Morton's Research Weaknesses by Gould

Introduction

The research work on Morton's ranking of races by cranial capacity received a lot of discredits from Gould especially concerning the ethical issues that entail the validity and the reliability of the study. Gould highlighted the following research flaws and partiality in Morton's research works:

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According to Gould, one of the ethical issues that Morton broke was deception. In any research, the research ethics expect every researcher to clearly explain the purpose of the research to the participants prior to the research work. However, Morton deceived the participants that the research aimed at identifying the impacts of punishment on learning. Also, despite the actors faking the learners' suffering, Morton made the participants believe that the study was going to receive real electric shocks. Moreover, Morton did not tell the participants that the two actors, Mr. Williams and Mr. Wallace were just actors (Gould, 1978).

Another weakness according to Gould entailed infringement of participants' choice. Morton did not make the right to quit from the research as exclusive at the beginning of the research. The fact that the participants were to receive payment from the research may have forced them to participate (Milgram, 1963). Also, the non-friendly command from the instructor such as "please go on" and "you may have no other choice, please go on", may have forced the participants to continue participating in the research study.

Another weakness is that Morton's study did not protect the participants from harm (Gould 1978). The participants experienced a significant amount of stress during the research process. Some of the participants experienced hysterical laughter, profuse sweating and uncontrollable seizures (Milgram, 1963). The expressed participants' poor health behavior may have occurred due to the absence of debriefing subsequent to the research exercise.

According to Gould, the other weakness is on representativeness aspect of the research. The participants of the research were from the same location in America (Gould 1978). Also, there was gender bias in the sample selection as the participants were only men when the research outcome was expected to apply to all individuals. According to Gould, the outcome of the research was not representative as Morton violated the aspect of gender representativeness.

The other weakness was on sample selection process. Morton obtained participants on a volunteer basis (Milgram, 1963). The participants were self-selected. In normal circumstances, people cannot just volunteer themselves for a research study, meaning that the research participants were not standard as per research ethical requirements. The self-selected research participants can influence the outcome of the research as most of the volunteers could be friends and relatives. Therefore, the research outcome for Morton's study could be termed as biased and unreliable due to the participants' selection method.

Another weakness of Morton's research study that Gould identified was the ecological invalidity of the study. Morton's research study was done in a laboratory setting where the participants were aware that they are under observation (Milgram, 1963). The ecological research setting could have altered the behavior of the participants thus affecting the validity of the results. Also, the other problem with the laboratory is the practicality of the environment where individuals can carry out an experiment that has harmful effects on the individuals under study (Gould 1978). Also, setting a laboratory for people to behave just like the way they act in real life situation is difficult.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Morton's research study seems to have violated many ethical requirements that may make any scientific researcher to term the outcome as invalid and unreliable. However, Morton's disregard of the research ethical was intentional for the purpose of making the research successful as it was.

References

Gould, S. J. (1978). Morton's ranking of races by cranial capacity: Unconscious manipulation of data may be a scientific norm. (Science, v.200, no.4341.) Washington.

Milgram, S. (1963). Obedience. University Park, Penn: The Pennsylvania State University, Audio Visual Services.