Experimenter
is being promoted at the 2015 Sundance
Film Festival this week. The film is about psychologist Stanley Milgram,
whose 1961 obedience
experiment famously demonstrated how obedient people could be when they are
confronted with real or perceived authority.
I remember reading
about this project while I was pursuing my undergraduate degree psychology.
In Milgram's study, participants were made to deliver electric shocks of various and increasing
intensity to other people. The Yale University psychologist was interested to
see at what point and under what circumstance a participant would disobey
authority: i.e., refuse to administer the shocks, which were portrayed as
extremely painful and possibly causing permanent physical damage to the
recipient. In fact, the “shocks” were imaginary and the people who were
supposedly receiving them were actually members of Milgram’s research team. Ultimately,
the researcher reported that 65 percent of the participants were willing to
administer the electric shocks to others despite the extreme stress they
reported feeling while administering the shocks and the pain they believed they
were causing others.
Remembering and
thinking about this study made me cringe, but it also made me wonder: Could
John Kappas, Ph.D.’s models of suggestibility explain the social psychologist’s
observations? Following are reasons why I think the Hypnosis
Motivation Institute founder’s theories work very well to explain why Milgram’s
research participants were willing (albeit begrudgingly) to continue to
administer those shocks.
1. He
had authority. Milgram was conducting his research in a prominent and
respected academic university. Since he held a Ph.D. in psychology his subjects
would have called him “Dr.,” which automatically implies a position of power or
authority.
2. He
had a message: The psychologist told the participants what to do and
when to do it, and he did not waver from his instruction even when they voiced
concerns about the harm the continued shocks must be doing to the shock recipients.
3. He
overloaded the participants’ conscious and subconscious minds with
written and auditory information (message units) about the intensity of the
electric shocks being delivered and the sounds/exclamations of pain that the
recipients uttered. Milgram also continued to deliver his authoritarian patter
of instructions that the participants should continue to administer the shocks
even if and when they wanted to stop taking part in the experiment.
Afterward,
Milgram and his team debriefed the participants to explain that the electric
shocks used during the experiment were imaginary and reassured them that no one
had been harmed in any way. I’m sure that was a relief for those who had obeyed
each one of the psychologist’s instructions to complete the experiment. The
questionable and controversial ethics of his research design reportedly resulted
in the American Psychological Association
creating ethical standards for ensuring the physical, emotional and
psychological well-being of participants in future studies.
I also follow
the APA’s guidelines for ethics and professional conduct when I work with
hypnotherapy clients. I will not and would not ask you to say or do anything
while in hypnosis that you would not say or do while in a fully alert state of
awareness. Furthermore, your subconscious mind would not comply with any
hypnotic suggestion(s) that contradicted your ethical and moral beliefs. For
more information about hypnosis and how it works, check out the Hypnosis
Facts link on my website.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in
Southern California. She graduated with honors from the
Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about
Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2015
