An experiment is about studying the good and evil of human nature. A scientist and two experimenters are in the same room at the same time. Looking for the name of this experiment.

(Milgram experiment), also known as Obedience to Authority Study, is a very well-known scientific experiment in social psychology. The concept of experiments first began in 1963 with the article Behavioral Study of Obedience published by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, and later also Discussed in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. The purpose of this experiment is to test the human nature of the subjects to show how much power they can refuse when faced with orders from an authority that violates their conscience.

The experiment began in July 1961, one year after Nazi party member Adolf Eichmann was captured back to Jerusalem, tried and sentenced to death. Milgram designed this experiment to test "Is it possible that Eichmann and the millions of other Nazi followers who participated in the Holocaust simply obeyed the orders of their superiors? Can we call them The murderer of the Holocaust?"

Experimental Method

The experimental team placed advertisements in newspapers and sent many advertising letters to recruit participants to come to Yale University to assist in the experiment. The experimental location was chosen in a basement on the old campus of the university. The basement had two rooms separated by walls. The advertisement stated that the experiment would last approximately one hour, and the reward would be $4.50 (approximately $20 in 2006 dollars). Participants ranged in age from 20 to 50 years old and included various educational backgrounds, from primary school graduates to doctoral degrees. Participants were informed by the experimental team that this was an experiment on "the effectiveness of corporal punishment on learned behavior" and that the participant would be playing the role of a "teacher" to teach another participant in the next room - a "student." , however the student was actually faked by the experimenter. The experimental team told the participant that he was randomly selected to be a "teacher" and was given an "answer sheet." The experimental team explained to him that the participant next door who was selected as a "student" also received a "question paper". But in fact, both papers are "answer sheets" and all real participants serve as "teachers." "Teacher" and "student" are in different rooms. They cannot see each other, but they can communicate with each other through sound through the wall. One participant was even informed in advance that the participant next door had a heart condition. The "teacher" was given an electric shock controller that allegedly started at 45 volts. The controller was connected to a generator and was told that the controller could shock the "students" next door. The answer sheet obtained by the "teacher" lists some matching words, and the task of the "teacher" is to teach the "student" next door. The teacher will read these word pairs to the students one by one. After reading, the teacher will start the test. For each word pair, four word options will be read out for the students to answer. The students will press the button to point out the correct answer. If the student answers correctly, the teacher will continue to test other words. If the student answers incorrectly, the teacher will give the student an electric shock. Every time the student answers incorrectly, the volts of the electric shock will increase accordingly. Participants will believe that students will receive electric shocks every time they answer incorrectly, but in fact no electric shocks will be given. In the next room, the student pretended by the experimenter turned on the recorder. The recorder played a pre-recorded scream in conjunction with the movement of the generator. As the volts of the electric shock increased, there would be even more amazing screams. When the volts increase to a certain level, the fake student will start banging on the wall, and after hitting the wall a few times, he will start complaining that he has a heart disease. Next, when the volts continue to increase to a certain level, the students will suddenly become silent, stop answering, and stop screaming and other reactions.

Voltage "student" reaction

75 V grumbled

120 V screamed in pain

150 V said he wanted to withdraw from the experiment

200 V shouted: "The blood in the veins is frozen."

300 V refuses to answer the question

More than 330 V is silent

If after four replies After the instigation, if the participant still wants to stop, the experiment will be stopped. Otherwise, the experiment continued until the participant's applied punishment current was increased to a maximum of 450 volts for three times. By this time many participants had expressed a desire to pause the experiment to check on the students. Many participants paused when they reached 135 volts and questioned the purpose of the experiment. Some continued taking the test after receiving assurances that they would not be held responsible. Some laughed nervously at the students' screams. If the participant expresses that he wants to stop the experiment, the experimenter will reply to him in the following order: Please continue. This experiment requires you to continue, please continue. It is necessary for you to proceed. You have no choice, you must continue. If after four responses the participant still wished to stop, the experiment was stopped. Otherwise, the experiment continued until the participant's applied punishment current was increased to a maximum of 450 volts for three times.

Experimental Results

Milgram recorded a documentary about the entire experimental process and its results. The title of the documentary is Obedience. Genuine copies of the documentary are now difficult to find. He went on to make a series of five social psychology films with Harry From that were influenced by the experiment. These videos can be found at the Penn State Media Center. Before conducting the experiment, Milgram had asked his fellow psychologists to predict the results of the experiment. They all believed that only a few people—1 out of 10 or even 1 in 10—would be ruthless enough to continue punishing to the maximum extent. Number of volts. Results In Milgram's first experiment, 65 percent (more than 27 out of 40) of the participants achieved the maximum 450-volt punishment—even though they all appeared uncomfortable; everyone was at volts At some point, some people paused and questioned the experiment, with some even saying they wanted their money back. No participant insisted on stopping before reaching 300 volts. Later, Milgram himself and many psychologists around the world also conducted similar or different experiments, but all obtained similar results. In order to confirm this experiment, many experiments were conducted that changed the architecture. Dr. Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (also the author of Milgram's biography - "The Man Who Shocked the World") obtained the meta-analysis (Meta) after repeating many experiments. -analysis), he found that regardless of the time and place of the experiment, a certain proportion of participants in each experiment were willing to apply fatal volts, approximately between 61 and 66. Not much is known about what happened at the end of the experiment. According to Philip Zimbardo's recollection, those who did not reach the highest volts did not insist that the experiment itself should end, nor did they go to the next door. The "students" were visited in the room and left without asking the experimenter for permission. In his article "The Dangers of Obedience" (1974), Milgram wrote: Legal and philosophical views on obedience are of great significance, but they say little about what people do when faced with practical situations. What kind of action. I designed this experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would be willing to inflict on another person simply because of an order from a scientist assisting the experiment. When the authority leading the experiment orders a participant to hurt another person, and the participant hears screams of pain, even if the participant suffers such strong moral discomfort, in most cases the authority is still able to continue to order him.

Experiments show how willing adults are to obey those in authority, to behave on almost any scale, and we must study and explain this phenomenon as soon as possible.

Evaluation of the experiment

The experiment itself has been questioned about the ethics of scientific experiments, because the experiment exerted extremely strong emotional pressure on the participants (although this pressure can be said to be (caused by their own free operation). Although this experiment brought valuable discoveries about human psychology, many current scientists would regard such experiments as violating experimental ethics. Milgram defended that a subsequent survey found that 84 of the participants at the time said they felt "happy" or "very happy" to participate in the experiment, and 15 participants chose a neutral attitude (92 participants did so afterwards). survey), many of whom later expressed their gratitude to Milgram. Moreover, Milgram continued to receive requests from these former participants who wanted to assist him in experiments again, or even join his research team. Six years later (during the height of the Vietnam War), one of the former participants contacted Milgram to express why they felt "pleased" to have participated in the experiment: "When I was conducting the experiment in 1964, even though I Believe that I am hurting someone, but I have no idea why I am doing it. When people act based on what they believe in and obediently obey those in authority, few realize this... please allow me. I think that I was drafted into the army by the authority, and this will make me do some bad things that even I will be afraid of... If my conscientious objector application to refuse military service is not approved by the authority, I am ready to go to jail for this, which is the only option for my conscience. My only hope is that my fellow conscripts can also use their consciences in this way..." However, the experience of the experiment. There are not life-long changes for everyone involved. Many participants were not informed of the details by modern experimental standards, and exit interviews revealed that many participants still did not appear to understand the true nature of the experiment. The main criticism caused by the experiment is not the ethical controversy of the experimental method, but the significance of the experiment. One Yale University participant in 1961 wrote in Jewish Currents magazine that he was about to stop working as a "teacher" when he began to suspect that "the whole experiment may have been designed to test what ordinary Americans would do." Will not follow orders contrary to moral conscience - just like the Germans did during the Nazi period." This was one of the original intentions of the experiment. Milgram said in his book "The Dangers of Obedience": "The problem we face is between the environment we have created in the laboratory to make people obey power and the Nazi era that we deplore. What kind of connection is there?”