'Disturbing' results - You would Torture
Most of us would torture others if ordered to do so, a study has found.
Scientists revealed that 70 per cent of volunteers, when encouraged by authority figures, continued to administer electric shocks - or at least thought they were doing so - even after an actor claimed they were painful.
Researchers at Santa Clara University in California said the experiment can only partly explain the widely reported prisoner abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or events during World War II.
Jerry Burger said: 'What we found is validation of the same argument - if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways.
Burger was copying an experiment published in 1961 by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram, in which volunteers were asked to deliver electric 'shocks' to other people if they answered certain questions incorrectly.
Milgram found that, after hearing an actor cry out in pain at 150 volts, 82.5 per cent of participants continued administering shocks, most to the maximum 450 volts.
The experiment surprised psychologists and no one has has tried to replicate it because of the distress suffered by many of the volunteers who believed they were shocking another person.
'When you hear the man scream and say, "let me out, I can't stand it," that is the point when the real stress that people criticised Milgram for kicked in,' Burger said.
'It was a very, very, very stressful experience for many of the participants. That is the reason no one can ethically replicate the experiment today.'
Burger modified the experiment, by stopping at the 150 volt point for the 29 men and 41 women in his experiment.
The results of the experiment can only partly explain the reported prisoner abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said researchers
Daily Mail
I think you had better seek some professional help..
I am not sure if we can understand much from the study. In my opinion it is very hard to judge whether someone will actually torture a person under such hypotehetical conditions. For instance, if i were to take part in the study i would know in the back of my head that under no circumstances is the person actually being hurt, as this would break ethical compliance regulations. Therefore the so called study becomes a game as far as the torturer is concerned as they are given unregulated
"power" over somebody with no negative consiquences (other than emotional). As for the torturers
that are disturbed by the sequence of events and choose to stop themselves, they are simply more
sensitive than others and refuse to take part in such a game. The study must strive for authenticity if we are to learn anythink about human behaviour in this regard, but there in lies the problem.
Since OY appears to be an advocate of torture, I suggest he has his mouth stitched up and is then administered multiple enemas.
Abu: Very true, I have met many such sad cases working in Qatar (and other countries). I think it's very sad that the human race has reached such a moral low point. 'Go with the flow' is a total 'no go' for me and it should be for all human beings.
Ossman Yissah: There is no possible justification for torture under any circumstances. If people make the mistake of attempting to justify torture in any form, then they have lost the moral high ground and they are no better than the people they torture.