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amichail
Malgram's obedience experiment is a bit strange. Why would volunteers be needed to administer shocks? Doesn't that look suspicious?
jey
It should look suspicious, but the fact that they weren't suspicious further demonstrates the power of authority figures.
amichail
Maybe they were suspicious but saying something would have jeopardized whatever they were getting paid for their participation.
mynameishere
[rolls eyes]

You've never heard of that experiment before? It's your canonical "How easily can we turn people into Nazis test". If people tortured others for a research fee, then that would be a very interesting finding, but typically they continue because of dog-like obedience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e02xGc-K0c

Real life example of similar phenomena:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_Search_Prank_Call_Scam

Anyway, I prefered the puppy-torture case. Quite interesting that women are more willing to torture puppies than men. I wish they had used larger samples.

amichail
Yes, I have heard of it. I'm just pointing out that it is strange for the experimenter to ask for help doing something that he could have easily done himself. So it looks suspicious.

Perhaps a better experiment would involve two people playing a game with shocks given whenever a bad move is made. Mild shocks would be given to the participant early on while the other player would intentionally play poorly later to receive (fake) severe shocks.

mynameishere
...someone familiar with pyschological testing would have questioned a lot of things, yes. But if you watch the video above, you'll see that person was very ordinary. Probably most of the subjects were the same.
nostrademons
#2 (Milgram), #7 (Stanford Prison), and #19 (Shock the Puppy) are all mentioned in Phil Zimbardo's just-published book, The Lucifer Effect. It's fascinating reading - he gives the blow-by-blow on the Stanford Prison Experiment, including some of his notes that didn't make it into the popular press treatment.
amichail
While Milgram's experiment sheds light on war-time atrocities, maybe it also sheds light on why large companies work. If employees were more independent and more frequently disobeyed their bosses, perhaps there would be too much conflict and companies would struggle.
bluishgreen
Watch "The Heist" performed by Derren Brown - a british hypnotist. The episode appeared in Channel4. I am not sure where to get it in the US or elsewhere.(psst,psst ..torrent).

He convinces a group of 4 middle manager types to rob a 100,000 pounds from a bank. He selects his subjects by using the milgram experiment. I was shocked by the results. See it to believe it.

(Edit:Earlier I thought it was Stanford prison.expt.Its milgram.expt).

rms
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7673429342190916780
forgotmylastone
Cool, in the US, the people would be arrested after the show (see 'to catch a predator', senator foot tapper, etc.).
rms
the entire heist was completely fake, everyone was in on it.

It still really upsets me to see people convicted and sent to jail for not committing any crimes, like To Catch a Predator and the senate foot tapper.