Gratitude

Today I was blessed to receive a quiet reminder.

For one of my classes, we had to watch several clips of the Milgram experiment. If you are not familiar with it, it's definitely worth youtubing. Basically, the subject was given the title teacher, and the confederate, learner. Unknown to them, both slips said "teacher", and the actor claimed to have the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the participant would always be the "teacher". The "teacher" and "learner" were separated into different rooms so they couldn't see each other, but still could communicate. The "teacher" was given an electric shock from the generator as a sample of the shock the "learner" would supposedly receive during the experiment. The "teacher" was then given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing for each wrong answer. If the learner got the answer right, no shock was administered and they moved on.

The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving a shock when in reality, there were no shocks. After the confederate was separated from the subject, a tape recorder was set up that would imitate the shock sounds that the teacher believed he was administering. After a number of voltage level increases, the actor would bang on the wall that separated him from the subject. After several times banging on the wall and complaining. all responses by the learner would cease.

If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

1. Please continue.

2. The experiment requires that you continue.

3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.

4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450- volt shock three times in succession.

This experiment has since been replicated with men, women, military members, all kinds of demographics, etc. The results have been consistent. 2/3 of all people that participated in the experiment administered the maximum shock to the "learner".

WOW. Does authority really have that big of an affect on us? Just because someone is wearing a lab coat, will we compromise our character?

Does situation trump character?

Does situation trump weak character?

Or my favorite...

Does situation reveal character?

Think about Christ. How solid must his character have been to play the part of a Savior. One of Satan's sharpest tools in the pre-existence was posing this question, "Do you really think Jesus can do it? Do have enough faith in his character to believe that he can go without sin for an entire lifetime? Do you actually think he can make it through the entire Atonement without backing out?"

Sitting in that classroom today just made me appreciate my Savior so fully. Nobody even mentioned him during that hour, yet I know the Holy Ghost taught me a life changing lesson about Christ's love.

What ultimately determines my character?

What's more important: obeying authority or exercising my agency?

Just a few quotes I found to end with:

"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." -James D. Miles

"You don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation." -Charles Dickens

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln

"I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops." -Oscar Wilde