Quiz: Obedience
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Are most people obedient?
In 1961, 40 volunteers were invited to earn $4 by helping with an experiment [1] at a university. The experiment was aimed at testing how punishment affected learning. The volunteer was asked to administer an electric shock to a test subject every time the test subject answered incorrectly, and to increase the voltage incrementally with each shock administered. A professor would be present in the room, directing the volunteer when to administer the shocks. The voltage started at 15V and ended at 450V, which was labeled as "danger: severe shock".
It was all a clever hoax. The test person was an actor, no real shocks were delivered, and the test was to observe how far the volunteers would go in following someone's instructions.
Out of the 40 volunteers, how many continued administering up to the maximum shock?