Learning Objectives

  • Describe the design of the Milgram obedience experiments and some of the controversies surrounding its methods and results.
  • Identify three other research projects that helped to motivate the establishment of human subjects’ protections.
  • Define the Belmont Report's three ethical standards for the protection of human subjects.
  • List current standards for the protection of human subjects in research and identify the additional principles adopted by the American Sociological Association.
  • Explain how an institutional review board operates and how it classifies research.
  • Define debriefing and review the controversy about in the Milgram research.
  • Identify the major checkpoints when writing a research proposal.