Reply #37: Humans are conformist

[Prophet 451]

Ever hear of the Milgram Experiment? In the early sixties (if memory serves), a lot of people were asking the exact same question and generally came to the conclusion that the Germans were just "different" (read, "inferior"). The psychologist Milgram set up an experiment to test this. The experiment consisted of one subject, in a room with two speakers and a dial with varying voltages marked on it and the lethal voltage clearly marked. One speaker was supposedly wired to hear the person receiving the shocks (in reality, an actor), the other carried instructions from the superviser (sometimes Milgram himself, more often one of his assisstants).

The subject thought the test was about the effect of negative stimulus (in this case, pain) on memory. In reality, the test was to see how far the average person would go if ordered to do something unpleasent by someone in a percieved position of authority. The way the test was set up was that the subject would ask the actor various questions, supposedly testing his memory and, if he got them wrong, would be ordered to administer increasing electric shocks to the answerer (remember, the lethal voltage is clearly marked).

What the experiment showed is that the vast majority of people (well over 80%) would push the voltage well over the lethal level, even when hearing screams, pleading and dying noises, when ordered to by an authority figure. In reality, of course, no-one was physically harmed but what the experiment proved was that humans are instinctively conformist. Most of us will do as we're told.