Thanks to the Internet, information is up for grabs, yet none of the French TV documentary's participants seems to have heard of Stanley Milgram's classic 1961 experiment on authority and obedience. Many variations on Milgram's initial idea have replicated his results.
Milgram seems to have challenged the rather too pat belief that the atrocities committed by the Nazi were an aberration that could only have been born in Germany, fathered only by Hitler. The hypothesis underlying his experiment was that under certain circumstances, which were by no means unique to Nazi Germany, most, perhaps all of us have the potential to act against our moral principles, and that this potential can be successfully tapped by any figure of perceived authority.
Although Milgram focused exclusively on a malevolent figure of authority, it is reasonable to suggest that the same mechanism applies in any situation, regardless of whether the instructor is malevolent or benign, and of whether the instructions are to destroy, or pray and fast, or pray & pay, or dye our hair fuchsia and festoon our faces with safety pins.
In his experiment, each participant was instructed to punish another participant - an actor - if the latter gave a wrong answer to an insignificant question. The punishment was an electric shock; the voltage increased with every wrong answer. The instructions were delivered by an experimenter whose demeanour was calculated to signal 'authority'.
Milgram seems to have challenged the rather too pat belief that the atrocities committed by the Nazi were an aberration that could only have been born in Germany, fathered only by Hitler. The hypothesis underlying his experiment was that under certain circumstances, which were by no means unique to Nazi Germany, most, perhaps all of us have the potential to act against our moral principles, and that this potential can be successfully tapped by any figure of perceived authority.
Although Milgram focused exclusively on a malevolent figure of authority, it is reasonable to suggest that the same mechanism applies in any situation, regardless of whether the instructor is malevolent or benign, and of whether the instructions are to destroy, or pray and fast, or pray & pay, or dye our hair fuchsia and festoon our faces with safety pins.
In his experiment, each participant was instructed to punish another participant - an actor - if the latter gave a wrong answer to an insignificant question. The punishment was an electric shock; the voltage increased with every wrong answer. The instructions were delivered by an experimenter whose demeanour was calculated to signal 'authority'.
Milgram found that 65% of the participants obeyed and carried out the instruction to administer a 450V electric shock to the actor who, unbeknown to the participant, posed as the victim. The reassurance that they bore no responsibility for the outcome, and that all responsibility lay with the instructor, seems to have been crucial.
Perhaps the most interesting conclusion from later variations on Milgram's experiment is that 'neither obedience nor authority' is the key to such behaviour: according to recent interpretations, participants 'suffer learned helplessness, where they feel powerless to control the outcome, and so abdicate their personal responsibility.' While this may well be so, the degree of compliance in the French TV documentary suggests not so much helplessness, as an alarmingly strong popular perception of the media as a source of authority.
'A French TV documentary features people in a spoof game show administering what they are told are near lethal electric shocks to rival contestants.
Those taking part are told to pull levers to inflict shocks - increasing in voltage - upon their opponents.
Although unaware that the contestants were actors and there was no electrical current, 82% of participants in the Game of Death agreed to pull the lever.
Programme makers say they wanted to expose the dangers of reality TV shows.'
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