SCOTT KIDDER — We already know all about how Second Life has virtual millionaires and "male appendages" for sale, but there may be an even more exciting revenue model in store: virtual experiments!

University College London (UCL) is looking at conducting—in a virtual world—psychological experiments that no longer take place in the real world.

The UCL-led study repeated, in a virtual environment, a classic experiment from the 1960s by social psychologist Stanley Milgram—which found people would administer apparently lethal electric shocks to a stranger at the command of an authority figure—and discovered that participants reacted as though the situation were real.

Virtual world may revive outlawed experiments [News.com]

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