Cyberspace May Overcome Ethical Constraints In Experiments

Main Category: Psychology / Psychiatry
Also Included In: IT / Internet / E-mail
Article Date: 28 Dec 2006 - 18:00 PST

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By repeating the Stanley Milgram's classic experiment from the 1960s on obedience to authority - that found people would administer apparently lethal electrical shocks to a stranger at the behest of an authority figure - in a virtual environment, the UCL (University College London) led study demonstrated for the first time that participants reacted as though the situation was real.

The finding, which is reported in the inaugural edition of the journal PLoS ONE, demonstrates that virtual environments can provide an alternative way of pursuing laboratory-based experimental research that examines extreme social situations.

Professor Mel Slater, of the UCL Department of Computer Science, who led the study, says: "The line of research opened up by Milgram was of tremendous importance in the understanding of human behaviour. It has been argued before that immersive virtual environment can provide a useful tool for social psychological studies in general and our results show that this applies even in the extreme social situation investigated by Stanley Milgram."

Stanley Milgram originally carried out the series of experiments in an attempt to understand events in which people carry out horrific acts against their fellows. He showed that in a so cial structure with recognised lines of authority, ordinary people could be relatively easily persuaded to give what seemed to be even lethal electric shocks to another randomly chosen person. Today, his results are often quoted in helping to explain how people become embroiled in organised acts of violence against others, for example they have been recently cited to explain prisoner abuse and even suicide bombings.

Following the style of the original experiments, the participants were invited to administer a series of word association memory tests to the (female) virtual human representing the stranger. When she gave an incorrect answer the participants were instructed to administer an 'electric shock' to her, increasing the voltage each time she gave an incorrect answer. She responded with increasing discomfort and protests, eventually demanding termination of the experiment. Of the 34 participants 23 saw and heard the virtual human and 11 communicat ed with her only through a text interface.

The experiments were conducted in an immersive virtual environment, formed by a computer-generated surrounding real-time display. It delivers a life-sized virtual reality within which a person can experience events and interact with representations of objects and virtual humans.

The results show there was a clear behavioural difference between the two groups depending on whether they could see the virtual human. All participants in the Hidden Condition (HC) administered all 20 shocks. However, in the Visible Condition (VC) 17 gave all 20 shocks, 3 gave 19 shocks, and 18, 16 and 9 shocks were given by one person each.

Participants were asked whether they had considered aborting the experiment. Almost half of those who could see the virtual human indicated they had because of their negative feelings about what was happening. Measurements of physiological indicators including heart rate and heart rate variability also indicated that participants reacted as though the situation was real.

"The results demonstrate that even though all experimental participants knew that the situation was unreal, they nevertheless tended to respond as if it were," Professor Slater.

"This opens the door to the systematic use of virtual environments for laboratory style study of situations that are otherwise impossible whether for practical or ethical reasons - for example, violence associated with football, racial attacks, gang attacks on individuals, and so on. Why do some people participate in such activities even though it is against their nature? The original Milgram experiment helps to explain this, and the exploitation of virtual environments may help to further research into these difficult and pressing questions."

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Disclaimer The following press releases refer to a selection of the upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. They are contributed by the article authors and/or their institutions. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff or the editors of PLoS ONE.

About UCL

Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English univer sity established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence.

UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.

Citation: Slater M, Antley A, Davison A, Swapp D, Guger C , et al. (2006) A Virtual Reprise of the Stanley Milgram Obedience Experiments. PLoS ONE 1(1): e39. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000039

PLEASE ADD THE LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000039

Contact: Judith H Moore
Public Library of Science