Ethical Guidelines

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

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.

A classic experiment on the natural obedience of individuals was designed and tested by a Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram. The test forced participants to either go against their morals or violate authority. For the experiment, two people would come into the lab after being told they were testing memory loss, though only one of them was actually being tested. The unaware individual, called the “teacher” would sit in a separate room, administering memory related questions. If the individual in the other room, the “learner,” gave a wrong answer, the teacher would administer a shock in a series of increasingly painful shocks correlating with the more answers given incorrectly. Milgram set up a recorder

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.

At this point, the Teacher and Learner were separated into different rooms where they could communicate but not see each other. The Teacher was then given an electric shock from the electro-shock generator as a sample what the Learner would supposedly to receive during the experiment. After the Teacher was given a list of word pairs which he was to teach the Learner. The Teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. To respond the Learner would press a button to indicate their answer, if the answer was wrong the teacher would shock the Learner with the voltage increasing by 15-volts for each wrong answer, if correct the Teacher would read the next word pair. The subjects believed that for each wrong answer the Learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After a series of wrong answers the Learner would start complaining about their heart, afterwards there would be no response from the Learner at all. Many people indicated their desire to stop the experiment and check on the learner at this point in the experiment. Some paused at 135 volts and began to question the purpose of the experiment, while most continued after being assured that they would not be held responsible. A few subjects even began to laugh nervously or exhibit other signs of extreme stress when they heard the screams of the

The subjects were informed that the punishment would not cause permanent tissue damage, however, could be extremely painful. The subjects observed the learner/accomplice being prepared with electrodes strapped in a chair. The teacher/subjects read a series of word-pairs to the learner then read the first word of the pair along with four terms. The learner’s role was to pair the first word with the correct term (Milgram, 1963). The learner would then press one of four switches attached to an electrical shock generator indicating his response. Unknown to the teacher, “in all conditions the learner gives a predetermined set of responses to the word pair test, based on the schedule of approximately three wrong answers to one correct answer” (Milgram, 1963).

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

Many people have heard of the question, “does the end justify the means?”, but what does it mean? This question can be answered on both sides as yes it does justify and no it does not justify the means. It all depends on the situation in hand. Were the steps to achieve the end good or bad? If the steps to the end were good then it justifies but if it was bad then it does not justify. So the answer to the question would be depending on the means to get there and the end results.

To ensure that a researcher’s enthusiasm for knowledge and understanding doesn’t let them get carried away, clear guidelines for ethical behaviour in research, a Code of Ethics, have been established by governments, institutions and various professional societies such as the American Psychological Association(APA), the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI).

There are three basic principles to consider when evaluating the ethics of a study: 1) respect for persons, 2) beneficence, and 3) justice (Houser, J., 2012, pg. 54-56). To apply these

The alternative ethical views that could be applied to this research is by viewing it through virtue ethics. Virtue ethics “define right and wrong acts in terms of the moral virtues and vices” (Battaly, 2010, p. 2). In other words, virtue ethics goes by what is morally right and wrong in one’s own intentions. In this article written by Heather Battaly, she explains what a virtue and a vice are. Battaly mentions that there are two ways to identify what a virtue is. The first way being that a virtue is a “quality that enables a thing to attain good ends or perform its function well” (2010, p. 3). This definition applies to

The setting is a memory experiment, where a volunteer must test a man, and if the man gets a question wrong, he will be shocked by the volunteer. The volunteer does not know the man is an actor and the experiment is on them, to see whether they will stop after hearing the cries of pain. The majority of people continue to electrocute the actor, despite the continued yells. The absence of individual thought in the experimentees allowed the authority figure in the room with them to convince them to keep going, even though each person knew what was happening was wrong. A few words were enough for them to abandon their morals for the time being, presenting a lack of independent thought.

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

The vast majority of ethical dilemmas regarding research and the involvement of human participants is associated with concerns that are decidedly monetary in nature. Of course, the most fundamental concerns for any such research would be to protect the health and the welfare of those human participants (Callahan 1998). This statement becomes particularly true when such a population group pooled for research includes specialty subjects such as elderly people, pregnant women, and subsets that may be considered especially vulnerable. Although this consideration is widely viewed as something of a foregone conclusion concerning the subject of ethical dilemmas in research, it is actually an integral component of many of the pecuniary considerations regarding the ethics of human research. One of the principle questions of ethics in research is whether or not the information gained from human participants can be considered valid, when such participants are being paid or compensated in some way that could, conceivably, affect the results of whatever research is performed. Another ethical concern is raised by the efficacy and veracity of Institutional Review Boards who approve or validate the techniques of human research. Situations may very well arise in which members of those review boards have conflicts of interests with their professional duties as board members and the results of certain types of research.

In an experiment done by Stanley Milgram, individuals were told, by “a taciturn guy in a lab coat”, to punish others for getting difficult questions wrong by shocking them (Nelson, 302). Although no one was actually getting shocked, the individuals in the experiment truly believed that they were giving deadly amounts of electric shocks to others. In spite of the fact that the individuals were delivering the electric shocks, it is not truly their fault. The guy in the lab coat continuously told the participants to unjustly punish the other individuals for getting questions wrong, “[urging] the behavior on” (Nelson, 302). Therefore, the guy in the