Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

psychologists to cause emotional damage in a person for better knowledge of what is happening in the
world?
In researching the Milgram experiment I came across other experiments done where a person was
in a distressing situation. The experiments that were done were more ethical. In one of these experiments
an actor pretends to be sick or hurt in some way. They lie somewhere where they will be noticed and in
high trafficked areas. There are cameras hidden around the scene and someone is watching the
proceedings from a nearby building. They wait until someone steps forward to help the person. When
someone does step forward they come out of the buildings and confront the person. They explain what is
happening and ask why they got involved (YouTube- Bystander effect). There are many experiments
conducted like this one. There is one where an infant is locked in a car on a hot day, another where a dog
is trapped in a hot car, on where a young child is approached by a stranger while at a play ground asking
them to help find his dog, and one where a child is abducted. In these experiments not many people stop
to help the person or dog. This is referred to as the bystander effect where when a lot of people are around
you believe that someone else will help.
This was not the case when a young girl was approached by a stranger at a park when her nanny
leaves to use the restroom. Every time the stranger came to talk to the little girl a parent from nearby
would step in and ask the man to leave the girl alone and threatening to call the police. They then changed
the scenario a little instead of the man being a stranger the man knows the little girl who lives down the
street from him. Even then there was only one parent that let the little girl walk away but when questioned
she said she kept watching to see where they were going (YouTube-what would you do?). These are the
type of experiments that are ethical there is no psychological harm on the unknowing subjects. We can
also use the information that was acquired when we are teaching children what they should do when they
are in that type of situation.
As adults we can use the information ourselves. For example in the experiment with the baby
being locked in the car crying it took close to ten minutes for one person to stop and call 911. When one
person stopped the other people who had been walking by would stop and help ask whose car it was. That
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