Question:
Describe and critically evaluate milgram’s experiment on obedience?
Answer:
Introduction
Stanley Milgram, a famous psychologist, had conducted an experiment, in 1961, on obedience that threw light on the persuasive power of authority in the field of social psychology. The experiment is sometimes known as the “shock” studies (Gibson, 2013). The aim of the undertaken experiment was the discovery of the participant’s willingness to obey the authority figure having the role to instruct them to give shocks. These shocks went up to dangerous 450 volts (Hollander, 2015). The studies had inspiration from an interest of Milgram in the Nazi’s behaviour and the Holocaust. This had distinct relation to how general citizens of Germany gave assistance to Hitler with a huge killing programme. The results showed that eighty percent of participants were obedient while sixty percent were fully obedient and continued till the end (Miller, 2014). The ultimate conclusion drawn was that obedience was not a part of the tradition in Germany, but it was a universal characteristic of human behaviour. This is based on situations and not characteristics of individuals. The experiment has been criticised immensely on the basis of methodological and ethical grounds (Sampson, 2015). The present essay describes the Milgram experiment on obedience and critically evaluates it.
Milgram’s experiment on obedience
Firstly, it is necessary to have knowledge of the experiment undertaken by Milgram in details. The experiment was a sequence of experiments that measured the readiness of participants to obey the authoritative figure. The study was undertaken some months after the beginning of the trial of Nazi German war criminal Adolf Eichmann. It was devised to get an answer to the question of whether Eichmann and the accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders. The experiment had involvement of three individuals, the person carrying out the experiment or the experimenter, the participant or the volunteer and the confederate who pretended to be a volunteer.
The three people had three separate roles: the teacher (a role to obey the orders given by the experimenter), the experimenter (authoritative role) and the learner (who received the stimulus from the teacher) (Reicher et al., 2012). The actor and the subject had to draw slips for determining the roles, but the subject had no idea that both the slips read ‘teacher’. The learner and the teacher were put in different rooms and there was provision of communication between the two even thought they could not observe each other. In one particular version of the undertaken experiment, the confederate mentioned that he was having a heart condition to the participant. Before the actual experiment, the teacher was provided with an electric shock for experiencing how the shocks feel like. He was given a list of paired words that he was supposed to teach. The teacher began reading the first words from the pair and four possible answers. The learner was supposed to press the button to indicate the responses. If the answer were found to be incorrect, a shock would be given to the learner. The voltage would increase with wrong answers. If correct, the next word would be read (Rochat & Blass, 2014). The subjects had the belief that the learner were getting actual shocks. Nevertheless, it was not so in reality. The Confederate banged on the wall and complained of heart conditions. The responses of the learner ceased at this point of time. If the subjects indicated the desire to stop the experiment, a succession of verbal prods was given. If the person wished to stop at all prod, the experiment was stopped. In other cases, it was stopped at the maximum level of 450-volt shock (Jetten & Mols, 2014).
Prior to the experiment, fourteen senior-year psychology majors were polled for predicting the behaviour of hundred hypothetical teachers. All of them had a believe that only a small fraction would be ready to inflict the maximum voltage. The colleagues of Milgram also had the belief that few people would go up to high levels of shock. He also went to Harvard University graduate Chaim Homnick, who said that the experiment would not be evidence of the Nazi’s innocence. The reason was stated as the tendency of poor people to be more cooperative. In the first set of experiment undertaken by Milgram, sixty-five percent participants took the 450-volt shock. Throughout the experiment, subjects had tension and stress. They were sweating, groaning, stuttering, trembling, biting their lips, and some were having nervous laughing seizures (Fenigstein, 2015).
Criticism
The focus must now be put on the criticism of the experiment. The Milgram experiment is surrounded in controversy and some questions have been raised about the research ethics of experimentation. Ethics is to be applied in research for having a justified and correct result. The scientific method of carrying out experiments has been put emphasis on in this regard. This is due to the fact that the participants had to undergo extreme mental stress and inflicted insight. In defence of Milgram, eighty-four percent of former participants later said that they were glad to take part in the experiment. Fifteen percent had the neutral response. Many of the participants developed a misconception that they had no right to withdraw from the experiment in spite of the fact that it was told to them that they could do so according to their wish at any point of time. Many showed wish to withdraw themselves on different occasions, but continued in a reluctant manner when they were asked to do so by the authoritative person. They were not physically threatened, but carried on because of persuasive orders from the experimenter (Burger, 2014). The ethical guidelines for experiments states that a person taking part in an experiment must be reminded of the rights they have to withdraw if the process of the experiment is lengthy. Therefore, it seems unethical in the modern period. Due to the fact that informed consent was not taken in case of this experiment, a deception is there in the research methods of the experiment. Even though present ethical guidelines state that intentional dishonesty of the concerned participants must not be looked into as much as possible, it would not be possible to conduct psychological experiments without withholding data about the characteristics of the research. From the research material available, it appeared likely that some of the participants had to undergo psychological stress appearing to be at an unacceptable level in some cases. The participants displayed signs of agitation and extreme discomfort.
Psychologists believe that the distress level caused to the participants was not at an acceptable level. On this note, it was said that the intention was not to cause distress to anyone and the outcome was not known. In other words, it was not expected that the participants would obey the experimenter. Putting the participants in different rooms had a potential of affecting the study’s outcome. As there was no direct contact between the participants, it was unethical as well as chances of manipulating the results. Obedience levels were lower when there was a dispute between the experimenters and when the experimenter was absent from the room. In several incidences the experimenter was physically away from the teacher. In other instances, the teacher was next to the learner in the same room. Had the participants been in same rooms for all instances, the results may have been different (Griggs & Whitehead, 2015).
Critical response also can be given to the claim of Milgram that a common psychological process is involved in the events of Nazi Germany and the laboratory experiment. It has been said that the experiment of Milgram did not correspond well to the Holocuast events. The participants were given assurance that no permanent damage would come up. However, he Holocaust perpetrators were aware of the maiming of victims. The experiment was an hour duration. This gave no time to the subjects to consider the implications their behaviour had. Meanwhile, the Holocaust was of long duration and this gave ample time for moral assessment of the people involved. Therefore, the approach of Milgram does not give an adequate explanation of Holocaust. Moreover, there has been a claim that Milgram id manipulation in the results of the experiment undertaken by him. It is thus considered as half disobeyed (Jetten & Mols, 2014).
Another critical aspect of the experiment was that the participants were all males. This indicates that the experiment was not generalised and it was gender-biased to a great extent. The question that comes up is that whether females are as obedient as males and whether they have different implications for the result of the experiment (Klikauer, 2014).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the method in which the experiment of Milgram was carried out was not ethical. The reason for this is the major deceit involved in the process and the probability of extreme and long-term psychological damage to the people taking part in the experiment. A study in the field of psychology like this particular one would not be undertaken in today’s time due to the issues of ethics. If the experiment undertaken by Milgram were to be judged according to the standard guidelines present in toady’s world, it would be found unethical. The experiment surely breached many of the ethical guidelines. Serious concerns are present around the distress caused to the participants. Psychology allows a balance between the benefit of an experiment for the society and ethics.
References
Burger, J. M. (2014). Situational features in Milgram’s experiment that kept his participants shocking. Journal of Social Issues, 70(3), 489-500.
Fenigstein, A. (2015). Milgram’s shock experiments and the Nazi perpetrators: A contrarian perspective on the role of obedience pressures during the Holocaust. Theory & Psychology, 25(5), 581-598.
Gibson, S. (2013). Milgram’s obedience experiments: A rhetorical analysis.British Journal of Social Psychology, 52(2), 290-309.
Griggs, R. A., & Whitehead, G. I. (2015). Coverage of recent criticisms of Milgram’s obedience experiments in introductory social psychology textbooks. Theory & Psychology, 25(5), 564-580.
Hollander, M. M. (2015). The repertoire of resistance: Non‐compliance with directives in Milgram’s ‘obedience’experiments. British Journal of Social Psychology.
Jetten, J., & Mols, F. (2014). 50: 50 hindsight: Appreciating anew the contributions of Milgram’s obedience experiments. Journal of Social Issues,70(3), 587-602.
Jetten, J., & Mols, F. (2014). 50: 50 hindsight: Appreciating anew the contributions of Milgram’s obedience experiments. Journal of Social Issues,70(3), 587-602.
Klikauer, T. (2014). Book Review: Milgram and obedience to organizational authority. Organization, 21(6), 947-951.
Miller, A. G. (2014). The explanatory value of Milgram’s obedience experiments: A contemporary appraisal. Journal of Social Issues, 70(3), 558-573.
Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., & Smith, J. R. (2012). Working toward the experimenter reconceptualizing obedience within the Milgram paradigm as identification-based followership. Perspectives on Psychological Science,7(4), 315-324.
Rochat, F., & Blass, T. (2014). Milgram’s unpublished obedience variation and its historical relevance. Journal of Social Issues, 70(3), 456-472.
Sampson, E. E. (2015). Dialogic Partners and the Shaping of Social Reality: Implications for Good and Evil in Milgram’s Studies of Obedience. Pastoral Psychology, 64(1), 51-61.
