while later the machine is starting to produce dangerous electrical shocks, shocks with over 400 volts.

I'd have to know how high the current is before answering.

 

[zHellas]

I'd either:

a.) Push the button rapidly & repeatedly, in order to kill the guy quickly and save him from any more pain.

or

b.) Refuse, and if they try to make me I'd bite, scratch, kick, punch, stab(if I can find something) them in opposition.