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>At 12:09 PM 18/02/02 -0500, frankie wrote:
>
>>Keith said:
>>
>>>There are papers by Zimbardo from Stanford (now president of the
>>>American Psychological Association) that are directly on this
>>>topic. It looks like the mechanism is more one of resistance to
>>>social pressure than learned. I am trying to remember the name
>>>associated with that test of resistance to social pressure where
>>>most of the group acts a shills and one person is given the choice
>>>of going against the group which insists the longer line on a
>>>slide is shorter or the other way around.
>>
>>Millgram? It wasn't a long queue or a short queue, but numbers of
>>dots on paper IIRC, and administering electric shocks.
>
>No, this was lines measured in inches. The shills, 3-4 of them were
>instructed to pick a line which was not the longest and insist it
>was. This was to see if the subjects would to say something under
>social pressure that was in conflict with what their senses reported.
>
>It is a classic psychological experiment. A substantial fraction of
>the population would say they something in conflict with their
>perception. Most would admit they had given in to social pressure,
>but (IIRC) some would insist that they had really seen the shorter
>line as longer.
>
>This might be a way to sort out people who could be turned into cult members.
>
>Keith Henson
>
Yes, but it *was* Stanley Millgram who did the experiments, there are
numerous variations.
frankie
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