Gameshow hosts ‘all powerful’ over contestants

The experiment was broadcast as part of a documentary entitled Game of Death
for French network France 2 in 2010, but the analysis and findings have just
been published in the European Review of Applied Psychology.

Recruiters found 80 contestants to take part in the fake show, called Zone
Xtreme, which completed the deception by using a real television audience as
well as well-known host.

The study was a twist on 1960s research by US academic Stanley Milgram, who
examined why ordinary people were prepared to commit horrific atrocities in
Nazi Germany.

He found 80 per cent of his subjects inflicted pain on a stranger when ordered
to do so by a figure in authority such as a scientist.

Researchers concluded: “It has long been known that television and television
hosts had influence on viewers.

“We suspected they could also have prescriptive powers to [influence] people’s
behaviour, including cruel and immoral behaviours. Until now this had never
been shown.”

The French experiment reveals that this “authority figure” is far broader than
previously realised.

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