The Milgram Experiment & The Stanford Prison Experiment

Review these resources on the Milgram Experiment. Please write in the comment section if you believe the Experiment was valid (did it really measure what Milgram thought he was measuring?) and if you think it was ethical. Give your reasons.

The Milgram Experiment from Johannes Jørgensen on Vimeo.

Disclose TV Video on Milgram experiment

Stanford Prison Experiment Overview (13 min) from Ryan Beck on Vimeo.

Stanford Prison Experiment-Zimbardo from Sansa Morse on Vimeo.

Stanford Prison Experiment Video


Critique of Experiment

Second Critique

Milgram’s Experiment

Stanley Milgram Experiment

Milgram Experiment Ethics

In March, 2010, a French game show tried to duplicate the experiment. Here’s article about the show. And here’s a video about it:

Learn about an experiment that occurred ten years after the Milgram Experiment: The Stanford Prison Experiment.

Review this list of the Ten most unethical psychology experiments.

Check Out This Real-Life Milgram Experiment:

A hoax most cruel: Caller coaxed McDonald’s managers into strip-searching a worker

And a movie about it, Compliance.

And a review of the movie.

Ever Meek, Ever Malleable is from The New York Times.

Rethinking One of Psychology’s Most Infamous Experiments

Review of movies done on both experiments.

Stanford Prison Experiment clips:

Milgram movie clips:

Modern Milgram experiment sheds light on power of authority is from Nature.

Milgram Experiment Replicated With Same Results

33 thoughts on “The Milgram Experiment & The Stanford Prison Experiment

  1. Yes, I think the Experiment was valid. It did measure what Milgram thought he was measuring.
    No, I don’t think it is ethically moral because these people had no morals so they pushed the button just to hurt the people and they did it just to see pain. Although, each of them went through the same pain.

  2. The Milgram experiment seems to be not valid because the questions that were in the websites seem to be correct and reasonable rather then just believing the experiment.
    The sites explained how the experiment was very wrong and didnt have alot of reasonings.

  3. I don’t believe the experiment was valid. I do not believe it was ethical because i don’t believe human beings should be guilted over nothing. Humans shouldn’t be tested that way with them holding the same power over each other. It isn’t right to give people the wrong kind of power that they thought they held.

  4. I do not think that the experiment was valid, because it may not be true. People just sometimes believe what they are told. I think that it is wrong to test humans like that. It is still part of abuse and it is harming other people. I think that Milgram in some ways did measure what he wanted to.

  5. I think that this kinda of experiment isnt morally wrong. The experiment itself though isn;t morally incorrect because no one actually got hurt. Now ther people that are “inflicting the pain” are morally troubled. This experiment isnt really valid because you don’t actually know how the actual person would react if he/she were actually under going the shocks.

  6. I don’t think that this experiment was valid because they were messing with people mentally, their mentality, and intentionally. This expermient could have hurt these people in the long run and made them think that they were held against their will and being tortured.
    I don’t think this was ethical because, it doesn’t seem morally correct. Making people believe that they were being shocked in his obedient experiment just seems wrong. They affected these people, what if they were put in the same situation?

  7. The Milgram Experiment is valid because the results clearly showed that people still continued to shock the person. The subjects did not know that the shocks were fake so they must still have thought that they were causing serious pain. But the experimenter reassured them that he was responsible, not the subjects so maybe this skewed the results because the subjects had nothing to worry about.

  8. I think that the experiment was valid to an extent. Some people genuinely thought they were inflicting harm, the choice they made are the ones that count towards the real conclusion. The problem is the distrust of the many who knew or had doubt that it was real, whom only chose to harm those because they knew or had a very high suspicion nothing would happen. Its a classic case of ‘seeing is believing.’

  9. Ii believe this was valid and that this experiment did measure up to what Milgram was trying to prove. He tells them, the ones who are pressing the button “‘Please continue’, ‘Please go on’, ‘The experiment requires that you go on’, ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’, ‘You have no other choice, you must go on.'” and when they asked if they would get in trouble he would tell them that it will be his doing. When someone tells me that if i do this for them and they will blame themselves i would continue doing it. I believe that it was a good experiment for him to test on people.
    Maybe people like to hear others scream with pain.

  10. I think that this experiment was true. From the results from the experiment, most of the subjects did not want to go on with the experiment. They simply followed orders probably because they felt like they were not responsible for it. Like what happened in the war, war-criminals simply followed orders because they were told and probably did not want to kill people.

    I do not think that the experiment was ethical at all. People were lied to to do the experiment, and people would not stop ‘hurting’ the ones getting shocked. But if I were to be one of those people, I might have shocked them also for fear of what would happen to me. I would object to shocking them, but follow the orders.

  11. I think the experiment can be consider valid but it is not ethical. The Milgram Experiment can be valid because it is an experiment based on humans characteristics, a study of psychology. Although, the Milgram is a study it is not an ethical study because this experiment consider human as test subject and inflicting pain to the person. It’s like tricking the human brain and giving it power to torture the subject even when it is known to be horrible and making the experimenter feel guilty knowing their harming someone through pain.

  12. In my opinion i believed that it did all add up to his main point. Milgrim wanted to see if people would keep at it and at the end they did. It may be peer pressure, or the fact that someone is over their shoulder yelling at them.
    It does have a lot to do with ethics. Most people who are all about their religion and dont believe in tormenting people, at the end were the ones who kept following orders. although is could be going both ways, because some people just didnt care what was happening to the Actors on the other side.

  13. I think that it is valid because the participants knew fully well what they were doing they just didn’t know the whole truth. They did ask if they were fully responsible for the atrocities they were committing to the person they just met. Even if they were hurt I the long run if this was a real experiment where the person was actually getting shocked them would be mentally unstable. He did find out that people abbey authority with his research and concluded that anyone could do this given the right circumstances. They knew that they were going to electro shocks to another human being but did it anyway and some people went all the way to the max in this experiment.

  14. I don’t think the experiment was valid. I don’t think it was ethical because people should get hurt just because other people wanted to see another human being be in pain or believing that they are.

  15. some may think its wonrg some may think its not but if it was me i will just laugh because it is funny because the people who did the experiment was testing their moral

  16. I don’t believe the experiment is valid and ethical because it is wrong to torture somebody under someone’s control. Even though it was fake, it was still wrong. Although they did collect some information from the experiment, it was still not right. To test something, they should be notified beforehand.

  17. The whole experiment itself was fake. I don’t believe that it was right for anyone to have human test subjects. There is a point where it’s ok for someone to use people for the experiment but not in this case. It seemed more torturous for the subjects and it was morally wrong. Nice job loosers!!!

  18. I think this experiment was valid because Milgram did prvoe what he was trying to say. I don’t think it was ethical because no one got hurt during the experiment but messing with the people moral is also wrong.

  19. The experiment isn’t valid because people believe what they see rather than hearing and believing.I do think that he did measure a little bit of what he needed.But then i do not think it is ethical becasue they are torturing people and it is cruel mostly when it’s an experiment.

  20. I believe the experiment was valid because if you think it’s true, or you hear it, you might think it is real and think that you felt it. You won’t know that it is true or not. I think it wasn’t ethical because I don’t think people will feel bad with that guy being shocked.

  21. I think it was valid because the results Milgram got were accurate to what he was trying to test. He saw that most people were willing to press the button and follow orders.
    I think it was somewhat ethical because no one was actually getting shocked but it could of affected the subject who was pressing the button mental harm.

  22. I think Milgrams experiment answered his question. However the audio was disturbing to me. The experiment however was no ethical it was wrong for the person to participate in such a weird experiment though nobody was hurt. But the nerve people had to continue shocking the other person was so surprising. It shows some people just don’t seem to care, if the person was not related to them it was okay to hurt them. If the participant was felt guilty it was their entire fault for continuing on in the experiment. They could completely just stop and leave no matter how much people told them to go on.

  23. The experiment was valid, because even though it sounds and looks like someone is being hurt doesn’t mean that they’re hurt. No one was really damaged during the experiment.

  24. I don’t believe this experiment was valid because it isn’t fair to the innocent people who didn’t know they were being experimented on.

  25. I believe the experiment was invalid because they are messing with people’s head.That is like torturing someone. It is not ethical because it is wrong to be controlled by and to be tortured.

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