May i have your seat?

 Over the weekend, I was browsing through some interesting articles and I found one in a psychology section about an experiment that was conducted on how people respond to authority. With a backing in psychology, having studied it and developed an interest for it for two years, I found the article very interesting and quite engaging.  

Remembering some psychology, I recalled that Stanley Milgram was a very famous psychologist who conducted many experiments, some of which studied the extent to which people obey authority. His most famous experiment along these lines was that in which he found that every person had the potential to comply with authority till the point of murder. He had asked subjects to administer what was said to be high voltage shocks to people. The results of this experiment were upsetting. Milgram found that people would follow instructions however terrible they were, even if it meant injuring another human being. There is a controversy on Milgram’s approach toward conducting such an experiment as the subjects then reported to be traumatized so greatly they could not lead a normal life. 

This article, however, talks about another one of his experiments he conducted. In this experiment he studied our fear of breaking rules, however senseless they seem. In this experiment he asked grad students to go into New York subways and ask passengers for their seats. Dr. Stanley Milgram was interested in studying the unwritten rules that govern people’s behaviour. He hypothesized that the passengers would readily give up their seats without asking for any reason. Ironically, it was more of an inconvenience for the person asking for the seat than for the passenger. As a result of this experiment, 68% of the passengers that were asked directly got up readily without even asking for any reason. Ironically, it was more of an inconvenience for the person asking for the seat than for the passenger. 

Not only did I learn about what is termed one of the greatest breakthroughs in psychology, but I also began to remember and think about Milgrams famous experiment. I first read through the article and got a gist of what it was trying to say. I read through it a couple more times and then fully understood it. I found myself constantly linking this experiment to previous studies of Milgrams. I began to remember some of the psychology I had studied under human behaviour. Psychology as a subject never failed to interest me and I was passionate about learning new studies of human social behaviour.

After reading through the article many times, I condensed the information I had retained in point form in my head. This made it easier for me to understand something. There were a lot of questions that came up as I read it. When was this experiment conducted? And how much did being a part of this study mentally disturb the students? How did Milgram think of such a simple experiment that could study something as complex as human behaviour? How many times was the experiment done? Has it been done again after he did it? 

In order to get some of my questions answered, I had to read up on some more articles on the web. I searched for as many articles as I could find. I spent a good hour studying this topic. 

The grad students were affected by this experiment. It was reported that some felt ‘sick to their stomach’ as they approached fellow passengers to ask for their seats. Others could not bring themselves to actually ask for a seat. When the students leaned down to ask their fellow travellers, they became pale and almost breathless as a result. This shows how much of the things we do and say are governed by rules. If there weren’t any rules then it would probably result in complete chaos. Some passengers, thinking that the student was ill, immediately got up and gave their seat without asking for a reason. Some were utterly taken aback, but gave up their seat nevertheless. Other passengers told the students off with things like- ‘where are your manners?’, if you were a lady, I would’. 

Milgrams experiment was inspired from a complaint his mother made one day when she said that no one on the subway offered her a seat. He then thought about this and decided to find out that if you asked for a seat, would one be given to you. This was how the simple idea of the experiment was conceived. 

This experiment was done again a couple of times. And each time, the people would feel a sense of paleness or sickness overcoming them as they walked up to their fellow passengers. But the results still remained the same- 13 out of 15 people gave up their seat for others. 

My learning over the weekend was fuelled by my passion for psychology. I not only read the article but also researched on this new topic and understood it completely.