Ethical issues pf research into obedience Flashcards
Deception
Milgram’s research raised a number of ethical issues. Milgram deceived his participants by telling them that they were involved in a study of the effects of punishment on learning. By using deception, he effectively denied the participants the right to informed consent. However, Milgram argued that deception was necessary because if participants had known the true aim of the study, they would have changed their behaviour (demand characteristics) and the findings would have been meaningless (low internal validity). In order to deal with the ethical issue of deception,
Milgram debriefed participants, reassuring them that their behaviour had been normal, and
answered their questions. In research like Milgram’s a debrief can be used to justify the deception involved
Right to withdraw was unclear-
The right to withdraw was not
made clear to participants. Participants were told at the start of the study that they could withdraw at any point if they wanted to, and
that they could keep the money they had been given if they decided to leave. However, during the study if they expressed a desire to leave verbal prods were given like “please
continue”, which made it very difficult for some participants who felt they had no choice about continuing. This means that their right to withdraw is unclear, which is ethically unacceptable.
