October 20, 2016 Thursday
Bedtime Story
Milgram Experiment Basics
Milgram Experiment Basics
The question that became quite universal in everybody’s mind whosoever witnessed the television broadcast of the Eichmann trial was this:
“Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices
in the Holocaust were just following orders?
“Could be we all call them accomplices?”
He decided to set an experiment that might give clue to
these questions.
His experiments began in July of 1961 in the basement
of one of the buildings of Yale University.
Human subjects (only males) were chosen randomly through an
advertisement.
(I had availed myself as a similar experimental subject
in quite a few clinical experiments and drug trials both in the East and the
West Coast, thereby contributing to science and medicine indirectly besides my
direct contributions through experiments in labs).
The test subject was assigned the role of “teacher”.
Two other people that were also involved in the
experiment played the role of:
“Authority” which was either Milgram himself or one of
his team member.
“Learner” who would play the role of recipient of
electro shock generator from an apparent electroshock generator.
The “learner” was kept in a separate isolated room and
is actually an actor from Milgram’s team and is pretending to get electric
shocks and crying out in pain and distress.
It was made to appear to the experimental subject or
the “teacher” that the “authority” and the “learner” have been chosen at random
by the draw of lottery.
The “learner” made it sure that he told the
“teacher” that he suffers from a cardiac condition.
The task of the “teacher” was to train the “learner” a
long list of word pairs.
The “teacher” would at first read out the list of word
pairs to the “learner” through microphone.
Later the “teacher” would read the first word of each
pair and give 4 options to the “learner”.
The “learner” would respond by pressing appropriate of
the 4 switches to indicate his reply.
An untrue answer would lead to the “learner” getting an
electric shock that would gradually be increased by 15 volt for each subsequent
wrong answer.
In truth, the “learner” would not be getting real
shocks but all the same would be responding by playing pre-recorded yelling of
pain of increasing intensity and after certain level starting to bang on the
wall pleading his cardiac condition.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average storytelling chimpanzee or
login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
Another great educator and teacher that I am aware of is Professor
Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an IIT graduate and
a former professor at BARC, actually does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All
his books can be downloaded for free through this link.
For
edu-tainment of your children may I suggest Kids Songs channel.
The advertisement that Milgram had posted in the newspaper of New Haven area of Connecticut for choosing male volunteers. I have myseld responded as a volunteer to several such advertisements both in the East and West Coast, but specially in the East Coast where all the leading Universities are located
The Milgram Experiment was set up this way L the "Learner" is actually an accomplice, T the "Teacher" is the subject of study and E the Experimenter or the Authority is of course either Milgram or one of his team member
Actual picture of Stanley Milgram guiding the "teacher" with prodding instructions
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