Why DON'T you kill people?

[J T]

The Milgram shock studies and the Stanford Prison Experiment are both terrifying to me. All you need is a little authority, and everyday people are capable of horrible things. I know that Zimbardo specifically selected for the most normal subjects he could find across a variety of tests.

Both Milgrim and Zimbardo were, in part, reacting to the Nuremberg trials against the Nazis and were hoping that Americans wouldn't "just follow orders" or abuse their positions of power, but that obviously didn't turn out to be the case.

However, there were a fair amount of people in Milgram's study that stopped as the experiment started to appear dangerous, despite the experimenter's urging to "Please continue. The study must go on." I'd like to know more about those people and what got them to walk away.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

This is a really neat topic of conversation, I just wish I had something to add to it.

I'll have to give this more thought.

Right in the middle of finals too.

[chilimac]

It's all a matter of hormones and neurochemicals. If you have unusually high testosterone, you're going to get angry more easily and be more aggressive, and you won't need much motivation to become violent. However, if you lower the testosterone, that same person will become more tolerant and easy going, and caring and compassionate. The complete opposite.

Serotonin also plays a role. Low serotonin will cause a person to be sad and pessimistic. A normal level of serotonin will cause one to be happy and optimistic.

If you mix low serotonin (depression) with high testosterone (aggression), you end up with a dangerous person.

Most gamers, due to a lack of exercise and excessive body fat, have low testosterone, which prevents them from becoming violent. Also, in a male, body fat will cause testosterone to convert to estrogen, and estrogen increases serotonin. So a lot of gamers not only have low testosterone, but high serotonin as well, which is the exact opposite of what makes a person violent.

[Gamerforlife]

I could probably add the Chris Benoit situation for wrestling fans. Supposedly, enough concussions and damage to his brain caused a man that many, many people loved and respected to kill his family and hang himself

Many people still speak of him with respect and love and just don't understand how the man they knew is the same man who committed that horrible act. Apparently, it was all tied to physical toll of being a wrestler on his brain.

I hear people are starting to be concerned about this in the NFL as well. I'm sure it's something boxers have to think about to.

[DinnerX]

1. I'm alive and I most always like being alive, so why would I want to take that away from someone else when I know how important it is to me?

2. Assorted beliefs, both religious and non-religious, about respecting other people's lives.

The first one can break down during particularly unpleasant times, but the second one doesn't.

[Erik_Twice]

Because when I kill people there's no numbers going up.

I can't like, dissapoint the numbers, man.



/sorry

[J T]

As an aside...

Here is some interesting footage and commentary from Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, for those that are unfamiliar with it, or have just never seen what happened.

And starting at 5 minutes into this video you can see footage of the original Milgram experiment.

[Gamerforlife]

You guys know the basis for a lot of zombie fiction is basically what does it take for a person to kill, or to cross lines that normal human beings would not. We see all the time in The Walking Dead comic, and on the show as well. Once decent human beings becoming unrepentant killers

The idea being that two things can make a person a killer

1. Breakdown of society, and hence no laws to answer to
2. The need to survive, and sacrificing others so that you can live

[MrPopo]

However, there were a fair amount of people in Milgram's study that stopped as the experiment started to appear dangerous, despite the experimenter's urging to "Please continue. The study must go on." I'd like to know more about those people and what got them to walk away.

The variations on the Milgram study were what really started to define the parameters where people "followed orders". Closer contact between the tester and the testee, for example, meant that the tester was less likely to follow orders, probably due to the testee being more humanized.

[o.pwuaioc]

Another point to consider is evolutionary/biological psychology. If we were true pacifists from the get-go, then we wouldn't be around today. As much as we try to prefer logic and reason over are emotions, hormones sometimes win the battle.

*The implication, of course, is that we all have it in us, but that we fight off violent tendencies in order to stay alive in society, which greatly betters are odds of procreation.