Bocchiaro

Question 1

What is social influence?

Answer 1

The influence an individual has to change another’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviours.

Question 2

What are independent behaviours?

Answer 2

We can behave and act as we want.

Question 3

What is defiance?

Answer 3

Going against authority, pre condition for social progress.

Question 4

What is unjust authority?

Answer 4

Instructions which require a person to behave in an anti-social way, can disobey or ‘blow the whistle’.

Question 5

What is a whistle-blower?

Answer 5

• A person who exposes or informs on a person

Question 6

What is the background?

Answer 6

• Bocchiaro was interested in understanding the person as well as the social nature of variations in (dis)obedience

Question 7

What is the aim?

Answer 7

• To investigate how people deal with an unethical and unjust request. Participants have the option of obeying, disobeying, or blowing the whistle. Aimed to investigate the difference between how people think they will behave and how they actually behave. Aimed to see if people who disobey, blow the whistle.

Question 8

What is the sample?

Answer 8

• 8 pilot tests using 92 undergraduates - test if procedure was believable, standardised, ethical
• Comparison group using 138 participants - predict how they would behave in the (pilot) study
• Main study using 149 undergraduate students, from Amsterdam

Question 9

How was the sample chosen?

Answer 9

• Self-selecting sampling, recruited by flyers posted on campus, paid 7 euros
• 11 removed from original 160 sample due to suspicion about nature of the study

Question 10

What happened in the procedure?

Answer 10

• A controlled observation, study took place in 2 rooms
• Dutch experimenter greeted each participant, formally dressed and stern. Provided names of fellow students. Experimenter presented his cover study on sensory deprivation about a study done in Italy that caused hallucinations.

Question 11

What happened in room 1?

Answer 11

• They were told that research committee forms were in the next room. They wrote a statement to convince the student that they had previously named to take part, experimenter left the room

Question 12

What happened in room 2?

Answer 12

• Found a computer to write the statement, had to use ‘incredible’ and ‘great’ but no negative effects of sensory deprivation. Experimenter left the room for 7 minutes. If they thought this was unethical they could put it in the mailbox.
• Experimenter returned and invited the participants to follow him back into the first room where they were then given 2 personality tests to complete. Asked a few questions to check for demand characteristics. Debriefed fully at the end.

Question 13

What measures were used?

Answer 13

• Participants reactions to the experimenters request to write the statement, those who complied = obedient, those who refused = disobedient
• Whistle-blowers, those who refused to comply = open whistle-blowers, those who wrote the statement = anonymous whistle-blowers
• Two personality tests: HEXACO-PI-R and the decomposed games measure & Social Value Orientation (SVO)

Question 14

What were some results?

Answer 14

• Actual study: 76.5% obeyed, 14.1% disobeyed, 9.4% whistle-blew
• Of whistle-blowers: 6% wrote the statement
• No significant difference in measures or ethnicity, gender, or religious affiliation

Question 15

What were some conclusions?

Answer 15

• People obey authority figures, even unjust figures
• Situational rather than dispositional factors may offer a better explanation for disobedience