Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Milgram Experiment

Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) was a Yale professor of psychology who is most famous for his controversial study into how far people will follow the instructions of authority figures without question. This became known as 'The Milgram Experiment'. I have posted details of this previously in 'The Top 10 Unethical Psychology Experiments' (although I personally would argue that Milgram wasn't intentionally acting unethically, and his subjects were not prevented from refusing to continue with the experiment once they had concerns).

In 2006 British illusionist Derren Brown produced a TV programme named 'The Heist'. In this he attempted to persuade a group of thirteen members of the public to partake in what they thought was a real armed bank robbery. In order to choose his victims, Brown reproduced the Milgram Experiment, and found results startling similar to those of Milgram. This is shown in the clip below:

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