As you might expect, there is also disagreement regarding the ethics of
Burger's modified procedure. As I mentioned in a letter published in the
APS Observer (March, 2008), "Most of his methodological adjustments
represented reasonable compromises between experimental rigor and basic
human safeguards. However, participants in Burger's study met excessive
resistance when they tried to discontinue their involvement. In my opinion,
this fact renders the revised procedure unacceptable and unethical."
Here's a link to the entire letter:
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2305
Frank M. LoSchiavo
Ohio University - Zanesville
At 09:46 AM 12/20/2008, you wrote:
Allen Esterson wrote:
A London "Times" article yesterday (Friday) indicated that there will be
some disagreement about how closely the new study replicates Milgram's:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5367721.ece
Yes, there will be some disagreement. Partly, the changes were what
Burger's ethics committee used in order to justify approving what is, in
its essence, the same experiment. Its critics will use these as the
fulcrum on which to lever their criticisms. There is a large contingent of
people -- many psychologists among them -- who are simply unable to
believe (or theoretically-invested in disbelieving) that the general walk
of human beings are like this. They are wrong (IMHO). There is a deep
social investment in believing that what happened in Nazi Germany was
wildly exceptional, far outside the normal course of human social
behavior; this depsite the fact that we have seen essentially the same
phenomenon a half dozen times since (but in places that "we" in the West
have been able to dismiss as not being "us": the Soviet Union under
Stalin, China under Mao during the cultural revolution, Uganda under Amin,
Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, East Timor under Indonesia, Rwanda,...
there are more, some going on now). The more we deny it, the more likely
we are to repeat it.
Chris Green
York U.
Toronto
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[tips] Milgram's obedience experiment: replication
sblack
Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:13:29 -0800
According to an item on CNN:
ww.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/19/milgram.experiment.obedience/index.html
American Psycholgist is set to publish in its January 2009 edition a
replication of the classic Milgram study. This is the one that no one
thought could ever be attempted again, given current restrictions imposed
by research ethics committees and the concern that the study may have
caused lasting harm to its participants. But it now has been done again,
by Jerry Burger at Santa Clara University, albeit with some tweaking of
the methodology to alleviate concern.
According to the CNN report, it finds that the original Milgram findings
hold up well today, almost 50 years later. We seem to be about as
obedient as we once were. Scary, isn't it?
I checked at the AP site, and the study doesn't appear to be out yet.
Stephen
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