Are you evil?
In the 1960s, a psychologist named Stanley Milgram did an experiment to measure obedience. The essence was simple, but the results were controversial and more than a little scary.
The experiment was designed to see if Nazi soldiers were responsible for the crimes they were ordered to commit. At it simplest, the experiment had a subject who was told to ask questions to an unseen individual. If the subject answered incorrectly (or refused to answer) the subject was told to push a button. The button would send a shock to the unseen person. The shocks increased as the unseen person continued to fail, culminating with the unseen individual screaming in pain.
Before you get too upset – -the unseen person was completely fake, and the shocks didn't do anything, but the subject of the study didn't know that was the case. The point was to see if the subject of the study (the person giving the shocks) would refuse to continue the experiment out of morality. This video re-creates what is now called "the Milgram Experiment" to see if people are more evil than they believe they are.
via Curiosity
