PSYC 215 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Milgram Experiment, Demand Characteristics, Earlobe
28 Dec 2015
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We assume that we wouldn"t listen to authority if we don"t believe in what they are asking. We are shocked by milgram study results: most people went on until the end of the shock sequence! (most severe shock!) Psychiatrists and lay people did not predict anywhere near this amount of obedience: nazi trials at the time revealed the only following orders excuse, american observers assumed such obedience could never happen in. Observers, who saw the whole set up, were also amazed by both the level of obedience and the distress that it caused: i observed a mature and initially poised businessman enter the laboratory smiling and confident. Within 20 minutes he was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse. He constantly pulled on his earlobe, and twisted his hands. At one point he pushed his fist into his forehead and muttered:
