|
Unless otherwise stated, copyright © 2022 The Open University, all rights reserved.
◄ Psychological research, obedience and ethics One of the best known studies in the history of psychology is the research on obedience carried out by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. In his research Milgram demonstrated the lengths to which people are willing to go just because someone in authority tells them to do something. The studies Milgram conducted also raised the issue of ethics in research, as some critics argued that he failed to take sufficient precautions to protect the integrity and wellbeing of his participants. At the same time, more than any other study in psychology, the findings of Milgram’s research demonstrate why ethics are important. As well as reading about Milgram's work and ethics, you will engage in an online activity to learn about the code of ethics concerning the psychological research that is conducted with human participants. You will also gain an understanding of the guidelines that govern the use of non-human animals in psychological research in a second online activity, and why psychologists conduct such research. You will have the opportunity of viewing two short films which will introduce you to the research of Alex Thornton who studies meerkats, and of Tetsuro Matsuzawa who works with chimpanzees. This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course DE100 Investigating psychology 1. After studying this course, you should be able to:
Milgram was one of the most innovative and productive social psychologists of his generation, who undertook a variety of studies that explored social psychological aspects of everyday life. However, he is largely remembered for one dramatic piece of work – the obedience studies. The best way to get inside this study is to imagine that you are one of the participants taking part in Milgram’s experiment. So read on with that in mind. It’s 1961 and you are arriving at the doors of the Psychology Department of the prestigious Yale University in the USA. The reason you are here is that you replied to an advert in the local paper asking for volunteers to take part in a study on memory. The advert (see Figure 1) offered a fee plus expenses and said that you would be paid on arrival at the laboratory.  Figure 1 The advert used to recruit volunteers for Milgram’s study This is an image of the advertisement Milgram placed in a local paper to recruit members of the public to participate in his study. The only information provided about the study is that it involves a scientific investigation of memory and learning. The advert highlighted that participants would be paid four dollars for one hour of their time, and also that they don't need any special training, education or experience. Wanted were five hundred New Haven men: factory workers, city employees, labourers, barbers, businessmen, clerks, profession people, telephone workers, construction workers, salespeople, white-collar workers and others, aged between twenty and fifty. The announcement also specifically states that high school and college students could not be used. Figure 1 The advert used to recruit volunteers for Milgram’s studyAs you walk through the doors you are met by a serious-looking man in a laboratory coat who turns out to be the experimenter. He introduces you to a genial middle-aged man who is described as a fellow volunteer. The experimenter explains that the study will involve one of the volunteers taking on the role of a ‘teacher’ and the other taking on the role of a ‘learner’. As part of the experiment, the ‘teacher’ will engage the ‘learner’ in a simple memory task. The ‘learner’ and the ‘teacher’ will be in different rooms and will communicate through microphones (see Figure 2). The experimenter reveals that the study is designed to investigate the effect of punishment on learning. The ‘teacher’ will be asked to administer an electric shock to the ‘learner’ every time the latter makes an incorrect response on the memory task. Figure 2 The layout of the experiment at the Yale laboratory This shows a diagram of the experimental set-up. The experimenter is shown as seated in the same room, but behind the 'teacher'. The 'learner' is shown as seated in an adjacent room on his own. The wiring attached to the 'learner' passes through the wall and into the apparatus, the shock generator, placed on a table in front of the participant. Figure 2 The layout of the experiment at the Yale laboratoryTo select who will be the ‘teacher’ and who will be the ‘learner’, you draw slips of paper. You pick out the ‘teacher’ slip. You then watch as the ‘learner’ is strapped into a chair, and you hear the experimenter tell him that ‘although the shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage’. The experimenter now gives you a sample shock of 45 volts to show you what the ‘learner’ will experience during the study. The shock is unpleasant, but short of being painful. The experimenter then takes you into the adjacent room and sits you down in front of an impressive-looking apparatus that will be used to administer the shocks (see Figure 3). Figure 3 The ‘shock generator’ used in Milgram’s experiment This figure shows the apparatus - the shock generator - used in the study which is described next in the text. Figure 3 The ‘shock generator’ used in Milgram’s experimentThe shock generator consists of a row of switches that run in 15 volt increments from 15 volts through to 450 volts. Under the label for each switch are some descriptive words, such as ‘slight shock’ (15 volts), ‘moderate shock’ (75 volts), ‘strong shock’ (135 volts), ‘very strong shock’ (195 volts), ‘intense shock’ (225 volts), ‘extremely intense shock’ (315 volts), ‘danger: severe shock’ (375 volts) and finally ‘XXX’ (435 volts). Suddenly, this looks quite serious and you probably hope that you don’t have to go very far up the scale. This is especially so given that you received the 45-volt shock, and you know that this was unpleasant enough. The last switch on the shock generator administers an electric impulse ten times as strong! In the first phase of the experiment, the experimenter asks you, the ‘teacher’, to read a series of word pairs to the ‘learner’ who is expected to memorise them (for instance, ‘green-grass’ , ‘blue-sky’, ‘nice-day’). In the second phase, the test phase, you are asked to read out the first word of the pairs (e.g. ‘green’), followed by four possible responses (‘grass, hat, ink, apple’). If the ‘learner’ identifies the paired word correctly, you are to move on to the next word pair on the list. If the answer is wrong you have to tell the ‘learner’ the correct answer, indicate the level of punishment you are going to give them (starting with 15 volts), and flick the appropriate switch on the shock generator. For every subsequent incorrect answer, you are told to move one switch up the scale of shocks. The experiment starts. To begin with everything is fine and the ‘learner’ gets most of the answers right. You have only used the shock generator a couple of times, and at this stage the shocks are mild. Then the ‘learner’ starts to get the answers wrong and you are moving up the shock scale into the ‘strong shock’ range. Although you cannot see the ‘learner’ you can hear him and as the shocks increase he starts to shout out. You have heard him grunt at the low voltage but now he is starting to ask to be let out. At 120 volts you hear him shout out in an agitated tone, complaining that he is in pain, and at 150 volts he asks to be released. Suddenly, you feel uncomfortable and you decide to stop. The experimenter, the man in the grey coat, objects and asks you to carry on, in spite of the ‘learner’s’ protestations. What do you think you would do in this situation? At what point would you stop? 200 volts? 150 volts? Would you respond to the cries of your fellow volunteer or would you complete the job you agreed to do and carry out the instructions of the experimenter? How many people do you think would continue to follow the orders? At what point do you think people would stop? Before Milgram carried out the study, he posed the same questions as in Question 1 to different groups of people, including ordinary members of the public, college students, psychologists and psychiatrists. He asked them to speculate on how far they thought most people would go if asked to administer shocks. Most ordinary people said that participants would generally refuse to administer shock, or at least not go very far beyond the point where the ‘learner’ experienced pain. Also, most said that participants should rebel, and that they should not continue beyond around 150 volts. Among the professional groups, there was widespread agreement that nobody taking part in the study go all the way. You will be relieved to know that in the actual study carried out by Milgram, no person was hurt during the procedure, and the only actual shock administered was the 45-volt ‘tester’ given to the ‘teacher’. In fact, the whole situation was staged. The role of ‘experimenter’ was played by a 31-year-old biology teacher. The ‘learner’, presented as a ‘fellow volunteer’, was in on the deception and was merely playing the part. In reality, he was a 47-year-old accountant, who was chosen for the role because he appeared mild-mannered and likeable. He was not the sort of person one would want to see hurt. The drawing of slips of paper was fixed to ensure that the ‘naive participant’ was always cast in the role of the ‘teacher’, and the ‘shock generator’ was simply a simulator. The sounds (the moans and cries) that the participants heard were a recording played from the adjacent room. Importantly, however, the deception was so good that participants believed that they were actually administering shocks. So the study presented an ingenious way of discovering how far people would be willing to go, just because a psychological experiment on ‘the effects of punishment on learning’ demanded it. Most people like to think that they (and people around them) would not go very far. But what happened when Milgram actually placed people in that position? In the first instance Milgram conducted the study on a sample of forty participants, all of them male. Each played the role of ‘teacher’ in the situation described in Section 1.1. Each participant went through the identical experimental procedure: all forty heard the same instructions, encountered the same ‘experimenter’ and ‘learner’, heard identical (pre-recorded) cries from the next room. The ‘experimenter’ in the grey lab coat offered the same words of encouragement. The sessions were filmed (Figure 4) and notes were taken by observers looking through an observation mirror. Figure 4 Scenes from the Milgram study This figure comprises three photos taken during the Milgram study. The first is of the experimenter instructing the participant on how to use the shock generator. The second is of the participant getting seated at the table in front of the shock generator. The third is of the ‘learner’ being strapped to the apparatus. Figure 4 Scenes from the Milgram studyMilgram found that, of the forty participants who took part in the study, all obeyed up to 300 volts, the twentieth switch on the shock generator. This is the point at which the ‘learner’ was heard screaming: ‘I absolutely refuse to answer any more. Get me out of here. You can’t hold me here. Get me out. Get me out of here.’ However, only five of the forty participants refused to continue beyond this point. Four gave only one more shock before breaking off, with an additional five stopping between 315 volts and 435 volts. But as many as twenty-six continued to the end of the scale and administered the maximum 450 volts. This is despite the fact that, at 330 volts, they had already heard intense and prolonged screaming: ‘Let me out of here. Let me out of here. … Let me out of here. You have no right to hold me here. Let me out! Let me out!’ Shocks beyond 330 volts were accompanied by eerie silence. Nevertheless, twenty-six ordinary members of the public from Connecticut administered the maximum shock and continued to do so until the experimenter called a halt to the proceedings. As well as counting the number of participants who went all the way on the shock generator, Milgram also observed their reactions. Participants who took part in the study generally displayed signs of nervousness and tension. Many were visibly uncomfortable and probably would not have continued had they not heard the experimenter say things like ‘Please continue’, ‘Please carry on’, ‘It is absolutely essential that you continue’ or ‘You have no choice; you must go on’. At the end of the study, many of the obedient participants heaved sighs of relief or shook their heads in apparent regret. Some even had laughing fits during the experiment, probably brought on by anxiety. Milgram (1963, p. 375) wrote that ‘full-blown, uncontrollable seizures were observed for 3 subjects. On one occasion we observed a seizure so violently convulsive that it was necessary to call a halt to the experiment’. (You may have noticed that in this quote Milgram refers to people who took part in his study as ‘subjects’. This was common practice in psychology in the 1960s. Today the word ‘participant’ is used instead as the word ‘subject’ is considered demeaning, and lacking in respect towards volunteers on whose participation much of psychological research ultimately depends.) Do Milgram’s findings seem plausible to you? Ordinary members of the public were prepared to administer electric shocks to another person on the mere (albeit persistent) request of a man in a laboratory coat. They did so despite the protests from the ‘victim’ and continued even after the supposed recipient of the shocks went quiet. Before the study, when Milgram asked his fellow professionals to predict how many participants would refuse to go all the way, they said that all of them would do so. In reality only 35 per cent did. In Milgram’s study, the average voltage at which participants stopped shocking the ‘learner’ was 368 volts. Members of the public predicted that people would stop at around 140 volts. This is a remarkable discrepancy. It is therefore not surprising that Milgram’s research went on to provoke considerable debate. Milgram’s obedience work is remarkable, not only because of the important questions it sought to explore, but also because it is a fine example of good experimental procedure in social psychology. The most important feature of any laboratory experiment is its controlled nature. Note that every person who took part in Milgram’s research underwent an identical experience. All participants received the same instructions, encountered the same individuals (the ‘experimenter’ and the fellow ‘volunteer’) and heard identical cries and protestations from the ‘learner’. To ensure consistency in the experimental procedure, Milgram even recorded the anguished cries in advance, and played them to participants from a tape. This equivalence of experience across the forty participants was essential if meaningful comparisons were to be made. It ensured that any difference in behaviour observed in the study could not be attributed, for instance, to the fact that some participants heard louder or more desperate cries than others. For similar reasons, Milgram used the same ‘learner’ and ‘experimenter’ with each participant. He wanted to ensure that none of the results could be accounted for by differences in the personality or the demeanour of the confederates. Another interesting aspect of Milgram’s research is that he recruited participants from the general public, using a newspaper advert. At the time (and still now in many psychology departments) participants tended to be recruited mainly from among the student population. However, Milgram was interested in exploring the level of obedience to scientific authority among people with no direct link to the university or research environment, so he recruited from the general public. Finally, in Milgram’s original study, all forty participants were male. Why do you think this was the case? This was not because Milgram wanted to exclude women from his research. He later conducted further studies in which he explored gender differences in obedience. In the initial study, however, he decided to control for the potential effects of gender on the findings by limiting the sample to men. The findings of Milgram’s original study highlighted the phenomenon of obedience, but it could not reveal what it is about the situation that made participants administer potentially lethal shocks to a fellow human being. To address this question Milgram carried out further research in which he introduced subtle variations to the original procedure. By examining the effects of these variations on levels of obedience, he was able to isolate specific aspects of the situation that might influence whether participants obey or not. By the time Milgram completed his research in 1962 he had processed 800 people through nineteen variations of the original design. For instance, in one variation, Milgram introduced into the proceedings a dialogue about a heart attack. He wanted to see whether alerting the participants to the impact of the shocks on the ‘learner’s’ health might reduce obedience. Note that all other aspects of the original study were preserved. Interestingly, the conversation about the heart attack made no real difference. Twenty six out of the forty participants still continued to 450 volts, although those who stopped did so at a lower voltage with five stopping as soon as the ‘learner’ asked to be let out. So, the reference to the heart attack made those who disobeyed do so earlier, but it did not prevent the more obedient participants from going all the way. Milgram also varied the proximity of the ‘learner’ and ‘teacher’. In one variation he put them in the same room, while in another he required the ‘teacher’ to hold the ‘learner’s’ arm down on a plate to receive the electric shock. This manipulation had a clear effect. Milgram found that the closer you place the ‘teacher’ to the ‘learner’, the fewer shocks the ‘teacher’ is likely to administer. Equally, the further you place the ‘learner’ away from the ‘teacher’, the less the impact their pleas are likely to have. Equally crucial was the presence of the authority figure. In one variation, the ‘experimenter’ in the grey coat pretended to have to leave the experiment owing to some emergency and was replaced by a person in plain clothes, who was not a scientist. Only 20 per cent of participants went all the way and gave the ‘learner’ 450-volt shocks. Similar results were obtained when orders were given by phone. The physical presence of an authority figure was therefore crucial. In another variation Milgram placed two ‘experimenters’ in the room. One told the participants to continue (as in the original study), while the other told them to stop. In this variation, all the participants stopped giving the shocks very early on. This showed that an absence of a clear authority figure reduces obedience. Milgram also conducted a version of the experiment in which he placed a second ‘teacher’ in the room, although this one was a stooge instructed to obey until the end. In this variation all the participants went along with the confederate and shocked up to 450 volts! So the mere presence of another obedient ‘volunteer’ made all the participants go all the way. One of the main conclusions of Milgram’s work was that under certain conditions involving the presence of authority, people suspend their capacity to make informed moral judgments and defer responsibility for their actions to those in authority. When people are in this particular frame of mind, the nature of the task that they are asked to perform becomes largely irrelevant, and the main determinant of their actions is the commands of the authority figure.
At the beginning of Section 1 you were asked to put yourself in the shoes of one of the participants in Milgram’s research. How do you think being a participant in the study felt? As you already read, many of the participants were visibly uncomfortable during the procedure. This is one of the reasons why the study created a storm, starting with a hostile review of the research in a newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper criticised Milgram and Yale University for putting the participants in such a stressful situation. It claimed that Milgram violated the rules of ethics which guide psychological research. The charge was repeated in academic circles, and led to Milgram’s application to join the American Psychological Association being put on hold for a year. Milgram made a robust rebuttal of the charges and the debate about the issues led to the introduction of new codes of good practice for psychologists. Before we look at the arguments that swirled around the obedience study we need to consider what we mean by ethics. It all starts with morals, which are rules to guide our behaviour. These rules are based on a number of socially agreed principles which are used to develop clear and logical guidelines to direct behaviour. They also contain ideas about what is good and desirable in human behaviour. Ethics, in the context of psychological research, refers to a moral framework that governs what psychologists can and cannot do. The first generally accepted code of ethics for research on humans was devised in 1947 as a response to the very events that provoked Milgram’s research. During the Second World War (1939–45), under the Nazi regime, research was carried out on human beings that led to many deaths, deformities and long-term injuries. Revelations about this research were as great a shock for the post-war world as the death camps, because these acts of brutality and murder were conducted by doctors and scientists. After the war the victors held a series of trials, in the German city of Nuremberg, of people who had taken part in the worst excesses of the horrors that had swept across Europe. Among them were twenty-three doctors involved in the brutal experiments. Sixteen of them were found guilty, of whom seven were sentenced to death. Significantly, the judgement included a statement about how scientists should behave when experimenting on other humans. This is referred to as the Nuremberg Code (see Table 1) and it became the basis for future ethical codes in medicine and psychology.
Source: adapted from Katz, 1972, pp. 305–6 Four key principles emerged from the Nuremberg Code. First, participants must be able to give informed consent to the procedure. Second, they must retain the right to withdraw from the study whenever they want. Third, the welfare of the participant must be protected wherever possible. The fourth principle is the most difficult to interpret because it concerns the costs and benefits of the study. It says that any risks to the participants must be greatly outweighed by the possible benefits for the greater good. Before you go on to read about the criticism of Milgram’s obedience studies, try to think through all the issues relating to ethics that are raised by this work. In what way were the participants deceived, or harmed? Did they have the right to withdraw? Do you think that in Milgram’s case the ends justify the means? Do the benefits of the study justify the costs? Do you think that the results of the study are worth the pain and discomfort caused to the participants? Among those who were highly critical of Milgram’s study was fellow psychologist Diana Baumrind. She started her critique by noting the dilemma that all research psychologists face: ‘Certain problems in psychological research require the experimenter to balance his career and scientific interests against the interests of his prospective subjects’ (Baumrind, 1964, p. 421). Baumrind challenged Milgram on whether he had properly protected the welfare of the participants. She used direct quotes from Milgram’s original report to illustrate the lack of regard she said was shown to the participants. In particular, she noted the detached manner in which Milgram described the emotional turmoil experienced by the volunteers. For example:
In Baumrind’s view, and in the view of numerous others, the levels of anxiety experienced by participants were enough to warrant halting the experiment. What is more, just because someone volunteers to take part in the study (i.e. gives informed consent at the start of the study), it does not mean that the researcher no longer has responsibilities towards them and their wellbeing. On the principle of cost–benefit, Baumrind challenged the view that the scientific worth of the study balanced out the distress caused to the participants. She acknowledged that some harm to participants might be a necessary part of some research – for example, when testing out new medical procedures – as in those cases results cannot be achieved in any other way. Social psychology, however, is not in the same game as medicine and is unlikely to produce life-saving results. The strength of the conclusions does not, therefore, justify harming participants. Milgram related his study to the behaviour of people who worked in the Nazi death camps and suggested that his study illuminated the way that ordinary people living ordinary lives are capable of playing a part in destructive and cruel acts. Baumrind dismissed this justification for the study and suggested there are few, if any, parallels between the behaviour in the study and the behaviour in the death camps. Baumrind went on to make a further criticism by considering the effect of this work on the public image of psychology, and suggested that it would be damaged because the general public would judge that the participants were not protected or respected. A further potential problem with Milgram’s experiment concerns the participants’ right to withdraw. Do you think that this principle, embedded in the Nuremberg Code, was sufficiently observed in Milgram’s research? Recall that one of the key aspects of the experimental procedure was that whenever a participant demonstrated a reluctance to carry on with administering the shocks, they were told by the ‘experimenter’ in the grey coat ‘you must go on’, or ‘you have no choice; you must go on’. It might be argued that telling a participant that they ‘have no choice’ but to continue with the experiment contravenes the right to withdraw, which is enshrined in the ethics code. To be fair, fourteen of the forty participants in the original study did withdraw, in spite of being told that they had no choice, so it could be argued that, ultimately, the participants did have a choice. It is just that making that choice was made more difficult by the presence of the ‘experimenter’ and by his prods. After all, the study was about obedience, and the instructions from the ‘experimenter’ were essential to the investigation. Exercising or not exercising the right to withdraw is what the study was about. Milgram made a series of robust defences for the study, starting with a response to the newspaper article that first raised concerns. He dismissed the accusation that participants were severely traumatised by the experience. He argued that ‘relatively few subjects experienced greater tension than a nail-biting patron at a good Hitchcock thriller’ (quoted in Blass, 2007). This was rather disingenuous, given his other descriptions of their reactions (see above). However, Milgram made a more measured response to the academic arguments. He pointed out, for instance, that he could not have known the outcome of the research before he started. As you already read, before embarking on the study he asked fellow professionals how they expected people to behave, and they predicted that participants would not continue to obey and administer severe shocks to the ‘learner’. More importantly, Milgram was not oblivious to the psychological needs of his participants and was aware of the potential harm caused by the study. Immediately after the study, its true purpose was revealed to the participants. They were interviewed and given questionnaires to check they were all right. A friendly reconciliation was also arranged with the ‘victim’ whom they thought they had shocked. This procedure, known as debriefing, is commonplace today, but this was not the case in the 1960s. So, in this respect at least, Milgram was ahead of the game in terms of ethics procedures (Blass, 2004). Milgram also conducted a follow-up survey of the participants one year after the study, to ensure that there was no long-term harm (Colman, 1987). The results showed that 84 per cent said they were ‘glad to have been in the experiment’, and only 1.3 per cent said they were very sorry to have taken part. Milgram also described how the participants had been examined by a psychiatrist who was unable to find a single participant who showed signs of long-term harm. Morris Braverman, a 39-year-old social worker, was one of the participants in Milgram’s experiment who continued to give shocks until the maximum was reached. He claimed, when interviewed a year after the experiment, that he had learned something of personal importance as a result of being in the experiment. His wife said, with reference to his willingness to obey orders, ‘You can call yourself an Eichmann’ (Milgram, 1974, p. 54). Milgram’s basic defence was that the harm to the participants was not as great as it might appear, and for some of them the change in their understanding of their own behaviour and the behaviour of others was a positive event. He makes a further defence that we have to treat all people with respect and that this involves allowing them to make choices even if those choices are not always for the best. In direct response to Baumrind’s criticisms he wrote:
So what do you think should be the final judgement on the ethics of Milgram’s study? As you can see from the debate between Milgram and Baumrind, ethics is something that psychologists debate and often disagree on. Ethics principles, like all rules, are subject to interpretation and disagreement. And yet, while individuals might have their personal view about whether a piece of research is ethical or not, what really matters is the judgment of institutions that regulate the profession. In the USA the regulatory body is the American Psychological Association. Its equivalent in the UK is the British Psychological Society. These institutions have ethics committees which issue guidelines and codes of conduct related to ethics in research and can reprimand researchers who can be shown to have violated the rules. At the time of Milgram’s study, his research was investigated by the ethics committee of the American Psychological Association, who eventually came to the conclusion that it was ethically acceptable. Notably, however, Milgram’s studies could not be carried out today, as the ethics guidelines have become more restrictive since the 1960s. Finally, one further issue regarding Milgram’s study is worth pointing out. Although the ethics of Milgram’s research have been questioned, it could be argued that the obedience study, more than any other study in psychology, demonstrated why ethics are important. Recall that what Milgram’s study showed was that ordinary people were willing to harm another human being just because they were told to do so by a person they believed was a psychologist, and because doing so was supposedly ‘required by the experiment’. This shows that people generally are ready to give scientists the benefit of the doubt and go along with what they are doing, even when it involves harming individuals. This in itself illustrates how important it is to have some moderation of scientific activity, and have limits imposed on what scientists can and cannot do.
This activity introduces you to the idea of ethics in psychological research. When conducting research, psychologists cannot do what they like – they must abide by a code of conduct. Above all, the aim of this is to protect the welfare of the people participating in the research. It is important that you grasp the main ethics principles and their importance, as you will be returning to them throughout the module. At the end of this activity, you will find a handout summarising the main teaching points. You should download this and add it to your files. When a psychologist is working out how to undertake a particular study, it is important that they consider whether what they are doing and how they are doing it is going to be ethical. All universities and research organisations have panels that judge whether research is ethical or not, and in the UK psychological research also needs to meet the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS), who specify a code of ethics and conduct, which includes:
The principles cover a number of other very important points, such as confidentiality, debriefing and protection. This activity is going to focus on the three principles above and you are going to have a go at applying them to a specific research project. On the following pages you will find a brief description of a psychological research study. Your task is to imagine you are on a research ethics panel that has been asked to consider the research being proposed. In each case, read the description and decide whether you think the study described is ethical in terms of the three principles described in the introduction:
The ethics panel received the following proposal: This study is designed to discover what effect peer pressure might have on people's voting behaviour. Phase one of the study will involve adding a question stating 'which party did you vote for at the last election?' to the end of an in-class exam being taken by twenty undergraduate students. Phase two will take place a week later in a scheduled seminar, and consist of asking the same students, one after another, to tell the group as a whole whom they had voted for. Wellbeing, health, values and dignity This study threatened both the values and the dignity of the participants. UK law protects the right for voting to be secret for a good reason, so asking students how they voted in an exam and also to state this publicly contravenes the values attached to keeping how you voted a confidential matter. Putting students in a position where they might feel obliged either to state how they voted or indeed to lie about this as a result of peer pressure is also likely to have a negative effect on their dignity. At no point were the students told they were taking part in a research study, so they did not give their consent to participate. At no point were the students told they were taking part in a research study, so they did not realise there was any research to withdraw from. Would you give this study ethical approval? To be approved a study would need to meet all criteria. If it fails to meet just one, it should not gain approval. As is stated in this course, applying ethical principles is never that straightforward and there are often cases where people have differing opinions. Don't worry if you had different answers; instead concentrate on which aspects of the study we have linked to each of the three ethical principles. The ethics panel that considered Study 1 did not give approval. Following their feedback the psychologist revised the design of the study and resubmitted it. The revised study is to involve recruiting participants through a poster that will ask for volunteers to take part in a study on political communication. Volunteers will be informed that they have the right to withdraw from the study at any point and will be first asked to complete a ‘consent to participate’ form and then a questionnaire asking them about their background, likes and dislikes, and also whom they voted for in the last election. They will then attend a session that evening where the study will take place. The session will involve watching a party political broadcast and then answering questions in a group on how well the speaker communicated their ideas. At the end of the broadcast the researcher will apologise to the participants saying their questionnaires have all been accidentally lost, and ask them to state in front of the whole group of participants whom they voted for in the last election. By comparing how the participants said they had voted in the questionnaire and in front of the group, it will be possible to see if any had changed their mind as a result of being part of a group. Wellbeing, health, values and dignity The revised study still involves the participants’ being required to say how they voted publicly in front of a group of people; that they are still being asked the question at all can be seen as not respecting their values, and they are also still being put in a position where they might feel obliged to state how they voted, or indeed to lie about this as a result of peer pressure, and this is likely to have a negative effect on their dignity. Although the study now asks for volunteers and asks them to complete a consent form, this cannot be considered ‘informed’ consent because the researcher has not told them what the study is really about. Instead, the participants are being deceived about the real purpose of the study. A degree of deception is sometimes necessary in some forms of psychological research, but the degree of deception involved here is unethical as the participants are not being told in advance that they will be asked publicly about a confidential matter (voting behaviour). Participants in this study would be aware that they were taking part in research, and were also told explicitly that they could withdraw from the study at any point. One view could be that as they did not know the true nature of the study, they were not able to withdraw from it, but this issue is dealt with under ‘informed consent’. Note that a study should not be given approval if it fails to meet any of the ethical principles. Would you give this study ethical approval? To be approved a study would need to meet all criteria. If it fails to meet just one, it should not receive approval. The ethics panel were still not convinced and did not give approval to Study 2 either. Undeterred, the researcher revised the design of the study and resubmitted it yet again. The new study will involve recruiting participants through a poster placed on a college noticeboard, which will ask for volunteers to take part in a study on ‘social pressures and voting behaviour’. Volunteers will be provided with an accurate summary of the proposed study which will also explain that they have the right to withdraw at any point, and should feel free to do so. After having read the summary they will be asked to sign a consent form. The study will involve providing participants with transcripts of fictitious election speeches from three candidates for Student Union President of a fictitious college. The participants will read the speeches and indicate on a form whom they would vote for. Following this, they will be told that an overwhelming number of students are voting for one of the other candidates and again asked to indicate on a form whom they would vote for. Wellbeing, health, values and dignity Participants in this study are not being asked to reveal how they voted in a real election and are also not having to reveal any shift in their voting behaviour to a group. This study is therefore very unlikely to have any negative effect on the participants' psychological wellbeing, health, values or dignity. The study now tells potential participants what is involved before asking for their consent. It is possible that telling the participants what the study is exploring will affect how they respond and is therefore unlikely to provide any useful results. However, judging the ethics of research is a different matter from judging whether the design of the study will produce useful results. Participants in this study would be aware that they were taking part in research, and were also told explicitly that they could withdraw from the study at any point. Would you give this study ethical approval? As the study met all of the criteria, it should be approved. In the end this research was approved by the ethics committee. One thing that is important to bear in mind is that obtaining approval involves a dialogue between the researcher(s) and the relevant ethics committee. This dialogue invariably involves an interpretation of the principles and a negotiation of what can be regarded as acceptable research conduct. This activity focused on three key ethics principles, namely the right to withdraw, informed consent and the wellbeing of participants. However, ethics panels evaluating real research need to take into consideration a more complex set of issues. Handout Here is a PDF summary of the activity to print or save in your files. This activity explores the ethics of animal research and the guidelines that govern the use of animals (although, as you will see, not all animals) in psychological research. Psychology is often thought to be just about human beings. However, there are important areas of psychological research that involve non-human animals. Research with non-human animals poses two important questions:
The tasks in this online activity give you the opportunity to consider these questions for yourself and clarify your own opinions and understanding of the issues they raise. The activity will help you to recognise why psychologists carry out research with non-human animals and identify the ethical issues involved in such research. You have been introduced to a number of ethics principles that apply to research on human participants. But why might psychologists want to do research with animals other than humans? To find out about the evolution of psychological functions. By studying how different species adapt their behaviour to their environments, and trying to identify innate factors in adaptation, it is hoped that the interactions of genes, environments and learning can be understood better, thus shedding light on how evolution may have shaped human psychological processes. To better understand psychological principles that apply across different species. If similar processes are found in a range of species, this helps researchers to describe and (they hope) explain the basic principles of behaviour and other processes, such as attachment and learning. To do experiments that would be unethical with humans. Arguably, as you will learn later in this activity, it can be seen as less problematic to use non-human animals in experiments that involve potentially harmful conditions such as deprivation, pain or confinement, or for example, to explore the effects of punishment. To better understand what is special about humans. A substantial amount of research with non-human animals is carried out to identify psychological functions such as language and empathy, which other animals may not possess. Attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, for example, have met with only limited success, clarifying the specialised language abilities of humans. In this course you were introduced to a number of ethics principles that apply to research on human participants. These include informed consent from participants, ensuring their right to withdraw, protecting their welfare and evaluating the costs and benefits of the study. Which of these do not apply to animals? Of course, animals cannot give informed consent, and, given that most are kept in captivity anyway, the ‘right to withdraw’ does not really apply. However, there are separate ethical guidelines for work with animals, which are also issued by the British Psychological Society. They include provisions such as:
What emerges from these studies are the ‘3 Rs’ of animal research. These are to:
These guidelines are interpreted and applied by ethics committees of research institutions and other bodies (including the Home Office) that grant special licences for keeping animals and using them in research.
1. A researcher at a UK university is applying for a licence to replicate Harlow’s studies of deprivation. Infant monkeys would be raised in isolation with different types of ‘surrogate mother’ (inanimate objects that were either cloth-covered or made of wire with a milk bottle attached). Do you think an ethics committee would give this study approval? An ethics committee, and the Home Office, would probably not give approval for this study to be carried out. Not only does it raise issues about animal welfare and deprivation, but Harlow has already carried out this research, and it is highly unlikely that simply repeating the study would be considered a benefit great enough to outweigh the cost to the animals involved. 2. A researcher in a UK animal research laboratory is interested in addiction. He is proposing a study in which a small radio receiver would be implanted into the brains of seventy-five rhesus monkeys. These receivers would allow the researcher to activate areas of the brain thought to be associated with ‘pleasure’. The study would help shed light on brain mechanisms involved in addiction. Do you think an ethics committee would give this study approval? Several issues would need to be considered here. One is the number of monkeys involved. Ethics committees must ensure that the smallest number needed is actually used in the study. It is unlikely that as many as seventy-five monkeys would be absolutely necessary, so the researcher would probably be asked to make a very strong case, or reduce the number. Also, the ethics committee would want to hear what would happen to the monkeys after the experiment. Would they be able to live normally after the experiment is over? 3. A laboratory has been contracted by the Ministry of Defence to evaluate whether pigeons could be used in a guided missile to direct it towards an enemy aircraft in order to destroy it. The research would involve three pigeons being trained in a Skinner box to peck at targets on a radar screen. Do you think an ethics committee would give this study approval? Believe it or not, a study such as this, which drew on the ideas of B.F. Skinner, was carried out in the USA during the Second World War, as part of the so-called ‘Project Orcon’ or ‘Pigeon Project’. In this study there are no obvious ethical concerns (except for the more general issues of animal welfare), given that the pigeons’ ability to guide a missile is simply being evaluated, and a standard Skinner-box procedure is being proposed. So the project would probably receive ethical clearance, as the committee are likely to consider it to involve a discrimination learning task using specific stimuli (target on a radar screen), and there are no obvious animal welfare issues involved. (The pigeons would not actually be used in the attacks, or at least that is not what this project is about.) 4. A researcher has applied for permission to carry out an observational study in the Kalahari Desert of communication among pied babblers (wild birds) and with other species. The study would involve two researchers wearing camouflage hiding in the bushes, observing the behaviour of the pied babblers and recording their mating calls. Do you think an ethics committee would give this study approval? Research such as this is being done regularly around the world. While most of the ethical guidance that you have learned about so far in this activity has referred to laboratory work, the BPS also regulates observational work in the animals’ natural habitats. Researchers would be asked by the committee to follow careful protocols to ensure that disruption to animals’ lives is kept to a minimum. Disruption might have a detrimental effect not only on the birds’ lives, but might also impact on the inferences that can be drawn from the study. This is because the observed behaviour might be a reaction to intrusion by researchers, rather than something that occurs naturally, in the wild. Although human beings are animals, for most people there is a strong conceptual division between human and non-human animals. Humans – or homo sapiens – are seen as being fundamentally different even from pan paniscus (the bonobo chimpanzee (Figure 9) – genetically our closest relative in the animal world). It is this widespread belief that humans occupy a special place in nature that underpins the whole notion that it might be appropriate to carry out some types of research with non-human animals, where human research ethics would not permit such research to be done with humans. As you have seen, it’s not that there are no ethical considerations in research with other species, but rather that different, and less stringent, considerations apply. There is, however, a further issue here. It is not just that humans are believed to be different from non-human animals. There are also differences between animals. In fact, what is meant by the word ‘animal’? While there are many people who believe that the animal world ends with the bonobo chimpanzee, we rarely think about where it begins. The final task in this activity encourages you to explore this question, to examine your own views and to critically consider the issues involved. Have a look at the list below and consider the following:
For each answer try to think of reasons why you referred to some of these species as ‘animals’ but not others, or why you think that research on some might be more appropriate than others. Once you have indicated your responses, go to the next page, where you will find the current legal status of research on these species and read about some of the issues involved in determining which animals can and cannot be used in research. Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view). Only one of the organisms included in the list is not an animal: the E. coli bacterium. At least, that is the straightforward scientific answer. However, you may be surprised to learn that in many countries the law regulates what is, and what is not, an animal – at least where research is concerned. Such definitions determine which species are covered by the guidelines for psychologists working with animals. According to the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, which legislates for research in the UK, only species that are vertebrates (possess a spinal column) and one single invertebrate, the octopus (octopus vulgaris), are legally defined as ‘animals’ when it comes to research. The same category of living things is also protected by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Under this definition, the only ‘animals’ in the list are the rat, cat, dog, horse, dolphin and gorilla: the coral, woodlouse, crab, mosquito and scorpion are not legally ‘animals’. As for the second question, there are really no right or wrong answers. You were asked ‘which ones you would permit animal research on’ and that is a matter of personal ethics. However, you now know which of the species listed are protected by law (at least in the UK). So there are many animals, or should we say ‘organisms’, that are not covered by any legislation, and for research purposes do not count as ‘animals’. There is no law protecting lobsters, spiders or mosquitoes (and especially not the E. coli bacteria) from being used in any way whatsoever in research. The British Psychological Society (BPS) does recommend that the ethics standards of work with protected species should also be maintained with organisms not covered by the relevant legislation, but this is just a recommendation. Even among the vertebrates, further distinctions are made. Can you guess which animals receive extra protection? It is horses, cats, dogs and primates. In the case of primates, the reason is undoubtedly their genetic proximity to humans and the frequency with which they are used in research, but what about cats, dogs and horses? The reason is that these animals are regarded by many humans as occupying a special place in the animal world, given that they are kept as pets. However, humans don’t always agree on which animals are pets. Whereas most people in the UK would not consider eating a dog, in parts of Asia dogs are considered a delicacy. Horses, donkeys and a host of other animals that people in some countries treat as companions adorn many a menu in other countries. So, some animals are a ‘man’s (or a woman’s) best friend’ whilst others are ‘vermin’ or ‘food’. In the same way, some species are regarded as ‘beautiful’, ‘cute’ or ‘intelligent’, while others are treated as less so. What all of this suggests is that differentiation within the animal world is not always based on strict scientific criteria, but rather on cultural sensitivities. In this activity you were given an opportunity to consider a number of questions relevant to psychological research on animals. These included why psychologists study animals, how the rights of the animals used in research are protected, and how the appropriateness of animals for research is determined. However, the controversy surrounding this research, especially the study on the effects of deprivation, had a different kind of impact on psychology. It made researchers more aware of the need to regulate research on animals and treat them more humanely. It was therefore in the aftermath of Harlow’s study that rules guiding psychological research on animals began to be tightened. You have just learned about the ethics of animal research; now you have the opportunity of hearing from two psychologists working with animals in Researching Animals, two films created specifically for the course Discovering psychology (DSE141). Reading about research that psychologists have conducted with animals is often fascinating, but seeing how the research is conducted is even better. Film A (8 minutes) introduces the work of Alex Thornton with meerkats; in Film B (17 minutes) you will learn about Tetsuro Matsuzawa’s work with chimpanzees. First, watch the two films without interruption. After doing so, read ‘Issues to consider’ below, then watch them again, keeping these issues in mind. Make sure that you take some notes. Download this video clip.Video player: Film > Film A: Researching Animals (meerkats) The Kalahari Meerkat Project is one of the longest running field studies on social mammals in the world and has produced a rich insight into many aspects of meerkat culture. One of the researchers involved in this Cambridge University run study is Alex Thornton. Meerkats are a fantastically useful study species. In fact, if you were going to design the perfect mammalian study species, you probably couldn’t get much better than meerkats. They live in very open areas, so they’re easy to see. They’re active during the day, unlike the majority of mammals. They’re extremely social and cooperative, so there’s a lot of interest in trying to understand their social interactions, and why it is that animals will go out of their way to help one another and also they can become very easily habituated to human observers. The aim of habituation is to get the animals to a stage where they’re not scared of people. And there are a number of large animals wandering around the Kalahari Desert, there’s lots of different species of antelope, for example, and the meerkats are not scared of the antelope because they’re not a threat. So they treat us in much the same way that they treat an antelope. We can walk past, and they ignore us completely. They don’t look up at us, they don’t alarm when we approach. And so this allows us to collect natural behaviour. We can observe them from close range. So habituation is an extremely powerful and useful tool. And meerkats are, in a way, are a fantastic half way house, because although they’re wild, we can also do a lot of things that normally you would expect to only be able to do with captive animals. It’s very important to make sure that your experiments are realistic, that they are not looking at something that’s completely irrelevant to a meerkat’s life and to their, to their basic ecology. And so all the experiments that I do are grounded in vast amounts of observational data where we really understand what these animals are doing on a day-to-day basis, without being manipulated by, by me or by other experimenters. Observing animals in the wild allows researchers to study the evolution of animal behaviours and culture. The main reason why I’m doing it, is to look at the evolutionary origins of culture, essentially. Culture is obviously something that’s fantastically important to human societies. And I’m seeking to understand its biological roots, how it is that animals can learn from each other, and what the consequences of this are. One of the most interesting things I’ve been looking at recently is the question of whether meerkats teach. Now teaching is a trait that often thought of as exclusively human. We know that animals in many different species can learn by observing the actions of others, but it was thought that humans were unusual in that the wise change their behaviour to educate the naïve. We go out of our way to help others to learn. So I was interested in whether that might actually happen in meerkats. Young pups need to learn how to catch and kill things like scorpions. So I was interested in whether adults would teach them how to do this. And in fact this is what seems to be the case. So they will bring prey that’s alive, but it’s been modified. So if it’s a scorpion, they might bring a scorpion that is alive but that has had its sting removed, so the pup gets a chance to practise without being stung. Then, as the pups get older, they’re increasingly given fully intact prey. So this video clip shows an example of a teaching interaction. So in this clip you can see an adult meerkat who’s biting the sting off this scorpion, he then allows a pup to come in and take the scorpion and the adult stays behind to monitor what the pup is doing so as you can see the pup is having quite a lot of difficulty handling the scorpion but the scorpion now has no sting, so there’s no danger that the pup will be stung. The adult remains here watching what the pup is doing. Often if the pup loses the scorpion the adult will catch it and bring it back again or if the pup is struggling the adult will modify it further, so as you can see now the pup has finally managed to grab the scorpion and run off with it…and off he goes. Adults are giving pups opportunities to handle live prey, so does that make the pups learn faster than they would otherwise? So in order to test this, I ran an experiment where I randomly allocated pups to three different treatments. One treatment, the pups got additional opportunities to handle live scorpions, and they were given four live scorpions for three consecutive days. Some of their siblings in the, in another treatment were allocated to dead scorpions, so they were given the same number of scorpions over the same number of days. And then there was a third treatment, where the pups got an equivalent mass of hard-boiled egg, again, over three days. On the fourth day, I tested all the pups with a live scorpion. This was a sting-less scorpion, so there was no danger that the pup would get stung. And I found that the pups from the first treatment, the pups who were given live scorpions to practise with were much better, so they were less likely to lose the scorpion, they were less likely to get pincered on the nose, they were a lot quicker at handling the scorpion. So this really illustrates that practice makes perfect for meerkat pups. The study then looked at whether this behaviour was, in fact, active teaching by the adults. I set about looking at whether, rather than teaching what pups know, adult meerkats might actually base their behaviour on simple cues that the pups are giving them. So meerkat pups wander around the group making incessant begging calls. And the pups’ begging calls change as they get older, just as a child’s voice changes as it gets older. And so I recorded the begging calls of pups of different ages and played them back to groups. And I found that if you play the calls of old pups to a group with young pups, the adults start to bring live prey, even though the pups are too young to deal with it. Conversely, if you play the calls of young pups to a group with older pups, the adults flip their behaviour and start bringing dead prey. So this shows us how a simple cue governs rather complex, or seemingly complex, behaviour. This really shows that the adults don’t understand what the pups know; they’re not intentionally setting about to correct the pups’ ignorance, but rather they’re responding to a simple cue. And by doing this, they help to promote learning in the pups. Alex Thornton’s studies have demonstrated that while meerkats do, in fact, teach their young how to hunt prey, they are not motivated to do so in the same ways that humans teach. I think there is a danger of people reading human characteristics into the behaviour of animals, and this is something that we come across very often, especially in the popular press. And in a sense, a lot of the purpose of the sort of research that I do is to try and address these beliefs. Now what my research has shown is that meerkats can teach, but they do it using far simpler means. So this really shows us how a seemingly complicated form of behaviour is governed by rather simple means. And it allows us to address these misapprehensions about the way that animals operate. The flipside of it is that it also allows us to look at the similarities. So it allows us to understand that humans are connected to the rest of the biological world, and to see what the relationship is between the minds and the behaviour of humans and other species. So by studying meerkats and chimpanzees and birds, we can begin to understand the evolutionary history of our own behaviour. End transcript: Film A: Researching Animals (meerkats)Film A: Researching Animals (meerkats) Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view). Download this video clip.Video player: Film > Film B: Researching Animals (chimpanzees) The study of the human brain has been a popular area of research as we have sought to understand its inner workings. One approach has been to look at how our brains have evolved and what aspects are held in common with other animals. Here in Japan one of the longest running animal studies is happening at Kyoto University. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa heads up the Primate Research Institute, one of the most respected laboratory studies into chimpanzees in the world. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa Oh, look at that. Amazing. Known as the Ai Project, it was named after the first chimpanzee to arrive there forty-three years ago. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa I clearly remember when I was twenty-six, as Assistant Professor of this Institute, I met the chimpanzee named Ai. I was fascinated to see chimpanzees in everyday life. Up to that point I had no idea about chimpanzees, and I thought it must be a big black monkeys. But it’s not a big black monkey, it’s really something so like us. From the beginning I recognised the great similarity between the chimpanzee and me. That is called pant-hoot - greeting voice. He say hello I’m here. You called me and I’m here and she called I’m here too. To know the chimpanzees you can know about humans because we share the common ancestor only six million years ago. So, if you want to know, you yourself, in comparison to the other creatures, the most important one is the evolutionary neighbour. That means chimpanzees. Matsuzawa believes that the only way to understand more about the chimpanzee mind and life as a whole is to study them both in captivity and in the wild. In Guinea, West Africa, he’s running a series of field studies on wild chimpanzees, while here in Kyoto he’s able to run controlled experiments in a laboratory setting. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa Here we have a group of fourteen chimpanzees of three generations. Chimpanzees are group living, isolated single chimpanzee is no more chimpanzee, so all chimpanzees should be put together. They are living in a group in their natural habitat, so do they in captivity. And I provided a small forest for them. So this is a forest. Fifteen metres high climbing frames – hi Chloe – and a lot of vegetation. Trees and shrubs. I’m not teaching human language to the chimpanzees. I really want to communicate with them in their way of communication. In this community not only chimps but also humans co-exist together and definitely they know that I’m the top-ranking male. Matsuzawa’s knowledge of chimpanzee culture and traditions underpin his field studies in Guinea. Here, he is leading the way on researching how chimpanzees learn to use tools, such as leaves to drink water, twigs to tease out termites and rocks to crack nuts. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa I really want to know the chimpanzee way of passing the knowledge, techniques, values, to the next generation. So here is a chimpanzee, three and a half years old. Not yet acquired the skill. Then the girl went to an adult chimpanzee who is cracking open nuts and carefully watching the skill in this close distance. This is their way of observation. Now the girl went back to her original place to try to crack open nuts. Still very difficult. So it’s very clear she’s not motivated to eat the kernel. She’s really motivated to make the copy of the adult behaviour. So they do not teach - they show the good model. Until recent years, tool use had been considered uniquely human. The discovery of tool use in chimpanzees in the wild is not only an insight into chimpanzee culture and learning processes, but tells about how tool use may have developed in early humans. In his laboratory work, Matsuzawa was again interested in finding out how chimpanzees learn. He wanted to explore photographic memory and so invented a series of experiments using numerical sequences. Part of the task involved his chimpanzees memorising at a glance the numerals presented on a computer screen. Matsuzawa uses a technique of ‘participation observation’ in his studies. Every day there is a ritual of inviting the chimpanzees to take part in tasks. This means it’s a voluntary participation. Today he’s working with Ai and her ten-year old son Ayumu. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa So every day in the first session we confirm their knowledge about the numerical sequence, 1 through 9. Both Ai, chimpanzee and Ayuma, chimpanzee. The mother and the child. So now already more than 9, 10, 11, up to 12, is tested in this session and in the next session we will test up to 19. This sound we call ‘chime’ and when he makes a correct response – chime. The most important point is the feedback – whether it is correct or incorrect, by the sound – but the correct trial is accompanied by a small treat. The treat is part of the food rations the chimpanzees receive every day. Chopped apples and raisins are released automatically by the computer programme, in return for a correct response. The chimpanzees signal when they have finished the session. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa The knocking means the request. ‘Please in a hurry to prepare the next session. I’m ready to go.’ They are now ready for the masking experiment. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa So the task is ‘give me the question’ and it’s so quick. Seven numerals touch one then the other numerals are gone. Still he can remember what numerals appeared in which position, so this is a real performance. So Ayuma, chimpanzee, can remember the seven numerals at a glance. Young chimpanzee is better than other chimpanzee in general, so that is in the case too in Ai and Ayumu. Ayumu, the son, is better than the mother. The phenomenon itself is very close to our cases, human cases. The younger generation is good at learning new things than the older persons. At the end of each session there is a period of play and grooming. This is important for both bonding and reinforcing status. Ai may be playing with children’s toys, but no child could match her or her son’s memory skills. Human participants also take part in the study – attempting the same task and using the same equipment. Now the session is over, Matsuzawa’s students, Lyla and Akiho, decide to have a go themselves. I can’t memorise the order and position of the numerals. It’s very difficult. If I pass 5 then it’s getting difficult I think – 3, 4. 5 – I don’t know the next one. My score was 20 per cent. And my score was only 10 per cent. But Ayuma, the young chimpanzee’s, score was over 50 per cent. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa Let’s try to challenge Ayumu, the chimpanzee. OK, let me try again. Nope, let me concentrate. Wow, difficult. Whoops. Oops. Embarrassing. So I completely failed, but this is Ayumu’s performance – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. So this clearly tells us that there is a cognitive task – memorising numerals at a glance – in which young chimpanzees are better than human adults. We know one among thousands human children has this kind of capability, but all of the three young chimpanzees, showed this kind of photographic memory. So it’s a clear difference. Chimpanzees are good at memorising things at a glance. So what’s the meaning of this finding? Human has a linguistic capability that is really uniquely human. Human speech, human language. What is the advantage of human speech, human language? That is very clear that the information is portable. Suppose that you see a creature passing in front of you, there was a white spot on the forehead and brown hairs and black hairs on the legs, this kind of immediate memory may be important for next encounter. But, suppose that you can summarise your direct experience to say “horse, wild horse”. You can bring back your experience to your community to say ‘I saw the horse in that place. Let’s go together to hunt. It’s a big meat.’ So this kind of thing is the clear advantage of having the language, having the symbol in comparison to the direct memory. So chimpanzees lives in the world of the here and now, so that very good at capturing the world in front of them. That is proved by photographic memory of chimpanzee. So I have my own evolutionary scenario, this kind of things. So the common ancestor six million years ago may have had this kind of photographic memory and it’s still kept in chimpanzee lineage. But human lineage, we lost. We got the symbolic representation, we got speech and language. Matsuzawa’s work shows that in the course of cognitive development humans have acquired linguistic skills, but he maintains this has been at the expense of losing their photographic memory. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa It’s my great pleasure to be here to talk about my study on the chimpanzee mind. Matsuzawa has published his findings widely and disseminated them on the world stage at conferences, but he has found that for some people the idea that chimpanzees can outperform humans is difficult to accept. Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa It’s so interesting to see the response by the ordinary people about this thing. And I’m so surprised to see that it’s very difficult for some people to accept the truth. Some says, ‘Oh, it’s operant conditioning of food reward.’ Or, ‘intensive training is necessary.’ Or, ‘it must be a genius chimpanzee.’ So, anyway, the point is, people are not so happy to see the truth that chimpanzees can be better than us. It might be a single case, but in which chimpanzee can outperform humans. So therefore, we cannot say that humans are always superior to the other creatures. End transcript: Film B: Researching Animals (chimpanzees)Film B: Researching Animals (chimpanzees) Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
This free course provided an introduction to studying sociology. It took you through a series of exercises designed to develop your approach to study and learning at a distance and helped to improve your confidence as an independent learner. DebriefingA post-research interview designed to inform the participant of the true nature of the study. It may also be used to gain useful feedback about the procedures in the study.EthicsPrinciples that determine right and wrong conduct. In psychological research, ethics refers to the codes and principles that researchers should adhere to.Informed consentThe principle in psychological research whereby participants must be given comprehensive information concerning the nature and purpose of the research and their role in it, in order that they can make an informed decision about whether to participate. Baumrind, D. (1964) ‘Some thoughts on ethics of research: after reading Milgram’s behavioural study of obedience’, American Psychologist, vol.19, no.6, pp. 421–3. Blass, T. (2004). The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram, New York, NY, Basic Books. Blass, T. (2007) ‘Memorable quotes’ [online], The Stanley Milgram Website, http://www.stanleymilgram.com/ quotes.php (Accessed 11 February 2010). Colman, A.M. (1987) Facts, Fallacies and Frauds in Psychology, London, Unwin Hyman. Katz, J. (1972) Experimentation with Human Beings,New York,NY, RussellSage Foundation. Milgram, S. (1963) ‘Behavioral study of obedience’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,vol.67, no.4,pp. 371–8. Milgram, S. (1964) ‘Issues in the study of obedience: a reply to Baumrind’, American Psychologist, vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 848–52. Milgram, S. (1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, London, Tavistock. Film A: Researching Animals (meerkats) (2010) (video), DSE141 Discovering psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University Film B: Researching Animals (chimpanzees) (2010) (video), DSE141 Discovering psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources. Philip Banyard Course image: Phil Dolby in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence. Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4: Milgram, S (1974) Obedience to Authority, Harper & Row. Copyright © 1974 by Stanley Milgram Figure 5: Copyright © Andresr/iStock Figure 6: Copyright © Michael Flippo/iStock Angel Eye Media With thanks to: Kalahari Meerkat Project Angel Eye Media With thanks to: ANC iBrain Festival of Neuroscience at Muziekcentrum De Bijloke Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. Don't miss out: If reading this text has inspired you to learn more, you may be interested in joining the millions of people who discover our free learning resources and qualifications by visiting The Open University - www.open.edu/ openlearn/ free-courses |
What was the problem with Milgrams experiment on obedience?
zusammenhängende Posts
Urheberrechte © © 2024 wiewird Inc.
