NYT
July 1, 2008
Mind
Decades Later, Still Asking: Would I Pull That Switch?
By BENEDICT CAREY
Some of psychology’s most famous experiments are those that expose the
skull beneath the skin, the apparent cowardice or depravity pooling in
almost every heart.

The findings force a question. Would I really do that? Could I betray
my own eyes, my judgment, even my humanity, just to complete some
experiment?

The answer, if it’s an honest one, often gives rise to observations
about the cruelties of the day, whether suicide bombing, torture or
gang atrocities. And so a psych experiment — a mock exercise, testing
individual behavior — can become something else, a changing prism
through which people view the larger culture, for better and for
worse.

Consider the psychologist Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies of the
early 1960s that together form one of the darkest mirrors the field
has held up to the human face. In a series of about 20 experiments,
hundreds of decent, well-intentioned people agreed to deliver what
appeared to be increasingly painful electric shocks to another person,
as part of what they thought was a learning experiment. The “learner”
was in fact an actor, usually seated out of sight in an adjacent room,
pretending to be zapped.

Researchers, social commentators and armchair psychologists have pored
through Milgram’s data ever since, claiming psychological and cultural
insights. Now, decades after the original work (Milgram died in 1984,
at 51), two new papers illustrate the continuing power of the shock
experiments — and the diverse interpretations they still inspire.

In one, a statistical analysis to appear in the July issue of the
journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, a postdoctoral student
at Ohio State University verifies a crucial turning point in Milgram’s
experiments, the voltage level at which participants were most likely
to disobey the experimenter and quit delivering shocks.

The participants usually began with what they thought were 15-volt
shocks, and worked upward in 15-volt increments, as the experimenter
instructed. At 75 volts, the “learner” in the next room began grunting
in apparent pain. At 150 volts he cried out: “Stop, let me out! I
don’t want to do this anymore.”

At that point about a third of the participants refused to continue,
found Dominic Packer, author of the new paper. “The previous
expressions of pain were insufficient,” Dr. Packer said. But at 150
volts, he continued, those who disobeyed decided that the learner’s
right to stop trumped the experimenter’s right to continue. Before the
end of the experiments, at 450 volts, an additional 10 to 15 percent
had dropped out.

This appreciation of another’s right is crucial in interrogation, Dr.
Packer suggests. When prisoners’ rights are ambiguous, inhumane
treatment can follow. Milgram’s work, in short, makes a statement
about the importance of human rights, as well as obedience.

In the other paper, due out in the journal American Psychologist, a
professor at Santa Clara University replicates part of the Milgram
studies — stopping at 150 volts, the critical juncture at which the
subject cries out to stop — to see whether people today would still
obey. Ethics committees bar researchers from pushing subjects through
to an imaginary 450 volts, as Milgram did.

The answer was yes. Once again, more than half the participants agreed
to proceed with the experiment past the 150-volt mark. Jerry M.
Burger, the author, interviewed the participants afterward and found
that those who stopped generally believed themselves to be responsible
for the shocks, whereas those who kept going tended to hold the
experimenter accountable. That is, the Milgram work also demonstrated
individual differences in perceptions of accountability — of who’s on
the hook for what.

Thomas Blass, a psychologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County, and the author of a biography of Milgram, “The Man Who Shocked
the World” (Basic Books, 2004), said establishing the demand by the
subject to stop as the turning point was itself a significant
achievement. “It’s a simple but important discovery,” Dr. Blass said.
“I had been mining this data for years and somehow missed it.”

He added that extrapolating Milgram’s findings to larger events like
the Holocaust, as Milgram himself did, or Abu Ghraib was a big leap.
“The power of the Milgram work was it showed how people can act
destructively without coercion,” he said. “In things like
interrogations, we don’t know the complexities involved. People are
under enormous pressure to produce results.”

The Milgram data have unappreciated complexities of their own. In his
new report, Dr. Burger argues that at least two other factors were at
work when participants walked into the psychologist’s lab at Yale
decades ago. Uncertainty, as it was an unfamiliar situation. And time
pressure, as they had to make decisions quickly. Rushed and
disoriented, they were likely more compliant than they would otherwise
have been, Dr. Burger said.

In short, the Milgram experiments may have shown physical, biological
differences in moral decision making and obedience, as well as
psychological ones. Some people can be as quick on the draw as Doc
Holliday when they feel something’s not right. Others need a little
time to do the right thing, thank you, and would rather not be
considered sadistic prison guards just yet.

“The most remarkable thing,” Dr. Burger said, “is that we’re still
talking about the work, almost 50 years after it was done. You can’t
say that about many experiments.”

On Jul 2, 12:11 am, Lance  wrote:
>
> Some of psychology’s most famous experiments are those that expose the
> skull beneath the skin, the apparent cowardice or depravity pooling in
> almost every heart.
>
Now there's a hero of the mixed metaphor!
>
> In short, the Milgram experiments may have shown physical, biological
> differences in moral decision making and obedience, as well as
> psychological ones. Some people can be as quick on the draw as Doc
> Holliday when they feel something’s not right. Others need a little
> time to do the right thing, thank you, and would rather not be
> considered sadistic prison guards just yet.
>
Maybe, but you probably only need less than 1% of people prepared to
torture to run a Caucescau/Mugabe style regime, as long as the rest
turn a blind eye to what is going on.