Teacher Blog

Psychology and Ethics

Posted on January 27, 2009 at 11:33 AM Comments comments (7)

Would you listen to an order from an authority figure if you knew it was wrong?


 An article in the Cognitive Daily discusses how ABC News replicated a controversial experiment from 30 years ago about obedience to authority. Stanley Milgram's original study from the 1970's tricked unwitting paid study participants into believing that they had administered potentially deadly shocks at the bidding of an experimenter. 


The new study collaborates Milgram's results, but the larger question looms. Where do we draw the ethical line for studying psychological behaviors?