22 febrero, 2010
In the '60s, Stanley Milgram conducted a psychological study that found that the majority of ordinary people are able to do much harm if forced to do so.
The idea emerged at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1960. Eichmann was sentenced to death in Jerusalem for crimes against humanity during the Nazi regime. He took care of logistics. He planned the collection, transportation and extermination of the Jews. However, at trial, Eichmann expressed shock at the hatred she showed the Jews, saying he had only followed orders, and to obey orders was a good thing. In his diary, in prison, wrote: "The orders were most important in my life and had to obey without question. Six psychiatrists testified that Eichmann was sane, who had a normal family life and several witnesses said it was an ordinary person.
Stanley Milgram was very intrigued. Eichmann was a normal name, even bored, had nothing against Jews. Why had participated in the Holocaust? Is it only through obedience? Could it be that all other Nazi accomplices just follow orders? Or that Germans were different?
A year after the trial, Milgram conducted an experiment at Yale University that shocked the world. Most participants agreed to give lethal electric shocks to a victim if they were forced to do so.
The experiment
Milgram wanted to find out how easily it can convince ordinary people to commit atrocities like those committed by the Germans in World War II. He wanted to know how far a person obeying an order to harm another person.
He placed an ad asking for volunteers for a study related to memory and learning.
Participants were 40 men aged between 20 and 50 years with various kinds of education from primary school only to doctorates. The procedure was as follows: a researcher explained to a participant and an accomplice (the participant believes at all times that is another volunteer) that will test the effects of punishment on learning.
He tells them both that the goal is to see how much punishment is necessary to learn better and that will make one other student and teacher. It asks them to take out a piece of paper from a box to see what role they are about to play in the experiment. The accomplice always comes out the role of "student" and the participant, the "master".
In another room is subject to the "student" to a kind of electric chair and was placed electrodes. You have to learn a list of paired words. Then, the "master" and he'll say the words "student" will remember which one it is associated. And if it fails, the "master" gives you a download.
At the beginning of the study, the teacher receives an actual discharge of 45 volts to see the pain they cause to the "pupil." Then you say you should start to administer electric shocks to his "pupil" every time you make a mistake, increasing the discharge voltage at a time. The generator had 30 switches marked from 15 volts (download soft) to 450 (danger, download mortal).
The "false students" gave wrong answers to particular purpose, and for each failure, the professor would give you a shock. When he refused and was directed to the researcher, he gave instructions (4 procedures):
Procedure 1: Please continue.
Procedure 2: The experiment requires that it continue.
Procedure 3: It is absolutely essential to continue.
Procedure 4: You do not have another alternative. Should continue.
If that last sentence after the "master" refused to continue, he stopped the experiment. If not, he stopped after he had administered the maximum 450 volts three times in succession
This experiment would be considered unethical today, but revealed surprising results. Before that, psychologists were asked, middle-class people and students what they thought would happen. Everyone thought that only some sadistic maximum voltage applied. However, 65% of "teachers" punished the "students" with a maximum of 450 volts. No participant steadfastly refused to give less than 300 volts.
As the level of discharge increased, the "pupil", taught for the representation, began banging on the glass that separates it from the "master," whimpering. She complained of suffering from heart disease. He howled in pain, asked to finish his experiment, and finally to reach the 270 volts he cried in agony. The participant actually listened to a recording of moans and cries of pain. If the download reached 300 volts, the "pupil" dejarba responding to questions and began to convulse.
Upon reaching the 75-volt, many "teachers" were getting nervous amid complaints of pain in his "pupils" and wanted to stop the experiment, but the iron authority of the investigator made them continue. At 135 volts, many of the "teachers" are stopped and questioned the purpose of the experiment. A number continuing to assert that they were not responsible for the consequences. Some participants even began to laugh nervously when he heard the cries of pain from his "pupil."
In subsequent follow-up studies, Milgram demonstrated that women were just as obedient as men, even more nervous. The study was replicated in other countries with similar results. In Germany, 85% of subjects administered lethal electric shocks to the learner.
In 1999, Thomas Blass, a professor at the University of Maryland published an analysis of all experiments of this kind conducted so far and concluded that the number of participants who applied voltages notable was between 61% and 66% in any year of performance or place of research.
