Revisiting the Milgram Study

[dancer1983]

People today may be just as willing to follow orders to hurt others as they were nearly half a century ago, a new study finds.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010501173.html?tid=informbox

Comments

[aciel]

I read about this before, but not this specific article. Tell me, are they asking something new, or just verifying old work? Either way, I had thought the experiment was considered unethical. It's especially unethical if it's redundant. What the deal?

[dancer1983]

The purpose of revisiting the study was because people wondered if the results would be different today. It was thought that people people are most likely to question authority now that there is supposedly greater social awareness of the dangers of blind obedience.

I think the study still has questionable ethics, although they did modify it from the original. They lowered the maximum "shock" level from 450 volts to 150 volts. To me, this doesn't seem to make much of a difference, unless the participants were inherently familiar with the effects of different voltages on the human body. They also never reached the point where the shock "receiver" stopped responding.

[dancer1983]

And the participants were also reminded 3 times that they could quit at any time and still receive $50 for participating in the experiment.