Annenberg Media: The Power of the Situation, n. 19, Discovering Psychology Series (scroll down and register to view—you should be all set from watching the video in week 1).
Goal: To observe research in action and consider the ethical issues raised by each of these studies.
Guide: Watch with an eye on how the studies were carried out.
Consider the cost:benefit ratios for each.
Consider whether there are “no long term negative consequences” for participants in the Milgram studies and the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).
Consider the decision to run the study in the first place. Although he should have stopped it sooner, what made it okay for Zimbardo to design and implement his study in the first place, but prevents us from replicating it? In other words, what do we know now, that he didn’t know then?
The threats to validity that are posed by the experimenter’s participation in the study are one problem with the SPE. How did that complicate the ethical responsibilities of the experimenter as well?
Would the SPE consent forms be adequate today? See the SPE website and click on Related links to see the forms in PDF form.
What were the differences that characterized Milgram’s and Zimbardo’s participant pool and might help explain why more of Milgram’s participants were disturbed by their experience compared with Zimbardo’s? Consider the Epilogue on the SPE Website.
Let’s say you were the fellow in those famous photos of Solomon Ash’s conformity studies. How would you feel about being used as poster boy for gullibility in Psych 1 textbooks all over the world? What ethical responsibilities did the researcher have toward that person? In other words, if you are going to make a permanent record of someone’s performance, and they have agreed to be taped or photographed beforehand (informed consent), does that give a researcher the right to do anything he or she wants with the photo? What do we assume Ash did before publishing these pictures?