The Age reports that Melburnians are so agreeable that they they will risk giving themselves and someone else an electric shock if they are asked to, WorkSafe Victoria found in a recent social experiment allegedly, based on the Stanley Prison experiments. However, aworkcovervictimsdiary is still not sure the message it is supposed to deliver and to whom? Should we call them WorkSafe stupidy experiments? To us, seriously injured workers, it looks very similar to the tactics used by WorkSafe Victoria’s very own workcover insurance Agents to intimidate genuinely injured workers…
WorkSafe Victoria reproduces Stanley Milgram obedience experiments
“Naked” has launched a campaign for WorkSafe Victoria,allegedly based on the findings of controversial Stanley prison experiments from 1960′s which found that people are obedient to requests, even if those requests have dangerous consequences. According to WorkSafe Victoria’s bizarre “experiment” about 90% did what they were told to do.
Apparently WorkSafe Victoria’s appointed “Naked” partner and psychologist stated“We wanted to draw attention to the fact that WorkSafe’s public awareness campaign is founded on real psychological insights. We are all susceptible to doing dangerous tasks, if asked to do so by our bosses. For anyone who supervises others the message is simple – don’t ask people to do dangerous things, as they just might do them”.
The campaign is being supported by Public Relations and social media activity focused on WorkSafe Victoria’s Facebook page.
Oh and by the way, the only thing this ad has in common with the Milgram (aka Stanley prison) experiments is the faux use of electric shocks, and the influence of someone in uniform. There is no coercion involved in the ad, and no passerby unwilling to assist, unlike Milgram. And the “victim” is in full view.
We are still not sure the message it’s delivering and to whom? Surely looks very similar to the tactics used by WorkSafe Vic’s very own workcover insurance Agents to intimidate genuinely injured workers…
You may be interested in our post “Workcover case managers and the Stanford prison experiment“
Why else would a case manager arbitrarily stop an injured worker’s weekly payments, or deny medication that the worker had been getting for weeks, deny surgery, or delay approving some routine medical treatment that had been ordered by the authorised treating doctor? Would they do the same thing to their own family member, or someone they knew personally? I don’t think so!
WorkSafe Vic last orders
“Would you do what you ask your workers to do? A light hearted way to remind managers and supervisors about a very serious message – make safety a priority when supervising workers….” – WTF?!
Shock survey finds Melburnians would pass live wire
aworkcovervictimsdiary believes that this also applies to workcover Case Managers!!!
She said while employers had the principle responsibility for ensuring workplaces were safe, supervisors and managers also had a big role to play in the safety or otherwise of workplaces.
Last year a supervisor from a drilling company was convicted and given a suspended jail sentence for ordering a 21-year-old to drive a truck with faulty parking brakes and no seatbelt down a steep, off-road slope near Kilmore in Victoria in 2006. The truck flipped and the young man was killed. He had only recently acquired a truck licence.
[Source: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/shock-survey-finds-melburnians-would-pass-live-wire-20120416-1x2w7.html]
WorkSafe Victoria seems to know quite a lot about the Stanley prison experiments, eh…
Shortlink: http://aworkcovervictimsdiary.com/?p=7008
And a journo published this crap? They must have been either paid big bucks to do so or been bribed!
“people are obedient to requests, even if those requests have dangerous consequences” => FUNDAMENTAL problem lies within the workcover system itself, in particular workscover insurance agents like Allianz and Xchanging… Now, tell me WorkSafe, why are workcover case managers obedient to requests if those requests have DANGEROUS consequences and are AGAINST doctor’s advice? I.e abruptly cutting off medication, REFUSING major surgery, delaying or denying important scans and MRIs, refusing to pay for tests, refusing a severely injured person to travel by taxi and forcing them on public roads, refusing home help to severely injured people who can’t even get dressed on their own? Is that not DANGEROUS? Does that not need a targeted “campaign”?
Well done, you are growing so fast. This is inspirational stuff for many who have suffered in silence with no support. I had a heart attack on night shift for a major security firm, when I made a workcover claim, the “company” insured by Allianz employed a second rate bozo psychologist to interview me, as they claimed I have been behaving aggressively, a concocted claim. The psychologist MI interviewed me while a security guard stood outside the door, MI pushed me twice to see if I would strike him back. I didn’t retaliate as they hoped that I would. The psychologist had as much academic psychology training as I have in psychology assured me that making a workcover claim was unhealthy mentally as I was adopting a “victim’s mentality” I made a complaint o the Australian psychological society about this consultation, but APS did not reply, so much for their code of ethics. I have written a little on Ethical workplace personality assessments and how to object to them.
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Psychology/WorkPsy.html
How to object to unwanted psychological assessments
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Psychology/Protect.html
Hi Tim, thank you for the compliment and especially for the link to your great articles. With your permission, I’ll add those links to our “workcover tips” collection page as well. Thank again! Stay tough and kick butt!
Participant reveals trauma of shock experiments
And WorkSafe is boasting about its “experiment” based on this – shame on you WorkSafe, but SHAME ON YOU. Shows what kind of twisted people you employ.
As published on ABC today…
A notorious psychology experiment using fake electric shock techniques, implemented and ridiculed in the United States in the 1960s, was replicated on students at Melbourne’s La Trobe University a decade later, a new book reveals.
The experiment, first conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1961, measured the willingness of subjects to obey authority by seeing whether they would give electric shocks to others when instructed.
Professor Milgram began his work after seeing the televised trials of senior Nazi war criminals, who defended their actions by saying they were just following orders.
The shocks were fake but involvement in the experiments has affected some participants for years, with many scientists labelling the procedures unethical.
A new book by Gina Perry, Behind the Shock Machine, reveals the experiments were used at La Trobe more than a decade after the ethics were brought into serious question.
Dianne Backwell was a second-year student at La Trobe University in 1973 and says she volunteered to help a roommate with a psychology experiment, knowing her friend had failed some subjects the previous year.
“She was giving all the right responses and everything was going fine and then she started to get a few wrong so I was giving her the shock with the dial, and as the the intensity got higher then she was making noises with the shock,” she told The World Today.
Ms Backwell says she was made to believe that the shocks were real.
“As it went on then yes, the noises were clearly getting more distressing,” she said.
“The person who is there beside you, [my] prac partner, was saying ‘oh go on, keep going, you’ve got to keep going with it’.
“I was saying ‘this is ridiculous’ and the other person was saying ‘well, you know you have committed to do this’.”
Audio: Notorious Milgram psych experiment at La Trobe (The World Today)
Ms Backwell says after one final scream, her friend fell silent.
“I thought that I’d possibly even killed this girl, which sounds ridiculous saying it now,” she said.
Ms Backwell says participating in the trials affected her for years.
“I don’t understand when it was 10 years earlier and it had been absolutely discredited, why the head of the psychology department at La Trobe, who must have known about that, would have subjected not just the stooges like me, but the psych students as well,” she said.
‘Disturbing turn’
Ms Perry has been researching the experiments for years and says they put people “in a terrible situation”.
“They volunteered for what they thought was a fairly benign sounding memory test at a very reputable university and when they arrived in Milgram’s lab, things took an awful and disturbing turn,” she said.
“There’s been a lot of mixed feelings about Milgram over the years.
“Some people decry the ethics of his experiment, other people said that they were worth it because of what they showed us about human nature, so there was a real controversy about the experiment.”
Ms Perry says she also uncovered evidence that cast doubt over Professor Milgram’s work.
“I listened to hundreds of hours of the experiments themselves because he recorded every experiment,” she said.
“I found that the situation that he described was nowhere near as simple and that in fact quite a number of people during the experiment did see through what they realised was a set-up, which of course casts some doubt on the results.”
La Trobe University says it does not know why such experiments took place, but they are not being conducted today.
Anyone involved in them has been invited to contact the university for counselling.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-26/participant-reveals-trauma-of-shock-experiments/3974214