Shocking study finds most will torture if ordered      

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some things never change.

Scientists said on Friday they had replicated an

experiment in which people obediently delivered painful

shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority

figures.

Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer

electrical shocks -- or at least they believed they were

doing so -- even after an actor claimed they were painful,

Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California found.

"What we found is validation of the same argument -- if

you put people into certain situations, they will act in

surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways,"

Burger said in a telephone interview. "This research is still

relevant."

Burger was replicating an experiment published in 1961

by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram, in which

volunteers were asked to deliver electric "shocks" to

other people if they answered certain questions

incorrectly.

Milgram found that, after hearing an actor cry out in pain

at 150 volts, 82.5 percent of participants continued

administering shocks, most to the maximum 450 volts.

The experiment surprised psychologists and no one has

tried to replicate it because of the distress suffered by

many of the volunteers who believed they were shocking

another person.

"When you hear the man scream and say, 'let me out, I

can't stand it,' that is the point when the real stress that

people criticized Milgram for kicked in," Burger said.

"It was a very, very, very stressful experience for many of

the participants. That is the reason no one can ethically

replicate the experiment today."

'SURPRISING AND DISAPPOINTING'

Burger modified the experiment, by stopping at the 150

volt point for the 29 men and 41 women in his experiment.

He measured how many of his volunteers began to deliver

another shock when prompted by the experiment's leader

-- but instead of letting them do so, stopped them.

In Milgram's original experiment, 150 volts seemed to be

the turning point.

In Burger's modified experiment, 70 percent of the

volunteers were willing to give shocks greater than 150

volts.

At one point, researchers brought in a volunteer who

knew what was going on and refused to administer

shocks beyond 150 volts. Despite the example, 

63 percent of the participants continued administering

shocks past 150 volts.

"That was surprising and disappointing," Burger said.

Burger found no differences among his volunteers, aged

20 to 81, and carefully screened them to be average

representatives of the U.S. public.

Burger said the experiment, published in the American

Psychologist, can only partly explain the widely reported

prisoner abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq

or events during World War Two.

"Although one must be cautious when making the leap

from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such

as genocide, understanding the social psychological

factors that contribute to people acting in unexpected and

unsettling ways is important," he wrote.

"It is not that there is something wrong with the people,"

Burger said. "The idea has been somehow there was this

characteristic that people had back in the early 1960s

that they were somehow more prone to obedience."

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081219/sc_nm/us_torture_study

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