Right about now, a show in France is airing called Zone Xtreme. It is a fake game show but the contestants who participated had no idea the man who was the "victim" was actually an actor. The basic premise of the show was that contestants were told to deliver electric shocks to the victim for every wrong answer he gave to questions. The more he gave the wrong answer, the more electric shock was to be delivered. The maximum charge was 420 volts which is enough to kill someone. The participants didn't seem to care and 81 percent gave the man that charge. Or at least they thought they were. The show was actually part of an experiment to see if people could be talked into killing someone. Apparently if you are on television and being urged on by the host and a studio audience you will be.
Good lord!
ReplyDeleteDoesn't surprise me at all. I've been saying for years that it's only a matter of time until Running Man actually becomes a show.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Milgram experiment, see if someone would be willing to commit murder on the advice of an authority figure. It should be noted that when the results were first published, it set off a firestorm in the Psychology community over all its supposed ethics violations.
ReplyDeleteThis is a recreation of a famous psychological experiment at Yale from the 1960's (called the Milgram Experiment) that addresses people's willingness to obey authority. It found that most people would continue to shock someone if being "ordered" to by an authority figure, even if that person was being hurt and it conflicted with their conscience.
ReplyDeleteAre we all sheep? Baa Baa.
ReplyDeleteCombine that with Jessica Simpson's drivel, and VH1 will be on to something. Every time they act stupid or disrespectful, tase them! :)
ReplyDeleteObviously, we posted before we saw someone else had commented
ReplyDeleteAccording to a study I read back in skool, the results of Milgram were heavily biased toward success by the selection process of the pool of candidates.
ReplyDeleteI saw a clip of this on the news before I switched it away -- much of the audience looked like it was about to puke.
so sad and scary
ReplyDeleteWas going to come post, um, yah this has already been done. Clearly others here know their psych experiments too. Apparently the contestants on the show did not.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Milgram Experiment was done after many people who were charged at Neuremburg (sp?) said they were just following orders. The researchers wanted to see how valid that was, if people would actually follow orders even if they didn't agree with them, as many "lower" Nazis said.
ReplyDelete(Yes! My Psych degree at work!)
RQ...I know!! I think the same thing.
ReplyDeleteI am so surprised that none of the contestants knew about the Milgram study, it was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this "show"...then again, they did think they were on reality tv so nothing really needs to be said about their lower than average IQs.
the good thing about this show is that it brings up the issues in the milgram study for the many people who haven't heard about it.
ReplyDeleteit is very very frightening how easy it is to manipulate human beings.
there was a follow up to the Milgram study (just to make you feel a little better) which showed that if one person resisted administering the electric shocks then others were likely to as well. It took only one person to stand up to the alleged "authority figure" and do the right thing to have others come to their senses. Somewhat reassuring, but still ......
ReplyDeleteI think this shows how indeed sheep like that we can be en masse and also, like mc said, how even 1 person can break that group mentality.
ReplyDeleteIf you really look through our history as a people this is proven over and over again.
I guess it gives one hope and despair at the same time, depending on whether your a glass is half empty or full person. lol
I wonder if the contestants on the show thought that it couldn't be real cause it's a t.v show? Who sanctions a show that kills people on it? This is France in 2010, not ancient Rome after all.
ReplyDeleteI remember that study from P-101. It was so awful to watch people doing something under such duress, that they visibley did not wat to do. That said -with the number of people desperate for money for family food and bills- what kind of clean sample can you get?
ReplyDeleteThey did a follow-up to the Milgram study using electric shocks on dogs. Only, this time, they weren't fake shocks. :(
ReplyDelete@justpeachy - are you serious?! That is disgusting. I hope PETA was all over it.
ReplyDelete