Cracked.com shows 5 psychological experiments that show very interesting stuff about us as humans. Unfortunately, this isn't fun Freakonomics type discoveries, but rather sadistic and depressing realizations. The most disturbing one is The Milgram Experiment. During the Nuremberg Trials, many defendants tried to excuse themselves from the horrible atrocities they committed by simply claiming they were "just following orders". In 1961, Yale University psychologist, Stanley Milgram, decided to test the willingness of a subject to obey an authority figure..
...(Milgram) ran an experiment where the subject was told he was a "teacher" and that his job was to give a memory test to another subject, located in another room. The whole thing was fake and the other subject was an actor. The subject was told that whenever the other guy gave an incorrect answer, he was to press a button that would give him an electric shock. A guy in a lab coat was there to make sure he did it (again no real shock was being delivered, but the subject of course did not know this).
The subject was told that the shocks started at 45 volts and would increase with every wrong answer. Each time they pushed the button, the actor on the other end would scream and beg for the subject to stop (again, acting).They also talk about an experiment where people were asked to shock puppies for every incorrect action it made...except the puppies were really shocked. Almost 80% of the people were willing to shock the helpless puppies b/c they were told to do so.
The Result
Between 61 and 66 percent of subjects would continue the experiment until it reached the maximum voltage of 450, continuing to deliver shocks after the victim had been zapped into unconsciousness or the afterlife. Repeated studies have shown the same result: Subjects will mindlessly deliver pain to an innocent stranger as long as an authority figure directs them to do so.
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