There is a shocking video up on BBC News today. It was an experiment disguised as a pilot for a new game show in France in which a "contestant" is apparently given progressively stronger electrical shocks when they answer questions incorrectly. The person giving the shocks is one of "80 people taking part in what they thought was a game show pilot.......they were told they wouldn't win anything, but they were given a nominal 40 euro fee. Before the show, they signed contracts agreeing to inflict electric shocks on other contestants."
The electrical shocks are fake. The "contestant" is an actor feigning pain and convulsions. The person giving the fake shocks is being tested to see if and how far they will obey orders.
If this at all sounds familiar, it is. This is an update on Milgram's 27, a famous psychology experiment done in 1961 in which students were asked to do the same thing. Stanley Milgram was trying to see how people related to authority figures and how people who were basically good could be made to do unethical or even evil things.
In the French "game show," only 16 of the 80 participants stopped before the last, potentially lethal shock.
Hitler would have been proud.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
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