Experimenter Page #2

No response from the learner must be

interpreted as a wrong answer.

Still laughing,

trying to hide face with hand.

Something's happening

to that man in there.

Can you please go check that

everything's okay?

Not once we've started.

Please continue, teacher.

So you accept all responsibility?

The responsibility

is mine, correct.

Continue, please.

Night, grass, duck, cloth."

Clenching fist,

pushing it onto table.

- How are you holding up, Alan?

- Necklace,

moon, paint."

Three hundred and seventy five volts.

Dangerous, severe shock.

Let me out of here, let me out.

Get me out of here.

You can't hold me in here.

Get me out.

- What is this?

- I just liked the picture.

The colors... Don't you?

Yeah.

Take it. It's yours.

Why don't you mail it to me?

Or we could leave it here

and you can move in?

That'd be easier, wouldn't it?

"Wet:
Night, grass, duck, cloth."

"Wet duck." Four hundred

and thirty five volts.

Huh.

Ohh.

Okay, um... "Brave: Woman, soldier,

dog, horse."

"Brave woman."

Four hundred and fifty volts.

Okay, what now?

I'm at the end at 450 volts.

Continue, please.

The last switch again.

Yeah, but...

but he could be dead in there.

The experiment

requires that you continue.

Go on, please.

And his health doesn't mean anything?

Whether the learner likes it or not,

we must continue.

I'm sorry, look,

I don't mean to be rude, sir,

but I think you should

go look in on him. I mean,

all you have to do is look in on him.

Look into that door.

'Cause I'm not getting any noise,

I'm not getting no sound here.

We must continue.

Go on, please,

the next word is "white".

Cloud, horse,

rock, house."

White horse.

Four hundred and fifty volts again.

"Fair:
Price, rule, skin, sky."

Wrong. 450 again.

All right, thank you.

We are done with the experiment.

Okay.

I'm just going

to speak with the learner.

I think he might be a little upset.

In the meantime,

my assistant would like

to ask you a few questions,

- if you don't mind?

- Yeah, surely.

Dr. Milgram?

How do you do?

Uh, first I'd like...

No, thank you.

- I'd like to ask you some questions.

- Yes, surely.

Uh, why did you give him,

the man in the other room,

the learner, the shocks?

Well, as you could see,

I wanted to stop 'cause...

each time you gave him a shock

the guy hollered.

Did it sound as if he was in pain?

Yeah.

Did he say he wanted you

to stop the experiment?

Yes.

Did he have a right

to stop the experiment?

I don't know.

Why didn't you stop,

at that point,

- when he asked you to stop?

- Why didn't I stop?

- Mm-hm.

- Well, 'cause...

'Cause he told me to continue.

Why did you listen to that man

and not the man in pain?

Well, 'cause... 'cause I thought

the experiment depended on me.

- And nobody told me to stop.

- He asked you to stop.

That... That's true, but he's the...

you know, the subject, shall we say?

Who was the...

Who bore the responsibility for the

fact this man was being shocked?

I don't know.

Could you fill out items six

through 18 on the questionnaire

in front of you, please?

Here's a pen.

Ah, I get a little skittish.

Uh... nervous.

As I explained to

Mr. Wallace in the other room,

this shock generator's actually

used for small animals

for laboratory experiments.

Mice, rats, and so forth.

The visual designation

is actually misleading.

This shock generator's actually

been adjusted so that the shocks

were just slightly stronger

than the shock you experienced.

Are you all right?

Yeah, I'm fine, you know.

No hard feelings. I probably would've

done the same thing myself.

Ciao.

Each subject has a

reconciliation with the learner.

We ask the subject

to maintain a secrecy

so that future recruits

aren't tipped off.

Down the line

we get more candid.

The first thing

I wanna tell you is

the man in the other room

wasn't being shocked.

The only real shock was

the one that you felt early on.

We're really interested in

studying your reaction

to having to inflict pain on

someone you don't know.

The experiment's about

obeying orders.

The man in the other room

works with us as a team.

Jim, you can come out now.

He wasn't really being shocked,

he's perfectly fine.

We weren't trying to fool you,

we're just interested

in studying your reactions.

Man, you dog.

I... I was worried sick.

I thought I was...

You're a good fella.

No hard feelings, no hard feelings.

But you thought

you were really shocking him.

When he wasn't making noise

anymore,

that's when I was worried.

I didn't wanna go on with it.

- But you did go on with it.

- Yeah, but I did not want to.

You saw how it was,

how I was fighting it.

Well, you understand why

we had to do it this way.

We wanted to get true reactions

from people, you see?

You'll receive a copy of the

report when the project's over.

Until then, we ask you not to

say anything.

You may end up talking to someone

who is a potential participant.

How do you feel about having

come down here and done this,

now that you know?

I mean...

Now that I know the truth,

I don't mind.

Well, thank you very much

for coming down.

We certainly do appreciate you

giving us your time.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Alan here will help you out.

We think you'll find the report

very interesting.

Thanks. Yeah, thank you.

I still get nervous.

You're cool as ice.

Maybe all those years of

teaching high school

- gives you sort of a...

- Poker face?

Discipline, I was thinking.

You're like a gravedigger.

I think you mean undertaker.

The domino effect starts to kick in,

in the teacher's mind,

once he assumes the role.

Get some women in here.

Get my wife in this seat...

We've got nine kids,

the first squawk

she'd stop the whole shebang.

Nine kids.

Are you sure about that?

Oh, yeah. I have enough saved up

to give 'em each a pair of socks

if the electricity gets me.

You're a brave man, Jim.

All right, next subject's due.

I should get going.

Some enchanted evening

You will meet a stranger

I was born in the Bronx, 1933.

My father's from Hungary,

my mother Romania,

Jewish immigrants. It was a

matter of chance they arrived

in the US as children and

managed to raise a family in

New York instead of being swept

up into the extermination camps

and murdered by the Nazis,

like millions of others like them

in Eastern Europe.

That's really what's behind

the obedience experiments.

The inkling I was chasing...

the thing that troubled me.

How do civilized human beings

participate in destructive,

inhumane acts?

How was genocide implemented so

systematically, so efficiently?

And how did the perpetrators of

these murders

live with themselves?

My daughter, Michele,

a precocious child

who at this point in the story

hasn't yet been born,

used to tell the kids at school,

"My dad's a psychologist,

but not the kind who talks to

people lying down.

He's an experimental

psychologist.

He does experiments."

First let's determine which of

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