

20 most bizarre experiments - check out #16 (found on octopart news) - Tichy
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P10/
I found this url on Octopart news, but experiment #16 really surprised me. I wouldn't have thought that possbile yet. Although I have once seen that done to a spider in a TV documentary. But a cat is something else.
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nostrademons
#2 (Milgram), #7 (Stanford Prison), and #19 (Shock the Puppy) are all
mentioned in Phil Zimbardo's just-published book, _The Lucifer Effect_. It's
fascinating reading - he gives the blow-by-blow on the Stanford Prison
Experiment, including some of his notes that didn't make it into the popular
press treatment.

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amichail
While Milgram's experiment sheds light on war-time atrocities, maybe it also
sheds light on why large companies work. If employees were more independent
and more frequently disobeyed their bosses, perhaps there would be too much
conflict and companies would struggle.

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bluishgreen
Watch "The Heist" performed by Derren Brown - a british hypnotist. The episode
appeared in Channel4. I am not sure where to get it in the US or
elsewhere.(psst,psst ..torrent).

He convinces a group of 4 middle manager types to rob a 100,000 pounds from a
bank. He selects his subjects by using the milgram experiment. I was shocked
by the results. See it to believe it.

(Edit:Earlier I thought it was Stanford prison.expt.Its milgram.expt).

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rms
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7673429342190916780>

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forgotmylastone
Cool, in the US, the people would be arrested after the show (see 'to catch a
predator', senator foot tapper, etc.).

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rms
the entire heist was completely fake, everyone was in on it.

It still really upsets me to see people convicted and sent to jail for not
committing any crimes, like To Catch a Predator and the senate foot tapper.

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amichail
Malgram's obedience experiment is a bit strange. Why would volunteers be
needed to administer shocks? Doesn't that look suspicious?

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jey
It should look suspicious, but the fact that they weren't suspicious further
demonstrates the power of authority figures.

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amichail
Maybe they were suspicious but saying something would have jeopardized
whatever they were getting paid for their participation.

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mynameishere
[rolls eyes]

You've never heard of that experiment before? It's your canonical "How easily
can we turn people into Nazis test". If people tortured others for a research
fee, then that would be a _very_ interesting finding, but typically they
continue because of dog-like obedience.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e02xGc-K0c>

Real life example of similar phenomena:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_Search_Prank_Call_Scam>

Anyway, I prefered the puppy-torture case. Quite interesting that women are
more willing to torture puppies than men. I wish they had used larger samples.

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amichail
Yes, I have heard of it. I'm just pointing out that it is strange for the
experimenter to ask for help doing something that he could have easily done
himself. So it looks suspicious.

Perhaps a better experiment would involve two people playing a game with
shocks given whenever a bad move is made. Mild shocks would be given to the
participant early on while the other player would intentionally play poorly
later to receive (fake) severe shocks.

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mynameishere
...someone familiar with pyschological testing would have questioned a lot of
things, yes. But if you watch the video above, you'll see that person was very
ordinary. Probably most of the subjects were the same.

