Ethics and "The Experimenter."
14.05.2016 by CVI recently watched the movie "The Experimenter," which was very interesting and recommended for anyone who likes a smart flick. It was about the social experiments conducted by psychologist Dr Milgram in the '60's, examining among other variants his test subjects' response to authority, conformity, and ethics. They are duped into believing they are delivering dangerously powerful electric shocks to another participant located in another room, and their willingness to do this simply because they are pressured by someone in a position of authority, even with their counterpart screaming and telling them to stop.
Most of the participants know what they are doing is wrong, they disagree with it, they are uncomfortable with it, but they do it nonetheless, swayed by this outside authority.
It made me curious as to how an alexithymic would respond, and does respond, in less extreme ways in everyday life.
I have recently been a test subject in a neurological study, and as expected, my ability to empathise is near non-existent. However, my psychopathic indicators were also non-existent. I have no predaliction toward violence, which is apparently a common complication for those unable to empathise. The reason for this discrepancy?
I believe it is what I have been trying to explain to the counsellor I pointlessly see occasionally - my behaviour is not the product of emotional empathy, but of carefully considered ethical structuring.
The test subjects in Dr Milgram's experiments were obviously influenced by the emotional pressure exerted on them by authority and conformity, at war with their own sense of morality.
An alexithymic is less likely to understand and be influenced by emotional pressures. I don't know about all of you, but without an emotional ompass, ethics is all I really have as a guide.
Ironically, I believe the inability to understand and identify, express, or even in some cases feel at all, any emotion actually makes an ethical structure stronger, and the likelihood of a person to defy expected norms in order to stick by their ethics more likely. Because that is all you have. Enough to resist emotional pressure from this outside authority? I believe so.
With so much negative spin put on those of us without normal emotional intelligence, especially on those unable to empathise, this may well reveal a distinct positive effect of it.
Opinions? How do you see this issue at work in your own world?
Law & Order SVU Plot....
14.05.2016 by DXS
Oh my god, that exact scenario was used in a Law and Order SVU plot a few years ago, and the "bad guy" (played by Robin Williams) was named "Milgram."
Whoa. That sounds like a horrible experiment.
On experiment ethics -
15.05.2016 by CV
Not really, as it was all smoke and mirrors, no one was ACTUALLY being shocked. The participant doing the screaming was one of the research team, who was completely fine and completely in on it, just providing enough stimulus to engage the ethical stops of a person of an average cross section of society at the time, in order to see if they would submit their own will - obey - even when they knew it was wrong, and didn't want to.
I believe the background curiosity was how things like the Nazi phenomenon can possibly happen, when individuals involved in these crimes have healthy ethical views. It was apparent that Dr Milgram did cop some backlash, ironically enough, for the ethics of his own experiments.
I was just curious how an alexithymic would respond, given our atypical emotional responses.
Horror Movies?
15.05.2016 by Onederful
This is an interesting topic. I feel like someone who has alexthymic traits would respond to someone else in severe pain from being shocked because the other person is experiencing physical pain, not emotional pain or distress. "Empathy" is a tricky word in psychology and social sciences, and I feel like there are several different denominations of empathy that lead people (especially those with alexithymic traits) to have different reactions to different situations.
In other words, do you enjoy horror movies where people get torchered and murdered? I personally hate those, because even though I don't typically respond to other's emotions, seeing/hearing people in pain makes me wildly uncomfortable. If you're someone who does enjoy these kinds of movies, or simply tolerates them when your friends are just DYING to see the new Saw movie, then that sort of empathy may be lacking for you. That's not to say people who love horror movies aren't empathic, but there may be some inability to relate to those situations based on the individual's emotional intelligence.
I guess that's the best way to describe how this would work in my own world (if that makes any sense). I think this is something that is interesting to explore, as we don't typically take the time to work through how we are reacting to other people or empathizing with them.
It is interesting
16.05.2016 by CV
With horror movies, I have heard it theorised that people enjoy scary movies because of the awareness that it is fiction. It is a safe thrill for everyone involved. The audience is of course aware that the people in the film are not really being harmed - if they were, I don't believe anyone would enjoy it without some more serious emotional issues than alexithymia.
From my perspective, again, I'm neutral. I don't feel anything about horror movies, I can take them or leave them. But I do know that I am not impressed by violence the way more "normally" structured people are. Because I disagree ethically, which is really the point. I have observed that people seem to respect violence because they perceive the action as making the perpetrator "strong." A position I disagree with - I tend to regard anyone who is incapable of resolving their situation without beating the other caveman with a club to be rather intellectually deficient. There are of course variables, exceptions, context, but generally speaking this is true.
Its true people don't take a lot of time out to work through this sort of thing - which is why I imagined an alexithymic may respond differently, as for myself, I have had no choice but to carefully consider my position philosophically and deliberately decide on a position to hold, simply because an emotional response is not automatically making that distinction for me.
I could tell.....
16.05.2016 by DXS
I was just curious how an alexithymic would respond, given our atypical emotional responses.
When I saw the L&O SVU episode I could tell it wasn't real..... I think it's that I have keen hearing....
