Week 9: Experimenter (2015)

 “Life can only be understood backwards, but it has to be lived forwards.”

1. Politics of academia and the experimental field of Psychology

The culture of political correctness has permeated in the psychology field, often under the guise of being ethical. Commentators, other psychologists, critics, mere consumers and observers of this phenomenon have shown worry towards the past participants of Milgram's study who exhibited characteristics of stress and nervousness that were experienced when the study was carried out. The same people believed that deception as a tool to reveal the participants' true behaviour was a form of manipulation, even insinuating that it is synonymous with a form of torture - as they were made to administer electric shocks to another person in the study - even though only 1.3% of participants indicated negative feelings after the experiment itself, and 74% learned something of personal importance through it.

Moreover, they believed that the participants were forced to administer these shocks, Milgram's character in response to this: "what happened between the command and outcome is up to the individual - their choice to obey or not." This encapsulates the idea that Milgram was originally trying to deliver, in which people have a choice to obey authority and to disobey it. But, real life situations often show that people follow the authority's instructions. Why is that?

During the debriefing sessions, past participants were called in and interviewed. They said they didn't understand the point of the experiment and could not seem to handle that they would be considered as bad people. People think everything a person does is due to the feelings and ideas within the person, but sometimes it is important to acknowledge that a person's actions depend on the situation that they are put in. Again, a major point that is often misinterpreted or looked past at. Not only did they feel upset over being deceived (i.e. the negative aspects that came from it, like feeling nervous, feeling bad for administering the shocks, etc) and possibly felt some sort of betrayment from their vulnerability during the experiment itself, but it also seemed that the participants shifted the blame towards Milgram because most of them were not able to face what they did (and of which they found horrific) - they couldn't accept that part of themselves. Instead of trying to understand why and seeing the underlying processes that may caused them to do such a thing, they chose the easier thing to do and blamed it on Milgram.

2. People can't think for themselves

After its publication, Milgram's study was talked about and discussed by a range of people - even being translated into eight other languages. It is no surprise that people would pick sides (either seeing it as a brilliant study that is a gate to more similar studies, or that it was unethical and vile) and see which side their opinions lined up with, rather than forming their own opinions about it and dissecting it to see what its original goals were. People seemed to be fixated on the 'electric shock' and 'deception' part of the experiment, forgetting the main idea of what it aimed to study in human behaviour - to understand the reasoning behind blind obedience towards authority even if its instructions included hurting another human to killing a mass amount of them.

A prime example was that scene where the blonde lady bumped into Milgram outside the university's building and said she saw him published on Times - even read his book reviews (but not the actual book) and thought the experiment was harsh. This goes to show that people will listen to what others say rather than forming their own opinion rather than analysing it themselves - it is the easier option anyway. As Milgram's character said it to be a totalitarian world, in which a government exercises its control over the freedom and thoughts of its people; not allowing them to have differing opinions. Once zoomed out and the bigger picture is laid out, there will always be people who look to the authority and do as they are told - obedience is something that is taught since we were young. We have internalised obedience through so many forms - in school, at home, at work, our cultures, our society as a whole. We look up to authorities and look past their bad character; we get punished if we sway out of the linear path shaped and readied for us; we follow and obey things we do not believe in because that is the right thing to do, or at least what we're told. The way we justify doing horrific acts is by blaming it on someone else - that authoritative figure. This is where the agentic state takes place. These are acts based on the direction that is given to us; we are the instruments carrying out the wishes of others, "I'm just following order", "I'm just doing my job", "It's the law."