Ethical Guidelines that are Broken in Milgram's Study on Obedience

Ethical Guidelines that are Broken in Milgram's Study on Obedience

The ethical guidelines suggest that debriefing the participants after

the experiment is essential, which Milgram has done it thoroughly in

order to reveal the aim and the true purpose of his study. Although he

did not expect the out come of his research, but his ethics shows that

the research is beneficial of understanding the welfare of World War

II.

However, it is unethical at some point of his research because he

breaks the guidelines of deception and the right to non-participation.

Gross deception by telling lies to the participants that the learner

in the room would be punish by electric shocks when giving an

incorrect answer to the question, while it is actually fake. ‘

Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent harm.’ In

terms of psychological harm, this may cause the participants with

long-term mental harm; when the participants refuse to go further with

putting through the electric shocks, the authority figure takes away

the right of the participants to withdraw from experiment with prods

such as ‘ Please continue’, ‘ You have no choice, you must go on.’

which can make the participants feel uncomfortable and depress.

As a whole, this is a defense because Milgram did not expect people

would go that far from his research.

First problem Milgram will face in attempting to produce ethical work

is that sometimes it will be difficult to gain informed consent,

because if the participants fully understand the experiment’s aim

their behaviour will change. He cannot tell the participants that the

study is about obedience levels being investigat...

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...y are not told to be blame if things

go wrong. The participant will only be told off for several times when

they do not obey or listen to the policeman. However, if the

participant is failed to park into the space, they will then be

debriefing with the aim of this research. This research will affect

quite a lot when it has taken out the element of harm and by making

the instructions less harmful. In addition, less demand

characteristics gets less effective in showing how powerful of an

authority figure is, as this situation does not involve with physical

harm.

In conclusion, the behavioural study of obedience of Milgram shows

that introducing fear to learning process destroys performance. He

predicts far lower levels of obedience than it is found, which is an

unexpected nature since he thought nobody would do it.