The Milgram experiment 'on obedience to authority figures' - It measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.
You get crisis every so often due to the job, at least I do (atos trainer) Dispatches. I would say this quote shows that the people carrying out the work capability assessments get crisis of conscience from the work they are carrying out.
Miligram designed this experiment to try and find out why so many people in Nazi germany, post war, were using the defence that they were 'just following orders'.
The experiment was set up so volunteers were asked to give 'students who were in fact actors' stronger and stronger electric shocks if they kept on getting a set of answers wrong. The volunteers were prompted by an authority figure if they questioned the 'authority figure' with regard to them increasing and administering the electric shocks.
Atos assessor Dispatches ‘Ive recently had somebody with prostate cancer but of course that’s not traditionally treated with chemotherapy – so I gave him no points and I couldn’t do anything else – it’s the same with breast cancer – the hormonal treatments don’t count – so he was given no points – I felt very uncomfortable doing it I didn’t like doing it but I had no way of scoring him.'
Most volunteers continued after administering stronger and strong electcri shocks in the Milgram experiment after they had been assured that they would not be held responsible.Again I return to quotes from the Dispatches programme so you can compare the 'experiments'
(Atos Trainer) always emphasis that the final decision comes from the descision makers at the dwp – just to push the kind of guilt from yourself – the dwp agrees with atos 94% of the time
(Atos Trainer) good thing for us is that even if you make the wrong decision – you don’t see x-rays – you don’t see ECG you just only see the person – so you can be wrong but you never go to the tribunal – this is the good thing – you never go to the tribunal. So sort of, you won’t be blamed.
As can be seen from just a quick comparison between these 2 'experiments' there are extremely obvious similarities the only difference being that in the Milgram experiments the 'students' receiving the electric shocks were in fact actors. In the ATOS/WCA/DWP 'experiments' the people suffering and dieing are real people. They could be your brother, your sister, your neighbour, your cousin, your children.
insightful post
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ReplyDeleteAnd this is why it is unacceptable to be any part of viewing figures for the Paralympics, sponsored by Atos. It is shocking that the sick and disabled are even thinking of visiting the Paralympics, let alone taking part in them!
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