Most subjects delivered labeled high-voltage shocks within seconds of being asked

Evidence

A significant RWA—Shock correlation appeared in each of these studies. At the end of each session in these four studies, the Experimenter (played by a mild-mannered male graduate student) instructed the Teacher to deliver a shock to the learner from a separate device labeled ‘Danger: Very Severe Shock.” Between 86% and 91% of the subjects complied, usually in a matter of three or four seconds. The major hesitations (not counting the few people who refused to obey) occurred because the Teachers were afraid they would receive the shock if they touched the button. Once they were shown the device was safe, they pushed it (RWA, pp. 273-274). — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 3907

Categorization

• XREF: Direct parallel to Milgram’s obedience findings; also resonates with the classic experiments in The Authoritarian Specter and recent replication debates. — connects to: Ordinary people administering shocks showed extreme, characteristic distress — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 593
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the ‘On Sacrifice’ piece only loosely, but more directly to Milgram-adjacent obedience literature on authority and harm.
• DEEPTHINKING: The 86-91% compliance with an explicit ‘Danger: Very Severe Shock’ label, driven partly by fear of self-harm that vanishes once safety is shown, is a dense observation about how instrumental obedience works.