(YouTube Link)
In the 1960s, Yale psychology researcher Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments in which participants were instructed to deliver dangerous electrical shocks to people. This was staged, and no one was in actual danger, but the experiment suggested that normal people will do horrible things if told to do so by authority figures. Perhaps inspired by that experiment, a French TV production company created a game show with that theme:
The aim of the experiment is to show how the manipulative power of television can push people to ever more outrageous limits.
A team of psychologists recruited 80 volunteers, telling them they were taking part in a pilot for a new television show.
They were instructed to pose questions to another "player", and punish him with up to 460 volts of electricity when he got answers wrong.
Not knowing that the screaming victim was really an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants yielded to the orders of the presenter and audience, who also believed the game was real.
Link
As people have mentioned above, the subjects in the Milgram experiment had psychological impacts that probably bothered them for years to come. Why do that to someone for entertainment?
It appears that you are the one "rampantly misinterpreting" the Milgram experiment.
I'm not sure what "video" you are talking about, but in the original experiment 26 (65%) out of a total of 40 participants went all the way to the maximum voltage. You can read it for yourself in Milgram's article "The Perils of Obedience" published in 1974.
The experiment was replicated many times in varyious conditions e.g. with the experimenter not revealing any links to Yale (to see if the prestigiousness of the college may have contributed to the obedience), and even in a condition where the participant was required to manually force the "learner's" hand onto a plate that supposedly delivers the shock. In the latter conditon, 30% of people still completed the experiment.
@c0ldfish: I'm not sure what you mean about the first Milgram "video," but more than 5 people were put through the test, and more than 1 in 5 (still 20%!) participated. Unless you mean only a small fraction was willing to go all the way to the max voltage, but that's being a little too dismissive of the implications of the experiment.
only one of them went all the way to the experiment
how does this conclude people are cruel and heartless? it's like people can't even understand numbers.
the one person who did go all the way to the end of the experiment was an unemployed old man who really needed the money
this video is interesting, i will show it to my associate who is currently doing work on this history of this experiment and it's rampant misinterpretation.