Bocchiaro (2012) Flashcards
What was the background?
Bocchiaro was interested in understanding the person as well as the social nature of variations in (dis)obedience.
What was the aim?
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.
What was the method?
8 pilot tests carried out on 92 undergraduates to test if the procedure was believable, morally acceptable, behaviour of an authority figure was standardised and as a necessary part of the ethical approval process. A ‘comparison’ group of 138 participants were asked to predict how they would behave in the study (pilot study). In the main study, 149 undergraduate students, from Amsterdam. Paid either 7 euros or course credit.
What was the sampling method?
Self-selecting sampling, recruited by flyers posted in the campus. 11 were removed from the original sample of 160 due to their suspicion about the nature of the study.
What was the procedure?
A controlled observation. The study took part in two rooms. A Dutch experimenter greeted each participant, he was formally dressed and stern. Provided names of fellow students. Experimenter then presented his cover study on sensory deprivation, about a study done in Italy, that caused hallucinations.
Room One – 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.
Room Two – 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 two personality tests to complete. Asked a few questions to check for demand characteristics. Debriefed fully at the end.
What were the measures?
One – participants reactions to the experimenters request to write the statement. Those who complied = obedient, those who refused = disobedient.
Two – the whistle blowers. Those who refused to comply = open whistle blowers, those who wrote the statement = anonymous whistleblowers.
Two personality tests – HEXACO-PI-R and the decomposed games measure. Social Value Orientation (SVO).
What were the results?
Pre-Experimental Comparisons – 3.6% indicated they would obey, 31.9% said they would disobey, 64.5% said they would whistle blow.
Predicting – 18.8% would obey, 43.9% would disobey and 37.3% would whistle blow.
Actual Study – 76.5% obeyed (114), 14.1% disobeyed (21), 9.4% whistle blew (14).
Of the Actual Whistleblowers – 6% had written the statement and 3.4% has refused to write the statement.
No significant difference found in any groups in relation to ethnicity, gender and religious affiliation. However, there was a significant difference in faith.
They was no significant differences in terms of the HEXACO-PI-R.
There was no particular pattern of social orientation.
What were the conclusions?
People obey authority figures, even unjust figures. Situational rather than dispositional factors may offer a better explanation for disobedience.
