Description:
In 1963 at Yale University, shortly after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, psychologist Stanley Milgram devised an experiment to explicitly investigate what percentage of people would be complicit in acts of lethal torture. Volunteer "teachers" were ordered by a stern lab director to administer shocks of increasing strength to volunteer "students", supposedly to study the effects of pain on word memorization tasks. The role of student was played by an actor who screamed in pretend pain behind a closed door, so no real electric current was delivered. Predictions were tha
In 1963 at Yale University, shortly after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, psychologist Stanley Milgram devised an experiment to explicitly investigate what percentage of people would be complicit in acts of lethal torture. Volunteer "teachers" were ordered by a stern lab director to administer shocks of increasing strength to volunteer "students", supposedly to study the effects of pain on word memorization tasks. The role of student was played by an actor who screamed in pretend pain behind a closed door, so no real electric current was delivered. Predictions were that less than 2% of people from various walks of life would follow orders to the point of sadism. In fact, more than half of all people obediantly and with varying reluctance did deliver shocks that, if real, would have killed. This short film re-enacts this startling discovery, which was duplicated around the world, and scenes of Nazi executions are flashed intermittently as well.
Film available for online viewing at Sloan Science and Film [Link removed - login to see]
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