People who normally would not be able to use violence against someone are often ready to do so if the instruction comes from an authority figure. Researchers from the University of Melbourne (Australia) recently tried to verify this conclusion. They were interested in the results of an experiment conducted in 1961 by psychologist Stanley Milgram.
Milgram and his colleagues offered a group of volunteers a test in which one of the subjects had to ask the other in the next room questions to test memory and learning ability. Moreover, if the "student" answered the question incorrectly, a special device had to shock him. But the “teacher” had to turn on the machine remotely, and the voltage should be increased with each wrong answer … If the “teacher” refused to apply punishment to the “student”, the experimenter sitting next to him said that the test should be continued.
This was the essence of the experiment. Milgram wanted to test the readiness of people to commit cruel or unethical acts in the event that the instructions come from a superior person.
It turned out that, even taking into account the doubts that overwhelmed the subjects, the majority (62.5 percent of them) were ready to torture the "victims" if the organizer of the experiment insistently asked them to do so. Subsequently, Milgram was accused of unethicalness and inability to conduct psychological experiments … Moreover, he did not perform a systematic analysis of the data obtained as a result of 21 experiments, which covered a total of 740 people, taking into account various conditions.
A team of Australian researchers led by Nick Heslem decided to repeat Milgram's experiment in order to understand its results. Scientists conducted a series of experiments, and all 23 sessions differed from each other in script. For example, in one session, two experimenters participated, who could give the subject "teacher" recommendations that were opposite in content. In others, the experimenter was in the next room rather than next to the "teacher." During the third “teachers” there were several, and they could consult with each other about the continuation of the test. During the fourth, no signals about pain sensations were received from the next room, and the “teacher” could observe on the monitor only the state of the “student's” heart. In some cases, "teacher" and "student" were friends or relatives.
From 20 to 40 people took part in each type of experiments. At the same time, obedience to "authority" was demonstrated from 0 to 92 percent. The average number of "teachers" who, under pressure from experimenters, hurt "students" was 43 percent.
It turned out that most often the "teacher" increased the tension if the experimenter gave him a direct indication of this, and the level of the experimenter's position did not significantly influence the subject's behavior. If there was at least some choice left, in most cases the “teachers” preferred not to do it. Also, if there was a second experimenter who gave opposite instructions, then the "teacher" rarely obeyed the one who demanded to increase the tension … The same thing happened if the instructions were given from the next room.
Of course, the behavior of the “teacher” was also influenced by the degree of his acquaintance or closeness with the “student”. The closer they were to each other in life, the more the first tried to avoid continuing testing. It was easier to deliver pain to completely strangers.
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Thus, Teslem and his colleagues came to the conclusion that the willingness to torture their own kind is influenced by a variety of social factors that Milgram did not pay attention to in his time. We are surprised that in politically difficult times people resort to aggression, violence and repression against their “ideological enemies” or those who are declared “enemies” of the authorities. But there is nothing surprising in this. People are rarely born sadists and aggressors, but they can behave that way if it is "socially conditioned", for example, if they are convinced that the activities of "opponents" are harmful to society. A soldier can shoot to kill by order, because he believes that he is facing an enemy or a criminal. But there may be factors that make him abandon violence: for example, the emergence of new authorities or the personality of the victim …
In short, there are many reasons why we are able to hurt our neighbor, and just as many reasons not to …
TRINITY MARGARITA