Adaptable News
Dr Stanley Milgram A Good Guy
I was shocked to read the results of experiments by Stanley Milgram who was a social psychologist at Yale University, Harvard University and the City University of New York.
He set ‘obedience to authority tests’ tests for his students. In one experiment where a students administered electric shocks to peers 37 out of 40 participants administered the full range up to 450 volts. They considered they were just “doing their job”, which is the excuse the Nazis gave for their war crimes and, it seems, the same excuse being given by war criminals to this day.
I came across a very interesting test, ‘The Tyrant Test’ on a blog named the The Ultraviolet Garden. I took the test myself and to great relief my results were:
You’re probably not an authoritarian.
You scored 23, the lowest possible score is twenty. Unlike your counterparts, you’re less prone to interfere with parents’ rights by proselytizing to their children, despite access and opportunity. In simulation studies, those who scored in your range on a similar survey were the least apt to make war and loot.
You don’t mind forestaying immediate gratification for a long term—often much greater and meaningful—reward. You may be more adaptable to changing attitudes about sex and religion. You’re not the type to hook up a guy’s nether regions to a car battery.
You’re not much interested in the hysterical pursuit of witches. You probably don’t conform easily. You may go
Adolph Hitler A Bad Guy
against the grain. You don’t mind rocking the boat; if it’s important enough to you, you don’t mind getting wet. You’re not as concerned with being normal as are your counterparts.
In view of the fact that I am the author of most of the stuff on this anti-authoritarian, anti-brutality, anti-war and human rights blog I was quite concerned while taking the test. I mean, what if the result had been “You are just another Hitler waiting in the wings” or worse still “George Bush is a pussy compared to you!” how would I cope with the shame?
No worries, with that result I’m as happy as a pig in shit. Go here to have a go yourself. I dare you!
No related posts.
You scored similar to me!
The test measures three things: submission to authority, aggression in the name of authority, and conventionalism.
I realize that the creator of the RWA Scale may not have used it in the same way I’m using it. (I’ve used it to predict who in my family were more likely to get higher scores. And yeah a few of them got high scores. Not high enough to get authoritarian test results, but high enough to bug the crap out of me. And honestly, it was an easy guess on my part.)
Apparently Altemeyer and his colleagues have come up with several versions of the questions. He sent the survey to different targets, in Canada and the U.S. Surprisingly, many politicians actually filled it out and returned it.
He actually asked me to remove it from my site, which I did, but I ended up changing the questions to my own questions. This way I can keep the survey on my site. Which I find to be a fascinating tool.
You might be interested in his book on this. He’s got it up for free here:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
It’s called “The Authoritarians”.
I think it’s an awesome public service, to offer that for free. He thought it was needed. I think he couldn’t be more right.