by SlowObjective4
There was and experiment called the The Milgram Experiment in which people volunteered to participate in a test. They were told that they were there to help test students and all they had to do was press a button whenever the student got a question wrong. They were unable to see the student but could hear reactions from the student via a microphone. (They also had a person beside them (who wore a lab coat) who would advise them (never force but just tell them) to always press the button.
From there the “student” was then asked a question and once the student got one wrong they would press the button. The button would administer a small electric zap to the student. Each time the student missed a question the volunteer was also instructed to increase the electric shock by a little bit each time as well. After a while the experiment would be brought to a point where the student (who was a voice actor) would call out enough wrong questions to were if they were shocked they would die from it. The volunteer was even informed that this level of shock could be fatal to the student but that they must continue. Almost always a person would then continue on pressing the button and end up “murdering” the test subject. (They would even hear screams from the other side of the wall and a loud thud.) The questions would then continue to be called out and since the student wouldn’t respond the question would be counted as wrong. From there they were instructed to keep shocking the person still. (At the end of the test they were informed about what the test was really about and what really happened.)
This test showed just how much people are willing to trust others because they wear a lab coat or some other uniform. It’s scary how almost everybody who did the test was willing to carry it out until the end.