IF YOU only know about one research programme in psychology, chances are it is Stanley Milgram's "shock experiments". Conducted in the early 1960s at Yale University, the participants were asked by an "Experimenter" to take on the role of "Teacher" and administer an escalating series of electric shocks to a "Learner" in the next room when he chose the wrong answers in a memory test. This was supposedly part of a study into the effect of punishment on learning.
The participants didn't know that the shocks, and the cries they elicited from the Learner, weren't genuine. Nevertheless, many acceded to the Experimenter's requests and proved willing to deliver shocks labelled 450 volts to the powerless Learner (who was in fact a stooge employed by Milgram to play this role).
The power of these studies was that they appeared to provide startling evidence of our capacity for blind obedience – evidence ...
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