Was Stanley Milgrams Study of Obedience Unethical

1
Was Stanley Milgrams Study of Obedience
Unethical?

• Christine Malone
• Minnesota State University Moorhead

2
The Issue

• Was Stanley Milgrams obedience study unethical
  or was he justified in subjecting the
  participants to a stressful situation based on
  his debriefing/follow-up procedures and the
  knowledge derived from the results?

3
Source 1

• Herrera, C.D. (2001). Ethics, deception, and
  Those Milgram experiments. Journal of Applied
  Philosophy, 18, 245-256.

4
Relationship to the Issue

• Herrera writes a philosophical paper aiming to
  clarify the ethical and functional status of
  deception in psychology research.
• Focuses on deception.

5
Main Objectives

• Claim Deception in psychology experiments is
  unjustified and causes harm to participants. What
  is the evidence?
• Are critics exaggerating the impact of Milgrams
  work?

6
Conclusions about Need and Process

• There does seem to be some need in psychology
  research for deception.
• Getting approval to use deception invites the
  inflation of benefits and the minimization of (or
  plain guessing about) risks.

7
Conclusions about Risk

• Critics claim that deception undermines respect
  for honesty and institutions and will lead to a
  negative reputation for psychologists (248).
• These claims are vague and lack evidence.
• Critics have attempted to provide evidence
  through first-person accounts.

8
Conclusions about Milgram

• Critics are quick to refer to Milgram for
  ammunitionexposes participants to an unwelcome
  side of themselves.
• Potential for similar harm is used as
  justification for getting rid of deception
  altogether
• Where is the evidence of the harm?
• Milgram is NOT immune from criticism.
• But no clear connection between any harm and the
  deception itself.
• Referring to Milgram shocks people into silence

9
Weaknesses/Propaganda

• Very objective throughout
• Acknowledges Milgrams faults very
  quicklydiscounts suffering
• However, in closing, Herrera refers to thoughts
  about Milgrams studies being harmful as the
  Milgram myth.

10
Counterargument

• Even though evidence is sparse that deception
  causes harm, deception causes the public to doubt
  the motives and ethical standing of
  psychologists. This public relations problem is
  reason enough to eliminate deception in research.

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Source 2

• Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram paradigm after 35
  years Some things we now know about obedience to
  authority. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
  29, 955-978.

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Relationship to the Issue

• Blass objectively reviews research sparked by
  Milgrams obedience studies. So often, Milgrams
  set of obedience experiments overshadows his
  other work and more importantly, the work of
  other researchers in the area of obedience.

13
Main Objectives

• What is the nature of authority in the obedience
  experiment?
• Why do naïve respondents consistently
  underestimate obedience rates?

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Conclusions about the Nature of Authority

• Milgram used the legitimate authority
  explanation
• Others have proposed an expert-command
  authority explanation
• Research has shown that obedience in Milgrams
  paradigm seems to be the result of both of these
  explanations.
• Blass (1992) himself attempts to separate these
  two explanationsnaïve observers considered the
  expert power explanation as most likely, followed
  very closely by the legitimate power explanation.

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Conclusions about Underestimating Obedience

• Blass (1991) found that naive observers still
  underestimate obedience ratesjust as in
  Milgrams time
• Why? The fundamental attribution error.

16
Weaknesses/Propaganda

• References a lot of his own workbut does include
  the work of many others
• Objective, well-reasoned overall
• Starts the paper with a provocative quote from
  Milgram describing us as puppets controlled by
  the strings of society.

17
Counterargument

• Blass summarizes the results of carefully
  controlled laboratory findings about deception,
  but what do they really tell us about deception
  in real-life settings?

18
My Conclusions

• Milgrams studies were definitely influential
• Gets peoples attention regarding ethical
  issuesbut often leads us to make snap judgments
  that do not include all existing information or
  evidence.
• But Milgrams studies should only be a starting
  point for our investigation into ethics the
  topic of deception.