Ever had Psych101, studied Milgram and obedience? Well...

[jtuck004]

Electric Schlock: Did Stanley Milgram’s Famous Obedience Experiments Prove Anything?

...Almost five decades later, the “Milgram experiments”—with their famous simulations of powerful electric shocks—are among the most well-known studies of the 20th century. No introductory psych course or textbook can get away with skipping them. The experiments have inspired plays, a William Shatner movie, episodes of reality TV, a storyline on Law & Order, special issues of academic journals, at least one novel, and two pop songs that I can find. The lyrics to Peter Gabriel’s 1986 track “We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)” neatly sum up Milgram’s findings, at least as they have been absorbed by popular culture: “We do what we’re told / We do what we’re told / We do what we’re told / Told to do.”
...
And yet, in the Yale archives, Perry discovered that even the debate over Milgram’s procedure had been premised on false information. There had been dehoaxing sessions, yes—but only in a narrow sense of the word. When we hear about dehoaxing, Perry argues, we reasonably assume this means the participants were told that the shocks weren’t real, that the learner’s screams had been pre-recorded, and so on. But this wasn’t the case: Milgram’s debriefing sessions were used primarily to calm down agitated participants (there were many). Three-fourths of subjects left the lab without being debriefed at all. Many went home confused or upset; over 50 years later, some are still unnerved. A significant portion learned the truth only in letters they received months afterward. Others appear never to have been told at all.
...
Gradually, Perry came to doubt the experiments at a fundamental level. Even if Milgram’s data was solid, it is unclear what, if anything, they prove about obedience. Even if 65 percent of Milgram’s subjects did go to the highest shock voltage, why did 35 percent refuse? Why might a person obey one order but not another? How do people and institutions come to exercise authority in the first place? Perhaps most importantly: How are we to conceptualize the relationship between, for example, a Yale laboratory and a Nazi death camp? Or, in the case of Vietnam, between a one-hour experiment and a multiyear, multifaceted war? On these questions, the Milgram experiments—however suggestive they may appear at first blush—are absolutely useless.

It is likely that no one understood this better than Milgram himself. In his notes and letters, Perry finds ample evidence that, privately, he had significant doubts about his work. He’d also dreamed of, and even dabbled in, other careers—filmmaker, writer of literary fiction—that indulged his taste for creative spectacles. Despite his reservations, he was a canny marketer of his own findings, well aware of how to package science in a way that would set tongues wagging. While Milgram was conducting his experiments, the American news media was fixated on the trial of the Nazi logistician Adolf Eichmann, then underway in Jerusalem. Ahead of the release of Obedience to Authority, Milgram himself drafted potential taglines for the book’s cover: “Is your neighbor a potential Eichmann?” “Where’s Adolf Eichmann? Check your mirror, friend.”
...

Here.
(with a h/t to ritholtz.com)

It's one thing to be sceptical of results, but it's another to pull scraps from the research to dismiss the entire body of work (that's how we get Teabaggers, eh?), especially so one can write a book that sells more than a few copies by taking potshots at someone who has actually accomplished something. Not that it's not worth reading, but I would find it necessary to be as sceptical about this author's account as she is about Milgram.

I would really like to see well-designed experiments that explored this further. Because what the author leaves out is that these experiments have been repeated, well, repeatedly, around the world, across cultures, across many variations of humans with essentially the same result. All you need is people who perceive authority, and, absent any effective countermeasure, you can reasonably predict that you can induce them to do horrendous things with a minimum of effort. And the evidence is all around us.

[RagAss]

1. Always thought about this study, since freshman year in college....

I wondered if the only folks who could walk away from it would be those who disdain all authority....ironically, Outlaws !

[pinboy3niner]

2. Check out the strip search prank call scam

There also is a 2012 film, 'Compliance,' based on these events.

The strip search prank call scam is a series of incidents that occurred over roughly a decade before an arrest was made in 2004. These incidents involved a man calling a restaurant or grocery store, claiming to be a police detective, and convincing managers to conduct strip searches of female employees or perform other unusual acts on behalf of the police. The calls were usually placed to fast-food restaurants in small rural towns.

Over 70 such occurrences were reported in 30 U.S. states, until an incident in 2004 in Mount Washington, Kentucky, finally led to the arrest and charging of David Stewart, a 37‑year-old employee of Corrections Corporation of America, a private-commercial firm contracted by several states to provide corrections officers at private detention facilities. On October 31, 2006, he was acquitted of all charges in the case, though he is suspected of making other calls as well.

...


Before the Mount Washington call

There were incidents in multiple states that followed the same pattern: a caller identifying himself as a police officer would contact a manager or floor supervisor on the pretense of soliciting the supervisor to assist the police in detaining a suspected criminal employee and conducting a search of the person. The caller would provide a physical description of the suspect which the supervisor would recognize. A vast majority of the calls were to fast-food restaurants but a few were made to chain grocery stores. Some notable cases include:

• Two calls reported in 1992: one in Devils Lake, North Dakota, and another in Fallon, Nevada.

• A female McDonald's manager in Leitchfield, Kentucky, was convinced on November 30, 2000 to undress before a customer when the caller persuaded her that the customer was a suspected sex offender and that her serving as bait would permit undercover officers to arrest him when he showed an interest in her.

• A call to a McDonald's restaurant in Hinesville, Georgia, in February 2003, in which a female manager, who thought she was speaking with a police officer in the presence of the director of operations for the franchisee GWD Management Corporation, took a 19‑year-old female employee into the women's bathroom and strip-searched her, and brought in a 55‑year-old male employee to perform a body cavity search to uncover hidden drugs. McDonald's and franchisee GWD Management Corporation were taken to court over the incident. In 2005 U.S. district judge John F. Nangle granted summary judgment to McDonald's, and denied in part summary judgment to GWD Management Corporation. In 2006, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.

• On January 26, 2003, an Applebee's assistant manager victimized [clarification needed] a waitress after receiving a collect call from someone who purported to be a regional manager.

• On June 3, 2003, a Taco Bell manager in Juneau, Alaska, stripped a 14‑year-old female customer and forced her to perform lewd acts [which?] [clarification needed], at the request of a caller who claimed he was working with the company to investigate drug abuse.

• In July 2003, a 36‑year-old Winn-Dixie grocery store manager in Panama City, Florida, received a call instructing him to bring a 19‑year-old female cashier, who matched a physical description provided by the caller, into the office for a strip search. The cashier was forced to disrobe and pose in various positions as part of the search. The incident was ended when another manager entered the office to retrieve a set of keys.

• In March 2004, a 17‑year-old female customer at a Taco Bell in Fountain Hills, Arizona, near Phoenix, was strip-searched by a manager receiving a call from a man claiming to be a police officer.

...

MORE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_prank_call_scam

[jtuck004]

3. I remember those. There is just so much evidence out there that, largely, and absent training or

a purposeful effort to heighten our awareness of the tendency, (which is something that people who want adherence to a plan don't do), one can expect that most people will follow perceived authority around like goofy, but dangerous, little puppy dogs...

[kcr]

4. Well, okay then.

Show us.

[Larry Ogg]

5. Some people profit off of other people's ignorance.

Some even go out of their way inorder to keep people ignorant, and some people simply prefer to remain ignorant.

But yes, I believe Milgram got it right, although a corrupt authority would have you believe otherwise. And most people will believe whatever authority tells them!