I am not sure if we can understand much from the study. In my opinion it is very hard to judge whether someone will actually torture a person under such hypotehetical conditions. For instance, if i were to take part in the study i would know in the back of my head that under no circumstances is the person actually being hurt, as this would break ethical compliance regulations. Therefore the so called study becomes a game as far as the torturer is concerned as they are given unregulated
"power" over somebody with no negative consiquences (other than emotional). As for the torturers
that are disturbed by the sequence of events and choose to stop themselves, they are simply more
sensitive than others and refuse to take part in such a game. The study must strive for authenticity if we are to learn anythink about human behaviour in this regard, but there in lies the problem.
I am not sure if we can understand much from the study. In my opinion it is very hard to judge whether someone will actually torture a person under such hypotehetical conditions. For instance, if i were to take part in the study i would know in the back of my head that under no circumstances is the person actually being hurt, as this would break ethical compliance regulations. Therefore the so called study becomes a game as far as the torturer is concerned as they are given unregulated
"power" over somebody with no negative consiquences (other than emotional). As for the torturers
that are disturbed by the sequence of events and choose to stop themselves, they are simply more
sensitive than others and refuse to take part in such a game. The study must strive for authenticity if we are to learn anythink about human behaviour in this regard, but there in lies the problem.