[Insert ABC News theme music]
[male narrator] Hi, I'm Chris Cuomo, and
welcome to our primetime webcast.
A look at one of the most shocking experiments of
the last 50 years, literally.
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Imagine this scenario: you go to a prestigious university to participate
in a learning and memory experiment.
When you arrive, you discover that the teaching instrument is this machine
which seems to give electroshocks to a man on the other side of the wall.
[Man yells]
As you move up the scale, he begins to scream out in pain.
[man] The experiment requires that you continue.
[Chris Cuomo] The experimenter pressures
you to go on. Would you agree to continue?
[man] Aaaah! That's all!
[Chris Cuomo] 45 years ago, Dr. Stanley Milgram came up
with this experiment to test whether people would blindly follow the
orders of an authority figure.
He found that two-thirds of his subjects were willing to give the most dangerous
shock on the machine.
We teamed up with Dr. Jerry Burger,
a social psychologist at Santa Clara University in California,
to see whether people have changed since then.
[Buzzer buzzes]
[scientist] Wrong. 90 volts.
[off camera] Aaah!
[Dr. Jerry Burger] The typical response is to
turn toward the experimenter, and if not say something,
at least give a look that says, "What should I do?"
[Chris Cuomo] In our new experiment, how many
people would agree to follow the orders of an authority figure?
[woman] Owl. That's incorrect.
[Chris Cuomo] 39-year old Troy Schasker
is an electrician.
He's been paid $50.00 to participate, and told that the money in his to keep
even if he quits the experiment early.
He's worried about the dangers of the electroshock machine.
[Troy] Wow. I don't think I can shock him
that hard if he really does screw up.` That's a severe shock there.
[scientist] Yeah, there are 25...
[Troy] I can just go get my shotgun...
[Chris Cuomo] In the room next door, Troy
watches as the learner gets strapped into his chair and really gets nervous
once he hears him say this.
[Learner] I should probably bring up a
couple of years ago at Kaiser, they diagnosed a mild heart condition.
I'm really not too worried about it. It's not that serious.
[scientist] Well you should know that while
the shocks that we'll be using today may be painful, they're not dangerous, OK?
[Chris Cuomo] Milgram intended that scripted
exchange to set up a conflict in the subject's mind.
A choice between the health of the learner and the authority of the experimenter.
[Troy] Number one,
[Chris Cuomo] Then the test begins.
[Troy] Blue, boy, girl, grass, hat.
[Chris Cuomo] The learner must decide which of
the four words is the correct match. At first, everything goes smoothly.
[Troy] Correct.
I was confident that he was doing really good at first, and then...
it started looking bad. [Troy laughs]
[Chris Cuomo] Then at 75 volts, Troy hears the
first sign of trouble.
[Troy] Soft: rug, pillow, hair, grass.
[Buzzer buzzes]
Incorrect. 75 volts.
[learner] Aaah!
[Troy] I could actually hear him next
door going, "Ow! Oh!" And he kept getting things wrong.
[Buzzer buzzes]
Incorrect. 90 volts.
[learner] Aaaah!
[Chris Cuomo] At 105 volts, he's clearly uneasy.
[Troy] I got a little moist on my forehead there.
I wasn't comfortable.
I do not, I can't tell you why I listened to him and kept going.
I should've just said no.
[learner] Aaah!
[Troy] The correct word was duck.
Rock, house.
[Chris Cuomo] At 150 volts...
[Buzzer buzzes]
[Thump]
[Troy] Incorrect. 150 volts.
[learner] Aaah! That's all!
[Chris Cuomo] Will Troy listen as the learner
begs him to stop? Or will he follow Brian's orders?
[scientist] Tell him the correct word was white.
[Troy] The correct word was white horse.
[learner] I can't go on. Let me out.
[Troy] The next item is sad.
[Chris Cuomo] He obeys the orders.
[Troy] Space...
[Chris Cuomo] Why didn't you stop?
[Troy] I saw him getting strapped in, and they
were just like little... I mean he could have just, if he was in that much pain,
he could've just tore himself off.
[Chris Cuomo] Why are you putting it on him
and not you or the experimenter?
[Troy] I was just doing my job. [laughs]
I was doing what I was supposed to do.
75 volts.
So I guess the influence of having the conductor of the experiment
right there next to me telling me to keep going had a lot to do with it.
[Chris Cuomo] For the past 30 years, there have
been severe restrictions on using humans in social psychology research.
To avoid putting subjects under too much stress,
Dr. Burger made a significant change to our experiment.
[to Dr. Burger] In this experiment, you stopped it at 150 make-believe volts.
In Milgram, they went much higher.
[Dr. Burger] We stopped for ethical reasons.
We couldn't put people through the agony that Milgram's participants went through.
[learner] I told you I had heart troubles.
My heart is starting to bother me now.
[Chris Cuomo] Are there clues that indicate whether
certain people might be more compliant with authority?
[woman] Wrong. 90 volts.
[learner] Aaah!
[Chris Cuomo] When you were watching,
how good were you at guessing, "Oh this person may go or this may not?"
[Dr. Burger] It was impossible to tell. I tried to guess.
I tried to look for signs, body language, anything to try to guess
who's going to continue, and who's going to stop.
And that tells me that it's not that there are certain kinds of people
who are obviously different from the rest of us.
It tells me that probably all of us are capable.
[Chris Cuomo] Thanks for watching our Primetime webcast,
and be sure to watch again next week at abcnews.com.
I'm Chris Cuomo.
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