Ethical Issues in Milgrams and Zimbardos Experiments - Essay Example

 Psychologists have often wondered why people would follow authority of their superiors even if the command in question is of questionable ethics. This was until the studies by Milgram and Zimbardo shed some light into the issue of obeying authority. Through the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Shock Study, Zimbardo and Milgram respectively revealed dramatic results on the power of the situation, and why people would obey unethical requests from their superiors. Zimbardo studied the role of prison guards while Milgram studied obedient on authority, and the results turned out similar on how under given situations humans are capable of harming others, while others are capable of obedience to the level of being hurt by authority. Evidently, imbalances of power in a group setting can turn the behavior of normal human beings into tyrannical tendencies. This revelation creates an understanding of the complex issue of authority and why people under authority choose to obey such offensive requests. Consequently, the studies can be applied in current society to understand certain situations that depict cases of obedience despite the unethical nature of the request. However, just like many other psychological experiment, these experiments have been labelled cruel by the current society because of their unethical nature. Therefore, despite the fact that these experiments contribute hugely to the understanding of reality shows among other obedience issues, they continue to receive criticism because of their unethical nature. Nevertheless, in the eyes of today’s society, these experiments are unethical because of how the participants were handled, as well as the experience. Milgram’s Shock Study involved a teacher, student, and a third person meant to be a volunteer. Both the student and the teacher were placed in a situation where they communicated, but did not see each other. With Yale undergraduates as the subjects, the study tested the obedience of the subjects when ordered by the experimenter to administer a shock to another person. The subjects were ordinary people, and the results of the experiment were shocking. According to the results, 60% of the participants obeyed the order completely, and even though signs of distress, they went ahead to perform what they had been told to do. The signs of distress revealed that the subjects recognized that what they were doing is wrong, but despite this, they carried out the experimenter’s instructions (Love, 2012). Similarly, Philip Zimbardo, set up the Stanford Prison experiment study why guards become authoritarian to prisoners, and why prisoners obey these ethically questionable orders. The guards’ instructions were to ‘maintain law and order’. Thus, when they were given authority to dehumanize prisoners through replacing their names with numbers and taking their clothes off, they diligently carried out the instructions (Gazzaniga et al., 2010). A rebellion by the prisoners only prompted them to become more aggressive, which saw them hurt, harass, and inflicted all kinds of cruelty on the prisoners. These guards were normal human beings unexpected of such actions, but they acted because they received order to do so; thus, revealing their obedience. Why the Experiments are Unethical No doubt, the experiments caused great distress to the participants. Milgram and Zambardo used ordinary people who volunteered for the studies, and placed them in challenging situation. In spite of the distress that the participants experienced, and those of others they continued with the experiment and exhibiting violent behaviors (Cardwell, 2004). Moreover, instead of reminding them of their right to discontinue the experiment at any time, they were encouraged to continue till the end in order to determine the end results. This raises ethical concern because volunteers of an experimental study have the right to withdraw at any point when they feel uncomfortable to continue (Treviño, & Nelson, 2011). Thus, encouraging the participants continue despite their distress was unethical of Zimbardo and Milgram. Another issue is that the participants were lured to participate in the experiment with through offering them money. This is a form of deception because it encourages the participants to volunteer not on their own accord, but by motivation using money. In Milgram’s experiment, the participants were not told the truth concerning what they were taking part in. They lack informed consent of what the experiment was of concern. Milgram’s experiment faced criticism that he did not highlight the risks of his experiment to the participants. This is unethical in psychological experiments and any other experiments because, “As a researcher it was Milgram's (1963) job to invent an experiment were his hypothesis could be tested, but also were participants would be informed of what they were participating in. This leads to the unethical issue that this experiment caused most of the participant’s extreme distress, which was an indirect result of them being lied to about the experiment.” (associatedcontent.com). another issue that arises from this experiment is that Milgram used Yale’s name yet, Yale had no hand or involvement in any part of the research experiment. The use of Yale was perhaps to provide credibility to the research, but should anything had gone wrong Yale would not be able to safeguard it because it had no involvement. In addition, Milgram faced criticism of causing distress to the participants during the process of experiment (Love, 2012). The participants were under a tensed situation in which most of them developed great much stress. The distress on participants was under the category of psychological harm. As a result, I do not think that such an experiment would be run in this current society because of the several ethical concerns. In Zimbardo’s experiment, participants faced great humiliation and distress, particularly experienced by the prisoners. First, the prisoners had not protection from both physical and psychological harm. One illustration of this is when a prisoner had to be screaming and crying uncontrollably for 36 hours forcing the controllers to release him. The participants underwent some humiliation and great distress, especially those who acted as a prisoner. Secondly, they lacked informed consent, which would ensure that their rights to participate in the research experiment are observed. Furthermore, Zimbardo himself did not consider the environment by performing his experiment instead, he worked on assumptions that all was going to be well (Jones, 1999). Therefore, the experiment had questionable ethical procedures from recruiting of the participants, informed consent and treatment at the experimental prison. Such is a situation that may not be allowed to take place today in the name of research. Nevertheless, some people may say that a study like that can happen given that the participants were obligated to participate to the end, since if a person is given a duty they perform it seriously to the end (Clemson, 2001). Milgram’s on justification of his experiment claimed that 84 percent of his participants were happy to have been part of the experiment (Cardwell, 2004). His critiques wanted to suppress his findings by performing further psychiatric research later on the participants, but the results indicated that they were well with no lasting damage shown. One standing justification is when Milgram sought approval from the ethics board of APA where he got the approvals of around 110 members. From the above-mentioned justification. Milgram also did not use a real shock on his participants instead; he used to imagine the shock on his participants if they gave the wrong response. Using imagined shock was a way of honoring the codes of conduct in an experimental process (Gazzaniga et al., 2010). On the other hand, Zimbardo did not inform his participants concerning his experiment for the reason of protecting them against psychological harm. The other possible of the participants’ lacking consent is because Zimbardo he was not aware of the outcome of his experiment. Zimbardo put some safety of his participants into consideration when he cancelled the fortnight schedule for the experiment into a short duration of six days only. His act of taking results within six days was an ethical act of an experiment. He later did some follow up and organized some sessions of debriefing on his subjects as a way of collecting data. He later conducted an interview with his participants to find out the impact of his experiment, which made his experiment valid and ethical (Carroll & Shaw, 2012). Despite these justifications, the experiments remain under criticism because of the unethical applications that accompanied them. Evidently, Milgram and Zambado’s experiment were unethical especially put in the phase of today’s society. They might have been considered during those times, but with numerous developments in psychological research, there are several ethical codes of conduct that researchers need to adhere to in order to ensure that their research observe ethics and morality of the participants, and the society at large. For instance, participants have a write to withdraw from the research at any moment, and it is the researchers’ role to continue reminding them of their right to pull out at will when they become uncomfortable with the experience. Another important ethical issue to note is that providing participants with money is unethical because his motivates them to participate in the research. For example, a poor person would be motivated to participate in research because they will earn money, but not because they genuinely wish to be part of an experiment. Hence, it is unlikely that research such as Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s would be allowed to take place in today’s society. References Cardwell, M., & Flanagan, C. (2004). Psychology AS: The exam companion. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Carroll, M., & Shaw, E. (2012). Ethical maturity in the helping professions: Making difficult life and work decisions. London: Jessica Kingsley. Cardwell, M., & Flanagan, C. (2004). Psychology A2: The complete companion. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Clemson, W. (2001). Science, key stage 1. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. Gazzaniga, Michael S., Todd F. Heatherton, and Diane F. Halpern. (2010) "12." Psychological Science. Third ed. New York, NY [etc.: Norton, 1-709. Girls, The. "Ethical Issues of the Milgram Experiment." Associated Content from Yahoo! - Associatedcontent.com. 8 Nov. 2008. Web. 22 Nov. 2010. Jones, D. H. (1999). Moral responsibility in the Holocaust: A study in the ethics of character. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Love, K. (2012). Ethics in social research. Bingley, U.K: Emerald. Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2011). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. New York: John Wiley. Read More