Study in evil - Psychology experiment shows how power corrupts

By Sara James
Dateline NBC
Updated: 6:00 p.m. ET May 17, 2004

They're the photographs that have horrified the world: prisoners in Iraq stripped of their clothes, and their dignity, allegedly beaten, tortured and humiliated, their American guards watching, posing and smiling. The growing abuse scandal inside Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison has brought outrage to Arab countries, and shock to our own. How could American soldiers do something like this? A landmark experiment, dating back more than 30 years, may provide some insights into behavior that's inexcusable.

The landmark psychological experiment recorded dramatic scenes that seem as though they're straight out of a real prison. That experiment explored a fundamental question about human nature.

Zimbardo: “What would you do if you had total power over the people, would you abuse it?”

What psychology professor Philip Zimbardo found reveals terrifying truths about the capacity for evil within all of us, and may help explain why seemingly ordinary Americans serving in Iraq could be caught up in the shocking prison scandal there. Pictures of the sadistic behavior of some guards have angered and disgusted people across America and around the world.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4980399/

Why shouldn't top leaders, with the ability to launch nuclear weapons and other American Weapons of Mass Destruction, have periodic psychological, drug, and alcohol testing and lie detector testing, just like other federal/military workers in Top Secret positions?

Question



Subject: classic psychology experiment
Category: Science > Social Sciences
Asked by: rnd13-ga
List Price: $5.00
Posted: 31 Oct 2002 02:59 PST
Expires: 30 Nov 2002 02:59 PST
Question ID: 94032

Some years ago, there was a classic psychology experiment. A
volunteer was recruited to help researchers in a lab administer
increasingly-painful electric shocks to a subject, ostensibly to see
how negative reinforcement would affect learning.

It turned out that the "subject" was actually a shill ... And the
volunteer was actually himself the one being tested: to see how
willing he'd be to cause harm to another, once absolved of any
personal responsibility by an authority figure (i.e., those conducting
the test).

I would like to find out who/where/when this experiment was conducted.



Answer



Subject: Re: classic psychology experiment
Answered By: justaskscott-ga on 31 Oct 2002 03:41 PST
Rated:


This was an experiment (or, more technically, a series of experiments)
devised by Stanley Milgram and performed during the early 1960s when
Milgram was at Yale.

Milgram described the experiment in Obedience to Authority (1974),
which was apparently adapted into the following article in Harper's
Magazine:

"The Perils of Obedience, by Stanley Milgram"
think-truth/wisdom unabashed
http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.htm

Here is a little background on Milgram and a brief summary of
Obedience to Authority:

"Milgram's Obedience to Authority"
A Student Handbook for Chuck Huff's Introduction to psychology
St. Olaf College
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/classes/handbook/Milgram.html

Another page reproduces a chart from Obedience to Authority on the
maximum shocks administered during the first four experiments:

"The Milgram Experiment: Maximum Shocks Administered in Experiments
1,2,3, and 4"
Mt. Holyoke College
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/milgram.htm

If you would like further background on Milgram, additional
description of the experiments and their significance, and other
sources of information in print, the following web sites and web page
should be helpful:

Stanleymilgram.com (hosted by Thomas Blass, Ph.D)
http://www.stanleymilgram.com/

Milgram Reenactment
http://www.milgramreenactment.org/pages/index.xml

"Stanley Milgram", complied by Heather Miller
Muskingum College: Department of Psychology
http://fates.cns.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/milgram.htm

- justaskscott-ga


more
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=94032

It was called "The Tenth Level"...I saw it when it was first broadcast in 1975...very intense...

Shatner played the doctor, and students were asked to keep pushing buttons causing more pain to someone in the back room every time they got a question wrong...(the person in the back room was not hooked up though...it was to see the reaction of the student pushing the buttons).

I'd love to see this again, although with recent news, it may be a bit too heavy...

I say ashamed because I was the "subject", fake-shocking somebody.

It was done by fellow students who I liked and respected a lot, very smart (one was later awarded the Fields Medal), and they even wore white lab coats. I saw a couple of 6-volt lantern batteries wired up, so I figured the jolt couldn't be much. I almost always gave lowest level "shocks", but when the shockee kept giving wrong answers (deliberately), I did up the level once or twice, and the woman playing the role gave a convincing performance of increasing discomfort. My frustration came from wanting to get it over with, for me and her, because it became very draining and uncomfortable for me.

I guess it's good to know this exists, to train and discipline against it, BOLO for it, etc.

Creeped
me
out.

that phrase is what is used to justify the dehumanization of a wide group of scapegoat humans, and is the primary reason that government should not have ultimate, unchecked power and a lack of transparency.

to stop it from happening.

More than a few...

To be honest, I'll bet there's more than a few Dems who would fight to the death before allowing that to happen.

Would they Wellstone opponents like they were Busheviks to defend themselves?

Unknown.