Monday, March 22, 2010

A real shock to the system

Ever wondered if a situation arose in which you could inflict a great deal of pain on another human being for no apparent reason, would you take it?

50 years ago an experiment was conducted by Stanley Milgram, measuring the willingness of participants to obey an authoritative figure dressed in white coat that instructed them to illicit shocks on another human being, called the learner.

Basically, the participant was told to shock a man if he failed to answer a series of questions correctly, with the shocks getting severer with each incorrect answer. Now, what must be pointed out is that the learner was in on the game and was in reality not privy to the shocks. Still, the experiment found 65% of people involved were willing to administer the 450- volt shock despite exclamations, shrieks and a real belief that the learner was suffering.


When I first read of the experiment I remember feeling surprised; however, I must admit I thought the experiment was a product of the time. I’ve always believed the experiment was only successful because it was undertaken in the ‘60s when society was largely more submissive than today.

This week, that theory has been proven irrevocably wrong.

On Wednesday night, a French television programme was aired featuring a similar type social experiment. In “The Game of Death” participants believed they were contestants on a pilot game show. The game involved zapping a fellow contestant if he/she got questions posed wrong.

In a radical turn of events and a personal blow to my ego, 80% of contestants administered 460- volt shocks after being spurred on by the game- show host.

This would suggest that today’s society has a far greater chance of being influenced by outside factors than the 1960’s. Further, Milgram’s experiment was conducted by a stern lab -technician, whereas the ring- leader on Wednesday night was a giddy glamorous game- show host. Before you protest on the grounds that the selection of contestants may have been bogus consider that audience members, also believing the game to be real, spurred on the contestant to administer shocks, exclaiming: “Punishment”.

I guess today’s society could be influenced by television to a far greater extent than one is comfortable admitting.

3 comments:

PGregorry said...

Very interesting. Could tv really be so powerfull? I mean I spend all my free time watching it but never thought about its power.

O Miller said...

I JUST HAD TO LOOK UP THE ORIGINAL EXPERIMENT- GRING- WORTHY STUFF.

Lady Portia said...

I am intrigued to read this, because only a few years ago a HSE agent, called a social worker decided that the best course of action for a child reporting abuse was ELECTRIC SHOCK THERAPY.

He had no problem mentally torturing telling how the child would be locked in a child's prison, never see his mother or sister again until 18, by which time all memories of the abuse would be toast and he would obey the social worker and go live with his violent father.

I asked the HSE agent why he was doing this and his reply was- "To prove to you that I HAVE THE POWER." The Judges in this country obey us social workers......"""" on and on it went....

So even state paid agents- our servants are capable of mentally and psychologically and emotionally and physically torturing us service users.

We however are paying these CP trained agents to torture us.!!!!