trial and error and social experiments

we were separated into groups and giving tasks on social experiments. One of the groups jobs was to create a documentary other groups were asked to work on a pre show bit of material to get an audience reaction before the show. Two people were asked to be a couple planted in the audience to have a ' argument ' which would be staged for the audience reaction. Our group was asked to carry out some secret camera experiments in which we put people in a situation where they felt uncomforable in a spoof setup. We started of devising this scene from a questionnaire we had written which started off very 'normally' and started to became a bit uncomfortable and innaceptable. The idea of doing these scenes came from some social theorists we had looked at such as Frued. We looked at an experiment in which he was able to use someone in a position of authority to influence someone else to cause harm on another or do something that would be out of character, the point of this was to show how figures of authority or someone in a sepcific uniform gains more trust than someone else because of how we associate those unifroms with proffesions and automatically become more trustworthy that they know what they are doing.

Our scene was meant to be an interpretation of Milgrams's study

'The subject was given the title teacher, and the confederate, learner. The participants drew slips of paper to 'determine' their roles. Unknown to them, both slips said "teacher", and the actor claimed to have the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the participant would always be the "teacher". At this point, the "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. In one version of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition

The "teacher" was given an electric from the electro-shock generator as a sample of the shock that the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing in 15- volt increments for each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher would read the next word pair.^[

The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor started to bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining about his heart condition, all responses by the learner would cease.^[1]

At this point, many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner. Some test subjects paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress once they heard the screams of pain coming from the learner

If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

The study showed that people were less likely to resist from positions of authority even if it meant going against their morals.