ABC News Primetime Basic Instincts 5: The Milgram Experiment Re-Visited

Primetime: Basic Instincts brings some of most well known intellectual theories and psychological experiments to life for the first time to test people's innate decision making process. This limited series looks at everyday problems from weight loss to examining how small the world is, how closely connected we all are, what people are willing to do simply because someone in authority tells them to. This five-part series features reports from John Quinones, Jay Schadler and Chris Cuomo, and finds that what people say they would do in a given situation is quite different than what they actually do.

Do people listen to those in positions of authority, even if what they are telling them is wrong? That question was at the heart of the famous Stanley Milgram psychology experiments and still remains today. From the events at Abu Ghraib to Nazi Germany, people have always struggled to understand why seemingly ordinary people can sometimes do bad, or even terrible, things. Primetime working with a major university, conducts the experiment again to see whether people's responses have changed since the original Milgram experiment in 1961.

Anchor: Chris Cuomo
Airdate: January 3, 2007

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