The Stanley Milgram Experiment

Improved Essays
In 1962, Stanley Milgram surprised the world with his study on obedience. To test his theory he invented an electronic box that would become a window into human cruelty. In ascending order, a row of buttons marked the amount of voltage one person would inflict upon another. Milgram’s original motive for the experiment was to understand the unthinkable: How could the German people permit the extermination of the Jews? Stanley Milgram wanted to understand the necessary conditions in which a person would obey an authority who commanded actions that went against conscience. Milgram’s findings, published in 1974 had a surplus of reactions.
While reading this pls suggest synonyms for violated, breached, etc :( Responses to the experiment included
…show more content…
The first regulation breached by The Milgram Experiment was Informed Consent. Informed Consent means that the participants must know that they are involved in research and must give their consent or permission. The participants consented to the experiment without knowing the true aims of the experiment. According to Lewis W. Brandt, a Canadian psychologist from the University of Saskatchewan Regina Campus “Subjects and experimenters perceived themselves as participants in a scientific investigation. The subjects had been told by an authority whom they had reason to believe that they were not causing any permanent damage.” (Brandt 233). Participants were not consenting in the experiment they signed up for because what they signed up for, was not the experiment that was actually conducted. The second regulation breached by The Milgram Experiment was Deception. The guideline for Deception explains that if the participants are deceived in any way about the nature of the study, the deception must not be so extreme as to invalidate the informed consent. Milgram deceived his participants by not telling them the true nature of the experiment. The subjects behavior would have been much different if it was known to them that their authority figure was just an actor. The third regulation violated was the Right to Withdraw. The authority figure in the experiment made it difficult for subjects to withdraw by urging them to continue with the shocks. The fourth guideline violated was Risk, also known as the protection from mental or physical harm. There were many ways in which The Milgram Experiment may have harmed the participants psychologically. The subjects were not tested to see if they could mentally cope with the study that was about to take place. Participants

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Milgram’s experiments created great controversy. They showed how vulnerable humans were to the will bending power of authority. This idea especially stuck around the time the experiment took place, the early 1960’s. America was still somewhat fresh off of World War II, and Americans were shocked to see that they were just as capable of being pushed to do things that went against their morals as Germans were under Nazi authorities. Milgram was thorough in his studies by including multiple permutations of the original where he tested subjects responses to different forms of authority.…

    • 1487 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Question 1 The Milgram study was done with the objection of finding out whether obedience for from an authoritative figure was a common occurrence, for example, the killing of Jews by Nazis. Therefore, how long were subjects willing to inflict pin on another person when asked to, despite knowing the seriousness of the injuries. From the experiment, the experimenter established routine through the use of the predefined prods such as ‘please go on and please continue (Myers & Twenge, 2017).’ That way the subject would know what to do when they would hear these words.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An experiment should not cause any harm to its participants, even if it is not physical, but mental. In the defense of Milgram, however, the debrief of the participants afterwards usually ensured a decrease in their stress level due to the knowledge that the learner was safe from harm. Therefore, the effects of tension were only short-term, and the debriefing usually solved their problems. The participants were assured that their behavior was common and that they were not sadistic or horrible people. About 83.7% of people stated that they were happy to be involved in the experiment, and only 1.3% wished that they hadn't gone through the experiment.…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, this is a largely simplistic view of the results of the experiments. The participants did not simply obey the person of authority named the experimenter. As demonstrated in the extensive video footage of the experiments, many of them exhibited great distress and tension, attempted to refuse participation, and tried to reason with the experimenter (Milgram, 1962). While it can be argued that a reasonable person could simply exit the room to leave or to check on the other participant receiving the shocks, the situation prevented this action, not physically, but psychologically. In turn, it may be argued that rather than obedience to orders, the participants of this study succumbed to incessant…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diana Baumrind often disagreed with the ethics of the Milgram Experiment; however, Ian Parker took on a different perspective than she. Diana Baumrind, author of, Review of Stanley Milgram 's Experiments on Obedience, claims in his experiments the ethics he possessed were immoral and wrong. Throughout her article she continually disagreed with everything Milgram had "achieved", starting from the first experiments results which appeared as a review in American Psychologist in 1963 (Baumrind 89). While Diana disputed what she thought was the atrocious ethics of Milgram 's experiments, she furthermore believed Milgram should have debriefed the subjects more than what he had done (95). Although Baumrind opinionated her thoughts on these issues,…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the articles “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” and “Review of Stanly Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience,” authors Theodore Dalrymple and Diana Baumrind describe the aspects of the Stanley Milgram experiment, while they both partake different topics to discuss. Dalrymple, a British physician, claims that there is a difference between blind obedience and blind disobedience, and there should be a healthy balance between the two (Dalrymple 119). However, Baumrind believes that the subjects should have been treated in a more enhanced way; therefore, claiming that the experiment unsuitably took advantage of the inherent trust and obedience given by the subject when volunteering to participate (Baumrind 89). These two articles are relevant to…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram’s experiments, for example, were the only one true way of making true findings and it did explore controversial findings. The BPS ‘Code of Human Research Ethics’ also states it should not influence the individuals’ decision to participate. It is important to ensure that participants are deceived as little as possible and that no harm or distress is caused. The true nature of the research should also be revealed in debriefing such as Milgram’s experiment, where he also ensured that the teachers and learners had a reconciliation with each…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Two psychological experimenters attempted to uncover the most brutal area of the human brain in their articles: Milgram 's "The Perils of Obedience" and Zimbardo 's "The Stanford Prison Experiment". The first and earliest of these experimenters was Stanley Milgram, who conducted his experiments at Yale University. He starts the article with information on testing whether or not a person would administer painful—and eventually lethal—shocks to other people when given the order by an authoritative person in the room with the ‘teacher’. His results were indeed surprising: twenty-five people out of forty administered lethal shocks when instructed. He includes excerpts from the experiment to add to his argument.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Perils of Obedience” written by Stanley Milgram and “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” written by Diana Baumrind are both intriguing articles about Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience. Diana Baumrind believes that Stanley Milgram failed at his experiences on obedience rather than succeeded. Stanley Milgram believed that he succeeded on his experiments if an authority figure tells the test subject to do something then the test subject will. “Stanley Milgram designed an experiment that forced participants either to violate their conscience by obeying the immoral demands of an authority figure or to refuse those demands” (Milgram 77). While both authors address experiments on obedience, Stanley Milgram approaches…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    If it was possible for one to take a step back from the world and watch every event in human history unfold, one would be given the notion that humans, as imperfect beings, are unsettlingly fond of committing horrendous crimes against their fellow men. Germans oversaw the systematic extermination of six million of their Jewish brethren during World War II (8), and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime purposefully executed two million of the country’s own citizens in the 1970s (9). These two examples are from the twentieth century alone; in reality earth’s history of genocides is far more extensive than most individuals would like to give it credit. At a first glance at human history, one might pose the question, “How are ordinary people capable of…

    • 1973 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Experiments and researches was established centuries ago and it is still carried out in this modern era. Experiments yield results and they have been very efficient in relative to our day-to-day activities, unravelling the medical conundrum the world was facing, modern technological break throughs. Psychologically, experiments have helped answered the questionable traits mankind could not answer. Example fear, genetics, etc. Alhough it impacts our live positively , some of the experiments are considered unethical and inhumane to both human beings and animals.…

    • 498 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The main conflict of Milgram 's experience which can be argued for both sides, that really settled the point where the experiment became unethical was the fact that patients could be considered to be psychologically harmed, even though the debriefing and explanations it could still have an effect on patient mind and…

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This Code of Conduct established by the American Psychological Association effectively supports Baumrind by articulating how psychologists should aspire to create trusting relations with people whom they work (“Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct”). Milgram might refute these criticisms by claiming the subjects could trust the experimenter on the basis that he, the experimenter, was accountable for any harm caused by the subject. Milgram mentions this detail numerous times throughout his narratives of the experiment in “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgram 81, 83). In response to Milgram’s refute, Baumrind would likely debate how Milgram deceived his subjects about the purpose of the experiment. Milgram compelled his subjects to believe that they were not the focal point of the experiment but rather a supplementary aspect (Milgram 78).…

    • 1334 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram Experiment Introduction Many people question whether the Milgram experiment was ethical or not, and whether the experiment should had been allowed at all. But like most significant psychological discoveries, sometimes ethics could’ve been overseen in order to obtain great data. Because of Milgram experiment, psychologists today have a better understanding of group dynamics. Milgram’s experiment enabled better understanding of human obedience to an authority figure. Ethics that might have been violated throughout the process of Milgram’s study can be justified in the experiment itself.…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today’s time, the ethics board has made the code of ethics in order that no one would be harmed while in the experiment. This meant both physically and emotionally. The Milgram experiment, as explained earlier in the report, caused stress to arise from the participates with would cause emotional distress. The next code that the board added is that every volunteer would have to sign either a waiver or a consent form that would allow the experimenter to perform the experiment on the volunteer.…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays