French Game Show Pushes Players to "Kill" - 82% of contestants willingly "killed" fake opponent

[Divine Discontent]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20000614-503543.html


What would it take for you to administer potentially deadly electric shocks to a complete stranger who's done nothing wrong except answer a question incorrectly? Maybe just television cameras.

"The Game of Death", a French TV show, explores that very question. Under the guise of a game show, complete with a studio audience, contestants pose various trivia questions to another participant. If the answer is incorrect, contestants literally flip the switch and shock the other player, with the voltage increasing (all the way up to 460 volts) as wrong answers continue to flow in (the fake game show video is below)

Another contestant that administered the full shock was actually the granddaughter of Jews persecuted by the Nazis.

"Since I was a little girl, I have always asked myself why the Nazis did it," she said. "How could they obey such orders? And there I was, obeying them myself."
<snip>

:wow:

VIDEO: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/French-TV-Experiment-Which-Encouraged-Players-To-Torture-Another-Contestant-Condemned-In-France/Article/201003315575334?lpos=Strange_News_Carousel_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15575334_French_TV_Experiment_Which_Encouraged_Players_To_Torture_Another_Contestant_Condemned_In_France

[Fumesucker]

1. Milgram experiment..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors as to what they thought would be the results. All of the poll respondents believed that only a few (average 1.2%) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock.<1>

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)<1> of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment. Only one participant steadfastly refused to administer shocks below the 300-volt level.<1>

Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.



Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.<3>

The original Simulated Shock Generator and Event Recorder, or shock box, is located in the Archives of the History of American Psychology.

Later, Prof. Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results<4> although unlike the Yale experiment, resistance to the experimenter was reported anecdotally elsewhere.<5> Milgram later investigated the effect of the experiment's locale on obedience levels by holding an experiment in an unregistered, backstreet office in a bustling city, as opposed to at Yale, a respectable university. The level of obedience, "although somewhat reduced, was not significantly lower." What made more of a difference was the proximity of the "learner" and the experimenter. There were also variations tested involving groups.

Dr. Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment. He found that the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages remains remarkably constant, 61–66 percent, regardless of time or place.<6><7>[ve

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Yep.

Guess the sociology textbooks in France didn't talk about that one?

[Fumesucker]

3. How many people read sociology textbooks?

I bet you'd get exactly the same reaction here in the US, maybe even a couple of points higher..

[Occulus]

9. This is actually a very famous experiment that has undergone multiple iterations.

People who read will recognize this. People who don't read won't.

[Fumesucker]

17. I'm the one that posted the Milgram experiment..

And in America, how many people read any more?

I go into even wealthy homes and see *zero* books or magazines.. But they all have the big screen TV..

[jtuck004]

5. This has been in psych textbooks for years, yet repeats of

similar experiments (it get's dicey, for obvious legal reasons) continue to get about 60% or better of the people willing to follow whatever the "authority" tells them - even to the point of hurting someone.

In similar experiments with with monkeys, (or apes, I forget), as near as I recall the animals refused to hurt the other animal when they could see or hear what was happening from their actions.

[Divine Discontent]

6. how sad...

probably monkeys, I'd guess. I know when I was cleaning the wound of an obese homeless woman a couple years ago, the woman that yelled at me to stop because it would only encourage 'them' to stay around the beautiful beach, would CERTAINLY been one of the 82% who flicked the switch. Worse yet - there was no prizes in the game show they put on - so they "killed" the guy just because they were asked to in front of a crowd and cameras.

[Canuckistanian]

8. The creators were well aware of the Milgram Experiment

It was their intention to equate "authority" with "reality show fame".

No link. just heard it on CBC Radio News tonight.

[Fumesucker]

18. I"m sure they were...

It's so similar it would be a remarkable coincidence if the creators hadn't heard of the Milgram experiment.

[Sebastian Doyle]

22. I'm sure the creators were, and they wanted to try it themselves

I was referring more to the contestants on the game show. And presumably many others who wanted to be on the show but didn't make the cut. Apparently it never entered any of their minds? Would have been the first thing I thought of, and I really hadn't thought about the Milgram experiment all that much since college.

[Divine Discontent]

4. thanks!

[enlightenment]

7. An indy flick just being released based on the Milgram

experiments (broadly). Revolves around a couple who 'find' a suitcase full of money - stolen money, of course - and the thief who tracks them down to get it back. When he finds that they've spent some of it, he insists that they replace it by stealing more money themselves . . . which they do. Initially they do it under duress, but then things start to change.

Opens in select locations on the 26th and more widely a week later.

http://www.thefilmcash.com/

[HeresyLives]

10. Anyone on a 'game show' would assume it was fake

to begin with.

[Divine Discontent]

14. the lady in the article who had family tortured by Hitler made it clear she wanted to stop but

didn't want to be thought of badly for ruining the program.

it's that crowd effect thing in motion. everyone applauding as she tortures, it must be okay!

[HeresyLives]

19. And you believe that?

[Divine Discontent]

21. you don't realize how cruel people can be with a crowd - see the Parkinson's video on here from IanD

[Control-Z]

11. I wonder if

the participants' age played any role in the outcome.

[Patsy Stone]

12. Next up: Running Man

produced by Mark Burnett? I've been waiting to see how long until that movie becomes reality.

[Divine Discontent]

15. I own it. I love Richard Dawson. And yeah, I thought how much it seemed just like the movie, and

obviously, people would be okay with it....


SCARY!

[Blue_Tires]

23. that was an inspired piece of casting...

what was just another campy Arnold action flick in the 80s seems phophetic now...

[Aristus]

13. This news should raise the French in the estimation of American right-wingers...

"Hey, them Frenchies like killin'! Maybe they ain't s'bad after all!"

[Divine Discontent]

16. so very true!

[proteus_lives]

20. New verse of an old song.