Triple A Learning IB Blogs

Nearly 50 years after Yale professor Stanley Milgram conducted his seminal social psychology experiment in obedience using his famous electro-shock generator, the experiment has been repeated in a very modern context   – reality television. Milgram’s experiment was an attempt to understand why previously normal Germans could have acted so immorally in supporting the actions of the Nazi regime. Was it a purely German phenomenon or  was it a general human trait that would be replicated  across other nationalities and ethnic groups? Are humans socialised into merely following orders from people assumed to be in authority? Milgram’s experiment in the USA and then in many other countries appeared to show that humans simply learn to comply with authority figures, and that humans worldwide would commit attrocious acts under pressured circumstances, pleading  duress.

Reality television is seeking ever more extreme ways of ritual humiliation – always trying to find that extra ‘edge’. Perhaps this is why contestants in a ‘pilot’ for a supposedly new French reality show were probably not surprised by the expectation that they inflict pain on others. The extent of the demands, however, were shocking.  People were asked to inflict electric shocks on a  fellow contestant in response to incorrect answers to memorised questions. Eighty per cent of  the 80 participants ignored the pleading of the fellow contestant to stop the shocks admid wails of pain, when told to continue by the TV presenter, Tania Young. They were prepared to increase the voltage to a point that was labelled as ‘extreme shock’.

Read more…