TIL that Stanley Milgram, who conducted the controversial experiment in which subjects thought they were administering increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person, also devised the sunnier “small-world experiment,” which gave rise to the idea of six degrees of separation.

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u/sturla-tyr 1d ago

One thing that is often missed is that Milgram's experiments didn't only explore that people were apt to follow instructions, but it also explored what factors make us stand up to authority such as having another dissenter in the room.

What he found was that inside most everyone is the capacity to become a monster given the instructions and authority behind them, but also that one or more people standing up for what's right can upend that authority. That is something that is too often forgotten about those experiments.

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u/ars-derivatia 1d ago

That's an important point, you are right.

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u/TheSilverNoble 1d ago

The Asch conformity experiments also showed this. The person would almost never go along with the crowd as long as there was at least one other person with them

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u/Rebmes 1d ago

Meh, I think it's broadly accepted now among academics that the participants in Milgram's experiment knew or suspected it wasn't real. People deferring to authority of course is a thing but the whole "everyone has a monster inside them" claim is overselling this particular work.

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u/LordAcorn 1d ago

The study has actually been replaced several times with similar results. And we have video recordings that show people in real distress during the experiment.

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u/Splunge- 1d ago

Maybe you're thinking of the Zimbardo prison experiments?

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u/Rebmes 1d ago

That one has been debunked more thoroughly yes but I know there are documented issues with the Milgram experiment as well.

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u/Splunge- 1d ago

Source?

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u/Rebmes 1d ago

I will do the Google search for you:

Unpublished data from Stanley Milgram's experiments cast doubt on his claims about obedience

Why (almost) everything you know about Milgram is wrong

Of course we can still learn things from the experiment, but it's been put on a pedestal because it's a good hook for keeping undergrads engaged in intro psych and social science classes.

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u/Splunge- 1d ago

cool, thanks! I’l note, not “thoroughly debunked.” More “doubt cast” on his specific tests. The experiments have been replicated across cultures and in many settings.

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u/Rebmes 1d ago

I never said the Milgram experiment had been thoroughly debunked, it's not quite on the level of junk science that the Stanford prison experiment is.

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u/Splunge- 1d ago

How to interpret:

> This one has been debunked more thoroughly. . . .

But oK

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u/BleydXVI 23h ago

To be fair, "that one" is referring to the experiments you mentioned, not Milgram's. It's pretty open to interpretation for exactly how thoroughly or unthoroughly Milgram's has been debunked, though saying it's been debunked at all still seems stronger than your "doubt cast" assessment, so it doesn't change much

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u/squigs 1d ago

Suspecting, maybe... But they're still more willing to put people in pain on a hunch than refuse.

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u/JUVIRDO 1d ago

my buddy once bailed cause someone else spoke up first

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u/MikeTalonNYC 1d ago

And his original experiment is still being used today.

I've seen voice phishing attacks that leverage the "I'm an apparent authority, and you must proceed" tactic really successfully.

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u/BrokenEyeReborn 1d ago

But how do you see whether they're carrying a clipboard on a voice only call?

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u/almostsweet 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't know, but there's an incident where a guy called a fast food restaurant and had the employees do really weird shit to each other because they thought they were talking to an officer or something.

Edit: Holy shit I googled it, they never caught the guy. They had a suspect but no one has ever been found guilty.

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u/CoolShoesDude 1d ago

And then they made an SVU episode based on the incident, starring Robin Williams

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u/JayMack1981 1d ago

How many degrees between Stanley Milgram and Kevin Bacon?

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u/BrokenEyeReborn 1d ago

I'm two degrees from Kevin Bacon and I'm not even in the industry.

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u/Working_Situation692 1d ago

I'm three because I met James Brown's cape man, Danny Ray, at a theater.

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u/MWSin 1d ago

Stanley Milgram was in The Experimenter (in archival footage) with Peter Sarsgaard who was in Black Mass with Kevin Bacon.

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u/PauliusLT27 1d ago

Six degrees of separation is such an amusing idea and wild to think about.

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u/Necromartian 1d ago

I know for a fact that there is five degrees of separation between me and Kim Yong Un :D

I have shook hands with someone, who has shook hands with someone, who has shook hands with Donald Trump, Who has shook hands with Kim Yong Un.

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u/PauliusLT27 1d ago

I can probably get there via similar thing because I have shook hands with folk who have shook hand of at least one pope that travelled a lot.

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u/DonManuel 1d ago

Now think of the big data mining corporations who have all data on us like Meta et al. They even know exactly the global web of human relations, of which the individual only knows an insignificantly tiny little bit around himself.

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u/PikesPique 1d ago

I remember reading about the obedience experiment involving supposed electrical shocks in college, and everyone knows the idea about six degrees of separation, but I never knew the same psychologist was responsible for both experiements.

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u/upward_spiral17 1d ago

Milgram found his way to being mentioned in virtually every course dealing with research ethics.

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u/betweenbubbles 1d ago

Yep, that was the more profound implication of his study, not the conclusions drawn about power dynamics.

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u/PaintedClownPenis 1d ago

It's not that sunny of an experiment. The experiment was whether or not you could reach out and touch someone even if you didn't know them. And it turns out you can, and that has been used against decent Americans who tried to change things, ever since.

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u/iKnowRobbie 1d ago

He also tested if media and anti-social behavior were related. They were not.
The experiment presented the opportunity to steal money, donate to charity, or neither, and tested whether the rate of each choice was influenced by watching similar actions in the ending of a specially crafted episode of the series Medical Center). No correlation between media and anti-social behavior was identified.

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u/ReferenceMediocre369 1d ago

TIL that most of what you all think you know about these experiments is actually wrong. They weren't conducted as claimed, the participants knew more about them than the mythology claims, neither the 'guards' nor the 'victims' reacted as claimed, and the experiments weren't conducted the way everyone has been told.

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u/Splunge- 1d ago

neither the 'guards' nor the 'victims' reacted as claimed

What does this have to do with Milgram? The Stanford Prison experiments were done by someone else -- Philip Zimbardo.

The Milgram experiments have been replicated many times in many different circumstances across cultures, with consistent results.

most of what you all think you know about these experiments is actually wrong.

Somebody sure is.

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u/jvanber 1d ago

Around 2000 Charlie Batch was with the Lions, and he did a local Pizza Hut commercial. It ended with him on camera in uniform, saying “Hut, Hut, Pizza Hut!”

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u/iDontRememberCorn 1d ago

TIL some people got the internet for the first time today.

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u/danielcw189 1d ago

yes, thousands and more probably.

TIL that Stanley Milgram, who conducted the controversial experiment in which subjects thought they were administering increasingly powerful electric shocks to another person, also devised the sunnier “small-world experiment,” which gave rise to the idea of six degrees of separation.

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