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Author Perry, Gina.

Title Behind the shock machine : the untold story of the notorious Milgram psychology experiments / Gina Perry
Published Brunswick, Vic. : Scribe Publications, 2012

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  302 Per/Bts  AVAILABLE
Description x, 421 pages ; 21 cm
regular print
Contents Prologue -- Introduction -- The man behind the mirror -- Going all the way -- The limits of debriefing -- Subjects as objects -- Disobedience -- The secret experiments -- Milgram's staff -- In search of a theory -- The ethical controversy -- Milgram's book -- The La Trobe experiments -- Representing obedience -- Conclusion
Summary In the summer of 1961, a group of men and women volunteered for a memory experiment to be conducted by young, dynamic psychologist Stanley Milgram. None could have imagined that, once seated in the lab, they would be placed in front of a box known as a shock machine and asked to administer a series of electric shocks to a man they'd just met. And no one could have foreseen how the repercussions of their actions, made under pressure and duress, would reverberate throughout their lives. For what the volunteers did not know was that the man was an actor, the shocks were fake, and what was really being tested was just how far they would go. When Milgram's results were released, they created a worldwide sensation. He reported that people had repeatedly shocked a man they believed to be in pain, even dying, because they had been told to - he linked the finding to Nazi behaviour during the Holocaust. But some questioned Milgram's unethical methods in fooling people. Milgram became both hero and villain, and his work seized the public imagination for more than half a century, inspiring books, plays, films, and art. For Gina Perry, the story of the experiments never felt finished. Listening to participants' accounts and reading Milgram's unpublished files and notebooks, she pieced together an intriguing, sensational story: Milgram's plans went further than anyone had imagined. This is the compelling tale of one man's ambition and of the experiment that defined a generation
Analysis Australian
Psychology (Australia)
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-417)
Subject Milgram, Stanley.
'The Nib' Waverley Library Award for Literature Nominations (2012)
Behaviorism (Psychology) -- Moral and ethical aspects.
Interpersonal relations.
Human experimentation in psychology -- Moral and ethical aspects.
Psychology -- Research -- Effect of experimenters on.
Obedience -- Psychological aspects.
Social psychology -- Experiments -- History.
LC no. 2012453240
ISBN 9781921844553 (paperback)