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Ethical Issues (Milgram)

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Ethical guidelines are now regulated by the British Psychological Society (BPS), or the APA in America and since 1978 has become much stricter than the previous years. Its main aim is to protect the human participant’s from psychological harm and this is done by rules that need to be adhered to. They should have fully informed consent, should not be deceived, debriefed after investigation, the right to withdraw from the investigation at any time and be assured of confidentiality. However, in some cases these rules can not be fully complied with and only after safeguards have been put in place, especially for children or those that have a disability, can deviation from the guidelines take place.
However, there will always be conflict between participants and psychologists needs or expectations of the experiment. In some experimental situations the participant will not be fully informed of what they are taking part in so the psychologist can achieve a non-biased outcome from the results. This could be classed as harmful to the participants as the outcome of being deceived could lead to psychological harm.
In Milgram’s (1963 cited in Hill, 2001 p24) study participants took part in the obedience to authority experiment. At this time the ethical guidelines were not as strict and this has brought outrage to some of his critics, Baumrind (1964) in particular is extremely critical of his approach and outcome of the experiment. Baumrind (1964) argued that the participants were not protected from harm throughout the experiment and they did not have fully informed consent. Her concerns were that the participants could have been psychology affected long term and the end result does not justify the means. She also implied that the participants were forced by the experimenter to shock the confederate; this was not the case as the participants were free to leave at any time.

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