Fascinating stuff, if also a bit disturbing.
5 Psychological Experiments That Explain the Modern World
“Cognitive Dissonance”, “Diffusion of Responsibility”, and “learned helplessness” are phrases that regularly do the rounds, but where do they come from and what (do) they mean?Well, here are the important psycho-social experiments that teach us about the way people think, but more than that they actually explain how our modern world works, and just how we got into this mess.
The Experiment: Let’s start with the most famous. Beginning in 1963, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments now referred to as the Milgram Obedience Experiments.
The setting is simple, Subject A is told to conduct a memory test on Subject B, and administer electric shocks when he makes mistakes. Of course, Subject B does not exist, and the electric shocks are not real. Instead, actors would cry, ask for help or pretend to be unconscious, all the while Subject A would be encouraged to carry on administering the shocks.
The vast majority of subjects carried on with the test and gave the shocks, despite the distress of “Subject B”.
The Conclusion: In his paper on this experiment Stanley Milgram coined the term “diffusion of responsibility”, describing the psychological process by which a person can excuse or justify doing harm to someone if they believe it’s not really their fault, they won’t be held accountable, or they do not have a choice.
The Application: Almost literally endless. All institutions can use this phenomenon to pressure people into acting against their own moral code. The army, the police, hospital staff – wherever there is a hierarchy or perceived authority, people will fall victim to the diffusion of their own responsibility.
NOTE: They made a decent film about Milgram, and the backlash his experiments caused called Experimenter. In recent years there has been a major pushback on this experiment, with articles in the MSM attacking the findings and methodology and new “researchers” claiming “it does not prove what you think it does.”
Though they’re all quite interesting, the story of the “Monkey Ladder” experiment has to be my favorite of them, for reasons you’ll understand when you read about it. The takeaway?
So, there they are. Five of the most critical pieces of psychological research ever done, hopefully going forward nobody will be left in the dark when these concepts or experiments are referenced.
But the point of this article is not to just make you, the reader, understand these experiments…it is also meant to remind you that they do.
The people in charge, the elite, the 1%, “The Party”. The powers that be – or shouldn’t be – whatever you want to call them.
They know these experiments. They have studied them. They’ve probably replicated them countless times on grand scales and in unethical ways we can barely imagine. Who knows exactly what takes place in the dank dark dungeons of the deep state?
Just remember, they know how the human mind works.
- They know they can make people do anything if they reassure them they won’t be held responsible.
- They know that they can rely on people to abuse any power they’re given, OR believe they are powerless if they’re treated that way.
- They know that peer pressure will change a lot of people’s minds even in the face of undeniable reality, especially if you make them feel completely alone.
- They know that if you offer people only a small reward for completing a task, they will make up their own psychological justification for taking it.
- They know that people will mindlessly do whatever everyone else is doing without ever asking for a reason.
- And they know that people will happily believe something that never happened if it is repeated often enough.
They know all of this. And they use that knowledge all the time – All. The. Time.
Every commercial you see, every article you read, every movie they release, every item on the news, every “viral” social media post, every trending hashtag.
Every war. Every pandemic. Every headline.
All of them are constructed with these principles in mind to elicit specific emotional reactions that steer your behaviour and beliefs. That’s how the media works, not to inform you, not to entertain you…but to control you.And they have it down to a science. Always remember that.
Indeed they do. The ginned up CoVid panic proved that beyond all possibility of doubt or debate.
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The problem is smart people have learned not to believe anything media says. Kinda like Sgt. York asking the kraut officer which way we be heading to the American lines.