I wonder if there’s a different explanation. What comes to mind:
-They just wanted to get done with this weird uncomfortable situation as soon as possible, and so rushed the checklist.
-They didn’t have a good theory of mind for this situation, and didn’t realize or remember that what they were doing was ineffective, so they just charged ahead.
-They were the kind of person who likes to enforce rules, and stick to plans, or maybe were just disagreeable (in the OCEAN personality sense), so they disregarded the screams from that, rather than cruelty.
You definitely get epistemic points for attempting alternative theories, but no additional points, I think, for providing ones that seem plausibly as explanatory as the original ones provided.
I think the “rushing through an uncomfortable situation” is maybe somewhat plausible?
I feel like I have sometimes shut off empathy during situations that felt uncomfortable, such as giving people negative feedback on things where they had a warped idea of their abilities. Instead of dealing with the uncomfortable feeling and using it to give feedback well, I’d try to get it over with as bluntly and quickly as possible and deliberately made myself not care internally, or something like that. Actually, now that I think of it, in the two instances that I remember, it was third parties pushing/pressuring me to give others the negative feedback. So there’s quite a parallel to the Milgram experiment! I think if I had waited for the right moment and until I was ready to give the negative feedback on my own terms, I’d have been much more gentle.
The alternative hypothesis in the OP—that generalized sadism is widespread—also just feels implausible. I buy that sadism towards outgroups is very common, and so I think a lot of people can be brought towards sadistic behavior if they’re riled up against an outgroup. But in the Milgram experiment the victims are just other random subjects (or experimenters pretending to be other subjects) and I don’t think it’s common for people to feel sadistic towards just about anyone. At least, it would go quite hard against my experience of other people if this were even just 20% of the population.
I wonder if there’s a different explanation. What comes to mind:
-They just wanted to get done with this weird uncomfortable situation as soon as possible, and so rushed the checklist.
-They didn’t have a good theory of mind for this situation, and didn’t realize or remember that what they were doing was ineffective, so they just charged ahead.
-They were the kind of person who likes to enforce rules, and stick to plans, or maybe were just disagreeable (in the OCEAN personality sense), so they disregarded the screams from that, rather than cruelty.
You definitely get epistemic points for attempting alternative theories, but no additional points, I think, for providing ones that seem plausibly as explanatory as the original ones provided.
I think the “rushing through an uncomfortable situation” is maybe somewhat plausible?
I feel like I have sometimes shut off empathy during situations that felt uncomfortable, such as giving people negative feedback on things where they had a warped idea of their abilities. Instead of dealing with the uncomfortable feeling and using it to give feedback well, I’d try to get it over with as bluntly and quickly as possible and deliberately made myself not care internally, or something like that. Actually, now that I think of it, in the two instances that I remember, it was third parties pushing/pressuring me to give others the negative feedback. So there’s quite a parallel to the Milgram experiment! I think if I had waited for the right moment and until I was ready to give the negative feedback on my own terms, I’d have been much more gentle.
The alternative hypothesis in the OP—that generalized sadism is widespread—also just feels implausible. I buy that sadism towards outgroups is very common, and so I think a lot of people can be brought towards sadistic behavior if they’re riled up against an outgroup. But in the Milgram experiment the victims are just other random subjects (or experimenters pretending to be other subjects) and I don’t think it’s common for people to feel sadistic towards just about anyone. At least, it would go quite hard against my experience of other people if this were even just 20% of the population.