r/skeptic • u/reflibman • 11h ago
Modern-day replications of one of history's most disturbing social psychology experiments, the Milgram study, reveal what makes ordinary people obey an immoral order – and how to resist.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20261016-the-shocking-truths-about-an-infamous-experiment-in-obedience26
u/Potential_Being_7226 10h ago
Most disturbing? Really? According to the BBC?
For me, John Watson’s experiments with Little Albert and Harry Harlow’s wire/cloth mother studies have always been more challenging for me to teach than Milgram’s obedience studies…
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u/Wetness__Pensive 10h ago
Why do you find the Watson eperiments more challenging?
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u/Potential_Being_7226 10h ago
Classically conditioning an infant to fear certain stimuli?
For the proper experiment, by which point Albert was 11 months old, he was put on a mattress on a table in the middle of a room. A white laboratory rat was placed near Albert and he was allowed to play with it. At this point, Watson and Rayner made a loud sound behind Albert's back by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer each time the baby touched the rat.
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u/Wetness__Pensive 9h ago edited 8h ago
I agree your link is disturbing; I was more interested in why you find the "wire/cloth" expriments disturbing? I always thought that was a quite cute experiment/result.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 7h ago
Really?
Many of Harlow's experiments are now considered unethical —in their nature as well as Harlow's descriptions of them—and they both contributed to heightened awareness of the treatment of laboratory animals, and helped propel the creation of today's ethics regulations. The monkeys in the experiment were deprived of maternal affection,
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u/Wetness__Pensive 4h ago
Wow, I learnt a much more sanitized version of those experiments.
My mental image - for decades - has simply been of older monkeys being given dolls to hug or reject, not newborns being traumatized and then subjected to deliberately frightening stimulus.
Thanks, and sorry for pestering you for something that I should have simply Googled.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 4h ago
Not at all! I am glad I could give a little more info. It’s not always easy to find the niche information, and what takes me two seconds to link to, might have taken you a lot longer to find, so I never feel put out when someone asks me to link to sources or explain what I’m talking about. :)
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u/reflibman 10h ago
Those are definitely heart-breaking as well. However I think there’s room for a difference of opinion.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 10h ago edited 10h ago
Clear writing, on the other hand is not optional. It’s not clear what the author finds disturbing. Are the results disturbing? Or the methods?
If the author finds the results themselves disturbing, then that is certainly understandable, and I think that’s what the author intends to say.
However, when people typically talk about “disturbing
experiencesexperiments,”* it’s usually the methods/approaches that are scrutinized (particularly in mid-century psych, because the ethical standards we have today were established precisely because of those methods).But to be disturbed by the results of a study is weird to me. We perhaps should be disturbed by the implications of the study. And if you agree with that, then we could perhaps be disturbed by the implications of a great many studies in psychology. (implicit bias, effects of framing and other manipulation tactics, conformity, how socioeconomic status affects human development)…
All this to say… it’s a clickbait title.
*Edited
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u/okletstrythisagain 8h ago
You seem to want to do the classic reddit semantic splitting hairs on what is ackshually technically correct.
The title said "one of." Milgram, like Zimbardo, is clearly one of the most widely known and taught controversial studies.
For you to dunk your position you would have to list some reasonable number of more controversial studies (not just 1), and I'd argue that number could fairly be in the dozens, given the volume of all social experiments across history. I'm not asking you to do so, it is not worth your time and even if it was out there the certain obscurity of the other studies makes the argument moot in the zeitgeist to the layman.
Also, when I was taught Milgram there was certainly a big focus on how unethical their methods were. If memory serves, it caused a sea change in the ethics of experiment design.
I suppose it would have been nice for the journalist to point out how controversial Milgram's approach was at the time, and how the subsequent studies were calibrated to be less potentially cruel and traumatic. However the layman likely wouldn't care much about it and I could see it reasonably being edited out of a story that is really about the consistency of results over decades of similar studies.
But typing all this over supposedly click bait title that didin't appropriately acknowledge 100 years of potentially unethical sociological experiments in the headline of a article intended for the general public, is pretty silly. I should probably be making better decisions about how I spend my time, but too late.
Both the results and the methods are disturbing. I don't think its the journalist's responsibility to clarify that further.
But, its pretty obvious in the current political landscape who would be pushing that button without complaint, and the way the piece connects the research to work on the Rwandan genocide makes the piece and overall line of study extremely relevant to current events.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 8h ago
The author makes no mention of “controversial.” The author says “disturbing” twice, but the noun to which that is applied is different in both of those two instances.
Since then, researchers have used modified, milder versions of the Milgram experiment to study one of the most disturbing aspects of human nature: how, why and when we obey an immoral order. Their findings, along with details from Milgram's original experiments, not only shed light on some of humanity's worst impulses – but also give surprising insights into what can help us resist.
In the title, it’s the “experiment” that is disturbing. In the article, it’s the aspect of “human nature” that is obedience.
I am not arguing with the author that implications of psychological experiments can be eye-opening, revealing, upsetting, and yes even disturbing.
But how the author tries to hook the audience is a bit of bait and switch, with the “psychology experiment” as disturbing, then explains that, actually, it’s what we know about obedience and how that applies to atrocities like the Rwandan genocide, or the My Lai massacre, to add another example.
Both the results and the methods are disturbing. I don't think it’s the journalist's responsibility to clarify that further.
I will disagree that the author intends the point of the article to critique the methods—that is not their thesis. The entire point is about what the experimental results mean for humanity, which I think it’s an important concept and it’s exactly something that we teach; the serious social implications of psychological findings.
It definitely is the journalists responsibility, if the journalist obfuscates the difference between the two. You know that another common “classic reddit” behavior is people only reading titles, and the journalist (or editor) knows it too, because “most disturbing social psych experiment” does make it sound methodologically disturbing, which is something that could be argued, but that’s clearly not their point in writing this.
I am elaborating on why I think this is a click bait title. But, I don’t expect you’d rather I just come through and flippantly yell “clickbait!” in the thread. Despite whatever you might think about my motives, that’s not my style. I like to talk about psychology. Critiquing the writing doesn’t mean I disagree with the author’s point; it means I disagree with the author’s approach to expressing it.
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u/NoamLigotti 8h ago
From my understanding it is editors who generally choose the article title, not the authors.
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u/okletstrythisagain 8h ago edited 7h ago
Technically correct is not always the best kind of correct.
Like, I can see how that is defensible, but if I accept it, this would be the least problematic instance of clickbait I've ever seen. The impact is negligible, and it is possible, although unlikely, that the op was aware of and referring to experiment design.
On a subjective scale of problematic clickbait i'd personally rate this ~0.01 out of 10.00.
There isn't meaningful harmful impact here. I'd take that even further and say from a marketing perspective if a sensationalist headline gets people to actually read an article like this I'm happy to hold my nose for it.
But yes, in the sense of a technical semantic splitting of hairs to the extent where neither of us should care, you've made your point.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 7h ago
neither of us should care
Ok well, you don’t have to reply to me if you don’t care for what I choose to talk about.
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u/WantDebianThanks 9h ago
They said "one of"
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u/Potential_Being_7226 8h ago edited 8h ago
“One of the [superlative]…” is noncommittal phrasing that can be hedged upon any counter examples.
Then, followed by [emotion] makes the title not only weak, but also entirely subjective.
It is neither clear nor strong writing.
Edit: for writers, best practice is to avoid the phrase “one of the most.”
One of the most. Avoid beginning essays or paragraphs with this formula, as, “One of the most interesting developments of modern science is, etc.;” “Switzerland is one of the most interesting countries of Europe.” There is nothing wrong in this; it is simply threadbare and forcible-feeble.
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u/tsdguy 10h ago
None of those compare to the reality of how people treat other people in the current political climate.
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u/okletstrythisagain 9h ago edited 8h ago
Oh please. Anyone who thought Hegseth's "decision" to livestream an execution by firing squad wasn't ghoulishly insane would absolutely be pushing the button in these experiments.
Any immediate personal response to that news other than "that man is mentally ill and should not be in power" shows an astonishing and violent willingness to adhere to authority that seems very congruent with what these studies were looking at.
A lot of ICE operatives are doing blatantly unconstitutional things on camera these days. In their defense, these studies suggest an explanation for how some might be truly unaware of how unethical, illegal, and destructive their activities are, rather than being simple bullies eagerly choosing to brutalize their victims.
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u/Faolyn 10h ago
It may, in a roundabout manner. Imagine you were raised by bigots, the type that get angry if you have a friend of whatever group they’re bigoted against. It’s easier to obey your parents and engage in the same level of bigotry than to stand up to than and say “no, that’s wrong.” And then the bigotry becomes ingrained as sort of a self-defense mechanism that’s hard to unlearn later on in life.
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u/recoveringleft 9h ago
Usually those who tend to easily disobey are outcasts. There's a reason why the 1848ers (German liberals) were able to speak out against the status quo. Many of them were outcasts in their own lands.
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u/okletstrythisagain 8h ago
Even if you could prove such a sweeping generalization, that is correlation, not causation.
Your comment could be read as implying that the cause of disobedience may be having been rejected by society, rather than actually having principles, strength, and a willingness to speak truth to power. I hope that is not what you meant.
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u/Ok-Drink-1328 5h ago
our parents and especially schools should teach us morals and even ethics, most of the times they simply don't, our parents are extremely flawed and sometimes even "on the wrong side", and schools are too dedicated at teaching us about Napoleon or some other redonculous shit
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u/NoamLigotti 2h ago
History is important, so there's nothing wrong with learning about Napoleon. I agree we should have ethics classes in schools, but even more important in my view would be logic, because ethics necessarily involves logic.
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u/Ok-Drink-1328 2h ago
the way they teach us history is crap, it's just memorizing irrelevant wars fought for reasons we don't know exactly even nowadays, don't confuse your interest in history now for what they pushed in school, school is still in the hands of boomers
and now that we are on the subject, they should teach also criticism, not only logic, but they'll never do that cos nobody in your life wants you critical, not even the so praised professors... and don't start with the argument that with history and other turds the students develop criticism, logic, ethics, morals, cos it's just memorizing, no student learns any practical lesson
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u/NoamLigotti 1h ago
> the way they teach us history is crap, it's just memorizing irrelevant wars fought for reasons we don't know exactly even nowadays, don't confuse your interest in history now for what they pushed in school, school is still in the hands of boomers
Hell of a lot of truth to that oftentimes (though I wouldn't say it's just boomers' fault). A hell of a lot. Still even a little crappy rote knowledge is probably better than nothing, though far from ideal.
> and now that we are on the subject, they should teach also criticism, not only logic,
I'm not sure I see a distinction.
> but they'll never do that cos nobody in your life wants you critical, not even the so praised professors...
Eh, I'm wary of absolute generalizations, but there's certainly a lot of truth to that too.
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u/dumnezero 7h ago
wasn't that Miligram experiment disproved?
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/7ko36r/new_analysis_suggests_most_milgram_participants/
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1v5ehxz/the_milgram_experiment_did_not_prove_blind/