Question

Gather information on Stanley Milgram's study on obedience and authority. Using the IRB checklist as a guideline, what were some major concerns you had regarding the Milgram study? How would you redesign Milgram's study to have it pass IRB standards?

Answer 1

The Milgram experiments were in the area of the social influence of obedience and authority where the researchers had made the participants believe that they were expected to monitor electric shocks to the confederates who posed as fellow research participants in a learning task, in case the latter made errors in a recall task. The participants were instructed to give increasingly high intensity electric shocks confederates with each new error. However, in actuality, the researchers had employed the use of deception and no actual electric shocks were received by the confederates. Nonetheless, many of the participants who did administer shocks reported feeling extremely disturbed and guilty afterward the experiment and several of them reported a high level of psychological discomfort.

Today, the Milgram study represents a highly controversial study because of its specific research design. The study stands nullified or unacceptable on grounds of the standards laid out by the International Research Board (IRB) according to which a research need stands to be assessed in terms of the analysis of the costs vs. benefits involved in participation in the study. According to the IRB standards, the Milgram experiments were in violation of the basic principle of benevolence as per which the participants must be Protected from physical or psychological harm (including loss of dignity, loss of autonomy, and loss of self-esteem. Moroever, the IRB standard mandates Protection of the participants against unjustifiable deception such as that which was employed by the experimenters when they did not disclose to the participants that there were no actual shocks involved.

While many critics may argue in favour of the procedure of deception in the cases where it is a necessary means for scientifc advancements, the IRB standards maintain that studies employing deception such a in the Milgram experiments need to be avoided and can be modified to use alternative practices. One such procedure is the use of a simulation research design wherein the participants may be presented with a situation such punishing people with electric shocks and asked to imagine their specific roles and how would they respond to that situation. If the Milgram experiments could be modified to apply a simulation situation, then this would remove the risk of any psychological harm caused as the participants could clearly identify the situation as an imaginary one instead of a real life instance with threatening consequences for other individuals. Moroever, in a simulation study, the problem of deception would be eliminated participants would be presented with the clear cut difference between their role in reality and their role as a real person in a simulated field. In this way, the Milgram study would fulfill the criteria for the three principles enshrined in the IRB requirements- of beneficence, informed consent and respect for the participants’ consent and justice.