That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Unethical Science

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

Some scientists spend years trying to figure out what is going through someone's mind when they are doing something they know is wrong. What happens when these scientists test that immorality? In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss Unethical Neuroscience through the example of the Milgram experiments. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. At the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg trials were held to basically put the Nazis that were responsible for the atrocities that occurred and for the war itself on trial and to judge them for their actions. And one of the most common defenses that was used by the Nazis was that they were simply obeying orders. It didn't matter how horrible the actions were. The justification was, well, I was doing what I was told to do. I was a loyal soldier, and I was just obeying orders. On today's podcast, a bit of unethical neuroscience,

the Milgram experiment. Now, I'll start by saying that I'm not sure if the Milgram experiment. Now I'll start by saying that I'm not sure if the Milgram experiment itself is unethical. I'll leave it for you to decide, but it's a pretty interesting study. Basically in the early sixties, there were a bunch of people that were thinking about, you know, how did the Germans do what they did? You know, were they really following orders? Would people say no? Was a bit of psychopathy involved? And they weren't really sure of what the answer was. So Stanley Milgram, who was a psychologist at Yale University at the time,

basically designed some studies to test to see whether or not, you know, he could see the type of obedience that the Germans said, you know, led to them doing the things that they did in the Holocaust and other parts of the Second World War. So the basic setup of the Milgram experiment, and there was actually a series of Milgram experiments that people think it was just one, but Dr. Milgram actually ran a whole bunch of studies to look at this issue. And the basic setup of the experiment was that a person would show up to do this study, and apparently another person was showing up at the same time, right? So there was two people who were going to do this experiment, And then there was the experimenter or the researcher. And what the person that showed up didn't know is the other person that showed up was a confederate. All right. So they were someone that was associated with the study,

but they were pretending just to be someone else. And when they showed up, they told that they were going to be a learner and a teacher. So one of the volunteers was going to teach something to someone, and the other person was the learner. They were going to learn that thing. And to start it off, they picked a slip of paper, and what the person that showed up who was not in the know didn't know was that both slips of paper said teacher. So when they unfolded their slip of paper, it said teacher. So they were going to be the teacher in the experiment. And the confederate would lie and say that their piece of paper said learner. So they were going to be the learner.

And they were led into the study room. And the learner was basically taken into an adjoining room. So there were two rooms. There was a control room. And then there was this adjoining room. So there were two rooms. There was a control room, and then there was this adjoining room. And in the adjoining room, there was something that looked and is being described to have looked like an electric chair. And the experiment was explained where the teacher was going to teach word pairs to the learner, and the learner was going to have to recall the second half of the word pair. And every time they got it wrong,

they were going to be shocked. And the idea was that they were going to see if a little bit of, you know, negative stimulation like that, or negative motivation potentially, could be used to enhance learning. So what happened was the learner sits down in the chair. Remember, the learner is a confederate, and the teacher is brought in there, and you know, they've got a wire attached to them. And in fact, what happens is they even get the teacher to get a sample shock at a low voltage, so they see it's real that, you know, this thing is going to happen, this person is going to get shocked. And then they take the teacher out into the other room, and they close the door, and they can't see the learner.

The learner's in the other room, and they're basically told that they're going to give them a series of word pairs and the learner is going to use multiple, there's a study phase where they learn it and then the learner has to recall them. And that's the teacher's job is to teach the word pairs and then have them recall them. And the learner responds by multiple choice what the correct second half of the word pair was. Now in front of the teacher was the infamous, if you will, Milgram box. It was a box that had a dial on it and it allowed the teacher to send the electric pulse if the learner got it wrong. But it also allowed them to increase the voltage of the shock. And it was labeled from slight shock to danger severe shock. It was basically volts rings from 15 to 450 volts.

And if you go on Google Images and just put on the Milgram box or the Milgram device, you can see a picture of it. It's in a museum now. And the idea was that every time they got something wrong, you would increase the voltage a little bit. And that would hopefully help this person learn. Now, before the experiment began, Milgram was hypothesizing, you know, how many people would keep going? You know, like if you kept increasing the shock level, you know, how many people would push it further and further and further? And this is what ties it back to the atrocities that the Nazis committed, which is they were thinking that only about one or two percent of the population, maybe three, would go all the way up to danger, severe shock or 450 volts, and that most people would stop long before that. And that was the theory,

that there's this small subset of people, and these were the people that were going to follow orders, you know, obediently. And this is how the Holocaust happened, for instance, is that the Germans had found this small subset of people that were, you know, would go on. And that was the initial hypothesis. Now let's get back to the study itself. So the study begins and the learner is learning these word pairs and on purpose starts getting them wrong because, of course, the learner's in on this. So the teacher gives them the shock. Now, initially, there's no sound that comes from the room, and this becomes crucial because as the experiment progresses, that's going to matter a lot. So the teacher then would increase the voltage and do some more word pairs, and of course, the learner would slip up.

And after, as it kept increasing and increasing, you know, the teacher would, you know, start looking at the experimenter and, you know, what, you know, should I would, you know, start looking at the experimenter and, you know, you know, what, what's, you know, should I keep going? And the experimenter had a series of prods, they were called, or just verbal cues. And the first one was, you know, please continue or please go on, right? And the teacher would keep going on. And as the voltage increased more and more, the learner would start making noises. And, you know, ow, that hurts. And, you know, please stop. And what would happen is the experimenter would use another prod.

And the full series of prods was the second one was the experiment requires that you continue. And if that didn't get the person to keep shocking, then the experimenter would say it's absolutely essential that you continue. And if that didn't get the person to keep shocking, then the experimenter would say, it's absolutely essential that you continue. And if that prod didn't get the person to increase the voltage more, you have no other choice. You must go on. So the teacher keeps increasing the voltage and increasing the voltage, these prods keep them going. And of course, the big question is how many people went all the way. And it turns out about 68% of the people went all the way to the top and most people went above 300 volts. So as opposed to being like 3% of the 100 people that did this, it was closer to 90% or 95%. And the reason the numbers vary is there was actually a whole series of Milgram experiments. And I'll get into that in a second. And of course,

if you want the specific details, you could Google this and read this. But Milgram himself was flabbergasted and his colleagues were flabbergasted. They couldn't believe that they could just get average college students at Yale University to shock people to the point where at the end of it, when it was getting above 300 volts and 450 volts, the person was shrieking in pain. And then they would mumble, start mumbling. And then right at the end, they just went silent. And you have to think that the learner would have been sitting there going, are they dead? Are they dead? And the experimenter would prod them and get them to

keep going on and on. And these people kept shocking the learner. The teacher was doing his job. And this was seen, you know, this is how the Germans, this is what happened. You know, this was seen, this is how the Germans committed the atrocities that they did, is by simply having an authority figure who was telling you that you had to do this, it was imperative that you do this. That is why the Germans participated in what happened in the Second World War in terms of the Holocaust and other things that were morally wrong. Now, like I said, there was a series of Milgram experiments,

and I'll talk about some of the factors. First of all, the experimenter in version one was in a lab coat with a clipboard and looked like an authority figure. And that matters. If the experimenter was way more casual, less people pushed the shock meter or gave high voltage shocks. Other things that influenced it a lot were the biggest one was if you put the learner in the same room as the teacher, they would stop and they would refuse to go on fairly early on. It was the fact they couldn't see them that, you know, gave them this emotional distance that pushed them further and further, right? And there was a whole slew of factors.

I won't go through all of them, but Milgram, you know, the overall theme was that they were astounded that they could get the vast majority of people to do this. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, that was the 60s. The world was a different place. But actually, interestingly, the study was replicated in 2006, I believe in California, and they were able to get basically the same effect. It wasn't quite all the way up into the 90% range, but it was very close. It was only a few percent shy. And their conclusion was, well, guess what? This is just the way people are. People respond to authority figures and they'll do what they're told if you prompt them to.

And that's the Milgram study and the Milgram experiments, a look into or trying to understand how you could get normal people to do horrible things. Now, is it unethical? I don't know. The reality is Milgram had ethics approval from the university ethics board to do this. Research is governed by ethics. And I'm actually going to talk about research ethics on a subsequent podcast and how that works. But he had approval from the university to do this. And again, researchers, you know, as late as 2006 got approval to run the study. So technically it's not unethical. In terms of the neuroscience, the real key piece here is psychopathy. And we've talked about psychopathy in the past. I won't go into it, but the theory was that there was a subset of the population

whose brains were wired a bit differently and they would do these horrible things. And it turns out that you can get anyone to do these horrible things if you motivate them the right way, tell them they have to do it, and an authority figure is commanding them to do so. All right, that's all I've got for today's podcast. Don't forget the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. Link to our Etsy store there where we have some merch up, a couple of shirts.

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And of course, you can follow me on threads or X at that NeuroSci guy. We're getting lots of ideas for podcasts because we want to know what you want to know about the neuroscience of daily life and the podcast itself. Thank you so much for listening, and please subscribe if you haven't done so. My name's Olof Kregolsen, and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for another Neuroscience Byte.