6 ms·

The results of the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments (the amount of harm caused by studying obedience and harm to humans) were instrumental in giving us t

The results of the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments (the amount of harm caused by studying obedience and harm to humans) were instrumental in giving us the very ethics codes that make them unfalsifiable. That makes them an important facet of the field of psychology's history and worth teaching for that alone. If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid and don't need to be run again to re-verified or falsified. If you really don't trust the ethics code which was produced in reaction to the results of these 20th century experiments, then the authentic thing to do would be to re-run the experiments clandestinely and disseminate the results anonymously.

zozbot234 5y ago
> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid and don't need to be run again to re-verified or falsified. Why? The experiments would still be unethical, even if they led to the opposite result.
- jstanley 5y ago
  Why? If the opposite result is "some people are prisoners, some are guards, and they all sit around and have a jolly old time" then what's unethical about running that experiment?
scoofy 5y ago
The ethical codes are extremely important, that's not my point. I'm saying we are taught the results are correct, when, due to the impossibility of reproduction we can't know whether the results are correct or incorrect. What should be discussed in the Milgram experiment is "we can't know the results of the experiment because one of the subjects killed themselves due to their participation. Try to consider the ethical implications, don't design experiments that might lead to psychological trauma, etc." The idea that the results being true is why we shouldn't do the experiment is wrong to do, is nonsense, because we can't know whether the results are true because can't replicate the experiment. Yet, it's results are published as a pop-science book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience_to_Authority:_An_Experimental_View https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience_to_Authority:_An_Exp... Instead, these two studies if their findings, not the ethics, are discussed at all, are a perfect illustration of the problems that Karl Popper discusses regarding falsifiability.
- JetAlone 5y ago
  I think one of the subjects killed themselves due to participation because of the deep inner tension caused by our struggles with obedience versus conscience. The results of the studies bear that out - people largely obey authority unto causing serious harm, that's what the studies tell us, and it's not an inordinate stretch to say that this dissonance causes a person to feel an urge to commit suicide such that, if few people obeyed authority giving malicious orders, they would feel little dissonance and would be way less likely to off themselves. And that's the connection between the results and the ethics. It may not be awfully scientific of me, but I'd yell you out of the quietest room on earth for trying to claim the results have no bearing on that.
  - scoofy 5y ago
    "We can't know the results because we can't repeat the experiment," is exactly what I'd yell right back. Repeatability is required for falsifiability, and falsifiablity is required for empirical knowledge, period.
    - JetAlone 5y ago
      Then run the experiments again in secret. Find people who are so passionate about your epistemological model they are willing to take the risk of renegade experiments on themselves. That would be an actual adventure, much better than roleplaying a yelling match at each other in comments sections. EDIT: Hell, pretend play is for weaklings, I'll be your confederate jumbo-dumbo test taker faker, and let's go a step beyond the original experiment, let's have me actually suffer serious shocks in our Milgram Repro, for your n >= 30 guineau pigs to see. Then we'll know even better and that can be the new standard. And I'll be your confederate convict prime, set aside in especially horrible solitary confinement conditions for the Stanford Prison Repro. And when you watch me and others actually suffer horribly for days on end due to your decisions, I'm sure you'll simply have zero suicidal ideation, and you'll repeat your "we can't know!!!11!!1" drivel.
      - kinjba11 5y ago
lolinder 5y ago
> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid and don't need to be run again to re-verified or falsified. This would only be true if the hypothesis being tested in these experiments was "psychology as a field needs a code of ethics". That wasn't either hypothesis. "We need a code of ethics" does not imply "Milgram and Stanford prison proved ___ about authority figures".
OrderlyTiamat 5y ago
> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid But why? The standord experiment was performative, it wasn't even an actual experiment, as shown from the experiment notes. How did you come to believe that it is mandatory to believe that study is valid?

zozbot234 5y ago

> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid and don't need to be run again to re-verified or falsified. Why? The experiments would still be unethical, even if they led to the opposite result.

jstanley 5y ago
Why? If the opposite result is "some people are prisoners, some are guards, and they all sit around and have a jolly old time" then what's unethical about running that experiment?

scoofy 5y ago

The ethical codes are extremely important, that's not my point. I'm saying we are taught the results are correct, when, due to the impossibility of reproduction we can't know whether the results are correct or incorrect. What should be discussed in the Milgram experiment is "we can't know the results of the experiment because one of the subjects killed themselves due to their participation. Try to consider the ethical implications, don't design experiments that might lead to psychological trauma, etc." The idea that the results being true is why we shouldn't do the experiment is wrong to do, is nonsense, because we can't know whether the results are true because can't replicate the experiment. Yet, it's results are published as a pop-science book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience_to_Authority:_An_Experimental_View https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obedience_to_Authority:_An_Exp... Instead, these two studies if their findings, not the ethics, are discussed at all, are a perfect illustration of the problems that Karl Popper discusses regarding falsifiability.

JetAlone 5y ago
I think one of the subjects killed themselves due to participation because of the deep inner tension caused by our struggles with obedience versus conscience. The results of the studies bear that out - people largely obey authority unto causing serious harm, that's what the studies tell us, and it's not an inordinate stretch to say that this dissonance causes a person to feel an urge to commit suicide such that, if few people obeyed authority giving malicious orders, they would feel little dissonance and would be way less likely to off themselves. And that's the connection between the results and the ethics. It may not be awfully scientific of me, but I'd yell you out of the quietest room on earth for trying to claim the results have no bearing on that.
- scoofy 5y ago
  "We can't know the results because we can't repeat the experiment," is exactly what I'd yell right back. Repeatability is required for falsifiability, and falsifiablity is required for empirical knowledge, period.
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    Then run the experiments again in secret. Find people who are so passionate about your epistemological model they are willing to take the risk of renegade experiments on themselves. That would be an actual adventure, much better than roleplaying a yelling match at each other in comments sections. EDIT: Hell, pretend play is for weaklings, I'll be your confederate jumbo-dumbo test taker faker, and let's go a step beyond the original experiment, let's have me actually suffer serious shocks in our Milgram Repro, for your n >= 30 guineau pigs to see. Then we'll know even better and that can be the new standard. And I'll be your confederate convict prime, set aside in especially horrible solitary confinement conditions for the Stanford Prison Repro. And when you watch me and others actually suffer horribly for days on end due to your decisions, I'm sure you'll simply have zero suicidal ideation, and you'll repeat your "we can't know!!!11!!1" drivel.
    - kinjba11 5y ago

lolinder 5y ago

> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid and don't need to be run again to re-verified or falsified. This would only be true if the hypothesis being tested in these experiments was "psychology as a field needs a code of ethics". That wasn't either hypothesis. "We need a code of ethics" does not imply "Milgram and Stanford prison proved ___ about authority figures".

OrderlyTiamat 5y ago

> If you believe that ethics code is appropriate, then you believe those studies are valid But why? The standord experiment was performative, it wasn't even an actual experiment, as shown from the experiment notes. How did you come to believe that it is mandatory to believe that study is valid?