Code Of Ethics In Social Psychoolgy

The role of ethics plays a major role in social psycholgy both in the past and today as it sets standards for both psycholgical practise and research that maintains a mutual trust between patient and psycholgist and subject and experimenter. The case of Milgram (1963) obedience study and Baumrind critques of his ethical standards is a good example of the code of ethics that should be upheld in experimentation in social psychology. The first part of this discussion I will identify and discuss both Baumrinds critques of Milgrams experiment and Milgrams response and justification of these codes of ethics. I will then summarise the source of disagreement between these two psychologists in accordance to ethics and the difference between psychological

Milgram (1964) explains that the use of deception was justifible given that if he had told the subjects his true intenetions of the experiment they may have acted in a different way and not naturally. The wellbeing of the subject Milgram explaineed were not in any way compromised and procedures werer put in place to ensure this which included a post experimental treatment. Milgram goes on to ensure that a year later all patients were examined by a psychiatrist who reported no traumatic reactions. In the case of the unconvincing parallel between his experiment and Nazi Germany Milgram admitted that such an event could never be duplicated in a labatory but the independent variable of obidence can be tested and applied in a social context in society in such environments as the

He explains that the important key findings were that obidence is situational and the power of a situation can determine an indivisuals behavoiur and override their morale and beliefs. The development of these findings needs to be further tested in accordance to today’s society such as Blass (1991) explains that destructive obideince with the influence of social media is one of the biggest situational determinents that could influence how people act socially in a situation. It would be important to repeat this experiment as key social determinents have changed in regard to a change in societys values and technology since the time when Milgram carried out his experiments. Brown (1977) supports this in regards to ethics and the overall social significance of this experiment in saying, “ethics is an add on not something that has been integrated in the overall framework of psychology.” The meaning of this is in experimental social psycholgy ethics and morale is definitely a code to be maintained while testing but should not stop the progression of