This experiment carries alot of negative ethical issues which combined with many 'faults' in the methodology has made many people question the true worth of the experiment and whether the ends justify the means. The problems became evident in this experiment when the true aim of the research was hidden from the partcipants and they did not know what was going to happen to them within it's duration. Thus, the participants could not give informed consent which leads to many problems involving deception. During the test, the participants were put through a series of humiliating and dehumanizing tasks. Such as the initiation to the experiment where they were deloused and arrested from there own home. As with many psychological research the experiment may have provoked minor psychological doubt, but to put it bluntly, this was the 'smallest' ethical issue in the study. Although Zimbardo tested his participants to see if they could cope with the demands of the experiment he could not have known that such extreme circumstances would arise and ultimately could not tell if the participants were able to cope. Finally, many psychologists have said that this experiment became 'too real' and it should not have been carried out. These many ethical factors mean that this experiment's results may be of some minimal use to psychologists but these results do not justify the means of the experiment.
Milgram used an advert to attract his participants and paid them $4.00 for one hour. He said the research was a study of memory not obedience. At the start of the experiment Milgram sat the partcipant in a chair who watched the confederate being strapped into a chair with a shock machine attached to it. The participant was then sat in front of a shock meter and told the teacher to give the confederate a shock every time they got a question wrong. After each of the wrong questions the voltage of the shock recieved by the confederate increased by fifteen volts each time and the recorded verbal response given, increased in volume until the shock got to 315V and there were no further responses and it was presumed that the confederate had passed out. The obedience test was to see if the teacher would kill the victim with a shock of 435V. There were many different variations to Milgram's method to test different angles of obedience.
This experiment also carries some ethical issues, however not as many as Zimbardo's. Migram's method also involves a form of deception because the participants were not informed that the electric shock was not real. The participants may have been discouraged from withdrawing from the experiment because they were paid to take part which would mean they would have stayed for longer to earn more money even if they did not want to stay. Again, because the experimenter did not wish to reveal the true aim of the experiment no informed consent could be given by the participants, although the teachers were fully de-briefed towards the end of the test. This knowledge gained by the participants at the end which revealed the true meaning of the research may have caused psychological harm or doubt in the mind of the participant.
This experiment was far from the extremities demonstrated in Zimbardo's research and as a counter criticism many replications of this study have been carried out worldwide together with other branches of research being investigated with this experiment as a basis to build on, for example, Hofling 1966. Also Milgram was able to base a theory on this experiment. Whereas Zimbardo's experiment cannot be replicated because of the disaster during the first time and the results were no where near as in depth as the ones recieved from Milgram's.
So in conclusion, these research studies have both presented new information and results for others to work with. Zimbardo's experiment had ends that did not fully justify the means mainly because the experiment was a disaster and cannot be repeated, whereas Milgram's has proved very useful because of the extensive results gathered in the experiment and the experiment was easily repicated and generally accepted in most cultures.