Listening to the podcast for the first time really sparks an interesting take on a person’s morality – how someone chooses what is right or wrong. The podcast tells us that people’s actions are often influenced by other people, however, there is a twist. At the beginning of the podcast, the speaker tells us about Stanley Milgram’s experiments and how people can influence other people’s actions when they were told to do so. This was shown here when the experimenter urges the participant to keep the experiment going even though the “test subject”(actually an actor) cannot go any further. Even though the test subject is in pain, the participant chose the experiment over his morals. I think this shows how weak humans are mental. This can also be shown later in the podcast when they were going through several experiments that were similar, yet different. One experiment involved people asking other people to do surveys, and another involves one group getting a notice of a fundraiser beforehand and the other group didn’t. What is similar about these experiments is that one action can influence one person’s actions and how the person doing the experiment felt. When asking people to do a favor for them, the person asking would start doubting themselves. “What if I got rejected?” so they thought. What they didn’t know is that the person who they ask will most likely “obey” their favor because they have to judge their morals. Most people will do what they are asked because they feel like they can’t reject their offer or else it will make them feel guilty for making the other person sad or depressed as if they failed them. Similar to Stanley Milgram’s experiment, right?

Now here I thought… how do these experiments fit me as a person? As an introvert myself, I have experienced this personally as well. I remember the times when people would come up to me and ask me for a dollar or two and I would blindly give it away because I would feel bad if I declined. Now when I think back to when I was still learning about the world, I was able to go up to cashiers and random strangers that I’ve never talked to before and able to hold up a conversation. Well… I can hold a conversation, however, I can’t just talk to random strangers anymore even if I needed help. I think this is due to how much I’ve learned about the world and that it is evil in the world. This is the same for the people in the experiments as well. They see evil in the world and they need to avoid that evil. That is how I isolate myself from the world around me (This is kind of making me sad talking about this and looking through my life).  When you think it is evil in the world, there is still good. Everyone is still human and that when you think about it, the evil comes from someone’s own experiences. Something that makes people who they are is what makes someone human.

(Ouch… this kind of hurt me a bit. I felt like I kind of went to a different topic from the one we are talking about. I started talking about what makes someone human instead of how people influence other people’s actions. I am sorry if it is really hard to read or understand what I am saying… I kind of just went with it…) >_>