Milgram and Zimbardo - Ethics and Usefulness

The Milgram Experiment violates three of the five principles outlined in the Five General Principles of Ethics. Milgram wanted to see if there was a connection between “the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience” (McLeod, 2007). Milgram’s hypothesis that he based his experiment on was “How the German people could permit the extermination of the Jews?” (Dan Chalenor, 2012). The first one that Milgram’s experiment violated was “Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence” which is where “psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm” (Ethical principles, 2013, p. 3, para. 3). The second principle that was violated was “Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility” which is where

This experiment to me really shows just how many people will obey to authority even when it means going against your morals. The Milgram case helped me to criticize my surroundings more so than rather overlook what is going on. We are taught to obey authority at a young age and all throughout our adolescence. It is hard to say that some of these pre notions aren’t conditioned into our every day

One might think that this experiment will stimulate the new research in the area of human obedience, but this did not occur. Despite the difficulties and the courage of Burger to conduct a partial replication of the original study, it did not produce any different outcomes and did not spark any new ideas in psychology (Burger, 2009). Instead, the researcher had to deal with an enormous amount of different commentaries and controversy. My main rationale for disapproving the Burger’s study is ethical characteristics of the Milgram paradigm. More specifically, now we have the Ethical Rules of the APA, which tell us that researchers should honor rights of participants to privacy, confidentiality and the right to withdraw the experiment. However, Milgram’s paradigm clearly challenges these fundamental rights and creates even more ethical dilemmas. Another rationale that I can include is the infliction of increasing pain on an unwilling participant, a characteristic that is unacceptable in modern psychological studies. Therefore, I would disapprove such experiment, because of ethical non-compliance and little contribution to the field. As for me, I view following ethical practices in my dissertation project work as a crucial element for success. It will allow me to produce reliable, meaningful and relevant scholarly data that would not be a subject to ethical

The Milgram experiment was performed by the sociologist Stanley Milgram to discover the power of authority. In this experiment, Stanley was trying to demonstrate the willingness people have to follow orders from an authority figure. Even thought the results of this experiment were very surprising, I think that this kind of experiments would allows us to study and understand better the human’s nature. This experiment showed a side of human’s nature that was unknown by the scientistic community, and this is the reason why we need to perform more experiment like this one.

The participant was not given full disclose about the details of the experiment, making the research untruthful. Freedom was another principle that was violated since the participants’ ability to withdraw from the experiment was highly discouraged. Even though it was possible to withdraw, not much power was given to the participant. Lastly, Milgram was neither altruistic nor giving of dignity to the participant. Participants showed signs of stress and possible psychological damage due to the process of harming another individual, but that did not stop the experiment. Milgram instructed the participants to continue the study until the very end. In order to make this experiment more ethical, Milgram should have set up the experiment in a way that did not give the illusion of causing harm to another human being. Also, participants should have been able to withdraw from the experiment without questioning. Lastly, Milgram should have known to stop the study once he saw the participant showing signs of distress and pain. This is to cause less harm to the participant and promote

In her article, “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience”, psychologist Diana Baumrind criticizes Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority, stating that not only were Milgram’s experiments unethical but so was the scientist himself, claiming that he did not take appropriate measures to properly ensure his subject’s wellbeing post-experiment and therefore, experiments such as these should not be repeated. Baumrind does address an important point in her review and that is the responsibility of psychologists to ensure that their subjects are treated fairly and ethically but this is overshadowed by the fact that Baumrind’s argument is one rooted in pathos with little evidence to support her claims while being

The ethics of the study were however called into question (Banyard, 2012). One protestors among many was Diana Baumrind (Banyard, 2012). Baumrind (1964) argued whether the ‘welfare of the participants’ was considered Banyard (2012, p.79). Baumrind (1964) further criticised the experiment for the damage it could do the public’s perception of psychology (Banyard, 2012). In Milgram’s (1963) defence, he was not ignorant of the potential harm caused to participants, (Banyard, 2012). In fact, he was

Each of the two experiments carried out by Milgram and Zimbardo had questionable ethics in their procedure. Ethics is defined as “Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016). In psychology, ethics are moral guidelines when conducting social experiments such as these, so that the dignity of each participant is respected and preserved. This piece of work will evaluate the perceived ethics in Milgram’s experiment of human obedience to authority figures, and Zimbardo’s experiment of conformity to roles, and also provide an overall conclusion on whether or not these studies were ethical.

The two studies being analyzed today are the Stanly Milgram experiment and the Slater experiment. The two similar experiments yielded information about obedience to authority that explains the correlation in society between authority, obedience, and morality. Despite the major ethical problems in the Milgram experiment, it is known in social psychology today that human beings will follow orders from authority figures even to the extent of inflicting harm on another. However, even with this fact, it is also known that there is limits to such obedience.

Zimbardo decided to conduct the prison experiment because of his interest in social psychology. He was influenced by the milligram experiment that left a great impact on him as a person. According to Zimbardo, he said that he wanted to expand on the Milgram’s experiment and focus less on power authority and obedience. The prison experiment mainly focused on the human behaviors when asked to play a certain role in society. The experiment also resulted in the degeneration and breakdown of human nature, raising more questions about the darkness of the human nature. Zimbardo’s experiment created a lot of controversy among people, but still studied by other another psychologist to this day. Zimbardo’s experiment gave a lot of information about the influence of the environment on the individual. He was trying to prove to the world that we humans sometimes can be violent towards others due to conformity and the social situation. Zimbardo wanted to find out “whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities

This study is very conflicting to me, but overall, I feel that the experiment benefited us. In my opinion, I do not believe that Zimbardo began the study thinking that it was unethical. He took the steps to choose people who were mentally capable of withstanding the study, as well as able to rebound after the simulation was complete. Zimbardo couldn’t have predicted what would happen in the simulation. He even stated at one point in Quiet Rage how we was quite surprised with some of the actions the prison guards took and even those of the prisoners when it came to helping another prisoner. But I feel like Zimbardo prepared the participants for the study to the best of his capability. I understand that Zimbardo got caught up in his role as prison supervisor in the experiment, but once he realized the harm that was being done, he put a stop to the experiment. Although no one can tell before a study takes place whether the harm will be worth the benefits, in this instance, I believe that the benefits do outweigh the

In 1963 Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, created an experiment examining obedience. This experiment has been questioned by many psychology professionals. One psychologist Diana Baumrind transcribes her beliefs in the “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience.” Baumrind, when writing the review, was employed at the Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley. In her review Baumrind denounces Milgram for his treatment of his subjects, potentially harming their self image. However, Ian Parker, a British journalist who has written for the New Yorker and Human Sciences, believes Milgram’s findings still hold a significant place in society today. In his article “Obedience” Parker focuses on the purpose of

The Milgram Experiment is one of the most famous studies in psychology. It was carried out by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist from Yale University. The purpose of the experiment was to study how far people would go in obeying an instruction from an authority figure if it involved hurting another person. Milgram wanted to study whether Germans were more obedient to authority as this was what people believed was the main reason for Nazi killings in World War II. 40 males were chosen to participate in the study, and were paid $4.50 for attending. The experiment was carried out as follows:

The Milgram experiment is one of the most controversial psychology experiments of the past century. I was familiar with it prior to accessing the simulation on the elearning site from an ABC television Four Corners episode on the nature of torture. So when I participated in the simulation, I stopped administering the shock at the first sign of distress from the subject at thirty watts. If I was in the actual Milgram experiment I would like to believe that I would have behaved in the same way. Human nature dictates that we believe that only abnormal people are capable of sinister behavior. This belief that internal attributions cause certain behaviours assures us of some stability and security in our day-to-day lives and yet the

Discuss the Milgram Conformity Experiment, include ethical considerations, the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.