I agree that the standards can be too high, especially when participants are both fully informed and give consent (e.g. COVID vaccine trials). I think in this case, participants were not properly informed of the potential (community, social and career) risks ahead of time and made sure they understood before participating.
When I wrote my comment, I actually had in mind the Stanford prison experiment, the Milgram experiment and Vsauce convincing people they were in a real trolley problem (this one had debriefing but not informed consent, and honestly, I feel pretty bad for some of the participants), although Iโd guess these were much more likely to cause psychological trauma. I actually donโt really know what the current standards are like.
I agree that the Stanford Prison experiment and actually convincing people they are in a trolley problem is not reasonable scientific ethics and can reasonably be expected to traumatize people.
I think additionally both Milgram and SPE additionally have significant validityissues which calls into question their scientific usefulness.
I think the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment should not be lumped together, as if their validity issues or scientific usefulness was comparable. The former has never been successfully replicated and there is essentially nothing to be learned from it (other than sociological lessons related to how a seriously flawed study can be taken seriously, and be disseminated widely, for decades). By contrast, the Milgram experiment has been replicated multiple times in a wide range of settings, and when the totality of this evidence is considered it seems hard to deny that it uncovered something true, interesting and important about human psychology, even if one can point to some methodological problems in some of the studies.
At least this is my understanding as a complete amateur. Feel free to correct me if you think this assessment is inaccurate.
Thanks for explaining.
I agree that the standards can be too high, especially when participants are both fully informed and give consent (e.g. COVID vaccine trials). I think in this case, participants were not properly informed of the potential (community, social and career) risks ahead of time and made sure they understood before participating.
When I wrote my comment, I actually had in mind the Stanford prison experiment, the Milgram experiment and Vsauce convincing people they were in a real trolley problem (this one had debriefing but not informed consent, and honestly, I feel pretty bad for some of the participants), although Iโd guess these were much more likely to cause psychological trauma. I actually donโt really know what the current standards are like.
I agree that the Stanford Prison experiment and actually convincing people they are in a trolley problem is not reasonable scientific ethics and can reasonably be expected to traumatize people.
I think additionally both Milgram and SPE additionally have significant validity issues which calls into question their scientific usefulness.
I think the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment should not be lumped together, as if their validity issues or scientific usefulness was comparable. The former has never been successfully replicated and there is essentially nothing to be learned from it (other than sociological lessons related to how a seriously flawed study can be taken seriously, and be disseminated widely, for decades). By contrast, the Milgram experiment has been replicated multiple times in a wide range of settings, and when the totality of this evidence is considered it seems hard to deny that it uncovered something true, interesting and important about human psychology, even if one can point to some methodological problems in some of the studies.
At least this is my understanding as a complete amateur. Feel free to correct me if you think this assessment is inaccurate.
Thanks, I stand corrected pending further review