New Jersey became the last state in the country to authorize stun-gun use yesterday, although only in a limited capacity.

In a policy issued by Attorney General Anne Milgram, officers can use stun guns to subdue mentally ill individuals who have weapons and will not surrender.

Only a few officers in each police department will be permitted to use stun guns under the new policy. One officer can use a stun gun in municipalities with fewer than 25,000 people, while up to four can in municipalities with at least 75,000 residents. SWAT team members also can carry stun guns.

“This is the first time in this state that officers are going to be authorized to carry and use stun guns in any capacity,” Milgram said. “Given this important shift in policy, it is prudent to have a limited initial deployment that provides for adequate controls, training and accountability measures so that we can evaluate the use of such devices.”

Milgram spokesman David Wald said a trained officer should be on call either at the local police department or nearby.

According to the policy, police are not supposed to use stun guns to make people comply with orders or to stop them from committing property damage or fleeing a scene.

Groups like Amnesty International and the American Medical Association have expressed concern that stun guns are being used too often, sometimes with deadly results.

State Police Benevolent Association president Anthony Wieners, who represents 33,000 police officers, said the policy is too restrictive.

“With proper training, it should be able to be used like any other tool the officers are provided with, like a baton or pepper spray,” he said.

Wieners said the attorney general’s guidelines failed to give the state’s police officers enough access to nonlethal force.

“The goal was to give legitimate options to officers,” he said. “This does not do that.”

In 2007, a schizophrenic with a knife was shot and killed by officers in Maplewood, an incident that spurred state law enforcement to consider the use of stun guns.

“Some alternative to deadly force should have been available,” Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow said yesterday. “This and other incidents that happened around the same time were the lightning rods.”

She said it was smart to deploy stun guns in a limited capacity and then revisit the issue at a later time.

Wald said individual departments will be responsible for obtaining training and buying their stun guns.

By Chris Megerian

LINK

I början på 60-talet gjordes en rad kontroversiella socialpsykologiska experiment av en forskare vid namn Stanley Milgram. Man lurade en försöksperson att tro att han deltog i ett försök som handlade om inlärnings förmåga och bestraffning. Om en annan försöksperson (som var invigd i exprimentet) svarade fel på en fråga, så skulle denne bestraffas genom att bli tilldelad en elektrisk stöt. Elektriciteten ökades hela tiden och 65 % av deltagarna gick så långt som att utdela en dödlig stöt (trodde de). Hela tiden stod en försöksledare i vit rock och förklarade att det var viktigt, eller t.o.m. nödvändigt, att fortsätta experimentet om det var någon som ville avbryta.

Detta expriment finns beskrivet i Wikipedia och sägs ska handla om lydnad, men har blivit kritiserat för att resultaten kan tolkas annorlunda. Det har också kritiserats utifrån etiska aspekter eftersom försökspersonerna luras att tro att de tillfogar en annan människa smärta, eller t.o.m. slår ihjäl någon. Vilket framkallar en kraftig stressituation.

Den här slags försök skulle man därför ha slutat genomföra. I kvällens Vetenskapens värld i TV2 kl. 20.00 (repris 7/11) tar de upp dessa s.k. lydnadsexperiment och ska t.o.m. ha gjort om experimentet! Det finns också en replikation på youtube från ett tv-program för några år sen som visar vad det handlar om.

Just found this very brief and yet exceptionally concise intro into developing a healthy understanding about the human condition. While I’m not too sure about the title that Mike uses – my main gripe being with the notion of “them” – he still provides three very important ideas, all of them based upon scientific study and empirical evidence, that we all should be very, very aware of… Because without understanding these points, we have no real chance to understand the dynamics of the masses, and so just become another part of the herd.

The three experiments are listed here:

1) The Milgram Experiment

2) The Asch Experiment

3) The Work of Elizabeth Loftus, concerning memory creation

Please do your own reading around these ideas, as there is much literature available about them online. If you find anything important, have anything interesting to say about us as human beings, or even have experience of this, then please do write it down here in the comments section. We all need to learn more about this condition with which we are afflicted with.

If you enjoyed Mike’s video, you can see and hear more from this bright lad here.

An After Thought:

Perhaps, when Mike uses the term “them,” he’s really talking about the corporate bodies that banner advertisements in every space they can, thus subtly influencing the minds of those of us who glance over their “Consume Me Now!” slogans and promises for better and easier lives. If you doubt that these brief encounters with adverts can leave any impression what-so-ever on your mind, I seriously suggest you watch the following video and be warned.

“Perception Without Awareness” is sometimes just as influential as actually becoming aware and taking note of a good idea. All the data that we scan in the sea of mass-media seeps in deeply on some subconscious level, influencing the way we see things later. As human beings are prone to recognize and move towards those things that we find familiar. And even if we can’t exactly place where we recognize something from, we are more likely to make a choice towards the familiar than the unfamiliar… And, as you may have read Elizabeth Loftus’ study, false memories can easily be fabricated around these recognitions i.e. we can be nudged into making seemingly “free” choices based on false recognitions due to the fact that others understand the principles behind the way our minds natural function – drawing up stories to explain the unexplainable rather than exercising a well thought out and truly free choice. So… Please, please, please just be aware of the reasons why you do something, and be aware that we are all prone to fabricating reasons for the choices that we make… Reasons that have nothing to do with reality – just like we fabricated the notion of all our Gods, fables, stories and legends… Reasons that justify the means and fabricate a unjust truth. This is what we do… Because this is the way we were naturally selected… To be meme machines that copy the social etiquette around us for no other reason than to simply mimic what we see going on around us, whether logical and truthful OR NOT. Damn that’s a bitter pill to swallow!

Este blog quiere dar cuenta de todo lo que hay dando vueltas sobre sociología en la red. Esa es su función y con ese fin fue creado. Hay una innumerable cantidad de temas, blogs, autores, libros, cursos, noticias, reportajes, video, entrevista que dan cuenta del quehacer de la disciplina en la actualidad.  Son tantos los temas, autores, items, etc. que posee este blog, que resulta imposible enumerar a todos. Para ayudarte hemos ideado las etiquetas que podes ver al inicio del blog, que te cuenta que material vas a encontrar allí (videos, hemeroteca, cursos, novedades, etc). También hay una etiqueta llama “indice” en la que podes encontrar  con facilidad todo lo que está en la solapa izquierda de la pantalla (asociaciones profesionales, congresos, sociologias temáticas, etc)

Esperamos que todo lo que encuentres te guste, te resulte interesante o te sea de utilidad. Te pedimos por favor que si tenes problemas con algo del material que aquí se muestra, nos lo hagas saber. También pensamos que la información que contiene este blog está bastante bien organizada como para dar con ella con facilidad. Si buscas algo y no lo encontras, te pedimos también que nos lo hagas saber. En una de las solapas superior del blog podes encontrar nuestros mails.

Que disfrutes tu paseo por aquí. Gracias por la visita!!

Milgram’s experiment was again repeated — this time as part of the BBC documentary “How violent are you?” first shown in May 2009.  It’s another remarkable rendition.  Of the 12 participants, only 3 refused to continue to the end of the experiment.   The relevant portions of that documentary are below.

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For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “Milgram Remake,” “The Milgram Experiment Today?.” “Gender Conformity,” “The Case for Obedience,” “A Shocking Situation,” “Zimbardo on Milgram and Obedience – Part I,”  “The Case for Obedience,” “Virtual Worlds, Learning, and Virtual Milgram,” “Solomon Asch’s Conformity Experiment . . . Today,” and “Solomon Asch’s Classic Group-Influence Experiment.”

For a list of previous Situationist posts discussing Milgram’s research click here.

From ABC via Veoh:

“The video below describes a remake of Milgram’s famous study originally done in the ’60’s. Until recently, no one was authorized to replicate it due to ethical considerations. However, in 2007, ABC News was granted such permission and did so with many of the original researchers and some of the actual partipants. New data was also added.”

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For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Milgram Experiment Today?.” “Gender Conformity,” “The Case for Obedience,” “A Shocking Situation,” “Zimbardo on Milgram and Obedience – Part I,”  “The Case for Obedience,” “Virtual Worlds, Learning, and Virtual Milgram,” “Solomon Asch’s Conformity Experiment . . . Today,” and “Solomon Asch’s Classic Group-Influence Experiment.” For a list of previous Situationist posts discussing Milgram’s research click here.

Daniel Tencer at Raw Story offers a deconstruction of Cheney’s claims about CIA torture. Tencer spends considerable time debunking the former-Vice Presidents claim that the work of torture was done by professionals. It’s a stunning write-up and I recommend reading it in its entirety, but I’ll draw attention to x paragraphs:

“The procedures of the CIA program are designed to be safe,” Cheney told the conservative group. “They are in full compliance with the nation’s laws and treaty obligations. They’ve been carefully reviewed by the Department of Justice, and they are very carefully monitored. The program is run by highly trained professionals who understand their obligations under the law. And the program has uncovered a wealth of information that has foiled attacks against the United States; information that has saved countless, innocent lives.”

Yet some of those “highly trained professionals” had little more than two weeks of training on the job.

“With just two weeks of training, or about half the time it takes to become a truck driver, the CIA certified its spies as interrogation experts after 9/11 and handed them the keys to the most coercive tactics in the agency’s arsenal,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

“It was a haphazard process, cobbled together in the months following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington by an agency that had never been in the interrogation business,” the AP report continued. “The result was a patchwork program in which rules kept shifting and the goals often were unclear.”

There appear to be two dominant images of torturers: they are sadists whose violence expresses their crooked urges or they are dispassionate professionals whose violence is instrumental, calculated to extract the most information at the cost to the victim of the least pain. Neither image is particularly helpful when it comes to explaining torture. The excesses of torture, it seems, are frequently called out of a torturer by the social-psychological context; this is an enduring lesson of Zimbardo’s prison experiment.

The image of torture as professionally conducted and well-regulated also appears to be wishful thinking. In Torture and Democracy, Darius Rejali thoroughly refutes the possibility of the professional torturer, finding that torturers have yet to become scientific or professional. Human pain is difficult (and may be impossible) to increase incrimentally; victims bodies respond by responding less to violence; torturers respond to victims’ diminishing responses by intensifying their violence and haphazardly attacking victims’ bodies. In other words, regulations and the torture scripts written by civilian lawyers and officers break on the breaking body of torture victims. (Milgram’s lab is one of the few torture chambers where (the appearance of) pain was applied in an orderly, well-regulated fashion; yet to produce the indifferent torturer, Milgram had to physically separate the torturer from his or her victim.)

I guess Cheney’s not so falsfiable after all.

L’expérience Milgram, vous connaissez? Voici un petit lien pour vous présenter l’expérience, désolée c’est en anglais, mais vous pouvez trouver des infos en français sur Google.

Cela fait peur, n’est-ce pas? Deux personnes sont mises dans des pièces séparées, l’une avec un bracelet relié à un appareil situé dans l’autre pièce avec la deuxième personne. La première personne doit répondre à des questions posées par la deuxième personne. En cas de mauvaise réponse, la deuxième personne doit envoyer une décharge électrique à la première. A chaque mauvaise réponse supplémentaire, la décharge augmente. Un scientifique se poste à côté de la deuxième personne, lui expliquant des bobards à propos d’une expérience scientifique, et lui dit à chaque moment de doute qu’il doit continuer l’expérience. La première personne reçoit des décharges de plus en plus importantes, crie, demande à arrêter l’expérience. La deuxième personne, inquiète,  se tourne vers le scientifique, qui lui dit qu’il doit continuer l’expérience. Alors il continue. Jusqu’à arriver à des doses mortelles.

Des scientifiques prévoyaient que 0,1% des personnes sur qui l’on a fait l’expérience arriveraient jusqu’à administrer la dose mortelle. La réalité? 50%!!!

Cette expérience a été menée après la seconde guerre mondiale, afin de comprendre pourquoi et comment des gens en arrivaient à exterminer des juifs simplement parce qu’on leur a dit de le faire. Et le résultat est prenant, angoissant, et complètement flippant… Le rapport de l’être humain à l’autorité le pousse à faire des choses inhumaines simplement parce qu’on lui dit de le faire.

Cela explique bien des choses… La peur et l’autorité : les deux outils pour éliminer toute liberté. Les deux armes fondamentales pour contrôler les populations.

-S-

Este es un fragmento de una entrevista publicada el 25 de Noviembre de 1969 en ‘The New York Times’. El protagonista de la historia es Meadlo, que había participado como soldado en la guerra de Vienam. En mayo del 68, su patrulla llegó a la aldea My Lai:

P: ¿Cuántas personas habíais reunido?

R: Pues había más o menos entre 40 y 45 personas que habíamos reunido en el centro de la aldea.

P: ¿Qué tipo de personas? ¿hombres, mujeres, niños?

R: Hombres, mujeres y niños.

P: ¿También bebés?

R: También. Y los amontonamos unos contra otros. Hicimos que se pusieran en cuclillas sobre el suelo y entonces el teniente Calley se acercó y dijo: Ya sabéis lo que tenéis que hacer ¿no es así?. Yo respondí que sí. Me pareció muy normal que nos pidiera solamente que los vigiláramos. Luego nos dejó ahí y regresó tras diez minutos y dijo: ¿Por qué no los habéis matado aún? Y yo le dije que no creía que él quisiera que los matáramos, que sólo quería que los vigiláramos. Pero él dijo que no, que los quería muertos. Tambien…

P: ¿Y a cuántos mató usted en ese momento?

R: Pues bien, disparé con un arma automática y así uno no puede… uno dispara solamente contra el sector donde se hallan y no puede saber cuántos ha matado porque todo iba muy deprisa. Así que podría haber matado a unos diez o quince…

P: ¿Hombres, mujeres y niños?

R: Hombres, mujeres y niños.

P: ¿También bebés?

R: También bebés

A cualquiera en su sano juicio le estremecerá leer estas palabras, que por desgracia son muy habituales en los juicios de guerra.

La obediencia tiene lugar cuando un individuo  modifica su conducta a fin de someterse a las órdenes de una autoridad. Pero lo más normal es preguntarse, ¿qué lleva a una persona a obedecer órdenes que van contra sus principios y creencias?. Stanley Milgram se hizo esa pregunta e impresionado por los testimonios derivados de los crímenes de guerra, se dedicó a investigar el motivo que llevaba a los sujetos a seguir ese tipo de órdenes. En los crímenes de la Alemania Nazi, se requería la colaboración de un elevadísimo número de personas para poder llevar a cabo el exterminio, es lógico sorprenderse ante la capacidad de convicción de Hitler para que tantas personas buenas hicieran tantas cosas malas. Eichmann, coronel de las SS declaró en el proceso de Nüremberg que no se sentía culpable porque había actuado siguiendo órdenes. Milgram  se sorprendía cada vez más con la frialdad de este tipo de afirmaciones, y seguía planteándose qué motivos llevaban a los sujetos a aceptar todo tipo de órdenes, sin importar la crueldad de las consecuencias… y finalmente concluyó una hipótesis:

Cualquier ser humano podía someterse a un mandato destructivo bajo una autoridad que se imponga.

Con los resultados obtenidos – recordemos, un 65% de los sujetos continuaban hasta los 450 voltios, donde estaba el peligro de muerte- Milgram llega a la conclusión de que existen ciertas situaciones que hacen que los individuos tiendan a abandonar sus convicciones éticas y sean capaces de hacer daño intencionado a los demás siempre y cuando estén amparados bajo el mandato de otro, de forma que no sea su responsabilidad. En el test previo al experimento, se comprobó que el 100% de los sujetos experimentales tenían firmes valores democráticos, por tanto su comportamiento es totalmente contrario a sus ideales.

Tras el experimento, fue necesaria asistencia psicológica para que los participantes pudieran superar la experiencia,. Imaginad como estaban los profesionales intentando explicar ese comportamiento tan contradictorio. Lo que estaba claro era que no podía explicarse a través de algún trastorno de personalidad ni nada por el estilo, pues todos y cada uno de los participantes eran personas sanas, normales y con convicciones éticas y democráticas.

Milgram denominó a este estado pasivo como reducción al estado agéntico. En él, el individuo puede quedar reducido a un estado de mera condición de agente, dispuesto a ser gobernado y regulado por pe rsonas más poderosas que él. En estas circunstancias, los sujetos no se sienten responsables de los efectos que pueda tener su obediencia, se siente como si fuera un simple instrumento a través del cual otros realizan diver sas acciones.

Por tanto, podemos concluir que según el experiemento de Milgram, hay situaciones en las que una figura de liderazgo cancela nuestro yo, y pasamos de ser personas conscientes de nuestros actos, a ser instrumentos de otros. Para el autor existen dos estados: el de autonomía, en el que el individuo se siente personalmente responsable de sus actos y utiliza su propia conciencia como guía para un comportamiento correcto; y el de agente, en el que el individuo cree que forma parte de una estructura jerárquica y siente que las personas situadas por encima en la jerarquía son responsables de sus actos. En lugar de utilizar su conciencia como guía, utiliza las órdenes de las autoridades.

Seguro que todos nos hemos preguntado alguna vez como es que todos los nazis fueran tan crueles, o como en las guerras se cometen tantas atrocidades (basta con recordar la cárcel deAbu Ghraib). Todos creemos que para realizar esos actos hay que tener sangre muy fría y un nivel de humanidad muy pobre, pero con trabajos como los de Milgram o Zimbardo, esto puede ponerse muy en duda.

–> Para saber más:

Milgram, S. (1988). Obediencia a la autoridad. En J.R. Torregroso y E. Crespo (Comps.)

Milgram, Stanley. (1963). “Behavioral Study of Obedience”. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, 371-378.

Milgram, Stanley. (1974), Obedience to Authority; An Experimental View. Harpercollins (ISBN 0-06-131983-X).

Scientific thought often seems to oppose mythic belief…

And yet, the story of the Milgram experiment may have a place in our new mythology.

That’s one irony.  The other irony is that the Milgram experiment has often been condemned for its flawed science.

In 1961, social psychologist Stanley Milgram, then an assistant professor at Yale University, set up an experiment that has become part of our human story.

In these experiments, a subject—referred to as the “teacher”—would read pairs of words to a “learner”, stationed in a separate room.  When the learner forgot to repeat a word, a white-coated lab scientist would instruct the teacher to administer an electric shock to him by means of a button.  Each time the learner missed a word, he received a stronger shock.  The shocks began at 15 volts and rose all the way to 450.

The learner—who was not actually a test subject—missed often, on purpose.  Though he’d scream and protest, the scientist would order that stronger and stronger shocks be given to him.  When the shocks reached 315 volts, the learner would give one last cry, then the microphone in the other room would go dead.  Yet even then, the teacher was instructed to continue to administer shocks, until he finally reached the 450 volt mark.

The teacher subject was told that the experiment was meant to test the effects of punishment on memory.  But the real purpose was to try to prove that people could be moved to perform acts of destructive obedience under the right circumstances.

Surprisingly, sixty-five percent continued to shock the learner all the way to the 450 volt limit.

At the end of the test, the learner would greet the true test subject and say he was just fine.  Of course, he had not really received any shocks.

The results seemed to confirm a negative aspect of human nature—but without really explaining it.  

And then there were the 35 percent who had rebelled.  Perhaps some distinct personality characteristics separated these two groups.  But no, Milgram was unable to find any traits that would predict how a person might perform in the experiment.

Critics found other problems with the experiment.  For one thing, the test results could not be applied to a non-laboratory situation.

But though Milgram’s test has its many detractors, the results still haunt us.

Think of it: 65% of the population, if told to do so, would shock someone into unconsciousness for making a few small, innocent errors—would administer these shocks as the person screamed and begged for the test to stop.

Anyone who reads about this experiment will ask him/herself the same question I asked myself, “What would I have done?”

I’d like to think I’d walk right out of the place and report Milgram to the university.  But how can I be sure?  After all, wouldn’t most people say the same?  And yet sixty-two to sixty-five percent of test subjects have reacted in the same manner in replications of this experiment all over the world.

But though the results seem dismal, I believe that what this experiment has shown us may be to our benefit.

I didn’t see that benefit until I’d read Lauren Slater’s take on the experiment in her book Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century.

Though the names of Milgram’s original subjects are still confidential, the author managed to talk with two of the participants.  One had said “no” after he reached the 150 volt mark.  The other said “yes” all the way to 450 volts.

The first man had enlisted in the army during WWII and worked as an executive at Exxon for many years.  When talking about his war experience, he said, “We took those SOB Japs and locked them up.”  Nothing in his life’s resume would seem to indicate that he’d be one of the defiant ones.  

Ironically, though he’d defied orders and abhorred the experiment, he agreed not to report Milgram to the authorities.

The second man had been a young college student, struggling with his sexuality, at the time of the experiment.  Immediately afterward, horrified at his compliant behavior, he began to re-evaluate his life.  He realized he needed to develop a stronger moral center.  To him, his closeted life was another form of compliance.

He reports, “I went from being a goody-two-shoes golden boy with a deep secret headed straight for medical school, to a gay activist teaching inner-city kids.”

So it can benefit us to recognize our potential for cruel and destructive behavior.  Such realizations can work to create a sense of humility, can tell us of a negative shadow that may assume control if we’re not keeping watch, not maintaining awareness.

Certainly, history has warned us of this shadow.  But too often when we learn of genocides, of war atrocities, of bigotry, of blind obedience, we think, “That was them.”  Milgram’s experiment, whatever its faults may be, says, “Them could likely be you under similar circumstances.”

As Walt Kelly told us in the comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

From the time of our birth, we spend more years in a state of dependency than any other mammal.  As a result, we’re programmed to be obedient, to follow.

However, a certain willingness to obey is essential for our survival.  We’re often asked to put our egos aside so that we may coordinate our efforts.

Each of us is required to sacrifice some part of his/her personal autonomy for the good of the group.  One function of our mythologies/religions is to help us maintain the delicate balance between individual desire and service to the community.

Though the story of Milgram’s experiment is not a mythic story, perhaps it can function for us in much the same way as a myth.

Just like a myth, this story speaks to an inner truth, a hidden truth.  At the same time, it does not allow for hard and fast conclusions.  We must “talk it out”.  This story forces us to think, to question, to look inside ourselves.  This story works for us, not because of its flawless science, but because of its shadowy ambiguity.

The stories of myth often describe the most horrific, the most painful scenarios. But these stories have lasted because they tell human truths.  To accept such truths, difficult as that may be, is to accept ourselves and to become better persons in the bargain.

© 2009, Michael R. Patton
sky rope (subterranean rappel)
dream steps

My IRB requires me to take a course on human subjects research every couple of years. The course, offered by the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI), mostly deals with details of federal research regulations covering human subjects research.

However the first module is titled “History and Ethics” and purports to give an overview and background of why such regulations exist. It contains several historical inaccuracies and distortions, including attempts to equate the Milgram obedience studies with Nazi medical experiments and the Tuskegee syphilis study. I just sent the following letter to the CITI co-founders in the hopes that they will correct their presentation:

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Dear Dr. Braunschweiger and Ms. Hansen:

I just completed the CITI course, which is mandated by my IRB. I am writing to strongly object to the way the research of Stanley Milgram and others was presented in the “History and Ethics” module.

The module begins by stating that modern regulations “were driven by scandals in both biomedical and social/behavioral research.” It goes on to list events whose “aftermath” led to the formation of the modern IRB system. The subsection for biomedical research lists Nazi medical experiments and the PHS Tuskegee Syphilis study. The subsection for social/behavioral research lists what it calls “similar events,” including the Milgram obedience experiments, the Zimbardo/Stanford prison experiment, and several others.

The course makes no attempt to distinguish among the reasons why the various studies are relevant. They are all called “scandals,” described as “similar,” and presented in parallel. This is severely misleading.

Clearly, the Nazi experiments are morally abhorrent on their face. The Tuskegee study was also deeply unethical by modern standards and, most would argue, even by the standards of its day: it involved no informed consent, and after the discovery that penicillin was an effective treatment for syphilis, continuation of the experiment meant withholding a life-saving medical treatment.

But Milgram’s studies of obedience to authority are a much different case. His research predated the establishment of modern IRBs, but even by modern standards it was an ethical experiment, as the societal benefits from knowledge gained are a strong justification for the use of deception. Indeed, just this year a replication of Milgram’s study was published in the American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. The researcher, Jerry M. Burger of Santa Clara University, received permission from his IRB to conduct the replication. He made some adjustments to add further safeguards beyond what Milgram did — but these adjustments were only possible by knowing, in hindsight, the outcome of Milgram’s original experiments. (See: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp641-1.pdf)

Thus, Tuskegee and Milgram are both relevant to modern thinking about research ethics, but for completely different reasons. Tuskegee is an example of a deeply flawed study that violated numerous ethical principles. By contrast, Milgram was an ethically sound study whose relevance to modern researchers is in the substance of its findings — to wit, that research subjects are more vulnerable than we might think to the influence of scientific and institutional authority. Yet in spite of these clear differences, the CITI course calls them all “scandals” and presents them in parallel, and alongside other ethically questionable studies, implying that they are all relevant in the same way.

(The parallelism implied with other studies on the list is problematic as well. Take for example the Stanford prison experiment. It would arguably not be approved by a modern IRB. But an important part of its modern relevance is that the researchers discontinued the study when they realized it was harming subjects — anticipating a central tenet of modern research ethics. This is in stark contrast to Tuskegee, where even after an effective treatment for syphilis was discovered, the researchers continued the study and never intervened on behalf of the subjects.)

In conclusion, I strongly urge you to revise your course. It appears that the module is trying to get across the point that biomedical research and social/behavioral research both require ethical standards and regulation — which is certainly true. But the histories, relevant issues, and ramifications are not the same. The attempt to create some sort of parallelism in the presentation (Tuskegee = Milgram? Nazis = Zimbardo?) is inaccurate and misguided, and does a disservice to the legacy of important social/behavioral research.

Sincerely,
Sanjay Srivastava

UPDATE: I got a response a day after I sent the letter. See this post: A very encouraging reply.