Watch the Full Documentary
Livevideo seems to have been down for a long while (1/31/09)
Video Part 1 of 2: The Human Behavior Experiments
Video Part 2 of 2: The Human Behavior Experiments
try downloading it using bittorrent
The Human Behaviour Experiments.torrent
Stream it here Don't forget to set it for high quality by pressing HQ in the menu(triangle button). To get full screen, press the button(rectangle) left of the menu.
*turns out the HQ button is available only once you press play*
Bonus Videos
Video CBC Discussion - The Big Picture with Avi Lewis
Interview with McDonald's Manager
If you do not have time to watch the whole documentary right now, here is a teaser on YouTube.com
I'd like to hear what you and your friends think about this documentary. Please, leave a comment about your opinions.
20 comments:
This is a great documentary. How did you get the full version posted to the web? How long will you keep this site up?
I didn't post it, I used my internet skills to find it. This site will be here forever I guess. I may just update the video files if it goes down. I've been getting hits from http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~pa34/PHIL330SECONDESSAYFALL07.htm which means that the site is at least being used.
Thank you for the link, Andrew. This sort of documentary is quite valuable in today's world, where most people are unaware of such things.
I am so grateful that you have this up! I wanted to use it in my classes, but it's not available to purchase anywhere. Thanks!
I wish there was some way to buy this material or download it on my desktop. I use it in my 11th grade class room when we study stanley milgram. Not all of it is school appropriate, but I really appreciate that you have it on your site!
This documentary airs on the Sundance channel every now and then, their version contains more footage as well; but since I cannot find any other copy, this is very encouraging.
I think the most important part is the end where a comment is made to the effect: It is easy to say, well I would never allow such a thing; but statistically, odds are, you would.
It is important to remember, if people did not follow rules and rolls so well, society could not function.
Humans are quite depressing. :(
Ah, well done. Thank you for posting this. I love this doc to death!
Excellent documentary. Very interesting insights into the behaviour of humans given specific circumstances. It goes to show that you really do not know how you would act until you're involved in a situation like this.
As anonymous says above, rules and power structures are necessary in society, it just depends on the ones in place.
By the way, your link to Robin Dunbar links to a page about the town Dunbar in Scotland! Would love to see the page you meant to link to.
Thanks!
I watched the show on Sundance a few days ago and then found a post somewhere describing how to find information about the McDonalds strip search incident. I highly recommend that you do a search using the key words "strip search scam" or whatever. The abc news Primetime report from 2005 is readily available on line which shows more of the security camera video. The links to topics like the "foot in door" technique for obtaining compliance with actions that are beyond comprehension are particularly illuminating.
I had no idea of the level of vunerability and cruelty that characterize humans. I will never view a fast food restaurant the same way again.
The assistant manager of the McDonalds that performed the search seems to be totally convinced she is an innocent victim even though she confiscated the clothes, car keys, and cell phone of an 18 year old girl, locked the items in her car and left the girl vunerable to what happened. The manager's indifference to the suffering of the girl is the most disturbing part. I am not refering to the assault by her boyfriend, but rather prior to that she totally ignored the fact that there was a naked, crying, trembling, tiny girl begging relentlessly for help. It was chilling that while this was going on the manager was giggling with the impersonator on the phone like he was an old friend.
This evening I watched a DVD of "The Human Behaviour Experiments" that I burned when the progam aired a few days ago on the Sundance channel. While watching the program I was reminded of something I saw on the Primetime video of the McDonalds's strip search incident.
During the Zimbardo prison experiment the prisoners were required to wear "dresses" as a form of humilation. That begs the question as to how do you humilate a woman with clothing? Total nudity is not the answer since women are quite adept at hiding key features by folding their arms and legs and scooting backwards slightly to hide their butt crack. There is a certain dignity in this position which suggests there is a better way to humilate a woman with clothes.
If you view the McDonald's video you notice that Louise's covering was not quite large enough to be totally effective and more importantly it required one hand to hold the garment in place. Louise was forced to hold one arm in a twisted position behind her back, essentially a stress position. This left only one hand free to groom herself. If you watch the video her free hand is constantly busy adjusting her hair and cleaning her face. Because she has the use of only one hand she cannot adequately take care of her hair which requires two hands, one hand for positioning and one to apply the clips. Plus her tears no doubt made her nose run which she could not blow because she did not have kleenexs. Even if she did she could not do a good job since blowing your nose is best done using two hands to hold the kleenex. These factors caused her appearance to steadily deteriorate which is humilating in a subtle way.
It is not clear that the impersonator suggested that Louise cover herself with an apron, but it is quite possible since he knew what McDonald's employees wore.
My point of all this is that I suspect that the police impersonator knew of both the Zimbardo prison experiment and the Milgram obediance experiment.
Of course, it is more probable that the situation itself elicted the behaviors that paralleled those observed in both experiments and that the impersonator was creating what was, in his mind, the most humilating situation possible.
Just I thought...
In my original post I suggested that in the Mt. Washington McDonalds incident Donna Summers was exhibiting some of the traits exhibited by the both the tester in the Milgram experiment and the prison guard in the Zimbrado research.
In his testimony Bradley, (the cook who would not go along with the callers instructions) said that Donna giggled while talking on the phone with impersonator. This behavior parallels the tester in the Milgram experiment who looked at his controller and giggled after administering a shock to the learner.
Donna's behavior also paralleled the prison guard who was referred to "John Wayne" in that they both approached their "duties" with enthusiam and with a complete lack of understanding and empathy of the effect of their behavior on the prisoner.
In my second post I described how the situation for Louise Ogborn was energy draining (insufficient clothing to maintain body temperature and one arm always in a stress position, to see what I am talking about, do an image search on Google for "Louise Ogborn" and you will see a still of her during her captivity) and spirit draining.
Her situation was spirit draining in that when she complied with each request to remove an item of clothing (ie cooperating) it led to still another request for a piece of clothing until she had nothing to give. Even at this level of compliance her spirit would have taken a severe blow when, after totally humilating herself to prove she was not hiding anything, she then saw her cell phone, car keys, and clothes disappear from the room as Donna locked those items in her car.
It is no wonder that she complied with Nix's demands. Her situation was cascading out of control and with a new individual in the room making new demands she would have complied with any request in order to have some success at improving her situation.
Since the behaviors of the players were predictable as far as the experiments of Milgram and Zimbardo, what about the barrel, i.e. McDonalds corporate culture? The impersonator was so successful because of an inherent vulnerability in any organization of people. Cooperating people are required even in cultures operating at subsistent levels. The vulnerability is that when the defining boundaries of the organization are not clear or incorrect, the members of the organization will work within the system and do their job even to the detriment of the organization and the individuals within that organization. An attribute of the organization is its relationship with outside enities such as the police and here is where the corporate structure broke down. Cooperation with the police has to have boundaries within the organization. A vague directive such as "work with the police" led to a manager's office in a restaurant taking on attributes of Abu Ghraib prison.
Link is dead, can you please upload it again?
thank you so much for posting this, best special on the subject around.
this is however an incomplete version, the one that Aired on the sundance channel had several more experiments on the bystander effect.
What behaviors are exhibited in this experiment?
I re-watched the "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" last night and it is interesting that the MPs involved in the abuse thought they were victims of their values. They said things like they were obeying orders like good soldiers and that they believed that their process was helping to stop violence. It was not clear if the victims thought their compliance was due to their values. There were indications that the intensity of the abuse increased over time.
With respect to the strip-search hoax incident at Mt Washington, Louise said that the reason she complied with the extreme demands of the impersonator was because she was taught to obey adults. However, that kind of thinking makes it look like she was a victim of her values. I suspect she was more a victim of the situation and that her compliance was involuntary. At one point in the Primetime video Louise is required to sit on the desk and put her ankles on either shoulder of Nix. It is hard to understand how following her belief that she should obey adults led to this highly vulnerable and exposed position. I would not be surprised if the threat of violence was also not a factor in the compliance.
In a comparison between the Hinesville McDonalds incident in 2003 and the Mount Washington incident, the supervisors were directed to obtain one piece of clothing at a time and place it in a garbage bag. In both these situations it seems the responses of the victims were more a function of a shifting context. There seemed to be a tempo to the the abuse where the victims were given a brief time to adjust to the situation. This is similiar to the Milgram experiment where the Voltage levels were slowly
increased so the tester could adjust to the idea that the learner was surviving the shocks.
One of the news articles suggested that it was a principle of escalating demands that allowed the abuse to go so far. It may be more than that, because the demand for Louise to sit on the desk and put herself at risk happened just 25 minutes after Nix first took her apron away. Many details are missing but what is known for sure from the video time stamps is that Louise went from a normal teen-ager who would not think of leaving the house until she had spent hours in front of a mirror to an individual complying with a request to sit naked on a desk and place her ankles on the shoulders of a stranger old enough to be her grandfather in just 85 minutes.
This kind of resignation of self seems beyond comprehension, but the widespread success of the the impersonator demonstrates that most of us may be powerless in the face of a pre-planned aggressively implemented set of demands. Compliance may not be a response to an authority figure but to a process and the process is what constitutes authority.
People who are prone to follow procedures and have more education may be more vulnerable to this sort of authority. That was something discovered in the Milgram experiment, so it may not be a coincidence that Louise was in the top ten in her high school class and has college potential and aspirations.
In my previous posts I commented on the precision and power of the abuse on Louise Ogborn which will haunt her for the rest of her life. In the "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" documentary a psychologist remarked that psychological torture is far more damaging and more difficult to treat than physical abuse. It is difficult to say what the long term effects of Louise's abuse will have on her but it seems to be within reason to say that depression and PTSD are going to plauge her for the rest of her life. Her ordeal
lasted four hours.
What about the Iraqi victims featured in "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib"? They were detained and abused for up to 5 months. Some even died. If this does not fit the criteria for a war crime then what does?
When I was a young army officer back in the 70s I was taught that there is no statute of limitations on war crimes. I have heard the arguments that the detainees were not POWs but if the military is doing the detaining then that argument seems absurd.
I am neither a Democrat or Republican since I consider both parties variations of the same theme that government has the ability to help, as in "I am from the government and I am here to help". That too is a ridiculous concept since by nature governments get their way by the use of force. However, I have a fantasy along the lines of that
TV commercial where "firemen" or "roadies" are running things. What if amnesty international ran the world? What if President-elect Obama takes his enormous political capital and reopens the Abu Ghraib case and tries Rumsfeld, and the generals that followed his orders, as war criminals? I doubt if the United States, or humans for that matter, can ever be clean of government sanctioned abuse. It would, in my mind, help to remove some of the taint of hypocrisy that characterizes our world if for once, the highest level of a government would be held accountable for their actions.
For me the most unpleasant part of the "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" is the ending where everyone is covering their posteriors. Justice should be slow in order to protect the
innocent, but it should also be sure.
you can download it at:
http://ariom.ru/forum/t14817.html
wow!!!!
great finds....i must share:o)
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
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