Donna Abbott Quotes in Experimenter (2015)

Donna Abbott: How do you justify the deception?

Stanley Milgram: I like to think of it as illusion, not deception. Semantics, you may say, but illusion, you know, has a revelatory function, as in a play. Illusion can set the stage for revelation, to reveal certain difficult-to-get-at truths.

Donna Abbott: But still, when you go to see a play, you pay for a ticket. You know you're seeing a play. These people didn't know it wasn't real. You tricked them.

Stanley Milgram: "Hello, today we'll be doing an experiment about blind obedience to malevolent authority. I'd like for you to pretend that this machine is delivering painful shocks to a person in the other room." How truthful do you think that would be?

Donna Abbott: But if you think of it, really, *you* were delivering shocks to your subjects. Psychological shocks.