Psychologists have uncovered a troubling feature of people

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who seem nice all the time:

http://mic.com/articles/92479/psycholog ... l-the-time

I've heard about this experiment, and it's quite disturbing. I feel very strongly that if I had been a participant fully knowing my actions would cause an electric shock to a person, I would refuse point-blank. It's interesting because in some ways I do have "people pleasing" tendencies and yet I also absolutely "put my foot down" and become a refuse-nik when it comes to something I feel strongly about and do NOT want to do. I can be very stubborn when someone is trying to bend me to their will and I have no intention of following. I could never comply in this experiment. Even with an understanding of a people-pleasing urge, I simply cannot understand how those compliant ones agreed to hurt another person. It baffles me. I'm not the greatest fan of human beings in general but I could never hurt an innocent person.

I also figure that since I often find myself an outcast anyway, it doesn't matter if I don't win any popularity contests -- I have stuck up for my wild bird colony when irresponsible dog owners have allowed their dog to almost take down one of the waterfowl in an attack, so, that's just one thing in a proven track record of being willing to defend the vulnerable at the cost of pissing someone off.

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Hmmm I try to be friendly but am not very good at that. I am quite liberal in some of my politics but not much of a follower

I would refuse to inflict pain on another person as part of a study and would try to get the study shut down by the relevant ethics committee.

Almost everyone says they will think for themselves and do the right thing, just most do not in that type of experiment, most conform to the group and to authority.

I was just reading how when someone was having a heart attack, almost no one stopped. The few that stopped were all nurses. They might even have been ER nurses though not sure. They were used to spotting and responding to that type of situation and for them, responding WAS fitting in.

I think that we with autism and Aspergers often miss the social expectation and hierarchy, so when we say we think for ourselves, well, we generally do. We have a lot of practice having to act rather than do nothing, even though we may be out of step with others. I think we can scramble to follow each other as much as anyone, when we notice a group coalescing. We just often don't really see it, or don't know what to do with it. Maybe for us, being out of step IS the norm.

But I am consciously pretty agreeable and described as friendly. Just not someone people want to be friends with. So I don't think the part of disagreeable that's mean spirited is always the relevant issue. Sometimes it's just the (to me) value free issue of disagreeing, however pleasantly, when I or any of us see things differently.

"Popularity, in the end, may be more a sign of social graces and perhaps a desire to fit in than any kind of moral superiority."

I find that ENTIRELY believable. This study, while it has greater impact when performed with adults, could have been carried out by a non-participant observer in any middle school lunchroom in the country. Sad to say, we get older and we get bigger, but quite a few of us never actually mature.

OF COURSE people who are "nice all the time" are more likely to shock a "victim" even to the point of death. One: They are "nice all the time" because that is what they are told they should be, and they fear judgment and reprisal if they fail to comply. Two: Don'tcha think all that pent-up "other emotions" and the forced effort of being "nice all the time" leads to a lot of frustration, jugged-up anger, contempt for others, and potentially even the DESIRE to hurt others??

Once upon a time, I was the kind of person who would get up and walk out rather than harm another human being. Once upon a time.

Now, though, I've had lots of social skills training. I have worked hard to become less awkward, less rough, more socially acceptable. I'm definitely a "nicer" person. People tell me so all the time.

I think now that I would find it easier to continue shocking the other person, probably with a happy-neutral expression on my face.

And any qualms I had would probably be written down to autism and dismissed.

There was a repeat of the experiment here in France a year or so ago under the guise of a game show. The game show was just a pretext to do an experiment where participants got an electric shock if they got a question wrong. The more questions they got wrong the higher the voltage. The person getting the shocks was hidden inside a booth, so the other person couldn't see them. The game starts out sort of OK with a little jolt and the person going "Ow!" but after he got more wrong he was screaming. The participants (most of them) continued under pressure from the game show and studio audience host right past the point where the person getting the shocks didn't respond any more (they were presumed unconscious or dead)! !! In reality the person wasn't getting any shocks, he was an actor and it was all about testing how far people will go accepting instructions from an authority figure. In short many people will go all the way up to killing someone! The game show host kept telling the person that if they don't give the electric shock the game will be broken and all the participants will have to all go home, let alone the studio audience who were all there to watch the show... under that pressure almost everyone folded and carried on doing the shocks.

I don't think when they talk about being "nice" they mean being friendly or people pleasing. I am thinking more of the kind of people who treat "being nice" as a moral imperative, often without consideration for actual kindness, friendliness, etc.

The difference between being kind and being nice is like Dumbledore is kind and Dolores Umbridge is nice. For an extreme example.

Wow.

How much money to discover, yet again, that humans are weird?

Before I finish my story, let me let you down and say I eventually caved in.

At work I had an issue with a test for a military product, saying it doesn't pass. Nobody else wanted me to do so. I went to see a lawyer about what are the consequences. I researched what was this word 'perjury'. In a meeting, somebody called me 'paranoid'. I never had any psychology classes, so I thought I better go Google that word. And then that was the second time I came across this phrase ...

Asperger's Syndrome

and of course I Googled that out of curiosity. One thing lead to another, and here I am.

What was stated in that report doesn't surprise me at all. Pack mentality of NTs. Mind you, pack mentality can be good: A pack of wolves can take down much bigger game than a solitary wolf. A pack of meerkats stand a much better chance than the sole meerkat.

It is assumed that a person is either one or the other...agreeable or disagreeable and antisocial. This is either/or and is inaccurate thinking. It is possible to be both....

I can be disagreeable and contrary in some situations (those that offend me morally) and agreeable in others (if it doesn't hurt anyone, including myself, what the hell, I'll go along with it for the sake of being friendly or nice).

This is like my therapist thinking that someone is either logical or empathic...um it is possible to have the capacity for both but to use them at different times depending on which skill is most needed...!

Interesting article though, I have always found the Milgram study interesting.

I don't think they're saying everyone is either/or all or nothing.