The Milgram Experiment. Definitely one of the most unsettling obedience/conformity experiments ever run. Though not as spooky, I've always been more intrigued by the Asch conformity experiment because of how it demonstrates no need for a clear authority figure to influence people's perceptions and decisions.
The validity of the Milgram experiment has come into serious question. It seems far more likely that in actuality the results obtained were more from tipping the scales than real human behaviour. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Validity So rejoice! We’re not that bad.
@@jack0slack Don't rejoice so quickly. It's part of the process to pose challenges against research like this. The thing is that this was replicated a bunch of times in a variety of ways and always had very similar results. You also see this experiment play out in various forms all the time in real life situations. Like a person citing hospital policy about someone having to do paperwork before they can be taken all the way inside the facility even though they are having life threatening symptoms. You'd think 99% of human beings would say "fuck the policy! Doctor, nurse, somebody come quick!" But about 7/10 people will actually stick to arbitrary policies like this in that situation, even if the real policy dictates exemptions of said policy for life threatening situations. In other words, people will straight up make shit up to cause their fellow human suffering in a feeble attempt to please their masters. This is kind of how Dr. Milgram died, ironically.
But, if you're looking for a more optimistic tone, I will offer this thought, having noted that my original comment seems to be accumulating attention and I don't want to come across as a total downer: My takeaway from the Milgram experiment (and, to some degree, conformity/obedience experiments in general) is that when people are able to, and especially when they are empowered to stop and think about what it is they're being asked to do, they generally make better decisions. It's our biases and shortcuts that get us into trouble. One of Milgram's subsequent experiments involved the Teacher and Learner being familiar with each other (even familial in some cases), and far fewer participants were willing to continue the experiment in this situation. Essentially, when you stop "othering" someone, you're not as prone to trusting their safety to an authority figure, and are more inclined to intervene yourself. So be sure to practice empathy, attention, and awareness of your own biases, because that's your best defense against reflexive obedience under uncertainty.
@@itsd0nk The Milgram experiment hasn’t been repeated in a way that would show it’s validity, precisely because it was so massively unethical that it wouldn’t have been possible to do. Most of the people involved in the Milgram experiment were well aware that it was unethical as it was happening. Milgram is there’s too much of an Egotistical jerk to listen. There’s little to be learned about behaviour from the experiment itself, and a lot more to learn about unethical practice in psychology from Milgram’s own behaviour.
@@itsd0nk In that cases the neck of the reception person is on the line. If people don´t feel secure (in their job/place) they tend to follow rules not matter how bad for all envolved to be on the safe side. It´s not just authority, It´s day to day threats.
Milgram used his grad students as the “shocked”. One of them was concerned about being electrocuted and said he had heart issues. Not realizing he wouldn’t actually be shocked. Milgram took this and ran with it, making this grad student yell out before the highest voltage “please stop, I have heart issues, it won’t be able to take it”, literally begging for his life. I’m in a psych class rn and this experiment fascinates so much.
Yes its about normal people Being able to torture innocent people by just saying do it If i remember correctly it had something to do with why nazis did The things they did and noticed that normal people also do that kind of things by just saying Even If its not your Enemy or anything
@@jon3mi3s Yeah it's about obeying authority figures without question. Just because they wear a lab coat or uniform. Scary how many people will kill unquestioningly when ordered to by a perceived authority figure.
And then what happened??? Did he still proceed to shock him with the highest voltage regardless the student begging him not to do it, or did he stop and refused to continue because of that???
A few things to note: 1. The participants were told that the shocks would be painful, not dangerous. 2. The participants assumed that Yale, being such a prestigious school, would not allow an experiment that was truly dangerous. 3. In a follow-up experiment, they found that 36 of the 40 participants refused to administer the greater voltages when in the presence of a rebellious peer, which just proves what I already kind of knew. We will always need punk rock.
Honestly the additional context only proves that people overly believe the authority. They were told it was not dangerous. Maybe they should question it At the same time it's understable that this kind of obedience would be important for building complex societies. Sometimes you have to trust the system which put certain people in power. Otherwise you won't listen to a medic when they tell you they need to inject you with some junk in order to keep you alive
@@lilmelody93 I’m gonna be honest. You sound crazy. The only time there is some trace of “obedience training” is during Elementary school, ya know, WITH KIDS. Kids need to learn instructions and how to do things. Middle school has hall passes because kids aren’t responsible. High school barely has hall passes because teenagers are more mature. College doesnt even monitor students because they are responsible young adults.
Also I don’t know about you, but in a majority of my History classes, Europeans are usually depicted in a bad light from 1500-1900s. Almost like the system isnt a huge propaganda machine that no-one has noticed.
@@TyinAlaska And how many deaths could you rack up over your life, a hundred? A thousand? That is chump change compared to what an organization of misguided fanatics can achieve over the course of just a few years. You really want to go down in history, and not as just another serial killer? Start a death cult and PERHAPS you can reach the same level of infamy as Aum Sen Ryu
I studied this for psychology, Milgram’s experiment is famous for how unethical it was. 3 of the participants had seizures for the anxiety and stress the experiment caused. In the procedures, everyone was meant to be debriefed (told what the real experiment was) straight after, but he failed to do this for some until A YEAR AFTER.
How do you get stressed to the point of having a seizure *before* trying to fight the scientist? I feel like that's an obvious step they just... skipped? Absurd.
@@Wikrin many people 'fought' the orders. You have to realize that the whole setup is to make you believe the situation and that theres no room for disagreement. If they want to, they can make you believe anything. You'd be surprised how much you can manipulate people: people can even be convinced they murdered someone while they didnt. You perceive the situation as such and thus internalize the whole conflict. This causes immens amounts of stress. I'd be curious to see estrogen levels etc in the participants on the moment of the experiment AND how high they still were after debrief and weeks after the experiment. It sounds impossible that it would happen to yourself when we talk about it in hindsight, but in the moment its a drastically different story.
@@Griemz To be clear, if they didn't engage in physical conflict, they didn't "fight." "There's no room for disagreement" is horseshit, no matter the situation. Did no one there have a coherent sense of self? If someone says "do X" and X doesn't line up with what you believe, you knock some fucking sense into 'em. Tired of how nonconfrontational people are nowadays. It's entirely too convenient for people in power.
@@Wikrin that would be assault and jail. But yeah good for you bro. You're told the experiment is guaranteed to be safe by experts. People tend to overestimate their own capacities. Hearing about this in hindsight, EVERYONE believes they would act different. Truth is we know that people overestimate themselves and would very very likely act the same. Nobody likes to hear this but its absolutely true. Now that you have heard of the experiment and are aware of it, you have more chance to not 'fall' for it. You can say that its 'bullshit' but you have no argument or evidence why its 'bullshit'. So just saying its bullshit, doesnt make it bullshit. How else do you explain that basically nobody stopped the experiment? The sample size was randomized and big enough to be generalizable, so its not that those people somehow were considerably different from the norm. So yeah everyone there had a coherent sense of self 😂, they were people just like you and me who also likely would say now that they'd NEVER be manipulated like the others. You're kinda proving my point for me. On top of that, when theres someone who's disagreeing with the scientist, then people will actually refuse to do the experiment. This is because it 'breaks' the manipulation, and allows the testsubject to realize he can stand up too and be convinced that this isnt 'normal'. This further proves just how heavily manipulated they are in the first case. In psychology its well known how easy it is to manipulate people. Like for example how if you show a bit of confidence and authority by dressing a certain way and having your body language a certain way, you could walk into festivals without paying and people will think you're supposed to be there.
@@Wikrinyou ever stand up for a kid getting bullied? Ever stand up for someone getting bullied by large groups of people? Dont pretend like youre some special hero you're shit like everyone else
@@freedomdude5420 I dont think the yes man thing factors into this. This isnt a yes moment. That's more about getting out of ur comfort zone and skydiving, mounting climbing, or doing anything that's out of ur daily routine. U dont say yes to major life decisions (which includes murder), only small action decisions with short consequences.
@@lilmelody93 there was a semi-autobiographical book called no longer human written by a guy named osamu something or other where the main character is so terrified of letting someone down and what might happen if he does, that he agrees to anything that is asked of him. he actually became the leader of an underground communist faction in like 1920s japan i think? because although he’s a sociopath who doesn’t care for politics he finds it very interesting to do something he’s not meant to, definitely recommend reading it but it also includes a few quite heavy topics
I remember listening to a podcast about this experiment (might have been Radiolab?) where they talked about an aspect of it that often goes overlooked. There were two versions of the experiment performed one where the people were told "You have to keep going" or "You don't have a choice" and another where they were told things like "This is for science" or 'This is for the greater good". The studies found that the people in the first group would often reject the idea that they 'HAD' to do anything, whereas people in the second group were way more likely to keep going. Wild stuff
It's Radiolab's "The Bad Show" (aired 1/9/2012). Another aspect of the experiment that never gets talked about is that there was a version which studied TWO people at the same time. In that version, subjects also unanimously REJECTED the "you must obey" instruction.
One of the biggest myths Hollywood made was electricity restarts hearts. Defibrillators for example stop the heart fribrillating. If your heart is stopped the only thing you can do is compressions to try and keep the blood flowing.
Milgram had to run this experiment fifty times to figure out what would get that 65% compliance. He was an excellent and rigorous scientist, that enabled him to pinpoint what was most dangerous and destructive from authoritiy figures. But there was a loooong line of volunteers who told the scientists exactly where they could shove this madness and strode out. I hope they were eventually told that they had not in fact hurt or killed anyone but had been in a situation carefully engineered to disable their better angels.
this just isn't true it is one of the rare experiments in psychology that is trivial to replicate and get exactly the same result people enjoy being bootlickers. you too people don't enjoy the idea that they are bootlickers, though, which is why we reject milgrim's findings even though they are just s discovery you can replicate anytime you want :|
The "You have no choice" attempt would make me think they were threatening me and in an already shady situation I wouldn't be worried about the experiment at all anymore
"Well, your honor, a man in a lab coat told me to push the buttons." This kind of psychological experiment proves that people in positions of authority can convince people to do lots of things they normally wouldn't, like confess to a crime they never committed.
Kinda the point of the experiment. Our justice system is built on the idea that it's abnormal to hurt people just because you are told to do so without any threat to themselves. This is obviously just not true 😢 this shows us how we get horrific things like nazis in power and concentration camps. If 65% will do it with nothing but words without any threat to them in any way with just one person saying it of dubious "authority" then it seems pretty clear that almost 100% will do it with the slightest fear for themselves and their situation.
Nazis you free to go new data found that make you innocent under the law (Even if this video is fact, people are not forgiven even if you doing things just to survive from a mad man. learn from this, people only listen to emotions but listen to logic if it's benefit them in the long run)
That's why I'm somewhat glad that I have an instinct of disregarding authorities that go against my rules. One's either following rules compatible with mine, or is an anti-authority for me.
@@t.k159 Who taught you to use that "SHEEP" meme, and by what authority did they convince you it was a good idea? Guard well your heart. We are not immune.
Important context: this experiment was done shortly after WWII, and was inadvertantly getting at the question of whether Germans are inherently violent, or if all men would basically follow the same order to murder. This experiment was very politically charged from the start as it implied fascism could happen anywhere.
@@XenonNoble It's already here. Fascism is the merger of the goals of corporations and government, to do for each other what neither is allowed to do on their own. The Republic has been dead for decades now. Ask a Roman in 100 AD what he was a citizen of, and he would've said the Roman Republic. It's all a façade.
I remember studying this in psychology The teacher asked if we thought we would keep going up and we said no but based on this we know some of us absolutely would have Human obedience is really scary especially because most people don’t even realize it
I learned early on because I’ve always questioned everything. My daddy taught me to only accept cold hard facts and see life for what it is. Teachers don’t like that very much 😂
Well.. Disobeying orders could lead to your own death, as well as your family. Also gets you marked as a national traitor. So its actually quite valid to me.
The truly spooky thing is that we have been misled about the outcome of the Milgram Experiments: 1. The setup as described was merely *one* variation of dozens. 2. The observing scientist was documented as having *frequently* broke protocol-going well beyond the stated four commands-and in some cases the audio recordings reveal the scientist practically bullying the participant into continuing. 3. Across the *700* or so participants across _all_ the variations, the majority of people *refused* to continue shocking the “volunteer” (actor) being “tested” once the actor mimicked being in great pain. 4. After the exercise, participants completed a questionnaire. Many of the people who refused to proceed genuinely believed that the actor was being hurt. Conversely, many of the people who obeyed the scientist believed that it was a hoax. They spotted tells such as the check being handed as payment to the “volunteer” before proceeding as being worn (as if it’d been previously handled [which it was]), or the screams getting louder when they secretly pushed lower power switches. If you’re doubtful that participants would be suspicious of the setup, keep in mind that one of the most popular TV shows at the time was Candid Camera, a hidden camera prank show.
only one other comment I've seen in dozens mentioned any variation, and another just said the experiment was replicated. What the hell. I feel like I need to read more about this now.
People need to see this comment more. Just like with the lucifer effect experiment, people tend to show only the grim results and not the ones that instill hope too. This is very encouraging, thank you for giving us the correct details. Humans aren't completely lost yet.
@@mikehawk. many SS officers were tried in court where they pleaded not guilty for their horrific acts by stating they were not the ones responsible for their actions as they were just following orders. So the test here was just how far a person would go if someone else who had "authority" told them to without any physical force.
My Psych professor talked about this, and a lot of other horror experiments like it, and after explaining the experiment, he asked for a show of hands of who would stop. Almost everyone raised their hands. He leaned forward on his desk, smiled, shook his head, and said, "No, you wouldn't."
This is a really smug attitude that ignores that times have changed. Now, this would likely not pass ethics checks these days, but if we could run it, I imagine the results would be different because we live in completely different conditions than we did then. It’s fair to pull a ‘no you wouldn’t’ over something very impactful like, to use a common example, hiding someone in your home. But just telling some tester to fuck off and you’re going home? Oh absolutely we would stop. If it sucks hit the bricks is a much more common attitude now and often for good reason.
@@ellishale2523No. Modern values is a lie folks tell themselves. People are still cowardly, self-centered idiots who hate accepting responsibility for their actions. So the teacher was absolutely correct. It's not a big it's a feature.
@@ellishale2523 I believe thats simply an illusion. Yes, times have changed, but most patterns we live in, especially in terms of behaviour are waaaaaaaaaay older than 2 or 3 generations. Some of them date back when we where still apes or even before that. And besides that : If u exclude technological advances in the last 60 years, the world has become a much more "colder" place than it has been back then. People are more lonely, more self-centered, more materialistic or money driven and more often than not they do not give a f. about the person right next to them. Especially if they do not know them personally. Tbh in many cases it feels more like the opposite is the case.
@@Keffalos I wouldn't say the world has become more cruel. It's just really easy to manipulate a human brain. Like, shockingly easy. Everyone thinks they can't be manipulated, but even James Randi said, "Every one of us can be fooled."
If I remember correctly one of the people that refused to go on was some sort of electrician. He refused because he knew exactly just how dangerous it was and what it does. I'd imagine he faced many shocks throughout his career
As someone with permanent nerve damage in my right arm, after a single 230 V shock, electricity is no joke. This is why you should personally measure that every circuit is unsupplied, before beginning any electrical work.
It was actually the people that were ordered to keep going, told they had no choice that stopped. The people that kept going were told that this experiment would be vital in helping others, or that the actor had volunteered willingly to this experiment.
@@melineelunaWait I’m confused. Not too long ago I shocked myself with a 330v camera flash capacitor and I feel perfectly fine. Is there a reason that I’m not severely hurt?
@@truename8825 so, there are a lot of factors that can affect how serious an electrical injury is. If you don't feel any symptoms, that's just great. I would guess that a camera flash is on for a very short time, so it's possible that the shock you got wasn't long enough to cause any damage. If you feel any difference in temperature sensitivity or vague pain in the area where you got shocked, it's possible that you have mild nerve damage. If not, consider yourself lucky.
Wait, 450V is a lot and harmful? It has been many years since I have been able to feel something as small as 24V. 1 of my cousins uses electric fencing for his cattle instead of barbed wire or something else. And he has the fence hooked right up to the hydro lines not the farm house. So it has like 1,000V running thru it. I remember grabbing it with both hands and it making me jump off it a little. If it wasn’t for my rubber boots that might’ve dropped me.
Exactly! And if I remember correctly, the subjects were told they could just get up and leave at any point, stopping the experiment and face no repercussions
there’s been different experiments of this test, and in a lot of them (especially the more recent ones before it was ruled as unethical iirc) people would stop, leave and even call authorities. i remember watching something about it in my psych class a few years ago
@@atramarokis only in the more recent studies i think, and that’s when you saw more people leaving. in the original study they would pressure them to continue to see if they would.
@@FaravusGaming that more than likely means you are part of that 65 percent. They follow orders because that's what we are trained to do since birth, so when you become super stressed you fall back on whatever authority is present at the time. We literally just went through 2 years of this exact experiment.
@@HoloScope it really isn't edgy. it's psychology. your body does it to release some stress or tension. you'd definitely feel stress if you were in that situation. I laugh when I feel like shit playing a game, and that's not because I'm some psycho or joker-wannabe, it's because im a human who has that reaction to stress. it doesn't mean I think it's funny, it mean that I'm releasing tension.
Learned about this in psychology last year and the outlying cases are even weirder. One guy was so stressed out he had a seizure and one guy was so stressed out he started laughing
Yeah but this leaves a lot to question. Was the guy in the chair screaming ‘no’ or ‘stop’? Was he enjoying the pain? Was he smiling? Did they tell the button presser that the question answerer could die? I could keep going but you understand Why I don’t trust a lot of these things
@@joncook6167 many subjects were reluctant to press the button but did anyways after some coercing, the entire experiment was to test obedience to authority rolls (the scientist being the authority), and yes the button had a warning that the voltage could be very fatal. Feel free to do your research it was called the Milgrim shock experiment.
@@joncook6167 there was a perfectly good reason, even today most people choose to obey their superiors even if you think it's wrong you validate it with "well they told me to do it" we've been trained to think this way even as kids as our parents push things onto us and we learn to accept it. It has also been shown in various militaries like how kamikazes would die for their cause even though it's against human nature they are incouraged by their country or else they are shamed.
My understanding of it is, the 4th prompt: "you have no choice, you must go on" casued everyone that heard it to go "like hell I don't have a choice!" and they stopped in their tracks.
We had to learn about this entire expiring my behavioral science courses and it was even scarier than Hank made it seem. The actors made it seem very legit, said they were having heart problems, and these people still went on. I didn't sleep right for months after reading about that
@@ViCT0RiA6 That normal people will commit evils acts when ordered by a superior. More or less. It was to try to determine the guilt or innocence of rank nazi soldiers.
@@ViCT0RiA6 they wanted to find out if those in Nazi Camps had any proof to their “I was just doing what I was told”. I don’t remember the specific guard that used this defense. They wanted to know if everyday people would do truly terrible things because they were told to by authority.
Are you serious ahha, do you think college students are stupid? Do you genuinely think someone would voluntarily subject themselves to the shocks? Using this shit as empirical evidence is bunk unless you actually are shocking people which then becomes unethical. If you put people in a study where pressing a button kills a monkey most would happily do it because they know it’s not real subconsciously.
To clear this up, this is Milgrans Obedience experiment. The "prompts" (e.g. you must go on) only worked on average 3-4 times before they allowed the participant to leave. The whole point was to see how participants would be "forced" psychologically into obeying an authority figure, even in an immoral situation. The 3 factors for obedience found were Proximity, Location and Uniform, with the strongest being uniform (dropped to only 10% conformity rate when "scientist" wore their own clothes). Very cool study and was replicated in multiple versions in different countries, obviously ethics aside.
"Very cool study". Are you f-cking kidding me? Does this test seem good to you? This is f-cking crazy. And a pointless test. EVERYBODY already knew humans are fragile like that. There was no need for yet another one of these Nazi tests.
I would think the primary factor is that the authoritative figure is specifically a scientist. Someone who not only has authority, but someone who you know is more than likely operating within parameters that the government has set. My first suspicion would actually be that it is an actor before I l'd believe I actually got set up to kill someone.
This demonstrates our willingness to defer to authority, particularly when we are lead to believe (or want to believe) we have little autonomy, and it explains how normal people will become complicit in atrocities like genocide, or participate in corporations that harm their own community.
This is why I was so concerned when my coworkers and I took this personality test to determine if we were rule followers or rebels. One of the questions was if you would follow instructions from your boss, even if what they told you to do was dangerous/not your job/could get you in legal trouble. Only me and one other girl got rebel while like 20 others got rule followers. They thought *we* were in the wrong, but like, brah. At least I have a sense of self respect and preservation.
Sounds like the test gaslights people. If you follow the LAW and diso ey you boss who is rebelliously breaking the LAW then you are a rebel, not a team player or a rule follower. Who's rule? The Boss's rule. Not the rule of the law. Avoid that company. They're either unscrupulous or naive.
You have a sense of getting fired. Look. If you do a test at work, you answer what you think your Boss wants to hear. Then you do what you want when the time comes.
@@arthaiser Look, im pretty sure doing what you want after telling them what they want to hear will get you fired too. At least I'm honest and less likely to be the scapegoat in a ponzi scheme. I've also been in the workforce for nearly a decade and have never had any issues with my boss. Why? Because I have people skills and know how respectfully decine certain things. I've even, gasp, been asked to state opinions on certain topics above my pay grade because I'm not afraid to state my opinion. Confidently assume you'll be respected and you will be. Life is too short for brown nosing
Followers or rebels? This sounds like a moronic test Also dangerous/not your job/could get you in legal trouble are 3 distinct different things that have degrees and matter different amount to different ppl, thus batching em together and generalising makes the test, as i said, moronic
I remember learning about this experiment in psychology class, and the guy who created it (Milgram) mentioned in a video that he was kinda relieved when the Standford Prison Experiment took some of the attention off of him for having the most unethical study
This is the least unethical study though. Like, it studies unethical actions, but it doesn't actually do anything unethical toher than lying to the subject. There are way more unethical studies out there, and we probably don't get to hear about the worst of them.
@elaboratelime5617 it went exactly how it was supposed to. The researchers wernt getting the results they wanted so they coached the guard volunteers to be abusive.
@bobschiebel3325 it didn't go exactly how it was 'supposed ' to. the reaschers were part of the problem of why it went so bad and poorly. The resechers report to a board that set ethical guidelines and the test was not even close to following ethical guidelines. Milgrams study was completely eithcal, with the only real damage being stress in the moments of experimenting.
@@Preppybabiess They tried to simulate a prison in a college experiment to see how people would act and study what it does to them. One random group are chosen to be prison guards, another random group are the prisoners. They had to shut it down after 6 days because it got too real. The random group of "prison guards" started getting power high and were actually abusing the "prisoners" and a couple prisoners started actually having breakdowns from the abuse and conditions in the "jail".
As a psyc student, the Milgrim experiment on obedience is one of my favourites. It's genuinely one of the most interesting experiments, and one of the most influential experiments, in psychology.
@user-bl6wz4bl7s It's a long experiment, but basically it tested what a person would listen to an authority figure about.ln this case administering electric shocks. There would be 3 people in the experiment: the scientist, the person administering the shocks, and the "subject". The scientist and the subject would know what the experiment was actually about, but the person administering the shocks just thought it was like a reading test or something. The subject would be "hooked up" in a different room with a mic and asked a series of questions and if they got a question "wrong" the voltage would increase until it would go to seemingly dangerous levels. At some point, the subject would stop responding altogether but the scientist would still say to administer the shocks. This is where the obedience test kicks in. Over 50-60% of participants went the full way, long after the subject stopped responding, because they were told to by an authority figure.
@@iamathighloverfirstandaper1841would the persons know that they would be administering shocks to another person before they agree to participate? I would think some people would refuse to administer shocks at all. I know I wouldn’t.
@blondiemom25 They would be aware of administering shocks, but they wouldn't be aware of the "extent" or how far it would go, and they wouldn't be made aware that the shocks weren't real until the very end of the experiment.
@@hobisbelovedsprite1142 I can only IMAGINE what kind of person would follow instructions willfully doing what they believed may lead to another person's unjust death. Hopefully he felt shame and the experience changed him for the better in some way; never blindly follow authority.
There is an EXCELLENT episode of Radiolab about this. I recommend everyone listen to it if possible. If it helps give back some faith about humanity, Hank is only talking about the first experiment. Milgram actually repeated this experiment a bunch of different times in a bunch of different ways and all of them had a lower obedience rate and in all of them including the first, if the scientist ever got to the point where they had to use the fourth prompt of “You have no choice” the test subject ALWAYS refused to go any further. This was huge because the Nazi war criminals were on trial at the time and were using the “I had no choice, I was following orders” defense which the Milgram experiment repeatedly disproved.
Thank you, I was trying to find this about a week ago, and I couldn't remember which podcast it was or which experiment between this one and the Stanford Prison Experiment. (Though I think the podcast mentions both and the fact that both Milgram and Zimbardo went to the same high school.)
Wait, but how is that the same?? They really didn't have a choice though, they would be KILLED. This isn't the same because you are ACTUALLY allowed to back out. And soldier who said no, was probably killed, which is why so many participated. All the "good people" were dead. I genuinely don't understand how this "disproves" they were being forced. If you had to be a N@zi guard, or your entire family would be killed, would you say no?? That's a little bit..y'know... different than a WILLING SCIENTIFIC EXPIRIMENT WITH VOLUNTEERS, YKNOW??? Fully correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just SO confused. Since they were willing, they knew they were able to back out, they volunteered. H*tler probably wasn't as kind in ACTUALLY giving you a choice. I mean, if you're brave enough to take a bullet to stand by your morals, good for you, but I don't think everyone has that willpower. I mean, for N@zi soldiers it's either death if you refuse, or imprisonment by America if you agree for war crimes. They were screwed either way. Does that really actually sound fair to anyone though??
@@fredericksaxton9782 not to mention the amount of time some of these N@zis would have spent together. When you have people you can otherwise trust giving orders, you're more likely to follow. The propaganda alone would make it feel more like they were 'doing the right thing'. Dehumanizing other humans is seen all throughout history.
The more detail you learn, the worse it is. Before the silence, the actor pleads to stop, even saying they have a heart condition and that they can feel their heart acting up. Most people keep increasing the shock strength.
@@cosmotect Perhaps a man in a white coat had a different level of authority at the time. With the cold war mindset and many dubious avenues of scientific research at the time, the success of nuclear weapons in ending the war, people may have been more accepting of shelving their morals for the perceived advancement of perceived national interests.
@@MrDaraghkinchI’ve known about this experiment for awhile and have never thought about that - it’s amazing just how much social norms change over time, and just how sneaky confounding variables can be.
You joke, but this has been pointed out as a flaw in the conclusions of this experiment. A lot of the subjects smelt a rat and stopped acting as if it was real.
@@Lazyguy22 so what was the excuse for the covid vaccine that are literally worthless now, and yet 90% of the population took them, including forcing their children to as well did they also sense the situation was fake as they yelled and shunned those that questioned the government....? finding excuses to be a sheep and you'll keep being one
@@Lazyguy22 bahh bahh I did cope, by not listening, and still succeeding, you're the sheep that cant think for themselves and are basically afraid of life because of it 🤣🐑🐑
I remember learning about the Milgram shock experiment in just about every sociology class I took in college. As I recall the participants developed PTSD as a result and recounted how much they felt like they were monsters in follow-up interviews a few decades later.
How exactly would it not be obvious that it was THEM being experimented on? I mean they’d just get an employee or something to push the button if they were experimenting on the actor
@@jackpokrywka542 I think they came in with the confederates so that it seemed like they were all research participants who just got "randomly" sorted into whether or not they would be asking or answering. The fact that this study had the results it did (people go along with what authority says because authority said it) I think supports them all believing they were just one of the participants in the study, not the focus.
Actually, from what I've read on the experiment, that of the various ways they tried to get people to keep going telling them they had no choice was the least effective. Most effective was telling them about how valuable the research they were doing was. Showing conclusively something that I think most people already know, that people will do terrible things for the greater good.
I was expecting this to be a joke at first like "we put two people in a room together... terrifying right?" But then you mentioned buttons and I go "Oh shit, Milgrim."
We had the Milgram experiment in school last year. Still blows my mind that crazy stuff like this happened back then. It was a psychological experiment to test the obedience of people if what they're told to do is against their morals or generally wrong. They basically wanted to see at what point people would say "nah I can't do this anymore"
Well yes and no. In this experiment the actor was not actually recieving the high voltage. He was acting. Of course the possibility that some scientist might do something like this for real is a good reason to have ethics boards.
@@johnbennett1465 In this scenario the ethical issue is that the subject would be made to believe they had killed someone, or at least that they had repeatedly caused another person great pain.
A want for rebellion or opposition to authority isn’t built up in the span of some minutes. If the experiment went on for many hours, I think people would start to question the experiment/ authority figure.
The thing that confounds all of this research though is that it was approved by Yale University so most if not all participants assumed that no one was in any physical danger. The results might be different in a setting that did not de facto guarantee safety.
Too bad its so well knows, because I firmly believe that if it was to be performed in other nations, the results would vary to an almost disturbing degree.
I think the scariest thing about this experiment is that the scientists who conducted them (there was multiple studies and variants of this experiment run) would often never tell the subject after the experiment about what happened immediately after its conclusion, letting them live on thinking they'd killed somebody.
Even if they had told them, the screams agony and your heart dropping when you see the man move no longer is enough to traumatise you so much, that you have PTSD even if you were told it was fake afterwards.
@@NikitaSamourai the milgram experiment was actually repeated in 2006 and 2010. But I couldn't find any sources that state the conducting scientist wouldn't have told the subject, so I'd doubt that
The participants were way more likely to push the button if they thought the experiment was fake. There’s other holes in the original methodology of the experiment but that was one of them.
If I'm not mistaken, this experiment was being conducted somewhere around the time that a bunch of Nazis were on trial and using the "just following orders" defence, and I'm told, by people with a better grasp of history than I, that's not a coincidence.
Frankly, talking about "excuse" or "guilt" is the most philistine approach to the problem of culpability. It doesn't teach us anything, it's not logical or provable, doesn't tell us how to move past horrific acts
Actually, that's exactly what the experiment proved. People are willing to do terrible things when told to do so by someone else because they can lay the responsibility on the person giving them the task. In their eyes, they are just following orders from someone higher up and thus they're not responsible. I think the theory has somewhat been debunked by now, but that's what I remember from learning about the experiment in my psychology course.
I remember learning about this experiment in psychology class in 10th grade. It’s almost eerie how programmed humans are to be obedient to a figure of authority and how well we make excuses to make up for that figure’s orders.
i actually learned about this in my ap psych class, this was the Milgram shock experiment and was testing people’s trust in authority. The feeling that if a doctor says you have something, then you must have it. The experimenter was the doctor telling the participant to push the button. this experiment was deemed unethical due to lack of consent, debriefing, and for having lasting negative psychological effects on the test subject
the point of it is showing that people will follow authority blindly, even when it compromises their morals, so tbh it’s more abt every person of power to us.
Yeah, that's kinda what they were testing, it's kinda interesting how it's like the best defense for the Nazi and Soviet troops, they were just following orders, that's why it's always important to know where they come from
@@prussiaball1871 who will educate them though???? who should have ask questions??? fuck this soviet nazi shit are you kidding me, russia litteraly rn being absolute dumb bitch ass, for decades, no one was asking questions to why are they so drunk and wild?? everyone was just laughing at bizarre slavic memes, because who would've known, everyone is minding their own business, its a logical dilemma from this point, because not minding your own business is what russia does now, because its highly immoral, fuck this test man, you made this hundred times worse than it been, mf, its about nature of human predictions and blind spots, and free will itself, its not about "oh i dont care, ama kill people anyway" its the disability to do otherwise, because we only learn after horrible deadly (or lucky inventibe) mistake were made, it's the cruel and scary nature of knowledge, doesn't matter person/group/whole country, if the bitch does not understand, it wil step on the showel, matter of time and sense, so it's not even a test at this point, its horrible natural occurrence, they shouldve ask the background of the contestants that didn't obeyed system, understand what separates people of reasonable choice and blind following, and then idk make psychoanalytical festival in russia and get Putin in there too, fuck this man, fuck that, hate nazi shit
@@prussiaball1871 that’s actually why the whole experiment was done! Milgram’s family was greatly affected by the Holocaust and he was really upset when he heard what Nazis on trial were saying - “I was just following orders,” so he formulated the experiment. There was actually a lot wrong with his experimentation from a scientific perspective, like allowing the scientists to deviate from the four prompts they were supposed to say if participants refused, but he ran MANY versions of his experiment and the results were almost always the same. Weird stuff!
The other thing that stood out to me was that while some participants refused to continue with the shocks, nobody tried to stop the experiment entirely. They didn’t storm out, didn’t threaten to tell University leaders, didn’t unplug the equipment, didn’t try to release the person they’d seemingly shocked into a stupor. They just wanted to be let go so _they_ were no longer hurting someone.
Yep. Most people have been painfully conditioned, punished and blackmailed into submitting to authority, which is exactly what people in authority want so there are no uprisings for civil rights or people standing up for coworkers and abuse victims. Just keep going or else you'll be punished in some vague way and have trouble being able to support your own family!
Tell me if you were there, would you doubt Yale's methodology considering how much merit they have as an organization and university? The participants were also told that the shocks were painful but not dangerous.
@@afj810”Tell me if you were there” like OKAY BUDDY thank god you’re here to righteously defend the participants of the Milgram experiment through snide RU-vid discourse. How else would we realize that no one is responsible for anything they’re told to do if you weren’t here to clear that up for us? Truly we live in the best timeline.
Hi Hank! Just wanted to say that the biology crash course vids have been saving my grades. The way you explain things just sticks information to my brain and I appreciate it.
I’m sure he really appreciates your comment when he sees it, this is really nice of you to say and I’m glad it’s helping you. We all learn different and if I had RU-vid when I was in school 30 years ago I would have utilized it too! Great job.
I’d be stunned if at least one of the volunteers didn’t just immediately slam their hand on the button on the highest voltage setting before they even asked the first question
@@notmorc8892 you can go find the tree and see that it’s fallen over so yes? You mean if a tree falls over and no one is around to hear it fall, does it make a sound. The answer is obviously also yes… but what you just said about experiments that people don’t know about is meaningless drivel. It’s like saying: The fastest cars are the ones that go so fast you can’t even see them… Or There are people so short you can’t even see them they’re so small. It’s just your imagination 😂
It's called "chain of command " and we have many ppl working in this type of situation where they can be told to do literally anything and they will probably do it bc in the end they feel like they are just following orders. It was the scariest revelation for me too seeing those human behavioral experiments from the 70's. That bit about the office being on fire always gets me. And the prison experiment is absolutely true to this day regarding its findings.... never trust a person whose job is a 'corrections officer' ! And never do something your boss tells you to do that extremely goes against your morals or seems to break the law.
Actually the Stanford Prison Experiment has been debunked. So that's good news, but I'd still agree with your sentiment about CO's and any other hyper authoritarian positions.
@@breandadavis3168 well the Stanford prison experiment has been highly dramatized and exaggerated for movies... But theres tons of examples of similar cases mostly in the U.S. where we have the added element of" punishment of the already punished". The whole chain of command allows the human brain to tolerate and demonstrate a lot of stuff one would not normally do on their own.
It is an experiment that shows just how willing people are to do something they know will hurt someone if told to do so by someone with any level of perceived authority. It's pretty terrifying, honestly. The number of people who will push the button that delivers what they believe to be a lethal shock is absurd. Part of this is the lead up, you start small and the small ones don't seem too bad, but after a few, you're committed to the task and stopping then becomes more of a challenge psychologically than carryjng forward "just following orders", it's a part of human nature and we're almost universally subject to it.
Exactly. Follow if the leader seems to be going where you think it's a good idea to go. And if they lead where you don't want to follow, have the courage to walk away.
When you consider any govt, govt program, politician, or fake doctors who demand you inject chemicals from criminals, remember this case study, and the entirety of human history.
One is how authority figures affect people and the other is how having authority affects people. Putting them both together really explains our police problem 😬
@@lilmelody93 weren't the "you have to do it" argument(100% based in authority) the most unefficent in this experiment and the jail one the researcher/warden always pushed the guards(labrats) to be as violent as possible to confirm his bias?
@@shinigamix4481 The real volunteers believe they're shocking someone when they answer wrong, but it's actually an actor. This experiment show how capable most people are too doing some pretty heinous things when an authority figure is involved.
@@markwilson4686 I'm not 100% sure ,if I remeber it correctly from my class - correct me if I'm wrong ,but this experiment was conducted to check if Germans involved in holocaust ( mostly guards and soldiers) were guilty of it , or just followed orders. Because how could anyone other than evil nazi do anything like this. As it turned out , not only Germans weren't as bad as everyone thought ,but everyone else could as likely be following orders in their place.
Think of it this way, the experiment also demonstrates the people are very trusting and willing to collaborate. I don't think it demonstrates some inherent flaw in humanity but rather the flaw in thinking about humans as free agents. We are what we are, right?
Yup. The experimenters had expected the numbers to be flipped, that only 35% would continue to "shock" on command. But one woman refused very steadfastly to continue doing something she thought was hurting another person. I wish I knew her name.
"Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not." -Stanley Milgram
This experiment explains how the Germans ended up with Nazis and Russia ended up with Gulags. We need to do more to teach children the importance of morality.
@@TBIhope Not morality, critical thought. Morality is too damn vague and finnicky, critical thinking skills on the other hand are applicable to damn near everything and rely mostly on internal consistency.
@@Zren89 As long as they are taught obedience, then it doesn't matter how good they are at critical thinking. And the structure of school is always such that it teaches obedience at all times and that you're only allowed to apply critical thinking at certain times within certain limits.
I forget if that was its original intent, or if it was just used in analysis after the findings, but it's definitely consistently brought up in that context. The whole idea of the experiment is testing how willing people are to follow the directions of an authority figure and whether or not people's conscience would lead them to disobey. It's evidence that for most of the population, as much as you like to think you wouldn't have bought into Nazi propaganda, chances are you would have ridden along with the crowd. Nazis weren't inhuman monsters, they were average, everyday people, and that's part of why they're so terrifying.
Yes. It's largely what inspired him to design the experiment. The "just following orders" excuse. I believe he was planning on proving that they were full of shit when saying that, and was horribly surprised by the results. If most people refused to carry on the experiment, it would have proven that the nazi officers on trial were simply pure evil and going against normal human behavior. Instead he found out that most average people are basically sleeper cell nazis who would all do unspeakable acts of cruelty under minimal persuasion from an authority figure.
Yup. Americans thought it was something about Germans that made normal people do terrible things because someone in authority told them to. Turns out, ALL humans have this trait. Scary.
From what I remember yea. I think It was to see if there was any merit to the Nazi doctors and medical staff, that experimented on subjects in the concentration camps, pleading “obedience” during the Nuremberg trials.
They played a clip (of what might have been a recreation?) in my psych class and people were squirming in their seats as the actor screamed. It was kinda horrifying which I guess was the point
IIRC the participants were more likely to refuse to shock the person when the person was in the same room as them and more likely when they were in the next room only heard through the speakers.
Milgram’s experiment on Obedience to Authority for anyone interested in researching further. Important to note Milgram defined ‘obedience’ as someone who flipped the final switch three times. So although we say only 65% of people ‘obeyed’, of the remaining 35%, some of the ppts actually still delivered lethal shocks to who the actor (the ‘actor’ was actually a voice recording too - so as to control for extraneous variables), they just may not have flipped the final switch 3 times
This is why I keep working to build critical thinking and the courage to speak up. My mother manipulated me into doing some wrong things when I was a child and didn't understand. So now I'm working to not let that happen again.
A lot of folks are repeating received wisdom FROM THIS VERY EXPERIMENT. In the aftermath of WWII, the researcher Stanley Milgram wanted to know why the Germans who "just followed orders" were willing to do that and if they were unique. What Milgram learned was that, despite what most of us would like to believe about ourselves, a lot of us will defer to authority figures, even when we fear it might lead to dangerous consequences. IIRC, the stress on the test subjects is what led to human subjects review boards that have to sign off on experiments that involve people. Milgram was a fascinating guy: he had another experiment where his graduate students were to ride the subway and ask people for their seats without providing an explanation. Apparently a lot of people gave up their seats when asked, but the researchers found it very difficult to ask. Milgram thought they were being silly, until he tried it himself. One last thing: virtually everyone knows of at least one bit of Dr. Milgram's work. He's the one who coined the idea of "six degrees of separation".
It’s really scary how few people when in that scenario decide to do the right thing, simply because they have someone else to hand the responsibility to. With great power comes great responsibility, yes, but even with very little power in a situation, you can save someone’s life.
I would have tried fighting the guy after he told me that i had to continue that would 💯 make me cry im autistic so the thought of intentionally hurting someone even if im being forced to upsets me.
Didn't know that about autism, seems you guys are the true angels. And us non-autists are clearly capable of some messed up behaviours when given authority over others. I find it despicable, and like to believe I wouldn't be like that. But I've seen this video, so I cannot know how I would've reacted. A part of me fears I might have just followed orders which makes me cringe so hard. This experiment gets under my skin for God knows why.
Technically yes, but this experiment also very much displays how much their own values can be influenced. The scientists made it seem like it was essential to continue, they also could not see the actor. They technically could leave, but their free will was impaired and they were persuaded and pressured into continuing
Maybe their reasoning was: If they were to leave, the test will be postponed and will have to start all over again with a different person. The attempt would simply be wasted. They might have chosen to just get it over with for the sake of the results of the "experiment." But still, the real choice was agreeing to partake in the "experiment" in the first place. Like if it were me, I wouldn't want to support any experiment that would need to cause harm to another person.
Said this elsewhere: I think it's important to reiterate that they were Men between 20-50. Like the Stanford Prison experiment, it is not a good metric for all human behavior. The Stanford prison experiment was how a small group of relatively affluent young men who volunteered to be in a prison experiment reacted to having power. This is about how adult to middle aged men react to be told what to do. It might be very different if it was older men, or former POWs, or women, or POC. And that's why N values matter.
That's reality TV in a nutshell. "This social experiment unleashed such evils from the human psyche that it had to be shut down for ethical reasons. I'm thinking we throw in a million dollar prize, a selection process designed to pick the worst people imaginable as test subjects, and our own complete lack of ethics or moral oversight."
Well the scary part is that peer pressure is a powerful thing. I don't think the participant shocked them because they wanted to, but did it because they were told to and if they had hang-ups, were told vague threats that they were obligated to continue. They were told they were doing the right thing by shocking and told they were doing the wrong thing by not shocking. Kind of like with the prisoner experiment that i feel we're all familiar with, they really didn't give the guard participants anything to really do besides order the prisoners around. They were encouraged to boss them around and subtly discouraged because otherwise you'd be doing nothing and in an experiment setting where you're being watched, you naturally feel you have to be doing something.
I’ve heard about that one before! Super creepy to realize how common it is for us to do what we’re told even when it seems like it’s a horrible thing to do. 😢
