Setting the
Experiment Parameters of Social Psychology
Using Mathematical
Psychology:
Analysis of the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments for the Behavioral
Predictions of Juries and Militaries
by
Dallas F.
Bell, Jr.
1. Social Psychology
Social psychology is a branch
of psychology that deals with the psychological processes within groups.
That includes the behavioral interaction of individuals in groups and
the interaction of groups with other groups. This interdisciplinary
field has traditionally been contributed to by psychologists for individual
behavior and sociologists for group behavior. Systematic political
science emphasizes that for this to be a complete effort experts should
be added from the fields of theology, epistemology to include physiology
and neurology, and eschatology.
A group is a collection of
individuals who share a common characteristic or pursuit of a common
goal. Two or more persons who interact may be considered a group
even if their interaction is not face-to-face. If the group is
to be technically studied for its formation, its function and its interactions
the following list of elements should be used. First, common goals
and motives should be observed. Second, the individual roles necessary
for a division of labor are to be noted as they apply to the hierarchy
of common individual needs. Lastly, the group norms and the subsequent
reward and punishment for compliance with those norms or noncompliance
with those norms are to be compared to the standard of Natural Laws
of Freewill (NLF).
The study of group dynamics
involves analysis of cause-and-effect relationships within both groups
and groups to other groups. This involves cohesiveness, decision-making
and subgroup formations. A social network uses the nodes of individuals
or groups that form a social structure to solve problems and pursue
goals. Eigenvector centrality is a measure of the importance of
nodes in networks. Relative scores are assigned to all nodes in
a network. The principle is that the connection to nodes having
a high score contributes more to the score of the node with a low score.
The maximum number of social networks for individuals has been estimated
to be around 100 to 150 for routine or intimate contact and 1,000 to
2,000 for community contact. It is believed that the chain of
social acquaintances needed to connect one arbitrary person to another
arbitrary person is short. Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment
in 1967 in which individuals were asked to reach a target individual
by passing a message along a chain of acquaintances. The average
successful chain was about five intermediaries or six separation steps,
later called the six degrees of separation. Problems with Milgram's
research have been widely published. The latest experiments are
designed to find separation degrees sufficient to connect two people
by e-mail over the internet. Many people have concluded that experiments
like these should account for the variables of common individual need
levels, theological beliefs toward NLF, and IQ.
2. Experiment Parameters
from Mathematical Psychology
(Familiarity with all previous
papers in this series will enhance the understanding of this specific
section.)
Systematic political science
uses the META formulae to map individual and societal behavior.
The x axis plots the instances and the y axis plots the
variables. The z plane records the correlating problem
solving ability (IQ). Mathematical values are given to the
y variables of the theological (T), epistemological (R), psychological
(B), sociological (W), and eschatological (E) subsets. In a nutshell,
these provide the experiment parameters for social psychology with a
primary emphasis on the values of the common individual need levels
in mathematical psychology.
Once the plots of an individual
or group are made the decision-making arc's toward or away from NLF
will aid predictions of future relative behavior(s). Individual
arcs (Barc), group or societal arcs (Warc), and global arcs (GLarc)
may have either a 90 percent to absolute certainty (O1) of behavioral
momentum toward compliance with all 10 NLF and their subsets (T1), or
compliance with 9 to 5 NLF (T2), or compliance with 4 to 0 NLF (T3).
For example, the German government has adopted the theology of Darwinian
evolution which may comply with as few as 0 NLF and is a T3. That
theology, as with all theologies, provides an explanation of the infinite
past and the eternal future to base the standards and authority for
all present behavior. This explains why in 2007 a bright teenage
German girl was forcibly taken from her loving home because her parents
had taught her the T1 Christian theology of the infinite God of the
first cause of all effects. That T1 goal of compliance with all
10 NLF is contrary to the local German government group's T3 belief.
About 2,000 years ago Gamaliel, a legal scholar, said that if something
is of man it will come to nothing but if it is of (the T1) God it cannot
be stopped. (Acts 5:34-39)
Another government example
is the U.S. government's National Human Genome Research Institute
(NHGRI). The U.S. government's only legal theology is T3 Darwinism
which rejects most of all NLF. It is not surprisingly that the
NHGRI refers to humans as animals. The NHGRI has an Ethical, Legal
and Social Implication (ELSI) research program with the priority
of intellectual property rights issues. If the dominate Darwinian
principle of natural selection or survival of the fittest is their ethical
standard, then property ownership of persons other than one's self
would be logically considered irrelevant since it is a relative behavioral
concept such as the intangibles of love, justice, mercy, forgiveness,
humility, and honesty, etc.. Those characteristics are empirically
necessary for individual trust and societal cohesion. To not love,
not be just, not be merciful, not be forgiving, not be humble, and not
be honest indicates that their counterparts of love and justice, etc.
are real and their efficiency litigates them as NLF which is contrary
to the principle of natural selection. The ELSI acknowledges the
use of focus groups.
A focus group is a form of
research to find people's attitudes toward a product. That product
may be an idea or a physical item. This research is either to
enable that product to be manipulated in order to be readily acceptable
to consumers or is to manipulate the consumer toward being more readily
accepting of the product. Focus groups may be conducted face-to-face
and likely be predominately made up of exhibitionists (a characteristic
of T3 beliefs) with ample free time on their hands. Focus groups
may also be conducted by phone or the internet and are likely made up
of those who like to talk or use e-mail forums with each having spare
time. Such a demographic may have lower IQ levels and be submissive/obedient
to manipulation and conformity as is suggested in a Milgram experiment
outlined in the next section of this paper.
Obviously, focus groups or
experiments in general draw attention to Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle. The principle indicates that observing nature is not
separate from nature but the nature being observed includes the observer(s).
Researchers are not just detached entities but are part of the research.
Even the environmentalist issue of global warming has its (T3 eschatological) supporters
hysterically giving the cause as manmade, whereas other scholars reason
the cause is cyclical and/or a temporary solar effect. Therefore,
experiment parameters must be followed precisely.
3. Analysis of the
Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments
It would be helpful to use
the experiment parameters presented to analyze the famous Milgram and
Stanford Prison Experiments. Stanley Milgram conducted a series
of social psychology experiments at Yale University in 1961. They
were to measure the willingness of study participants to obey their
instructor and perform acts that theoretically conflicted with their
conscience. Recruits from newspaper ads and direct mail were offered
$4.50 for one hours work whether they completed the task or not.
They were all men between 20 and 50 years of age with education levels
ranging from elementary school dropouts to having doctoral degrees.
The participants were led to believe that they were to teach words to
a person concealed in another room and if that person failed to give
a correct answer that person would receive escalating degrees of electrical
shocks. As the voltage increased many participants became uncomfortable
but 26 of the 40 participants (65 percent) administered what they believed
were near fatal shocks of 450-volts. In reality, no one was shocked
but sounds from the next room replicated someone being painfully shocked.
All participants believed they allowed highly painful 300-volt shocks
before beginning to refuse the order to continue. Later experiments
included women and the results were the same though women reflected
much higher stress levels than men.
In 1971 Philip Zimbardo, a
childhood friend of Milgram, led U.S. Navy funded researchers in an experiment at Stanford
University on anonymity
and aggression. Undergraduate students volunteered to play the
roles of prisoners and prison guards living in a mock prison. Participants
were recruited from a newspaper ad for $15.00 a day for two weeks.
Twenty-four of the seventy respondents were selected for being psychologically
healthy and were all middle-class white males. Half were assigned
to be prison guards and half prisoners. The prisoners almost immediately
began to show signs of severe emotional disturbances as the guards began
to act more sadistically when they thought they weren't being observed.
The experiment was ended after only six days due the morality of the
experiment being questioned by an outsider.
Zimbardo "assumed the IQ
of his participants to range from average to higher than average."
Like Milgram, he "did not assess the theological and eschatological
beliefs of the participants." He reasoned "that women and
men both behave equally evil regarding anonymity and aggression."
This should not be surprising given the number of women who aggressively
have abortion procedures that has perceived anonymity concerning the
victim which in this case is the unborn baby. (The preceding
remarks in quotations are summarized excerpts from an e-mail exchange
between Philip Zimbardo and Dallas F. Bell Jr. in March 2007.)
Historically, we may see long-term prison examples regarding the importance
of T input. The Old Testament of the Bible records Joseph rising
from prison to become the leader of Egypt. Much of the New Testament
was written by Paul who was imprisoned on many occasions. Corrie
Ten Boom had T1 beliefs which enabled her to cope in Hitler's T3 concentration
camps. She emerged as a great author and lecturer who encouraged
many others facing hardships. Richard Wurmbrand attributed his
T1 beliefs to surviving 14 years of torture in T3 Rumanian prisons.
He was a successful author and founder of the famous Voice of the Martyrs organization which provides worldwide
assistance for prisoners persecuted for their T1 beliefs.
The head of state is in effect
a nation-state's chief prison warden supervising rewards and punishments
of its citizens. Heads of state with documented T1 beliefs such
as George Washington, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan never behaved sadistically
as the Darwinists with T3 beliefs like Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot who are
recorded to have collectively murdered more than 100 million innocent
men, women and children in their countries. Thus, theological
beliefs are extremely important data and could have contributed to more
successful experiments as could have adding the input of individual
need levels found in mathematical psychology.
In contrast to Alexis de Tocqueville's
observations over
a hundred years earlier concerning the general behavior of Americans,
Milgram's and Zimbardo's experiments show that a sample of modern-day
U.S. (founded on T1 beliefs
of compliance with NLF)
volunteers are susceptive to temporarily following evil orders, even
those theoretically contrary to their own conscience. Darwinist's
T3 nation-states did not need to do an experiment to find out if people
will do evil because this is witnessed daily. The conscience is
an innate guide to epistemologically conform to NLF. If this guide
is not guarded but is suppressed for a time the noncompliance with NLF
becomes easier as the conscience is seared and the individual is turned
over to a depraved mind (Romans 1:16-32). Cognitive dissonance
is mental stress caused by the awareness of being epistemologically
inconsistent with NLF. The conscience and cognitive dissonance
are tools of protection for finite humans that encourage a behavioral
arc toward compliance with NLF. Peer pressure and overwhelming
epistemological input in neurons cause people with minority behavioral
arcs and the least perceived power to be influenced toward the majority
behavioral arcs and the most perceived power. T1 beliefs are the most
aligned with NLF and will exert more proportional influence when they
are complied with due to their efficiency.
It may be derived that a volunteer
(U.S.) military will be temporarily susceptible to obedience to whoever
is giving the orders. Whether the orders are in compliance with
NLF or not compliant with NLF behavioral arcs may become fluctuating
waves until theological polarization occurs. That process should
be considered when deciding the policy merits of a conscripted military
which would dilute the perceived benefits or shortcomings of a military
with the characteristics of a total volunteer demographic. This
model may also be applied to jury pools.
4. Conclusion
Long ago King Solomon said
in Proverbs 23:7 that as a person thinks in their heart so are they--bounded
rationality. John Milton echoed this concept in book 1 lines
254 and 255 of Paradise Lost. Milton wrote that the mind is its
own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Mankind's rationality is bounded by knowledge, ability and preference
within NLF. If an experiment is to be valid it must accept those
parameters of reality.
-------------------------ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED © 2007 DALLAS F. BELL, JR.-------------------------
