TriNetre - Archive for September 14, 2004

(no longer updated)

Thirty years ago, they were wide-eyed, first-year graduate students, ordered by their iconoclastic professor, Dr. Stanley Milgram, to venture into the New York City subway to conduct an unusual experiment.

Their assignment: to board a crowded train and ask someone for a seat. Then do it again. And again.

An article on the very interesting experiment conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram to understand the "first-come-first-served equity of subway seating".

"I start to ask for the man's seat," he said. "Unfortunately, I turned so white and so faint, he jumps up and puts me in the seat."