Unethical Experimentation Controversy

Some suggested after this experiment many people could feel hurt, embarrassed, and not willing to trust those in authority in the future (Hock, 2012). Dr. Burger wanted to replicate Milgram’s experiment in a more ethical approach. He only allowed the teacher to go up to 150 volts of shock because that was the point where he decided, if passed, they would continue to go up the shock scale. The participators were told explicitly and repeatedly that they could leave the study at any time and still keep their $50 (Burger, 2009). However, Dr. Burger observed some people continued to go up the

The Milgram experiment was conducted in 1963 by Stanley Milgram in order to focus on the conflict between obedience to authority and to personal conscience. The experiment consisted of 40 males, aged between 20 and 50, and who’s jobs ranged from unskilled to professional. The roles of this experiment included a learner, teacher, and researcher. The participant was deemed the teacher and was in the same room as the researcher. The learner, who was also a paid actor, was put into the next room and strapped into an electric chair. The teacher administered a test to the learner, and for each question that was incorrect, the learner was to receive an electric shock by the teacher, increasing the level of shock each time. The shock generator ranged from

In the book “Opening Skinner’s Box,” written by Lauren Slater, there is a chapter dedicated to the social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, and his obedience to authority experiments. Milgram assembled one of the most malicious deceptions in the psychiatric field. He crafted what basically turned out to be an electric chair. To test his theory that obedience wasn’t in one’s personality but rather in the situation of the matter, Milgram gathered willing test subjects and instructed them to administer what they assumed were deadly shocks of electricity to another person who faked, pain and perhaps death (31). The experiment was set up with one test subject being a teacher and the actor being the learner, the “teacher’s” job was to administer shocks when the learner made a mistake in the pair of words read to him, increasing the voltage with every wrong answer.

The subjects of the experiment believed that they were taking part in a study on the relationship of learning and punishment. The subject would sit in a room and ask questions to an actor in another room, who was supposed to be another subject. In front of the questioner was a box that had a series of buttons labeled from 15 volts to 450 volts. The subject was told to shock the person every time they answered incorrectly, increasing the voltage each time. As the shocks got worse, the actor would make noise, bang on the wall, yell for help, etc. but the researcher would tell the subject to keep going. Milgrim found, contrary to many psychologists predictions, that sixty-five percent of the subjects delivered the shocks all the way up to 450 volts (Slater).

The Milgram Obedience Study was an experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram in 1963 to observe how far people would obey instructions that resulted in harming another individual. The experiment consisted of a “learner” engaging in a memory task and a “teacher” testing the “learner” on the task, administering electrical shocks to the “learner” each time an incorrect answer was given; the electric shocks started out small from 15 volts, labeled as “SLIGHT SHOCK”, all the way to 450 volts, labeled as “X X X”—of course, that was what the participant was told. The true purpose of the experiment was not disclosed until after the experiment and the “random selection” of who would be the “teacher” or “learner” was rigged so that the participant was always the “teacher” and the “learner” was always an actor. The shocks, naturally, were never given to the “learner”, and the “learner” gave responses that were scripted, both in answers to the questions and in responses to the shocks.

Many people are unaware of the vile human experiments the United States government has condoned. Innocent men and women, became victims of these experiments without their consent or knowledge. These people were soldiers, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers, who were maltreated and even murdered. It is vital for not only citizens of the United States of America to be aware of how their government tortured its own citizens, but also people around the world from every country there is. Being aware and educated about the revolting history of any country can prevent the unethical governmental practices from ever occurring again. There are various human experiments dating back to the 1930’s that the US government conducted which led to the demise of innocent people, caused some of the specimens involved to become mentally impaired, and when the government 's nefarious acts became exposed higher authorities apologized.

Those subjects either played the role of a student or a teacher. The Teachers were told to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner when questions were answered incorrectly. The shock levels were from 15 to 450 volts. In the Milgram Obedience Study Video, it states that” Many if not most subjects were troubled by it and found it a highly conflicted experience... Some were laughing hysterically after inflicting damage upon them,” meaning that this quote not only presents how the experiment gave too much power to the experimenters but also shows the misuse in power (Milgram, 6:40-7:00).

Stanley Milgram writes about his shocking experiment in “Perils of Obedience.” Milgram writes on the behaviors that the people had during the experiment. Milgram had an experiment that involves two people. One person was a student and the other a teacher. The student was strapped into an electric chair and was required to answer certain questions. The teacher asked a certain word, and the student must know the pair that goes with it. If the student answered the question incorrectly, the teacher must shock the student. Each time the student answered a question incorrectly, the volts increase. Milgram was expecting the teachers to back out of the experiment once they saw the student in pain for the first time, but surprisingly enough, more than sixty percent of the teachers obeyed the experimenter and continued on with the experiment, reaching up to four-hundred-fifty volts. After three times of the four-hundred-fifty volt shock, the experiment was called to halt.

It was surprising how easily someone could just inflict pain on another human being without so much as a second thought. Milgram even states “Subjects in the experiment frequently even said, “If it were up to me, I would not have administered shocks to the learner” (Milgram 702). By stating this I know the participants did have some remorse they wouldn’t want to shock the learner but they do because of the fact they were told to by an authority figure. In life we are always told to listen and respect our elders and teachers and we see them as our authority figure so if they were to give us a command we would compile. What if the command we were given was something we knew was wrong but since it was from someone who has authority it must make it ok. That’s we think and I know working in the nursing field I see it more than I should because of nurses telling me to do things I’m not allowed to do under my certifications. I find it hard to tell them no, just like the participants of this experiment they knew that if they listened the individual would get hurt but that didn’t matter they were doing what they were told to do. The experiments were wrong morally and were extremely cruel and because they were so unnecessary innocent individuals were put in pain for no

In Stanley Milgram’s article “The Perils of Obedience,” several people volunteer to participate in Milgram’s experiment. It consists of a learner and a teacher. When the learner fails to memorize a word pair, the teacher applies a shock to the learner. The shocks increase in severity with each wrong answer, attaining a maximum voltage of 450 volts. Milgram states many psychiatrists he interviewed before the experiment predicted most subjects would not go past 150 volts, or the point at which the learner starts to ask to leave (Milgram 80). In his first experiment, twenty-five out of forty subjects continued the experiment until the end (Milgram 80). After several more experiments at different locations, Milgram obtained the same results. Milgram

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

In the article by Stanley Milgram, the learner was to memorize the second word of a pair presented to them. If they got the answer incorrect the shocks would progressively get higher in voltage, even though the learner never felt the pain (Milgram 579). The teacher being tricked into believing they were harming another human being, was all part of the experiment. The learner would cry in agony even when the shock wasn’t being applied directly to them. The learner had to adapt to their role to make the experiment a success.

The study was conducted by Stanley Milgram and aimed to examine how people “reacted to instructions from authorized individuals when the actions conflicted with their personal safety and conscience” (De Vos, 2009, p.226). The participants were instructed to work in pairs and play different roles. In each pair, one of the participants played a role of a “learner,” and was presented with different questions from the “teacher,” the second person in the pair. Experimenters observed the questioning process and asked “teachers” to apply an electric shock to “learners” when they gave wrong answers to questions. The main problem in the research was ethical, as the more than a half of “teachers” were instructed to apply electric shocks up to the level of 450 volts, which could be very harmful. However, the “learners” were asked to provide mainly wrong questions, and the “teachers” were not aware of this intention (Milgram, 2010). At the end of the study, the experimenters revealed the deception. The research concluded that “teachers” were likely to obey instructions from authorized individuals, even when the health of “learners” supposedly was in serious

Stanley Milgram a psychologist decided to test obedience and its effects on a human. The trial began with a recipient aka “teacher” willingly delivering shocks to “the student”. When in reality there was no “student”, but a voice recording that would project a man’s voice complaining he was in pain. The recipients at any moment could stop the whole procedure, and not carry on with the shocks if they wished. What Milgram and his colleague’s predicted was that recipients would stop after a certain amount of shocks. The concluding results were wrong; many actually went through all the way to 450 volts. When Milgram published his findings another psychologist by the name Diana Baumrind criticized Milgram proclaiming it was unethical. She argued

(Brennan 2016). All the students surveyed believed that only a very small percentage of teachers would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally surveyed his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few participants would progress beyond a very strong shock. In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65% of the experiment participants gave the maximum 450-volt shock. Milgram however also noticed their behaviour. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment). Many were very uncomfortable administrating the shocks. At some point throughout the experiment, every participant stopped and questioned the experiment; some said they would refund the money they were paid for taking part in the experiment. Throughout the experiment, participants displayed varying degrees of anxious behaviour. Subjects were sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures. (McLeod,