the Scott Stein

We aren't reading it this term, but in past terms I have read Stanley Milgram's "The Perils of Obedience" (an essay version appearing in some anthology textbooks) with my freshman students. Wikipedia provides a summary of the study's methods and results. Each term, some students argue that were the experiment conducted today, the results would be different -- people aren't as conformist as they once were, my students reason. People are too independent, they argue. Other students are less confident that their generation would act differently than people have in the past, reluctant though they are to believe that there is something about human nature that allows people -- compels them in some cases, it seems -- to follow orders to the point of cruelty.

Now the Milgram experiment has been replicated and modified by ABC's "Primetime." The results might surprise some people. But they shouldn't.