Tag Archives: Ian Nicholson

APA Monitor Time Capsule: “Psychologist of the Nazi Mind”

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Gustave Gilbert

The May 2016 issue of the American Psychological Association‘s Monitor on Psychology features a piece on Gustave Gilbert’s  role as “prison psychologist” during the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trial. As Ian Nicholson writes,

On Oct. 20, 1945, Gustave Gilbert arrived in Nuremberg, Germany, to begin what was perhaps the most compelling assignment ever given to an American psychologist — working for the International Military Tribunal at the first Nazi war crimes trial. Fluent in German, Gilbert was given the assignment to work as a morale officer and translator. Nuremberg was a high-stakes affair, and the Allied powers wanted the trial to proceed in an orderly and dignified manner. Gilbert’s job was to keep the prisoners — Hitler’s leading henchmen — in a reasonably calm, rational state.

With the approval of his superiors, he quickly recast the position as “prison psychologist” and began studying the prisoners as well. Gilbert used all the standard psychological tools of the day — intelligence tests, Rorschach and Thematic Apperception tests. However, his preferred method was casual conversation. Gilbert befriended the prisoners, visiting them in their cells daily and chatting with them at meal times. At the end of each day, he wrote about these conversations, providing a fascinating window into the thoughts and motivations of the prisoners as they faced what they all knew was a likely death sentence.

Read the rest of the piece online here.

Obedience to Authority Conference Program Now Online

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The full program for this summer’s Obedience to Authority Conference is now online. Fifty years after Stanley Milgram’s now infamous shock experiments, the conference looks back at the impact these studies have had on the discipline and in broader society. Among the stellar list of conference participants are a number of individuals who are undoubtedly familiar to AHP readers: Hank Stam, Jill Morawski, Ian Nicholson, Gina Perry, Thomas Blass, Herbert Kelman, and many more. The Obedience to Authority Conference: Milgram’s Experiments 50 Years On takes place August 6-8th, 2013 in Bracebridge, Ontario. The full program can be found here.

Obedience to Authority Conference, August 2013

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Fifty years after the results of Stanley Milgram’s (above) obedience to authority experiments first appeared in print, a conference on his controversial work is scheduled to take place. The 2013 Obedience to Authority Conference will take place August 6th to 8th in Bracebridge, Ontario in the Muskoka district north of Toronto. As the conference website describes, this event

came about as a result of a conversation at the 2012 Cheiron conference. After a panel discussion on Milgram’s obedience research, the four panellists – Nestar Russell, Gina Perry, Dr Stephen Gibson and Dr Ian Nicholson – agreed that a conference on the topic was long overdue.

The Call for Papers for the Obedience to Authority Conference follows below.

The 2013 Obedience to Authority conference invites proposals for papers that explore and investigate the implications and applications of Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the following areas:

Ethics
Gender and power
Historical analysis
Methodology
Paradigms of power
Replications and representations
Value and meaning

Submissions are due May 15, 2013 and can be submitted here.

And Yet More Milgram…

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For those following AHP’s continuing coverage of everything Milgram related, we bring you another look at the now infamous obedience to authority experiments. In a forthcoming issue of Theory & Psychology, historian of psychology Ian Nicholson (right) examines the recent rehabilitation of Milgram’s research. Nicholson draws on the archival record of the obedience to authority experiments to contextualize these attempts to rehabilitate Milgram and his research. The abstract to the article, “Torture at Yale”: Experimental subjects, laboratory torment and the “rehabilitation” of Milgram’s “Obedience to Authority,” reads,

Stanley Milgram’s experiments on “Obedience to Authority” are among the most criticized in all of psychology. However, over the past 20 years, there has been a gradual rehabilitation of Milgram’s work and reputation, a reconsideration that is in turn closely linked to a contemporary “revival” of his Obedience experiments. This paper provides a critical counterpoint to this “Milgram revival” by drawing on archival material from participants in the Obedience study and Milgram himself. This material indicates that Milgram misrepresented (a) the extent of his debriefing procedures, (b) the risk posed by the experiment, and (c) the harm done to his participants. The archival record also indicates that Milgram had doubts about the scientific value of the experiment, thereby compromising his principal ethical justification for employing such extreme methods. The article ends with a consideration of the implications of these historical revelations for contemporary efforts to revive the Milgram paradigm.

The article can currently be accessed through Theory & Psychology’s OnlineFirst publication system.