Bocchiaro

Question 1

What was the actual aim of the experiment?

Answer 1

To investigate rates of obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing when asked to do something that is clearly ethically wrong, but not involving physical violence

Question 2

What were the secondary aims of the experiment?

Answer 2

• To investigate accuracy of people’s estimations of how likely others are to whistle blow
• To investigate role of personality factors in ODW

Question 3

What was the research method?

Answer 3

A lab based scenario study. Only one condition, therefore not a true lab expt

Question 4

What was the design and procedure of the expt?

Answer 4

1st - 8 pilot studies, 92 Ps to ensure procedure was practical

Main study - at VU uni of Amsterdam, 148 Ps paid 7
euros or given course credits. Sample self selected

Room 1 - experimenter told Ps they were carrying out research into sensory deprivation but previously Ps had panicked and wanted expt stopped - it wasn’t. They needed these Ps to approve the expt so could use this approval to convince an ethics committee a similar study could be conducted

• Ps had to write statement convincing others to participate in a sensory deprivation expt using positive words, superb, great and not mentioning negative effecrs
• Ps left for 3 mins to reflect
• Ps offered regular paid work in future
• Ps moved to room 2 with computer, mailbox and ethics form
• Ps left alone for 7 mins whilst writing statement
• Ps could whistle blow by completing form + putting in mailbox stating true opinion
• Experimenter returns
• 2 personality tests completed - HEXACO and Decomposed Games Measure of social values

Question 5

What was the data gathered?

Answer 5

Quantitative measure of no and % of Ps obeying (writing statement), disobeying (refusing to write statement), and whistleblowing (completing ethics committee form and placing it in mailbox)

Some qualitative data gained in debrief when Ps explained why they acted as they did

Debrief - true aim reveal - Ps informed they could withdraw their data

Question 6

What were the results?

Answer 6

76.5% obeyed
14% disobeyed
9.4% whistle blew

Question 7

Was there any sampling bias?

Answer 7

Sample was self-selected - volunteers are more helpful so may likely to try be ‘good’ Ps so more likely to obey/less likely to whistle blow

Most Ps were young so not a representative of older people who may be more assertive and therefore more likely to whistle blow

Question 8

What is the background of the expt?

Answer 8

• Bocc was interested in Milgram’s research but only investigated obedience, wb disobedience? - so wanted to investigate people why people may/not report unjust authority, i.e. whistle blow

Question 9

What were the conclusions made?

Answer 9

• Situation has a powerful influence on behaviour, supporting social psychology approach
• Dispositional (indiv diff) didn’t have effect on obedience or whistleblowing again supporting social view and going against indiv diff in psychology
• People poor at understanding how they would act in given situations, they overestimate how special they are + underestimate power of situation (fundamental attribution error)
• Comments made in debrief indicated Ps who obeyed did so bc they shifted responsibility to researcher rather than taking responsibility for own actions. Those who disobeyed felt responsible for actions