A new version of the Milgram experiment was tested out in Poland, reaching the same yet surprising results.
American psychologist, Stanley Milgram, first tested out the ‘Milgram’ experiment 50 years ago to test whether people would deliver electric shocks to other individuals. The people couldn’t see the individual they were giving the shocks to, but they could hear the screams in reaction to the shock.
In 2015, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poland decided to test out the experiment once again. The results showed that 72 out of 80 subjects administered electric shocks under the experimenters’ supervision and demand. A shock could reach up to 450 volts.
Although the subjects giving the shocks were told that they could end the experiment at any time, almost all of them continued.
Tomasz Grzyv, author of a new study that appeared in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal this week said, “After 50 years, it appears nothing has changed.”
Over the course of the years, the versions of Milgram’s experiment have been continuously tested.
“When we stand at a distance, we say, ‘I think I’d never do that.’ But we’ve done the studies…And we know that the average person does do these horrible things, in certain social situations,” said Jerry M. Burger, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University. Burger conducted Milgram’s test in 2009.
In Poland’s experiment, some subjects were a little more skeptical in delivering shocks to women. However, the number was too low to create any substantial statistics.
See the full story on the LATimes.com.