Having taken psychology in high school, I was already familiar with Milgram’s experiment and other researchers who had conducted questionable studies. I have never heard of the Reynolds experiment, however, and found it very interesting. I imagined that telling a young child they had a stutter would produce negative effects on their self-confidence but I did not consider these problems to extend into their adult lives. I wonder to what degree this issue would have been resolved if they had immediate debriefed the children on the experiment and an attempt to reverse the efforts. What I mean is, after the period of time in which the test was conducted, if the children were immediately told they didn’t actually have a stutter, would they still have the lasting effects through adulthood? Would they be able to ‘snap out’ of the stutter as quickly as they picked it up? If they did return to their normal speech pattern, would they still be scarred by the experience and suffer confidence issues long after?
The other component of the ethical readings of the week that I did not previously consider was it we should still be allowed to use the results found from these unethical tests. My initial reaction is yes. They have already been done, why not use the data if it will aid research? I do, however, see the argument of the other side – that it encourages more unethical research. I don’t think this is as strong of a point considering there is more oversight of research now that would not allow unethical experiments to occur or have validated data from it. I do understand the sentiment. In all, the ethical readings of the week expanded my perspective on the topic.