Reasons for submission

2019/01/21 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Etika
• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Is it obvious? Would you always do as directed, even if someone suffered damage? It is difficult to imagine how each one would behave until the situation is adjusted.

In 1961, American psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to see him. At that time the first trials against Nazi criminals began and the degree of guilt is discussed. After all, many of them only fulfilled the orders. Or what?

To analyze the core of obedience, Milgram designed the following experiment: some (volunteers) would be teachers and other complicated Milgram students. The volunteer had to give an electric shock to the student, whenever he responded badly. The director of the experiment highlighted the importance of doing what was said.

As the student accumulated errors, the force of the discharge increased. From 15 volts to 450 volts. The teacher could not see the student, but he could hear his cries of pain. I did not know that screams and downloads were false.

The result was significant: 26 out of 40 volunteers who assumed the role of teachers (65%) came to discharge 450 volts.

Since then, the experiment has received many criticisms: its inadequate design, the manipulation of the results… Subsequently, others have been made with strict criteria and the results have not varied much.

The latter has now been published in PLOS magazine. Technology advances over time thanks to virtual reality, but the experiment is basically the same. The goal, however, has not only been to know how we act, but also to clarify why.

In fact, Milgram suggested that perhaps the volunteer teachers were so concerned about the good fulfillment of orders that they did not realize the harms that caused the students.

To clarify this, therefore, the Milgram experiment has been redone with volunteer students at the University of London, and the conclusions are clear: on the one hand, they have confirmed that people tend to obey the orders, although with it water hurts, and, on the other hand, they have seen that they are not aware of the influence their behavior has. The conclusion is more terrifying: despite harming, they prioritize submission to their boss for maintaining their maximum goal.

Perhaps more we would like to believe that we are not so obedient, but the truth is that the experiment is quite useful to better understand some behaviors that we see around us.

 

Published in the newspaper Berria.