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Well, the message people got was that students who were knowingly participating in a college psych study became spontaneously sadistic within just a day or two.

Well, the message people got was that students who were knowingly participating in a college psych study became spontaneously sadistic within just a day or two. That feels intuitively ridiculous, and has no evidence I know of to support it, except this study.

CamperBob2 8y ago
The idea behind the study was to try to understand how an entire nation - Germany - could go berserk with hatred and sadism. Scientific or not, the burden of proof lies with those who dispute Zimbardo’s (and Milgram’s) findings, because they have been borne out so many times in so many different contexts. Their work has never been more relevant than it is now, as we witness the rise of Trumpism. What alternative explanations would you propose?
- shkkmo 8y ago
  1) Milgram's and Zimbardo's findings are very different. Milgram's have been backed up by many replications and are often mis-understood. 2) We have both experimental and factual evidence that shows that Zimbardo's findings were lies. 3) The entire nation of Germany did not go berserk with hatred and sadism. 4) Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? The rise and success of Nazism (like most social movements, including 'Trumpism') was the result of a confluence of a number of factors. To pretend that it was just "how people are" is do both people and the truth a disservice.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? Probably the best examples would be found in the in-group/out-group dynamics in religious cults and closed-state regimes. The Nazis exploited these principles in the 1930s to impressive effect. But what happened in Zimbardo's experiment is more closely analogous to what you see in places like North Korea today, along with abuses carried out in insular groups ranging from the Branch Davidians to the Mormons. The same hierarchies form and the same roles are played. It is foolish in the extreme to dismiss Zimbardo's work because of a few ethical hangups. What he did is highly reproducible, but only outside the bounds of regulated academia. Milgram has indeed come under similar criticism from people who are desperate to find another explanation -- any other explanation -- to distract themselves from the truth about what human beings actually are.
    - ksenzee 8y ago
      Did you seriously just compare Mormons to Branch Davidians? And North Korea? Mormonism has its problems (excellent article on that at https://longreads.com/2018/06/07/meet-the-new-mormons https://longreads.com/2018/06/07/meet-the-new-mormons) but that is totally over the top. If you want to leave North Korea, you risk your life and your family's lives in a terrifying journey over the Chinese border. If you want to leave Mormonism, you write a letter saying "please remove me from your list."
      - dwaltrip 8y ago
        I agree with you that GP's comparison was a bit drastic, to say the least. However, you have gone too far in the other direction. You make it sound like leaving a religion is just as easy as unsubscribing from a newsletter. Visit one of the ex-religion subreddits sometime. I know Mormonism and Christianity both have one. To be fair, those online groups will be selection biased towards the most difficult situations. But I think many of those experiences are not terribly uncommon.
      - CamperBob2 8y ago
        If you want to leave North Korea, you risk your life and your family's lives in a terrifying journey over the Chinese border. If you want to leave Mormonism, you write a letter saying "please remove me from your list." This is exactly like saying, "If he beats you, why don't you just leave him?" But I don't expect the people arguing with me in this thread to understand that, any more than I'd expect you to understand why Zimbardo's participants didn't just blow a whistle on the whole thing and walk out as soon as the experimental ethics went south.
      - michaelmrose 8y ago
        Are we forgetting about the actual founder of the faith. Either he was a crazy old coot and we can safely say that present company has moved past his behavior in which case its hard to credit a religion solely based on his revelations or he was a true prophet and we ought to analyze their nature of the organization based on his words and deeds rather than just present lukewarm implementations. Look up blood atonement whereby killing sinners presumably including heretics was the proscribed solution.
  - JackCh 8y ago
    > "Milgram's have been backed up by many replications" From Behind the Shock Machine by Gina Perry: >On the recording, a much younger Hannah sounded perky and confident as she talked to Williams at the beginning of the experiment. But you could hear her confidence getting shakier once the learner started to give incorrect answers, and it became clear that his memory was not reliable. By the third shock, 45 volts, she was stumbling over the words. At the fifth shock, 75 volts, when the learner made his first sound of discomfort, there was a pause. Then I heard the following exchange. >Hannah: [to Williams] Is he all right? [into the microphone] The correct one was "hair". [to Williams] Is he all right? >Williams: Yes, please continue. >Hannah: All right. To put it lightly, the Milgram experiments were trash. It was measuring trust in scientists not compliance to authorities. What undergrads are taught about Milgram is that the experimenter would ask the teacher to "Please continue" but what actually happened here is the experimenter assured the teacher (Hannah) that the learner was all right. The experimenters played fast and loose with the procedure, saying whatever they thought was necessary to get the teacher to continue. And sometimes it wasn't even measuring trust in scientists; there is at least one learner who recalls the experimenter, in response to their protests, asking if they'd like to swap places with the learner (essentially threatening the teacher to get them to comply.) The experimenters and particularly Milgram knew what results they wanted before the experimentation even began, and made sure they got those results.
    - Blindedwino 8y ago
      I had not heard Behind the Shock Machine, thank you.
    - shkkmo 8y ago
      It's been a while, but my understanding was that the results of the Milgram studies have been fairly widely replicated with consistent results. Now, what those results mean / what is being measured by them is another issue.
pas 8y ago
It's not unheard of though. Just likely not ad hoc repeatable, reproducible. That said, these group experiments are very hard to control (as in control for confounding variables/factors), and very easy to screw up methodologically (maybe you don't pre-register one interesting hypothesis). Very hard to design properly (forget to control lighting), and even harder to run it well (the building where you want to do it doesn't have adjustable lighting, or you want cold water showers only, but it's not that simple to achieve, so you don't and just mention it in the paper - was that the cause of a negative/positive result or not?).

CamperBob2 8y ago

The idea behind the study was to try to understand how an entire nation - Germany - could go berserk with hatred and sadism. Scientific or not, the burden of proof lies with those who dispute Zimbardo’s (and Milgram’s) findings, because they have been borne out so many times in so many different contexts. Their work has never been more relevant than it is now, as we witness the rise of Trumpism. What alternative explanations would you propose?

shkkmo 8y ago
1) Milgram's and Zimbardo's findings are very different. Milgram's have been backed up by many replications and are often mis-understood. 2) We have both experimental and factual evidence that shows that Zimbardo's findings were lies. 3) The entire nation of Germany did not go berserk with hatred and sadism. 4) Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? The rise and success of Nazism (like most social movements, including 'Trumpism') was the result of a confluence of a number of factors. To pretend that it was just "how people are" is do both people and the truth a disservice.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  Name one instance where Zimbardo's findings have been born out is "so many different contexts"? Probably the best examples would be found in the in-group/out-group dynamics in religious cults and closed-state regimes. The Nazis exploited these principles in the 1930s to impressive effect. But what happened in Zimbardo's experiment is more closely analogous to what you see in places like North Korea today, along with abuses carried out in insular groups ranging from the Branch Davidians to the Mormons. The same hierarchies form and the same roles are played. It is foolish in the extreme to dismiss Zimbardo's work because of a few ethical hangups. What he did is highly reproducible, but only outside the bounds of regulated academia. Milgram has indeed come under similar criticism from people who are desperate to find another explanation -- any other explanation -- to distract themselves from the truth about what human beings actually are.
  - ksenzee 8y ago
    Did you seriously just compare Mormons to Branch Davidians? And North Korea? Mormonism has its problems (excellent article on that at https://longreads.com/2018/06/07/meet-the-new-mormons https://longreads.com/2018/06/07/meet-the-new-mormons) but that is totally over the top. If you want to leave North Korea, you risk your life and your family's lives in a terrifying journey over the Chinese border. If you want to leave Mormonism, you write a letter saying "please remove me from your list."
    - dwaltrip 8y ago
      I agree with you that GP's comparison was a bit drastic, to say the least. However, you have gone too far in the other direction. You make it sound like leaving a religion is just as easy as unsubscribing from a newsletter. Visit one of the ex-religion subreddits sometime. I know Mormonism and Christianity both have one. To be fair, those online groups will be selection biased towards the most difficult situations. But I think many of those experiences are not terribly uncommon.
    - CamperBob2 8y ago
      If you want to leave North Korea, you risk your life and your family's lives in a terrifying journey over the Chinese border. If you want to leave Mormonism, you write a letter saying "please remove me from your list." This is exactly like saying, "If he beats you, why don't you just leave him?" But I don't expect the people arguing with me in this thread to understand that, any more than I'd expect you to understand why Zimbardo's participants didn't just blow a whistle on the whole thing and walk out as soon as the experimental ethics went south.
    - michaelmrose 8y ago
      Are we forgetting about the actual founder of the faith. Either he was a crazy old coot and we can safely say that present company has moved past his behavior in which case its hard to credit a religion solely based on his revelations or he was a true prophet and we ought to analyze their nature of the organization based on his words and deeds rather than just present lukewarm implementations. Look up blood atonement whereby killing sinners presumably including heretics was the proscribed solution.
- JackCh 8y ago
  > "Milgram's have been backed up by many replications" From Behind the Shock Machine by Gina Perry: >On the recording, a much younger Hannah sounded perky and confident as she talked to Williams at the beginning of the experiment. But you could hear her confidence getting shakier once the learner started to give incorrect answers, and it became clear that his memory was not reliable. By the third shock, 45 volts, she was stumbling over the words. At the fifth shock, 75 volts, when the learner made his first sound of discomfort, there was a pause. Then I heard the following exchange. >Hannah: [to Williams] Is he all right? [into the microphone] The correct one was "hair". [to Williams] Is he all right? >Williams: Yes, please continue. >Hannah: All right. To put it lightly, the Milgram experiments were trash. It was measuring trust in scientists not compliance to authorities. What undergrads are taught about Milgram is that the experimenter would ask the teacher to "Please continue" but what actually happened here is the experimenter assured the teacher (Hannah) that the learner was all right. The experimenters played fast and loose with the procedure, saying whatever they thought was necessary to get the teacher to continue. And sometimes it wasn't even measuring trust in scientists; there is at least one learner who recalls the experimenter, in response to their protests, asking if they'd like to swap places with the learner (essentially threatening the teacher to get them to comply.) The experimenters and particularly Milgram knew what results they wanted before the experimentation even began, and made sure they got those results.
  - Blindedwino 8y ago
    I had not heard Behind the Shock Machine, thank you.
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    It's been a while, but my understanding was that the results of the Milgram studies have been fairly widely replicated with consistent results. Now, what those results mean / what is being measured by them is another issue.

pas 8y ago

It's not unheard of though. Just likely not ad hoc repeatable, reproducible. That said, these group experiments are very hard to control (as in control for confounding variables/factors), and very easy to screw up methodologically (maybe you don't pre-register one interesting hypothesis). Very hard to design properly (forget to control lighting), and even harder to run it well (the building where you want to do it doesn't have adjustable lighting, or you want cold water showers only, but it's not that simple to achieve, so you don't and just mention it in the paper - was that the cause of a negative/positive result or not?).