Shocking study finds most will torture if ordered

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I think that peer preasure is the reason why a lot of people will join in and do things which they know are wrong. I think that a lot of people fail to understand that being part of a mob does not excuse their actions.

You might want to read the following article.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/s ... tioncode=5

Cheap sensationalistic editing by Stacey Joyce. The whole story is:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11283475? ... st_emailed

One question is:

Hmm let’s see “upset”, that sounds like a conscience to me. What happens if you eliminate people with a conscience?

Much better article imo.

One question is:



Depends on what they mean by "upset" I suppose. If they're screening people for any kind of emotion powerful enough to influence their behavior, then sure, that's a problem. If they're screening out say people with certain specific emotional problems like bi-polar disorder, PTSD or a history of severe depression, then I don't see a problem. The number of people screened out in that case is liable to be small enough that it wouldn't significantly alter the results.

If they were screening out anyone with a moderately strong emotional response on the other hand, then that might actually say something fairly significant about the results. It might say that people are actually slightly less likely to obey today than they were when Milgram performed the experiment, since they noticed a drop in obedience that wasn't quite large enough to be statistically significant after reinforcing to the rest that they could quit at any time without losing the money.

I've got another question though. I think it's unfortunate that the participants were given money (particularly that much money) and here's why. We know that people experience guilt for a variety of reasons... and one of them is for stealing or in some cases even accepting money when they don't feel it's warranted. People act all goofy around money. There was an experiment that was done a while back mentioned in Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational in which they had a bed or a mattress in a truck by the curb. As people walked by they would do one of two things, they would either ask for help carrying it inside (i.e. "I'm just moving in") or they would offer the passerby like $5 or so to help them carry it in. Interestingly enough most of the passersby were willing to help for free, but unwilling to help if money had been offered. Offering the money actually made them distance themselves.

So getting back to the Milgram experiment, the question is, how many of the people who did deliver the final shock were influenced by the guilt they would feel for accepting the cash without completing the task? That's a serious question. I wish it weren't. I wish people were able to differentiate between the important decision (hurt someone) and the unimportant one (accept the cash), but there's too much evidence that we can't, in spite of the ways we rationalize away money decisions.