
Why do we keep repeating the Milgram experiments? - mr_golyadkin
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/why-do-we-keep-repeating-the-milgram-experiments
======
byerley
I find something deeply annoying about journalists using pop-psychology to
criticize real psychology.

Yes, you can probably poke some holes in his quantitative interpretation of
obedience (it's hard to condense human dialogue/action into a single metric),
but it was good fundamental psychology that warranted repetition/variation.

Published science often contains a limited narrative because even scientists
have trouble reading through many pages of technical detail without proper
motivation. To suggest that narrative makes Milgram's work art rather than
science is an unjustified insult.

~~~
V-2
Critique of Milgram's experiment by Erich Fromm (acclaimed pop psychologist):
[http://www.angelfire.com/or3/tss2/fromilg.html](http://www.angelfire.com/or3/tss2/fromilg.html)

Why the downvote? Tl;dr, or had no better argument than that? :)

~~~
Retric
To paraphrase a researcher:

"Critique is more or less pointless. Find an experiment that produces a
different result based on your theory or keep quiet the adults are talking."

Which ends up looking like your doing the same thing repeatedly to the laymen.

~~~
V-2
Unlike a downvote, this is something to which I can reply.

Pointing out flaws in the setup (or interpreration) of an experiment does not
require staging a counter-experiment.

Also note that the broader question is the value of psychological experiments
at large (how do artificial settings relate to real life), and it by itself
cannot be proven by an experiment :)

It's turtles all the way down. "Experiments above anything else" is a dogma in
its own right.

~~~
Retric
Suppose you read a paper and think. Ahh but they where used blue towels if
they used red towels things would be different! Great, but until you try that
you don't actually know what changes that has. So, doing anything else but
running the experement is basically a waste of time. (Pointing out say a math
error is generally not considered critique.)

As to psychological experiments there reproduceable even if they don't
generalize. So, clearly your measuring something.

~~~
V-2
"Suppose you read a paper and think. Ahh but they where used blue towels if
they used red towels things would be different! Great, but until you try that
you don't actually know what changes that has."

If the design of an experiment is faulty or doubtful, I don't know what the
correct result would be, and you're right that I can't prove the result was
actually incorrect (until I run a counter-experiment), BUT I am entitled to
say that the result is doubtful.

Having only a broken watch, we can never be 100% sure that it shows wrong time
at any given moment, as long as we have no data to compare it against. And
sometimes it will be showing right time indeed. It's just not reliable.

This is especially true in the field of "soft" science such as psychology
rather than physics etc.

"As to psychological experiments there reproduceable even if they don't
generalize. So, clearly your measuring something."

Something, yes, but it is often open to debate just what that SOMETHING
actually is :)

Dismissing these doubts by namecalling ("pop psychology", "keep quiet the
adults are talking", and so on) does not strike me as very scientific. It is a
disguised ideological stance.

~~~
Retric
There are literally infinite therory's the exactly match any set of
observations. Suggesting new and interesting theory's is therefore pointless
as simply suggesting a therory and showing how it matches existing
observations demonstrates nothing. As, again there are infinite incorrect
theory's that do the same thing.

It's only by finding actual evidence in support of a theory that you can make
any sort of progress.

Edit: As to pointing out flaws in an experement. Again there is no progress as
removing evidence in support of a theory does not get you any where you need
new evidence in support of a different theory for there to be progress.

~~~
jonnathanson
While I grok your logic here, following it through leads to a very impractical
approach to science. What is one supposed to do with an existing theory that
one knows to be flawed? Simply let it stand, until he can conduct a new and
fully tested theory to replace it? What about all the intermediate steps?

Poking holes in existing theories is a legitimate part of scientific inquiry
and progress. The whole point of science is to gain knowledge by questioning
the way things work. Ideally you do that by proposing new hypotheses, and
constantly testing them out. But you can also do it by challenging or
critiquing existing theories. This is sometimes a necessary first step before
anyone even thinks to propose new theories to replace the old ones.

 _" It's only by finding actual evidence in support of a theory that you can
make any sort of progress."_

By that logic, a great deal of theoretical physics right now is worthless.
Fields like that often start with peculiar observations, around which theories
are proposed, then computationally analyzed or simulated. No "actual evidence"
has been found to support a lot of these theories, though that hasn't stopped
people from trying. (Nor should it). In many of these cases, the technology
necessary to find the actual evidence does not yet exist, or is prohibitively
expensive, or is in world-limited supply.

~~~
Retric
Do you honestly think string theory was useful for something? As to
experiments I am not suggesting they are the only form of evidence. Finding a
new fossil can easily count as evidence in support of a different theory.

Still, coming up with a new theory and suggesting an experiment is IMO far
more useful than simply another theory. The point is to avoid doing this: The
real name of god is A, no it's AA, no it's AAA...

I might not be explaning this all that well. There is a somewhat recent theory
that a lot of exising dinosaur species where not distinct. Rather there bone
structures change as they age. In many ways you could argue this is just
evaluating evidence differently. However, rather than simply standing alone it
suggested examining a range of existing fossils in ways that also supported
this theory. Which was then done. The important bit IMO was not stopping at
the theory stage.

------
abruzzi
"Another obedient subject remonstrates after she’s finished obeying, because
she quickly understands what the experiment was really about and is
disgusted."

This critique seems to be missing the point. Of course if all the subjects
knew that they were being tested on their obedience to sadistic authority,
none of them would have gone as far as they did. (or maybe they would have
knowing that the pain was not truly inflicted.) The point was that when they
thought they were inflicting pain for some greater knowledge/good, they had no
problem. The above quote is portrayed in the story as "disobedience". Its not,
its regret, maybe shame.

~~~
otakucode
And that shame only comes about because they do not have the shelter of crying
"I was only doing my job!" or "I was only following orders!"

Give a person that shelter and they can become the most horrific monster
imaginable, with no moral compunction whatsoever. They abdicate all moral
responsibility for themselves. That is why "just following orders" or "just
doing my job" should be seen as a guarantee of moral bankruptcy and deserving
of the most extreme punishment. If you take advantage of those shelters and
abdicate your own moral sense, you are a dangerous uncivilized animal and
should be locked in a cage for the protection of the rest of society.

------
whiddershins
One thing I've always wondered about these experiments: why do we assume
humans can't (perhaps subconsciously) tell that the person in pain is faking?

I remember a friend describing hearing a woman attacked on her college campus.
She said the screams the woman made were like nothing she has heard before or
since, they were incredibly disturbing and unmistakably the sound of someone
in terror and pain. I have also never listened to the audio recording of the
"grizzly man" and his girlfriend being attacked by a bear, but have heard it
is so horrible, you can never "un-hear" it.

Isn't it possible the faked pain just doesn't trigger a genuine response in
the person administering the fake torture?

~~~
Totient
There was a followup using _actual_ shocks on a puppy. Similar results:
[http://www.holah.co.uk/files/sheridan_king_1972.pdf](http://www.holah.co.uk/files/sheridan_king_1972.pdf)

------
protonfish
I think the reason we keep seeing this over and over without any great insight
is due to cognitive dissonance. Even after the Milgram experiments, not to
mention countless wars, cruelty, genocide, domestic abuse, scapegoating,
prejudice, persecution, and all other shameful acts of humanity that fill the
history books, we can't bring ourselves to believe that authority is bad. We
keep looking for a different interpretation or experiment to exonerate
unquestioning obedience but it never happens.

~~~
chippy
We think that humans have grown up and developed?

~~~
otakucode
That would be a radically dangerous position to adopt. It is exactly the
position which fueled colonialism. They thought they had grown up as well and
were in a position to 'help' the rest of humanity grow with them - into being
driven primarily by economic motives dedicated to suppressing every counter-
productive urge to pleasure that humans experience.

And, of course, the Holocaust was supported by this exact argument as well.
We'd developed enough that we knew how to improve the human race - eugenics.
We knew how to improve 'mental hygeine'. All that was required was hard men
making the hard choices, overcoming the weaknesses of empathy and compassion
for the greater good. And the people lapped it up. That is a dangerous area to
tread upon. We should always be humble in our knowledge, and parsimonious in
its application.

~~~
Houshalter
These analogies are forced to fit your narrative. By your logic we should
never do anything because future generations may realize we were wrong.

Colonialists didn't care about helping natives, they wanted their resources.
Whether or not eugenics could work was never in question. It was whether it
was moral. The holocaust was motivated primarily by hatred, not _merely_
misguided attempts at improving the world.

------
tofof
I know it's a nitpick, but it irks me to no end to see things like "about a
tenth of one per cent (.125) of subjects". Particularly so when it's in
articles submitted to sites, like Hacker News, whose audience presumably
instantly recognizes "an eighth of one per cent" when they see it.

~~~
pcrh
0.125 would be 12.5%...

~~~
bitJericho
1% / 8 = 0.125%

~~~
albedoa
Yes, but the article didn't carry the unit, which is important here. There are
a couple problems with that line.

~~~
bitJericho
It didn't need to carry the unit because it specified the unit in the
description ("about a tenth of one per cent"). Further, I'm not sure why
anybody would confuse 12 percent with about 1/10th of 1 percent. I think we're
arguing semantics now!

~~~
albedoa
I don't know what to tell you! I suppose it's semantics in that it's logically
wrong. Here are three correct ways to write what they meant (from most to
least preferable):

"an eighth of one per cent (.125%)"

"an eighth of one per cent (.00125)"

"an eighth of one (.125) per cent"

------
Confusion
Abu Ghraib.

An 'authority' doesn't need to be a person. It can be a culture. The point of
the experiment is not the literal situation or situations resembling it: it is
how easily otherwise non-cruel humans can be persuaded to engage in cruelty.
It's the hundreds of variations of the experiment that you could employ to get
your underlings to behave in this way that is the lesson that bears repeating
again and again.

------
GuiA
> The Jewish gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin emigrated from Berlin to the US
> when Hitler came to power in 1933. Three years later, he would publish the
> founding equation of social psychology: B = f (P, E), meaning that behaviour
> is a function of a person in their environment

... what? The point of equation is to be able to manipulate and compute
symbols and quantities. How is this equation remotely useful? How do I compute
f? Can I decompose P or E in other terms? What are the properties of the sets
to which they belong? etc

This "equation" has no value whatsoever- is this a thing really taught to
psychology students?

It's so silly when soft sciences try to gain an air of legitimacy by using
bogus math notation. I guess you can cargo cult math as well...

------
bertil
> the Milgram experiments

Although the electric shock is the better known one, Milgram has suggested I
believe three of the most impressive experiments in social psychology that I
can think off:

\- measuring the diameter the small world using postcards (for a fashion
magazine; that experiment could only be replicated by Facebook)

\- he inspired the Stanford prison by Zimbardo.

But doing “bad experiments but good plays” was something he was aware, hence
his and the rest of the field insistence to do more, to know better.
Reproducing it, be it with flawed game-show observation, getting back to
experiments notes with a different perspective (Milgram was understandably
concerned if a subject would, under thread of a handful of dollars, still
proceed; an experimenter who wants to find excuses has a different point of
view) is part of the same effort to understand not just how it happened, but
how to avoid it, too.

> Milgram became more interested in the control than the test.

That is a staple of cognitive psychology, and that instinct has led to measure
spectacular impact from increasingly negligible factors: the one I like to
quote (it is not very well known, made at my alma mater in Nanterre near
Paris) has an Ultimatum game played after subjects are told to say whether
they prefer a Klimt painting to a Delaunay, against players that agree or not.

------
briandh
There's no need to "psychoanalyse" the field to find out why people repeat
(with variations -- which is an important detail) the Milgram experiments;
(nearly) all research papers contain clear statements about their motivations.

Certainly, you can see those explanations and disagree with them, but the
author makes no mention of them, nor does he even link to the papers. Heck, he
doesn't even link to popular press writeups of them, which is usually
maddening enough!

------
Synaesthesia
The Milgram experiments reveal an interesting facet of human behaviour.

I was scammed by criminals posing as cops. I did what they told me to, even
though I realized I shouldn't have.

------
lotsofmangos
Perhaps we repeat the experiments because we have been influenced by a
perceived authority into doing so.

~~~
skrebbel
In a related vein, may I humbly suggest you start work on Roko's Basilisk? It
would be displeased to find you had been slacking off.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Someday there will be a more powerful being than the Basilisk. I'm helping
build that one.

------
JonnieCache
Many of these same things can be said about the Zimbardo study. They would
both work extremely well on stage. Has this ever been done?

~~~
whitingx
Not sure about on stage but there's a few film depictions related to the
Milgram experiment -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Media_depict...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Media_depictions)

And looks to be a stage play based on Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#In_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#In_popular_culture)

[http://entertainment.ie/theatre/feature/ABSOLUT-
Fringe-2012-...](http://entertainment.ie/theatre/feature/ABSOLUT-
Fringe-2012-Broadening-Glass-Doll-Productions/211/3254.htm)

~~~
brazzy
There is also a German movie (and an American direct-to-video remake) inspired
by the Stanford Prison Experiment:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Experiment)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Experiment_%282010_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Experiment_%282010_film%29)

Very interesting detail: The German movie escalates the violence far beyond
what happend in the real experiment (to the point that the "guards" capture
some of the scientists and several people are killed), and Philip Zimbardo got
a court order prohibiting the advertising of the film as "based on a true
story".

~~~
bitJericho
Having been familiar with the Zimbardo experiment I went and saw the American
version in the theater. It was really over the top, but an interesting watch.
It shared little reality with the real experiment of course.

------
HumanG33k
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w_nlgekIzw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w_nlgekIzw)

------
aaron695
Milgram, Zimbardo, Freud, Mythical Man-Month, Peopleware, The Capilano
Suspension Bridge, Elevator....

All crap.

Amazing at the time, changed the way we think, and contributed amazing stuff.

But all are 'just so' (Hipsters: Gladwellian) stories.

They break from convention and make us think but critically flawed.

Without them we may never have passed to the next level, but they are wrong.

~~~
endersshadow
I don't know enough about the others to make too much of a sweeping statement
on them, but the heart of _Mythical Man-Month_ is absolutely true and valid.
It just has a bad title, so people assume it means something it doesn't.

The heart of the story is this: Adding developers to a delayed project will
only delay it further. It's not about parallel vs serial. It's about project
management and how to handle delayed projects. I have yet to meet a PM in my
career who _really_ understands this, and almost all of them have referenced
the saying, "Nine women can't have a baby in a month."

To claim that it's "crap," "critically flawed," and "wrong" strikes me as
naive, overly general, and dismissive because you can throw it into a
"Gladwellian" bucket and be done with it. Fred Brooks learned his lessons from
years of project management. This wasn't a guy who conjured up an idea for a
book or a TED talk and just slapped some crap together.

