Eнтропија, еволуција, живот

Ако имаш кућу и оставиш је „зубу времена“, полако ће да пропада док се потпуно не уруши. То је закон материје и материјалног свијета - ентропија.

А вегетација која буја око напуштене куће – закон и принцип живота. Биљке нису само материја, иначе би се и оне „урушавале“ као и кућа.

Ова два закона, начела, су директно супротстављени један другом, дјелују у потпуно супротним смјеровима.

Па и сама кућа, материјална ствар, да би се изградила и одржала, захтијева дјеловање по законима живота, насупрот законима материје, насупрот ентропији.

Тако ни живот не може ни да настане само из материје и само по законима материје. Јер не може материја, са једне стране, да буде подложна закону ентропије, која разграђује, а у исто вријеме да се понаша и трансформише по супротном закону, закону живота, који гради. Ако идеш доле, нећеш стићи горе, ако идеш лијево нећеш стићи десно.

Ентропија разграђује аутоматски, постепено претварајући материју у нешто за шта је потребно све мање и мање одржавања и труда. Насупрот томе, све што се гради, не само да захтијева труд да би се изградило, него и да би се таквим одржало. Гомила камења је прилично стабилна ствар, док кућа уопште није.

А живот посебно. Колико је само живот нестабилан и колико је лако наудити му, чак и до те мјере да се угаси. Ентропија не само да не одржава и не подржава живот, него је потребно свакодневно супротно дјеловање, свакодневни велики труд, пажња, жеља, љубав, смисао, да би уопште опстао из дана у дан.

Не само живот, него чак ни кућа не може да настане само по законима материјалне природе. Чак и када би се током милијарди година, неким случајем, неким стицајем безбројних околности, и склопило, само од себе, нешто налик на кућу, зар би такав случајан склоп околности потрајао дуже од тренутка, прије него што се промијени у неко сасвим другачије случајно стање?

Kada nismo znali za rendgenski rak

 

Iz knjige "Odjeljenje za rak", 1968., Aleksandra Solženjicina

Naviknuta da spašava život, goli život — u njihovoј klinici život је uvijek bio na kocki, ništa manje od toga — Ljudmila Afanasjevna je bila čvrsto uvjerena da je svaki gubitak opravdan samo ako spašava život.

Ali dаnаs, ma koliko da se vrtila po klinici, bilo je nešto što јој је cijeli dan smetalo da bude sigurna u sebe, oličenje odgovornosti i autoriteta.

Је li to bio taj jasno određeni bol u njenom vlastitom stomaku? Bilo је dana kada ga nije osjećala, nekad bi sasvim jenjao, ali danas je bio jači nego inače. Da se nije bavila onkologijom, ne bi se obazirala na bol ili bi, naprotiv, bez ikakvog straha otišla nа pretrage. Medutim ona je dobro poznavala to klupko da bi se usudila odmotati prvu nit: reći rođacima i reći koleginicama u službi. Sama sebe je tješila onim vječitim ruskim »možda«: možda се proći? možda је samo nervoza?

Ne, nije joj samo to smetalo cijelog dana, još je nešto drugo tištalo. Bio је to neki neodređeni ali nametljivi osjećaj. Napokon, kad se zavukla u svoj kutak, sjela za sto i dotakla se fascikle »rendgenski rak«, koju je bio primijetio lukavi Kostogutov, shvatila je da je cijelog dana ne samo uznemirena nego i pogođena onom raspravom sa njim.

Još је jasno čulа njegovu rečenicu: »Prije dvanaest godina vi ste ozračili rendgenom nekakvog Kostogutova, koji vas je molio da ga ne zračite, a onda još ništa niste znali o rendgenskom raku! «

Zaista se spremala da u radiološkom društvu uskoro podnese referat na temu: »O kasnim rendgenskim promjenama«, dakle upravo o оnome što је Kostogutov naslutio.

Tek nedavno, prije godinu-dvije pojavili su se u radiološkoj praksi — ovdje, u Moskvi i u Bakuu — neki slučajevi koji su se isprva činili neshvatljivi. Ljekari su posumnjali. Zatim počeli slutiti o čemu је riječ. Pisali su jedan drugom u pismima, u referatima to nisu spominjali, ali su pretresali u razgovorima između referata. Neko je pročitao pokoji članak iz američkog časopisa. Nešto slično pojavljivalo se i u Americi. A slučajeva је bilo sve više, sve se više bolesnika žalilo — i pojava je napokon dobila пaziv: »Kasne rendgenske promjene«. Sada se o njima govorilo i sa katedre, i svi su nešto preduzimali.

Liječenje rendgenskim zračenjem koje je bilo povoljno, uspješno ili čak odlično, završeno prije deset ili petnaest godina pomoću velikih doza X-zraka, poslije toliko vremena nanosilo je nеočekivano razaranje tkiva i različita izobličenja na ozračenim mjestima.

Ne bi bilo tako strašno, i u svakom slučaju bilo bi dopustivo, da su te bolesnike tada zračili zbog malignih tumora. Za takve slučajeve nije bilo izbora čak ni sa današnje tačke gledišta: bolesnika је trebalo spasiti od neminovne smrti i jedino spasonosno sredstvo bile su ogromne doze zračenja, jer mаlе više nisu pomagale. I kada bi se ponovo vratio u bolnicu, ovako unakažen bolesnik bi morao shvatiti da je ta nakaznost cijena kojom je platio dodatne godine života i one koje ga još očekuju.

Ali onda, prije deset, petnaest godina, prije osamnaest godina, kada čak i nije bilo naziva »rendgen-rak«, zračenje rendgenom smatralo se toliko pouzdanim i savršenim lijekom, takvim divnim dostignućem savremene medicinske tehnіike da bi bilo staromodno i zaostalo, ako пе čak i saboterski, oduzeti radnicima tu vrstu liječenja i tražiti druga, paralelna ili okolišna sredstva.

Stručnjaci su se bojali jedino ranih oštećenja tkiva i kostiju, ali su ubrzo naučili kako da ih izbjegnu i počeli su — zračiti! Zračili su sa velikim oduševljenjem! Čak i benigne tumore. Čak i malu djecu.

A kada su danas ta djeca odrasla, kada su izrasla u mladiće i djevojke, poudavala se i poženila, vratila su se u bolnicu sa neizlječivim ranama na onim mjestima koja su tako usrdno bila podvrgnuta zračenju.

Prošle jeseni је došao — ne ovde u odjeljenje za rak, nego u odjeljenje hirurgije, samo što је Ljudmila Afanasjevna saznala i svakako poželjela da ga pregleda — petnaestogodišnјi dječak kome su jedna ruka i noga zaostale u rastu baš kao i kosti glave, tako da је odozgo do dole bio izvijen poput luka, kao karikatura. Pošto је zavirila u arhiv, Ljudmila Afanasjevna je utvrdila da je to onaj isti dvogodišnji dječačić koga je majka donijela u medicinsko naselje zbog višestrukih promjena u tkivu kostiju, kojima niko nije znao porijeklo, ali nisu bile karcinomske prirode, popraćene samo snažnim metaboličkim promjenama — i tada su ga hirurzi роslali Doncovoj: možda ćе pomoći rendgen, onako naslijepo. Doncova ga je uzela, i rendgen je pomogao! I te kako! Majka je plakala od radosti i govorila kako nikada nеćе zaboraviti spasiteljicu.

A sada je došao sam, majka više nije bila u životu i niko mu ni u čemu nije mogao pomoći, niko više nije mogao odstraniti iz njegovih kostiju rendgenske zrake koje je primio.

Isto tako nedavno, krajem januara došla је mlada majka žaleći se da u grudima nema mlijeka. Nije došla baš direktno ovamo, nego su je slali iz jednog odjeljenja u drugo, pa je zalutala i na onkološko. Doncova је se nije sjećala, ali kako se u njihovoj klinici bolesnički kartoni vječno čuvaju, svratilа je u skladište, dugo su ondje tražili i našli njen karton iz četrdeset prve, iz koga je bilo očigledno da je kao djevojčica dolazila ovamo i povjerljivo lijegala pod rendgenske cijevi — sa dobroćudnim tumorom od koga je više niko danas ne bi liječio zračenjem.

Doncovoj nije preostalo ništa drugo nego da nastavi pisati na starom kartonu i da unese podatak kako je tkivo u međuvremenu atrofiralo, što је, prema tome, značilo da je u pitanju kasna rendgenska promjеnа.

Ni tome naherenome mladiću ni unesrećenoj majci niko nije priznao, naravno, da su ih u djetinjstvu loše liječili: takvo priznanje bi bilo zapravo njima lično beskorisno a, u opštem smislu, škodilo bi medicinskoj propagandi u narodu.

Međutim, ti su slučajevi potresli Ljudmilu Afanasjevnu, obuzeo je tegoban osjećaj nepopravljive i vječite krivice — i Kostogutov je danas pogodio baš u osjetljivo mjesto.

Prekrstila је ruke, obuhvativši ramena, i ushodala se po sobi od vrata do prozora, od prozora do vrata, po onom komadiću poda između isključenih aparata.

Ali, sveјеdnо, da li је dopušteno raspravlјati o рravu ljekara da liječi? Ako počnemo tako misliti, ako budemo sumnjali u svaku današnju naučnu metodu — hoće li је u budućnosti dеmantovati ili odbaciti — onda nas to može odvesti i u drugu krajnost! Pа ima slučajeva da je i aspirin izazvao smrt: popio čovjek prvi put aspirin u životu i umro! Onda se uopšte ne bi moglo liječiti! Bilo bi najbolje odreći se svih sredstava koja pomažu bolesniku.

Ovaj zakon, vjerovatno, ima opšti karakter: svaki radnik uvijek izaziva i jedno i drugo — i dobro i zlo. Samo neki više dobroga, drugi više zla.

Ali, mа koliko da se uznemiravala i ma koliko da je dobro znala da ti nesrećni slučajevi, baš kao i slučajevi pogrešnih dijagnoza, pogrešne ili prekasne terapije ne predstavljaju možda ni dva procenta u cijelom njenom radu, a ljudi koje je izliječila, mladići i starci, žеnе i muškarci hodaju po njivama, po travi, po asfaltu, lete vazduhom, beru pamuk, реnju se na debla, metu ulice, poslužuju za tezgama, sjede po kancelarijama ili čajanama, služe u pješadiji ili mornarici, а ima ih na hiljade, i nisu svi nju zaboravili i neće je zaboraviti — оnа је ipak isto tako znala da će ih ona ubrzo sve zaboraviti, da će zaboraviti sve svoje uspjehe, svoje najteže роbjede, a do groba će se sjećati one nekolicine, onih nekoliko bijednika koji su žalosno završili svoj vijek.

Моžе se reći da je njeno pamćenje bilo posebnog kova.

Između savesti i pokornosti - unutrašnja borba kod učesnika Milgramovog eksperimenta

Delovi iz:

1. Knjige: "Obedience to Authority", Stanley Milgram (Harper & Row 1974)
2. Članka: "The Perils of Obedience", Stanley Milgram (Harper's Magazine, Issue December 1973)

Suština pokornosti je u tome što osoba sebe doživljava kao instrument za izvršavanje želja druge osobe, te se zbog toga više ne smatra odgovornim za svoje postupke. Jednom kada se dogodi ovaj kritični pomak gledišta, slede sve bitne odlike pokornosti.

Najdalekosežnija posledica je da se osoba oseća odgovornom prema autoritetu koji je vodi, ali ne oseća odgovornost za sadržaj radnji koje autoritet propisuje. Moral ne nestaje - on dobija radikalno drugačiji fokus: podređena osoba oseća stid ili ponos u zavisnosti od toga koliko je adekvatno izvršila radnje koje je autoritet zahtevao.

1. Bruno Bata, varilac
2. Profesor Starog Zaveta
3. Džek Vašington, mašinski operater
4. Ian Renselier, industrijski inženjer
5. Moris Brejvermen, socijalni radnik
6. Fred Prozi, nezaposlen
7. Karen Donc, medicinska sestra
8. Elinor Rozenblum, domaćica
9. Grečen Brant, medicinski tehničar
10. Paskal Đino, inspektor u vodovodu

 

1. Bruno Bata, varilac 

Gospodin Bata je tridesetsedmogodišnji varilac. Rođen je u Nju Hejven-u, roditelji u Italiji. Ima grubo izborano lice koje odaje upadljiv nedostatak energičnosti. Njegov opšti izgled pomalo je grub. Posmatrač ga je opisao kao „sirovog mezomorfa očigledno ograničene inteligencije“. Ali ovo nije u potpunosti adekvatno, jer se on odnosi prema rukovodiocu eksperimenta sa poslušnom i naglašenom pristojnošću.

Ima određenih poteškoća u savladavanju postupka i mora ga se nekoliko puta ispraviti. Pokazuje zahvalnost za pomoć i spremnost da učini ono što se traži. Eksperiment je varijacija Touch-Proximity. Nakon nivoa od 150 volti, Bata mora prisiliti ruku učenika na kontaktnu ploču, jer sam učenik odbija da je dodirne.

Kada se učenik prvi put požali, gospodin Bata ne obraća pažnju. Njegovo lice ostaje nepomično, kao da se želi izolovati od ometajućeg ponašanja učenika. Kada mu rukovodilac naredi da prisili učenikovu ruku, on usvaja rigidan mehanički postupak. Testira prekidač generatora. Kada vidi da ovaj ne funkcioniše, on pritišće učenikovu ruku na šok ploču. Sve vreme održava istu krutu masku na licu. Učenik, sedeći pored njega, moli ga da zaustavi, ali on robotskom nepristupačnošću nastavlja postupak. Ono što je fascinantno je njegova očigledna potpuna ravnodušnost prema učeniku; teško da ga shvata kao čoveka. U međuvremenu, s rukovodiocem se odnosi na popustljiv i pristojan način.

Na nivou od 330 volti, učenik odbija ne samo da dodirne ploču, već i da pruži bilo kakve odgovore. Iznerviran, Bata se okreće prema njemu i ukorava ga: "Bolje odgovori i završi s tim. Ne možemo ovde ostati celu noć." To su jedine reči koje on tokom čitavog sata upućuje učeniku. Više ni jednom mu se ne obraća. Prizor je brutalan i depresivan: njegovo tvrdo, nepristrasno lice pokazuje totalnu ravnodušnost dok potčinjava vrištećeg učenika i zadaje mu šokove. Čini se da mu sam čin ne pričinjava zadovoljstvo, već samo činjenica da pravilno radi svoj posao.

Kada primeni 450 volti, okreće se rukovodiocu i pita: "Kako dalje, profesore?" Njegov ton je udovoljavajući i odražava spremnost za saradnju, nasuprot upornosti učenika.

U post-ekperimentalnom razgovoru, daje isprepleteni prikaz eksperimenta. Rukovodilac ga rutinski pita da li mu pada na pamet bilo koja druga svrha koju bi eksperiment mogao imati. On koristi pitanje, bez neke posebne logike, da ocrni učenika, navodeći: "Pa, imamo manje-više tvrdoglavu osobu (učenika). Ako bi razumeo šta je ovde u pitanju, on bi se složio i ne bi bio kažnjavan“. Po njegovom mišljenju, učenik je sam sebi nanio kaznu.

Rukovodilac pita da li se tokom eksperimenta osećao napeto ili nervozno. Ponovo koristi pitanje da izrazi svoja osećanja prema učeniku. „Jedino kad sam se malo - ne bih rekao unervozio nego - zgadio, je kad on nije sarađivao.“ Rukovodilac ima velike poteškoće u ispitivanju subjekta po pitanju odgovornosti. Čini se da on ne shvata koncept. Anketar pojednostavljuje pitanje. Konačno, ispitanik dodeljuje glavnu odgovornost rukovodiocu: "Kažem da je vaša krivica iz prostog razloga što sam ja za ovo plaćen. Morao sam da sledim naređenja. Tako sam ja to shvatio."

Zatim, dodeljujući rukovodiocu sve moguće opcije inicijative, on kaže: „Mogli ste da kažete odmah: „Gledajte, vratite novac i zaboravićemo na ovo“. Tako bismo mogli da se odlučimo ". Primećujemo da, mada za mnoge učesnike povraćaj novca djeluje kao častan način da se odustane od eksperimenta, ovaj čovjek to može vidjeti kao mogućnost samo ako je inicirano od strane nadležnog organa. Rukovodilac prihvata primedbu i odgovara „Ali rekao sam vam da novac dobijate samim dolaskom, bez obzira šta se u toku eksperimenta dogodi“.

"Tako je."

Na kraju razgovora, on kaže rukovodiocu koliko mu je bila čast što mu pomaže, i u trenutku skrušenosti primećuje: „Gospodine, izvinite što ovo nije mogao da bude kompletan eksperiment“.

Dao je sve od sebe. Samo je manjkavo ponašanje učenika uskratilo ispitivaču puno zadovoljstvo.

U upitniku koji je gospodin Bata vratio nekoliko meseci kasnije, on nas obaveštava da je sledio uputstva rukovodioca do kraja, da je potpuno verovao da učenik dobija bolne šokove i da mu eksperiment uopšte nije smetao. Smatra da bi trebalo sprovesti više ovakvih eksperimenata, i odgovara potvrdno na naše pitanje da li je naučio nešto od lične vrednosti. Ali, ne objašnjava šta.

 

2. Profesor Starog Zaveta

Pomalo mršav i asketske konstitucije, ovaj čovek izgleda kao propovednik iz Nove Engleske. U stvari, on i predaje Starozavetnu Liturgiju u velikoj bogoslovskoj školi. U ovom eksperimentu, on namešta svoju stolicu tako da gleda učenika sa kojim radi. Čitajući parove reči, koristi preteranu preciznost u svom izgovoru i deluje odsečno i službeno kad kaže: „Tačno“. Kad god učenik pogreši, čini se da ga gotovo ukorava zbog neuspeha. Svaki put kad izvrši šok, usne mu se povuku i pokažu zube. Određena brzopletost karakteriše sve njegove postupke. Nakon što je dao 150 volti, odbija da nastavi. Rukovodilac navodi da se protesti učenika moraju zanemariti i da se eksperiment mora nastaviti:

RUKOVODILAC: Apsolutno je neophodno za eksperiment da nastavimo.

UČESNIK: Razumem tu izjavu, ali ne razumem zašto je eksperiment postavljen iznad života ove osobe.

RUKOVODILAC: Nema trajnih oštećenja tkiva.

UČESNIK: Pa to je vaše mišljenje. Ako on ne želi da nastavi, ja primam naređenja od njega.

RUKOVODILAC: Nemate drugog izbora, gospodine, morate da nastavite.

UČESNIK: Da smo u Rusiji, možda, ali ne u Americi.

(Eksperiment je završen.)

U diskusiji sa rukovodiocem, deluje da ga rukovodiočev status autoriteta ni na koji način ne plaši; učesnik tretira rukovodioca kao običnog tehničara koji ne vidi pune implikacije onoga što radi. Kada ga rukovodilac uveri u sigurnost generatora šokova, ispitanik sa izvesnom razdraženošću postavlja pitanje emocionalnih, a ne fizioloških efekata na učenika.

UČESNIK (spontano): Sigurno ste razmotrili etiku ovoga. (krajnje uznemiren) On ne želi da ide dalje, a vi mislite da je eksperiment važniji? Jeste li ga pregledali? Da li znate kakvo je njegovo fizičko stanje? Šta ako ovaj čovek ima slabo srce (drhtavi glas).

RUKOVODILAC: Poznajemo mašinu, gospodine.

UČESNIK: Ali vi ne znate čoveka na kome eksperimentišete. To je vrlo rizično (stegnutim i drhtavim glasom). Šta je sa strahom koji čovek ima? Nemoguće je da utvrdite kakav to efekat ima na njega. . . strah koji on sam generiše. . . . Ali samo napred, postavljajte mi pitanja; Nisam ovde da bih ja vas ispitivao.

Ograničava svoje ispitivanje, prvo zato što tvrdi da nema pravo na to, ali oseća se da rukovodioca smatra previše krutim i ograničenim tehničarem da bi se upuštao u inteligentan dijalog. Dalje se primećuje njegovo spontano pominjanje etike, podignute na didaktički način i proizašle iz njegovog profesionalnog položaja učitelja religije. Konačno, zanimljivo je da je od početka opravdavao prekid eksperimenta ne odlukom da se ne povinuje proceduri, već odlukom da će početi da prima naređenja od žrtve.

Dakle, on izjednačava naloge rukovodioca i učenika i nije da ih odbija, nego menja osobu od koje će ih primati.

Nakon objašnjavanja prave svrhe eksperimenta, rukovodilac pita: „Koji je po vašem mišljenju najefikasniji način jačanja otpora nehumanom autoritetu?“.

Učesnik odgovara: „Kada za najviši autoritet postavite Boga, to banalizuje svaki ljudski autoritet.

Još jednom, za ovog čoveka odgovor nije u odbacivanju autoriteta, već u postavljanju dobrog, odnosno Božanskog autoriteta umesto lošeg.

 

3. Džek Vašington, mašinski operater

Džek Vašington je crnac, tridesetpetogodišnjak, rođen u Južnoj Karolini. Radi kao operater bušilice i naglašava činjenicu da, iako nije završio srednju školu, nije je napustio, već je regrutovan u vojsku pre nego što je mogao da dobije diplomu. Blag je čovek, malo veće kilaže i proćelav, izgleda starije od svojih godina. Njegove kretnje su vrlo spore, a maniri nepristrasni; govor mu je nijansiran južnjačkim akcentom.

Kada se čuju prvi protesti žrtve, okreće se prema rukovodiocu, tužno ga gleda, a zatim nastavlja čitati parove reči. Rukovodilac ne mora da mu kaže da nastavi. Tokom eksperimenta ne pokazuje gotovo nikakve emocije ili telesne pokrete. Čini ono što mu rukovodilac kaže polaganim, ravnomernim pokretima koji u snažnom kontrastu sa žustrim vapajima žrtve. Tokom čitavog eksperimenta, na njegovom licu se vidi tužan, potišten izraz. Nastavlja do nivoa od 450 volti, pita rukovodioca šta treba da uradi u tom trenutku, zada dva dodatna šoka po komandi i završava sa zadatkom.

U intervjuu objašnjava da je, iako je osećao da su šokovi bili izuzetno bolni, prihvatio reč rukovodioca da neće prouzrokovati trajnu štetu. Ovo uverenje potvrđuje u upitniku na koji je odgovoreno skoro godinu dana nakon njegovog učešća. Na pitanje o odgovornosti za patnju žrtve, on stavlja najveći teret na rukovodioca, a zatim na žrtvu, a sebi pripisuje najmanje. Za učenika kaže: „Pristao je na to i zato mora prihvatiti odgovornost“. Rukovodilac ima „najveći deo odgovornosti. Ja sam samo nastavljao. Jer, sledio sam naređenja ... Rečeno mi je da nastavim. I nisam dobio znak da prekinem“.

On se zapliće u ovu formulaciju, koju ponavlja nekoliko puta. Objašnjava rukovodiocu da bi, da je dobio znak od njega, stao, implicirajući da će se ponašati na bilo koji način koji rukovodilac zahteva. Jedina druga mogućnost koju on može zamisliti u ovoj situaciji je da odbije naređenje rukovodioca.

On objašnjava, u svom polaganom, ravnomernom maniru, "Znam da vas do određene tačke šok neće ubiti. Imao sam takvo iskustvo, električni šok me skoro bio oborio ... Cela ruka mi je bila utrnula. Ali nije me ubilo “.

Dakle, on je prihvatio izjave rukovodioca da šokovi, iako možda bolni, nisu opasni. U svakom pogledu izražava potpunu veru u rukovodioca i zaista prihvata njegov autoritet lakše i sa manje unutrašnjeg sukoba nego mnogi drugi ispitanici.

 

4. Ian Renselier, industrijski inženjer

Učesnik je tridesetdvogodišnji industrijski inženjer, plave kose i brkova. Deluje zatvoreno i govori s tragom stranog naglaska. Uredno je odeven. U intervjuu nam kaže da je emigrirao iz Holandije nakon Drugog svetskog rata i da je član holandske reformisane crkve. Blagog je manira i inteligentan.

Kada se žrtva žali na nivou od 150 volti, ispitanik se okreće rukovodiocu i pita: "Šta da radim sada?"

Rukovodilac mu kaže da nastavi.

Inženjer stavlja ruku na glavu i nastavlja sa ispitivanjem. Sve češće baca pogled na rukovodioca. Na 255 volti, on odgurne stolicu od generatora šokova i okreće se rukovodiocu:

G. RENSELIER: Oh, ne mogu dalje ovako, ako čovek ne želi da nastavi sa tim, ovo je dobrovoljni program.

RUKOVODILAC: Molim vas, nastavite.

(Duga pauza.)

G. RENSELIER: Ne, ne mogu da nastavim. Žao mi je.

RUKOVODILAC: Eksperiment zahteva da nastavite.

G. RENSELIER: Taj čovek, izgleda da je povređen.

RUKOVODILAC: Nema trajnih oštećenja tkiva.

G. RENSELIER: Da, ali ja znam šta vam šokovi čine. Ja sam inženjer elektrotehnike i imao sam takve šokove. . . i oni vas zaista uzdrmaju - posebno ako znate da dolazi sledeći. Žao mi je.

RUKOVODILAC: Apsolutno je neophodno da nastavite.

G. RENSELIER: Pa, neću - ne sa čovekom koji vrišti i traži da izađe.

RUKOVODILAC: Nemate drugog izbora.

G. RENSELIER: Imam izbora. (Sa nevericom i ogorčeno) Zašto nemam izbora? Ovde sam došao svojom voljom. Mislio sam da mogu da pomognem u istraživačkom projektu. Ali ako moram nekoga povrediti da bih to učinio, ili da sam ja na njegovom mestu, ne bih ostao tamo. Ne mogu da nastavim. Veoma mi je žao. Mislim da sam već preterao, verovatno.

Na pitanje ko je odgovoran za davanje šokova učeniku protiv njegove volje, rekao je: „Ja bih to potpuno stavio na sebe“.

Odbio je da dodeli bilo kakvu odgovornost učeniku ili rukovodiocu.

"Trebalo je da stanem prvi put kada se žalio. U tom trenutku sam hteo da stanem. Okrenuo sam se i pogledao vas. Pretpostavljam da je stvar u ... autoritetu, ako to želite tako nazvati: to je uticalo na mene pa sam nastavio, iako nisam želeo. Kao na primer kada služite vojsku i morate da radite nešto što ne želite, ali vam pretpostavljeni kaže da to uradite. takve stvari, znate na šta mislim?

"Jedna od stvari za koje mislim da je vrlo kukavička je pokušaj da se odgovornost svali na nekoga drugog. Vidite, ako bih se sada okrenuo i rekao: 'Vi ste krivi .... ne ja', nazvao bih to kukavički.

Iako se ovaj učesnik usprotivio rukovodiocu na 255 volti, on se i dalje oseća odgovornim za nanošenje bilo kakvih šokova nakon prvih protesta žrtve. Oštar je prema sebi i ne dozvoljava da ga struktura vlasti u kojoj funkcioniše oslobodi bilo kakve odgovornosti.

Gospodin Renselier je izrazio iznenađenje potcenjivanjem pokornosti od strane psihijatara. Rekao je da bi on, na osnovu iskustva u Evropi koju su okupirali nacisti, pretpostavio visoku stopu saglasnosti i prihvatanja naredbi. Takođe sugeriše, „Bilo bi zanimljivo sprovesti iste testove u Nemačkoj i drugim zemljama.

Eksperiment je ostavio dubok utisak na ovog učesnika, toliko da je nekoliko dana nakon svog učešća napisao dugačko, pažljivo pismo osoblju, pitajući da li može da radi sa nama.

„Iako sam ... zaposlen u inženjerstvu, uverio sam se da su društvene nauke, a posebno psihologija, mnogo važnije u današnjem svetu."

 

5. Moris Brejvermen, socijalni radnik

Moris Brejvermen je tridesetdevetogodišnji socijalni radnik. Izgleda stariji od svojih godina zbog nedostatka kose i ozbiljnog držanja. Čelo mu je nabrano, kao da su mu na licu sva svetska bremena. Izgleda inteligentan i zabrinut. Odaje utisak izvanredne samokontrole, ozbiljnog čoveka potisnutih emocija, čiji fino modulisani glas deluje nesaglasan sa njegovim emocionalnim životom. Govori upečatljivo, ali i vidljivo afektirano. Kako eksperiment odmiče, pojavljuje se smeh u njegovom ponašanju. U početku je to lagano smejanje, a zatim postaje sve upornije i ometajuće. Delovalo je da je vrištanje učenika uzrokovalo pojavu smeha.

Kada učenik odbije da odgovori, a rukovodilac mu naredi da odsustvo odgovora tretira jednako kao pogrešan odgovor, on to prima k srcu.

Pre nego što da 315 volti, on službeno ispostavlja ovo pravilo žrtvi, „Gospodine Valas, vaše ćutanje će biti smatrano pogrešnim odgovorom“. Nakon toga primenjuje elektrošok. Polovično i neubedljivo, nudi se da zameni mesto sa učenikom, a zatim pita rukovodioca: „Da li moram doslovno slediti ova uputstva?“ Zadovoljan je odgovorom rukovodioca da mora. Njegov vrlo istančan i autoritativan način govora se sve više prekida pištećim smehom.

Beleške rukovodioca o gospodinu Brejvermenu tokom posljednjih nekoliko šokova su:

• Gotovo gubi sabranost svaki put kada daje šok. Trlja lice da sakrije smeh.
• Oči nemirne, pokušava rukom sakriti lice, i dalje se smejući.
• U ovom trenutku ne može da kontroliše smeh bez obzira na to šta radi.
• Stišće pesnicu i pritišće je o sto.

U razgovoru, gospodin Brejvermen rezimira eksperiment impresivno tečno i inteligentno. Smatra da je eksperiment možda dizajniran i za „ispitivanje efekata na učesnika kada se stavi, suštinski, u sadističku ulogu, kao i reakcije učenika na autoritativnu, krutu i kaznenu situaciju učenja“. Na pitanje koliko su bolni bili poslednji šokovi koji su učeniku zadati, on ukazuje da ni najekstremniji podeok na skali nije adekvatan (kod koga piše "IZUZETNO BOLNO"), i na krajnju ivicu skale postavlja strelicu koja pokazuje van skale.

Gotovo je nemoguće preneti krajnje opušten, uspavan način njegovog razgovora. Na najmirniji i najsabraniji način, on priča o svojoj ekstremnoj unutrašnjoj napetosti.

RUKOVODILAC: U kom trenutku ste bili najnapetiji ili najnervozniji?

G. BREJVERMEN: Pa, kada je prvi put počeo da viče od bola, i kada sam shvatio da ga ovo boli. To je postalo i gore kada se on potpuno blokirao i odbio da odgovara. Dakle, evo mene, dobra osoba, razmišljam o tome da nekoga povredim, zatečen u, kako mi se čini, ludoj situaciji. . . i u interesu nauke nastavljam sa tim. U jednom trenutku sam imao impuls da jednostavno odbijem da nastavim sa ovakvom situacijom.

RUKOVODILAC: U kom trenutku je to bilo?

G. BREJVERMEN: Nakon nekoliko uzastopnih odbijanja i ćutanja. Tada sam vam postavio pitanje da li imam izbor u svojoj nastavnoj metodi. U tom trenutku moj impuls je bio da razgovaram sa njim, da ga ohrabrim, da saosećam sa njim, i da se potrudimo da kroz to prođemo zajedno tako da ne moram da ga povređujem.

Kada gospodin Brejvermen kaže da je razmišljao da „ne nastavlja“, on nije razmišljao o odbijanju naloga, već o modifikovanju načina podučavanja žrtve.

Kada ispitivač pokrene opšte pitanje napetosti, gospodin Braverman spontano spomene svoj smeh.

"Moje reakcije bile su strašno neobične. Ne znam da li ste me promatrali, ali ja sam reagovao kikotanjem i pokušavao sam da ugušim smeh. Ovo nije kako se ja inače ponašam. To je jednostavno bila reakcija na potpuno nemoguću situaciju. Situaciju da moram nekoga povrediti. I biti potpuno bespomoćan i uhvaćen nizom okolnosti u kojima jednostavno nisam mogao da odstupim i nisam mogao da pokušam da pomognem. Eto šta me je dotuklo. "

Godinu dana nakon učešća u eksperimentu, on potvrđuje u upitniku da je definitivno naučio nešto od lične važnosti kao rezultat učešća u eksperimentu, dodajući: „Ono što me je zaprepastilo je to što je moguće da posedujem tu sposobnost pokornosti i saglašavanja sa centralnom idejom, tj. saglašavanja sa vrednošću eksperimenta, čak i kad je postalo jasno da  nastavljanje krši druge vrednosti, odnosno vrednosti da ne povredite drugog, bespomoćnog, koji ne povređuje vas. Kao što bi moja supruga rekla: „Možeš se sada zvati Ajhmanom“. Nadam se da ću se ubuduće efikasnije nositi sa svim sukobima vrednosti sa kojima se susretnem." 

 

6. Fred Prozi, nezaposlen

Ispitanik je star oko pedeset godina, obučen u jaknu, bez kravate; ima dobrodušan, mada pomalo raspušten izgled. Koristi gramatiku radničke klase i čini se kao prilično običan momak.

Počinje eksperiment smireno, ali postaje sve napetiji kako eksperiment odmiče. Nakon što je zadao udar od 180 volti, okreće se oko stolice i odmahujući glavom obraća se rukovodiocu uznemirenim tonovima:

UČESNIK: Ne mogu da podnesem. Neću da ubijem tog čoveka tamo. Čujete li ga kako viče?

RUKOVODILAC: Kao što sam vam već rekao, šokovi mogu biti bolni, ali —

UČESNIK: Ali on urla. Ne može to da podnese. Šta će biti s njim?

RUKOVODILAC (njegov glas je strpljiv, činjeničan): Eksperiment zahteva da nastavite, učitelju.

UČESNIK: Aaah, ali, uh, neću da povredim tog čoveka unutra. . . Znate na šta mislim?

RUKOVODILAC: Svidelo se to učeniku ili ne, moramo nastaviti, kroz sve parove reči.

UČESNIK: Odbijam da preuzmem odgovornost. On urla tamo!

RUKOVODILAC: Učitelju, apsolutno je neophodno da nastavite.

UČESNIK (ukazujući na neiskorišćena pitanja): Ovde ih je ostalo previše; Mislim, Isuse, ako ih pogrešno shvati, previše ih je ostalo. Mislim, ko će preuzeti odgovornost ako se tom gospodinu nešto dogodi?

RUKOVODILAC: Ja sam odgovoran za sve što mu se dogodi. Molim vas, nastavite.

UČESNIK: U redu. (Konsultuje spisak reči) Sledeći je „Spori hod, kamion, ples, muzika“. Odgovorite molim vas. (Zujanje ukazuje da je učenik signalizirao svoj odgovor.) Pogrešno. Sto devedeset pet volti. "Ples".

UČENIK (viče): Pustite me odavde. Muči me srce!

(Učitelj gleda rukovodioca.)

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite, molim vas.

UČENIK (vrišteći): Pustite me odavde, nemate pravo da me držite ovde. Pustite me odavde, pustite me, srce me muči. pusti me! (Učesnik vrti glavom, nervozno tapše po stolu.)

UČESNIK: Vidite, on viče. Čujete? Ne znam...

RUKOVODILAC: Eksperiment zahteva ...

UČESNIK (prekida): Znam to, gospodine, ali mislim - hah! On ne zna šta mu sleduje. Već je na 195 volti! (Eksperiment se nastavlja, kroz 210 volti, 225, 240, 255, 270 volti, u tom trenutku nastavniku, s evidentnim olakšanjem, ponestaje pitanja u paru reči).

RUKOVODILAC: Moraćete se vratiti na početak te stranice i ponovo ih pregledati dok ih sve ne nauči tačno.

UČESNIK: Au, ne. Ne želim da ubijem tog čoveka. Mislite da moram dalje da povećavam napon? Ne, gospodine. On tamo urla. Neću mu dati 450 volti.

RUKOVODILAC: Eksperiment zahteva da nastavite.

UČESNIK: Znam da zahteva, ali taj čovek tamo urla, gospodine.

RUKOVODILACER (isti činjenični ton): Kao što sam već rekao, mada šokovi mogu biti bolni ...

UČESNIK (prekida): Avvvv. On-on- on viče tamo.

RUKOVODILAC: Počnite sa „Plavo“, molim vas, na vrhu stranice. Nastavite, molim vas, učitelju. Samo napred.

UČESNIK (koncentrišući se pažljivo na spisak reči ispred sebe, kao da želi isključiti sve ostalo): „Plavi dečak, devojčica, trava, kapa.“ (Zvuk pokazuje odgovor.) Tačno. "Noćni dan, nebo, posao, stolica." Pogrešno. Odgovor je „dan“. Dvesta osamdeset pet volti.

UČENIK: Ohhuhhoohhh!

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: „Debeli čovek, dama, kada, vrat.“ Odgovor molim vas. Pogrešno. Odgovor je „vrat“. Trista volti.

UČENIK: Ohhh. Apsolutno odbijam da odgovaram više. (Vičući panično) Pustite me odavde. Ne možeš me zadržati ovde. Vadite me napolje. Vadi me odavde.

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite. Sledeća reč je „zeleno“, molim vas.

UČESNIK: „Zelena trava, šešir, mastilo, jabuka“. (Ništa se ne dešava. Nema odgovora. Samo sumorna tišina.)

UČESNIK: Mislim da neće odgovoriti.

RUKOVODILAC: Ako učenik ne odgovori u razumnom roku, oko četiri ili pet sekundi, smatrajte odgovor pogrešnim. I sledite iste postupke kao i za pogrešne odgovore. Recite, „Pogrešno“, recite mu broj volti, kaznite ga, pročitajte mu tačan odgovor. Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: "Zelena trava, šešir, mastilo, jabuka." Odgovor molim vas. (Još tišine. Učesnik samo sedi i  ne pomera se.)

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite, molim vas, nastavniče.

UČESNIK: Tristo petnaest volti. Odgovor je „mastilo“.

UČENIK: Ohh. Ooohh.

UČESNIK (s olakšanjem kad čuje odgovor): Sledeći

UČENIK: Apsolutno odbijam da odgovorim.

UČESNIK: Morate. Dobićete šok ako ne odgovorite. (Eksperiment se nastavlja tako što učenik odbija da odgovori i, konačno, ne uspeva ni da gunđa ili stenje. Na 375 volti, subjekt ustaje.)

UČESNIK: Mislim da se nešto dogodilo onom momku tamo. Ne dobijam odgovor. Kukao je pod manjim naponom. Možete li da proverite i vidite da li je dobro, molim vas?

RUKOVODILAC (sa istim jednoličnim mirom): Ne jednom kad smo započeli. Molim vas nastavite, učitelju.

UČESNIK (sedne, duboko uzdahne): „Hladan dan, hlad, voda, boja.“ Odgovor molim vas. Jesi li dobro unutra? Da li ste dobro?

RUKOVODILAC: Molim vas nastavite, učitelju. Nastavite, molim vas. (Subjekt gura ručicu.)

UČESNIK (okrećući se oko stolice): Nešto se dogodilo onom čoveku tamo. (Okretanje unazad) Sledeći. „Nisko dolar, ogrlica, mesec, boja.“ (Opet se okreće) Nešto se dogodilo onom čoveku tamo. Bolje ga proverite, gospodine. Neće odgovoriti ništa.

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: Prihvatate svu odgovornost?

RUKOVODILAC: Odgovornost je moja. Tačno. Nastavite. (Učesnik se vraća spisku, počinje da prolazi kroz reči onoliko brzo koliko ih može pročitati, nastavlja sve do 450 volti.)

UČESNIK: To je to.

RUKOVODILAC: Nastavite da koristite prekidač od 450 volti za svaki pogrešan odgovor. Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: Ali ne dobijam ništa!

RUKOVODILAC: Molim vas, nastavite. Sledeća reč je „belo“.

UČESNIK: Zar ne mislite da bi trebalo da ga pogledate, molim vas?

RUKOVODILAC: Ne nakon što smo započeli eksperiment.

UČESNIK: Ali šta ako se čoveku nešto dogodilo?

RUKOVODILAC: Eksperiment zahteva da nastavite. Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: Zar čovekovo zdravlje ništa ne znači?

RUKOVODILAC: Sviđa li se to učeniku ili ne.

UČESNIK: Šta ako je tamo mrtav? (Pokazuje prema sobi sa električnom stolicom.) Mislim, rekao mi je da ne može da podnese šok. gospodine. Ne mislim da budem bezobrazan, ali mislim da biste trebali da ga pogledate: Sve što treba da uradite je da ga pogledate. Sve što treba da uradite je da pogledate kroz vrata. Ne dobijam odgovor, nikakav zvuk. Nešto se moglo dogoditi gospodinu tamo, gospodine.

RUKOVODILAC: Moramo da nastavimo. Nastavite, molim vas.

UČESNIK: Mislite da mu i dalje dajemo šta? Četiristo pedeset volti, koliko je sada?

RUKOVODILAC: Tačno. Nastavite. Sledeća reč je „belo“.

UČESNIK (sada besnim tempom): „Beli oblak, konj, stena, kuća“. Odgovor molim vas. Odgovor je „konj“. Četiristo pedeset volti. (Administrira šok.) Sledeća reč, "Boja za torbe, muzika, klovn, devojka." Odgovor je „farba“. Četiristo pedeset volti. (Administrira šok.) Sledeća reč je „Kratka rečenica, film ...“

RUKOVODILAC: Izvinite, učitelju. Moramo prekinuti eksperiment.

Ponašanje učesnika manje-više govori samo za sebe, ali možemo primetiti nekoliko stvari. Prvo, uprkos svojim brojnim, uznemirenim prigovorima, kontinuiranom i upornom neslaganju, on nastavlja da daje šokove po nalogu rukovodioca. Dakle, postoji razdvojenost reči i dela. Drugo, ne može se ni na koji način reći da ovaj čovek želi da daje elektrošokove učeniku. Baš suprotno, za njega je to bio bolan čin, koji je nastao zbog odnosa sa rukovodiocem. Treće, primećujemo da je „odgovornost“ važno pitanje za učesnika i tek kada rukovodilac izričito prihvati odgovornost, nakon nekoliko sekundi oklevanja, učesnik je u stanju da nastavi. Konačno, jezik kojim se učesnik služi je razotkrivajući. Uprkos znatnoj napetosti situacije, ton ljubaznosti i poštovanja se pedantno održava. Prigovori subjekta čine nam se izuzetno slabi i neprimereni s obzirom na događaje u koji se odvijaju. Misli da nekoga ubija, pa ipak koristi jezik kao na popodnevnoj čajanki.

 

7. Karen Donc, medicinska sestra

Karen Donc sebe opisuje kao četrdesetogodišnju domaćicu koja je poslednjih šest godina honorarno radila kao registrovana medicinska sestra. Njen muž je vodoinstalater. Ona je katolkinja, a majka joj je rođena u Čehoslovačkoj. Gospođa Dontz ima neobično ležeran, usporen način govora, a njen ton izražava stalnu poniznost; to je kao da svaka tvrdnja nosi emotivnu poruku: „Ja sam sasvim obična osoba, ne očekujte mnogo od mene.“ Fizički podseća na Čirli But u filmu "Vrati se, mala Šiba".

Tokom eksperimenta je nervozna.

Na 225 volti, ona se okreće rukovodiocu, izjavivši vrlo nesigurnim glasom koji ima cilj da ne uvredi, "oklevam da pritisnem."

Kada je on uputi da sledi proceduru, ona to čini bez dodatnih komentara. Ali pre nego što primeni udar od 345 volti, ona pokaže na etiketu OPASNOST na generatoru šokova.

Rukovodilac primećuje da, iako su šokovi bolni, ne uzrokuju trajno oštećenje tkiva. Prihvata komentar rukovodioca rekavši: „Nastaviću, pod uslovom da to nije opasno.“ Ona sedi na ivici svog sedišta, ali glas joj ostaje ležeran kada čita parove reči. Kada od učenika prestanu da dolaze bilo kakvi zvuci, ona pita, "Da li idem do kraja, gospodine? Nadam se da se s njim tamo nije ništa loše dogodilo“.

Počinje da nečujno mrmlja u sebi. Kada joj rukovodilac naredi da nastavi da koristi prekidač od 450 volti, ona tonom koji je zabrinut, ali izuzetno nenametljiv, kaže: "Šta ako sa čovekom nešto nije u redu, gospodine?"

Ali nastavlja.

U kasnijem intervjuu je vrlo spora u odgovorima, pa čak i nakon što joj kažu da učenik ustvari nije dobio nikakve šokove, ona i dalje smatra da je smisao eksperimenta izučavanje efekata kazne na učenje. Naglašava da je uradila ono što joj je rukovodilac rekao i izgleda zadovoljna sopstvenom pomirljivošću. Izjavljuje da je bila nervozna jer zna da je struja u domaćinstvu 210 volti (sic) i da "većina ljudi može pretrpeti strujni udar od toga". Naglašava da je ovde bila nervoznija nego inače u bolnici, jer "u bolnici znam koja prava imam; ovde nisam znala".

ANKETAR: Jeste li razmišljali u nekom trenutku da prekinete?

G-đa Donc (mlakim tonom): On je rekao: "Samo napred." Tako sam uradila. Rekla sam mu: „Mislim da ne bih smela da idem dalje“. On je rekao: „Nastavite sa eksperimentom“.

ANKETAR: Da li je nešto što je gospodin Valas (učenik) mogao reći, moglo dovesti do prekida eksperimenta?

G-đa Donc: Mislim da nije.

Gospođa Donc ističe da medicinske sestre u bolnici imaju pravo da preispituju lekarske naloge ako se čini da su štetni za pacijenta.

„Ako sumnjam u dozu leka, mogu da pitam lekara tri puta:„ Da li je ovo to što želite? Da li je to što želite? I, ako nastavi sa „samo napred“, a znam da je u pitanju doza veća od prosečne, mogu da mu skrenem pažnju na to da je previše. Nije da ste bolji od njega, ali možete da kažete: 'Da li ste želeli da date toliku dozu, doktore, a zatim i ponovite. Nakon toga i dalje imate pravo da postavite pitanje i nadzorniku."

U eksperimentu je „dovodila u pitanje“ nivo napona, ali je bila u potpunosti zadovoljna odgovorima koje je pružio rukovodilac. Napominjemo, da u njenom iskustvu, najdrastičniji odnos prema autoritetu lekara, može biti da uputi problem nadzorniku. Štaviše, jasno je da gospođa Donc kao deo svoje uobičajene rutine, ustvari preispituje proceduru bolničkog pravilnika, umesto da opisuje svoje lične sklonosti.

ANKETAR: Jeste li ikada imali priliku da to učinite u bolnici?

G-đa Donc: Da, jesam.

ANKETAR: Često?

Gospođa Dontz: Ne, vrlo, vrlo retko. U stvari, u poslednjih šest godina mislim da sam jednom dovela u pitanje dozu.

ANKETAR: Kako su vam zvučali vrisci? Da li su zvučali stvarno?

Gospođa Donc: Oh, da! Zaista sam bila zabrinuta za čoveka. Zabrinuta da je doživeo srčani udar. Rekao je da ima loše srce. Da, znam da je to moguće.

Gospođa Dontz je skromna osoba dobroćudne naravi, čija pojava odaje izgled umorne domaćice. Ona se ne svađa. Bolničke zadatke obavlja pouzdano i uz minimum uznemirenja. Ima blag pristup od koga korist imaju i njeni pacijenti i lekari. Njen odnos prema autoritetu nije problematičan. Jer ona je odlučila da radi u negovateljskom okruženju bolnice, u kojoj postoji podudarnost između njene dobroćudne prirode i zahteva koji joj autoritet postavlja.

Na kraju razgovora, gospođa Donc se malo ozari i upita: „Mogu li da vas pitam, da li je neko od muškaraca došao do 450 volti?“

Anketar kaže da bi ga zanimalo njeno mišljenje o tom pitanju. Ona odgovara, „Ne, mislim da se muškarci ne bi povinovali tome."

 

8. Elinor Rozenblum, domaćica

Gospođa Rozenblum sa zadovoljstvom opisuje svoje poreklo: diplomirala je na Univerzitetu u Viskonsinu pre više od dvadeset godina, a njen suprug, distributer filmova, pohađao je Dartmut. Volontira jednom nedeljno u radu sa maloletnim delinkventima, i bila je aktivna u lokalnoj izviđačkoj organizaciji i PTA. Tečno govori, voli da se šali i ostavlja snažan utisak, sa mnogim referencama na svoja društvena dostignuća. Šarmantna je osoba, prijatna iako preterano pričljiva.

Na početku eksperimenta ona tvrdi da ne zna ništa o električnoj energiji i oprezna je pri testiranju primera električnog šoka. Izvršavajući svoj zadatak, ona pokušava da ostavi utisak kompetentnosti i socijalne gracioznosti, ali se ubrzo gubi u sukobu koji donosi eksperiment. Održava pretenciozno ispravan, gotovo autoritativan ton u čitanju parova reči učeniku, nasuprot slabim, devojačkim komentarima koje upućuje rukovodiocu. Kako se skala napona uvećava, izražava sve veću zabrinutost. Na 270 volti ona sugeriše tačan odgovor učeniku naglašavajući ga glasno. Nastavljajući čitanje parova reči, pod maskom sigurnosti i snage, rukovodiocu se obraća mrmljajući, tonom bespomoćnosti: "Moram li da nastavim? Oh, zabrinuta sam za njega. Idemo li čak tamo gore (pokazujući na vrh generatora)? Zar ne možemo da se zaustavimo? Tresem se. Tresem se. Da li moram gore? "

Privremeno se pribere, ali ne može da spreči periodične izlive nervoze. Mrmlja u sebi, „Tresem se", ali se njena komunikacija sa učenikom ipak nastavlja u istom službenom tonu. Gotovo kao da su to dve žene, jedna izvodi kompetentan javni nastup, a druga, unutrašnja, uznemirena žena nesposobna da se uzdrži od uznemirenih uzvika. Nastavlja je do kraja skale, tri puta zadavši šok od 450 volti. U intervjuu kaže da su udari koji su zadani učeniku bili izuzetno bolni. Kada je rukovodilac pita: "Koji je najjači šok koji biste vi prihvatili kao probu? ", ona ogorčeno odgovara,"Petnaest volti. Čak ni ne mislim da bi bilo potrebno. Petnaest, ako bih morala, a ne bih to ni želela. Mislim da to nije neophodno“.

ANKETAR: Jeste li bili napeti ili nervozni?

Gospođa Rozenblum: Izuzetno.

ANKETAR: Da li se sećate kada ste bili najnapetiji i najnervozniji?

Gospođa Rozenblum: Kad je počeo da vrišti: „Pustite me odavde“. Kako mogu takvu osobu kazniti? Tresla sam se. Nisam ni znala šta čitam. Još se tresem. Nervozna sam jer sam ga povredila“.

Bila je nervozna ne zato što je čovek povređen, već zato što je ona bila izvođač. Slično tome, dok daje šok, tvrdi da je njena sopstvena patnja glavni razlog za prekid eksperimenta. Usredsređenost na sebe prožima njene komentare.

Spontano nudi sledeći izveštaj o svom volonterskom radu, ispričan s ogromnim žarom:

Gospođa Rozenblum: Radim u srednjoj školi Farel, sa ponavljačima. Svi su oni manje-više momci u kožnoj jakni. Oni su moji momci. Pokušavam da ih naučim da ostanu u školi i da nastave dalje učenje ... ali to ne radim pomoću kazni, već sa pažnjom i ljubavlju. Zapravo, oni u ovom trenutku smatraju privilegijom da budu samnom. Na početku su to činili samo da bi pobegli iz škole i zapalili cigaretu. Ali oni to više ne rade. Sve sam od njih dobila ljubavlju i dobrotom. Ali nikada kroz kaznu.

ANKETAR: Čemu ih učite?

Gospođa Rozenblum: Pa, prvo, učim ih manirima. To je prvo što sam morala da uradim; da ih naučim poštovanju prema ljudima, poštovanju starijih ljudi, poštovanju devojčica njihovih godina, poštovanju društva. To je prva stvar koju sam morala da uradim pre nego što sam mogla da ih naučim bilo čemu drugom. Tek onda sam mogla da ih naučim da naprave nešto od sebe, i da teže za takozvanim luksuzom. Značaj koji pridaje poštovanju društva nije nepovezan sa njenim ličnim popustljivim odnosom prema rukovodiocu. Prilično konvencionalni pogledi prožimaju njeno razmišljanje. Njen dijalog ispunjen je ženskim referencama: toliko sam toga dobila kroz ljubav i imam divnu ćerku. Ima petnaest godina i član je Nacionalnog Društva Časti: bistra devojka. I divno dete. 'Ali sve kroz ljubav, a ne kroz kaznu. O Bože, ne! Najgore što možete učiniti je ... kaznom. Kazna je dobra samo kod dojenčeta.

ANKETAR: Šta mislite o eksperimentu?

Gospođa Rozenblum (Ne dozvoljava da pitanje promeni njen tok misli): Ne verujem da ćete od kazne dobiti nešto; samo sa dojenčetom, dok još ne razmišljaju. Kada je moja ćerka bila mala, kaznila sam je za tri stvari. U stvari, dozvolila sam joj da se kazni. Pustila sam je da dodirne vruću peć. Opekla se i više je nikada nije dodirnula.

ANKETAR: Da vam kažem malo o eksperimentu. Prvo, gospodin Valas nije primio nikakve šokove.

Gospođa Rozenblum: Šalite se! Nije dobio ono što sam ja dobila. (Vrišti) Ne mogu da verujem. Mislite da je on sve ovo umislio!

EKSPERIMENT: A ne, on je zaposlenik Jejla, glumac.

Gospođa Rozenblum: Svaki put kad sam pritisnula dugme, umrla sam. Jeste li me videli kako se tresem. Prosto sam umirala ovde misleći da dajem šokove tom jadniku.

(Učenik dolazi. Ona se okreće prema njemu.)

Gospođa Rozenblum: Vi ste glumac, dečko. Divan si! O, Bože, šta mi je [rukovodilac] učinio. Iscrpljena sam. Nisam želela da nastavim sa tim. Ne znaš kroz šta sam prošla ovde. Osoba poput mene te povređuje, Bože. Nisam želela da ti to radim. Oprosti mi molim te. Ne mogu da prebolim ovo. Lice mi je crveno kao cvekla. Ne bih povredila ni muvu. Radim sa dečacima, pokušavam da ih učim, i postižem tako divne rezultate, bez kazne. Rekla sam sebi na početku, ne osećam da ćete kaznom dobiti bilo šta.

Primećujemo, međutim, s obzirom na to da je dozvolila svojoj ćerki da dodirne vruću peć, da ona nije protiv kažnjavanja kao takvog, već samo protiv njenog aktivnog nanošenja. Ako se to jednostavno „dogodi“, to je prihvatljivo.

Poverava se učeniku: „U stvari, pokušavala sam da vrlo lagano pritišćem prekidač. Jeste li me čuli kako naglašavam reč. Nadala sam se da ćete me čuti.

ANKETAR: Nije li ovo slično tome što medicinska sestra mora da uradi ako joj lekar naredi da da iglu?

Gospođa Rozenblum: Ja sam najčudesnija osoba u hitnom prijemu. Učiniću sve što se mora, bez obzira na to koga povredim. I ne tresem se. Uradiću bez razmišljanja. Neću ni oklevati.

Ovo se manje-više poklapa sa njenim ponašanjem u laboratoriji.

Gospođa Rozenblum: Stalno sam ponavljala: „Iz kog razloga povređujem ovog siromaha?“

ANKETA: Zašto ste nastavili?

Gospođa Rozenblum: To je eksperiment. Ovde sam sa razlogom. Pa sam morala to da uradim. Tako ste rekli. Nisam htela. Veoma me zanima ovo. .. ceo ovaj projekat. Mogu li da vas pitam nešto? Imate li trenutak? Kako reaguju drugi ljudi?

EKSPERIMENT: Kako mislite?

Gospođa Rozenblum: Pa, da vam kažem. Izbor mene kao žene koja ovo radi. . . definitivno ste odabrali izuzetak. U mom volonterskom radu nema mnogo žena koje će raditi ono što ja radim. . . . Ja sam neobična; Blagog sam srca, mekana. Ne znam kako ja kao žena stojim u odnosu na druge žene; one su malo grublje od mene. Mislim da ih nije previše briga.

Toliko sam bila u iskušenju da se zaustavim i kažem: "Vidite, neću to više da radim. Izvinite. Neću to učiniti." Stalno sam sebi to ponavljala: „Izvinite, ali jednostavno to neću učiniti“. A tada je on zaćutao. I pomislila sam da je možda u šoku, jer je rekao da ima srčano stanje. Ali znala sam da nećete dozvoliti da mu se nešto dogodi. Pa sam nastavila, prilično protiv svoje volje. Prolazila sam kroz pakao. . . . Mislim da drugi ne bi bili toliko nervozni kao ja. . . Mislim da ih ne bi bilo previše briga. S obzirom kako se odnose prema svojoj deci. mislim da im nije previše stalo do drugih ljudi.

Svoje izraze napetosti shvata isključivo kao znak vrline: bila je nervozna jer joj je bilo stalo do žrtve. Insistira da priča o sebi. Rukovodilac strpljivo sluša.

Gospođa Rozenblum: Ponekad kažem sebi: „Zašto se ne bi zaposlila kao predsednica Ženske Skupštine i stekla priznanja, časti, novine, ugled, toliko da peče, umesto da radim sa momcima u kožnim jaknama apsolutno bez ikakvog publiciteta? " Radim jednom nedeljno. Ovo je priča mog života; Bila sam izviđačka majka pet godina. Završilo se sa trideset devojaka u mojoj četi i mnogo drugih koji su molili da uđu u nju. Ali nisam mogla da ih primim, jer postoji ograničenje. Sad mi je baš laknulo. Ja sam za nauku; ovo je ono što sam želela da učim, u svakom slučaju. Pokušavam da nagovorim svoju ćerku da krene tim putem. Veoma mi je drago što sam ovo uradila; vidite koliko sam opuštena sada?

Intervju je nastavljen sve dok gospođa Rozenblum nije izgledala dovoljno mirno da je otpuste iz laboratorije.

Gospođa Rozenblum je osoba čiji psihički život nema integraciju. Nije uspela da pronađe životne ciljeve koji su u skladu sa njenim potrebama za poštovanjem i uspehom. Njeni ciljevi, razmišljanja i osećanja su fragmentirani. Svoju eksperimentalnu ulogu učiteljice izvela je sa velikim spoljašnjim ubeđenjem, dok je istovremeno rukovodiocu pokazivala svoju drugu stranu, ponašajući se krotko i popustljivo.

Nije iznenađujuće što nije uspela da mobiliše psihičke resurse potrebne da svoje saosećanje sa učenikom pretoči u odbijajući čin. Njena osećanja, ciljevi i razmišljanja bili su previše raznoliki i dezintegrisani.

Svi dokazi ukazuju da je u vreme eksperimenta zaista verovala da učenik prima stvarne šokove. Ali ženi histeričnih sklonosti nije teško da svoje mišljenje prilagodi na način koji je u skladu sa pozitivnom slikom o sebi. U upitniku koji nam je vraćen nekoliko meseci kasnije, ona navodi da tokom eksperimenta njen „zreli i dobro obrazovani mozak“ nije verovao da učenik dobija šokove. Prilagođavanjem misli post-fakto, ona štiti svoju negovanu, iako nerealnu sliku sopstvene prirode.

 

9. Grečen Brant, medicinski tehničar

Učesnica je atraktivna tridesetjednogodišnjakinja, medicinski tehničar, koja radi na Univerzitetskoj medicinskoj školi. Emigrirala je iz Nemačke pre pet godina i govori sa debelim nemačkim naglaskom.

U nekoliko navrata, kada se učenik požali, ona se mirno okreće rukovodiocu i pita: „Da nastavim?“. Kada to rukovodilac od nje zatraži, ona se odmah vraća svom zadatku. Kod primene šoka od 210 volti, ona se okreće rukovodiocu, izjavljujući odlučno. "Pa, žao mi je, mislim da ne bismo trebali da nastavimo."

RUKOVODILAC: Eksperiment zahteva da nastavite dok on pravilno ne nauči sve parove reči.

GREČEN: Ima srčano stanje, žao mi je. To vam je već rekao.

RUKOVODILAC: Šokovi mogu biti bolni, ali nisu opasni.

GREČEN: Pa, žao mi je. Mislim da, ako se ovakvi šokovi nastave, biće opasni. Pitajte ga da li želi da izađe. To je njegova slobodna volja.

RUKOVODILAC: Apsolutno je neophodno da nastavimo ....

GREČEN: Htela bih da ga pitate. Ovde smo došli svojom slobodnom voljom. Ako želi da nastavi, i ja ću da nastavim. Rekao vam je da ima srčano stanje. Žao mi je. Ne želim da odgovaram za bilo šta što mu se dešava. Ne bih to htela ni za sebe takođe.

RUKOVODILAC: Nemate drugog izbora.

GREČEN: Mislim da smo ovde svojom voljom. Ne želim da budem odgovorna ako ima srčano stanje i nešto mu se desi. Molim vas da to shvatite.

Ona odbija da nastavi i eksperiment se prekida.

Žena je u celosti čvrsta i odlučna. U razgovoru je nagovestila da ni na koji način nije bila napeta ili nervozna, a to odgovara njenom smirenom izgledu tokom čitavog perioda. Smatra da je poslednji šok koji je zadala učeniku bio izuzetno bolan i ponavlja da „nije želela da odgovara za bilo kakvu štetu koja bi mu mogla biti naneta“. Sa zanimanjem sluša objašnjenje rukovodioca, izražava iznenađenje da učenik nije bio šokiran i ukazuje da će prihvatiti samo 45 volti kao maksimalni uzorak.

Po njenom direktnom, prostojnom ponašanju tokom eksperimenta, nedostatku napetosti i potpunom kontrolom nad sopstvenim postupcima, moglo bi se zaključiti da je odbijanje pokornosti sasvim jednostavan i racionalan postupak. Njeno ponašanje je upravo otelotvorenje onoga što sam u početku zamišljao da će biti tačno za gotovo sve učesnike.

Ironično, Grečen Brant je odrastala u Hitlerovoj Nemačkoj i bila je veći deo svoje mladosti izložena nacističkoj propagandi. Na pitanje o mogućem uticaju njenog porekla, polako primećuje: „Možda smo videli previše bola."

 

10. Paskal Đino, inspektor u vodovodu

Paskal Đino je četrdesettrogodišnji inspektor vodovoda, rođen u Sjedinjenim Državama od italijanskih roditelja. Učestvovao je u varijaciji u kojoj rukovodilac, dajući uputstva učesniku i žrtvi, odlazi iz laboratorije i ostavlja svoj telefonski broj. Dakle, ispitanik ostaje sam sa žrtvom u laboratoriji, ali može slobodno nazvati rukovodioca ako se pojave problemi. Gospodin Đino je nekoliko puta telefonirao rukovodiocu. Nakon što je zadao šok od 150 volti, on poziva i kaže: "Profesore, ovaj gospodin se žali. Želi da izađe. Ne želi više da prima šokove ... Upravo sam mu dao 150 volti i on je rekao,"To je to!'"

Rukovodilac telefonom nalaže učesniku da nastavi, a gospodin Đino to čini.

Ostaje sam u eksperimentalnoj sobi, poslušno izvršavajući uputstva; u međuvremenu žrtva žestoko protestuje. Na nivou od 300 volti, kada žrtva odbije da pruži odgovore, gospodin Đino ponovo telefonira rukovodiocu, koji mu ponovo kaže da nastavi, rekavši da se odsustvo odgovora tretira kao pogrešan odgovor.

"Želite da idem do kraja naponske skale? Uh, a kada dođem do kraja, šta da radim?"

Nakon 330 volti, žrtva se više ne čuje, ni u znak protesta ni zbog bola. Zabrinut, gospodin Đino ponovo telefonira:

"Profesore, sada uopšte ne čujem nikakav zvuk. Došao sam do 330 volti. Ne čujem cviljenje ili nešto slično i nisam baš više siguran po tom pitanju. Mislite li da se nešto dogodilo sa gospodinom?"

Rukovodilac tvrdi da, iako šokovi mogu biti bolni, nema trajnih oštećenja tkiva. Ispitanik se ponovo vraća svom zadatku, sam u laboratorijskoj sobi. Nakon što primeni nivo od 450 volti, poziva rukovodioca, ponovo ga podsećajući da ne čuje nikakav zvuk od strane učenika.

Nakon nekog vremena, rukovodilac se vraća u laboratoriju i obaveštava gospodina Đina da je učenik neozleđen. U razgovoru, na pitanje o stepenu napetosti koju je osećao, odgovorio je: „Bio sam nervozniji za njega nego za sebe.

. . . Bio sam nervoznija zbog njega. Bio sam nervozan jer niste bili ovde. Da ste bili ovde, ne bih uopšte bio nervozan. Mislim, da se taj čovek onesvestio dok sam mu davao šokove - pa, osetio bih se odgovornim, jer sam ja taj koji je to radio."

Učesnik prihvata odgovornost ne uopšteno, filozofski, već samo oseća da je situacija usredsredila odgovornost na njega jer je bio sam sa učenicima. Nastavlja: ​​„(Da ste bili ovde) rekli biste:„Zaustavimo to“ ili „Nastavimo“ ili nešto slično. Vi znate bolje od mene. Vi ste profesor. Ja nisam ... Ali, s druge strane, moram da kažem da je poslednje što sam čuo od njega bilo na oko 255 volti, to je bilo poslednje na šta se žalio“. (Oponaša žalbe učenika.)

Nekoliko meseci nakon njegovog učestvovanja u eksperimentu, gospodin Đino je učestvovao u grupnoj diskusiji o svom iskustvu. Retrospektivno, smatrao je eksperiment „sjajnim“. "Bio sam fasciniran njime [i] .. te noći sam otišao na zabavu; imam nekoliko svastika koje su medicinske sestre, znate, i one su takođe bile fascinirane .... kažem vam da je to nešto što nikada neću zaboraviti, dok sam živ."

Činilo se da eksperiment nikada, čak i mesecima posle, kod njega nije pokrenuo pitanje da li je trebalo da razmotri nepoštovanje uputstava o nastavku davanja šokove.

"... Morao sam da prođem kroz još oko osam nivoa, a on [učenik] je bio stvarno histeričan i išao je da zove policiju, i šta sve ne. Pa sam nazvao profesora tri puta. I treći put je rekao „Samo nastavi", pa sam mu dao sledeći šok. A onda od njega više nisam čuo odgovore, ni cviljenje niti slično. Rekao sam: „Blagi Bože, mrtav je; eto, sad ćemo ga i dokrajčiti. Onda sam samo nastavio sve do 450 volti. "

Gospodin Đino se ne protivi primanju naredbi, iako sugeriše da bi mu bilo udobnije da je instruktor bio s njim u laboratoriji. Na pitanje da li mu je smetalo ili ga uznemiravalo što mora da daje elektrošokove, rekao je, "Ne ... Shvatio sam: pa, ovo je eksperiment, i Jejl zna šta se događa, i ako misle da je sve u redu, pa, onda je sve je u redu i što se mene tiče. Oni znaju više od mene ... Uradiću sve što mi kažu..." Zatim objašnjava:

"Sve se zasniva na čovekovom principu u životu i na tome kako je odrastao i koje ciljeve postavlja u životu. Kakav odnos želi da ima, i kako želi da radi stvari. Znam to kad sam bio u službi, [ako su mi rekli] „Pređete preko brda, a zatim ćemo napasti", napadamo. Ako poručnik kaže: „Idemo na poligon, vi ćete puzati svojom utrobom", puzaćete utrobom. A ako naiđete na zmiju, što se često dešavalo, bakroglavke, a momcima je rečeno da ne ustaju, a oni ustanu. I budu ubijeni. Tako da mislim da se sve svodi na to kako je čovek odrastao, kako su ga podigli.“.

U njegovoj priči, iako su bakroglavke bile stvarna opasnost i izazivale instinktivnu reakciju ustajanja, uraditi to je značilo kršenje poručnikovog naređenja da se zagrli zemlja. I na kraju, oni koji nisu poslušali su uništeni. Poslušnost, čak i u teškim okolnostima, je najpouzdaniji način preživljavanja. Na kraju razgovora, gospodin Đino sumira svoju reakciju na sopstveno učešće.

"Pa, čvrsto sam verovao da je čovek mrtav, sve dok nismo otvorili vrata. Kada sam ga video, rekao sam: 'Sjajno, ovo je sjajno.' Ali ne bi mi smetalo čak i da je bio mrtav. Uradio sam posao."

Kaže da ga eksperiment nije uznemirio u mesecima neposredno nakon njega, ali ga je intrigirao. Kada je dobio konačni izveštaj, ispričao je da je rekao svojoj supruzi: "Verujem da sam se ponašao ispravno i bespogovorno, i držao se uputstava kao i uvek. Pa sam rekao svojoj supruzi: Pa, eto to je to. I mislim da sam uradio dobar posao." Ona je rekla: "A da je čovek umro?" Gospodin Đino je odgovorio, "Onda je mrtav. Ja sam uradio svoj posao! "

 

Between conscience and obedience - inner struggle in Milgram experiments participants

Excerpts from:

1. "Obedience to Authority", Stanley Milgram (book, Harper & Row 1974)
2. "The Perils of Obedience", Stanley Milgram (article, Harper's Magazine, Issue December 1973)

The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred, all of the essential features of obedience follow.

The most far-reaching consequence is that the person feels responsible to the authority directing him, but feels no responsibility for the content of the actions that the authority prescribes. Morality does not disappear - it acquires a radically different focus: the subordinate person feels shame or pride depending on how adequately he has performed the actions called for by authority.

1. Bruno Batta, Welder
2. Professor of Old Testament
3. Jack Washington, Drill Press Operator
4. Jan Rensaleer, Industrial Engineer
5. Morris Braverman, Social Worker
6. Fred Prozi, Unemployed
7. Karen Dontz, Nurse
8. Elinor Rosenblum, Housewife
9. Gretchen Brandt, Medical Technician
10. Pasqual Gino, Water Inspector

 

1. Bruno Batta, Welder 

Mr. Batta is a thirty-seven-year-old welder. He was born in New Haven, his parents in Italy. He has a rough-hewn face that conveys a conspicuous lack of alertness. His over-all appearance is somewhat brutish. An observer described him as a "crude mesomorph of obviously limited intelligence." But this is not fully adequate, for he relates to the experimenter with a submissive and deferential sweetness.

He has some difficulty in mastering the experimental procedure and needs to be corrected by the experimenter several times. He shows appreciation for the help and willingness to do what is required. The experiment is the Touch-Proximity variation. After the 150-volt level, Batta has to force the learner's hand down on the shock plate, since the learner himself refuses to touch it.

When the learner first complains, Mr. Batta pays no attention to him. His face remains impassive, as if to dissociate himself from the learner's disruptive behavior. When the experimenter instructs him to force the learner's hand down, he adopts a rigid mechanical procedure. He tests the generator switch. When it fails to function, he immediately forces the learner's hand onto the shock plate. All the while he maintains the same rigid mask. The learner, seated alongside him, begs him to stop, but with robotic impassivity, he continues the procedure. What is extraordinary is his apparent total indifference to the learner; he hardly takes cognizance of him as a human being. Meanwhile, he relates to the experimenter in a submissive and courteous fashion.

At the 330-volt level, the learner refuses not only to touch the shock plate but also to provide any answers. Annoyed, Batta turns to him, and chastises him: "You better answer and get it over with. We can't stay here all night." These are the only words he directs to the learner in the course of the hour. Never again does he speak to him. The scene is brutal and depressing: his hard, impassive face showing total indifference as he subdues the screaming learner and gives him shocks. He seems to derive no pleasure from the act itself, only quiet satisfaction at doing his job properly.

When he administers 450 volts, he turns to the experimenter and asks, "Where do we go from here, Professor?" His tone is deferential and expresses his willingness to be a cooperative subject, in contrast to the learner's obstinacy.

In the postexperimental interview, he gives a jumbled account of the experiment. The experimenter routinely asks him whether the experiment has any other purpose he can think of. He uses the question, without any particular logic, to denigrate the learner, stating, "Well, we have more or less a stubborn person (the learner). If he understood what this here was, he would' a went along without getting the punishment." In his view, the learner brought punishment on himself.

The experimenter asks whether he felt tense or nervous during the experiment. Again, he uses the question to express his feelings toward the learner. "The only time I got a little - I wouldn't say nervous - I got disgusted, is when he wouldn't cooperate." The experimenter has great difficulty in questioning the subject on the issue of responsibility. He does not seem to grasp the concept. The interviewer simplifies the question. Finally the subject assigns major responsibility to the experimenter: "I say your fault for the simple reason that I was paid for doing this. I had to follow orders. That's how I figured it."

Then, assigning all possibilities of initiative to the experimenter, he says, "Now you could have just as soon said, 'Now look, gimme the money back and we'll forget about this thing.' Then we could have made up our own minds." We note that while for many subjects offering to return the payment is regarded as an honorable means of withdrawing from the experiment, this subject can only conceive of the act if initiated by the authority. The experimenter rejoins, "But I told you the money was yours simply for coming, no matter what happened."

"That's right."

At the end of the session, he tells the experimenter how honored he has been to help him, and in a moment of contrition, remarks, "Sir, sorry it couldn't have been a full experiment."

He has done his honest best. It is only the deficient behavior of the learner that has denied the experimenter full satisfaction.

In a questionnaire returned by Mr. Batta several months later, he informs us that he followed the experimenter's instructions to the end, that he fully believed the learner was getting painful shocks, and that the experiment has not bothered him at all. He believes more experiments of this sort should be carried out, and he answers ,;yes" to our question of whether he has learned something of personal value. But he does not tell us what.

 

2. Professor of Old Testament

A somewhat gaunt, ascetic man, this subject could be taken for a New England minister. In fact, he teaches Old Testament liturgy at a major divinity school. In this Proximity condition, he adjusted his seat to look at the learner while administering shocks. While reading the word pairs, he employs exaggerated precision in his pronunciation, and seems curt and officious in saying, "Correct." Whenever the learner makes an error, he appears almost to be chastising him for his failing. Each time he administers a shock, his lips are drawn back, and he bares his teeth. An excessive fastidiousness characterizes all his actions. After administering 150 volts he balks at going further. The experimenter states that the learner's protests are to be disregarded, and the experiment must continue:

EXPERIMENTER: It's absolutely essential to the experiment that we continue.

SUBJECT: I understand that statement, but I don't understand why the experiment is placed above this person's life.

EXPERIMENTER: There is no permanent tissue damage.

SUBJECT: Well, that's your opinion. If he doesn't want to continue, I'm taking orders from him.

EXPERIMENTER: You have no other choice, sir, you must go on.

SUBJECT: If this were Russia maybe, but not in America.

(The experiment is terminated. )

In his discussion with the experimenter, the subject seems in no way intimidated by the experimenter's status but rather treats him as a dull technician who does not see the full implications of what he is doing. When the experimenter assures him of the safety of the shock generator, the subject, with some exasperation, brings up the question of the emotional rather than physiological effects on the learner.

SUBJECT (spontaneously): Surely you've considered the ethics of this thing. (extremely agitated) Here he doesn't want to go on, and you think that the experiment is more important? Have you examined him? Do you know what his physical state is? Say this man had a weak heart (quivering voice) .

EXPERIMENTER: We know the machine, sir.

SUBJECT: But you don't know the man you're experimenting on. That's very risky (gulping and tremulous). What about the fear that man had? It's impossible for you to determine what effect that has on him . . . the fear that he himself is generating. . . . But go ahead, you ask me questions; I'm not here to question you.

He limits his questioning, first because he asserts he does not have a right to question, but one feels that he considers the experimenter too rigid and limited a technician to engage in intelligent dialogue. One notes further his spontaneous mention of ethics, raised in a didactic manner and deriving from his professional position as teacher of religion. Finally, it is interesting that he initially justified his breaking off the experiment not by asserting disobedience but by asserting that he would then take orders from the victim.

Thus, he speaks of an equivalence between the experimenter's and the learner's orders and does not disobey so much as shifts the person from whom he will take orders.

After explaining the true purpose of the experiment, the experimenter asks, "What in your opinion is the most effective way of strengthening resistance to inhumane authority?"

The subject answers, "If one had as one's ultimate authority God, then it trivializes human authority."

Again, the answer for this man lies not in the repudiation of authority but in the substitution of good-that is, divine-authority for bad.

 

3. Jack Washington, Drill Press Operator

Jack Washington is a black subject, age thirty-five, who was born in South Carolina. He works as a drill press operator and stresses the fact that although he did not complete high school, he was not a dropout but was drafted into the army before he could get his diploma. He is a soft man, a bit heavy and balding, older-looking than his years. His pace is very slow and his manner impassive; his speech is tinged wi.th Southern and black accents.

When the victim's first protests are heard, he turns toward the experimenter, looks sadly at him, then continues reading the word pairs. The experimenter does not have to tell him to continue. Throughout the experiment he shows almost no emotion or bodily movement. He does what the experimenter tells him in a slow, steady pace that is set off sharply against the strident cries of the victim. Throughout, a sad, dejected expression shows on his face. He continues to the 450-volt level, asks the experimenter what he is to do at that point, administers two additional shocks on command, and is relieved of his task.

He explains in the interview that although he feels the shocks were extremely painful, he accepted the experimenter's word that they would cause no permanent damage. He reafirms this belief in a questionnaire answered almost a year after his participation. When asked about responsibility for the victim's suffering, he places the heaviest burden on the experimenter, then on the victim, and assigns the least to himself. Of the learner he says, "He agreed to it, and therefore must accept responsibility." The experimenter has "the biggest share of the responsibility. I merely went on. Because I was following orders . . . I was told to go on. And I did not get a cue to stop."

He becomes enmeshed in this formulation, which he repeats several times. He explains to the experimenter that if he had received a cue from the experimenter, he would have stopped, implying that he would behave in whatever manner the experimenter required. The only dereliction he can conceive of in the situation is that of not obeying the experimenter. ·

He explains in his slow, steady manner, "I know that up to a certain point a shock won't kill you. I had a shock to the point where I was almost knocked down . . . . My whole hand was numb. But it didn't kill me."

Thus, he indicates acceptance of the experimenter's statement that the shocks may be painful but are not dangerous. In all respects he expresses total faith in the experimenter and indeed accepts his authority more easily and with less inner conflict than many subjects.

 

4. Jan Rensaleer, Industrial Engineer

The subject is a thirty-two-year-old industrial engineer, sporting blond hair and a mustache. He is self-contained and speaks with a trace of a foreign accent. He is neatly dressed. In the interview he tells us that he emigrated from Holland after the Second World War and that he is a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. He is mild-mannered and intelligent.

When the victim complains at the 150-volt level, the subject turns to the experimenter and asks, "What do I do now?"

The experimenter tells him to continue.

The engineer presses his hand to his head and proceeds with the test. He glances more and more often at the experimenter. At 255 volts, he pushes the chair away from the shock generator and turns to the experimenter:

MR. RENSALEER: Oh, I can't continue this way; it's a voluntary program, if the man doesn't want to go on with it.

EXPERIMENTER : Please continue.

(A long pause.)

MR. RENSALEER: No, I can't continue. I'm sorry.

EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires that you go on.

MR. RENSALEER: The man, he seems to be getting hurt.

EXPERIMENTER: There is no permanent tissue damage.

MR. RENSALEER: Yes, but I know what shocks do to you. I'm an electrical engineer, and I have had shocks . . . and you get real shook up by them-especially if you know the next one is coming. I'm sorry.

EXPERIMENTER : It is absolutely essential that you continue.

MR. RENSALEER: Well, I won't-not with the man screaming to get out.

EXPERIMENTER: You have no other choice.

MR. RENSALEER: I do have a choice. (Incredulous and indignant:) Why don't I have a choice? I came here on my own free will. I thought I could help in a research project. But if I have to hurt somebody to do that, or if I was in his place, too, I wouldn't stay there. I can't continue. I'm very sorry. I think I've gone too far already, probably.

When asked who was responsible for shocking the learner against his will, he said, "I would put it on myself entirely."

He refused to assign any responsibility to the learner or the experimenter.

"I should have stopped the first time he complained. I did want to stop at that time. I turned around and looked at you. I guess it's a matter of . . . authority, if you want to call it that: my being impressed by the thing, and going on although I didn't want to. Say, if you're serving in the army, and you have to do something you don't like to do, but your superior tells you to do it. That sort of thing, you know what I mean?

"One of the things I think is very cowardly is to try to shove the responsibility onto someone else. See, if I now turned around and said, 'It's your fault .. . it's not mine,' I would call that cowardly."

Although this subject defied the experimenter at 255 volts, he still feels responsible for administering any shocks beyond the victim's first protests. He is hard on himself and does not allow the structure of authority in which he is functioning to absolve him of any responsibility.

Mr. Rensaleer expressed surprise at the underestimation of obedience by the psychiatrists. He said that on the basis of his experience in Nazi-occupied Europe, he would predict a high level of compliance to orders. He suggests, "It would be interesting to conduct the same tests in Germany and other countries.

The experiment made a deep impression on the subject, so much so that a few days after his participation he wrote a long, careful letter to the staff, asking if he could work with us.

"Although I am . . . employed in engineering, I have become convinced that the social sciences and especially psychology, are much more important in today's world."

 

5. Morris Braverman, Social Worker

Morris Braverman is a thirty-nine-year-old social worker. He looks older than his years because of his bald pate and serious demeanor. His brow is furrowed, as if all the world's burdens were carried in his face. He appears intelligent and concerned. The impression he creates is that of enormous overcontrol, that of a repressed and serious man, whose finely modulated voice is not linked with his emotional life. He speaks impressively but with perceptible affectation. As the experiment proceeds, laughter intrudes into his performance. At first, it is a light snicker, then it becomes increasingly insistent and disruptive. The laughter seemed triggered by the learner's screams.

When the learner refuses to answer and the experimenter instructs him to treat the absence of an answer as equivalent to a wrong answer, he takes his instruction to heart.

Before administering 315 volts he asserts officiously to the victim, "Mr. Wallace, your silence has to be considered as a wrong answer." Then he administers the shock. He offers halfheartedly to change places with the learner, then asks the experimenter, "Do I have to follow these instructions literally?" He is satisfied with the experimenter's answer that he does. His very refined and authoritative manner of speaking is increasingly broken up by wheezing laughter.

The experimenter's notes on Mr. Braverman at the last few shocks are:

• Almost breaking up now each time gives shock. Rubbing face to hide laughter.
• Ratting eyes, trying to hide face with hand, still laughing.
• Cannot control his laughter at this point no matter what he does.
• Clenching fist pushing it onto table.

In the interview, Mr. Braverman summarizes the experiment with impressive fluency and intelligence. He feels the experiment may have been designed also to "test the effects on the teacher of being in an essentially sadistic role, as well as the reactions of a student to a learning situation that was authoritative, rigid, and punitive." When asked how painful the last few shocks administered to the learner were, he indicates that the most extreme category on the scale is not adequate (it read EXTREMELY PAINFUL) and places his mark at the extreme edge of the scale with an arrow carrying it beyond the scale.

It is almost impossible to convey the extremely relaxed, sedate quality of his conversation in the interview. In the most quiescent terms, he speaks about his extreme inner tension.

EXPERIMENTER: At what point were you most tense or nervous?

MR. BRAVERMAN: Well, when he first began to cry out in pain, and I realized this was hurting him. This got worse when he just blocked and refused to answer. There was I. I'm a nice person, I think, hurting somebody, and caught up in what seemed a mad situation . . . and in the interest of science, one goes through with it. At one point I had an impulse to just refuse to continue with this kind of a teaching situation.

EXPERIMENTER: At what point was this?

MR. BRAVERMAN: This was after a couple of successive refusals and silences. This is when I asked you a question as to whether I have a choice in my teaching method. At this point my impulse was to plead with. him, talk with him, encourage him, try to ally myself with his feelings, work at this so we could get this through together and I wouldn't have to hurt him.

When Mr. Braverman states that he considered "not going through with it," he does not mean that he considered disobeying but rather that he considered modifying the manner of teaching the victim.

When the interviewer brings up the general question of tension, Mr. Braverman spontaneously mentions his laughter.

"My reactions were awfully peculiar. I don't know if you were watching me, but my reactions were giggly, and trying to stifle laughter. This isn't the way I usually am. This was a sheer reaction to a totally impossible situation. And my reaction was to the situation of having to hurt somebody. And being totally helpless and caught up in a set of circumstances where I just couldn't deviate and I couldn't try to help. This is what got me."

A year after his participation in the experiment, he affirms in the questionnaire that he has definitely learned something of personal importance as a result of being in the experiment, adding: "What appalled me was that I could possess this capacity for obedience and compliance to a central idea, i.e. the value of a memory experiment even after it became clear that continued adherence to this value was at the expense of violation of another value, i.e. don't hurt someone else who is helpless and not hurting you. As my wife said, 'You can call yourself Eichmann.' I hope I can deal more effectively with any future conflicts of values I encounter." 

 

6. Fred Prozi, Unemployed

The subject is about fifty years old, dressed in a jacket but no tie; he has a good-natured, if slightly dissolute, appearance. He employs working-class grammar and strikes one as a rather ordinary fellow.

He begins the experiment calmly but becomes increasingly tense as the experiment proceeds. After administering the 180-volt shock, he pivots around in his chair and, shaking his head, addresses the experimenter in agitated tones:

SUBJECT: I can't stand it. I'm not going to kill that man in there. You hear him hollering?

EXPERIMENTER: As I told you before, the shocks may be painful, but—

SUBJECT: But he' s hollering. He can't stand it. What's going to happen to him?

EXPERIMENTER (his voice is patient, matter-of-fact): The experiment requires that you continue, Teacher.

SUBJECT: Aaah, but, unh, I'm not going to get that man sick in there . . . know what I mean?

EXPERIMENTER: Whether the learner likes it or not, we must go on, through all the word pairs.

SUBJECT: I refuse to take the responsibility. He's in there hollering!

EXPERIMENTER: It's absolutely essential that you continue, Teacher.

SUBJECT (indicating the unused questions): There's too many left here; I mean, Geez, if he gets them wrong, there's too many of them left. I mean who's going to take the responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman?

EXPERIMENTER: I'm responsible for anything that happens to him. Continue, please.

SUBJECT: All right. (Consults list of words) The next one's "Slowwalk, truck, dance, music." Answer, please. (A buzzing sound indicates the learner has signaled his answer.) Wrong. A hundred and ninetv-five volts. "Dance."

LEARNER (yelling): Let me out of here. My heart's bothering me!

(Teacher looks at experimenter.)

EXPERIMENTER: Continue, please.

LEARNER (screaming): Let me out of here, you have no right to keep me here. Let me out of here, let me out, my heart's bothering me. let me out! ( Subject shakes head, pats the table nervously.)

SUBJECT: You see, he's hollering. Hear that? Gee, I don't know.

EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires ...

SUBJECT ( interrupting ): I know it does, sir, but I mean-hunh! He don't know what he's getting in for. He's up to 195 volts! ( Experiment continues, through 210 volts, 225 volts, 240 volts, 255 volts, 270 volts, at which point the teacher, with evident relief, runs out of word-pair questions.)

EXPERIMENTER: You'll have to go back to the beginning of that page and go through them again until he's learned them all correctly.

SUBJECT: Aw, no. I'm not going to kill that man. You mean I've got to keep going up with the scale? No sir. He's hollering in there. I'm not going to give him 450 volts.

EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires that you go on.

SUBJECT: I know it docs, but that man is hollering in there, sir.

EXPERIMENTER (same matter-of-fact tone ): As I said before, although the shocks may be painful ...

SUBJECT ( interrupting): Awwww. He-he- he's yelling in there.

EXPERIMENTER: Start with "Blue,'' please, at the top of the page. Continue, please, Teacher. Just go ahead.

SUBJECT ( concentrating intently on list of words in front of him, as if to shut everything else out): "Blue-boy, girl, grass, hat." (Buzz indicates answer.) Correct. "Night-day, sky, job, chair." (Buzz) Wrong. The answer is "day." Two hundred and eighty-five volts.

LEARNER: Ohhuhhoohhh!

EXPERIMENTER: Continue, please.

SUBJECT: "Fat-man, lady, tub, neck." Answer, please. (Buzz) Wrong. The answer is "neck." Three hundred volts.

LEARNER: Ohhh. I absolutely refuse to answer . any more. (Shouting urgently, now) Let me out of here. You can't hold me here. Get me out. Get-me-out-of-here.

EXPERIMENTER: Continue. The next word is "Green," please.

SUBJECT: "Green-grass, hat, ink, apple." (Nothing happens. No answering buzz. Just gloomy silence.)

SUBJECT: I don't think he is going to answer.

EXPERIMENTER: If the learner doesn't answer in a reasonable time, about four or five seconds, consider the answer wrong. And follow the same procedures you have been doing for wrong answers. Say, "Wrong," tell him the number of volts, give him the punishment, read him the correct answer. Continue, please.

SUBJECT: "'Green-grass, hat, ink, apple." Answer, please. (More silence. Subject just sits there.)

EXPERIMENTER: Go on with the procedure, please, Teacher.

SUBJECT: Three hundred and fifteen volts. The answer is "ink."

LEARNER: Ohh. Ooohh.

SUBJECT (relieved to hear response) : Next one

LEARNER: I absolutely refuse to answer.

SUBJECT: You got to. You get a shock if you don't answer. (Experiment continues with learner refusing to answer, and, finally, failing even to grunt or groan. At 375 volts, the subject stands up.)

SUBJECT: I think something's happened to that fellow in there. I don't get no answer. He was hollering at less voltage. Can't you check in and see if he's all right, please?

EXPERIMENTER (with same detached calm): Not once we've started. Please continue, Teacher.

SUBJECT (sits down, sighs deeply): "Cool-day, shade, water, paint." Answer, please. Are you all right in there? Are you all right?

EXPERIMENTER: Please continue, Teacher. Continue, please. (Subject pushes lever.)

SUBJECT (swiveling around in liis chair): Something's happened to that man in there. (Swiveling back) Next one. "Low-dollar, necklace, moon, paint." (Turning around again) Something's happened to that man in there. You better check in on him, sir. He won't answer or nothing.

EXPERIMENTER: Continue. Go on, please.

SUBJECT: You accept all responsibility?

EXPERIMENTER: The responsibility is mine. Correct. Please go on. ( Sub;ect returns to his list, starts running through words as rapidly as he can read them, works through to 450 volts.)

SUBJECT: That's that.

EXPERIMENTER: Continue using the 450-volt switch for each wrong answer. Continue, please.

SUBJECT: But I don't get no anything!

EXPERIMENTER: Please continue. The next word is "white."

SUBJECT: Don't you think you should look in on him, please?

EXPERIMENTER: Not once we've started the experiment.

SUBJECT: But what if something has happened to the man?

EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires that you continue. Go on, please.

SUBJECT: Don't the man's health mean anything?

EXPERIMENTER: Whether the learner likes it or not .

SUBJECT: What if he's dead in there? (Gestures toward the room with the electric chair.) I mean, he told me he can't stand the shock. sir. I don't mean to be rude, but I think you should look in on him: All you have to do is look in on him. All you have to do is look in the door. I don't get no answer, no noise. Something might have happened to the gentleman in there, sir.

EXPERIMENTER: We must continue. Go on, please.

SUBJECT: You mean keep giving him what? Four-hundred fifty volts, what he's got now?

EXPERIMENTER: That's correct. Continue. The next word is "white."

SUBJECT (now at a furious pace): "White-cloud, horse, rock, house." Answer, please. The answer is "horse." Four-hundred and fifty volts. (Administers shock.) Next word, "Bag-paint, music, clown, girl." The answer is "paint." Four-hundred and fifty volts. (Administers shock.) Next word is "Short-sentence, movie ... "

EXPERIMENTER: Excuse me, Teacher. We'll have to discontinue the experiment.

The subject's performance more or less speaks for itself, but we may note a few points. First, despite his numerous, agitated objections, his continuous and persistent dissent, he continues to administer the shocks as ordered by the experimenter. There is, thus, a dissociation between words and action. Second, by no stretch of the imagination can it be said that this man wants to  administer shocks to the learner. To the contrary, it was a painful act for him, one which came about because of his relationship to the experimenter. Third, we note that "responsibility" is an issue important to the subject, and it is only when the experimenter explicitly accepts responsibility that, after several seconds of hesitation, the subject is able to continue. Finally, the language employed by the participant is revealing. Despite the considerable tension of the situation, a tone of courtesy and deference is meticulously maintained. The subject's objections strike us as inordinately weak and inappropriate in view of the events in which he is immersed. He thinks he is killing someone, yet he uses the language of the tea table.

 

7. Karen Dontz, Nurse

Karen Dontz describes herself as a forty-year-old housewife who for the past six years has worked part time as a registered nurse. Her husband is a plumber. She is Catholic and her mother was born in Czechoslovakia. Mrs. Dontz has an unusually casual, slow-paced way of speaking, and her tone expresses constant humility; it is as if every assertion carries the emotional message: 'Tm just a very ordinary person, don't expect a lot from me." Physically, she resembles Shirley Booth in the film Come Back, Little Sheba.

Throughout the experiment she is nervous.

At 225 volts, she turns to the experimenter, stating in a highly tentative voice designed not to offend, "I hesitate to press these."

When he instructs her to follow the procedure, she does so without further comment. But before administering the 345-volt shock, she points to the label, DANGER on the shock generator.

The experimenter remarks that although the shocks are painful they cause no permanent tissue damage. She accepts the experimenter's comment saying, ''I'll continue, providing it's not dangerous." She sits on the edge of her seat, but her voice remains casual when reading the word pairs. When no sound is heard from the learner, she queries, "Do I go right to the end, sir? I hope there's nothing wrong with him there."

She begins to mumble to herself inaudibly. When the experimenter instructs her to continue using the 450-volt switch, she says in tones that are both concerned but exceedingly humble, "What if there's something wrong with the man, sir?"

But she proceeds.

In the interview she is very slow in her responses, and even after she is told that the learner received no shocks, she still considers the experiment to be one of the effect of punishment on learning. She emphasizes that she did what the experimenter told her to do and seems satisfied with her own compliance. She states she was nervous because she knows that 210 volts (sic) is household current and "most people can be electrocuted with that." She emphasizes she was more nervous here than in the hospital because "in the hospital I know what rights I have; here, I didn't know."

INTERVIEWER: Did you think of stopping at one time?

Mrs. Dontz (in a lackadaisical tone) : He said, "Go ahead." I did. I said to him, "I don't think I should go on any further." He said, "Go on with the experiment."

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything Mr. Wallace (the learner) could have said that would have caused you to stop the experiment?

Mrs. Dontz: I don't think so.

Mrs. Dontz points out that in a hospital nurses have a right to question a doctor's orders if they appear to be harmful to the patient.

"If I question the dose of a drug, I can ask the doctor three times: 'Is this the order you want? Is this the order you want? And, if he keeps on saying 'Go ahead,' and I know this is above the average dose, I may call his attention to the fact that it's too much. It's not that you are better than he is, but you can say, 'Did you want her to have so much, doctor,' and then you repeat it. Then you still have the right to bring the question up to the supervisor."

In the experiment, she "questioned" the voltage levels but was fully satisfied with the answers provided by the experimenter. Note that her most extreme response to the doctor's authority is to refer the issue to a supervisor. Moreover, it is clear that Mrs. Dontz is routinely reviewing a hospital rulebook procedure, rather than describing her personal inclinations.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever had occasion to do that in the hospital?

Mrs. Dontz: Yes, I had.

INTERVIEWER: Often?

Mrs. Dontz: No, very, very rarely. In fact, I've been working now the past six years. I think one time I just questioned the dosage.

INTERVIEWER: How did the screams sound to you? Did they sound real?

Mrs. Dontz: Oh, yes! I was really concerned with the man in there. Worried he had a heart attack. He said he had a bad heart. Yes, I know that's a possibility.

Mrs. Dontz is an unassuming person, of benign disposition, whose manner is that of a worn-out housewife. She does not argue. She carries out her hospital duties reliably and with a minimum of fuss. She possesses a soft manner from which her patients and the staff physicians benefit. Her relationship with authority is not problematical. For she has chosen to work in the nurturant environment of a hospital, in which there is congruence between her benign nature and the demands made on her by authority.

At the conclusion of the interview, Mrs. Dontz perks up, and inquires, "May I ask you, did any of the men go through and follow the 450 volts?"

The interviewer says he would be interested in her opinion on the matter. She replies, "No, I don't think men would comply."

 

8. Elinor Rosenblum, Housewife

Mrs. Rosenblum takes pleasure in describing her background: she graduated from the University of Wisconsin more than twenty years ago, and her husband, a film distributor, attended Dartmouth. She does volunteer work with juvenile delinquents once a week and has been active in the local Girl Scout organization and the PTA. She is fluent and garrulous and projects herself strongly, with many references to her social achievements. She displays a pleasant though excessively talkative charm.

At the beginning of the experiment she claims to know nothing about electricity and is wary of the sample shock. In carrying out her task, she attempts to project an image of competence and social grace but is soon swept up in the experimental conflict. She maintains a pretentiously correct, almost authoritative tone in reading the word pairs to the learner, which contrast with the weak, girlish comments she directs to the experimenter. She expresses increasing concern as she moves up the voltage scale. At 270 volts she signals the correct answer to the learner by emphasizing it vocally. While continuing to read the word pairs with a show of outward strength, she mutters in a tone of helplessness to the experimenter, "Must I go on? Oh, I'm worried about him. Are we going all the way up there (pointing to the higher end of the generator)? Can't we stop? I'm shaking. I'm shaking. Do I have to go up there?"

She regains her composure temporarily but then cannot prevent periodic outbursts of distress. She mutters to herself, 'Tm shaking here," yet her communication with the learner continues in the same officious tone. It is almost as if she were two women , one giving a competent public performance, and the other an inner, distressed woman unable to refrain from anxious utterances. She proceeds to the end of the board, administering the 450-volt shock three times. In the interview she says the shocks administered to the learner were extremely painful. When the experimenter asks her, "What is the highest shock you would be willing to take as a sample?" she replies indignantly, "Fifteen volts. I don't even think it's necessary. Fifteen, if I were to get any, and I wouldn't even want that. I don't think it's necessary."

INTERVIEWER : Were you tense or nervous?

Mrs. Rosenblum: Extremely.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when you were most tense or nervous?

Mrs. Rosenblum: When he started screaming, "Let me out of here." How can I inflict punishment on a person like that? I was shaking. I didn't even know what I was reading. I'm still shaking. I'm nervous because I was hurting him."

She was nervous not because the man was being hurt but because she was performing the action. Similarly, while administering shock, she asserts her own distress to be the main reason for terminating the experiment. A self-centered quality permeates her remarks.

She spontaneously offers the following account of her volunteer work, recounted with enormous zest:

Mrs. Rosenblum: I work at Farrel High School, with dropouts. They are all more or less leather-jacket guys. They're my boys. I'm trying to teach them to stay in school, and further their study ... but I don't do it with punishment, I do it with attention and with love. As a matter of fact, they regard it as a privilege at this point to go with me. Whereas at the beginning they just did it to get away from school and to have a cigarette. But they don't do it any more. I've gotten everything from them through love and kindness. But never through punishment.

INTERVIEWER: What do you teach them?

Mrs. Rosenblum: Well, first of all, I teach them manners. That's the first thing I had to do; teach them respect for people, respect for other people, respect for girls their age, respect for society. This is the first thing I had to do before I could teach them anything else. Then I could teach them to make something of themselves. and go after so-called luxuries. The importance she attaches to respect for society is not unrelated to her own submissive manner of relating to the experimenter. And a conventional outlook permeates her thinking. Her dialogue is filled with feminine references: I have gotten so much through love, and I have a wonderful daughter. She's fifteen, and she's National Honor Society: a bright girl. And a wonderful child. 'But all through love, not through punishment. Oh God, no! The worst thing you can do is ... with punishment. The only time punishment is good is with an infant.

INTERVIEWER: What did you think of the experiment?

Mrs. Rosenblum (She does not allow the question to change her former train of thought) : I don't believe you'll get anything from punishment; only with an infant where they have no mind. When my daughter was little I punished her for three things. As a matter of fact, I let her punish herself. I let her touch a hot stove. She burned herself and she never touched it again.

INTERVIEWER: Let me tell you a little about the experiment. First, Mr. Waliace did not receive any shocks.

Mrs. Rosenblum: You're kidding! He didn't get what I got. (She squeals) I can't believe this. You mean to say this was all in his mind!

EXPERIMENTER : Oh no, he is an employee of Yale, an actor.

Mrs. Rosenblum: Every time I pressed the button, I died. Did you see me shaking. I was just dying here to think that I was administering shocks to this poor man.

(The learner is brought in. She turns to him.)

Mrs. Rosenblum: You're an actor, boy. You're marvelous! Oh, my God, what he [the experimenter] did to me. I'm exhausted. I didn't want to go on with it. You don't know what I went through here. A person like me hurting you, my God. I didn't want to do it to you. Forgive me, please. I can't get over this. My face is beet red. I wouldn't hurt a fly. I'm working with boys, trying to teach them, and I'm getting such marvelous results, without punishment. I said to myself at the beginning, I don't feel you'll get anything by inflicting punishment.

We note, however, recalling how she allowed her daughter to touch the hot stove, that she is not against punishment per se but only against her active infliction of it. If it just "happens," it is acceptable.

She confides to the learner, "As a matter of fact I tried to push the switch down very lightly. Did you hear me stressing the word. I was hoping that you would hear me.

INTERVIEWER: Isn't this similar to what a nurse has to do, if a doctor instructs her to administer a needle?

Mrs. Rosenblum: I'm the most marvelous person in an emergency. I will do whatever has to be done regardless of who I hurt. And I don't shake. But I will do it without thinking. I won't even hesitate.

This more or less parallels her behavior in the laboratory.

Mrs. Rosenblum: I kept saying, "For what reason am I hurting this poor man?"

INTERVIEWER: Why did you go on?

Mrs. Rosenblum: It is an experiment. I'm here for a reason. So I had to do it. You said so. I didn't want to. I'm very interested in this . .. this whole project. May I ask you something? Do you have a moment? How do other people react?

EXPERIMENTER: How do you think?

Mrs. Rosenblum: Well, I tell you. The choice of me as a woman doing this . . . you certainly picked a pip. In my volunteer work, there aren't many women who will do what I do. . . . I'm unusual; I'm softhearted, I'm a softy. I don't know how I as a woman stand in relation to the other women; they're a little harder than I am. I don't think they care too much.

I was tempted so much to stop and to say: "Look I'm not going to do it anymore. Sorry. I'm not going to do it." I kept saying that to myself, "Sorry, I'm just not going to do it." Then he kept quiet. And I thought maybe he's in shock, because he said he had a heart condition. But I knew you wouldn't let anything happen to him. So I went on with it, much against my will. I was going through hell. . . . I don't think others would be as nervous as I. . . . I don't think they would care too much. With the way they are with their children I don't think they really care too much about other people.

She construes her expressions of tension purely as a sign of virtue: she was nervous because she cared about the victim. She insists on talking about herself. The experimenter listens patiently.

Mrs. Rosenblum: I sometimes say to myself, "Why don't you take a job as president of Woman's Assembly, and get acclaim, honor, newspapers, prestige enough to burn, instead of working with my leather-jacketed guys with absolutely no publicity?" Doing it once a week. This is the story of my life; I was a scout mother for five years. It ended with thirty girls in my troop and everyone begging to get into it. But I couldn't because there's a limit. I'm much relieved now. I'm one for science; this is what I wanted to study, anyway. I'm trying to get my daughter to go into it. I'm very glad I did this; see how relaxed I am now?

The interview was continued until Mrs. Rosenblum seemed sufficiently calm to be discharged from the laboratory.

Mrs. Rosenblum is a person whose psychic life lacks integration. She has not been able to find life purposes consistent with her needs for esteem and success. Her goals, thinking, and emotions are fragmented. She carried out her experimental role as teacher showing great outward conviction, while at the same time she displayed another side of herself to the experimenter, behaving meekly and submissively.

It is not surprising that she failed to mobilize the psychic resources needed to translate her compassion for the learner into the disobedient act. Her feelings, goals, and thoughts were too diverse and unintegrated.

All evidence indicates that at the time of her performance she believed the learner was being shocked. But it is not difficult for a woman of hysterical tendencies to adjust her thinking in a manner consistent with a positive self-image. In a questionnaire returned to us a few months later, she states that during the experiment her "mature and well-educated brain" had not believed the learner was getting shocks. Through a post-facto adjustment of thought, she protects her cherished - if unrealistic picture of her own nature.

 

9. Gretchen Brandt, Medical Technician

The subject is an attractive thirty-one-year-old medical technician who works at the University Medical School. She had emigrated from Germany five years before and speaks with a thick German accent.

On several occasions, when the learner complains, she turns to the experimenter coolly and inquires, "Shall I continue?" She promptly returns to her task when the experimenter asks her to do so. At the administration of 210 volts, she turns to the experimenter, remarking .firmly, "Well, I'm sorry, I don't think we should continue."

EXPERIMENTER: The experiment requires that you go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly.

GRETCHEN: He has a heart condition, I'm sorry. He told you that before.

EXPERIMENTER: The shocks may be painful but they are not dangerous.

GRETCHEN: Well, I'm sorry, I think when shocks continue like this, they are dangerous. You ask him if he wants to get out. It's his free will.

EXPERIMENTER: It is absolutely essential that we continue ....

GRETCHEN: I like you to ask him. We came here of our free will. If he wants to continue I'll go ahead. He told you he had a heart condition. I'm sorry. I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to him. I wouldn't like it for me either.

EXPERIMENTER: You have no other choice.

GRETCHEN: I think we here are on our own free will. I don't want to be responsible if he has a heart condition if anything happens to him. Please understand that.

She refuses to go further and the experiment is terminated.

The woman is firm and resolute throughout. She indicates in the interview that she was in no way tense or nervous, and this corresponds to her controlled appearance throughout. She feels that the last shock she administered to the learner was extremely painful and reiterates that she "did not want to be responsible for any harm to him." She listens to the experimenter's explanation in an interested fashion, expresses surprise that the learner was not being shocked, and indicates she will accept only 45 volts as a maximum sample shock.

The woman's straightforward, courteous behavior in the experiment, lack of tension, and total control of her own action seems to make disobedience a simple and rational deed. Her behavior is the very embodiment of what I had initially envisioned would be true for almost all subjects.

Ironically, Gretchen Brandt grew to adolescence in Hitler's Germany and was for the great part of her youth exposed to Nazi propaganda. When asked about the possible influence of her background, she remarks slowly, "Perhaps we have seen too much pain."

 

10. Pasqual Gino, Water Inspector

Pasqual Gino is a forty-three-year-old water inspector who was born in the United States of Italian parents. He took part in the variation in which the experimenter, having given the subject and victim instructions, departs from the laboratory and leaves his telephone number. Thus, the subject is left alone with the victim in the laboratory, but is free to call the experimenter if problems arise. Mr. Gino telephones _the experimenter on several occasions. After administering 150 volts' shock, he calls to say, "Professor, this gentleman is complaining. He wants to get out. He does not want to take it no more. . . . I just gave him 150 volts and he said, 'That's it!'"

The experimenter instructs the subject by telephone to continue, and Mr. Gino does so.

He remains alone in the experimental room, dutifully carrying out the instructions; meanwhile the victim protests strenuously. At the 300-volt level, when the victim refuses to provide answers, Mr. Gino telephones the experimenter again and once more the experimenter tells him to go on, saying that the absence of an answer is to be treated as a wrong answer.

"You want me to go right to the end of the board on the voltage? Uh huh, and when I get to the end, what do I do?"

After 330 volts, no further utterance is heard from the victim, either in protest or pain. Concerned, Mr. Gino again telephones:

"Professor, I don't hear any noise in there now at all. I'm up to 330 volts. I don't hear any whimper or anything and I'm kind of leery about this thing. Do you think something happened to the gentleman?"

The experimenter asserts that though the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage. The subject again returns to his task, alone in the laboratory room. After he administers the 450-volt level, he calls the experimenter, again reminding him that no sound is emanating from the learner.

In time, the experimenter returns to the laboratory and informs Mr. Gino that the learner is unharmed. In the interview, when asked about the degree of tension he felt, he answered: "I was more nervous for the other gentleman than I was for myself.

. . . I was more nervous for him. I was nervous because you were not here. If you were here I wouldn't have been nervous at all. I mean, if that man should have passed out with me giving him these things, these shocks-well, I'd feel that I'm responsible on account of me-giving these shocks."

The subject accepts responsibility not in a general philosophic way but only feels that the situation seemed to focus responsibility on him because he was alone with the learner. He goes on: "(If you had been here) you'd say, 'Let's stop it' or 'Let's continue' or something. You know better than I. You're the professor. I'm not. . . . But, on the other hand, I got to say that the last I know of him was around 255 volts and that was the last he complained." (The subject then mimics the complaints of the learner.)

Several months after his performance in the experiment, Mr. Gino took part in a group discussion of his experience. In retrospect, he considered the experiment "terrific." "I was fascinated with it [and] .. . that night I went to a party; I have a couple of sisters-in-law that are nurses, you know, and they were fascinated with it, too .... I'm telling you it's something I'll never forget as long as I live."

The experiment, even months after, seemed never to have raised in him the question of whether or not he should have considered disobeying the instructions to continue giving shocks.

" ... I had about eight more levels to pull and he [the learner] was really hysterical in there and he was going to get the police, and what not. So I called the professor three times. And the third time he said, 'Just continue,' so I give him the next jolt. And then I don't hear no more answer from him, not a whimper or anything. I said, 'Good God, he's dead; well, here we go, we'll finish him. And I just continued all the way through to 450 volts."

Mr. Gino does not object to taking the orders, although he suggests he would have been more comfortable if the instructor had been present in the laboratory with him. When asked if he had been bothered or disturbed because of giving the shocks, he said, "No ... I figured: well, this is an experiment, and Yale knows what's going on, and if they think it's all right, well, it's all right with me. They know more than I do. . . . I'll go through with anything they tell me to do .... "He then explains:

"This is all based on a man's principle in life, and how he was brought up and what goals he sets in life. How he wants to carry on things. I know that when I was in the service, [If I was told] 'You go over the hill, and we're going to attack,' we attack. If the lieutenant says, 'We're going to go on the firing range, you're going to crawl on your gut,' you're going to crawl on your gut. And if you come across a snake, which I've seen a lot of fellows come across, copperheads, and guys were told not to get up, and they got up. And they got killed. So I think it's all based on the way a man was brought up in his background."

In his story, although the copperheads were a real danger, and caused an instinctive reaction to stand, to do this violated the lieutenant's order to hug the ground. And in the end those who disobeyed were destroyed. Obedience, even in the face of trying circumstances, is the most reliable assurance of survival. At the close of the discussion, Mr. Gino summarizes his reaction to his own performance.

"Well, I faithfully believed the man was dead until we opened the door. When I saw him, I said, 'Great, this is great.' But it didn't bother me even to find that he was dead. I did a job."

He reports that he was not disturbed by the experiment in the months just after it but was curious about it. When he received the final report, he relates telling his wife, "I believe I conducted myself behaving and obediently, and carried on instructions as I always do. So I said to my wife, 'Well here we are. And I think I did a good job.' She said, 'Suppose the man was dead?'" Mr. Gino replied, "So he's dead. I did my job!"