In this short Great Courses offering Dr. Polk explores some of the most notorious psychological studies of the past and what impact they had both on the science of psychology, and on the code of ethics that now protects study subjects from similar abuse. He discusses how studies of the past preyed on the most vulnerable populations, like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, that ultimately prevented poor black participants from receiving syphilis treatments. Others crossed boundaries of treating subjects with respect, like the Stanford Prison Experiment that allowed some students to physically and mentally abuse other students for days before outside observers put a stop to it. Others he discusses are not as clearly unethical and he invites the listener to judge for themselves the ethics of the cases. He winds up the series by discussing what the current best practices are for those who design medical or psychological studies.
This is one I chose on a whim one day when I was tired of my normal fare of clean romances. It was very interesting. I had heard about several of the studies he discussed, but gained more information and insight about them. For example, I had heard about the famous Milgram study where one student was told to give another student an electric shock when they couldn't remember a series of numbers. I hadn't realized that that study was conducted by a Jewish researcher in response to the Nuremburg Trials when so many Germans used as their defense that they were "just following orders." Readers should beware that this lecture series contains adult content, particularly a discussion about a study of men who meet up in restrooms for homosexual intercourse. It is handled clinically, and didn't offend me much, but I can see how it might be offensive to many readers. (2020, 3 hrs.)
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