Help!

April 8, 2007 1:38 PM

In the famous Milgram experiment, to examine obedience and authority, why does the actor never specifically use the word 'help'?

Some friends and I were talking about the famous Milgram experiment (in which volunteers believed they were giving shocks to other volunteers, though the other volunteer was always a confederate and the shocks were fake).

I brought up this idea, but everyone else thought it was stupid. I'm no longer in college, so no handy psyc professors to ask. Why didn't the actors ask for help? I know that their voices were recorded, but I've listened to the recordings, and they say things like "Stop! Ouch! Don't do it anymore!" and the toughest one "I think I'm having a heart attack!". I think the specific word 'help' is extremely conspicuous in its absence. Is there any mention of this in the experiment or criticisms of the experiment? It seems to me like asking for help changes the authority dynamic, and asks the person not merely to stop doing something, but to take some positive action. Is there some reason the word was not included? Anyone know if different versions of the experiment included this word? Did it change the results?

posted by bluejayk to education (18 comments total)

Presumably so that the volunteers used their own judgement as to what was acceptable and what was not.
posted by unSane at 1:48 PM on April 8, 2007

The first thing that occurs to me is that there's no occasion for them to call for help. That's what you do if there's someone around who might help; here, there's only the experimenter and the guy applying the shocks. What sense would it make to ask for help from the guys who are doing it to you? What you say is "Stop!"

unSane, that doesn't make any sense to me. Could you elaborate?
posted by languagehat at 1:57 PM on April 8, 2007

Here's a link to a Youtube video discussion of the experiment for those who haven't seen it or want a refresher.
posted by bluejayk at 2:11 PM on April 8, 2007

sorry, it was a bit opaque.

in the experiment, the 'subject' was giving information about how much pain s/he was in as a result of the shocks

thus the 'volunteer' had to make a judgement about how much pain it was okay to inflict on another person

'help' however is a direct plea for assistance which says 'this pain is too much', and interferes with that judgement

even if I thought the pain being inflicted was acceptable, someone saying 'help' might make me and lots of other people stop.

that was my first thought, anyway
posted by unSane at 2:14 PM on April 8, 2007

The scenario as described is supposed to just be an experiment to determine effective ways to reinforce learning. It's not supposed to be a torture chamber. So to me it makes sense that the shockee would ask for help (if he were 'real'), maybe appealing to the other experiment subject or even the experimentor. It makes just as much sense as yelling 'stop it', doesn't it?
posted by bluejayk at 2:14 PM on April 8, 2007

unSane, your point is kinda what I'm trying to get at. The revelation we're encouraged to have from this experiment is that authority can turn normal people into monsters, nazis, etc. But I always felt like the experiment avoided the most natural way we have of encouraging empathy, that is, begging for help.

I can imagine giving shocks in this experiment as it was designed, and being uncomfortable with what the results said about me. However, I think, and I'll admit I'm really just speculating, if the actor said "Help! Please help me!', most of the subjects would have stopped much sooner. And so I wonder if the real reason the word 'help' was not included in the script was that it made the results more shocking and attention-grabbing.
posted by bluejayk at 2:20 PM on April 8, 2007

I don't have any references to criticisms of Milgram (though I do know they're out there), or variations of the experiment (it would be hard to recreate it nowadays, ethics boards are hardcore).

That said, I would think that the confederate's words were carefully scripted so that the option of stopping the experiment is left to the subject and the experimental condition (authoritativeness of the experimenter).

If the confederate's job is only express displeasure/pain, screaming for help would muddy the condition a bit... The authoritative experiment is no longer the only person suggesting a course of action.
posted by CKmtl at 2:21 PM on April 8, 2007

* authoritative experimenter, rather.
posted by CKmtl at 2:22 PM on April 8, 2007

I think it's the "Just yell fire" idea, taken down a notch - the idea that if you're getting attacked, you should yell "fire" instead of yelling "help"... mob psychology being what it is, "help" is more likely to make people think "I don't want to get involved", but "fire" always draws a crowd. Mapping that across to the Milgram experiment, when the volunteer hears "stop" they react on the mob psychology level, and since the 'mob' consists only of them and the authority figure, and the authority figure is doing nothing... maybe it's best to just ignore it. But "help" is more imperative, more likely to get a person to break free of the mob mentality and act on their own.
posted by foobario at 2:34 PM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

The first thing that comes to my mind is "who would the shockee being yelling 'help' to?" For all they know, they are alone in a room receiving shocks. We know that there are people around to interfere, but if the shockee yelled 'help,' I think it would be a dead giveaway that he knew there was someone to yell to (who was hearing the screams and administering the shocks).
posted by sneakin at 3:31 PM on April 8, 2007

I think it would be a dead giveaway that he knew there was someone to yell to (who was hearing the screams and administering the shocks)

The subject (the shock-administrator) was aware that the victim (confederate) knew he could communicate with them. The "fake" experiment involved the subject reading off a list of words (into a microphone) for the victim to memorize, followed by the victim having to do perform some sort of recall task, again by speaking into a microphone. When the victim got it wrong, the subject was told to give a shock.

So, calling for help wouldn't break some sort of non-communication illusion.
posted by CKmtl at 4:01 PM on April 8, 2007

Just happen to be studying this right now for a class. My understanding is that the learner (person/actor being shocked) had a formulaic script to follow, with specific responses at each voltage level. These were the same for each experiment to standardize the results. However, several permutations on the experiment were performed. In some, the authority figure was present. In others, he literally phoned it in. The obedience of the teacher (person delivering the shocks) varied dramatically based on the degree to which the authority had credibility.

Here are some links I've recently gathered for my classwork:

• A COGNITIVE REINTERPRETATION OF STANLEY MILGRAM'S OBSERVATIONS
• The Milgram Obedience Song (4.07 MB)
• A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments
• A Personal Account of the Milgram Obedience Experiments

It is important to remember that when Milgram first conducted the experiment, no one predicted he would get the results he obtained. Most of the people he queried prior to the experiment predicted the subjects would refuse early on, and none would give the learner the maximum, 450+ volt shocks.

And as you point out, ethically, it is not possible to set up this kind of experiment today. So we might never know the answer to your question.
posted by squink at 4:02 PM on April 8, 2007

It's counter-intuitive to suggest that a torturee should beg his torturer for help, and, after two re-readings, I'm not sure why you think otherwise. Still, you could make the case that such a plea might have had more effect on the volunteers... you'd just have to justify it as an attempt to 'flip the script,' which the actors obviously weren't trying to do, but a real torture subject might.

In short, it seems you're suggesting that a true torture subject being abused in an experimental context would use more ingenuity than the actors did. This is a tempting suggestion, but Milgram's results seem to hold steady across many other phenomena. You'd need to explain why asking for 'help' didn't work for Jews, for Tutsi, for victims of police brutality, for the Argentinians 'disappeared,' for segregation-era lynching victims, or for the people in Gauntanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA black sites.

Yeah, you'd have an awful lot of outliers to explain.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:35 PM on April 8, 2007

Squink has it absolutely right. I don't have the book on hand, but if I remember correctly, there were over ten variations of the experiment. In one, the subject had to physically administer the shock. In another, the person was in a different room. Sometimes the experiment was administered by a high prestige authority, and in others an unknown institution.

As for the word 'help', I agree that it's not clear who the confederate would be calling to. Nevertheless, the results aren't as bleak as you portray them to be. Milgram's experiments also found that when a confederate was introduced as a second shock administrator and that person refused to administer shocks, subjects often did the same. And in groups, there was a substantial minority influence. So take heart, we tend to follow direction regardless of who it comes from, but if only one person speaks up and disobeys, we are much more likely to do the same.

No institutional review board would ever allow this experiment or the Stanford Prison Experiment to happen again. Indeed, they helped to constitute the basis for the boards in the first place. They revisited Milgram's subjects in one of the later editions of the book. One man was so affected by the experience that he left his career as an engineer and became a humanitarian.
posted by B-squared at 6:19 PM on April 8, 2007

It seems to me like asking for help changes the authority dynamic, and asks the person not merely to stop doing something, but to take some positive action.

The confederate does say (repeatedly) "Let me out of here! You have not right to hold me here, let me out!" I'd say that's pretty clearly asking the subject to take a positive action.

As for why "help" isn't in the script, I think it's for the reason everyone else has given already -- asking the person who's giving you the shocks for help just seems weird. If, hypothetically, someone walked up to you on the street and started punching you in the face, would you ask him for help?
posted by myeviltwin at 7:46 PM on April 8, 2007

Imagine a more blown-out version of this situation. If I'm holding a gun to your head, threatening to pull the trigger, am I really likely to respond to a plea of help? Mercy, perhaps. But asking me to help you not get shot by me seems completely bizarre. (Except that I really like that last sentence's structure.)
posted by Netzapper at 8:01 PM on April 8, 2007

To speculate a little bit: Milgram's overarching goal, from what I've read, was to figure out the Holocaust. More accurately, to figure out the whole "I was just following orders" bit. And, as others have said, someone in that situation (i.e. a concentration camp or a small room being shocked) would not ask for help from the tormentor.
posted by crayolarabbit at 11:38 PM on April 8, 2007

CKmtl, ah I didn't realize that. I stand corrected.
posted by sneakin at 6:23 PM on April 9, 2007