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Research ethics and the Milgram experiments

Perhaps the most famous example of ethical issues in social research came from a set of experiments carried out by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the Summer of 1961 more than 700 people came to Yale in order to take part in an experiment that, they were told, was about memory and learning.3 As part of the experiment one research participant (the ‘teacher’) was asked to administer electric shocks to a second research participant (the ‘learner’) in order to test their ability to remember words. However, the experiment was fixed – the learner was a confederate (i.e. an insider who worked with Milgram). The experiment proceeded as follows:⁴

The teacher was told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger – severe shock).

The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose) and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock. When the teacher refused to administer a shock the experimenter was to give a series of orders/prods to ensure they continued. There were four prods and if one was not obeyed then the experimenter (Mr. Williams) read out the next prod, and so on.

Prod 1: Please continue.

Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.

After the experiments were completed, Milgram claimed that two-thirds of respondents had gone to the final switch (450 volts), creating the fear that they may have seriously harmed or even killed the ‘learner’.
The experiment raised a broad range of ethical issues for researchers and has created debate around human behaviour ever since. In terms of factors relevant to marketing research, the ethical issues raised by Milgram’s experiments centred on the potential for harm to the research participants. The participants were misled during the experimental process so could not have been considered to have given informed consent. Furthermore, there was a potential for trauma for research participants following the experiment. The ethics of the research methods used, as much as the findings, have been a source of discussion every since.