The movie Experimenter has reminded me a quote from Albert Einstein – “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Curiosity opens doors, which lead us down to new path and keep moving forward and doing new thing. The main character in the movie – Stanley Milgram is filled with curiosity or even obsession that got him to keep searching for truth and understanding of human behavior. His curiosity has become his secret weapon to ignite the spark of his every great idea of experiment.
One of his well-known experiments is obedience experiment, which investigates people’s tendency to comply with authority. His obedience experiment seems to have answered his question of how human beings come to participate in inhuman acts such as genocide. His finding is meaningful yet annoying. He discovers the dark side of human nature and explains how our mind transfer the responsibility of our actions to the person giving the orders. It is ironic that Milgram himself also manifests some of the same characteristics he finds so ugly in his subjects. When he is accused by a student in his Harvard class of being deceptive monster, he reacts by shutting her down and objecting to her description of him. His obsession with obedience seems to has blinded his eyes to see how his own methods might be interpreted as an abuse of power.
Despite the annoying finding, Milgram’s obedience experiment has encouraged us to think deeply whenever we are wondering how any human could ever behave in such an inhumane way. One of the important lessons that I learned from Milgram’s works is never let go our curiosity because it allows us to understand the world we live in today. I have always found psychology fascinating, and wondered why people behave in a certain way. Being inspired by Milgram's work, I’m interested in how human being would react when they are in a life-threatening situation like plane crash. Especially when survival resources such as lifeboats and lifejackets are limited, will people sacrifice themselves to save others or will people sacrifice others to save their own life? We heard of “women and children first”, which is a code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children are to be saved first in a life-threatening situation. However, what if survival resources are limited, and there are no vulnerable groups like children, elderly and disabled people in that situation, would people still sacrifice themselves to save someone who is physically as strong as themselves? I’m thinking whether there is some kind of struggle between selfishness and self-sacrifice, because at times people would not think too much and their instinct will lead them how to behave and respond to such a situation. If I were allowed to conduct a social experiment without concerning about financial and ethical issues, I would like to create a fake plane crash to see how people (passenger) would actually react and respond to such a situation, especially when there's no vulnerable group on plane and all the passengers are the same age and same sex.
One of his well-known experiments is obedience experiment, which investigates people’s tendency to comply with authority. His obedience experiment seems to have answered his question of how human beings come to participate in inhuman acts such as genocide. His finding is meaningful yet annoying. He discovers the dark side of human nature and explains how our mind transfer the responsibility of our actions to the person giving the orders. It is ironic that Milgram himself also manifests some of the same characteristics he finds so ugly in his subjects. When he is accused by a student in his Harvard class of being deceptive monster, he reacts by shutting her down and objecting to her description of him. His obsession with obedience seems to has blinded his eyes to see how his own methods might be interpreted as an abuse of power.
Despite the annoying finding, Milgram’s obedience experiment has encouraged us to think deeply whenever we are wondering how any human could ever behave in such an inhumane way. One of the important lessons that I learned from Milgram’s works is never let go our curiosity because it allows us to understand the world we live in today. I have always found psychology fascinating, and wondered why people behave in a certain way. Being inspired by Milgram's work, I’m interested in how human being would react when they are in a life-threatening situation like plane crash. Especially when survival resources such as lifeboats and lifejackets are limited, will people sacrifice themselves to save others or will people sacrifice others to save their own life? We heard of “women and children first”, which is a code of conduct whereby the lives of women and children are to be saved first in a life-threatening situation. However, what if survival resources are limited, and there are no vulnerable groups like children, elderly and disabled people in that situation, would people still sacrifice themselves to save someone who is physically as strong as themselves? I’m thinking whether there is some kind of struggle between selfishness and self-sacrifice, because at times people would not think too much and their instinct will lead them how to behave and respond to such a situation. If I were allowed to conduct a social experiment without concerning about financial and ethical issues, I would like to create a fake plane crash to see how people (passenger) would actually react and respond to such a situation, especially when there's no vulnerable group on plane and all the passengers are the same age and same sex.
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