Consider Whether Obedience Research Is Unethical

Consider whether obedience research is unethical

The aim of the Milgram’s experiment was to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.

40 males aged between 20 and 50 years of age. They were obtained by responding to a newspaper advertisement which asked for volunteers to participate in a study of learning at Yale University.   They were paid $4.50 to take part in the experiment.

Two people would be introduced (one would be a confederate) and would draw lots to see who went where, they were told one person would sit in front of a device that could shock the other person, and the other would sit in a separate room being shocked. The only form of contact was a microphone system, there was no visual contact.

The “Subject” who was sat in front of a box that would supposedly give the other person an electric shock and could shock the learner at different outputs: slight shock (75 volts), moderate shock (120 volts), strong shock (150 volts), very strong shock (180 volts), intense shock (270 volts), extreme intensity shock (315), danger: severe shock (330) Then another switch marked ‘XXX’ (450 volts).

If the participant asked to stop experiment, whether it be; ‘should I continue administering shocks’, or some other indication that he did not wish to go on, he would be told to continue with a sequence of ‘prods’ e.g. Prod 1:   ‘Please continue’ or ‘Please go on’; Prod 2:   ‘The experiment requires that you continue’; Prod 3:   ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’; Prod 4:   ‘You have no choice, you must go on’.

The findings where shocking. All 40 of the participants obeyed up to 300 volts at which point 5 refused to continue.   Four more gave one more shock before refusing; two stopped at the 330 volts level and one each at 345, 360 and 375 volts.   Therefore, a total of 14 participants defied the experimenter, and 26 obeyed.   Overall, 65%...