The research study titled “Behavioral Study of Obedience” was carried out by Prof. Stanley Milgram of Yale University. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of destructive obedience in a laboratory setting. The study subjects were males aged between the ages of 20 and 50 and were all drawn from New Haven , Connecticut. The study participants were invited to take part in the study through direct mail solicitation and a newspaper advertisement. By occupation , the study participants were salesmen, engineers, high school teachers and postal clerks. The ir education levels varied , and while some ha d doctorates , others lacked an elementary education. The group was chosen because it provided an appropriate representation in terms of age, education level and occupation. I n a review of works related to destructive obedience, Milgram ( 1963) had noted that more destruction ha d been carried out by men in the name of obedience rather than rebellion . Thus, Milgram was building upon such findings.
The research procedure entailed getting the participants in a laboratory setting at Yale University where a naïve subject was asked to administer varying amounts of shock to a subject (the victim) using a simulated shock generator (Milgram, 1963) . The shock generator had varying levels of voltage which ranged from Slight Shock to Severe Shock. The naïve subject was ordered to administ er a shock to the other subject by an experimenter under the pretext that the effect of punishment on memory was being observed in a learning environment. Subsequently, o rders were given by the experimenter in a grey coat who remained stern throughout the experiment. The learner and the teacher were determined by drawing slips of paper from a hat at random. To improve the credibility of the experiment, the experimenter assured the subjects that intense shock could be painful, but no tissue damage was expected (Milgram, 1963) . The subjects were also offered money by the experimenter but were assured that th e money would not be taken away from them if they did not participate in the experiment (Milgram, 1963) .
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A pretext was devised with each set of participants that would justify the need for the naïve subject to administer increasing amounts of shock to the victim. The naïve subject refused to proceed with the experiment past a certain point. The behavior of the subject before this point was regarded as “obedience .” The point at which the subject could no longer proceed with the experiment was seen as an act of disobedience. Based on the maximum shock that a subject was willing to administer, a numerical value was assigned to the subject’s level of obedience. In doing so, the researchers sought to understand the effect of systematically altering the factors that are believed to have a role in shaping a person’s obedience (Milgram, 1963) .
Occasional photographs were taken through a one-way mirror. Notes were also taken and sessions recorded on magnetic tape. On some occasions, observers were asked to make notes using objective descriptions of the subjects’ behavior. After the experiment, an interview in which open-ended questions were asked was carried out. The well-being of the subjects was ensured before letting the subjects leave the setting of the study. A reconciliation was conducted between the subjects to resolve any animosity that may have risen as a result of the experiment.
Following the results of the post-experiment interview, it was noted that most of the subjects were well aware of the severity of the pain induced as a result of the shocks administered to the learner. T he average value assigned to the pain associated with the shocks by the subjects was 13.42. Many of the subjects were nervous during the administration of the shocks. This was characterized by stuttering, profuse sweating, biting of lips as well as trembling. Out of the 40 subjects, 14 exhibited bizarre, nervous laughter. Full blown seizures were observed in some of the subjects resulting in the halting of the experiment in other cases . In spite of the fact that all the subjects agreed that it was wrong to hurt another person against his or her will, 26 of them were willing to inflict pain on others under the instruction of an authorit ative figure who would have no consequences on them (Milgram, 1963) .
The subjects were at pains to explain their behavior in the post-experimental interviews . T hey emphasized that they were not sadistic in spite of their willingness to administer shock on other subjects. None of the subjects who participated in the experiment failed to administer shocks before reaching level 20. Five out of the forty subjects would not administer shock beyond the 300 volts level while four of the subjects were willing to administer shocks for one more level before stopping. 26 out of the 40 subjects were willing to obey the subjects until the end of the experiment. The researchers concluded that there was a remarkable tension between the emotional strain of those who were administering shock and what they were doing to their victim.
The experiment raise d several ethical issues . First , the principle of beneficence was not observed in this research. It is expected that t he gains that a subject stands to accrue for his or her participation in research should always outweigh the detrimental subjects . In this experiment, both the teacher and the learner were subjected to emotional strain. The fact that some of the subjects experienced seizures while some manifested signs of intense emotional breakdown show ed that the research harmed the participants more than it benefitted them. In addition to this, the view that the scientific worth of the study was to be balanced out by emotional distress that the participants were subjected to was questionable (Miller, 2009) . While it is possible for subjects to experience some form of harm as a result of a study as in the case of medical research, this is not a blanket reason to expose subject s to unreasonable harm. It has also been argued that social psychology does not produce lifesaving results like medical research . Thus, it is unacceptable to subject study participants to harm (Kimmel, 200 9 ) .
Secondly, the researchers provided the study participants with money. While there was a disclaimer that the money would be given to them whether they showed up for the experiment or not , it is possible that the monetary offer drove the subjects strong desire to follow the directions of the experimenter at the expense of their well-being and that of their victims . The subjects may have felt obligated to go through the experiments since they had received money . H ence , they felt obligated to earn that money by pushing the limit s of their victims . This is against the ethical principles of research that require the researcher to treat his subjects as autonomous agents. For this reason, no person should be placed under duress during a research study (Kimmel, 200 9) .
Milgram used deception to get the participants to take part in the study. While the study was about obedience to an authority figure, the study subjects were told that they were participating in a study on the effect of punishment on learning. In effect , the right to give informed consent was breached because the participants were misinformed about the exact nature of the experiment that they were participating in . Proponents of deception in research may argue that certain results can only be obtained through deception, but deception still takes advantage of the trust that the study participants have in the researcher (Tai, 2012) . When Milgram asked his colleagues whether they believed that any of the participants would administer the 450-volt shock, they said that none of the participants would do that. However, 65% of the participants administered shock levels that were considered severe to their victims. Thus, d eception played a major role in attaining this unlikely result.
Another ethical concern with the study was its interference with the participants’ right to withdraw from a study. Whenever a study subject expressed the desire to stop the shock administration, they would be told by the experimenter that they had to go on. While some of the participants withdrew the treatment from their victims, the prompts from the experimenter interfered with the participants’ right to exercise their judgment and readily withdraw from the experiment. When asked about his experiment later , Milgram defend ed himself by stating that he could not have possibly known about its outcome. However, the fact that he arranged for the debriefing of the study subjects and did a follow-up a year after the study showed that there was a problem with his approach. The fact that the researcher cannot adequately predict the outcome of a research study does not exempt him from being on the lookout for the wellbeing of the study participants. Milgram’s defense was insufficient in the face of the emotional distress that the study had on the participants.
Milgram’s study raised more ethical concerns than it benefitted the body of knowledge. However, i t contributed significantly to the development of stringent ethical standards that have be en observed in social psychology studies in the subsequent years.
References
Kimmel, A. J. (2009). Ethical issues in behavioral research: Basic and applied perspectives . John Wiley & Sons.
Miller, A. G. (2009). Reflections on" Replicating Milgram"(Burger, 2009). American Psychological Association, 64 (1), 20-27. doi: 10.1037/a0014407
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology , 67 (4), 371-378.
Tai, M. C. T. (2012). Deception and informed consent in social, behavioral, and educational research (SBER). Tzu Chi Medical Journal , 24 (4), 218-222.
