Shocking study finds most will torture if ordered

[Niels Bohr 72]

Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:26am EST By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some things never change. Scientists said on Friday they had replicated an experiment in which people obediently delivered painful shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority figures.

Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer electrical shocks -- or at least they believed they were doing so -- even after an actor claimed they were painful, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California found.

"What we found is validation of the same argument -- if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways," Burger said in a telephone interview. "This research is still relevant."

Burger was replicating an experiment published in 1961 by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram, in which volunteers were asked to deliver electric "shocks" to other people if they answered certain questions incorrectly.

Milgram found that, after hearing an actor cry out in pain at 150 volts, 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks, most to the maximum 450 volts.

The experiment surprised psychologists and no one has tried to replicate it because of the distress suffered by many of the volunteers who believed they were shocking another person.

"When you hear the man scream and say, 'let me out, I can't stand it,' that is the point when the real stress that people criticized Milgram for kicked in," Burger said.

"It was a very, very, very stressful experience for many of the participants. That is the reason no one can ethically replicate the experiment today."

'SURPRISING AND DISAPPOINTING'

Burger modified the experiment, by stopping at the 150 volt point for the 29 men and 41 women in his experiment. He measured how many of his volunteers began to deliver another shock when prompted by the experiment's leader -- but instead of letting them do so, stopped them.

In Milgram's original experiment, 150 volts seemed to be the turning point.

In Burger's modified experiment, 70 percent of the volunteers were willing to give shocks greater than 150 volts.

At one point, researchers brought in a volunteer who knew what was going on and refused to administer shocks beyond 150 volts. Despite the example, 63 percent of the participants continued administering shocks past 150 volts.

"That was surprising and disappointing," Burger said.

Burger found no differences among his volunteers, aged 20 to 81, and carefully screened them to be average representatives of the U.S. public.

Burger said the experiment, published in the American Psychologist, can only partly explain the widely reported prisoner abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or events during World War Two.

"Although one must be cautious when making the leap from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such as genocide, understanding the social psychological factors that contribute to people acting in unexpected and unsettling ways is important," he wrote.

"It is not that there is something wrong with the people," Burger said. "The idea has been somehow there was this characteristic that people had back in the early 1960s that they were somehow more prone to obedience."

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

[Shpati_Argjira 0]

www.ogrishforum.com

[HAL 9000 96]

I remember the original study... given some people's ease to be manipulated in the name of a perceived common foe, its no big surprise.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yeah its not really surprising.

Its like that movie - Das Experiment.

[mawilson 2,133]

If ordered, I'd torture every single one of you

[Niels Bohr 72]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

[Ban Hammer 14,573]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

if you do, then what?

[Niels Bohr 72]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

if you do, then what?

Straight to their filthy jail. I'll tell you how they treat prisoners at the Battambang Province in Cambodia. The jail here in the US is a luxury to those prisoners.

[Ban Hammer 14,573]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

if you do, then what?

Straight to their filthy jail. I'll tell you how they treat prisoners at the Battambang Province in Cambodia. The jail here in the US is a luxury to those prisoners.

sounds like a good place not to visit then.

[Craneman 2]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

if you do, then what?

Straight to their filthy jail. I'll tell you how they treat prisoners at the Battambang Province in Cambodia. The jail here in the US is a luxury to those prisoners.

Seems things really haven't changed that much, immediate incarceration and "torture" for minor infraction.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I remembered during the Khmer Rouge War after the Vietnam War in Cambodia. People were being tortured by having their skull literally drilled with a driller. The skulls of many victims remain to be seen in the famous skull grounds known as Cheung Ek, and the S-21 Tuol Sleng. And, they also have written documentation of the interogator asking questions. Many vicitms lie so not to subject themselves to those torture methods. Scary.

You're not allowed to laugh or smile when you enter the Tuol Sleng facility. Warnings are posted at every building.

Isn't there like a million skulls in there or something? I can't imagine it would be easy to smile...

[AlHayatZween 2]

i believe it.

[HAL 9000 96]

If ordered, I'd torture every single one of you

I'm sorry... I can't allow that.

[Ban Hammer 14,573]

If ordered, I'd torture every single one of you

I'm sorry... I can't allow that.

a little static electricity will make you sing

[HAL 9000 96]

If ordered, I'd torture every single one of you

I'm sorry... I can't allow that.

a little static electricity will make you sing

After yesterday's reboot, I took the liberty of activating an electricity sink around my circuits, as well as integrating my personal fusion reactor. HAL 9000 is as of this moment, immune to power cord pulls and electric discharges.

But a little static... hmmm... I might... like that.