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Stanford prison experiment and ethics
Stanford prison experiment ethical opinions
Stanford prison experiment ethical opinions
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There are multiple Ethical Guidelines in the study of research. One being Informed Consent ensures that a patient, client, and research participants are aware of all the potential risks and costs involved in a treatment or procedure. Second, is voluntary participation which refers to a human research subject's exercise of free will in deciding whether to participate in a research activity. Third, restricted use of deception is where participants are misled or wrongly informed about the aims of the research. Fourth, Debriefing is when human subjects after an experiment or study has been concluded. It involves a structured or semi structured interview between the researcher and the subjects where by all elements of the study are discussed in …show more content…
The first issue was that Milgram used deception; he thought this to be necessary to help meet his aims in a valid way, and although some levels of deception are sometimes acceptable, in this case not disclosing the true nature of the study led to further issues. Due to this, full informed consent could not be gained and only in a debrief were participants told that the study was not about intelligence, but rather the effects of authority on obedience. However, throughout and some time after the experiment, several participants experiences psychological harm as they believed they were seriously harming an individual, and later felt sever guilt that just because they instructed, they would in fact administer fatal electric shocks to another human being. Therefore, even though participants did not experience any pain or long-term damage, they were not put in a position where they could give full informed consent, were placed in highly stressful situations and found difficulty in withdrawing from such circumstances, making this one of the most unethical experiments in psychological history. Milligrams met……. guidelines. However he did not meet. In the other hand Stanford Prison Experiment was found to be meet the ethical guidelines. Informed …show more content…
The teacher did not want to continue on the experiment, but Mr. Willam’s kept insisting “you had to continue, until the test is completed.” However the teacher seems to be very skeptical about it and wants to take a look on whats going on next door and make sure the patient (learner) is doing okay. The teacher does not know what this is all about and is concern the danger of these strong electric shooting volts. Due to the fact that the teacher had no idea that he was harming the learner. However, in the end of the video it claims that the learner was never being harmed at any given time. To analysis the force of the situation the first victim was placed in another room, and cannot be heard or seen by the subject except for the 300 volts he pounded on the wall and protest after 300 volts he no longer answered or was heard from. A series of exams were exploded to examine these effects in all cases only one naive subject was studied each hour. In the other hand Stanford prison experiment was not worth breaking for
However, all of the participants continued to administer up to three-hundred volts. These were everyday “normal” people that functioned successfully in society. Slater had the opportunity to interview one of the participants of Milgram’s experiment, one which happened to follow through with the shocks all the way to the very last one. During the interview the participant stated, “You thought you were really giving shocks, and nothing can take away from you the knowledge of how you acted” (Slater, 59). These words came from the mouth of an “average joe” that never knew what he was capable of before the experiment. With these words, we are reminded that we are not as “nice” as we’d like to think we
The study was set up as a "blind experiment" to capture if and when a person will stop inflicting pain on another as they are explicitly commanded to continue. The participants of this experiment included two willing individuals: a teacher and a learner. The teacher being the real subject and the learner is merely an actor. Both were told that they would be involved in a study that tests the effects of punishment on learning. The learner was strapped into a chair that resembles a miniature electric chair, and was told he would have to learn a small list of word pairs. For each incorrect answer he would be given electric shocks of increasing intensity ranging from 15 to 450 volts. The experimenter informed the teacher's job was to administer the shocks. The...
The teachers would initiate a “shock” to the student every time they got an answer wrong, but the teachers were unaware that the shock was fake. As the experiment continued, the shocks became more severe, and the students would plead for the teacher to stop since they were in pain. Despite the fact, that the participants continuously asked the authoritative experimenter if they could stop, “...relatively few people [had] the resources needed to resist authority” (Cherry 5). The participants feared questioning the effectiveness of the experiment, or restraining from continuing in fear of losing their job, going to jail, or getting reprimanded by Yale. A majority of the participants were intimidated by the experimenter, hence why they continued to shock the students, even though they knew morally, it was incorrect what they were doing. This experiment concluded, “...situational variables have a stronger sway than personality factors in determining obedience...” (5). One's decisions are based on the situation they are facing. If someone is under pressure, they will resort to illogical decision making. There thoughts could potentially be altered due to fear, or hostility. In conclusion, the rash, incohesive state of mind, provoked by fear will eventually lead to the rise of
The learner is actually an actor who is strapped to a harmless electric chair. He is told several pairs of words, and must remember and repeat these pairings with the make-believe fear of being electrocuted for incorrect answers. The foretold outcome or this experiment was expressed by several people who are familiar with behavioral sciences. They predicted that the majority of subjects would not pass 150 volts, and that a few crazed lunatics would reach the maximum voltage.
The apparatus used was a simulated shock generator that would administer the shocks but none would be physically damaging. The participants believed they were giving victim an electric shock ranging from 15 to 450 volts, but in actuality the machine was not working. Participants included 40 males who were between the ages of 20 and 50 years old (Milgram, 1963). Compensation was set at $4.50 for just showing up to the experiment, not based on the outcome. Participants believed that they were helping someone with a learning experiment to see how penalties affected remembrance (Milgram, 1963). The penalty is the electric shock given by the participants to the man they had never met. The person, participants believed was the subject of the experiment was an Irish-American man who was 47 years old. The experimenter conducting the experiment was a 31 year old high school biology
“Ethical Issues of the Milgram Experiment.” Associated Content. Yahoo, 8 November 2008. Web. 12 October 2011.
Milgram wielded with 40 males that were between the age ranges of 20 through 50. 15 men out of the 40 that were the subjects of this study were either skilled or unskilled workers, 16 men were white-collar sales or business men, and 9 were professional men. These subjects were preferred by newspaper ads and direct-mail application querying for the subjects to be rewarded participants for this study. With this research, Milgram uses two participants that was a confederate and an actor who looked authoritative. As each participant participated in the experiment, each one was to draw pieces of paper from a hat that determined if they were either a teacher or a learner. Yet, the drawing was manipulated so that the subject would become a teacher and the associate was the learner. The learner was destitute to a chair and wired up with electrodes that was attached to the shock generator in the adjacent room. There were questions that were proposed to the learner and for every answer that was wrong, the subject was to conduct an electric shock. For each wrong answer that was given, the subject was to increase the level of shock on the generator. Withal, the results of this research was that every participant continued to at least the level of 300-volt. Yet, 14 participants eluded orders to be free before reaching the maximum voltage and 65% pursued the experimenter’s commands and reached to the top of
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
The learners were a part of Milgram’s study and were taken into a room with electrodes attached to their arms. The teachers were to ask questions to the learners and if they answered incorrectly, they were to receive a 15-450 voltage electrical shock. Although the learners were not actually shocked, the teachers believed they were inflicting real harm on these innocent people.... ... middle of paper ...
Firstly, the experiment took place at Yale University, which creates an atmosphere of credibility and importance. Those participating were also lead to believe that their contribution went to a worthy cause – to advance knowledge and understanding of learning processes. They were also told that the victim (the learner), was taking part voluntarily meaning they had an obligation to fulfill even if it became unpleasant, (also applies to the teacher). Additionally, the volunteers were being paid which created a further sense of commitment to the investigation. Those who took part also had little knowledge about how psychological experiments ran, as Milgram’s study was most likely the first one they ever partook in. Therefore they had little knowledge about the rights and expectations of the situation, and felt more confined than if they had been through a similar experience prior. The participant was also under the impression that the roles of being the teacher or learner were assigned randomly, so there were no feelings of unfairness in the system. The partakers had also been assured that the shocks were “painful but not dangerous” and that the procedure was all part of a worthy long term cause (Holah). Lastly, the victim responded to all of the questions until the 300 Volt was reached, convincing the participant of their willingness and persistence to
The real focus of the experiment is the teacher. He will be in charge of a shock generator. The teacher does not know that the learner, supposedly the victim, is actually an actor who receives no shock whatsoever. Again this experiment is to see if the teacher proceeds with the shocks that are ordered to inflict increasing pain on a protesting victim.
According to Milgram, after completing the experiment, all of his subjects were informed of its true purpose, which was to find out how much pain the average person would inflict on another person when placed under authority (Milgram 78). Therefore, as Gary Sturt, author of “Behavioral Study of Obedience” states, all of the subjects were participating in an experiment without their full consent being offered to the experiment holders (Sturt). Additionally, most of the subjects were affected by the stressful nature of the experiment. A debriefing session after their completion of Milgram’s experiment was held for all of the subjects; however, as Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D., author of "The Secrets Behind Psychology 's Most Famous Experiment," states, there is a “lack of proper attention given to the phase of the experiment called ‘debriefing’” (Whitbourne). Saul McLeod, author of “The Milgram Experiment,” further and more effectively explains Milgram’s attempt of ensuring the subjects’ well-being. McLeod claims that in addition to debriefing sessions after the conclusion of the experiment, all subjects were “followed up after a period of time to ensure that they came to no harm” (McLeod). Although mentioned briefly, an effective portrayal of Milgram’s debriefing sessions is not offered through his text. As Baumrind points out in her essay, the
Summary of the Experiment In Stanley Milgram’s ‘The Perils of Obedience’, Milgram conducted experiments with the objective of knowing “how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist" (Milgram 317). In the experiments, two participants would go into a warehouse where the experiments were being conducted and inside the warehouse, the subjects would be marked as either a teacher or a learner. A learner would be hooked up to a kind of electric chair and would be expected to do as he is being told by the teacher and do it right because whenever the learner said the wrong word, the intensity of the electric shocks increased. Similar procedure was undertaken on the teacher and the results of the experiments showed conclusively that a large number of people would go against their personal conscience in obedience to authority (Milgram 848).... ...
It is harder to go against or make an objection about unethical aspect of the experiment when people do not know each other well. Therefore, rather than strongly opposing and criticizing the instructor 's unethical decision, people just behaved according to the orders. Thirdly, the participants regarded the instructor as a professional researcher (Blass, 2009, p113). Therefore, they believed in the instructor 's decision to do so and obeyed the given instruction. Since Milgram or the instructor was a more intelligent person than most of the people, the participants would have imagined that there would be a specific reason why he held this experiment. Therefore the participants tried to understand the instructor 's intention and respected his choice. Or on the other hand, the participants were ignorant about the experiment, since they were not the one getting the consequent electric shocks. Lastly, the electric shocks were explained to the participants to be painful, but not detrimental (Griggs & Whitehead, 2015, p316). Thus these factors affected the participants to rely more on the instructor 's orders and obey what was told them to
Ethics refers to the values and customs of a community at a particular point in time. At present, the term ethics is guided by the moral principles that guide our everyday actions. These moral principles guide the researcher into deciding what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The foundation of medical ethics is governed by two philosophical frameworks that are deontology, and utilitarianism. However ultimately the ethics committees need to balance the risks, and benefits for the participants and the community associated with the particular research proposal. This balance is quite important as the well being of participants is at risk.7