Seroom Experiment Ethics

Forum #2 If research or an experiment depends on deception to obtain results, it is without a doubt unethical. The participants could have easily been affected psychologically in both experiments because they are questioning their potential as a human being. However, at times it is the only way to acquire results because the experiment will be worthless if the person knows the reason they are truly there. “Illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths" (Milgram S, 1963). For example, imagine a professor wants to know how many of their students cheat on exams and he sent an undercover student to find out who they are. A student will be more likely to admit to than other …show more content…
What if someone found out about one of the men in the tearoom experiment, their lives will be ruined. 54 percent of the participants were married and were currently living with their wives. If someone in their community found out about his activities he would certainly be despised for his sexual interests. He would probably quit due the harassment he would face in his working environment. His wife will most certainly leave him and individualistic people are more likely to commit suicide. The article does not mention whether he disclosed his experiment to the participants but maybe it is for the best if they don’t know that they were part of an experiment. However, the question of ethics is reintroduced because it is only ethical that the participants be told of the experiment but then it would unquestionably cause harm to the participant if he knew. I would like to say the Milgram experiment was not as harmful as the Humphreys experiment but it is impossible to be sure. Milgram said he disclosed his experiment to the participants after the experiment but the probability of psychological harm was very high because the people who went to 450 volts actually thought they killed someone. Experiences of death do not simply disappear overnight and even though the experiment was fake it is still harmful to the state of mind of the individual. Furthermore, three participants had uncontrollable seizures isn’t that enough to say the experiment was dangerous or does someone have to physical die for it to become dangerous. Danger is a variable that needs to be operationalized in order to decide how to measure danger. “We need to specify exactly what is to be measured before the assigning a value to a variable” (Macionis, Pg.