...social are undefined. Though ethical codes could stretch back through history of the Ancient Greek. There have been many up to date versions of ethical codes since then, such as being respected when taking part in psychological research conducted (McGaha & Korn, 1995). Within the departments of psychology there are various ethics committee, the aim of every department is to avoid participants experiencing distress and making sure participants welfare and dignity is kept. Ethics within psychology means the researcher’s key focus have to be to reduce any sort of discomfort or risks which are involved within the study. Also preventing the participants from experiencing any long-term undesirable consequences as well as having to notifying participants on all features of the study which could have an influence on their decision to take part (Hobbs, 1948). Throughout the psychological history many research studies have been conducted by various psychologists. There have been some which have been ethically critisied, with the lack of ethics taken into consideration. The most commonly discussed research study which has many ethical issues is known to be conducted by a behavioral psychologist Stanley Milgram (1963). Leading to many discussions Milgram (1963) purpose of his study was to investigate how far an individual would obey a figure of authority (Bernstein, 2011). Stanley Milgram (1963) introduced his well-known study on obedience within psychology. Milgram (1963) was a psychologist...
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...Stanley Milgram is one of my personal academic heroes and one of the reasons that I gained an interest in psychology many years ago. After studying his experiments and reading “Obedience to Authority” about six years ago, I truly began to admire his Avant-garde ways of approaching the science. I am an avid student of social issues and studying this “rock star” of social psychology has heightened my senses and allowed me to look beyond what the masses consider socially unacceptable in the name of discovery. The following is a reply to a video entitled “Into the Mind: Mind Control” which focuses on famous experiments conducted to discover the “whys” behind certain behaviors. While the video highlights a number of psychological experiments, this short work will focus on Stanley Milgram and answer the following: what are the ethical inferences and did his results justify the manner in which the experiment was conducted? According to Milgram (1984), “The case touched on a fundamental issue of the human condition, our primordial nightmare. If we need help, will those around us stand around and let us be destroyed or will they come to our aid? Are those other creatures there to help us sustain our life and values or are we individual flecks of dust just floating around in a vacuum” (Memorable quotes). The Experiment: Why this Approach? At a rudimentary level, human behavior and all of the questions that revolve around it is why psychology exists. Man studies the differences...
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...Milgram conducted an experiment directed on the differences in obedience to an authority figure and a person’s personal conscience. Milgram examined these traits by using people accused of crimes during World War II and Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Milgram found that the soldier’s defense was based on strictly obedience and that they were just following orders of their superiors. Milgram’s experiments began a year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann who was being accused of coordinating deportations of Jews from killing centers. He also was the mastermind behind deportation plans down to the last detail. Milgram formulated his experiment to answer the question "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" (Milgram, 1963). Milgram also wanted to...
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...Ethics in the Name of Science: A detailed Comparison Between Milgram and Zimbardo’s Internationally Renowned Attempts at Ethics in Social Science Experiments David Baxter Park University SO220 Ethical Issues in Social Science Kris Reichart-Anderson 2 October 2011 Abstract For years many experiments have been scrutinized for their ineffective use or lack of establishment of ethical principles within their research. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s Obedience experiment were ridiculed for the lack of ethics involved. Although these experiments caused unnecessary harm to their subjects they also acted as the foundation for the establishment of the Belmont Report, which in itself, would change research forever. Ethics in the Name of Science Two very controversial experiments have been dissected a thousand times over by some of social science’s most amazing minds as well as the academic populous worldwide. Though the Milgram experiment of 1962 and the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 were entirely different, they both shared the groundbreaking task of identifying the affects of “Obedience to Authority” (Milgram, 1974). Both social scientists believe they had identified the possible risks but fell short in their attempt to alleviate any ethical repercussions. This paper will address the attempts made to ensure moral and ethical studies were accomplished as well as identify where both experiments had major flaws in their plans to ensure no...
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...The Milgram Experiment was conducted by Stanley Milgram who was a psychologist at Yale University. He invented this study to explore the issue of authority. Milgram wanted to understand obedience. Milgram asked the question, “What is there in human nature that allows an individual to act without any restraints whatsoever that allows us to act inhumane and not limited by compassion or conscience.” This experiment allowed insight into the topic of conflict between obedience to authority and conscience. How far would people proceed in obeying authority if it involved hurting another person? In order to conduct this experiment Milgram used male subjects from 20 to 50 years old. The authority figure told the subjects they were testing to see if people...
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...The Milgram Experiment The Milgram experiment took place in 1963 and was conducted by Stanley Milgram. Stanley Milgram who was a psychologist at Yale University performed this experiment to show the conflict between obedience to authority and personal ethics and morals. In 1962 Milgram wanted to investigate how the Nazis could terminate Jews during World War II without even the thought of human dignity. With this experiment he would show how the Germans were obedient to authority figures. To do this Milgram selected 40 males’ participants between the age of 20 and 50 to play 2 roles. The first role was the teacher and the second role was that of student. All the participants were teachers because Milgram rigged the selection process. With all the partisipants believing they were selected as teachers they were taken to a room where the students were connected to electrodes. The researcher asked a serious of health questions and the student would answer with some concerns but decided to continue with the test. Next the teachers were put in adjoining room seated in front of a shock generator. The shock generator was comprised of multipul switches ranging from 15 volts up to 450 volts. The researcher explained to the teachers that for every wrong answer given they were to administer a shock starting from 15 volts. For every wrong answer after that he was to increase to the next voltage and so on. The student which was a recording would show signs of pain and wanting to stop...
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...One ethical issue with Milgram’s experiment is that the nature of the experiment caused many subjects to experience clear distress and discomfort during the process, and the effects of the experiment had the potential to be harmful in the future. This ethical issue violates the federal guidelines for human subject research, in which the guidelines state that an ethical experiment is one in which “risks to subjects are minimized” by “using procedures which are consistent with sound research design and which do not unnecessarily expose subjects to risks” (Basic HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects, 1991). Milgram himself reported the emotional disturbances that his subjects experienced, explaining how the “mature” and “poised” businessman that started the experiment were “reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck […who…] was rapidly approaching a point of nervous collapse” (Baumrind, 1964). Milgram also mentions that many of the subjects requested to stop the experiment, yet continued to go on even through “nervous laughing fits” and seizures in some cases (Baumrind, 1964). So even if two-thirds of the participants of the experiment emphasized the idea that authority figures influence obedience, many are still skeptical because the study clearly violates ethical guidelines that prohibit...
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...doing research it is important to have ethical standards. Standards help researchers have goals like truthfulness, knowledge, and preventing errors. For instance, forbidding false research information helps keep the truth and eliminate error as much as possible. To begin with, research usually includes a lot of participation from people in different institutions. Ethical standards advocate the values that are important to work together, like truthfulness, liability, respect for one another, and equality. For instance, a lot of ethical standards, like writing guidelines, copyright, and information sharing policies, and keeping an individuals information confidential are used to protect property concerns while trying to gain partnership....
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...Bullen R2208481 DE 100 Investigating Psychology 1 TMA02 Outline the similarities and differences between Milgrams (1963) obedience study and Burgers (2009) replication. This essay will look at an important key psychological experiment carried out by the renowned social psychologist Stanley Milgram which was carried out in the early 1960’s (Banyard 2012) to determine how far ordinary people would go to inflict pain to a fellow human based on instruction from an authority figure, and that of the replication of the experiment which was carried out by Burger in 2009 (Byford 2014) to determine if the same level of obedience was still applicable in the 21st Century, as was observed in the original study some 40 years earlier. The essay will look at some of the key similarities and differences between the two studies. For the purpose of this essay only the base studies will be discussed. Milgram’s motivation to study this trait in human behaviour came from the atrocities that took place during WW2, and the trial of Adolph Eichmann who in his defence said he was ‘simply following orders’ (Banyard 2012) to carry out the mass murders. Milgram asked himself ‘how can ordinary people who are courteous and descent in everyday life act callously, inhumanely without limitations of conscience?’ Milgram on Milgram (part 1): Obedience experiments (The Open University, 2014) Milgram devised his obedience study. He developed a laboratory based experiment to determine how far a participant...
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... Managing for Ethical Conduct Contents: (Please note: the Instructor Guide for every chapter will follow this structure.) 1. Chapter Outline 2. Teaching Notes 3. In-Class Exercises 4. Homework Assignments 5. Additional Resources Chapter Outline I. Introduction II. In Business, Ethics Is about Behavior A. Practical Advice for Managers: Ethical Behavior III. Our Multiple Ethical Selves A. The Kenneth Lay Example B. The Dennis Levine Example C. Practical Advice for Managers’ Multiple Ethical Selves IV. Rewards and Discipline A. People Do What is Rewarded and Avoid Doing What is Punished B. People Will Go the Extra Mile to Achieve Goals Set by Managers C. How Goals Combined with Rewards Can Encourage Unethical Behavior D. Practical Advice for Managers: Goals, Rewards, and Discipline E. Recognize the Power of Indirect Rewards and Punishments F. Can Managers Really Reward Ethical Behavior? G. What about the Role of Discipline? H. Practical Advice for Managers: Discipline V. “Everyone’s Doing It” A. People Follow Group Norms B. Rationalizing Unethical Behavior C. Practical Advice for Managers: Group Norms VI. People Fulfill Assigned Roles A. The Zimbardo Prison Experiment B. Roles at Work C. Conflicting Roles can Lead to Unethical Behavior D. Roles Can Also Support Ethical Behavior E...
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... Managing for Ethical Conduct Contents: (Please note: the Instructor Guide for every chapter will follow this structure.) 1. Chapter Outline 2. Teaching Notes 3. In-Class Exercises 4. Homework Assignments 5. Additional Resources Chapter Outline I. Introduction II. In Business, Ethics Is about Behavior A. Practical Advice for Managers: Ethical Behavior III. Our Multiple Ethical Selves A. The Kenneth Lay Example B. The Dennis Levine Example C. Practical Advice for Managers’ Multiple Ethical Selves IV. Rewards and Discipline A. People Do What is Rewarded and Avoid Doing What is Punished B. People Will Go the Extra Mile to Achieve Goals Set by Managers C. How Goals Combined with Rewards Can Encourage Unethical Behavior D. Practical Advice for Managers: Goals, Rewards, and Discipline E. Recognize the Power of Indirect Rewards and Punishments F. Can Managers Really Reward Ethical Behavior? G. What about the Role of Discipline? H. Practical Advice for Managers: Discipline V. “Everyone’s Doing It” A. People Follow Group Norms B. Rationalizing Unethical Behavior C. Practical Advice for Managers: Group Norms VI. People Fulfill Assigned Roles A. The Zimbardo Prison Experiment B. Roles at Work C. Conflicting Roles can Lead to Unethical Behavior D. Roles Can Also Support Ethical Behavior E...
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...theoretical, practical and ethical problems. A theoretical problem for laboratory experiments is generally that they fail to achieve a high level of validity. Validity is whether the research measures what it is set out to measure. As labs are an artificial setting, it can cause unnatural behaviour to occur. Also field experiments have a lack of control over variables so to gain true validity would be hard. However in contrast, other sociologists such as positivists disagree and are in favour of laboratory experiments. This is because there can be careful control over experimental conditions allowing other researchers to be able to replicate the study in order to get similar results increasing the reliability as well. A practical issue for why experiments are not always used is that lab experiments can only study small scale samples. This makes it very difficult to investigate large scale social phenomena such as religions or voting patterns. This overall reduces the representativeness of the experiments in labs. Furthermore, experiments overall can’t be used to study the past. It is impossible to control variables that were acting in the past rather than the present. Although positivists agree with laboratory experiments, they do agree with the fact that the small scale samples that are used means that results may not be representative or generalizable. Ethical issues play a big part when it comes to sociologists not using experiments. An issue such as not...
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...Milgram (1974) conducted many experiments based on obedience the most familiar experiment is experiment 5 which took place in 1963. The objective of experiment 5 was to see what factors would influence an individual to obey, the situational factor in the experiment using electric shocks shows although the situation from an outside perspective may seem morally wrong, for example, inflicting pain on another person is something that people would not choose to do unless put under a difficult situation like the participants were. The fact that Milgram researched this topic gives us great insight on human behaviour. According to Milgram a cause of obedience is authority, indicating the environment and individuals a person is surrounded by dictates how obedient a person can be. In 1971 Zimbardo also carried out research on obedience conducting a prison experiment....
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...Stanley Milgram’s “Issues in the Study of Obedience: A Reply to Baumrind” addresses his concerns regarding the argument she presents in her article in which she critiques his notable experiment on obedience. Correspondingly, he attempts to defend his premise as well as the chosen experimental methods he employs. However, Milgram’s response is ineffective in conveying his assertions to the article’s intended and likely audience because Milgram proves himself to be an unreliable authority. This fraudulence is evident given his clear display of bias, his illustration of false dilemmas, and his usage of an ad hominem attack. Milgram’s deliberate selection bias is evident throughout the entirety of this artic;e and it indirectly informs the reader...
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...certain situation lead people to obey. In 1963, Milgram carried out a study among 40 American males between the ages of 20 and 50 years old, with the study aim being wanting to find out under what conditions would different people obey to authority under. The participants were deceived into thinking they would be emitting electric shocks, to inflict pain onto an individual when they gave a wrong answer to a question; the question being a word matching query. The participant here played the role of a teacher and the learner in this case was in fact the confederate. The shock meter went up in pain voltages as the experiment went on and more wrong answers were issued. However, there was no real pain being inflicted, just the sound of the learner acting as if he was hurt. The experiment carried on until the participant refused to obey the orders being given to them, or until the highest shock voltage of 450 volts was reached. However, stern encouragement was given to the participant by the leader of the experiment to carry on going and issue out the shocks, even though it was putting the learner through a great deal of audible pain. The experimenter would tell the teacher ‘it’s absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘you have no choice, you must go on’. It seemed that in fact these instructions from an authoritative figure worked, 65% of participants went to the end of the shock generator, issuing out the whole 450 volts of shock. Milgram concluded that under circumstances like these...
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