Is The Milgram Experiment Ethically Wrong

What is The Milgram Experiment? It is one of the most famous social science studies of obedience in psychology ever conducted. This experiment was carried out by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, in 1963. He conducted this experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience in which a large proportion of subjects complied with an experimenter’s instructions to deliver painful and potentially lethal shocks to a fellow participant. Milgram’s findings of the experiment invoked to explain atrocities ranging from the Holocaust to the torture of prisoners where individuals claimed that they were just following orders. Stanley Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in
obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person. To start off his experiment, Milgram had to find and recruit his participants or subjects by awarding some cash. He used newspaper advertising to recruit his “lab rats” and he did not tell his “lab rats” what the subject were, and only told them to follow the rules and they would get paid fairly. What was interesting is that all of his participants were males only. He paired them, and let the participants drew lots to find out who would be the “learner” and who would be the “teacher” making the participants felt like they have an equal chance of either being the learner or the teacher. However, all of them are playing the “teacher” role. Next, the “teacher” is put in a room with Dr. Milgram. Dr. Milgram would ask the “teacher” to test the “learner” with simple questions. If the “learner” fails to answer it correctly, the “teacher” will shock the “learner” with a device that’s attached to the learner’s arm each time he answers wrong. Dr. Milgram will demand the “teacher” to increase the machine’s voltage by a certain amount until it reaches 450v (It is strong enough to kill human). The “learner” is actually an actor who responds to the punishment by playing a pre-recorded tape. The tape includes the sound of screaming, crying, and begging to make it seem like the learner is actually being tortured by the shock. Of course, some “teachers” refused to punish their “learner” after hearing the recorded scream for the first time, but Dr. Milgram will keep pressuring the “teacher” to punish his “learner”. Some “teachers” hesitated to give the shock because before the experiment begins each teacher were delivered a single 45 volt shock sample to see how it feels. In the result, about two third of the participants followed the orders and continued to comply fully to shock the learner with the highest level of 450 volts. The rest gave up at 300 volts or less. “Milgram conceives of obedience as the reflection of a psychological mechanism whereby the individual slips into an “agentic state” viewing himself as the mere instrument of an authority and lacking any responsibility for the acts he performs” (Charles Helm and Mario Morelli 324). The participants obeyed Dr. Milgram’s order even it is against their conscious and desires due to fear or conformity. Also Dr. Milgram did not threaten his participants to continue the test. They could question and give up at any time. On the other hand, some teachers refused to give more shocks even under the coercion of the experimenter. This is considered the norm of the experiment. Even though the number of subjects who questioned authority is low, they are still good people. They only follow orders under coercion.
This experiment shows us that we as human are likely to follow orders given by an authority figure. And it will greatly affect how we think and act in certain situations. The proximity of authority figures also effects obedience. When the instructors are far away, it is most likely that the subject resist the orders and disobey. Some participants that obeyed the researcher and shocked to the maximum is only when they were told that the authority will be the one that is responsible for the consequences. The ones who most likely to disobey were told that they were responsible for every action they made. This concludes that most human puts themselves before others. Self-interest is the only thing that motivates human beings. If the action doesn’t give the subject pain, then they are more than likely willing to obey. The act for human behaviors for certain types of situations are due to one’s own benefit. The subjects of Milgram’s experiment were professional and nonprofessional people who acted against the standards of ethical and moral conduct by submission to authority.
In modern days, we have a scientific and professional organization in the United State known as “American Psychological Association”.
It is an organization that helps to benefit society and improve people’s lives by advancing the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge. The ethical standards stated that participants cannot be deceived and must be told of all possible consequences. Under no circumstances, no hurt or harmful situation can be caused to the participants. Furthermore, all participants were to take part in the research on a voluntary basis and can be withdrawn at any time. All these guidelines are aimed to protect the participants from being manipulated and being
harmed.
Ethical issues were raised with regards to the method the study employed which have relevance to today’s psychological research practice. The experiment lights up the issue around deception when the subjects are not fully informed about the research and causes distress to the subject which led to the breached of inform consent guideline. The participants consented to the experiment, but they were not consenting in what they signed up for due to the deception of not knowing the true nature or aims of the experiment. Milgram also breached the guideline of the right to withdraw that is caused by the coercion and urge from the “teacher” to the “learner” to continue with the shocks. All of these issues could lead to different results in the experiment.
Due to the ethical standards in research, I feel that this type of Milgram experiment shouldn’t be allowed.
Milgram’s study was ethically inappropriate because the study violated the regulations for ethical experiments set out by the Psychological Society. Using deception on someone to full-fill one’s need for doing an experiment is not an ethical thing to do. Research Ethics Committees are to ensure that good ethical research is carried out and that both the subjects and researchers needs protection and prevent misconduct. The committee’s job is to make sure that research is done in the correct way and that the standards are kept high. They make sure by giving the subjects questionnaire to determine whether or not the ethical standard were met and that the researcher have real consent from the
subject.
Last but not least, each person has his or her own way of thinking and decision making. There are many types of factors that influence the way people think. These factors can be from the past experiences, beliefs, age, and gender, etc. To understand what decisions are being made by someone, it is important to know the factors that influence the process of making a decision because it may impact the outcome. “Milgram manipulated a number of variables (including experimental location, proximity of the learner to the participant, and participant gender) in order to assess their effects on obedience rates” (Packer 302). The level of obedience varied dramatically. Human brain has the tendency to set up thinking patterns based on prior or familiar experiences. This may lead to inaccurate judgements, faulty logic, and memory errors known as the cognitive biases. Cognitive biases influence people to rarely recognize new experiences because unfamiliar situations are misinterpreted in light of pre-existing patterns. The principles or judgement of what’s right and what’s wrong from a person is related to the person’s past experience.
Every decision depends on the person’s point of view and ethical standards, no matter what you decide, it’s up to you to choose whether to put yourself first or other people first. For me, if it is necessary, I would do what needs to be done for the good of everyone no matter if there’s an authority figure standing next to me. I will not let no one who abuse power to make me do unethical thing like shocking other people that goes against my desires.