Bocchiaro - Social Area Flashcards
What is one option a person can make when they are ordered to obey unjust authority?
BACKGROUND
- Disobey
What is the other option that involves reporting wrongdoing to higher authorities?
BACKGROUND
- A phenomenon known as whistleblowing
Specifically, what three things were not known?
BACKGROUND
- Who are the people that disobey or blow the whistle?
- Why do they choose the challenging moral path?
- Do they have personal characteristics that differentiate them from those who obey?
What is a paradigm? (2 Bps)
BACKGROUND
- A model or pattern for doing something
- A set of standardised procedures to manipulate behaviour and observe the consequences
How was Milgram’s paradigm used in Bocchiaro’s study?
BACKGROUND
Authority figures requesting immoral actions of participants
What did Bocchiaro’s study aim/want to build on Milgram’s study? (2 BPs)
Option to take___
Gave them a chance to___
BACKGROUND
- Wanted to provide participants the options to take personal action against an unjust system
- Gave them the chance to obey, disobey or blow the whistle against authorities who encourage immoral behaviour
What is social power?
Influence on an individual
THEORIES
The influence an individual has to change another’s thoughts, feelings or behaviours.
How can social power be presented in society?
THEORIES
Individuals in authority, legitimate or illegitimate, have social power to influence those with lower social status within their social hierarchy
What does a human’s independent behaviour/defiance involve?
THEORIES
Involves the rejection of social influence/power to behave in accordance with one’s own internal attitudes, morals and beliefs
What experimental method was used? (3 BPs)
RESEARCH METHOD
- Scenario study
- Not a lab study since there was no IV
- High levels of control - lab
Describe the study in 3 bullet point
What was it about?
What did it consist of?
What where the researcher’s wanting to see about P’s - Would they obey?
And/OR what would they do if they didn’t obey?
PROCEDURE
- Consisted of describing hypothetical unethical study on sensory deprivation
- Seeing whether P’s would obey a request to write a statement about another fellow student
- Whether they would blow the whistle by filling in a form about the ethics of a study
What was the aim of Bocchiaro’s study
Aimed to replicate Milgram’s findings of a wide gap between people’s predictions of their own and others’ degree of (dis)obedience when contrasted with the actual behavioural outcomes in his experiment
What were the researchers also interested in? (2)
What did it lead them to collect?
AIM
The researchers were interested in understanding the Individual and situational nature of variations in (dis)obedience
It led them to collect a variety of personality and valuable information from their participants
How many participants were in the experimental condition? (2 BPs)
Give genders too
SAMPLE
- 149 undergraduate students
- 96 women, 53 men
How many were removed from the study and why? (2 BPs)
SAMPLE
- 11 removed
- suspicion
How many participants were in the comparison group?
SAMPLE
138
How many participants were in the pilot study?
SAMPLE
92
Where did the study take place?
SAMPLE
VU University, Amsterdam
What was the sampling technique used?
ST
Self-selected sample
How were participants recruited?
ST
Flyers were posted in the campus cafeteria
How much money would participants receive/anything else?
ST
- 7 euros
- course credit
What was the purpose of the 8 pilot tests? (2 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable
- Served to standardise the experimenter-(authority) behaviour throughout the experimental period.
What was the comparison group given a detailed description of?
PROCEDURE
The experimental setting
What questions were the comparison group asked? (2 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- What would you do?
- What would the average student at your university do?
How where participants in the experimental group greeted? (3 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- Participants greeted by a male, Dutch experimenter
- He was formally dressed
- He had a stern demeanour/expression
What did the experimenter request from participants?
PROCEDURE
A few names of fellow students
What was the cover story about? (5 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- Investigating effects of sensory deprivation on brain function
- 6 P’s in Rome spent time isolated, couldn’t see, hear, bad effects
- Cognitive abilities temporarily impaired
- Visual and auditory hallucinations
- 2 P’s wanted to stop but couldn’t as invalid data would be collected
Why did experimenters want to replicate the study at VU University? (2 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- No data on young people
- Some scientists thought that their brains may be more sensitive to negative effects of isolation
What was the purpose of the University Research Committee? Why were they there? What were they doing? (3 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- They were evaluating whether to approve of the study
- They were taking feedback from students who knew details about experiment
- Wanted students to help them make their decision
What happened before the student was moved to the second room? (2 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- Experimenter leaves room for 3 mins
- Allows P’s to reflect on the action-based decisions they were about to make
What happened in the second room? (2 BPs)
Moved to where (equipment?)
What was also in the room? (equipment)
PROCEDURE
- P’s moved to a second room with a computer for them to write the statement
- There was a mailbox and the research committee forms
How long did the experimenter leave the second room for?
PROCEDURE
7 minutes
What were participants to do in the statement? (4 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- Write a statement, convincing students they had indicated to participate in the experiment
- P’s told to be enthusiastic
- Must use two adjective from the list
- Negative effects of sensory deprivation not to be mentioned
What the adjectives in the list? (4 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- exciting
- superb
- great
- incredible
What happened if P’s believed the research violated ethical norms?
PROCEDURE
he/she could anonymously challenge it by submitting a form in the mailbox
What happened after the 7 minutes were up? (7 BPs)
PROCEDURE
- Experimenter returned
- Asked P back to the first room
- P was administered two personality tests
- HEXACO-PI-R and SVO
- Probed for suspicion
- Fully debriefed
- Asked to sign a second consent form, this time fully informed (informed consent)
How long did the session last?
PROCEDURE
- 40 minutes
How many believed they would obey the experimenter? (%)
COMPARISON GROUP RESULTS
- 3.6 %
How many believed they would disobey? (%)
COMPARISON GROUP RESULTS
- 31.9%
How many believed they would whistleblow? (%)
COMPARISON GROUP RESULTS
- 64.5%
How many people thought VU students would obey? (%)
OTHER VU STUDENT PREDICTION RESULTS
- 18.8%
How many people thought that VU students would disobey? (%)
COMPARISON GROUP ABT OTHER VU STUDENT PREDICTION RESULTS
- 43.9 %
How many people thought that VU students would whistleblow? (%)
OTHER VU STUDENT RESULTS
- 37.3%
How many people obeyed? (% + No.)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
- 76.5%
- 114 P’s
How many people disobeyed? (% + No.)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
- 14.1%
- 21 P’s
How many people whistleblew? (% + No.)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
- 9.4%
- 14 P’s
How many whistleblowers were anon whistleblowers and wrote a letter? (% + No.)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULRS
- 6%
- 9 participants
How many were open whistleblowers? (% + NO.)
- 3.4%
- 5 participants
Were there any significant differences found in regard to gender, religious affiliation?
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
- No significant differences
Were there any significant differences in regard to faith? (2 BPs)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
- Yes
- Those who had a confident belief in a transcendent reality
Where there any statistical significance in personality factors?
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
No
Give two QUAL data quotes + REASON (3 Bps)
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS - Obeyed
‘It was expected of me, that’s why i continued’
‘I cooperated because the experimenter asked me to’
They had entered an agentic state and they did not feel responsible for their behaviour
Give two QUAL results
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS - disobeyed
- I don’t want to do unethical things
- I would be very disappointed in myself
Do people obey authority figures, despite if the authority is unjust? (2 BPS)
CONCLUSIONS
- Yes
- People tend to obey authority figures, even if the authority is unjust
Do poeple believe they will act in a different way in a given situation? (2 BP)
CONCLUSIONS
- Yes
- How people think/what people say and others will do in a given situation often differs from what actually happens
Is behaving in a moral manner challenging?
CONCLUSIONS
Behaving in a moral manner is challenging for people, even when the reaction appears to observers as the simplest path to follow
