Poll: Do you think the Milgram Experiment was unethical?

[Joccaren]

I don't think the analogy that "Not So Different from the Nazis." holds up at all. The people know it's for a scientific study, they just don't know how it helps. There's a big difference between inflicting pain because somebody told you to for the interest of science and going around killing people.

Eh, no. The Nazi party members didn't go around killing people for shits and giggles. They thought they were doing what was best for Germany and their families because that's what their superiors told them.
This test was done to see if Nazi troops held the same morality as those who were commanding them, or if they'd act against their own morals just because someone told them to. Not so different from the Nazi's really. Especially when you consider that halfway through the experiment the person supposedly being shocked would bang on the wall, then stop after the next couple of shocks, implying they'd died due to the heart problem they'd been sure to tell the subject they had. Despite that more than 65% of the people continued on and administered shocks much greater than that level, with 65% being the number that administered the strongest shock possible.

OT: Not unethical in the slightest. The subjects of the tests were unethical, but the test itself wasn't. They were free to leave at any time. They were asked to stay and continue 4 times. They weren't forced. Not one of them asked that the experiment be stopped. They asked to be allowed to leave, but not that the experiment not be continued without them. That's poor. Really poor.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

...but these 'harmless' experiments are against our current ethic code because it can cause lasting, unnecessary harm. There is -plenty- of sense why we dont do this experiments anymore, and I would tell you most, if not everyone, who does research under APA knows -exactly- why we dont do another Milgram.

Well, if you can tell us, I'd really like to know. It would be a waste of a thread (and the time spent posting in it) otherwise.

The basic reason is that from the Milgram experiment series we've learned that it's far too easy to keep participants in an experiment long past the point where they start displaying the physical symptoms of severe psychological distress... That psychological distress constitutes unnecessary harm... and that's without going into the potential for long term psychological complications.

(and for people who can't differentiate between 'discomfort' and 'distress', go sit in a hard, lumpy chair for 15 minites... then go and slam your fingers in a car door. This should give you a good comparative baselines for both. Yes, it's an unethical experiment. Can you guess why?)

From a practical standpoint, the Milgram series has exhausted it's usefulness. In all the experiments and variations only one variable has been shown to have a significant influence - that of promixity of Observer to Teacher (Authority figure to experiment participant) and that can be further tested in different experiments that don't subject the participants to psychological distress. There's also the issue of finding volunteers for research for experiments if your field of research gets a reputation for not giving a shit about experiment volunteers.


From a legal standpoint there's the big issue of just what people can legally consent to... as well as reasonable expectations from consent and the duty of care...

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

All I can say is I'm glad that most of you will never have the chance to sit on the Ethics Review Committee of a School of Psychology.

I'm actually finding reading this thread just as worrying as the results of the experiment. Especially considering how many seem to be determining that it was ethical with the benefit of hindsight. Yeah most participants thought that it was worth it in the end, yeah we learnt something useful, but you can't know that without running the experiment.

I'd hate to see their opinions on the Stanford Prison Experiment... "It was ethical because no one dropped a boulder on the fat kid with glasses."

 

[McMullen]

All I can say is I'm glad that most of you will never have the chance to sit on the Ethics Review Committee of a School of Psychology.

I'm actually finding reading this thread just as worrying as the results of the experiment. Especially considering how many seem to be determining that it was ethical with the benefit of hindsight. Yeah most participants thought that it was worth it in the end, yeah we learnt something useful, but you can't know that without running the experiment.

I'd hate to see their opinions on the Stanford Prison Experiment... "It was ethical because no one dropped a boulder on the fat kid with glasses."

My opinion on that one was that it was unethical because there was actual malicious harm being committed on some subjects by others against their will. I don't think anyone expected it to go that far, but it should have been stopped much sooner, or not carried out at all.

 

[TAGM]

P.S.

During the experiment, the recording even talked about 'Heart Problems'...

Not to be a pedantic bastard (Well, OK, I am, but still), but I believe that mentioning heart problems was only part of experiments after the first, to see if it would have any change in obedience. As in, "If we say this person has heart problems, will they still shock them to death?"
Indecently, for those curious - experimentation found that this is one of the few parameter changes that actually have no effect good or ill - as in, just as many people "shocked" a "person with heart conditions" as someone without.

I am pretty sure that was there from the very start.. If you found evidence other wise, it still wouldnt mean to much. The 'shocked' participant (which was just a recording during the tudy), went silent before the last switches, and yet, the were still coerced to continue. Like "Hey, hes not talking", "Continue the experiment" "If he doesnt respond, flip the switch" kinda stuff.

I dunno - you would think that if someone was told that the 'shocked' participant explicitly told the other that he had a heart condition, that second participant would be somewhat more apprehensive to start running electricity through them. And yet, it seems to have no effect. And isn't that sort of the reason we run psychology experiments in the first place, to come as close as we can to proving or disproving the assumptions and theories we may or may not believe in?

Although, if you meant that it didn't matter in terms of the ethics of the experiment as a whole, I agree - it's more a side-note to my main point then anything else.

Incidentally, I heard that it sometimes wasn't a recording, but instead, the 'shocked' participant was sitting in the same room. In that case, obedience rates dropped - where as, if the 'experimenter' was in closer proximity, obedience rates increased, and vice versa for both cases. Other things play into it as well - if the authority figure or building the experiment takes place in seems less legitimate, obedience drops - like, if you do it in a dingy building with a casually dressed experimenter, the obedience decreases compared to, say, someone in a lab coat inside a fancy university running it.

 

[Korolev]

It was a harsh experiment. The only issue I had with it was that the original participates were not debriefed. They left that room thinking that they had harmed/killed someone. They should have told them afterwards that it was all a set up.

Having said that, these experiments are very important. Obviously the very point of the experiment would have failed if they had told the participants what the purpose was.