ABSTRACT
Human beings have an amazing ability, which is sometimes admirable and sometimes depressing, to focus on a single objective to the exclusion of all other thoughts and feelings. A group of volunteers were recruited to take part in a research project apparently to establish how people react to electric shocks. Behind a screen were the victims, who jumped as the volunteers administered each successive shock. The volunteers were told that the voltage levels should be steadily increased during the course of the project.
