The Stanley Milgram Experiment

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