Most teachers paused at 135 volts and then began to question the purpose of the experiment. Most learners banged on the walls after several high shocks, the subjects wanted to stop after hearing the screams of pain coming from the learner. Most subjects still continued after being told they were not to be held responsible if anything happens to the learner, and same subjects began to laugh nervously and exhibit extreme signs of stress. Milgram also explains “the ordinary person who shocked the victim did so out of a sense of obligation, an impression of his duties as a subject, and not from any peculiarly aggressive tendencies” (White, Billings. Pg.699).
The teacher was told that the object of the experiment was to study the effects of punishment on learning. They are also told that their role in the experiment was to read word lists to the learner and the learner must remember the second word from a list of word pairs they had read earlier. If the learner got the answer wrong, then the teacher was told to administer shocks, for each answer that the learner got wrong, and the shocks had to increase in intensity. The teacher is unaware of the fact that the learner is actually an actor, and receives no shock. The experiments, involving the Undergrad students from Yale, resulted in 60
This shows that many parents are sceptical to the vaccinations, what might have negative consequences for children. The reason why in 1990s and 2000s many children did not receive their vaccination was the publication of The Lancet study by Andrew Wakefield talking about a link between autism and MMR vaccination. The strong phrase that some people still remember is that vaccinations are dangerous. Despite the fact that science has proven this is wrong some people still believe there is link between autism development and MMR vaccination. Therefore it is strange that they are making informed choice.
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment and Stanley Milgram’s Behavioral Study of Obedience have provoked controversy amongst individuals interested in the study of human psychology. Critics have claimed that both studies were unethical and caused serious harm to the participants. Although both trials were later reviewed by the American Psychological Association and approved, many debates and additional research ensued. The strengths, weaknesses and underlying ethics of both studies still provide ample reason for further examination. Only three months after the start of trials for Adolf Eichmann (a Nazi war criminal), Milgram formulated an experiment to question this dispositional view.
G. Take pulse for 10 seconds and multiply by 6. __120 bpm____ H. Do 3 to 5 minutes of stretching exercises. I. Take pulse for 10 seconds and multiply by 6. ___110 bpm___ J.
Perhaps the most widely discussed example of dishonesty in research design are the Milgram obedience studies conducted between 1960 and 1964. Stanely Milgram, wanted to know if "following orders" was a genuine explanation and justification for actions that individuals would not ordinarily perform independently. Milgram couldn't reconstruct the situations of World War II, but he thought he could invent an analogue for examining whether people will follow orders under the presence of authority. He recruited several participants for a study that was allegedly on the effects of punishment on learning. When participants arrived, they were "randomly" assigned the role of "teacher" and another participant was assigned the role of "pupil."
They were limited to simple answers such as ‘just, I just wouldn’t join the course’ without any sort of real explanation. Another example of conformity is the Asch experiment. This experiment was conducted by Solomon Asch who was a psychologist. It was a famous experiment designed to test how peer pressure to conform would influence the judgment and individuality of a test subject. In the experiment, participants were asked to match a reference line with another one line
The group were asked to indicate and on a signal from the researcher, the confederates would give unanimous wrong answers on 12 of the 18 trials for each experiment. Answers were also always unambiguous so it was clear. Asch found that the overall conformity rate was 37%, and 5% of participants conformed on every trial and 25% never conformed. When asked why they conformed, participants gave a number of reasons: some felt their perceptions were wrong upon hearing different answers from the group, others stated that they believed the rest were wrong but they did not wish to stand out and it was reported that some participants grew increasingly nervous and self-conscious through trials. Asch concluded that a strong, large group can exert intense pressure to conform, even more so if they are unanimous in their opinions.
He records his research and as of a result the data that he collected didn’t make any sense. For years he didn’t know what went wrong with the experiment conducted. Out of nowhere the answer came to him, they were looking for the wrong Pepsi but what they should have been looking for is the perfect Pepsi’s. He would go and set up a meeting with Pepsi, then tell them what his revelation was. These people would quickly dismiss him because of how crazy it sounds.
This type of strong obedience to authority figures can be seen in three studies done by Stanley Milgram, Solomon Asch, and Philip Zimbardo. Stanley Milgram conducted a research study which tested an individual’s obedience to an authority figure by placing the subject by a window on a side of a wall and having him or her send an electric shock to what was a paid actor or actress if answered incorrectly. The subject could see the individual through the window, however, was unaware that the person was an actor or actress and that the person was not actually receiving a shock. Milgram first did the experiment at Yale and the results came back at about sixty percent were obedient. He later received comments that Yale students were too aggressive and the experiment did not have any relevance to the average person.