Another ethically questionable aspect of Milgram’s research was the right to withdraw. All expts should make it clear to pps that it is voluntary, and they can withdraw at any point. Although Milgram claimed pps had a free choice, withdrawing was made intentionally difficult. Milgram used four prods when pps asked to withdraw that even included “you have no choice”. If pps think they are being forced into inflicting pain on an individual, this is clearly going to be distressing. Even when Milgram argued there was no way he could have predicted some of the negative effects, it seems fairly clear that by discouraging withdrawal, psychological harm is inevitable. There was some justification for his use of prods however, as they clearly fitted with Milgram’s aims of testing how obedient people would be. If it was easy to withdraw, this would not be tested.
Zimbardo was another researcher who investigated social influence using similar methods to those of Milgram. He observed conformity to social roles and obedience by setting up a mock prison and giving pps the roles of prisoner and guard. Although, unlike Milgram, Zimbardo informed his pps of the true aims of his research, he didn’t tell them what results they could expect to find. They were entering a situation which was ambiguous and almost anything could have happened. However, if Zimbardo had told them what behaviour he was expecting, this could have led to expectancy bias and demand characteristics, and therefore would have been far less valid. Protection from harm was a highly criticised part of Zimbardo’s research, Only physical abuse was forbidden, and therefore pps were likely to have suffered large amounts of psychological abuse. Zimbardo knew he would be testing negative aspects of prison life such as humiliation and powerlessness, so some of the results would have been predicted to some extent. He claimed he made every effort to select mentally stable pps, and there was no way of foreseeing the events that occurred. He, like Milgram, also found no evidence of long term harm during debriefing.
Although both Milgram and Zimbardo undoubtedly used undesirable methods, few seemed completely unnecessary or unjustified. One key question relating to ethics is “do the ends justify the means?”, and in these two experiments, the results do seem particularly significant. Milgram specifically wanted to examine the kind of situation that occurred during the holocaust, and argues that his findings suggest reasons why people obeyed to that extent. Both researchers claim that their debriefed pps almost all agreed that the results were socially important, and were worth completing the research for which justifies the procedures used. However, as revolutionary as these findings were, it is very unlikely that either experiment would pass ethical guidelines from the BPS today.
In terms of the impact of stress on individuals, much research surrounds the significance of life events on stress levels. A person experiences stress when the perceived demands of the environment are greater than their perceived ability to cope with them. Different people perceive things in different ways, so a situation that one person finds very stressful might not be to someone else.
Holmes and Rahe (1967) offered one explanation into the sources of stress. Their ‘Social Readjustment Rating Scale’ (SSRS) consists of a list of 43 life events that could be seen to be stressful, as they all involve people having to make psychological readjustments. Each event is allocated a point value (Life change unit – LCU) according to the amount of change it requires; events such as death of a spouse are given 100 for example. They proposed that people who experienced the higher-rated events would have higher levels of stress. There has since been evidence to indicate a relationship between health breakdown and the high life events. Rahe et al tested the scale on a group of American Navy seamen, and found that higher life change unit scores were found to be linked with a higher incidence of illness over the next seven months. This research suggests that the stress involved in life events can result in an increase of risk of illness: an important point, and one addressed in much literature.
However, individual differences play a major part in stress and not everyone is going to find each life event as stressful. There is also no way to establish cause and effect, the data produced is correlational. It also does not account for cultural differences in stress; what is stressful in one culture may not even apply to another, e.g. Christmas; not only does not everyone celebrates this, but for some it can be very relaxing, whereas for others, it can be an extremely stressful time. It defines stressful life events as those which require ‘psychological restructuring’, yet there are many events that fit into this definition without being stressful; winning the lottery requires a huge life change, yet on the whole, this event can ease stress massively.
In conclusion, Holmes and Rahe’s scale focuses only on life-events as sources of stress, and not on everyday events. Many people will not experience many of the life events on the SSRS, yet will still be stressed due to daily stressors. The ‘Hassles and Uplift’ scale was developed as an alternative to the Social Readjustment Rating Scale by Lazarus and Kanner, dealing with less unusual events, and therefore could be seen to provide a more applicable alternative that can explain the impact of life events (both everyday and rare) on stress levels.
