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by hellllllllooo
2859 days ago
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Who knows. The point is that what was reported isn't what happened so the original findings of the study are invalid and cannot be trusted. To answer your question you'd want to do a new study where your question and the methodology is defined in advance. Defining the questions after an experiment has ended leads to bad conclusions because you are biased by having already seen what has happened and likely to fit your question to match the results. The electric shock experiment (https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html) seems similar to your question showing a willingness for people to go further than they normally would when asked to do so by an authority figure. |
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> In 2012, Australian psychologist Gina Perry investigated Milgram's data and writings and concluded that Milgram had manipulated the results, and that there was "troubling mismatch between (published) descriptions of the experiment and evidence of what actually transpired." She wrote that "only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real and of those, 66% disobeyed the experimenter".[19][20] She described her findings as "an unexpected outcome" that "leaves social psychology in a difficult situation."[21] In the journal Jewish Currents, Joseph Dimow, a participant in the 1961 experiment at Yale University, wrote about his early withdrawal as a "teacher", suspicious "that the whole experiment was designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period."[22]
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Critical_re...)
I can only speak as a psychology student who read about 'classics' such as Milgram and SPE, and participated in a number of experiments myself. I remember even when I read about the Migram experment, I figured that while I probably wouldn't have administered the severe shocks or participated at all, just in case, there's a chance I might have done so assuming it was all faked.
In fact, I'd argue this 'disconnect' from reality, if anything, is a much more interesting phenomenon. I've been part of various hazing rituals, some of them in hindsight quite irresponsible, and I think what made those 'work' wasn't that 'good people turned bad' or 'a few bad apples abused the mechanism', but rather that everyone involved just went along with the prank to an irresponsible degree.
One could argue that this supports the idea that people will do horrible things when told to do so by an 'authority', but I can't help but feel that the reality as I've experienced it doesn't fit the narrative of the Milgrams and Zimbardos.
tl:dr; I can't help but feel that many of these types of experiments are evidence of flawed reality more than morality. it's less going through some kind of moral reasoning and deciding to trust the lab coat, but more a flaw in our mental heuristics that leads us to construct an alternate reality. things like the bystander effect would support that view, and while it might seem like splitting hairs, I feel they're quite different interpretations.