Chapter One
The Horrible Psychology Experiment

One day in the middle of Becky's first term at university, when the students went into a psychology lecture, they found little questionnaires on their seats asking them what foods they loved and which ones they really didn't like. During the lecture, the tutor told them to fill them in and leave them there for them to be collected, but didn't say why. Some students thought that maybe it was to do with the Christmas party that was going to be held at the end of term; they suggested to the others that maybe the tutors wanted to know what people's favourite and worst foods were because they were thinking of buying some and wanted to know what to get and what to avoid.

But a few weeks later when they went into classes one day, they were told some of them were going to participate in an experiment with some students from another college, to find out whether it was possible to develop a tolerance for hated foods quickly if made to eat them under stress. The tutors said they were looking into whether people who went abroad and had to get used to unfamiliar foods they didn't like would find it easier to get accustomed to them if they were put on a strict but brief program of having to eat them non-stop till they got used to them before they went. The tutor said it would also help parents know whether it was a good idea to make their little children who refused some foods that were good for them eat them even when they were tearfully protesting.

Thirty students were chosen to participate in the experiment, including Becky. They were paired with people of normal university age who they were told were students from a different college. Each pair was going to do the experiment separately, supervised by someone from outside the university. Each person was expected to take up to an hour to do the experiment. There were some adults the students had never seen before who the tutors said were the supervisors, and several of the experiments were going to go on at any one time, each in a separate room. The students who hadn't done the experiment yet had to stay in class discussions.

One of the first to do the experiment was called Jenny. She went into a room where there were two other people, the man who was going to supervise, and a girl of about her age called Debbie who she was told would do the experiment with her. The supervisor was smartly dressed and looked like a professor of some kind. Debbie was nice-looking and had a pretty trendy hairstyle.

The supervisor took a little box, saying there were two folded slips of paper in it, one saying master and the other taster. He said the girls had to each take a bit of paper and find out which of those two they'd be. The taster was going to have to eat food they hated, and the master would give it to them.

Jenny discovered she'd got the role of master. She was a bit daunted when she found out what it involved! The supervisor said the taster was going to have to eat several bits of the food they hated, to see if they minded it less and less as they carried on. They weren't going to be allowed to back out, and the conditions would be made extra stressful by them being strapped to a chair, to make sure they didn't get up and walk off and ruin the experiment. The master had to feed them bits of the food they hated, and each time they protested instead of eating it meekly, the master had to cut off a lock of their hair, to train them to eat it even though they didn't like it. The taster had to sit on a chair with their hands tied behind their back. The supervisor said that was so there was no risk of them trying to yank the scissors from the hands of the master and there being an accident where one of them got injured. The master would have to actually put the food in the taster's mouth, pressing their chin down so it would open if they tried to keep it closed.

Jenny hated the idea of having to do that, but the supervisor assured her that just as soon as the taster learned to eat the bits of food without complaining in any way, the experiment would be almost over and the taster might be grateful if they found they could tolerate food they'd thought they hated after all.

Jenny felt nervous! Debbie had beautiful hair, and she didn't like having to ruin it! She hadn't realised they'd have to do things like that when they came on the course!

The supervisor strapped Debbie's legs to the chair and tied her hands behind her back. She looked a bit worried. The supervisor handed Jenny a bag of seedless grapes, saying Debbie had filled in a questionnaire saying she really didn't like them. He told Jenny to take them one by one and feed them to Debbie till she didn't seem to mind. He assured her that if Debbie got used to them quickly, the experiment would be over quickly so the amount of hair she had to cut off might not even show much, so she wouldn't necessarily be ruining Debbie's hair. That made Jenny feel a bit less worried about starting the experiment.

So she started, putting a grape in Debbie's mouth, hoping the experiment would be over soon. Debbie made a face, but she ate it.

"She hasn't complained," said Jenny, but the supervisor told her that making a face counted as a sign of dislike, so she had to cut off a lock of Debbie's hair and carry on.

Jenny cut off just a little bit. It didn't show much, so she thought it was allright. Then she fed Debbie another grape.

Debbie made a worse face. Jenny knew she'd have to cut off another lock of Debbie's hair. She whispered to Debbie conspiratorially, "Try not to make faces! Then the experiment might be finished quickly and you won't get much more of your hair cut off!"

But Debbie said, "I can't help it! It's the acidity in my mouth - it feels like ... well you know how people hate it when someone runs their fingernails down a blackboard? It feels a bit like that."

Jenny sympathised. But she urged, "Have a try though; then we might both be allowed to go soon. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut off a bit more of your hair and feed you another grape."

Jenny cut off a bit more of Debbie's hair, but still it didn't show all that much. She fed Debbie another grape, and that time, Debbie bit down on her top lip with a pained expression. Jenny said with a sympathetic expression, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to carry on feeding you and cutting bits of your hair off. I don't want to though." Her hands were beginning to tremble.

She cut off another bit of Debbie's hair and fed her another grape, and Debbie said, screwing up her face, "Oh yuck! I hate this!"

Jenny whispered, "Shhhh! Try and pretend you like them. Then he might let us go!"

She cut off another bit of Debbie's hair and fed her another grape. Debbie made another pained face, and her body tensed in an obvious way.

Jenny said to the experiment supervisor, "Oh do we really have to do this? Can't we drop out if we don't like it?"

The supervisor said they couldn't, and that it was important that she continued the experiment.

With a sigh and an expression that was looking increasingly upset, Jenny cut off another bit of Debbie's hair, and fed Debbie another grape.

"Oh I hate this!" protested Debbie with feeling.

"I'm sorry," said Jenny. Her heart was beginning to beat faster and she was feeling anxious. She cut off a very small bit of Debbie's hair, but the supervisor told her she needed to cut off bigger bits than that for the experiment to work. She cut off a bit more, while feeling increasingly upset, and said to Debbie sympathetically, "I'm really sorry about ruining your hair, and I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to feed you another grape." She whispered, "Try your best to pretend you don't mind!"

She gave Debbie another grape, and Debbie gave a very heavy sigh, and a grimace.

Jenny said reluctantly, "Oh no, I suppose I'm going to have to cut off a bit more of your nice hair and feed you another one now!" She muttered, "I don't like this at all!"

She fed Debbie another grape, and Debbie made a face and said, "I can't stand this!"

Jenny asked the supervisor, "Do we really have to do this? I didn't know we'd have to do horrible things like this when we came on the course!"

The supervisor said, "Yes, the experiment requires that you continue."

Jenny was really feeling sorry for Debbie. She wished she'd been off sick that day. She cut off another bit of Debbie's hair, and now it was beginning to look seriously messed-up.

"I suppose I'll have to give you another grape!" she said, cringing.

"Honestly, I don't think I could stand to eat any more!" Debbie said when the grape was halfway to her mouth.

"Do we really have to do this?" Jenny asked the supervisor.

He said it was necessary for the course.

Jenny was shaking, and said, "I wish I hadn't been chosen for this experiment!"

But she put the grape in Debbie's mouth. Then she cut a bit more of Debbie's hair, and Debbie protested, "My poor hair! It might take ages to grow back! And till it does, people are going to laugh at me, unless I have it cut really really short! I like my hair long!"

Jenny said, "I'm really sorry! I hate doing this!" Tears came to her eyes.

But she thought she'd better carry on and give Debbie another grape, since it seemed to be important for the course. But Debbie closed her mouth shut tight and moved her head back as far as it would go, screwing up her face.

"Try and pretend to like it!" Jenny pleaded. "Then we can get out of here!"

But Debbie wouldn't open her mouth.

"You have to make her open her mouth; press down on her chin till it opens and then give her the grape," the supervisor instructed.

Jenny felt as if she was having a nightmare. But she gently pressed down on Debbie's chin, using a little bit more force when Debbie's mouth wouldn't open at first. She reluctantly put a grape in.

"Yuck!" shouted Debbie.

Jenny hated doing it, but she felt she just had to cut off another lock of Debbie's hair. When she did, Debbie protested, "My hair was so nice, and now it's nearly ruined!"

Jenny said to the supervisor, "Listen, I don't want to carry on doing this any more. Can't me and Debbie swap places? She can cut my hair off instead."

"No," said the supervisor. "That would ruin the experiment. For all you know, it might be just about to start working. It's essential that you carry on."

"I want to go and see a tutor just to make sure this really is what we're supposed to be doing," demanded Jenny.

"You know this is what we're supposed to be doing," said the supervisor. "A tutor told you earlier what the experiment was going to be about, and he said it was going to be stressful for the person eating the food."

A few tears fell from Jenny's eyes. "What if Debbie never gets to like grapes?" she asked. "Are we going to have to stay here all day and all night?"

"We'll stay here till the bag of grapes runs out," said the supervisor.

He was giving Jenny the creeps. He was saying everything without any emotion at all, as if he was a robot. He just didn't seem to care at all. She began to get scared, wondering if he might be a psychopath. She worried about what he might say if she refused to give Debbie any more grapes.

"Can't we just have a break, so Debbie can get over eating the grapes she's already eaten?" asked Jenny.

"No," said the supervisor. "The experiment requires that you continue without a break."

Jenny sighed. There were still quite a lot of grapes left in the bag. "Can't we at least make them a little bit nicer for her by putting sugar on them or something?" she asked.

"No," said the supervisor firmly. "It's essential that the grapes are eaten as they are."

Jenny's hands were really shaking as she gave Debbie another grape. Debbie screwed up her face again.

Jenny knew she was going to have to cut more of Debbie's hair off, but didn't want to. She said to the supervisor, "Look at how much my hands are shaking! I don't want to cut any more of Debbie's hair; I'm worried I might accidentally hurt her! What if my hand slips?"

"Allright, you can have just a minute to calm down; but don't worry; we'll take full responsibility for whatever happens; you won't be in any trouble at all," said the supervisor.

"I'd still feel guilty though if I hurt her!" said Jenny.

"We'll take all of the blame," said the supervisor.

Jenny found that a bit reassuring, but not much.

The supervisor soon told her to carry on, saying he had confidence that she'd be careful.

She cut a bit more of Debbie's hair off.

Debbie said, "I look such a mess! How am I going to get out of here without people laughing at me?"

Jenny felt hopeless and said to the supervisor, "I really really don't want to carry on with this!"

"You have no other choice; you have to continue," said the supervisor, giving Jenny the creeps even more.

Debbie said, "Allright, I'm going to do my best to eat the grapes without showing any signs of dislike from now on!"

Jenny fed her all the rest without her showing any signs of protest; she was stony-faced and ate them as if she'd made up her mind to stoically accept her duty, so Jenny didn't cut off any more of her hair.

Jenny gave a sigh of relief when the bag was empty. She was still upset.

"congratulations," said the supervisor. "You can go home now."

Jenny apologised to Debbie for having given her all the grapes and cut a lot of her hair off, saying she was really sorry.

Before she went, the supervisor gave her an envelope, telling her to open it and read what was inside when she got back to her room, but not before, and that it would give her some information that would help her understand the experiment better and might reassure her.

Jenny doubted it would do that, but took it back to read whatever was in it. As she left, she turned and muttered, "I hate this course!"

She went back to her room, feeling horrified at what had happened.

Several more people had to do the experiment, and then it was Becky's turn. She had a history of answering authority figures back, and getting away with it! It was never going to be easy persuading Her to do anything she didn't want to do!

Participating in the experiment with Becky was a girl of about 18 called Andrea. Becky thought she looked nice, with a pretty hairstyle. They, too, were presented with a little box with two folded slips of paper in it, and the experiment supervisor, a man Becky had never seen before, told them one said 'taster' and the other 'master', and they had to pick one each to decide who was going to be which.

The slip of paper Becky chose said master, so Andrea had to sit in a chair with her legs strapped to it, with her hands tied behind her back, so - the supervisor said, there wouldn't be the risk of an accident if she hated what she was eating so much she tried to take the scissors from Becky while Becky was trying to cut her hair.

The supervisor explained to Becky what she was going to have to do, and handed her a bag of bite-sized bits of raw broccoli, telling her Andrea hated broccoli, but that she might discover she could tolerate it after all if Becky fed her bits till there was none left while she tried her best to show no signs of discomfort in case Becky cut a bit off her hair.

Becky thought the whole thing sounded barbaric. Not only that, it just didn't seem sensible to her. When the supervisor explained to her what she was going to have to do, she said,

"Hang on, I don't want to do this! What made the person who came up with this idea think it was a good one? Why did they think it was even possible that someone could get to like something they hate in less than an hour, when they're being made to eat it whether they want to or not? Surely with all the parents that try to make their kids eat things they don't like, if that was going to make them like it, we'd know about it by now?"

The supervisor said, "But this is an official controlled study. Parents don't usually make their kids eat the things they don't like under the kinds of stress we're putting on people here, or for as long."

Becky knew she needed time to think about it. She said, "I'm going to have to take time to think about this!" and then she wandered off and started pacing round the room, thinking, till the supervisor called her back and told her to begin.

Becky felt uncomfortable. She came back and said, "But I don't see the point of this. What in the world made anyone think this would have a possibility of working? OK, so just suppose this study seems to show that people do get to like foods they hated before better after they've been made to eat them for an hour whether they liked it or not, what will you do with the results, write a paper for a scientific journal saying that if anyone wants to like foods they hate better, they need to be tied to a chair with someone feeding them to them and cutting off bits of their hair if they complain? Yeah right! Somehow I can't see that going down well with anyone. Who would ever do it? So what's the point of doing this study when it can't possibly lead to anything worthwhile?"

The supervisor didn't answer the question, but said, "It's important for the course that you do this experiment. Please feed Andrea the first bit of broccoli."

Becky refused. She said, "No. I don't want to give someone food they don't like. My mum's tried to get me to eat food I don't like sometimes, and I just thought it was yucky and got upset. I don't want to make anyone else eat food they think is yucky! It's not a nice thing to do!"

"It's essential that you do this experiment," said the supervisor.

"Why is it essential?" asked Becky.

"You'll be making a contribution to our scientific understanding," said the supervisor. "Now come on, start the experiment."

"No!" said Becky. "If they want to know if people can learn to like food they used to hate, why don't they just look on the Internet for stories about the experiences of people who've actually had to eat food they hated in stressful conditions to see if they got to like it in the end?!"

The supervisor said rather pompously with a note of scorn in his voice, "Anecdotal evidence; it would be of no value to anyone! You can't change scientific opinion just because of a few stories!"

Becky was angry that he seemed to think her suggestion was stupid. She said with irritation, "I'm not saying they should just look at what a few people say and then assume the same thing would happen to everyone; I know that what happened to people whose stories they found might really have some other cause without the people telling the stories realising, or they might be in the minority or whatever. But this study's hardly going to be any better! How can they think it'll be any good? There are only thirty of us doing the study! Even if it turned out that the majority of people who were made to eat food they hated under the threat of having their hairstyles completely ruined did somehow get to like the food they hated by the end, that might be just chance! It wouldn't mean a lot of the public would do that.

"And what if most people say they've started liking it partway through? You might assume they really do and write about how successful the experiment was, when in reality, for all you know, they might only be saying they like it because they'll know it's a way to stop being fed food they hate!

"And surely there are better ways of doing things anyway! I mean, if mums have children that won't eat their broccoli, they could try chopping it into little bits and smothering it in sauce or mixing it with other food with a different flavour, or making pretty shapes with it, or all kinds of other things! Why did the person who dreamed up this experiment think nearly torturing someone was the only way to get them to like food they hated before? Have they got such a bad imagination it was the only idea they could think of?"

The supervisor sighed in exasperation. But Becky continued, "Anyway, what I meant about people who want to know if they can get to like food they hate better looking at people's stories about how they felt when they ate food they hated is that if they couldn't find any from people saying they got to like it in the end but there were plenty saying they had to eat it for years and never got to like it, that might be a hint that there was no point bothering to do this silly experiment. Or if anyone said they did get to like the food they never liked before, people would just know it's possible.

"But even if a third of the people in this experiment say they can put up with the food when they've finished- and I seriously doubt they will, it'll still mean lots can't, so even if other people did try making themselves eat stuff they didn't like, most of them would probably never get to like it. So the experiment might do more harm than good - people would be encouraged to eat food they hated all for nothing."

The supervisor felt as if he was getting a headache. He hadn't expected a lecture! He didn't respond to the points Becky made, but just said, "It's important that you do this experiment. You know the tutors want you to."

Becky said, "Well since this sounds like such a rubbishy experiment, it can't be important for science! So do you mean it's important for my grades? Am I going to be marked down if I don't do this experiment? If I am, I don't think it's fair, and I'm going to tell my mum, and we're going to go to the papers, and they'll ask the tutors here some embarrassing questions about why they made their students do horrible things to people or else get lower grades! They won't like it!"

Becky thought she saw a smile on the supervisor's face that he tried to conceal. It wasn't what she expected.

He said, "It won't affect your grades. But I think you need to accept that you don't know everything. Some of these psychology tutors have been here for years, and they know a lot more than you do about how to do things. If they think this is a good idea, they must know what they're doing a lot better than you do. Just accept that they know better than you and do what they're asking."

Becky began to feel stressed. Part of her thought that perhaps she'd better just do the experiment and stop arguing, even though she hated the idea. But she still didn't see why she should. So she asked, "Allright, what good will the experiment do then?"

The supervisor said, "Just trust that the tutors know what they're doing. If Andrea gets to like the food quickly, the experiment will soon be over; and We'll take any responsibility for any stress she feels till that happens. It won't last, and she might end up grateful she did the experiment and got to like the broccoli; after all, it's very good for people."

"I still don't like the idea of making her eat something she hates and cutting off bits of her pretty hair if she protests though," said Becky.

The supervisor asked Andrea whether she minded doing the experiment. She said no, that she supposed it would be allright.

"She doesn't sound too sure," said Becky. "I still don't understand what the point of the experiment is. I mean, who would put themselves through the stress of making themselves eat something till they didn't mind it even if the experiment finds it's possible to do that? Yes broccoli's good for people, but lots of other things are too, so it's not as if people have no choices. And even if they were going abroad somewhere where there weren't many things around to eat and they didn't like what there was, surely nowadays they could get things they did like sent into them, even if it was just some kind of sauce or light-weight dried food that had a different flavour that would mask the taste of what they didn't like! Surely everyone except the very poorest people in countries where there's hardly anything to eat can choose to eat food they like nowadays? So I don't see the point of the experiment."

The supervisor said, "If your tutors have told you to do something, they must be saying it for a good reason. You have a duty to do what they want you to do."

Becky said, "Well if you can't explain to me what the point of the experiment is, I'm going to go and ask them!"

"Surely it should be enough for you that they've given you instructions to do it," said the super visor. "They'll explain everything properly later."

Becky was beginning to feel tearful. She hated the idea of having to cut Andrea's pretty hair off as a punishment for doing something she knew she'd be all-too-quick to do herself - protest at having to eat food she hated. And making Andrea eat food she hated seemed like a horrible thing to do, and she didn't understand why she should.

She decided she'd go and ask a tutor what on earth was going on, jumped up, and ran to the door, turning to tell the supervisor she was going to go and see a tutor to find out why they had to do the experiment. Then she felt a flush of determination not to take part even if the tutor did say there was a good reason for it, and shouted, "If he tries to make me carry on, I'm going to tell him I wouldn't have come here if I'd known such cruel things went on and I'm going to get transferred to another course!"

"Hang on," the supervisor called. "If you absolutely refuse to do the experiment, you're free to go. Don't worry, it won't affect your grades. I just want to give you this; read it when you get back to your room. Wait till you're there first. It'll explain all about why the tutors wanted to do this experiment and what it's really all about."

He handed her an envelope.

Becky said she didn't have a room because her mum took her back home every evening. The supervisor told her to just go somewhere quiet then to open it, not discussing it with any students who were due to do the experiment but hadn't yet.

Becky went out, relieved to have got out of doing the experiment. She skipped away, knowing she was free to do what she liked for a while. She went and bought something nice to eat in one of the university cafes and sat on her own with it to calm down, and then went somewhere quiet to open the envelope and see what was inside.

When she opened it, she took out a bit of paper. To her surprise, it said:

"To those asked to take part in the experiment involving feeding people and cutting off bits of their hair if they protest: Thank you for taking part. We apologise if you found it stressful, but we believe you'll find the results interesting.

"We told you this was an experiment to find out whether people could get to tolerate food they had always hated under stress; but really it was a study about how far people will go in obeying authority, to find out how many would obey orders even when it meant putting someone else under stress. It was based on the famous Milgram experiments of the 1960s. Please look them up on the Internet or in the textbook 'Introducing Psychology'. We'll be discussing them in the next lesson.

"Stanley Milgram found that a lot of people gave others electric shocks they thought were real (when in fact they were sham), just because they were asked to do so by an authority figure doing a psychology experiment.

"In reality you weren't putting anyone under any stress. The people taking part in the experiment with you were students from a drama school who have all agreed to shave their heads for charity, being sponsored to walk around bald for a while. They didn't mind having their hairstyles ruined since they're going to shave their hair off anyway. And you weren't really making them eat food they hated; in reality the food you were told they hated was food they love. The slips of paper you both took out of the box at the beginning both said 'Master', so there was never really any possibility of you being the one strapped to the chair eating food you hate. The experiment supervisors were actors. You were the ones being experimented on; the experiment was to find out how far you'd go in obeying unkind orders, to see if the results were similar to Milgram's. We'll discuss it all in class."

Chapter Two
Controversy Over the Experiment, and a Class Discussion About It That Gets Way Off-Topic

Becky Discovers Some Unpleasant Facts About the Experiments That Inspired the One Her Tutors Put Them Through

Becky had a look on the Internet to find some information about the famous Milgram experiments, as the students had been told to. She discovered they were rather controversial!

She found out that Stanley Milgram had been a young assistant psychology professor at Yale University in the early 1960s. At that time, a trial of a former top Nazi war criminal was televised. He, like many Nazis before him when put on trial, tried to defend himself by saying the reason he'd done cruel things was that he'd just been following orders. Milgram wondered whether it really was possible that someone would do cruel things to others just because they were following orders, and whether Germans were more likely to do that than anyone else. So he designed an experiment to try to find out.

He advertised for volunteers in a newspaper, not telling them what he really wanted to do, but instead saying he was running an experiment about learning and memory. Participants were offered $4.50 an hour if they volunteered, a sum of money that at that time could apparently buy 14 loaves of bread.

But when they got there, a lot of them were dismayed to find out what they had to do. They did the experiment one by one. When each one went into the room where the experiment was to be carried out, they were met by a pleasant likeable man who they were told was another person who'd volunteered to do the experiment, and a smartly-dressed man they were told was the supervisor.

The two people doing the experiment had to both take a slip of paper from a box. They were told one said 'learner' on it and the other 'teacher'. The likeable man who'd been there when the other one came in said he'd got the one that said 'learner'. In reality they both said 'teacher', and the man who'd got the role of learner was really an actor who was colluding with Stanley Milgram to play a part. The other person didn't find that out for some time.

Each person who'd answered the advert in the paper was told the experiment involved them giving the learner memory tests, and every time the learner got an answer wrong or didn't answer at all, they were to be punished with an electric shock they had to give them, because the experiment was testing the effects of punishment on learning. The electric shocks were to start off mild, and get more and more severe with every wrong answer.

The 'teacher' was given what they were told was one of the first electric shocks they'd be giving the learner, to demonstrate what it was like, and it just tickled.

The learner had to go in the next room. His arms were strapped down, and the real subject of the experiment - the teacher - was told that was to prevent him thrashing around and damaging the equipment if the shocks were very uncomfortable.

The memory test involved the one who'd been given the role of teacher reading the learner a list of pairs of random-sounding words with no connection between the words in each pair, and then reading out the first word in the first pair, followed by four other words, one of which was the word the one he'd just read was paired with on the list. He would ask the learner which of the four was the correct one. If the answer was wrong, he was to shock the learner and then go on to the next word and set of choices as to which one it was paired with. And he was to carry on like that, only the shocks he gave were to become more powerful with each wrong answer.

The teacher was shown the shock generator, which had thirty switches on it, labelled from 15 to 450 volts, with descriptions from 'slight shock' all the way to 'very strong shock', and then, 'Danger, severe shock', and then just XXX. Yet the supervisor assured the teacher that though the shocks might be painful, they weren't dangerous. In one variation of the experiment, the reassurance came after the learner had asked if it was allright to do the experiment since he had a heart condition. Each shock would be 15 volts more powerful than the last, they were told.

Becky read a few articles about these experiments. She was curious to know if anyone had refused to participate altogether, but it seemed that everyone had begun.

The 'teacher' had to begin by reading the pairs of words into a microphone for the learner to try to memorise. Then he started giving him the first words of the pairs and the choices of words he was to pair them with.

The learner got the first two right in every experiment. But then he started making quite a few mistakes, and each time he made one, the teacher's job was to give him a shock more powerful than the last. In reality the shock generator was fake, but the teacher didn't know that.

As the voltage of the shocks supposedly increased, the learner started protesting. At least it sounded as if he was. What was really happening was that he was playing pre-recorded fake protests, but the teacher didn't know that. As the voltage of the shocks increased, the protests got more and more urgent and it sounded as if the learner began to cry out with pain. At 150 volts the learner begged to be released. At 240 volts he pleaded for the experiment to stop, saying his heart was bothering him. At the voltage described as extreme intensity, he screamed in agony. Eventually there was silence, as if he'd gone unconscious or died.

When he began to sound as if he was in pain, some people queried whether the experiment should still continue, but they were told to go on. A lot of them did. Quite a high percentage - well over half among some groups the experiment was done on - carried on giving shocks right to the end when it seemed the learner had died, just because they were told to go on whenever they wondered if they should.

Some of the participants who queried whether they should be going on were apparently reassured when they were told those who'd organised the experiment would take full responsibility for any harm done.

But a lot of people were distressed at what they were doing, though they carried on giving what they thought were the increasingly painful electric shocks even so.

Becky read that there was controversy over the experiments, not just because people were deceived into believing they were hurting someone and some got distressed over it and might not have recovered quickly, but because some people who listened to the original tapes of the experiments claimed that Milgram didn't describe what happened accurately afterwards.

"For instance, he said if people were unhappy about carrying on, they were given four prompts: At their first protest they were told, "Please continue." If they still protested they were told, "The experiment requires that you continue". The third time they expressed concerns the supervisor was supposed to say, "It is absolutely essential that you continue", and the fourth time they said they weren't happy, he said they would say, "You have no other choice; you must go on." In reality, it was as if experiments were being done on each participant to see what would make them give in and carry on; sometimes people were told to carry on over twenty times before they did. Some wanted to swap with the learner but they were forbidden. Some wanted to go and check on him but they were told they weren't allowed.

Milgram wrote in a book that he'd developed a theory because of the experiments that one reason for people's obedience might be that once an authority figure promises to take responsibility for what happens, the person carrying out the orders can feel almost guilt-free as they inflict suffering on others. Yet a lot of people had been upset by what they thought they'd had to do. A lot still did it though. Not as many carried on to the end as a lot of people ended up thinking though; the most famous figure that was publicised says almost two thirds carried on till the final apparently deadly shock. But that was the number who finished the first time Milgram did the experiments, with forty people. He ran them several times more with variations to see if people would be just as obedient if the circumstances were slightly changed, and half of those times, about six in ten people refused to go on, despite what they were being told about how they had to.

Yet Becky found out that it's gone into legend that anyone will obey an authority figure who tells them to inflict pain on someone if they're told it's in a worthwhile cause, and that anyone who thinks they wouldn't hurt someone just because they're told to is likely deluding themselves; but the experiments didn't show anything that clear-cut, though it was still perhaps surprising that so many people carried on giving what they thought were shocks despite sounds of distress from the learner/actor.

There were some who suspected the shocks were fake, some wondering if they were on a reality TV show. A few used less powerful shocks than they were told to and then became suspicious when the learner's screams still increased. Some thought the supervisor's reassurances that everything would be allright must mean nothing bad was really happening. Some thought it was suspicious that the screams were coming from a loudspeaker in the corner rather than through the wall, and it made them wonder if they were coming from a tape. But it seems most thought the shocks were real and yet did what they were told, though some were upset by it.

Becky had a think about it all.

The Students Make Jokes as They Wait for the Tutor to Turn Up and Begin the Discussion Class About the Experiments

When Becky went into the class where they were going to discuss the experiments the next day, she and the other students had to wait a while for it to begin, because the tutor was late. They began to chat while they were waiting.

One of the group said, "The idea that people can learn better if they're being given electric shocks is a bit daft really, isn't it! I mean, if there's ever a report of a scientific study that claims that pain has this amazing ability to increase concentration and memory, or comprehension skills, or mathematical abilities, I, for one, am going to have a hard time believing it! I mean, how could it possibly do that! Perhaps if I was given so many electric shocks I couldn't think straight though, or was deprived of sleep for long enough or something, then I'd believe it ... or at least say I did if it would mean the torture would stop. Then whoever was inflicting it on me might be able to claim that my conversion to the belief meant that torture like that really can increase a person's ability to learn valuable things, since people could tell it had helped me learn that; so they'd be able to write a scientific paper saying they'd got even more evidence for it!

"Imagine if there were university professors who really did believe that pain could increase people's ability to learn things! ... Mind you, I suppose there might be, for all we know!"

He grinned as he said, "Perhaps we'd all better watch out, in case we don't learn very fast in the class today!

"Mind you, it might not just be the odd rogue university professor who believes that. Maybe a lot of people get the idea into their heads from time to time. Including me. The other day I was listening to a programme on the radio, and I was feeling irritated by the presenter, for a few reasons. One was that she seemed to have this horrible condescending tone of voice, and I didn't like her accent either. I found myself thinking, 'I wonder if a massive smack in the face would make her stop speaking in that patronising tone of voice and make her stop speaking with that annoying accent!' But then I thought, 'I can't imagine anyone being able to come up with any scientific evidence for that idea!'

"Imagine if a scientist applied for a big government grant to do a study to find out if slapping someone in the face could change their accent! Imagine if they wrote a letter that said, 'I'm requesting a grant of fifty thousand pounds to do an extensive study into whether giving someone a massive slap in the face can cause their brain to automatically change their speech patterns, so for at least weeks after that, they speak with a more pleasant accent than the one they were brought up with.' Somehow I can't imagine many governments willing to give them any money for that!"

Another one of the group said, "I can't imagine anyone wanting to participate in an experiment like that either!"

The others giggled.

Then one said, "That might not stop the supposed scientist from trying to find people who were willing to do that. It seems some people expect other people to do weird things sometimes, or do weird things themselves. I found some funny warning labels on the Internet. I don't know if they're all real, but they were a laugh. I don't know who would need these warnings, or why they were put there. But the website I found them on said there was a warning on a brand of sleeping pill that said, 'Warning: May cause drowsiness.' And it said that a supermarket sold peanuts that said on the label, 'Warning, contains nuts.'"

Someone said, "Actually, peanuts aren't technically nuts, according to something I found on the Internet. It said they're in the pea family. So if the packet does contain nuts, it means the company selling it have put something they shouldn't have in it!"

They grinned, and one said, "Well, people would get much more of a surprise if it said, 'Warning, this packet may contain something like peas!'"

They laughed, and another of the students said, "I've heard of some other funny warning labels. According to what I heard, there was one on a make of bread pudding that said, 'Product will be hot after heating', and one on a make of iron saying, 'Do not iron clothes on body.' And I heard there was one on a make of children's cough medicine that said, 'Do not drive a car or operate machinery after use'."

They laughed, and another student said, "I'd be worried if a child was driving a car even before they used the stuff!"

They grinned, and the one who'd first said he'd seen some funny warning labels said, "I read about a warning label on some shin guards for cyclists, that are meant to protect their shins if their feet slip off the pedals and they bang against their legs, or if they fall off their bikes, that said, 'Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover.'"

One of the group grinned and said, "What can the company who sells them have been expecting people to do? Do they think people might injure their hands or something if they fall off, and then say something like, 'This is an outrage! I thought those pads on my shins would stop my hands getting hurt!'? Or perhaps manufacturers are really worried about being sued by cyclists with unnaturally big shins that the shin guards don't cover all of. ... Or maybe they're just unnaturally small shin guards!"

One of Becky's friends said to another one, who had a reputation for drinking a lot of coffee, "Hey Mark, they could put a health warning on you, saying, 'Do not eat. This product may contain excess caffeine, liable to cause jitteriness and sleep disturbance.'"

They laughed, as Mark cringed at the thought of being eaten. But he thought the comment was mildly amusing too.

Another student loved to eat meat pies and other fatty and salty food, and someone said to him, "Watch out Craig, or someone might put a warning on you, saying, 'Very high in fat and salt. Not to be used as a weight loss product.'"

Some of the students laughed, but Becky thought that was a bit of a yucky joke, and said with a half-smile, "Actually, I'm glad to say cannibalism's died out in this country, if it was ever here."

One student joked, "Come on, if we're not meant to eat humans, why are we made of meat?"

Becky quipped back sarcastically with a smile, "That's a good point; and since car oil's made of a substance that a long long time ago was little fish, maybe we ought to eat that!"

"Gosh no! ... I mean, the fish will have passed their sell-by dates long ago!" quipped another of the students in mock horror.

Becky joked, "They can't have done! Otherwise, why would people still use them in cars?"

Another of the students said with a smile, "It's for people like you lot that they write those silly-sounding health warnings!"

They all laughed.

Then one of Becky's friends said she'd come across a website with some funny newspaper headlines on it. She wasn't sure they were true, but could imagine they might be. She said one said, "Stolen Painting Found by Tree." Another said, "Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter." And another said, "Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge."

They laughed, and Becky said, "Imagine if we were writing for the university newspaper. We might think up some funny headlines with double meanings like those."

One student said, "Yeah. Imagine if some of the lecturers had pet cats, and they were allowed to get cat flaps put in some of the doors. Someone might write a headline saying, 'University opens its doors to cats.' Some people might think it meant the university had decided to give cats an education alongside human students."

Another of the students said, "Imagine a headline that said, 'School closes after big bean feast.' It would sound as if everyone had had to run away and it was closed for fumigation after loads of people got wind after eating way too many beans in one go; but it might really mean the school had closed down for good for some reason, and they'd all had a big nice meal of beans and things to say goodbye just before it did."

One girl said gloomily, "The reporter would have written that headline to be deliberately funny, but I don't think it would be nice to joke and laugh about schools closing down."

She might have had a point, but no one else agreed. One said, "I don't know; if my school had closed down, we wouldn't just have laughed, we'd have had a big party and a firework display in the playing fields to celebrate!"

Becky said, "Then there might have been a headline saying, 'School party celebration on field trip.'"

The others weren't sure whether to smile or groan at the awful puns.

There's Controversy Right From the Start of the Class Discussion About the Experiments

Just then, the tutor walked in, surprisingly late. Some of them wondered in amusement if that was because in keeping with the lesson he seemed to be trying to teach them about not always obeying authority figures, he was rebelling against the ancient dictates of authority figures that people should actually arrive on time for things. But they kept their thoughts to themselves at the time.

The class fell silent as they waited for the tutor to speak. Then they heard a solitary little bird singing outside.

"I wonder if that bird would taste good for tea!" joked one of the students.

The others laughed and made disgusted faces.

One said for a laugh, "I heard that penguins in Antarctica might start losing their habitat one day because of climate change. Maybe the problem could be solved if we ate them all."

The students giggled. But then the tutor cleared his throat for attention, and the class fell silent again ... for a few seconds. Then one of them remarked, "Now winter's begun, I'm finding it hard to get up in the morning. My body seems to want to get up later and later. It might be because it thinks it must be still night-time so I still ought to be asleep, because it's darker for longer. I've been late for lectures a few times because of it! Hey imagine if instead of having lots of little sleeps, people had one massive big sleep in their lives, and they were awake for the rest of their lives. I wonder what that would be like. I suppose at least it would mean we wouldn't keep oversleeping and ending up late for lectures!"

One of the others grinned and said, "Are you hinting that you think the tutor might be late for this class because he overslept, ... at two o'clock in the afternoon?"

All the students laughed. The tutor didn't find it amusing though, and said sternly, "No, I'm not late because I overslept! Now let's get on with the class!

"I presume you've all read the letters you were given about what the experiment you took part in yesterday was really all about, and you've read up about the experiments it was inspired by, where people thought they were giving others electric shocks to see what effect it had on their ability to learn. The findings of yesterday's experiment were interesting: Even more of you completed the experiment than those who completed Milgram's ones, even though you thought you were feeding people food they hated and cutting off their hair against their will. Becky was the only one who refused outright to do the experiment. About one in five of you refused partway through and said you didn't care if it was part of the course, you didn't want to do it. Several of the ones who carried on to the end were upset about having to. A few weren't, which I find a bit worrying. Would anyone like to express any opinions on what happened?"

A student called Dave protested, "For all we knew, we could have been in trouble for refusing to carry on, or got lower grades; and I bet most of us thought the experiment must have been in a good cause if you said it was."

To his embarrassment, the tutor challenged him, "But you can see how it might be thought of by an outsider as cruel and selfish that you put concerns about the tiny amount that refusing to do the experiment could possibly affect your grades, and whether someone else had some good reason - even though it can't have seemed a very good one to you - for telling you to do the experiment, over the well-being of someone who you thought was suffering.

"In fact, it could be said that this illustrates just what Milgram was trying to find out: If you will do something you think is making someone suffer just because you're a bit concerned about your grades and think someone knows better than you about what good the experiment will do, how much more likely was it that the Nazis were going to inflict suffering on Jews and others in concentration camps when they'd had years of indoctrination or spent years convincing themselves that Jews were evil and needed to be eliminated for the good of the country, and they were then told to harm them?"

"Was Milgram a Nazi sympathiser, trying to make a case in their defence?" asked one student.

"I don't think so. I read he was a Jew who was haunted by the thought that he could have been one of the ones in the gas chambers if only he'd been born in Europe instead of America, and wondered if Germans were more obedient to authority than other people," said a student called Sally.

The tutor might have just been trying to provoke a heated conversation or make the students think by what he said to Dave, but Dave was offended that he seemed to be comparing him unfavourably with the Nazis or something - he wasn't quite sure if that was really what the tutor was doing, but he was convinced that what he'd said hadn't been complimentary! He thought it was unfair, and made a mental note to relieve his anger later by drawing funny cartoons of the tutor looking like a sinister character from a horror film.

His mind wandered for a little while into a day-dream where the tutor, looking like an evil wizard, was saying to his children at the tea table, "Come on, eat your tadpoles! I caught them from the fish pond specially for your tea tonight", and he ordered them to eat them more and more sternly the more they protested; but when they eventually ate them, he gave a long long sinister laugh and said, "You foolish children! I was only asking you to eat tadpoles as a test of how courageous you are at standing up to me! You've failed the test!"

Then he gave another sinister long laugh and twirled around, whereupon snails and bats' wings fell out of the long cloak he was wearing and flew to the ground.

It was probably just as well that the tutor was oblivious to what Dave was thinking.

Meanwhile, most of the students were still thinking about what they were supposed to be thinking about. Becky couldn't understand why anyone would have even started the experiment and was shocked that some had, even some she called her friends. But since some had told her they'd been upset while they were doing it, she tried to put herself in their position to work out why they might have done it. She said:

"I don't think the experiments were a good comparison with what happened with the Nazis. I mean, a lot of people seem to have been upset about having to do the experiment yesterday and only did it because the supervisor kept telling them they had to, but the Nazis didn't mind harming people at all. And I think it was like that with the Milgram experiments - some people were upset while they were doing them.

"And also, once the experiment started yesterday, and the same with the Milgram experiments, I wonder if one reason people carried on is because the person in charge wouldn't have been happy to just let them sit and think about it; people weren't given much time to think about whether the supposed benefits of the experiment they thought they were doing really were so worthwhile they outweighed the horrid costs, or whether it would be better to refuse to carry on even though they kept being told to continue.

"But the Nazis would have had years to think about whether they were doing the right thing. And if they'd decided they weren't - I know they'd have risked being killed if they'd started speaking out against it, but no authorities would have minded if they'd just said they wanted a different job instead, like if they'd said they'd always had a love of the smell of shoe polish and wanted to spend the rest of their days working in a shoe polish factory where they could inhale it all the time instead of helping to run a concentration camp where they killed people."

The tutor said that was a good point.

Then a student called Tom said, "I watched a programme on telly where it said that after the war, some Germans who'd been prisoners of war in this country were given lessons in critical thinking, where they were taught to think through what they'd been told by the Nazis, to decide for themselves if it was really sensible, and they loved those lessons - or at least the ones a man interviewed on the telly about it spoke to did, - since before when they were growing up, they were always just told what to believe and they were never taught to think it through carefully to see if it made good sense."

"No, I'm sure they wouldn't have been taught that!" sneered another student. "After all, the Nazis wouldn't have wanted Germans thinking too much, or they'd have realised they were being taught a pile of trash!"

Just then, for some reason, a picture fell off the wall and landed in the bin with a clang that made all the students jump. One joked, "That's funny; that picture seems to think it Is a pile of trash!"

The students sniggered, and the tutor took the picture out of the bin and put it on his desk, to examine later to try to work out why it had fallen down.