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Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

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Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#11

Post by palata »

carlosjobim wrote: post #10
xeyownt wrote: post #6

Without study of the internal motivations, the conclusions of the study are pure conjectures. You are trapped in an experiment and you have the impression that things went too far and you think you can't escape? You rush it. You hear horrible noises? You just pretend you don't hear them. These are all classical mental patterns. There are million ways to explain them.

In what way were they trapped?

I assume they meant "If you feel trapped", and followed by imagining what could happen in such a situation.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#12

Post by newsclues »

bambax wrote: post #9

> By staying silent and letting the memory study fall apart, the experimenter allowed an atmosphere of illegitimate violence to flourish. Many people are cruel. Not all people, maybe; not most people, also maybe; but some people enjoy hurting others. We see this everywhere. Isn't it possible that this kind of profile jumped on the occasion to inflict pain on people with no fear of repercussions? In other words, isn't…

People that have been abused are more likely to abuse others.

If we remove this cycle of abuse, what is the natural rate of humans that will hurt others?

An uncomfortable idea, as victims become perpetrators, it may be best to segregate victims to prevent future abuse and victimization.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#13

Post by palata »

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results".

Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think about how other people think/behave? Are there examples of actual, useful and valid conclusions coming from that field?

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#14

Post by embedding-shape »

palata wrote: post #13

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results". Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think…

> Are there examples of actual, useful and valid conclusions coming from that field?

In order for someone to answer this, I think you need to come up with some sort of definition what "actual", "useful" and "valid" actually means here in this context.

Lots of stuff from psychology been successfully applied to treat people in therapy with various issues, but is that "valid" enough for you? Something tells me you already know some people are being helped in therapy one way or another, yet it seems to me those might not be "useful" enough, since I don't clearly understand what would be "useful" to you if not those examples.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#15

Post by jagged-chisel »

palata wrote: post #13

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results". Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think…

The Hawthorne effect is real. And I don’t think we will ever get a 100% solid grip on what’s happening in others’ minds. Well, until we can actually read, understand, and interpret brain activity at the cellular level.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#16

Post by tokai »

palata wrote: post #13

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results". Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think…

Those two experiments are over 50 years old. Its a bit like dismissing physics because Hubble got his constant wrong. Psychology has a lot of issues, but its also an enormous field. If your frame of reference is half a century out of date you should probably start with some encyclopedia articles.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#17

Post by eadler »

palata wrote: post #13

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results". Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think…

You may enjoy https://forrt.org/ and in particular https://forrt.org/replication-hub/

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#18

Post by skrebbel »

I wonder what percentage of "obedient" teachers saw through the facade, realized that the learner wasn't a very good actor, and was just having a good time playing along with what must've seemed like some psychology professor's weird pain kink.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#19

Post by bluGill »

embedding-shape wrote: post #14
palata wrote: post #13

I have always been pretty critical about "psychology" as a field, but always kept famous successful experiments (like Milgram and the Stanford prison experiment) as examples that "sometimes it's possible to actually get interesting results". Turns out those are not valid examples either. So I am genuinely wondering: what remains of the field of psychology, except for a group of people who find it interesting to think…

> Are there examples of actual, useful and valid conclusions coming from that field? In order for someone to answer this, I think you need to come up with some sort of definition what "actual", "useful" and "valid" actually means here in this context. Lots of stuff from psychology been successfully applied to treat people in therapy with various issues, but is that "valid" enough for you? Something tells me you alrea…

Psychology "knows" that people don't enter treatment until things are really bad, and then they get better - no matter what treatment is provided. Finding treatment that is better than others is the important part and they also know they are not very good at that.

Re: Audio tapes reveal mass rule-breaking in Milgram's obedience experiments

#20

Post by yashasolutions »

That's an interesting perspective, and it does expand how we can interpret the Milgram experiment

That said the study has been replicated many times since the original, with researchers adjusting different parameters like participant screening, changing the gender balance, or varying the roles (teacher/student, researcher/technician...) Across these variations, the overall result stays quite consistent: under certain conditions, ordinary people can be led to do harmful things.

Other experiments have also looked at which factors make this more likely, and for example, diffusing responsibility seems to be one of the most effective ones.

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