> This was brought out in the one where they had a wooden 
> "wall" to drive towards, and on the first run they were told 
> to brake when the red light came on.  In the second run the 
> red light didn't come on, and when they ploughed through it 
> they were told that they should have braked when they thought 
> they were getting too close, but this is unfair because they 
> were following instructions, just as you do when learning to 
> drive, and the situation was similar to that.  They weren't 
> told "You are ultimately responsible" so they did what they 
> were told, which most people would do (there's a 
> psychological name for this, but I can't remember it).


A classic example of "Obedience to Authority" as described in the book by
Stanley Milgram
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006131983X/jamesnewtonspers

  ...Milgram's studies were done between 1961 and 1962 while he was at Yale;
they were all variations on a theme: a unknowing participant (the
subject-teacher) was brought to believe that s/he was participating in a
learning study. The other two main participants were a man who posed as the
student (the learner) and one who posed as the principal investigator (the
authority figure). 
 
The subject-teacher was told that the learning would occur in this way: the
student would be hooked up to an electric shock generator while the teacher
would read a set of word pairs, which the student would repeat back. When
the student missed one of the word pairs, he would be shocked by the
"teacher" in increasingly higher shocks (the shocks increased in 15 volt
increments), up to 450 volts (which was marked, along with the 435 volt
mark, with XXX).
 
The basic goal of the study was to find out how far the "teachers" would go
despite the cries, pounding and eventual silence on the part of the
students. The frightening finding was that more often than not, the vast
majority of teachers followed through with the command to continue the
experiment, which was given by the man acting as the principal investigator
every time one of the "teachers" wanted to quit.
 
Most subjects shocked the actor past maximum voltage, to lethal doses; they
"killed" the actor. Or would have killed if the experiment was "real." They
were men, women, college educated or high school graduates, white and blue
collar workers from every possible background. The results were the same
almost every single time: People obey authority REGARDLESS of what the
authority figure is telling them to do, even if it is to injure another
human being. 

Or in this case, to potentially injure themselves and cause damage to the
car and the wall.

---
James.
 


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