Ethical Issues in Milgram's controlled observation on obedience to destructive order

Janet Zhang
June 13 2023

Introduction
During the 1960s, American psychologist Stanley Milgram carried out an obedience experiment, where an authority figure ordered participants to
deliver what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to another person, to find out whether subordinates would carry out actions that are
against their conscience with instructions from their superiors (Zhang et al., 2005).

Aim
Milgram (1963) was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person; he wanted to
investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures, as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

Sampling
The participants for the experiment were selected by newspaper advertising about male participants to take part in a study of “memory and
learning” at Yale University. Milgram did not mention the experiment was about obedience in the advertising.

Procedure
Participants were 40 males aged between 20 and 50, whose careers ranged from unskilled to professional. They were paid $4.50 for involved the
experiment (Milgram, 1974).
At the beginning of the experiment, participants were introduced to another participant, Mr. Wallace, who was a confederate of the study.
As the experiment progressed, the participants watched Mr. Wallace been trapped on a chair and there were electrodes on his arm. After Mr.
Wallace “learn” a list of word, each participant were given the role of "teacher" who would deliver a shock to the "student" (Mr. Wallace) when he
was giving wrong answer. The level of shock would increase from 15 to highest 450 volts with each time the “student” makes a mistake. The shocks
were not real, but the participant believed they were.
Two rooms were used, so the participant would not see Mr. Wallace, but they could hear him protest at being shocked through a speaker.

Deceptions
In the study, the participants actually believed they were shocking a real person and were unaware the learner was a confederate of Milgram’s. This
could be seen as a deception as participants were prevented from giving their informed consent to take part in the study (Baumrind, 1964).
However, Milgram argued that “illusion is used when necessary in order to set the stage for the revelation of certain difficult-to-get-at-truths.” He
also interviewed participants afterward to find out the effect of the deception. Apparently, 83.7% said that they were “glad to be in the experiment,”
and 1.3% said that they wished they had not been involved (Milgram, 1964).
In this case, as the deceptions were necessary for the purpose of the study, they could not be seen as a serious ethical issue.

Ethical Problems:

Mental Harm
Participants were exposed to extremely stressful situations that may caused psychological harm. Actually, many of the participants were visibly
distressed. Three of the participants had uncontrollable seizures, and asked for stop during the experiment (Perry 2012).
Even Milgram himself described a businessman reduced to a “twitching stuttering wreck” (1963, p. 377); however he argued that these effects were
only short-term, once the participants were know the truth their stress levels decreased.
Milgram reported that most of the participants were happy that they had taken part one year after the event (Milgram 1964).

Debrief
Nonetheless, according to Perry, some of Milgram's participants left the study believing the learners may have actually died; also, immediate debrief
was not secured for every participant, this is a really serious ethical problem (Perry, 2012).
Milgram could not prove that every participants were fully debriefed and placated after the experiment, this could cause arguing about the study’s
legitimacy and lead to a decline in the credibility of social experiments.

Improvement
Milgram’s experiment would likely not be allowed today in its original form, as it violates modern ethical guideline for research that involving human
participants, particularly at regarding informed consent, deception, and protection from mental harm aspects.
However, Milgram’s study is significant for social psychology; therefore we could suggest some improvements about the experiment to make it be
more accordant with the current ethical standards.
According to UNESCO, the participants of an experiment should know all the truth about the study as well as be aware of the consequences of the
experiment. The experimenters of Milgram’s experiment should follow up the participants of the experiment to check on whether they experience
long-term psychological side effects after the study(UNESCO, 2003). They should record and disclose the mental state or effect of the participants
after the experiment as detail as possible. Furthermore, the experiment and subsequent debrief work should be recorded throughout the process,
leaving video data for proving and studying.

Evaluation:
Strengths: clear structure and thorough investigation, with quotes of a variety of studies;
Weaknesses: the description of Milgram’s study itself takes too much space, causing a bit digression.

9.5 out of 10