Monster Study Outline

The Monster study is speech impediment experiment that was done on the children that lived in the orphanage. This experiment was conducted to find out if stuttering was inherited or did environment play a key factor. Wendell Johnson was the speech pathologist that conducted this study to find the cause and cure for stuttering. This study violated a lot of ethical issues because the children were psychological harm, informed consent was not given and the subjects were deceived. Wendell Johnson had a biased opinion in this study because he was a stutter himself and was desperate for a cure. In this paper, I will discuss the background of this experiment and the violations of ethics that were done in this study.

Ethical dilemmas are one of the many sensitive issues that come with doing psychological research with human participants. As seen in several famous psychology studies such as the Stanford prison experiment, Milgram experiment, and Tuskegee experiment, ethics in psychological studies are important to protect both the individuals being subjected to research and the researcher. While these specific experiments did not include children, it does bring up an important conversation regarding ethics in research. There are several guidelines put in place by the American Psychological Association to protect humans during research. However, special considerations and guidelines are put into place when working with

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

Reading the essays in the Monsters text, it is fascinating to see how connected all the stories written by different authors with dissimilar purposes are. Through the issues regarding the monsters, the elements that hold the essays together, and what is interesting about the readings. Though these stories span different times, each one shows a different side of humanity, monsters are scary because they are so humanlike and we can see ourselves as these monstrosities.

In fact, the experiment heavily relied on deception, and would have quite possibly been jeopardized had it not been for the deception involved in it. Subjects were told they would be participating in a different experiment in all aspects; the experiment would be one in which they were "teachers," trying to reinforce concepts through "punishment" (shocks) on a "learner". The deception involved in this and similar experiments during this time was enough to spark a serious conversation about research ethics during the time, and how the guidelines surrounding them needed to be drastically improved

Only 5 days into the study five students are forced to leave the experiment due to stress even though they were cleared as mentally fit less than a week earlier. Originally this study was supposed to last for two weeks nonetheless it didn’t even make it a full week before having to be stopped. The volunteer inmates where subjected to verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and sleep deprivation by the guards. Midway through this study other psychologist where invited to view the study. Christina Maslach yelled to the person responsible for this experiment, "It is terrible what YOU are doing to those boys!".

The main ethical issue with this experiment was the use of deception as the participants did not know the truth behind this study. Participants believe that they were shocking the learners and they were under severe stress due to this is possible that they had suffered psychological injuries. The participants have the right to withdraw from the study if they wanted; however, this was not made clear to them. Also, participants did not receive enough information about the study.

Due to the fact that stuttering is a well-researched disorder, many professionals have come up with different treatment plans. Nonetheless, we will only cover the 4 main treatment approaches, which are as follows: family system therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), fluency shaping (modification), and stuttering modification. Each of the therapy approaches listed above have their own unique way of helping individuals who stutter. The family systems therapy is used primarily for children who stutter. Through the use of the family systems therapy, the treatment focuses on the “family unit as a whole” (Fogle, 2013, p. 213). Therefore, the clinician takes into consideration how a child’s stuttering affects everyone in the household and what they can do to help minimize the

The monster study is an experiment started in 1939 in the University of Lowa by Wendell Johnson. Orphans children were the victim in this study, and the study was about pre-existing stutters. There was 2 groups, 5 in each group, and Group A were told to speak normally, and they been sported by their speech. However, Group B were the opposite. The children in group B were disheartened by their speech, and talk about their speech negatively.

The Stutterer Story was written by Dr. Frederick Murray. He tells about his life growing up as a stutter and his experience with other people. Dr. Murray describes his most difficult times and how living with this type of disorder has affected him. The purpose of this essay is to outline the life of Dr. Murray in his stuttering as well as expressing my own reflection on how others might view stutterers.

The article “Changing adolescent attitudes toward stuttering” from the “Journal of Fluency Disorders” analyzes the attitudes that high schoolers have towards stuttering and stutterers. The purpose of this study was to stop the manifestation of the negative stigmas/stereotypes that are usually associated with stuttering while also determining whether or not these feelings could be improved among adolescents. A public opinion survey was first distributed to two health classes at a local high school. They were then given a live oral presentation done by someone who suffers from a stutter. The same opinion poll was redistributed afterwards. In two other separate classes, the same survey was given but instead they watched a video presentation about stuttering which featured the same person from the presentation. After the video was displayed, there was another short oral presentation

There was such much injustice given to the innocent children who didn’t know any better. These kids were mentally disabled and the harm inflicted to them is beyond measure. The arguments in the research about how they were doing the kids a favor doesn’t make much sense because of how poor the living conditions were for them. The action to treat the kids the way they are can’t be justified. The parents are in some way in the wrong in my opinion because they were giving up their children that God had provided them with. Although there are always exceptions like when parents literally cant provide for the kids, which puts the blame back on the institution because they seemed to be very good at deceiving the parents. It was so crowded at the institution that being accepted was rare and was only invited if given consent to be apart of the experiment. Which makes the mission of the institution morally wrong. The ethics is completely wrong just like the photojournalist we talked about in class who took pictures of domestic violence instead of calling the police right

In this experiment, subjects are explained that this is “a ‘learning experiment’ to ... study the effects of punishment on memory” (4). Yet, the real intention here is to measure the participants’ compliance towards the experimenter. This controversy is unethical as subjects are volunteering for a cause that does not exist. They are misled since they are not exposed to the real purpose of this study.

My personal monster inside me and what surrounds me is staying inside all day. Sense sophomore year i have suffered from bipolar depression which if i'm not on my medication i stay inside all day. It takes a lot of courage for me to get up and get to school or to even go out with my family. I do not wish my personal monster upon anyone for it is unforgiving and makes life a lot more of a challenge.

Protection of the participants was not followed. The BPS ethical guidelines, as Anderson’s (2017) summary points out, investigators have a responsibility to be sure all participants are protected from psychological harm. It is clear from this research that the participants were in distress and were not willing to proceed with the experiment.