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What were the research goals and ethical issues with the Milgrim Obedience study?

The primary goal of the Milgram Experiment was to determine the level of conflict between obedience to authority and matters of conscience. Milgram questioned the motivations of the accused in the Nuremberg trials, most of whom claimed that they acted against their own consciences in order to obey authority. The Milgram experiments began one year after the trial of an infamous Nazi soldier who cited similar justification for his actions.


Milgram sought to determine whether...

The primary goal of the Milgram Experiment was to determine the level of conflict between obedience to authority and matters of conscience. Milgram questioned the motivations of the accused in the Nuremberg trials, most of whom claimed that they acted against their own consciences in order to obey authority. The Milgram experiments began one year after the trial of an infamous Nazi soldier who cited similar justification for his actions.


Milgram sought to determine whether German soldiers in World War II were more obedient to authority than the average American would be under similar circumstances. To determine this, he selected male college participants at Yale University.


The chief ethical issue with the series of experiments conducted by Milgram and his colleagues was that the "teachers," or participants who had been given the role of authority figures in the study, believed they were causing real harm to the "learners," who were really Milgram's confederates. Although the learners were not actually harmed, the experiments were set up so the teachers believed they were delivering increasingly painful electrical shocks to the learners.


Critics have argued that Milgram's attempts to understand how far people would go to obey instruction even if it meant harming another person were ethically irresponsible. The conclusion of the study showed that most people would be willing to cause harm to another person if it meant obeying authority. Other ethical issues include the use of deception, exposing participants to stressful situations that may have caused psychological harm, and a study setup that did not make the right to withdraw obvious. One of the hallmarks of an ethical study is that participants are free to withdraw at any point, but the Milgram Experiment relied upon participants feeling pressured to remain in the study. Nonetheless, Milgram argued that his experiment was ethical and the option to withdraw was present because 35 percent of his participants chose to leave.

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