Transcription
Hi everyone, this is Blake Anderson and I'm a registered social worker and therapist here in Toronto, Ontario. And in this video I want to keep covering this book that I've been reading, >> [music] >> The Sociopath Next Door. And in that book the author explores the Stanley experiment, so Stanley Milgram and his famous experiment in the 1960s. So in that famous study, the Stanley Milgram experiment, he basically is looking, exploring, and experimenting on the use of authority. So how obedient people will be when there's an authority.
And so he took many thousands subjects during this time and this was [music] repeated. Some people have challenged the ethics of it, but essentially he would have a teacher and someone who was strapped up to get shocked, so received a shock. And then the teacher would go and then once the student was strapped in, the teacher who was actually the subject of the experiment, so this is all being videotaped, was the one who was going to provide the shock. And so I think it was like up on 15 increments and within 15 it goes up to 450 in terms of the max voltage. And so the authority figure would essentially be in the room with the teacher and the person on the receiving end in the other room who was strapped up, who was just an actor, essentially would get a shock every time he get a wrong answer.
And so essentially this experiment showed that 65% of people will give the max voltage. So essentially even when the person would be screaming and yelling in terms of the shock received, that was fake, but essentially people would continue because the authority figure, they would be obedient and go along with the person in the room would say continue each time. So, this would be like teachers, engineers, people with various educational levels, both male and female, and believing that perhaps females would be more empathetic, it was actually very close in terms of the females providing the shock. So, a similar 65% they would be more distraught usually emotionally in terms of being compliant. But, it's to understand that 65% of people would do the max shock. This has been repeated through psychological experiments and other components, and so it's been confirmed as a theory that definitely understands human behavior when under authority.
And so, in that book, The Sociopath Next Door, she's just mentioning how when an authority figure provides someone and creates them into an it, so they essentially objectify a group of people, and you can understand within a family unit that this would be you essentially. So, essentially the siblings within your family system would be obedient to authority figure of your parents out of necessity or out of survival. They play their role in order to ensure protection and safety. So, this is all to demonstrate that essentially your siblings most likely, if they consider their parent as still an authority figure, and they have no reason to question their parent, then they will be obedient to that parent, and essentially the same way that the parent or the sibling might provide a level of shock to you in terms of mistreating you, they will see you as an it. So, essentially they have objectified you, and their conscience is no longer operating.
So, in The Sociopath Next Door, essentially that's the question she's asking is how can relatively good people or people that you would see on the street, regular normal people, provide a shock to a complete stranger? And one might ask, "Certainly a parent wouldn't do that to their son or their daughter." I guess you have to wonder sometimes in these family systems that are narcissistic. If you take the sociopath next door, and she wrote that in the early 2000s, she makes 4% says 4% of population has essentially no conscience. So, they're sociopathic. And she says that out of the 60 or 70% of people who would have relatively normal morality, she says only like a 30% of them, so like 1/3, will actually stand up for their conscience. So, a lot of people, she says like in that book, how people will maybe not want to speak up because no one else is speaking up.
But even if you think in the family system, and you understand how siblings will go along with an authority figure such as your parents, and they'll essentially be obedient to them, and continue this mistreatment in providing the shock. And because you're getting the wrong answers, and you're not going along with the script, with the family system, they have no reason to go along with your questioning. Like, at some level, they might acknowledge that your parent could have bad behavior in certain regards, but essentially, they're a defaulting to their needs and their survival. And so, they unfortunately need to see even their brother or their sister as this it. So, when someone's treated as an it, essentially, an it doesn't have any feelings or isn't a human being. And so, if you particularly understand the shadow, you understand that the family or the narcissist, usually people don't see their shadow, they're not looking for their shadow, and it's usually not where you want to look. Whether it's intentional or just in terms of this shared fantasy and the will the I guess the way in which the narcissist projects and has this black and white thinking and has this a certain level of infantile splitting, then they make their sibling or rather their children, their son or daughter, into an it if that it is getting essentially the wrong answers. So, they continue to give shocks and to mistreat you all in the sense that they want to shock you back into the system and you need to get in line. And so, if you're getting the wrong answer, you're not going along, then that's your fault and you've been objectified in the family the more the shock gets higher. And even though if you continues to say I want out of this experiment, I don't want to be here, they'll like essentially continuously strap you in unless you leave. So, that's just the unfortunate part about these kind of families and it's just understand that an experiment like this is interesting in terms of understanding human psychology and why a siblings might go along with their narcissistic parent.
So, in The Sociopath Next Door, she is essentially exploring why people will ignore their conscience and especially when narcissists are in power and the people within the family system and society won't typically stand up against those strong men. So, she has more of an understanding of politics and how this can show up with certain leadership, but even if you just take again the family system where there's this might makes right and this sense that the parents are in de facto charge and whatever they say goes. And so, you providing any form of feedback, particularly because you're their son or their daughter, then they're not going to go along with that, particularly if it's critique critiquing them and their false self. And so, again, you can go back to understanding that experiment in the sense that they it's like you're in this other room and it's like a sibling or someone that the parent is triangulating. So, the parent is in the room with this teacher and the teacher is essentially who they're using, the narcissistic parent, as his proxy to essentially shock you in the other room. So, to correct your bad behavior and ensure that you get in line. So, this is to understand that the siblings are okay with shocking you and mistreating you all at the behest of their the authority figure in the room. So, the parent who just essentially says in Milgram's experiment how there is this person that's in a role, like authority figure such as a parent is in the room with the sibling and essentially you're on the other side and it's probably tailed that because you know the answers, because you have participated in the family in the past and have went along with the narrative the parent knows that you're able to function in a way that endorses the family system as is and so, when they think and know that you're getting out of line then they feel justified to continue the bad behavior of the family system and not look at themselves. And they're willing to objectify you, to put you in another room to isolate you strap you into a connection in terms of this electricity. So, you can understand that within the narcissistic abuse cycle you have most likely went through the hoovering phase many times. And each time you got hoovered in, you got emotionally baited. And essentially then discarded once you either stood up for yourself in terms of boundaries, or just simply the narcissist lost interest in you, and you were no longer providing that narcissistic supply, or simply they were just raging that day because of some arbitrary reason. But it's all to understand that the authority figure in the room doesn't want to have They want to have plausible deniability. So because they situate themselves as the expert of this experiment with you as their son or daughter, and you're not getting along typically the sibling, so this parent typically will pick up on that, and most likely use the sibling that doesn't have a conscience, so they'll continue to shock you if you allow them. Or there will be a sibling that has a conscience, but because they're manipulated and persuaded by the parent, and because of their role within the family system, want to maintain their role, and is most likely based on a level survival, but also have objectified you, made you into an it, so they have no longer see you essentially as a human because Why I guess the question is why would a sibling mistreat their sibling? But if they see you as an it, as the shadow that's projected, and actually probably think you're the one that's being the difficult one, and not answering correctly, then the authority figure in the room with that sibling, it's like whispering into their ear and saying, "Continue." So each time the conscience might come up, the parent in this place, the expert in the room is saying, "You have to proceed with the experiment. We have to continue."
So again, 65% of people will not will shock the person to 100%. So, number one is if you take the numbers from the sociopath next door, she indicates that 4% of the population is sociopathic, so essentially has no conscience. So, even the expert in the room, they're essentially merged with the covert expert narcissist that's in the room providing the instructions to continue. And so, they're happy to go to 100% and essentially don't see you as an external person worth being respected or have any autonomy. So, that's your sociopathic, possibly, sibling. And but you might have a sibling who's more has a conscience, but essentially will enable the situation and go along with the authority because they're obedient, and so they're good foot soldiers, and they've objectified you because the parent has essentially objectified you and turned you into an it. So, you're no longer seen within their conscience. So, essentially you can understand that they're weak individuals and they're willing to sacrifice their them like their sibling all to be obedient to their narcissistic parent. So, they know that the experiment's wrong. They might even know that you're being shocked, but they simply have objectified you and don't see you as worthy of consideration. So, this is to understand that people, human nature, will do what's expedient, the law of the least effort. So, a narcissistic family and a narcissist doesn't want to introspect because that's the hard route. That is to really wrestle with their ego, their shadow, and all that areas that they don't want to look at. So, they conveniently have kids and they will scapegoat one child when that child starts to point out obvious truths. And so, it's quite sad if you think about it, and it is. But it's also to understand that people will be obedient to authority. So, people will be obedient to authority, and if that authority has sociopathic, like no real conscience, then they'll be doing the bidding of that narcissist or that sociopath. So, it's really important that you protect yourself and essentially unstrap yourself from the chair, no longer get the shocks, so just don't respond to the way in which the family might want to beat you, and then just continue on with your own life, even if you have guilt.
So, in this video I covered the sociopath next door and spoke particularly on her exploration of conscience and why people, even like regular folk, will and possibly ignore their conscience. And so you can also understand that this is the understanding of way in which your narcissistic parent could most likely have got other enablers or flying monkeys all deceive them into thinking that you're the one at fault. Or and so they essentially uh convince people that might have, you know, some conscience that you're this bad one and the shock received was justified. So, it's all to understand that maybe everyone in that experiment didn't do the full volt um voltage. So, it's also to understand that you might have people in your family or just in the extended family or they're just the flying monkeys, so the community that have been either uh lied to, but essentially you have someone like your parent who might even express, "Oh, I have concern about Johnny because I really am concerned about him. I really help try to help him, but he's been saying these kind of things." And so they'll discredit you, but at the same time express concern. So, the person feels uh uh maybe the next time they speak to you like Susie definitely cares about his her son. I wonder why he's being so selfish. I I understand he's been through a divorce recently. I heard uh he is not Anyway, there's just some way that you're discredited. And so, this is to understand that you might receive some shock from these people. You might not receive the dosage where they would really end your life like a sociopathic sibling might. But, they certainly will provide some shock and some level of harm towards you. All with the impression that you're this it and they're going along with being obedient to the narcissist. And because the covert narcissist has manipulated them, they're doing essentially the bidding of the narcissist because they're either have an underdeveloped conscience or they have a level of their own narcissism in which the they're aligned with the narcissist. So, this is just to understand like this experiment and to ground it in psychological experiment, human nature, but also understanding why certain people will go along with this and also why the siblings might be doing what they're doing. >> [music]