The last four years have ushered forth endless conversations about the pandemic and our response in the United States. We’ve witnessed many ‘conspiracy theories’ legitimized by the ones taking risks to broadcast it, such as the origins of covid, the inability of the c19 vax to prevent transmission and the lack of scientific proof to promote masking up. We’re watching in real time the unraveling of Anthony Fauci, his deceit and betrayal of the American people and tenacity in holding onto the lies.
Far less likely, but quite significant, to enter these discussions, is the man who shocked the world— Stanley Milgram.
In the early 1960’s, Stanley Milgram, a Jewish social psychologist from NY, whose family members suffered the horrors of the Holocaust, conducted his most famous experiment on human behavior.
The aim of his research was to better understand the average person’s willingness to obey perceived authority figures. Milgram was troubled by the willingness of so many Germans to betray their Jewish neighbors, often leading to their deaths. He had surmised that Americans, given their core values such as individualism, would have responded differently under the same circumstances.
During his time as assistant professor at Yale University, he set about to do an experiment on the nature of obedience. Some of his methods, such as debriefing procedures, were criticized in the years following. In order to do an impartial blind study, he recruited people from various walks of life from New Haven, Connecticut, under the guise of doing research on memory and learning.
In truth, the recruits were the subject of the experiment. Approximately 780 people participated in his experiments, which included a few variations over the course of many months. Recruits were told that they would be randomly assigned as “teachers” or “learners” , with each “teacher” administering electric shocks to the “learner” if they answered a question incorrectly. The “random assigning” was actually fixed so that each recruit became a “teacher” in the experiment; the “learners” were actors.
Next, the experimenter instructed the “teachers” on the nature of the electric shock “punishment” to be administered for a wrong answer. The visual indicators on the dial started at 15 volts and increased to 450 volts. Written descriptors were added such as “slight shock”, “intense shock” and “Danger: Severe Shock”. Each teacher experienced a relatively low 45 volt shock, for reference.
Teachers were then given a series of questions to ask the learner, positioned out-of-sight, with each incorrect answer to receive increasingly stronger shocks. The learners, that is, the actors, went by a script, to respond to the shock, such as producing a low grunt, to screams, to pleading or claims of a heart condition and then sometimes, dead silence.
To be clear, no one actually received a shock for an incorrect answer; it was all acted and part of the experiment. The teachers, however, thought they were delivering real voltage to a learner they couldn’t see, but only hear.
Stanley Milgram had predicted that only 1-3% of the teachers would deliver the maximum shock level. Imagine his surprise when, after his first study, 65% were convinced to administer up to 150 volts, -the point at which the learners were heard to scream in pain- and nearly 80% of those continued to deliver the maximum 450 volts.
The subjects of the experiment exhibited a wide variety of negative emotions during the test, often pleading with the experimenter to stop, even while they continued to obey the commands for the test to continue. Later experiments conducted from Milgram’s design have often produced similar results.
When a perceived authority figure is asking you to do something, even something detrimental to yourself (such as mental anguish) and others (such as physical harm) many, if not most, will comply. Whether it is because we feel helpful in furthering science or because we trust those with perceived expertise, or unequivocal fear in disobeying an authoritative voice --it’s insightful to know this about human nature. It wasn’t only external devils of wickedness that enveloped masses of good German people during the 1930s and 40s; it’s a possibility in every human heart.
Interestingly, Milgram conducted variations of this study. In one, there were three teachers per learner. Two of them were not test subjects and had been instructed to protest against the experiment. The result? The existence of peers protesting made the teacher less likely to obey. And in another experiment, the teacher was positioned within view of the learner. Teachers were less likely to obey commands when they were within view and interacted with the learner.
The response to the pandemic brought this human behavior to the forefront, although Stanley Milgram’s findings weren’t typically discussed; mass-formation psychosis was. "Sheeple" became a popular term and object of memes. Human nature doesn't change, but the understanding and implications of it does.
A friend and I were hiking back in early spring and talking about this experiment. Neither of us had learned about Milgram's work in academic settings, but rather years later, of our own volition. She remarked, ‘just think, …what a point of reference that would have provided when we entered the pandemic’.
A point of reference, indeed. Some things should not be forgotten, especially those that nurture an understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Consider the prospect of people questioning the validity of authority figures, the weight of our perceptions, the immense value of standing with those taking a moral stand. It even provides a revelation in understanding why women who can have an ultrasound, hearing a heartbeat and seeing the movements of their baby are less likely to have an abortion.
Citizens everywhere and particularly school-aged children in West Virginia would gain a tool for their critical thinking skills by learning about the work of Stanley Milgram. His experiment sheds light not only on the history of the Holocaust, but on the broader, oft asked question, "How can good people become capable of such bad things?"
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