9 Unethical Psychological Experiments That Actually Happened

7. Milgram€™s Obedience Experiments

In 1963 Dr Stanley Milgram became known forevermore in the world of pop psychology as that bloke who made people electrocute each other. In actual fact, his study examined whether the Nazi atrocities of the 1940s were simply a result of servicemen doing as they were told. Cheerful stuff. All participants were assigned the role of €œteacher€ and told that they were administering electric shocks to another volunteer (the €œlearner€) located in the other room. The shocks incremented by 15 volts and were marked with labels such as €œStrong Shock€ and €œDanger: Severe Shock€ (pictured). However, the final three were simply marked with some ominous looking X symbols. As the voltage intensified, the learner would scream, bang on the wall, complain about his dickie heart and eventually fall silent and yet, despite feeling incredibly uncomfortable, 65% of participants went all the way to the full 450V shock with little persuasion from the experimenter. One participant became so stressed by the thought that he was electrocuting someone to death that he had an epileptic fit. Of course, there wasn€™t really any €œlearner€ receiving the shocks. A tape recording was used instead, and you can€™t kill a tape recording. To cap it all off, it turns out that the experiment might not have been as fruitful as first thought. It became apparent that the experimenters coerced the participants by insisting 25 times or more that they should continue. Furthermore, the study was repeated dozens of times and, in many cases, the obedient murderers were in the minority. It might well be that Milgram made hundreds of people temporarily think they were cold-blooded killers and didn€™t even have anything to show for it, despite his initial claims.