All Evil Starts with 15 Volts

Ever heard of the foot in the door phenomenon? It is the notion that complying to small requests makes one more likely to comply to larger ones after. In Milgram's experiment, it is unlikely anyone would have administered the highest shock at the onset of the experiment; rather, participants went from a seemingly harmless 15 volt shock, up to 30, then 45, then 60, and so on... every time going up by only 15 volts. Having complied to so many previous requests, and having climbed the ladder so steadily, the refusal to continue becomes less and less likely.

In keeping in line with my previous post, I offer you the following video taken from TED: Ideas Worth Sharing. TED stands for: Technology, Entertainment, Design. The mission of the organization is to rally people from the three worlds of TED and offer them a prestigious forum to share their ideas that could change the world (hummm... seems like we should look into sending John Buck to that venue at some point... something for a future post!).

Before you watch the video, here is a bit of context. Philip Zimbardo is a social psychologist who became famous after he conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment. The following is a great summary of the experiment, by Stephanie Cox:

''An article titled “Demonstrating the Power of Social Situations via a Simulated Prison Experiment” that was released through the American Psychological Association summed up the Stanford Prison experiment’s results by concluding that the “Stanford Prison Experiment has become one of psychology's most dramatic illustrations of how good people can be transformed into perpetrators of evil, and healthy people can begin to experience pathological reactions - traceable to situational forces.”'' The experiment also highlights the powerful influence role-playing has on shaping people's behaviour.

In the following video, Zimbardo does a wonderful job at describing how situations can foster good and bad behaviour. It is one really worth watching!