THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGYthe final fatal attack, which took place inside Genovese’s own apartment
block, out of view of the vast majority of the “witnesses” who were resi-
dent in the Mowbray apartment-block across the street. And contrary
to the notion that nobody did anything to help, one of the Mowbray
witnesses claims to have shouted at Mosely, scaring him off from his
initial attack, and another, a fifteen-year-old at the time, says that his
father called the police.
Regardless of exactly who did and didn’t do what on the night that
Genovese was murdered, the bystander effect itself has been supported
by ample research – being in a group really does seem to dilute people’s
sense of individual responsibility. However, social psychologists like
Rachel Manning at the University of the West of England worry that the
Virtual Milgram
A problem for contemporary psychologists wanting to investigate
obedience, conformity and the abuse of power is that many of the
classic studies can’t be repeated. By today’s standards they are judged
unethical. However, that hasn’t stopped researchers from improvising.
In 2006, Mel Slater at UCL created a virtual reality version of Milgram’s
classic study. Participants donned a virtual-reality headset and were
instructed to apply shocks to a computerized woman whenever she
answered memory questions incorrectly. Although obviously unreal,
the woman showed distress at the shocks and protested that she
wanted to stop. It may sound daft, but in fact the study provided some
hope that immersive technology could provide a way to replicate
unethical studies. Out of 34 participants, six chose to withdraw from
the study before it was due to finish, six more said they had consid-
ered withdrawing because they felt uncomfortable, and physiological
measures suggested the participants had found the experience stressful.
Another way that contemporary psychologists have re-examined
Milgram’s work is by focusing on the 150-volt level. Jerry Burger at
Santa Clara University noticed that this was something of a point of no
return. In Milgram’s original work, if a participant continued beyond the
150-volt level – when the actor playing the role of learner first said they
wanted the experiment to stop – it was highly likely that they would go
all the way. Indeed, 79 percent of participants who passed the 150-volt
point went on to administer the top 450-volt shock. Burger carried out
a replication of Milgram’s study, but stopped proceedings immediately
after participants refused or accepted the instruction to go beyond the
150-volt level. He found that 70 percent were willing to go beyond 150
volts, a proportion only slightly lower than Milgram’s 82.5 percent. For
Burger, this suggests that, under lab conditions, people’s obedience to
authority today is little changed from the 1960s.