TREADWAY@MPS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (04/12/91)
Path: ohstpy!treadway From: treadway@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa Subject: Milgram's 37 Message-ID: <9843.2804e9a0@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> Date: 11 Apr 91 22:56:32 EDT News-Moderator: Approval required for posting to rec.music.gaffa Lines: 7 About Milgram's 37: It is actually a home-made alcoholic beverage. Just kidding...Honestly, Milgram was an experimental psychologists that persuaded 37 subjects to painfully, even lethally, shock strangers - an electric chair type set-up. He was basically studying the obedience of humans to authority figures. Needless to say, this experiment was the basis of many ethics in research discussions. Have fun, Joel
treadway@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu (04/12/91)
About Milgram's 37: It is actually a home-made alcoholic beverage. Just kidding...Honestly, Milgram was an experimental psychologists that persuaded 37 subjects to painfully, even lethally, shock strangers - an electric chair type set-up. He was basically studying the obedience of humans to authority figures. Needless to say, this experiment was the basis of many ethics in research discussions. Have fun, Joel
nehaniv@oreo.berkeley.edu (Chrystopher Lev Nehaniv) (04/12/91)
In article <D8F746ABC02028C2@MPS.OHIO-STATE.EDU> TREADWAY@MPS.OHIO-STATE.EDU writes: >Subject: Milgram's 37 > >About Milgram's 37: It is actually a home-made alcoholic beverage. >Just kidding...Honestly, Milgram was an experimental psychologists that >persuaded 37 subjects to painfully, even lethally, shock strangers - an >electric chair type set-up. He was basically studying the obedience of humans >to authority figures. Needless to say, this experiment was the basis of many >ethics in research discussions. > Have fun, Joel Actually the `shocked' strangers weren't being shocked, but were actors acting shocked. The ethics brouhaha was about deception of the subjects and their being made to do something apparently immoral. -X -- C.L. Nehaniv (nehaniv@math.berkeley.edu) | " Things fall apart. Dept. of Mathematics | It's scientific." UC Berkeley, CA 94720 | -D. Byrne
dnb@MESHUGGE.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (David N. Blank) (04/13/91)
So as not to be misleading: From: treadway@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu: > Just kidding...Honestly, Milgram was an experimental psychologists > that persuaded 37 subjects to painfully, even lethally, shock > strangers - an electric chair type set-up. He was basically studying > the obedience of humans ...doesn't really describe do the experiment justice. To the best of my recollection, Milgram set up an experiment which consisted of the following situation: A subject is told that he is to teach the person in the adjacent booth (an actor hired by Milgram) something. I believe that the test subject saw the actor through one-way glass. The subject has available a mechanism to deliver a variable (by the subject) electric shock to the actor as punishment to provide a reward/punishment incentive for learning. The subject is knowledgable of the amount of current required to do physical damage to the actor. He/she does *not* know that a) the person he/she is trying to teach is an actor and b) the electric shocks supposedly delivered by the shock mechanism are fake (and acted out by Milgram's actor). The actors were then told to occasionally be unreceptive. Milgram found (disturbingly enough) that subjects were willing to crank the punishment device up to lethal levels (even when they saw the actors writhing in pain). The ethics discussions you mentioned came about not because of the results of the test, but because the subjects were not informed of all of the experiment's facets. Peace, dNb
stevev@GREYLADY.UOREGON.EDU (Steve VanDevender) (04/17/91)
Joel (Treadway?) (treadway@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu) writes: >P.S. I still hold that Milgram's 37 is an alcoholic beverage - or at least >it should be. I can see it now--"Milgram's 37: The drink for when you want someone else to be responsible for your actions." I'm getting more and more inclined to get _This Woman's Work_. A local record store can get the Japanese box set for about $170, which appears to be competitive. And I know that it would take me far more time and money to find find all those B-sides. I sent off for _Rhodes Vols. I and II_ last weekend, and said that Vickie and the Love-Hounds sent me. I'm quite curious to get the tapes--from everyone's enthusiastic descriptions, it sounds like the sort of new music I could use in my life. Laurie Anderson appeared in Eugene Monday night, and it was really fascinating. I wish I had gotten the chance to see the Strange Angels tour, since Laurie basically just talked for two hours, sang a couple of short simple songs, and showed a couple of video pieces she'd done, so it wasn't quite as musical as many people I know were expecting. However, she is a fascinating and entertaining speaker.
jondr@sco.COM (A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain) (04/18/91)
In article <1991Apr12.112807.5289@agate.berkeley.edu> nehaniv@oreo.berkeley.edu (Chrystopher Lev Nehaniv) writes: >Actually the `shocked' strangers weren't being shocked, but were >actors acting shocked. The ethics brouhaha was about deception of >the subjects and their being made to do something apparently immoral. Of course, that was only the entire point of the experiment. Some people just don't get it, do they? If it hasn't already been mentioned, Milgram himself wrote a book on the experiment called Obedience To Authority. I recommend it heartily. There is also a film that they showed us in Legal Studies that dealt with this experiment, although I don't know how you could get a copy of it if you're not in school. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- jon drukman jondr@sco.com always note the sequencer: sco docland wage slave uunet!sco!jondr this will never let us down ---------------------------------------------------------------------------