yes, getting this done and associated it with lesswrong could be very high visibility and status raising. Must one be affiliated with a psych dept at an academic institution to have any hope of being published?
Before worrying about getting published, there is the problem of securing the people and the funding required to design and execute a large experiment.
Still, no reason a professor of Economics or, uhm, practical ethics or something shouldn’t be able to do it, given the right team. The Reverse Milgram experiment is a pretty sexy idea given the history and fame of the original study. Shouldn’t be a hard sell to the appropriate university department.
Gandhi seems to have been unusually successful at kindling the hero in the common man, using appeal to authority, appeal to personal responsibility (Inverse Milgram) and some other ingredients. Perhaps an attempt to dissolve and emulate Gandhi’s social experiments in a proper experimental setting could make a candidate for a Reverse Milgram Experiment.
The social experiments of Gandhi, I believe he referred to them as such, do perhaps serve to show that something like the Reverse Milgram Experiment should be possible, even if he did so before the Milgram Experiment was even conceived of.
One problem that comes to mind is that there would likely need to be a significant perceived cost or threat to the subjects, in order to get interesting, publishable results. Heroic actions don’t often come at no cost.
yes, getting this done and associated it with lesswrong could be very high visibility and status raising. Must one be affiliated with a psych dept at an academic institution to have any hope of being published?
Before worrying about getting published, there is the problem of securing the people and the funding required to design and execute a large experiment.
Still, no reason a professor of Economics or, uhm, practical ethics or something shouldn’t be able to do it, given the right team. The Reverse Milgram experiment is a pretty sexy idea given the history and fame of the original study. Shouldn’t be a hard sell to the appropriate university department.
Gandhi seems to have been unusually successful at kindling the hero in the common man, using appeal to authority, appeal to personal responsibility (Inverse Milgram) and some other ingredients. Perhaps an attempt to dissolve and emulate Gandhi’s social experiments in a proper experimental setting could make a candidate for a Reverse Milgram Experiment.
The social experiments of Gandhi, I believe he referred to them as such, do perhaps serve to show that something like the Reverse Milgram Experiment should be possible, even if he did so before the Milgram Experiment was even conceived of.
One problem that comes to mind is that there would likely need to be a significant perceived cost or threat to the subjects, in order to get interesting, publishable results. Heroic actions don’t often come at no cost.