Evaluating Stanley Milgram's Study Into Obedience

Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist whose research has been justified because of the knowledge psychologists have gained about why people obey. One of his most famous studies was conducted in 1963 on obedience. Obedience is compliance with an order, request, or law or submission to another's authority. Milgram wanted to investigate why the German soldiers were very obedient to their authority figures and superiors and if that is an explanation for their mass killings in World War ll. The aim of Milgram’s study into obedience in 1963 was to see how far people would go in obeying instructions even if it involved harming another person. He was interested in how easily ordinary people could be influenced into committing horrible acts. The volunteers that were recruited for this experiment were 40 males from 20-50 years old. There were two participants for each trail, one was a volunteer and the other was a confederate. There was also an
One of these ethical issues is deception. The teachers were under the impression that the learner was an actual participant and not an actor. The teacher also believed that the learner was receiving electrical shocks and he was not. The protection of participants was also not something that Milgram was concerned about because the participants were put under extremely stressful situations that could have caused psychological damage. The participants were also denied their right to withdrawal for sometime because when they asked to leave the experimenter told them to carry on. Milgram also did not fully inform the participants about what they were trying to find out from the experiment. Milgram dealt with these problems by fully debriefing the participants after the experiment by telling them about the experiment and showing them the learner to show them that no harm was done. Milgram also followed up after a while to ensure that no harm was