The unethical Milgram experiment.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Specifically, what was unethical about it?

[Juton]

The experiment didn't stop when the guards got abusive, that's one. At one point some of the prisoners start to demand to be let go, but they weren't, that's two.

EDIT: Sorry, that was the Stanford prison experiment.

[K]

It caused extreme emotional stress.

Also, it was explicitly being done to explain why Germans would follow immoral orders. No one likes the Nazis being rationalized, instead of just being demonized.

[erik]

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Ethics

The Milgram Experiment raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants. In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated, 15 percent chose neutral responses (92% of all former participants responding).[11] Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants. Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was glad to have participated despite the stress:

While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority… To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself… I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience…[citation needed]

The experiments provoked emotional criticism more about the experiment's implications than with experimental ethics. In the journal Jewish Currents, Joseph Dimow, a participant in the 1961 experiment at Yale University, wrote about his early withdrawal as a "teacher," suspicious "that the whole experiment was designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period."[12] Indeed, that was one of the explicitly-stated goals of the experiments. Quoting from the preface of Milgram's book, Obedience to Authority: "The question arises as to whether there is any connection between what we have studied in the laboratory and the forms of obedience we so deplored in the Nazi epoch."

[Gelare]

It caused extreme emotional stress.

That. If I had to take a guess, I'd say they probably also didn't warn people beforehand of the possibility of extreme emotional stress, which is something you're now supposed to do as long as that wouldn't defeat the purpose of your experiment.

Still, unethical as it was, it was a tremendously important and revealing experiment.

[Neeeek]

It caused extreme emotional stress.

That. If I had to take a guess, I'd say they probably also didn't warn people beforehand of the possibility of extreme emotional stress, which is something you're now supposed to do as long as that wouldn't defeat the purpose of your experiment.

Still, unethical as it was, it was a tremendously important and revealing experiment.

It wasn't really all that unethical. Repeating it would be, since we know know of the effects on the participants, but the first time I don't think anyone involved suspected the psychological damage that resulted.

It was somewhat recently repeated in some British(I think, I know it isn't American) reality TV show. There are clips on YouTube of it. I can probably find them if anyone is interested.

[CatharzGodfoot]

On the whole, participants have said (years later) that the experiment was worth conducting and many of them said that they benefited from it (according to my psychological research methods textbook). It's a controversial experiment, and would be difficult to get approved today, but I don't think that it's considered unethical by ethicists or psychologists.

[Neeeek]

On the whole, participants have said (years later) that the experiment was worth conducting and many of them said that they benefited from it (according to my psychological research methods textbook). It's a controversial experiment, and would be difficult to get approved today, but I don't think that it's considered unethical by ethicists or psychologists.

Also, knowing about the experiment, what it entailed and what the results were is one of the few pieces of information that can change people's behavior for the better just because they have that information. Something like 70% of people who haven't heard of the experiment would continue shocking the subject to the point that they would have died. My guess is that almost none of the people (we can make exceptions for truly disturbed individuals) who know about it would.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Also, knowing about the experiment, what it entailed and what the results were is one of the few pieces of information that can change people's behavior for the better just because they have that information. Something like 70% of people who haven't heard of the experiment would continue shocking the subject to the point that they would have died. My guess is that almost none of the people (we can make exceptions for truly disturbed individuals) who know about it would.

One of the more clear examples of the importance of knowing history so that you don't repeat it.

[Parthenon]

One of the more clear examples of the importance of knowing history so that you don't repeat it.

But they're still repeating it.

[erik]

One of the more clear examples of the importance of knowing history so that you don't repeat it.

But they're still repeating it.

In the spirit of the "willing to do anything ordered on a T.V. show"...

I'll one up you! Sort of. What the fuuuuuck.

[edit: replaced youtube link with a higher quality version]

[CatharzGodfoot]

One of the more clear examples of the importance of knowing history so that you don't repeat it.

But they're still repeating it.

Which proves my point.

[Edit] Although it seems likely that they were given incentive to continue electrocuting the 'contestant', which would make it a different experiment.