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EP21 – Our Dark Side…uggghhh

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of…I thought I was a really good Person, why did I do that horrible deed?

Have you ever thought the following while you were at your job: Its just a post-it note pack, they will never miss it. Or hey I could use a stapler at home, they charge enough money its ok. How about speeding on roads where you know the police don’t patrol. These types of minor acts are still crimes…yes you are stealing from your employer. One thing is for certain, if they shorted your paycheck by even a single dollar you would be all over payroll to fix it. Why the ambiguity in morality?

Quite often when we feel like we are being taken advantage of or we simply feel under, there is a small voice that that tells us we can even the playing field by things like taking a longer lunch, looking up stuff that’s for personal use on company time, or simply slowing down our productivity. I mean seriously, who doesn’t enjoy sticking it to the man!

For our purposes, I would like to investigate what type of people are more prone to do these acts or worse. Numerous researchers in the field of psychology have studied the idea of why seemingly good citizens can do atrocious acts. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote the book, When Bad things happened to good people. Various stories in the bible, like the story of Job, to Viktor Frankl and his book Man’s search for meaning. These are just some of the examples of why seemingly normal and good people have to endure tragedy and suffering. Would these people be justified if they acted out atrocious acts on others, animals or the planet? If you look at their stories, they transformed their pain and suffering into successful and helpful lessons and theories.

Kushner wrote the book, on his take on God’s role in life and the tragedy of his son’s illness, to create a platform for how to deal with tragedy and loss. How many people have learned from the story of Job…countless and Viktor Frankl, I remember when I read his book in college. The fact that he physically survived the concentration camps is absolutely remarkable but then to create a new discipline in psychology called logotherapy whereby through a search for meaning and purpose in life people can develop ways to deal with tragedy and hardship, well I believe that qualifies him and the others as Emotional Warriors.

So what does this have to do with our dark side. The classic experiment was carried out by Stanley Milgram in 1963 whereby he studied Obedience to authority. It aimed to test the level of naive subjects’ obedience to authority. The subjects were told that the experiment tested the potency of punishment in improving learning capabilities, and were asked to administer electrical shocks to a “learner” (an accomplice of the experimenter). The subject did not know the shocks were false; measures were taken to convince the subject that the shocks were real. The “learner” was given some pairs of words. Then he was told one word from one of the pairs, and four more words. The “learner” had to choose the word that came in a pair with the first word, and press a respective button, which turned on a respective light that the participant could see. The subject did not see or hear the learner. If the answer was wrong, the subject was to apply an electric shock to the “learner” and continue.

Each time the subject had to increase the voltage of the shock by 15 V. The voltage of electric shocks ranged from 15 V to 450 V, and there were 30 switches. When the participant paused or stopped, four standardized phrases were used to tell them to go on. If, after being told all the phrases, the subject refused to administer more shocks, they were considered as one who defied the experiment. The others, who carried on and administered the highest shock (450 V), were considered obedient.

Importantly, when the...