Speaker 1: Well, we are taking a little bit of a week
Speaker 1: off or an episode off, because some of us are
Speaker 1: getting back into Atlanta, some of us are leaving our
Speaker 1: affair metropolis for a bit. We're passing Noel like ships
Speaker 1: in the night, ships in the ridiculous ships in the night. Indeed,
Speaker 1: ships in the Tuesday, ridiculous ships in the tuesdays. Right,
Speaker 1: it is, in fact a national holiday. President's Day. What's
Speaker 1: that one about again? Is that the one where all
Speaker 1: the presidents were born at the same time, on the
Speaker 1: same day. It's commemorating that time when they all went
Speaker 1: to this same karaoke place totally on accident. God, So
Speaker 1: we will be observing that sacred day with this classic
Speaker 1: which is actually a fun one from way back in
Speaker 1: the archives about the time or the scientific era where
Speaker 1: researchers thought it was a cool idea to hide under
Speaker 1: children's beds like the monsters. They truly were. M Yeah,
Speaker 1: are we gonna call it an era or was it
Speaker 1: just a very strange series of you know what, you
Speaker 1: know what era? I think I think it was more
Speaker 1: of a moment, you know perhaps, but well, every every
Speaker 1: moment is an erat itself. It's very, very true it's very,
Speaker 1: very true. But here we go with this classic episode.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. Not only is my name Ben, but
Speaker 1: you have my absolute guarantee that I will not conduct
Speaker 1: an experiment on you in this episode. Scientists be creeping
Speaker 1: creep Ben, while you're sleeping. Yeah. Man, it's about creepy scientists.
Speaker 1: So this one's about. My name's Nolan. This is Ridiculous History,
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's a tough one, Ben, to
Speaker 1: you know, conduct research on people who don't know that
Speaker 1: you're doing that thing right right now. In the past,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you and I are hanging out outside of
Speaker 1: work or with our super producer Casey Pegraham, I have
Speaker 1: been wont to do a little social experiments you. So
Speaker 1: that's why I had to promise I wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: in this episode. And I do really appreciate you humoring
Speaker 1: me with that stuff. Yeah, man, ladies and gentlemen, friends
Speaker 1: and neighbors. To take a quote from my dear friend
Speaker 1: Ben Bowling, there will be times where I will turn
Speaker 1: up to a place like a bar, restaurant or what
Speaker 1: have you, and I'll be waiting around for then to
Speaker 1: show up, only to realize that he's been under the
Speaker 1: table the whole time with a tiny Moleski notebook observing
Speaker 1: my every move and tick. Yeah, and I apologize for that.
Speaker 1: I bought the next round. That's fair, and we learned
Speaker 1: a lot. It's for science, Well, that's the thing. It's
Speaker 1: it's a conundrum, right, because it's like this ethical quandary
Speaker 1: where in order to do behavioral research and really get
Speaker 1: to the heart of what makes people tick and more
Speaker 1: or less conduct these experiments, a little deception is sometimes required, right, right,
Speaker 1: And we'll dive into this, but the top level of
Speaker 1: it is essentially that people's behavior changes when they know
Speaker 1: that they are being observed. There's a reason why security
Speaker 1: cameras have a monitor that you can see at a
Speaker 1: bank or at a gas station. It's because of this
Speaker 1: same psychological principle. Yeah, you've ever gone into a grocery
Speaker 1: store and you see the monitor up there and you
Speaker 1: kind of look at yourself and realize how unnatural and
Speaker 1: strange look. That's because you're looking at yourself, looking at yourself,
Speaker 1: and you were adjusting your look to match your expectations
Speaker 1: of what you think you should be, and that's that's
Speaker 1: never what you really are, right. And today's story or
Speaker 1: today's starting point is an example of exactly the conundrum,
Speaker 1: the dilemma that Noel describes. Back in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: there were two researchers, Mary Henley and Marion B. Hubble,
Speaker 1: and they realized that they were running into this during
Speaker 1: their research on egocentricity in adult conversation, so essentially listening
Speaker 1: to adults talk to measure whether they're ego centric tendencies
Speaker 1: evaporated or increased or changed how they changed since childhood.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, that is also the name
Speaker 1: of my favorite Emerson, Lake and Palmer record. It is
Speaker 1: no Oh Brain Salad Surgery. I don't know I'm fun
Speaker 1: I think I'm funny and I'm not. I think you're hilarious, buddy. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I well, whenever I make whenever it
Speaker 1: crack jokes or puns that are originated by you. I
Speaker 1: also like to phrase it as that was a Noel
Speaker 1: Brown piece. I do appreciate that, and you know that
Speaker 1: credit where credit is due in speaking of that, this
Speaker 1: study Eccentricity in Adult Conversation by Henley and Hubble was
Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Social Psychology in May of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight. So, as part of Henley's graduate work
Speaker 1: in psychology, she and her associate Hubble, we're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out whether children, over time as they age, become
Speaker 1: less egocentric. Let's unpack that just to touch meaning less selfish,
Speaker 1: less focused on the self, and more outwardly observant or
Speaker 1: yeah in a way. And this is this is a
Speaker 1: great moment to explore this. So egocentrism is essentially the
Speaker 1: inability to differentiate between yourself and the other, whatever the
Speaker 1: other might be. So to a lot of people, this
Speaker 1: would sound like narcissism, right, It's different because a person
Speaker 1: who is egocentric does believe they're the center, you know,
Speaker 1: the protagonist of their own story, which I think most
Speaker 1: people do if at some level. Yeah, But unlike a narcissist,
Speaker 1: they don't receive gratification from their own admiration, like a
Speaker 1: narcissist might feel gratification when they're walking around going ah,
Speaker 1: man talking in the mirror, I am so great. I
Speaker 1: see this is almost subconscious where we're talking about here, right,
Speaker 1: But for egocentrist it's simply it's more like you are
Speaker 1: a universe unto yourself, and you may not receive the
Speaker 1: same like warm fuzzies from the approval of others. You
Speaker 1: might not need it. I guess that's what I mean
Speaker 1: when I say subconscious. It's almost just like this innate
Speaker 1: kind of characteristic that's very much present in kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you ever spend any time around kids, you know
Speaker 1: that they kind of live in this like wonderful little
Speaker 1: kid bubble where everything revolves around them and to varying
Speaker 1: degrees of awfulness, you know. And it's not malicious, That's
Speaker 1: what I mean. Yeah, it's just it's the natural starting
Speaker 1: point for the vast majority of human mind totally. But
Speaker 1: there are certain kids that are just garbage kids. They're
Speaker 1: just like, what is wrong with you? Do you not
Speaker 1: see that your actions affect other people like at all?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm speaking from the position of a
Speaker 1: parent who tries very hard to engender non selfishness in
Speaker 1: my child. So when I see other kids that who's
Speaker 1: friends with a school that are just oh they're the worst.
Speaker 1: But your kid's cool. My kids cool. But you know,
Speaker 1: she has her moments. But I think that that egocentricity,
Speaker 1: there are varying degrees of it. So they were they
Speaker 1: were confronting this, and they knew that egocentrism exists, is
Speaker 1: very common in children, and they wanted to see if
Speaker 1: it declines and what that rate of decline would be.
Speaker 1: So they immediately ran into problem number one, which is
Speaker 1: that you can't just ask somebody when they're eight and
Speaker 1: then go back when they're in college and say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you how about now do you feel less selfish about? Now?
Speaker 1: We met when you were nine and you were you
Speaker 1: were a bad kid. So it requires a little bit
Speaker 1: of subterfuge, right, And so they were gonna they were
Speaker 1: gonna find the stuff out through monitoring real conversations with
Speaker 1: college students, and they were going to do this by
Speaker 1: any means necessary. So in their study, in order to
Speaker 1: keep their presence a secret, what did they do, Ben, Oh,
Speaker 1: they would eavesdrop in the dormitory smoking rooms. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: this is the thirties, right, so there's a smoking room
Speaker 1: in every there's probably a smoking room for kids, right right,
Speaker 1: right right. And they were listening in the washrooms, the restrooms,
Speaker 1: which is entirely illegal, and they tap the phones, but
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing that you and I found was that
Speaker 1: they physically went into these students rooms and hid under
Speaker 1: the bed. Like how long do you do that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just crickets in my head. It's like,
Speaker 1: WHOA whose idea is this? I mean, I guess it's
Speaker 1: brilliant on the one hand, because you're gonna get some
Speaker 1: real information, but like, what's the process like here? Like
Speaker 1: as they're breaking and entering involved, they just post up
Speaker 1: like all day and just hang out until their subjects arrive,
Speaker 1: and then they're just on the ready, like you at
Speaker 1: the bar, under the table with their notepads. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the weird thing because honestly, these are college students
Speaker 1: and physically you would have to wait until they leave
Speaker 1: so that you can leave. But what creeps me out
Speaker 1: about it is this entirely speculative on my part, Volks.
Speaker 1: I am more than fifty percent certain that they probably
Speaker 1: had to lay under those beds while yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I'm talking about, folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're a family show, but I think we're pretty clear
Speaker 1: on that one because they're called jumping on the bed.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. That's what we called it
Speaker 1: in the thirties. So they didn't just stay on the
Speaker 1: campus though, Yeah, No, they like went out into the
Speaker 1: world and eavesdropped in hotel lobbies, waiting rooms, doctor's offices,
Speaker 1: movie theaters, restaurants, even on like in to the street
Speaker 1: car named or maybe not named Desire right, right, And
Speaker 1: they were pursuing these subjects, so they were actively stalking
Speaker 1: them in spine on them, and they would always have
Speaker 1: their notepads handy so they could write down exactly what
Speaker 1: the people were saying and then judge it on the egocentrism.
Speaker 1: And you know what's interesting to me about this is
Speaker 1: if any of the subjects proved to be you know,
Speaker 1: extremely ecocentric, still, that's really interesting. They probably, you know,
Speaker 1: they may or may not like the approval of others,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if they would be as weirded
Speaker 1: out by the stalking or if it would make sense
Speaker 1: to them that someone else was also paying a huge
Speaker 1: amount of attention. Yeah, it's like a Truman Show kind
Speaker 1: of scenario, which's like, clearly this is all for me
Speaker 1: and I am the star here. But the you know,
Speaker 1: they weren't just taking notes, right, Ben I mean, they
Speaker 1: were essentially word for word these conversations, you know, in
Speaker 1: the moment. And we have a great quote here from
Speaker 1: a clinical psychologist by the name of doctor Ali Matu
Speaker 1: who has a great YouTube show called The psych Show,
Speaker 1: and he kind of helped shed some light on what
Speaker 1: the surrounding context of this experiment might have been. So
Speaker 1: doctor Matu says, quote, the hallmark of psychological science is experimentation,
Speaker 1: highly controlling an environment and only manipulating one experimental variable.
Speaker 1: While this type of research can tell us a lot
Speaker 1: about the relationship between cause and effect, experimental studies can
Speaker 1: sometimes lack external validity. So give it to us, Ben,
Speaker 1: So that makes sense. The idea that if you really
Speaker 1: want to understand a process or a phenomenon, you want
Speaker 1: everything else in all possible senses to be the same.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why, and this is probably
Speaker 1: for a different episode, but that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why historically so many scientists were interested in experiments with
Speaker 1: identical twins. It's closest you're going to get to the
Speaker 1: same person, who is just two people, and then what,
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of what kind of stuff can
Speaker 1: you do? And that's met with some fascinating and then
Speaker 1: also disturbing results. And we certainly know that there are
Speaker 1: versions of this that are manipulated. But it makes me
Speaker 1: think of wildlife photographers or a documentarian that you know,
Speaker 1: when in order to paint the most realistic picture of
Speaker 1: an animal and it's natural habitat, you can't go poking
Speaker 1: in with a stick. You got to stay as far
Speaker 1: away as possible and not not let it know that
Speaker 1: you're there. And you know, after all, we're all just
Speaker 1: like animals basically, right, who are who are very aware
Speaker 1: of being observed by an external source. So the problem
Speaker 1: with an observational study wherein, if you and I were scientists,
Speaker 1: The problem with an observational study wherein you and I
Speaker 1: are also being observed by the participants in the study,
Speaker 1: whether or not they have consented to this. The problem
Speaker 1: is that it will it will falsify the information, right,
Speaker 1: it'll it'll taint. Taint. That's a great word, it's one
Speaker 1: of your favorite words. According to doctor Matu, this is
Speaker 1: known as objective self awareness. So we have another quote
Speaker 1: from him where he points out this can be helpful
Speaker 1: in a lot of situations. Banks and other high security environments.
Speaker 1: You security camera footage of yourself to trigger objective self
Speaker 1: awareness and reduce the chances that you might do something stupid.
Speaker 1: Don't be a dummy. You know you're being watched, right,
Speaker 1: you know, act accordingly exactly. It definitely changes your behavior,
Speaker 1: and that can be manipulated to get you to get
Speaker 1: in line. Yeah, I mean, yeah exactly. And then so
Speaker 1: if you and I are doing your hypothetical experiment and
Speaker 1: people know that we are observing them, then they may
Speaker 1: do things differently. They may try to do what they
Speaker 1: think we want them to do right. They may try
Speaker 1: to act as they assume society expects them to act right,
Speaker 1: their values, their mores, or you know, if they're if
Speaker 1: they're being a real pill about it, they might just
Speaker 1: do the opposite of what they think is expected. Either way,
Speaker 1: you cannot deny that that knowledge of the observer it
Speaker 1: has a serious effect. But in Henley and Hubble's time,
Speaker 1: this notion wasn't really a thing. This idea of objective
Speaker 1: self awareness hadn't really been codified, and they also were
Speaker 1: missing a very important thing that came about not do
Speaker 1: long after this study. But it's the idea of informed
Speaker 1: consent that was codified in the Nuremberg Code after World
Speaker 1: War Two, and the Nuremberg Code lays out very very
Speaker 1: explicitly what researchers are expected to share and what they're
Speaker 1: expected to receive from their subjects in the form of
Speaker 1: complete transparency. Let's call it so it goes. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to read a little bit of it. The voluntary
Speaker 1: concent of human subjectivity is absolutely essential. This means that
Speaker 1: the person involves should have legal capacity to give consent,
Speaker 1: should be so situated as to be able to exercise
Speaker 1: free power of choice without the intervention of any element
Speaker 1: of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form
Speaker 1: of constraint or coercion, and should have sufficient knowledge and
Speaker 1: comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as
Speaker 1: to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision,
Speaker 1: which is super important. We cannot overemphasize this. We can't
Speaker 1: say it enough because the idea of informed consent is
Speaker 1: one of the foundations, one of the cornerstones of what
Speaker 1: we would consider ethical science and experimentation. And when we
Speaker 1: say that they have to have this power of choice
Speaker 1: and that there shouldn't be an ulterior motive, we also
Speaker 1: mean that consent doesn't count as agreement if it's impaired
Speaker 1: by a number of other factors, like high levels of stress,
Speaker 1: you know, like making someone feel that they must sign
Speaker 1: this thing, right they have. If you have to sign
Speaker 1: a thing in an experiment and they quote unquote make
Speaker 1: you do it, you're not really agree. It's like a
Speaker 1: form of coercion or intimidation almost exactly, especially if there's
Speaker 1: pay involved. And you know, if people are submitting themselves
Speaker 1: to studies because they need medical treatment and there is
Speaker 1: that's involved, as as as part of being in the study,
Speaker 1: you get treatment that you couldn't otherwise afford, or if
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, they're these sleep studies where people
Speaker 1: get paid. You hear about them on the you know,
Speaker 1: college radio stations all the time. They're asking for you know,
Speaker 1: smokers studies. There's sleep studies and you get a little
Speaker 1: bit of money. But some people, you know, probably really
Speaker 1: need that money. And if there's a sense that you know,
Speaker 1: you have to sign this document where you're not going
Speaker 1: to get paid, right, and that's probably could taint the
Speaker 1: research even more. I actually found this really interesting paper
Speaker 1: about deception and informed consent in social behavior by Michael
Speaker 1: Chang Tech Tah who is a researcher at the chung
Speaker 1: Shan Medical University in Taiwan, and he really concisely goes
Speaker 1: through kind of the history of informed consent and deception
Speaker 1: and how they kind of have a relationship with each
Speaker 1: other because, as he points out, there in some situations
Speaker 1: a little deception is almost necessary to get the right results.
Speaker 1: So three examples of deception in research that he points out,
Speaker 1: one of which, you know, it's not in his list,
Speaker 1: but the story we're talking about with you know, the
Speaker 1: researchers hiding under beds definitely falls into this. The ones
Speaker 1: that he points out are the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which
Speaker 1: is kind of which was in nineteen thirty two to
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two in Tuskegee, Alabama. And the idea here
Speaker 1: was to isolate the natural progression of untreated syphilis in
Speaker 1: rural black men who were, you know, under the poverty line.
Speaker 1: And there were six hundred African American individuals who had
Speaker 1: control acted syphilis and they were gathered up and included
Speaker 1: in this study, but they were not given the knowledge
Speaker 1: of the fact that there was already an effective treatment
Speaker 1: for this disease and withholding that information from them put
Speaker 1: them in serious jeopardy. Well, they were also they were
Speaker 1: also actively lied to because they were under the impression
Speaker 1: that they were receiving treatment, but they were not, because
Speaker 1: they were just being used as guinea pigs to study
Speaker 1: progression of that. We've looked into this and other shows
Speaker 1: as well, and one of the big, even today controversial
Speaker 1: things is that the official stance of the US government
Speaker 1: is that they didn't infect people with syphilis. They just
Speaker 1: didn't help them when they said they would, or they
Speaker 1: said they were helping them, And then a lot of
Speaker 1: people will question that and they'll say, no, they injected
Speaker 1: them with syphilis and watched it happen under the guise
Speaker 1: of some sort of other medicinal treatment. But either case,
Speaker 1: it's villainous, it's inhuman to do that, to let these
Speaker 1: people deteriorate while there is clearly a cure. And this
Speaker 1: is actually covered in the Nuremberg Code as well. It
Speaker 1: says at the end of the first rule that this
Speaker 1: latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative
Speaker 1: decision by the experimental subject, there should be made known
Speaker 1: to him the nature, duration and purpose of the experiment,
Speaker 1: the method and means by which it is to be conducted,
Speaker 1: all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected, and the
Speaker 1: effects upon his health or a person which may possibly
Speaker 1: come from his participation in the experiment. So I would
Speaker 1: say that like knowingly depriving someone of a treatment that exists,
Speaker 1: is a form of harming that person's health. Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: especially like I said, when the person likely entered into
Speaker 1: the experiment because of the potential for getting help right.
Speaker 1: And that's why you will often see in a college study.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you participated in any of these
Speaker 1: during your cooling years. Now. I have not, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's never too late to try. Yeah, I did it.
Speaker 1: It's a I did it because I thought it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, and you never know if you're
Speaker 1: going to be in one of those influential studies that
Speaker 1: what was it. I did a number of things, and
Speaker 1: most of them were psychological things. There was one that
Speaker 1: was framed as a market research thing. But it became
Speaker 1: pretty apparent to me part way through they were asking
Speaker 1: us questions about gum, and it became apparent to me
Speaker 1: part way through It's like, this is not about gum.
Speaker 1: So this is exactly what we're talking about. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously they didn't, you know, fail to treat your late
Speaker 1: stage syphilis, but they were withholding information you do not
Speaker 1: have late stage syphi with my juicy fruit. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's almost as bad. Yeah, exactly, exactly, So in this
Speaker 1: in this paper that we were talking about from Michael
Speaker 1: Chang Tech Tie. Another example of deception in research is
Speaker 1: what's called the Good Samaritan Behavior Study, which was a
Speaker 1: study that was meant to observe so called bystander apathy.
Speaker 1: There was a situation that was manufactured in a New
Speaker 1: York subway train where a person pretended to be drunk
Speaker 1: or be an elderly person or distress or in distress
Speaker 1: in some way would collapse, and then the researchers measured
Speaker 1: and you know, took notes about how helpful people were,
Speaker 1: not helpful people were. And this actually came about because
Speaker 1: of you know about Kitty Geneviz. Is this the sexual assault. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was supposedly screamed, you know, bloody murder for half
Speaker 1: an hour while being brutally raped and murdered and being
Speaker 1: observed by people in the nearby apartment. Yeah, exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: and this was another example of you know, not informing
Speaker 1: the public about what's being done, but it could yield
Speaker 1: positive results. Great point here as well, This is while
Speaker 1: we're traveling into the darkest nature of the human heart.
Speaker 1: This can be applied very easily in your own life, folks,
Speaker 1: although I hope you never have to use this trick.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard this before. If you are in a
Speaker 1: situation where you are being robbed, where you are being assaulted,
Speaker 1: where someone is attempting to do violence towards you, and
Speaker 1: you are in a public space, you will probably have
Speaker 1: more success if you yell fire instead of help, because
Speaker 1: people operate under self interest and they will perk up.
Speaker 1: They may not feel like they are the person to
Speaker 1: help you, but they certainly do feel like they are
Speaker 1: a person who doesn't want to burn to death, which
Speaker 1: is depressing but valuable. Human nature is as a bugger,
Speaker 1: isn't there. Yeah, it's a real real piece of work.
Speaker 1: But there's one more example right there is the infamous
Speaker 1: I guess Milgram experiments. Yes, this is an interesting one
Speaker 1: in the in the source of a lot of like
Speaker 1: potential kind of pop culture touchstones or this can be
Speaker 1: used in I feel like I've seen a couple of
Speaker 1: movies that kind of try to go to great lengths
Speaker 1: to sort of take this to the most extreme conclusion
Speaker 1: that could possibly go to. But the Milgram Experiment was
Speaker 1: a series of psychological experiments done at Yale by Stanley Milgram,
Speaker 1: and they basically measured how willing the participants were to
Speaker 1: harm in some way their fellow man and woman, right,
Speaker 1: and this happened. The experiments began in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, this was during the trial of Adolf Eichman,
Speaker 1: and one of the things Milgram wanted to explore was
Speaker 1: could it possibly be true that members of the Nazi
Speaker 1: regime we're just following or just following orders right where they?
Speaker 1: How do people respond when an authority figure asked them
Speaker 1: or commands them to do an escalating series of tasks? So, well,
Speaker 1: how about we set up the Milgram experiment. What's going
Speaker 1: on in here? Yeah? Essentially, it was sort of an
Speaker 1: interviewer interviewee situation, much like how you and I are
Speaker 1: arranged right at this minute, only instead of us having
Speaker 1: a nice chat about ridiculous history, I would have a
Speaker 1: button that I could push when you answered a question
Speaker 1: incorrectly that in my mind delivered a quite painful electric
Speaker 1: shock to you exactly, and you would cry out in pain,
Speaker 1: and I would hear a sound that was associated with
Speaker 1: this electric shock being delivered. And you know, choose whether
Speaker 1: or not to continue this behavior. But you, in this
Speaker 1: case would not be choosing. Someone would be telling you
Speaker 1: to do it, excuse me, But I would be choosing
Speaker 1: whether or not to follow those orders or not. So
Speaker 1: there is an element of choice there. But therein lies
Speaker 1: the crux of the experiment. But the trick is, and
Speaker 1: the joke is that you're not actually being shocked, are you,
Speaker 1: ben No. This is the person in this situation who
Speaker 1: appears to be being shocked is actually a colleague of
Speaker 1: the person who is telling the participant to push the button.
Speaker 1: So there's the experimenter, right, And then there's the role
Speaker 1: you would be playing in this thought experiment, would be
Speaker 1: what they would call the teacher. And that's why you
Speaker 1: are rewarding or punishing right correct or in correct answers,
Speaker 1: And the learner is also working with the experimenter. And
Speaker 1: I have been assured that I will not be held
Speaker 1: responsible for injuring this person. And yeah, yeah, and there
Speaker 1: is no, there's no consequence to you other than the
Speaker 1: expectation to perform as you are instructed. And the thing
Speaker 1: about it is the voltage of the shocks will increase, right,
Speaker 1: And they wanted to see how far they would go,
Speaker 1: and there was a system of verbal prompts that could
Speaker 1: be added, you know, like please continue. The experiment requires
Speaker 1: that you continue, and one of the most important and
Speaker 1: one of the most problematic, you have no other choice.
Speaker 1: You must go on because a lot of people in
Speaker 1: that role, we're saying, hey, I think this is hurting
Speaker 1: this person. You know, I think this is going too far.
Speaker 1: And the knobs and the voltage, right, all the instruments
Speaker 1: to control that. We're clearly displayed in such a way
Speaker 1: that you could see it was becoming dangerous. Oh totally,
Speaker 1: And like it's it's you know, if you know anything,
Speaker 1: you know that this is a study. You know, you
Speaker 1: know that you are being you're part of some sort
Speaker 1: of experiment. So you're not like you know, in the military,
Speaker 1: you're not. There's there's no the stakes are are not
Speaker 1: high in that respect. So it is a great way
Speaker 1: of measuring, you know, what kind of jerks people can
Speaker 1: be when they're given a little taste of power, right right,
Speaker 1: And here's the here's the spookiest, most disturbing part of
Speaker 1: the mill experiment. They originally predicted bilgrim in Es team
Speaker 1: originally predicted that by the time it escalated to a
Speaker 1: three hundred volt shock when the victim refuses to answer,
Speaker 1: they said less than four percent of the subjects would
Speaker 1: still continue, and they thought maybe only a little over
Speaker 1: one tenth of one percent would administer the highest shock
Speaker 1: on the board, which was four hundred and fifty volts. However,
Speaker 1: in their first set of experiments, twenty six of the
Speaker 1: forty people playing that Rolenles role I like that rhyme
Speaker 1: that works out to about sixty five percent of the
Speaker 1: participants did go all the way to that four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty volt shock and they administered it. So obviously
Speaker 1: this is a pretty controversial field even today and their
Speaker 1: arguments for and against using deception in research. Author AJ
Speaker 1: Kimmel in American Psychology, in a piece entitled in Defense
Speaker 1: of Deception, said that using deception is the only way
Speaker 1: that you can actually get certain kinds of real data,
Speaker 1: real information, and if you totally outlaw deception in research,
Speaker 1: it will quote have the egregious consequence of preventing researchers
Speaker 1: from carrying out a wide range of important studies. Right,
Speaker 1: And it's obviously a pretty delicate balancing act. But you know, overall,
Speaker 1: informed consent is the law of the land today. And
Speaker 1: to bring it closer to a full circle today, which
Speaker 1: is always beautiful when we have this opportunity, you will
Speaker 1: be happy to know that Mary Henley and Mary and
Speaker 1: be Hubble did complete their study. No one was injured,
Speaker 1: no one died being crushed by a bed, which is
Speaker 1: a possibility, and they came up with some interesting conclusions
Speaker 1: that sound pretty solid today. They were confirming an earlier
Speaker 1: paper that argued the young child is essentially egocentric and
Speaker 1: becomes gradually more and more socialized, as evidenced by language
Speaker 1: use of language. So they were confirming this thing. And
Speaker 1: they found that although we have a common starting point
Speaker 1: in our species, you know, a trend toward egocentricity, as
Speaker 1: we grow, as we mature, and as we meet more
Speaker 1: people and become more socialized, we may still have those tendencies,
Speaker 1: but we learn how to self correct. You know, the
Speaker 1: planet is not full of billions of billions of people
Speaker 1: running around going me, Me, Me. I mean I always
Speaker 1: say it's self awareness is a really important trait in
Speaker 1: anybody that's not a total piece of trash, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean, I think if you can
Speaker 1: see yourself, you may still behave in an egocentric manner,
Speaker 1: but if you have the ability to kind of take
Speaker 1: a step back and say, oh man, maybe that was
Speaker 1: sort of not the best way to act, you can
Speaker 1: learn from from that. And I think that's something that
Speaker 1: you get over time in dealing with more people and
Speaker 1: being around more people in different perspectives. But yeah, they
Speaker 1: did determine that we don't actually fully shed that egocentric
Speaker 1: view at all. We just, you know, figure out different
Speaker 1: ways to frame it, I guess, yeah, and then and
Speaker 1: then catch ourselves catching correct. So this is not just
Speaker 1: an example of a funny thing that happened during a study.
Speaker 1: We've also found that there are some crucial examples throughout history.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to add one thing that you and
Speaker 1: I hadn't talked about off air, but I want to
Speaker 1: get your take on this. Sure does informed consent become
Speaker 1: more important in twenty seventeen, I would argue that it does,
Speaker 1: especially with the manipulation of individual participants on social media platforms. Facebook,
Speaker 1: for instance, that man yeah, has done several experiments that
Speaker 1: do clearly breach ethical guidelines for informed I think it
Speaker 1: was in twenty fourteen they had it was discovered they
Speaker 1: had manipulated almost a million users news feeds to see
Speaker 1: if that would affect their emotions, so purposely giving them
Speaker 1: news that was meant to make you sad, and then
Speaker 1: purposely giving other people news it was meant to make
Speaker 1: you happy. This was with the consent of Facebook or
Speaker 1: with the assistants. Facebook did it. It wasn't for their
Speaker 1: own Yes, I'd like to help their algorithms or something.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, Facebook did it, and so I would say
Speaker 1: big time not cool, right the James Grimmelman, Professor Law
Speaker 1: at University of Maryland, said that Facebook did not give
Speaker 1: its users informed consent under US Human Subjects Research law,
Speaker 1: and he said the study harm participants. This is bad
Speaker 1: even for Facebook. But I do feel like we have
Speaker 1: to point out Facebook's defenders, who of course all worked
Speaker 1: for Facebook. One of the researchers, a guy named Adam Kramer.
Speaker 1: He said it was the research was carried out because
Speaker 1: we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the
Speaker 1: people that use our products. We felt it was important
Speaker 1: to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive
Speaker 1: content leads to people fully negative or left out. So
Speaker 1: they said, we did it because we were worried about you,
Speaker 1: because we care about you. That's why we didn't tell you.
Speaker 1: It's for your own good. And there's there's no arguing
Speaker 1: that they probably did walk away with some really solid data,
Speaker 1: of course, And that's you're totally right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: there is kind of a version of the Henley and
Speaker 1: Hubble study that you could do today that would kind
Speaker 1: of fall under this informed consent rule where you could say,
Speaker 1: you know, do it any more controlled and ethical environment. Right,
Speaker 1: So all of this has to go through institutional review boards,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot more focus paid on protecting participants.
Speaker 1: You know, that might have scientists creeping around under beds
Speaker 1: and the three back alleys. So for example, studying behavior
Speaker 1: in a public space without getting informed consent from individuals,
Speaker 1: but without actually revealing their identity and talking about it
Speaker 1: more in terms of an aggregate. So like if you,
Speaker 1: for example, wanted to study public behavior in a place
Speaker 1: like Grand Central Station in New York, you could get
Speaker 1: a lot of great information just about how, for example,
Speaker 1: likely people were to you know, lend a hand to
Speaker 1: their their fellow humans or not. You could do that
Speaker 1: and get good information without describing the specifics of each case.
Speaker 1: So you know there there is a way to do this.
Speaker 1: But then with the Facebook stuff, man, that really throws
Speaker 1: me for a loot because they know everything about you already, right,
Speaker 1: and now they're now the ideas under the stated um
Speaker 1: goal of caring about you. Facebook users you know, worried
Speaker 1: about you. Under under that stated goal, they are they
Speaker 1: have found ways to trigger emotional mechanisms, which becomes dangerous
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be too preachy about it,
Speaker 1: but we should admit that it is a real thing.
Speaker 1: And honestly, no, if all this stuff is happening, I
Speaker 1: start thinking, well, why shouldn't I be able to conduct
Speaker 1: my own guerrilla social experiments? You know you do, Ben do?
Speaker 1: Why should I stop? Then? Because it's it makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: So so you know, one of the things that I
Speaker 1: did a lot in the past was I love traveling
Speaker 1: to different cities and then just choosing a different name
Speaker 1: and background and it never came back to bite me.
Speaker 1: But I was I was told by some friends. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to call it an intervention. Was told by
Speaker 1: some friends that you know, one day it might come
Speaker 1: back to bite me, pretending to be Chris from Boston
Speaker 1: who's just in town for the weekend. It was at
Speaker 1: the priest with the eyepatch. No, the priests with the
Speaker 1: eye but come on, man, so yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: priest with an eyepatch. But this brings this brings us
Speaker 1: to an interesting question. Do you have any social experiments
Speaker 1: that you have conducted or have you been the subject
Speaker 1: of a social experiment? We'd like to know, and you
Speaker 1: can tell us directly at our email address, which is
Speaker 1: ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. But wait, there's more. There
Speaker 1: is a little bit more. We've got Facebook, We've got Instagram.
Speaker 1: We're still working on the vision board. I've added some
Speaker 1: glitter and some paste and some kind of like unicorn string.
Speaker 1: Yes I made that up. That's not real, but it's
Speaker 1: it's really shaping up and one day, one day, we're
Speaker 1: going to get that out on Pinterest. But not today,
Speaker 1: my friend, not today today we are going to conclude
Speaker 1: our episode, but of course not our show. You can
Speaker 1: catch Nolan I on some more ridiculous adventures through history
Speaker 1: very soon, and we hope you will have a good one. Everyone.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.