Was Stanley Milgrams Study of Obedience Unethical Christine

Was Stanley Milgram’s Study of Obedience Unethical? Christine Malone Minnesota State University Moorhead

The Issue: Was Stanley Milgram’s obedience study unethical or was he justified in subjecting the participants to a stressful situation based on his debriefing/follow-up procedures and the knowledge derived from the results?

Source #2 Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 955 -978.

Relationship to the Issue Blass objectively reviews research sparked by Milgram’s obedience studies. So often Milgram’s set of obedience experiments overshadows his other work and more importantly, the work of other researchers in the area of obedience.

Main Objectives What is the nature of authority in the obedience experiment? Why do naïve respondents consistently underestimate obedience rates? Are there gender differences in obedience? Have obedience rates changed over time?

Conclusions about the Nature of Authority Milgram used “the legitimate authority” explanation Others have proposed an “expert-command authority” explanation Research has shown that obedience in Milgram’s paradigm seems to be the result of both of these explanations. Blass (1992) himself attempts to separate these two explanations—naïve observers considered the expert power explanation as most likely, followed very closely by the legitimate power explanation.

Conclusions about Underestimating Obedience Blass (1991) found that naive observers still underestimate obedience rates—just as in Milgram’s time Why? The fundamental attribution error.

Weaknesses/Propaganda References a lot of his own work…but does include the work of many others Objective, well-reasoned overall Starts the paper with a provocative quote from Milgram describing us as “puppets controlled by the strings of society. ”

Counterargument Blass summarizes the results of carefully controlled laboratory findings about deception, but what do they really tell us about deception in real-life settings?

My Conclusions Milgram’s studies were definitely influential Gets people’s attention regarding ethical issues…but often leads us to make snap judgments that do not include all existing information or evidence. But Milgram’s studies should only be a starting point for our investigation into ethics & the topic of deception.