Question

1. a) A lot of experiments conducted during the 20th century - from Milgram to Harlow's studies - would be considered unethical by today's standards. Do you think that the groundbreaking results we remember from these experiments somehow justify their ethical issues? Why?

b) Do you think the nature-nurture debate has been solved by modern psychology?

Please answer the each of the part of above question in depth (as much as you can like 300 words or more) and quality matters a lot. Please write professionally and don't plagiarise from anywhere.

Answer 1

Milgram’s experiments were related to obedience to authority, where the participants were conducted using teacher and another as a learner, the learner was Milligram's confederate. The learner was made to sit in the other room and an electrode was attached to his arm the teacher and the researchers were in the other room and for every wrong answer the teacher was to give an electric shock to the learner it was found that 65% of the teacher went up to 450 volts (highest) and 35% went up to 300 volts.

The Harry Harlow experiment proved that love during growing up perid of the child is an important part of development. He proved that contact comfort is an integral part between the mother and the child relationship. The child goes to the mother for comfort and security. To prove his points he demonstrated his experiment with the rhesus monkeys he gave the choice to the monkeys to select between two types of the mothers, one was made of wire but provided nourishment from an attached baby bottle and the other was made of soft terrycloth but provided no food. When the wire mother had food the monkey would go the wire mother to have food and return to the soft terrycloth mother. Secondly, he allowed the baby monkey to stroll in the room in the presence surrogate mother, and observed the movement, he noticed when the monkey is startled he would run to the surrogate mother for comfort and security. The experiment proved that contact comfort is an integral part of child development he feels secure when the motherly figure is around to provide security and safety.

The results from Milgram's and Harlow's experiments have significant value in today's life as well. The obedience to authority is present everywhere in our life the researcher proved that the teacher was an ordinary man he did not know the learner but on by receiving an order from the researcher or his presence made him act as per the order given without using his own conscious. This scenario is often observed in today's media where they take the command from the authority and present the news as per their authority's orders them.

Harlow's experiment is also valid and ethical in present days because many deviant characters are often found to be those who had lacked security and comfort in childhood. They were abused emotionally, mentally, and physically. In comparison, the children who had a secure childhood and support from their caregivers are successful in their adulthood and achieve a goal.

2. Human development of the mind is the result of nature and nurture. Nature is defined as the genetic traits that the child acquired from his parents and their ancestors. Nature defines the surrounding, his interaction with other people, etc. For optimal development of a child's brain, nature and nurture have their separate roles. According to Noam Chomsky, the child is born with the innate ability to acquire language acquisition. He learns because he is born with the ability to acquire looking at his mother and other people around him. According to John Locke, the human mind is a tabula rasa that means the child is born with the mind as a blank slate and he learns whatever he observed in his surroundings and acquires knowledge.

The nature side is the inborn character of the children it can be explained as boys often more aggressive and girls are often sensitive, emotional, less aggressive more empathetic, and caring.

The nurture side is the child's surrounding like his family, peer group, teachers, and other people from the social group.

If we look at it from the modern psychology view we come across many people who start acting like their companions. Stockholm syndrome is one of the best examples where the person starts acting like his captives and becomes part of it. Many deviant characters have changed their negative activity when they get the right environment and proper guidance. The human being can distinguish between what is right and what is wrong but due to circumstances and his surrounding one starts acting differently, that is against his characters, and when he realizes and uses his natural thinking, he has often seen to be correcting himself. '

It was observed that children learn through observation it was proved by Bobo doll experiment. When the observe their role model acting aggressively and rude manner they imitate them and behave aggressively if the same children are exposed to no aggression they would grow as a normal child.