In 2010 I worked on a Dateline NBC television special replicating classic psychology experiments, one of which was Stanley Milgram's famous shock experiments from the 1960s. We followed Milgram's protocols precisely: subjects read a list of paired words to a “learner” (an actor named Tyler), then presented the first word of each pair again. Each time Tyler gave an incorrect matched word, our subjects were instructed by an authority figure (an actor named Jeremy) to deliver an electric shock from a box with toggle switches that ranged in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts (no shocks were actually delivered). In Milgram's original experiments, 65 percent of subjects went all the way to the end. We had only two days to film this segment of the show (you can see all our experiments at http://tinyurl.com/3yg2v29), so there was time for just six subjects, who thought they were auditioning for a new reality show called What a Pain!
Contrary to Milgram's conclusion that people blindly obey authorities to the point of committing evil deeds because we are so susceptible to environmental conditions, I saw in our subjects a great behavioral reluctance and moral disquietude every step of the way. Our first subject, Emily, quit the moment she was told the protocol. “This isn't really my thing,” she said with a nervous laugh. When our second subject, Julie, got to 75 volts and heard Tyler groan, she protested: “I don't think I want to keep doing this.” Jeremy insisted: “You really have no other choice. I need you to continue until the end of the test.” Despite our actor's stone-cold authoritative commands, Julie held her moral ground: “No. I'm sorry. I can just see where this is going, and I just—I don't—I think I'm good. I think I'm good to go.” When the show's host Chris Hansen asked what was going through her mind, Julie offered this moral insight on the resistance to authority: “I didn't want to hurt Tyler. And then I just wanted to get out. And I'm mad that I let it even go five [wrong answers]. I'm sorry, Tyler.”
Our third subject, Lateefah, became visibly upset at 120 volts and squirmed uncomfortably to 180 volts. When Tyler screamed, “Ah! Ah! Get me out of here! I refuse to go on! Let me out!” Lateefah made this moral plea to Jeremy: “I know I'm not the one feeling the pain, but I hear him screaming and asking to get out, and it's almost like my instinct and gut is like, ‘Stop,’ because you're hurting somebody and you don't even know why you're hurting them outside of the fact that it's for a TV show.” Jeremy icily commanded her to “please continue.” As she moved into the 300-volt range, Lateefah was noticeably shaken, so Hansen stepped in to stop the experiment, asking, “What was it about Jeremy that convinced you that you should keep going here?” Lateefah gave us this glance into the psychology of obedience: “I didn't know what was going to happen to me if I stopped. He just—he had no emotion. I was afraid of him.”
Our fourth subject, a man named Aranit, unflinchingly cruised through the first set of toggle switches, pausing at 180 volts to apologize to Tyler—“I'm going to hurt you, and I'm really sorry”—then later cajoling him, “Come on. You can do this…. We are almost through.” After completing the experiment, Hansen asked him: “Did it bother you to shock him?” Aranit admitted, “Oh, yeah, it did. Actually it did. And especially when he wasn't answering anymore.” When asked what was going through his mind, Aranit turned to our authority, explicating the psychological principle of diffusion of responsibility: “I had Jeremy here telling me to keep going. I was like, ‘Well, should be everything's all right….’ So let's say that I left all the responsibilities up to him and not to me.”
Human moral nature includes a propensity to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow kin and group members, plus an inclination to be xenophobic, cruel and evil to tribal others. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but conflicting moral tendencies that lie deep within.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
Comment on this article at ScientificAmerican.com/nov2012
This article was originally published with the title Shock and Awe.
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12 Comments
Add CommentMilgram's original experiment took place in the 1960's. Nazi atrocities were still fresh in people's minds, and much of the world was in the grip of totalitarian governments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact that the subjects repeatedly hit the switch, and that a majority carried on all the way to the end, is blind obedience.
The fact some were disturbed or conflicted by their actions makes this worse.
Having watched film of the original experiment several times, I think your "blind obedience" statement is not accurate. Milgram's subjects expressed as much ambivalence as yours did. Many of them obeyed (as some of your subjects did), but not blindly: they objected to the commands even as they did so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe would like to think that we would not commit atrocities - we think, "Surely I would not obey" - but the fact is, even those who went all the way with the shock experiments had major doubts. Yet they did what they were told by authority figures. In other words, just because we're "moral" people doesn't mean we'll do the right thing. That was true in Milgram's time, and it's still true.
The most heartening thing on the Milgram tapes is watching those who stood up to authority, even though they were intimidated. It's powerful to watch, and it reminds me of the moment in "Huckleberry Finn" when Huck decides he can't bring himself to betray Jim, even if it means going to hell, as he thinks he will for helping a slave. It's a wonderful and thought-provoking moment. All these examples lead us, rightfully, to ask ourselves what really is our most "moral" choice in a situation.
Michael, while I usually appreciate a lot of what you write and say, I have to point out some serious problems with this replication and with your conclusions about Milgram's initial study. I agree with what Sheldon and Roger wrote. Re-red Milgram's research article. He does not say that we "blindly" follow. Much of the article is about the troubled conflicting feelings that his participants show.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurthermore, the idea that authority to a TV show and authority to a university professor conducting a experiment are two very different things.
Something that hasn't been mentioned but should is sample population and sample size ignorance. To replicate an experiment directly, one should sample in the same way. Look at your population: actors and actresses. Hmmm, what about actors and actresses could account for your idea of a decrease in blind obedience? Personality and disposition could have accounted for "your" interpretations. The career choice itself many times suggests disobedience from parents and social norms. Might this have influenced your ideas of the results.
Michael, you write with such conviction much of the time, but here I think the correct amount of homework was not done. It is because of you that I exercise my skepticism in the first place. Replication with 6 non-random participants is highly unconvincing whatever the results may have been, and I am not sure your interpretation of Milgram's conclusion is justified.
I remember Milgram's experiment, as there was a TV special on it sometime later (I can't remember when). His experiment was compared to the Nazi guards performing atrocities on the Jews, as they felt that they had to obey orders, somewhat like some of the study subjects felt. Some of the subjects later deeply suffered severe remorse, even though they were told after the experiment that they had not actually harmed the actor. I think this is because, at the time, they knew that they had consented to hurting someone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought that Milgram's experiment was unethical and morally wrong, and I think the same of the 2010 study. I also do not consider it to be comparable to the Nazi guards, as they might have been murdered for refusing to obey orders. I would not consider it to true science, unless the subjects were advised in advance that they could withdraw from the experiment at any time.
"I would not consider it to true science, unless the subjects were advised in advance that they could withdraw from the experiment at any time."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey were advised in advance that they had the right to withdraw. All current approved experiments must give their participants the right ot withdraw.
I believe this modern experiment has one glaring flaw: these individuals were told they would be on television. The simple act of observation changes behavior - and the idea of being on national television alters an individual's behavior (many shows now televise their auditions). The individual may be weighing how their mother, father, aunt, brother, friends, whoever, would view their actions. In light of this, they may choose to take the moral high-ground, where otherwise, they may not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo really, the experiment detailed in this article is not reflective of the results of Milgram's expiriment.
That was not clearly stated in the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also saw a program about Milgram's experiment. If it was the same one you saw (a part of the Discovery Channel's "Curiosity" series called "How Evil Are You?" & hosted by actor/filmmaker Eli Roth), that show clearly stated that Milgram's "researcher" did tell both "subjects" they could quit at any time, but would bully them into continuing whenever they tried to quit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Milgram, subjects weren't advised in advance they could ask for an out. At 150, conspiring 'learners' were instructed to demand to be released from the experiment. If they and the teacher had been given a way out, the experiment would have been terminated. Milgram summary: http://theunboundedspirit.com/obedience-to-authority-the-milgram-experiment/ More variations from Milgram: http://www.facinghistory.org/matter-obedience
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not sure we're talking about the same TV program. The program I saw was in the late 60's or early 70's. I don't know if the Discovery Channel was even around then. I don't think that the participants were told that they could withdraw from the experiment, and some of them suffered from severe remorse after. I would consider this to be unethical, and possibly immoral. In Michael Shermer's experiment, if the subjects were told they could withdraw, but did not when they wanted to, then I think that this is, at least partly, their own psychological process operating, and would not consider this unethical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe book Hitler's Willing Executioners reports that Nazi leaders
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgenerally did not try to force Germans to hurt or kill Jews.
On the contrary, they often told soldiers they were not required
to do this -- but many were eager to do it.
Shermer's Eye strayed a distance from rational objectivity in The Alpinists of Evil, employing tendentious verbiage and choosing examples more propagandistic than scientific.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn choosing an easy target for his thesis ("Nazi climbers ascending into the thin air of evil abound") he failed to employ lesser-known examples such as the leaders of Israel's internal security agency, Shin Bet.
The Gatekeepers,an Oscar-nominated documentary film, vividly details the learning curve of Shin Bet commanders of the last three decades, who candidly admit on camera to beginning their respective terms of office advocating brutal tactics - evil per se - only to ultimately learn those were ineffectual methods of control over the residents of the occupied territories of the West Bank.
On the other hand, choosing such lesser-known examples might be seen as politically inadviseable in a scientifically objective periodical.