Zimbardo in 1973 created an experiment designed to investigate how readily people would adopt a new role and exercise the power attached to that role. Zimbardo recruited 25 male students to participate in a two week study of prison life. They were randomly assigned to the role of a prisoner or a guard. On arrival the prisoners were stripped down and given prison smocks with a number attached. From then on they were referred to by there number only. The guards were given shirts, trousers, dark glasses and carried wooden batons, whistles and handcuffs. The guards conformed to their new roles with such passion that the study had to be called off after six days. Prisoners obeyed the rules and even when one prisoner begun a hunger strike the others did exactly what they were told to do.
Zimbardo’s experiment shows the powers and potency of social influence. The behaviour displayed by both prisoners and guards demonstrate how easily people can come to behave out of character when placed in situations and given roles. Again like Asch’s study, this experiment has been ethically questioned. Although Zimbardo made every effort to ensure participants with fit to take part both physically and psychologically he failed to protect the prisoners from harm. Participants were debriefed and completed questionnaires very frequently after the study and were found that the suffering experienced in the simulated prison did not extend outside the experiment, however, the prisoners still suffered physical and psychological abuse hour after hour while inside the prison. Zimbardo said that it was impossible to predict the extreme behaviour displayed by both prisoners and guards. He also explained that by abandoning the experiment, steps were taken to protect the participants from harm. Or were the steps taken, taken too late? This is one reason why this experiment has been ethically questioned. Another reason why this study has been ethically questioned is to do with the informed consent of the experiment. Zimabrdo openly stated what the experiment was about. Due to this it is argued that the participants were acting in the way they believed they were wanted to. Also there was a lack of fully informed consent by the participants for the humiliation and distress experienced by the prisoners. Therefore the results cannot be true and so again because of this the experiment is unethical. On the other hand, the only deception used by Zimbardo was the arrest of each participant in their own homes. Zimbardo stated that this was purely to make the study seem more realistic. Deception is harmless and is only for short periods of time. It does not cause harm on the participant and so this type of deception, because it was so little, cannot affect the ethical validity of the experiment. Finally the experiment was only carried out once meaning that the results were not replicated. This means reasons like the participants personalities may have affected the results. Due to this the experiment created by Zimbardo is questioned ethically as the ends do not justify the means.
Milgrim in 1963, 1965 and 1974 wanted to find out how far someone would go to inflict pain onto someone else using electric shocks. Milgrim used two confederates, one as the experimenter and one as the learner, and one real subject who was always the teacher. The teacher had to read a list of paired words. He then had to give the learner the first word along with five alternative words. The learner was then asked which the paired word was. The learner was wired to electrodes which would deliver electric shocks. Each time he answered a question wrong he would be given an electric shock with increases up to 450V. The learner deliberately gave the wrong answer while the experiment encouraged the teacher to administer the shocks and carry on with the experiment. At 315V the learner would pretend he had died. Milgrim found that 65% of real subjects would still give shocks up to 450V even though they thought the learner was dead.
This study shows that people are more obedient than they think. However this study can be questioned ethically. Deception was used to a great extent. Firstly deception was used by telling participants that they were taking part in a study of memory. Secondly all the equipment and the actual shocking of the learner was totally fake and the learner never received an electric shock at any stage in this experiment. In this study deception had to be used otherwise no one would ever agree to participate. Also because of deception you don’t gain true reactions from the participants. Due to the fact that deception was used, informed consent cannot be gained. Participants agreed to take part in a study of memory not obedience and certainly not to administer electric shocks to another human being. Again because the participants were not aware of the actual experiment they are not showing their true reaction. Also some people may act in a way that they believe is expected of them. This again questions the ethical validity of the experiment. Another ethical guideline which must be followed is that the experiment must protect the participant from harm at all times. However in this experiment participants experienced psychological harm. They were distressed, nervous and showed extreme tension in the short term. However in the long term there was no harm caused. This was due in part to the counselling and the debriefing sessions offered. However the point is that psychological harm was caused to the participants and it is this that questions the ethics of this study. Another area which questions the ethics of the study is the right to withdraw. Milgrim did not inform his participants of this right and encouraged them to continue with the study at all times. Continuation was encouraged as the study was after all about obedience and to see how high levels of obedience are. If the participants were to withdraw the experiment would not produce accurate results. On the other hand if people were allowed o withdraw from the experiment, wouldn’t this show more accurate results of obedience levels as they are not willing to obey certain orders. Therefore because participants were not allowed to withdraw the experiment is ethically questioned. Finally this experiment cannot be generalised to everyday life and so the settings and the experiment itself cannot be ecologically valid. It is very unlikely that anyone would find themselves in this type of situation unless in an experiment.
In conclusion to this it is clear what is ethical and what isn’t. Firstly Asch’s study is clearly ethical the only problem being that the results cannot be generalised and the only way to obtain true results is through observation maybe in a classroom with school children but even this may not give accurate results as children are usually more willing to conform than adults. Overall this study is ethical unlike the studies conducted by Zimbardo and Milgrim. Zimbardo’s study is very clearly unethical. Participants were subject to physical and psychological harm and although they gave consent to take part in the study they did not consent to the distress and humiliation caused to them. Also the results were only obtained from one study suggesting it is the people that are involved. Finally Milgrim’s study is also unethical. A lot of deception was used meaning the true reactions of participants were not gained. Also the participants suffered psychological harm. They showed signs of distress, nervousness and tension. This again will not produce the most accurate results. Therefore this study has been concluded as unethical.
