Derren Brown The Reenactment Of Stanley Milgrams...

In Derren Brown’s reenactment of psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment done in 1963, he solidified Milgram’s results by having the same framework as Milgram’s experiment. Milgram tested to see how much harm a person were to inflict if told to by an authoritative figure. In this particular experiment, a learning environment was set up, subjects were told that the focus was to see how negative punishment affects learning and they were told that they would be either a teacher or learner in the set up. All of the subjects in both Milgram’s and Brown’s situation were teachers and an actor, who all the subjects assumed to be another subject, as a learner. Learners were attached to a shocking mechanism ranging from 15 to a lethal 450 volts,†¦show more content†¦This study truly â€Å"speaks volumes† about responsibility, because even in modern society we follow a set of rules and although to other cultures they may be deemed as wrong, to us it is nothing but the ordinary. Brown shows how people follow rules that are given, and even if it is wrong, it is still done because a higher power tells them to do so. Many times, people do realize that what they are doing is wrong and there is hesitation, but because of a higher up telling them what to do and a fear of failure, nothing is done. There are only so many Phil’s in society, and they are exemplary of social imagination and standing by beliefs and values, as they take in consideration of the outer box that is of societal constraints. To experiment more on the participant’s response, another independent variable that could have influenced responses would have been if the participants, the teachers of the experiment, were able to see the learners. That way it replicates more of a learning environment where learners and teachers are face-to-face. In this case, both sides could still be in separate rooms, but instead there’s a screen showin g the teacher the learner. Since the learner is only an actor and no actual harm is being inflicted unto them, and they could act like they are being shocked as well. Additionally, as the teacher is able to see the learner, a more formidable response is created as they can visually see