"Game of Death"

[Done_With_It!]

French TV show updates famous shock experiment
Wednesday, March 17, 2010

By Subha Ravindhran

It's called the "Game of Death" It's an experiment that aired as a game show in Europe. The purpose was to test human nature by showing how far people will go when pressured by authority. The results are shocking.

You may not understand the language, but the message of one social experiment is universal. Wednesday in France a documentary aired featuring a television game show.

In it the contestants were ordered to administer what they thought were powerful electric shocks on other participants if a question was answered wrong.

More than 80 percent of contestants obeyed orders even though the screaming victim could be seen and heard.

What the contestant and the audience did not know was the victim was an actor and the 420 volts being administered were fake.

It was an experiment to test the nature of blind obedience. It replicates a famous and controversial 1960s American study conducted by Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram.

Back then, more than 60 percent of subjects had no problem shocking a complete stranger with electricity when given a wrong answer.

"Most people will in fact act in this horrendous way and press the shock levers that they think are delivering very dangerous, if not lethal, electric shocks to another person," said Dr. Jerry Burger, faculty member at Santa Clara University.

In this latest experiment some contestants were reluctant, but in the end most obeyed in part to a cheering audience.

It was proven 50 years ago authority figures can push people to inflict pain. Now it's obvious television can do the same.

"The lesson is really that in certain circumstances, in the right situation, the average, typical, well-adjusted person will act in these horrendous ways," said Burger.

After they learned about the experiment, some of those contestants admitted that they didn't think twice about turning up the voltage.

All of them had to sign a contract before the show agreeing to obey orders.