The most famous experiment Milgram conducted was also his most controversial. The issue dealt with the
people's right to know on what he/she is being studied.
On the surface, the experiment looked legit and totally scientific. Two people were brought in at a time
and each would draw from a hat. One would be the teacher, one the learner. After going over exactly how the
"shock treatment" worked, the teacher went to his control panel and the learner was hooked up to electrodes.
The teacher would first read lists of paired words, then asked the learner to pair up the now separated words.
For each wrong answer, an increasing dose of electricity was given.
In reality, there was only one volunteer brought in at a time. The learner was one of the scientists, and
was not getting shocked at all. Actually, for the entire experiment, a prerecorded audio tape was used for the
voice of the learner. The experiment was not studying the effect of electrical shock on learning, but really how
the teacher would react to an authoritative figure's requests to continue. In this case, the teacher was to be
convinced that as he continued, the learner's health was increasingly compromised. Towards the end of the
experiment, the learner stopped pleading or making any noise at all, implying that he had passed out or maybe
died. The results of the experiment helped researchers explain such things as why or how Nazi officers and
soldiers continued the horrible treatment of the people of Europe in concentration camps during WWII.
Although experiments like this provide valuable information, the question "was it ethical" is raised. To
answer this, we must examine the necessity of the means. Was there any other way to get this data? If we look
at such sociological phenomenon as the Hawthorne Effect, we can say that if the teachers knew th
...