Zimbardo was a more ethical psychologist than Milgram.
By
Rachel
on February 15, 2007
Zimbardo ran the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. Milgram ran the equally, if not more famous experiment with having participants believe they were shocking another participant (by the way, the details of that experiment are fascinating, such as the person they thought they were shocking mentioning at the start that he had a heart condition, him saying he wanted out of the experiment, refusing to participate, pounding on the wall, then going totally silent, all the while people kept shocking and raising the amount of shock until it reached maximum, then kept just shocking the person at maximum until Milgram ended it (those who went all the way, some stopped before that point)).
The reason Zimbardo's experiment was more ethical was that while neither experimenter could have predicted the results of his study and Zimbardo had a fatal flaw in his experimental design, Zimbardo's mistake was the mistake that made people learn that that mistake could exist (the person in charge of the experiment having a role in the experiment and thus losing objectivity). He was the first to make his crucial mistakes, and he stopped his experiment early and never repeated it.
Milgram started out ethical. He discussed his experimental design with a large body of psychologists, and they predicted, quite inaccurately, what the results would be. His results were unexpected and the ethical issues were part of the unexpected part. But he finished his experiment. And then he ran followup studies. The followup studies were incredibly informative, and have created massively useful, educational data. But you can't say you had no idea what would happen or what ethical problems you'd run into when running the followup studies.
Both psychologists did put some effort into helping their participants recover from the experiment they had been in. Zimbardo actually did a huge amount of work to that effect. He probably affected his participants more, but his mistake was, in my opinion, very understandable. And he now speaks out on how his data can be used to help people.
Discussion (6)
Milgram's experiment put it's participants through a psychologically demanding situation for minutes. Zimbardo's subjected it's participants to psychological pressure for days (It would have been weeks). Milgram's experiment and it's varyations have an enormous influence on our understanding of conformity. Zimbardo's is still marred in controversy for being overly contrived and extrapolating it's conclusions.
The participants were not informed of the pressure they would be subjected to. They were not informed of the mock arrests or the hosing down and strip-search on arrival. Also, Zimbardo's involvement in the experiment, actually 'taking on a role' is really quite shocking. Given the purpose of his experiment was to see what happens when people have social roles imposed upon them - taking on one of those roles is hardly "understandable" when he has complete control over the termination or continuation of the experiment. Finally, Zimbardo stopped the experiment, not because of the community of sadism that he was seeing emmerge among his mock guards, but because his lover at the time objected.
I don't see how an experiment which replicated behaviours that had been observed naturally for years (in the real prisons) and made questionable conclusions which (given Abu-Ghraib) have prompted little change and that was ethically flawed from the begining, can be considered more ethical than one which subjected it's participants to much less psychological risk and provided a great deal of valuable information regaurding the nature of conformity.
I'm not saying we'd be better off if Zimbardo's experiment had never occoured. Just that it is not more ethical than Milgram's.
Milgram made people think they had murdered someone. Zimbardo did not. Have you seen the footage of Milgram's participants being debriefed? They were profoundly effected and disturbed.
Zimbardo was the first person to recognizably make the mistake of taking a role in his own experiment. He and Milgram both made the same mistake of being more correct than they expected to be. The mistake was exactly equal there. The fact that Zimbardo took a role in his own experiment was the experiment that showed us how bad this is. And it has been learned from.
And the difference is that Zimbardo never did it again. Had Milgram run one experiment, then he might have been the more ethical. But he did not. He ran a highly unethical experiment whole ethical issues he could not have known, and followed it up with countless further studies once he did know the ethical issues.
Milgram spent less than a day helping to fix the effects on each participant. Zimbardo was willing to take lifelong responsibility for fixing the damage he did.
The participants of Zimbardo's study appear to have been permanently altered, but not harmed. With Milgram's, it is not clear. And part of why it isn't clear is that Milgram didn't bother to find out.
I've seen it. It was unpleasant. But I disagree that the degree of harm is comparable to that of the participants in Zimbardo's experiment. Without a quantitive measure of psychological harm (as far as I am aware) it is simply a matter of opinion though. If I personally had to experience one of the two experiments I would certainly opt for Milgram's. So, imo, the risk to the individual is less in Milgram's experiment.
In terms of cost and benefit, Zimbardo's conclusions are limited and contravesial - were the participants simply 'playing up' to the roles for example?
I would argue that Zimbardo taking a role in his own experiment is simply something that should never have happened. Some mistakes are inevitable but I'm not convinced that that is one of them. It may have been difficult to forsee the hazardous consequenses (having underestimated how effective the roles would be) but an experimenter taking a role in the experiment is simply unscientific. Even if the risk had been underestimated the lack of objectivity should have been realised. Any scientist regaurdless of discipline is an observer, not a participant... It's as bad as a biologist sticking a finger in their latest bacterial colony.
Milgram's experiments revealed the mechanisms by which genocide is committed - obedience to authority - displacement of responsibility. His experiments went on to show how authority is percieved and how an image of authority can be undermined. I believe that's a worthwhile cause.
Yes, Milgram's study has been endlessly repeated, but not for no reason. Zimbardo's study has been repeated few times (once, I believe), with an ethics commity in control of the experiment - their conclusions differed from Zimbardo's: http://www.psychology.ex.ac.uk/projects/theexp/intro.shtml
Milgram's error in not folowing up on his participants (perhaps there was a reason that he did not feel the need to) I find less disturbing than Zimbardo taking an active role in his experiment.
Any question of ethics is ultimately opinion based - so all the above is just imo, naturally.
That strikes me as hubris. The mistakes of the past always look obvious once we've learned them. How could people not realize washing their hands would save lives? It's one of the biggest changes to improve mortality rates due to childbirth. But it wasn't obvious for ages.
The danger of an experimenter taking a role simply was not obvious until Zimbardo showed how bad it could be. If anything, that should be held to his credit, because that is part of what he taught the psychology community. And now repeating that mistake is nearly unthinkable.
Mm, true. It's difficult to cast a neutral judgement when armed with hindsight. I doubt I'm managing it particularly well.
Never the less, the ethical standard the two experiments are judged by has to be the same reguardless of when they were performed. A 'bad experiment' is still a 'bad experiment' even if it was commited before the experimenters had any reason to know better. All that might differ is what You and I believe to be a 'bad experiment'.
Zimbardo's mistake was still an unethical and unscientific experimental flaw, whether or not he had any reason to realise it at the time.
Obviously it's good that modern psychologists would not take a role in their experiments, I just find it worrying that just a few decades ago that dangerous mistake could be made in the name of 'science'. I guess that's merely that hubristic tendancy kicking-in again though.
Anyway 03:30 - Time to go do some work.
:)
The reason I am forgiving of the mistakes in design for both experiments is that both Milgram and Zimbardo asked other psychologists for their opinions before running their experiments - and everyone thought they were okay and ethical designs.
So, I don't count that against either of them. I just look at what each did once they figured it out. But I can understand using other criteria by which to evaluate it.