It’s been over half a century since Milgram took a look at the fight between conscience & obedience. Is this an experiment that gets run fairly regularly? “Authority” has taken quite a PR beating since 1963, as has science for that matter. I would be interested in knowing if obedience is as strong as it used to be. Also, I’d be interested in a much larger population sample with results sortable into numerous demographics–who is most likely to set aside their conscience at the suggestion of an authority figure.
Heh…now I’m thinking about a meta experiment–how far would a grad student be willing to go in order to put together and execute the experiment?
Professor prod 1: It’s a good experiment, don’t worry about the subjects, people are resilient
Professor prod 2: This is important work, I picked you to do it, get it done
Professor prod 3: What makes you think you should be a research psychologist when you can’t even execute a simple experiment?
Professor prod 4: You will fail this course, and not receive your Masters degree, if you don’t complete this project
The subjects being the shockers or the shockees? The shockees don’t have to be shocked at all, although one criticism is that pretending that they were was not realistic enough, but that could be fixed with some training. I can see some psychological harm to the actual subjects, the shockers, but not so terrible assuming they understood what they were being asked to do and then they are told what the experiment actually was about afterwards.
They replicated the experiment in Poland in 2017 and did a partial replication in the US in 2009. They found similar results to the first one both times.
When I took Intro to Psychology in college (circa 2000) the Milgram experiment was literally the textbook example of an unethical experiment. IIRC some of the shockers believed (if briefly) they had killed someone.
When I took Intro to Psychology in college (circa 1986) the Milgram experiment was…studied for its findings. Times change, eh?
I do know the thing gave me the creeps when I was learning about it (they really let someone think they’d killed the shock-ee?), but I never realized it had come to be so thoroughly frowned upon.
It was frowned on before 1986. I graduated with a BS in psychology in 1986 and we discussed not only the findings but the ethics when I studied it - although it may not have been an intro class
I’m missing the serious ethical questions here. No one was actually shocked. There was criticism for not properly debriefing the shockers, something easily remedied. Here from the wiki:
And this, which I think explains the hand-wringing:
The deception in the experiment prevented the shockers from giving truly informed consent and arguably, the proddings from the ‘scientists’ violated the shockers’ right to withdraw from the study. You may not consider these critical ethical issues but they are the sticking points an IRB is going to want to see some justification for.
From what I can tell it was considered a pretty sketchy experiment as early as 1964 so that doesn’t surprise me. I’d be lying if I said I remembered everything about that class with anything like clarity. I was an English major, it was a distribution requirement, I was just following orders.
Ethics has always been a struggle for me. I tend toward being more practical and satisfying the needs of ‘right now’ rather than thinking in terms of the bigger picture. I think the problem with Milgram was participants, however briefly, believed they were actually harming, and in at least one instance killing, people. That’s kind of a tasteless prank to play on someone and a consequence that ought to have been given some consideration. I don’t think the experiment was reviled just because the human nature revelations were not pleasing to the mind. In fact, I’d desperately like to believe the results wouldn’t be faithfully replicated today but puddleglum’s comment doesn’t leave me much hope to cling to.
Ethics has always been a struggle for me. I tend toward being more practical and satisfying the needs of ‘right now’ rather than thinking in terms of the bigger picture. I think the problem with Milgram was participants, however briefly, believed they were actually harming, and in at least one instance killing, people. That’s kind of a tasteless prank to play on someone and a consequence that ought to have been given some consideration. I don’t think the experiment was reviled just because the human nature revelations were not pleasing to the mind. In fact, I’d desperately like to believe the results wouldn’t be faithfully replicated today but puddleglum’s comment doesn’t leave me much hope to cling to.[/QUOTE]
I’m not arguing that this test should be done again, but these sound like minor issues that can be resolved with a well worded release form and follow up after the experiment.
We don’t need to do these experiments anymore because we know that in real life people will obey commands to torture and kill others I don’t see any reason to repeat these tests anymore than we need an academic study of how to fry ants with a magnifying glass. Someone has to come up with a better reason than wondering if minor changes in the test would produce different results.
If it IS run again, I would hope that it would be as part of an initiative to improve how we inform people about the nightmares we have wrought in our past.
Translation: I don’t believe we can excuse any educators if a single participant doesn’t know about its history going in.
Believing that you killed someone, even for a small period of time, is not something you fix with a release form. It’s real, potentially long lasting, damage.
I don’t think that briefly allowing someone to believe that they killed someone would result in potentially long lasting damage if they were properly screened to start with and the test was properly described.
I didn’t think that was part of the experiment but checking the wiki it says the shockee would go silent when the highest voltage was reached. But I don’t see why that is a necessary part of the experiment, and as I said, I don’t think it’s necessary to run this test ever again anyway.
If useless research must be done then the similar Venkman Experiment should be repeated.
One of the shock-ees started gasping during the test, asking for the shocks to stop. He eventually said he had a heart condition and please stop. A few shocks later he started playing dead. They wanted to see how far the subject would go, even when the begging started. Turns out, pretty far.
ETA: Venkman was an underappreciated genius for sure.
