There are five main ethical guidelines used by the IRB when determining if an experiment is ethically correct; respect for persons, fidelity and responsibility, justice, beneficence/nonmaleficence, and integrity (Hackathorn 2014).
In Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study, Zimbardo was interested in finding out how voluntarily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a stimulated role-playing experiment. Participants were picked to be either a prisoner or a guard and were placed in a prison environment for six days before Zimbardo had to shut the experiment down (Cherry, 2014). For the IRB ethical guideline respect of persons, each participant was given an informed consent about the study. Participants also had a preliminary interview in which participants with anxiety issues were told not to participate due to effects of the study. However, consent could not be fully informed because even Zimbardo himself did not know what was going to happen in the study (McLeod, 2008). Participants in this study also had the right to withdraw although they felt like they could not because they were being conformed to a prison environment. Confidentiality was also included in the study because participants had to complete a release form for their video footage to be used. Participants were also given an ID number during the experiment, therefore, remaining anonymous not only to other members of the study, but also anyone who watched the footage (McLeod, 2008).
In respect to the fidelity and responsibility guideline, the participants were given a full defriefing after the study. Participants also had their psychological state analyzed (McLeod, 2008). Participants in this study were not protected from harm and were at more than mini...
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... debriefing session was ever given. Watson not debriefing Albert or his mother could not eliminate the conditioned fear response. The young boy was left with an irrational fear of anything white and fluffy (Cherry, 2014).
. Little Albert was at a higher risk than minimal risk and he was not protected from harm. The young boy was caused great distress because of the experiment. The experiment was designed to condition an emotional response of fear. The participant would be emotionally traumatized by the experiment and could be at risk for suffering from long-term effects.
In conclusion, Watson’s classical conditioning experiment would be unethical and would not happen in today’s time because of the IRB’s ethical guidelines. The Little Albert experiment had more risks than benefits and surpassed all ethical guidelines to protect participants in psychology studies.
In her excerpt, Baumrind discusses the potential dangers of the aftereffects on the participants of the experiment. On many occasions she suggests that these people are subjects of a cruel and unethical experiment, and suffer from harm to their self-image and emotional disruption (227). She also calls Milgram’s experiment a “game” (Baumrind 225); this illustrates her negative outtake on the experiment which is seen throughout the article. On the contrary, Parker discusses the aftereffects on Milgram himself. He expresses how the experiment, although it shows light to what extent of obedience a person may travel, ruined Milgram’s reputation. Parker also cites many notable authors and psychologists and their reactions to Milgram’s experiment. Despite their differences, Baumrind and Parker are able to find common ground on a few issues concerning the Milgr...
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
The experiment was to see if people would follow the orders of an authority figure, even if the orders that were given proved to cause pain to the person taking the test. In the “Milgram Experiment” by Saul McLeod, he goes into detail about six variations that changed the percentage of obedience from the test subject, for example, one variable was that the experiment was moved to set of run down offices rather than at Yale University. Variables like these changed the results dramatically. In four of these variations, the obedience percentage was under 50 percent (588). This is great evidence that it is the situation that changes the actions of the individual, not he or she’s morals.
In this study Zimbardo chose 21 participants from a pool of 75, all male college students, screened prior for mental illness, and paid $15 per day. He then gave roles. One being a prisoner and the other being a prison guard, there were 3 guards per 8 hour shift, and 9 total prisoners. Shortly after the prisoners were arrested from their homes they were taken to the local police station, booked, processed, given proper prison attire and issued numbers for identification. Before the study, Zimbardo concocted a prison setting in the basement of a Stanford building. It was as authentic as possible to the barred doors and plain white walls. The guards were also given proper guard attire minus guns. Shortly after starting the experiment the guards and prisoners starting naturally assuming their roles, Zimbardo had intended on the experiment lasting a fortnight. Within 36 hours one prisoner had to be released due to erratic behavior. This may have stemmed from the sadistic nature the guards had adopted rather quickly, dehumanizing the prisoners through verbal, physical, and mental abuse. The prisoners also assumed their own roles rather efficiently as well. They started to rat on the other prisoners, told stories to each other about the guards, and placated the orders from the guards. After deindividuaiton occurred from the prisoners it was not long the experiment completely broke down ethically. Zimbardo, who watched through cameras in an observation type room (warden), had to put an end to the experiment long before then he intended
The Stanford Prison Experiment commenced in 1973 in pursuit of Zimbardo needed to study how if a person are given a certain role, will they change their whole personality in order to fit into that specific role that they were given to. Zambrano significantly believed that personality change was due to either dispositional, things that affect personal life and make them act differently. Or situational, when surrounded by prisoners, they can have the authority to do whatever they want without having to worry about the consequences. Furthermore, it created a group of twenty-four male participants, provided them their own social role. Twelve of them being a prisoners and the other twelve prison guards, all of which were in an examination to see if they will be able to handle the stress that can be caused based upon the experiment, as well as being analysis if their personality change due to the environment or their personal problems.
Before commencing the study all participants were briefed on the roles pertaining to the experiment without actually being assigned roles. Once roles were determined and assigned each participant was given specific instruction to their roles whether it be the role of the Guard or Prisoner. The group assigned to the prisoner role were greater in number and were instructed to be available at a predetermined time, this was done to maintain the reality of the simulation. The prisoners were arrested and escorted by real-life law enforcement officials and processed as any detainee would be in a real situation. Upon completing the processing part of the experiment the students were then transferred to the simulated prison, which was housed in the basement of the university, and assigned identifying numbers, given demeaning clothing as uniform and placed in barren cells with no personalized
Watson did not debrief either Albert or his parents about the nature of the study. The study’s purpose was to induce an emotional response of fear into this young child. Watson both physically and mentally harmed the child, possibly leaving Albert emotionally traumatized by the experiment. To add,
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect each other. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
The purpose of this paper is to go into depth on the previous prison experiment, how it came about, and how the findings play a role in society today. The Life and Times of Zimbardo Philip George Zimbardo was born in New York City on March 23, 1933. His parents originally migrated from a small town called Cammarata, about 40 miles from Palermo, Sicily. Stateside, his father was an electrician and his mother was a stay-at-home mom taking care of Zimbardo, his sister Vera, and two other brothers, George Jr. and Donald. After attending James Monroe High School in the Bronx, Zimbardo went off to receive his BA in Sociology and Psychology in 1954.
In the following essay I will be looking into the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) on a small child known as ‘Little Albert’. The experiment was an adaptation of earlier studies on classical conditioning of stimulus response, one most common by Ivan Pavlov, depicting the conditioning of stimulus response in dogs. Watson and Rayner aimed to teach Albert to become fearful of a placid white rat, via the use of stimulus associations, testing Pavlov’s earlier theory of classical conditioning.
The Asch and Milgram’s experiment were not unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the detail of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress Asch and Milgram’s were
In order for this experiment to be successful, the participants had to be deceived. If Milgram would have explained the experiment to them before, the results would have been very different. Chances are that the subject wouldn’t have taken the authorities as seriously if they had known. When the authority would say things such as, “It is absolutely essential that we continue,” (Milgram, Perils, 63) “You have no other choice” (Milgram, Perils, 64) the subject might not find them intimidating because they knew their obedience is what was being tested. Some may think that they need to prove that they have free will and can resist because they are the subject of the experiment, but if they did not know what the focus was, they may have not had that ability. If someone knew the purpose of the experime...
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect one another. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
The Little Albert experiment has become a widely known case study that is continuously discussed by a large number of psychology professionals. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct one of the first experiments done with a child. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study, as Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible during the experiment. Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was to use principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, a variety of objects were used that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included a white rat, blocks, a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, wool, and a Santa Claus mask. Albert’s conditioning began with a series of emotional tests that became part of a routine in which Watson and Rayner were determining whether other stimuli’s could cause fear.
Jhon B Watson, a behaviorist, conducted an experiment inspired by the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov to determinate the classical condition in humans. Little Albert experiment was conducted in a 9 month old baby whom a rat is showed to see his r...