Milgram Study (1974)
Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist at Yale university, wanted to test the obedience to the authority. He set up an experiment with “teachers” who were the actual participants, and a “learner,” who was an actor. Both the teacher and the learner were told that the study was about memory and learning. Both the learner and the teacher received slips that they were told were given to them randomly, when in fact, both had been given slips that read “teacher.” The actor claimed to receive a “learner” slip, so the teacher was deceived. This is unethical because ethics say that deception should be avoided because the participants might be upset after they find out that they have been deceived and they also might feel bad about themselves. The experiment was conducted so that teachers and learners were separated into separate rooms and could only hear each other. The teacher read a pair of words, following by four possible answers to the question. If the learner was incorrect with his answer, the teacher was to administer a shock with voltage that increased with every wrong answer. If correct, there would be no shock, and the teacher would advance to the next question. In reality, no one was being given the electrical shocks and whenever the teacher administered a shock to the learner, there was a tape which had pre-recorded screams on it that played so that the teacher thought that he was really giving the learners an electrical shocks. When the voltage began to be high, the learners were banging on the wall and begged the teachers to stop but the authority which was standing next to the teacher kept on telling that the experiment has to keep going and that they can't stop. If after four orders the teacher still wished to stop the experiment, it was ended. Only 14 out of 40 teachers halted the experiment before administering a 450 volt shock, though every participant questioned the experiment, and no teacher firmly refused to stop the shocks before 300 volts. This experiment is unethical because first of all, it deceives the participants, second of all the participants were not aware of the real purpose and procedure of the experiment, and third of all it encouraged the people to act bad and hurt other people.
Dr. Harlow conducted an experiment on rhesus monkeys concerning social isolation. He took infant rhesus monkeys who had already bonded with their mothers and placed them in a stainless steel vertical chamber device alone with no contact in order to sever those bonds. The monkey had a choice to either be with a soft, fluffy toy which replaced the mother's touch that the monkey miss the most. The monkey also had a choice to stay with a "toy" which provided the food to it, but it was not fluffy and soft like the other toy. The findings were that the monkey almost all the time with the soft, fluffy imitation of his mom instead of spending the time with the toy that provided food. This shows that monkey missed its mom's touch the most. The monkey was kept in the chambers for up to one year. Many of these monkeys in the experiment came out of the chamber psychotic, and many did not recover. Dr. Harlow concluded that even a happy, normal childhood was no defense against depression which is common sense to most of the people. This experiment is unethical because the animal's welfare was not maintained as a result of separation of a baby monkey from its mother. It also has a long-term harm to the monkeys because after the experiment they started to suffer from depression. Moreover, this experiment did not really benefit neither the health or welfare of people and other animals afterwards because as many other researchers say the results of the experiment was common sense. As one of Dr. Harlow's experiment said, "Dr. Harlow kept the experiment going on to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive."
The Well of Despair (1960) - the monkey experiment
Dr. Harlow conducted an experiment on rhesus monkeys concerning social isolation. He took infant rhesus monkeys who had already bonded with their mothers and placed them in a stainless steel vertical chamber device alone with no contact in order to sever those bonds. The monkey had a choice to either be with a soft, fluffy toy which replaced the mother's touch that the monkey miss the most. The monkey also had a choice to stay with a "toy" which provided the food to it, but it was not fluffy and soft like the other toy. The findings were that the monkey almost all the time with the soft, fluffy imitation of his mom instead of spending the time with the toy that provided food. This shows that monkey missed its mom's touch the most. The monkey was kept in the chambers for up to one year. Many of these monkeys in the experiment came out of the chamber psychotic, and many did not recover. Dr. Harlow concluded that even a happy, normal childhood was no defense against depression which is common sense to most of the people. This experiment is unethical because the animal's welfare was not maintained as a result of separation of a baby monkey from its mother. It also has a long-term harm to the monkeys because after the experiment they started to suffer from depression. Moreover, this experiment did not really benefit neither the health or welfare of people and other animals afterwards because as many other researchers say the results of the experiment was common sense. As one of Dr. Harlow's experiment said, "Dr. Harlow kept the experiment going on to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive."