Let me help you steal that...

[Raveni]

Just a matter of time before one of these shows ends up setting off someone doing something stupid...

I saw one of these episodes, I think the setup was about spousal abuse in a public place. A guy that they weren't even watching on camera explodes and slams into the "husband" before security can pull him off. If he had a weapon...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

only a matter of time before this is a real show

It already is a real show. It's called America's Funniest Home Videos.

[Barracuda]

They did run it in the 60's; however, they wouldn't have been able to run it again, a decade ago or otherwise, without bare minimum losing their research credentials and possibly being charged with a crime. This type of practice was banned as unethical in part because of the trauma the initial test subjects suffered a few years after the initial experiment.

I will concede that the results of the test were interesting; an overwhelming majority of the interviewers administered shocks all the way to the end, even after the "victim" protested and demanded the test stop, and only 25-35% of those even bothered protesting the researcher's instructions. Less than 30% flat out refused to continue the test when the "victim" complained. This allows us to draw some interesting conclusions about people's independence of thought and morality when faced with an authority figure instructing them to do the opposite of what many of us would believe is right; however, the number of compliant interviewers dropped off sharply when the "victim" was placed in the room with the interviewer and acted out receiving the shocks and losing consciousness; and dropped sharply again when the interviewer was required to force the "victim's" hand down onto a "shock plate" to administer the shock. Disturbingly enough though, even at this stage, up to 30% of the interviewers still complied with the researcher's instructions.

[EricKei]

They did run it in the 60's; however, they wouldn't have been able to run it again, a decade ago or otherwise, without bare minimum losing their research credentials and possibly being charged with a crime. This type of practice was banned as unethical in part because of the trauma the initial test subjects suffered a few years after the initial experiment.

Eep. o_O I had heard of these tests before, but I always kinda held out hope that they were nothing but urban legends. Aye yi yi...

[Dreamstalker]

I'm reading a book now called The Lucifer Effect; it's about the Stanford prison experiments (similar to the tests Barracuda mentioned). Fascinating stuff.

[LillFilly]

I'm reading a book now called The Lucifer Effect; it's about the Stanford prison experiments (similar to the tests Barracuda mentioned). Fascinating stuff.

I heard about those in school also; I think I have to read that book now.

[Captain Trips]

Speaking as a sociologist (not a social engineer, two different fields. Sociology's proper long name would be social psychology,) this reminds me too much of a famous experiment that is held up as probably the most famous example of an unethical sociological experiment. A group of volunteers were asked to administer a test to other volunteers via an intercom (the second group was actually researchers.) They were told the experiment was to measure memory retention, however, the experiment was actually to study people's compliance with an authority figure in a situation that was questionably moral. The volunteers were in one room with the researcher; the researcher posing as a volunteer was in another room connected via intercom. The volunteers were told that they would be giving the test and punishing the test taker with electric shocks for incorrect answers (the test taker was supposedly restrained and hooked to electrodes, with the volunteer controlling the amount of charge, which supposedly progressed after every wrong answer to the last setting, marked, "Danger, Potentially Lethal Charge.") As the "test" progressed, the researcher posing as the test taker would deliberately get answers wrong, then pretend to suffer a shock. At some point, the test taker would complain they felt like their heart was beating irregularly and that they wanted to stop the test. The researcher in the room with the interviewer would instruct the volunteer to ignore the test taker and treat failure to answer as a wrong answer and keep administering shocks. At that point, after maybe another protest, the test taker would stop responding at all to the interviewer. The point was to see how many people would take it all the way to the end at the researcher's instructions despite the moral component. As you can imagine, this test gathered some interesting data, but at a serious psychological cost to the "interviewer" volunteers, especially those who did not stop and even administered the "lethal" shock. This type of practice is considered unethical and banned now because of the psychological harm it can cause, and this show verges all too closely on a variant of the same thing.

The researcher was Stanley Milgram. Google it.

I remember a tv-movie staring William Shatner as the Milgram role (called "The Tenth Level, it's in IMDB.) And there was one (and ONLY one) "interviewer" that refused to flip a single switch. (He was played by Russell Johnson, the Professor from Gilligan's Island.) It actually was the story of how this experiment affected the "interviewers."

Yes, there was a time that Shatner actually did some stuff of quality!

[Dreamstalker]

Huh, I'll have to look that up.