5 Psychological Experiments Expose Our Dark Side

[Oneironaut Zero]

Article

[Never]

Excellent post. I have known about the Milgram experiment, but not the others. Yet another conformity example: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...e111453S89.DTL

[Sandform]

# 3 reminds me of the method of group murder I came up with the other day... If you and other people intend on committing murder via a gun where it could be heard, after the gun fires, laugh as if someone just accidentally did something stupid. People will write it off as someone messing up and being fine after the event.

[Vance]

Interesting experiments there, some really were hilarious, I had a good laugh out of most, but at the same time really sad...

[Sandform]

Almost 80 percent. Think about that when you're walking around the mall: Eight out of ten of those people you see would torture the shit out of a puppy if a dude in a lab coat asked them to. But does the last one take into account that first someone had to "agree" to be the one shocking them? It is more like 80% out of the people who will agree to torture a puppy will continue to do it even after it crosses a line.

[tkdyo]

^this is true, but still, that was a depressing article.

[Never]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm1pDOm21ys

[Xei]

That is really concerning, although I'd heard of most of them before. But the Milgram trials in particular... I'm very interested to know what I would do. I find it so hard to believe that I could kill somebody just because some guy told me to. At least I know for a fact that I'm not one of those in the first test though... I don't tend to be influenced by mob opinion at all. In my lessons in particular I'll often say something's wrong even if the whole of the rest of the class and the teacher think it's right... then again that could be partly because I've never been wrong.

[Sandform]

I don't see how the experiment gets past the point where the person being electricuted fake screams "I want to stop." I mean honestly...

[Original Poster]

Yeah I had a lecture on most of those in psychology. And the people that signed up for the milgrim test didn't know what was going on, they just pushed a button when asked. So 8/10 normal people arried through with it

[Kushna Mufeed]

Man, I never thought I could be so fucking evil.

[Photolysis]

It's depressing what weak minded people will do when ordered.

[Xaqaria]

I think what these studies teach us is to keep in mind that we are probably among the majority, but that we can still change. When presented with a similar situation (as bystanders to an accident with other people around, being prompted by authority to do harm to someone else, etc.) we should stop and think about doing what the minority would do.

[Neruo]

The guy describing the 5 experiments was pretty funny. Really interesting stuff. However, 'dark side'...? meh, not really. Just human nature. Nothing really dark about the a-bit-harsh logic behind the way we behave.

[Volcon]

Thats pretty scarry, i woulden't have been able to get past the first few screams though, jeez.

[Sandform]

Thats pretty scarry, i woulden't have been able to get past the first few screams though, jeez. If they sign up for it I don't care if they scream, scream all you want! However, the moment they say "I don't want to do this anymore." You are bound BY LAW to stop. So I figure that is a good point to stop. (or at a moment when it becomes hazardous to health, for example they stop making ANY sounds hehe. Of course "please stop" comes before "...")