Pretty Disturbing Experiment

[Bardock]

Two people are used for an experiment: the teacher and the learner. The learner is in on the experiment, and actually an actor. The learned is hooked up to an electric chair-like device. The teacher is told this exercise is a different experiment than what it actually is. It's explained to both of them that all of it is entirely voluntary. The person conducting the experiment instructs the teacher to read off word pairs to the learner, to which the learner must be able to match the pairs correctly from memory. When the learner gets it wrong, the teacher is told to push a button that sends volts of electricity into the chair. The voltage goes up for each continued wrong answer, up to a certain capacity. After a point, the learner begins to pretend like they're in pain, that they have a heart condition, and starts complaining to be let go (unbeknownst to the teacher, no electric shock is actually being used). The whole experiment is to determine if the teacher continues to push the button when told to do so, or if they refuse.

The theory was that people would stop after the learner starts complaining, but the majority would keep going, despite voicing reservations. It's a test of ingrained personal belief system against the power of obedience, with the belief obviously being that it's wrong to intentionally hurt another human being.