"Wrong. 75 volts. The correct answer is hair." "The punishment is an electric shock."
Santa Clara University Professor Jerry Burger replicated the famed Milgram Experiment of the 60s. The goal to find out whether people would obey an order, no matter how much it may go against their own conscience and morals. "Under the right circumstances today people will administer painful, perhaps lethal electric shocks to another person."
The subject was instructed to give a test to another person and for every wrong answer he was told to push a switch that would shock that person. "Everyone says, 'I would not do it,' but when we sit people down and do the study we find the majority of people do."
At 150 volts, the subject hears an extreme reaction. "My heart's starting to bother me. I refuse to go on. Let me out." "At this moment we want to see, 'is this person going to refuse to continue or is this person going to continue with the next item?' what we found is 70% of the time our person continues."
Burger stops the experiment here, extrapolating that anyone willing to go on would go all the way and women were found just as likely to push the switch. "Ah!" ...as men. Burger says the findings can shed light on extreme situations such as the torture that took place at Abu Grahaib, the infamous Iraqi prison where soldiers, including female Specialist Lynndie England, were photographed abusing prisoners.
Burger says the modern day Milgram Experiment shows that situations more than individual beliefs can determine the way we act. Almost all the people who refused to shock the other person said they would consider themselves responsible for injuries to that person. Those who continued with the experiment, didn't take the blame, but instead fingered the study and even the university.
