Bocciaro's study Flashcards
What is a research paradigm?
a new method of testing to look at whistle blowing
What is a whistle blower?
Someone who makes public disclosure of corruption or wrong dooing
What was the aim of Bocchiaro’s study?
To see if disobedient participants and whistle blowers have different personality characteristics to those who obey
What is a pilot study?
a small-scale preliminary study designed to evaluate the feasibility of a full-scale study
What was the sample of Bocchiaro’s study?
149 undergraduate students
96 female, 53 male
average age =20.8
How did Bocchiaro obtain his sample?
He recruited by flyers in the campus cafeteria at the VU university in Amsterdam
They were given 5% course credit or 7 Euros
What are two strengths of Bocchiaro’s sample?
Big sample so allows a consistent effect to be show
Large range of students studying different courses
What is a weakness of Bocchiaro’s study?
Not representative of target population - 20.8 average age
What is a weakness of Bocchiaro’s sampling method?
may have felt obliged to take part so may have been more obedient in actual study
Outline the pilot tests of Bocchiaro’s study?
there were a series of 8 pilot tests
post experimental interviews revealed that participants believed the cover story and felt that the entire study was appropriate from an ethical standpoint
A total of 92 undergraduate students from the VU uni of Amsterdam participated in this preliminary research stage
What are the two strengths of researchers carrying out pilot studies?
Can make it more credible, more morally and ethically acceptable
It can also make it more standardised so that the authority figure would be the same to each participant
What are the two weaknesses of researchers carrying out pilot studies?
costly and time consuming
could end up with some if the same participants
What were the four hypotheses of Bocchiaro’s study?
A higher percentage of participants will obey the experimenter than in Milgram’s study
A lower level of whistle blowing than disobedience
A substantial overestimation of the tendency to disobey and blow the whistle
Weak effects for various personality variables
In Bocchiaro’s study, who met the participants and in what manner did they do this?
The researcher greeted the participant in a laboratory at the university, they were formally dressed and had a stern demeanor
What were participants asked to do after hearing the cover story?
Give the names of a few fellow students and convince them in s statement to take part in this study (without mentioning the negative effects
to fill in a research committee ethics form stating that this study is ethical
How long did the researcher leave the room for in Bocchiaro’s study?
7 minutes
What words were participants asked to use in their supportive statement in Bocchiaro’s study?
Exciting, great, incredible, superb
What were the two personality tests carried out in Bocchiaro’s study?
HEXACO-PI-R
social value orientation
What were the six dimensions of personality measured in the HEXACO-PI-R?
Honest-humility Emotionality Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness to experience
What were the three orientations that could emerge in the social value orientation test?
Pro-social
Individualistic’
competitive
What were the conclusions of Bocchiaro’s study?
The experiment casts doubt on the use of imagined scenario research. With people being so poor at accurately predicting their behaviour should such research ever be used?
Lends support to the better than average phenomenon (the idea that anyone believes themselves to be better than the average person on various attributes)
Situational pressures have a profound and powerful effect on individuals
What percentage of participants were obedient, disobedient or or whistle blowers (open and anonymous) in Bocchiaro’s study?
Obedient = 76.5% Disobedient = 14.1% Whistle blower = 9.4% Open whistle blower = 3.4% anonymous whistle blower = 6%
What percentage of participants said they would be obedient, disobedient or whistle blowers in Bocchiaro’s comparison study?
Obedient = 3.6% Disobedient = 31.9% Whistle-blower = 64.5%
What percentage of participants said they would be obedient, disobedient or whistle blowers in Bocchiaro’s comparison study?
Obedient = 18.8% Disobedient = 43.9% Whistle-blower = 37.3%
What did the disobedient category of behaviour mean in Bocchiaro’s study?
They refused to write a statement persuading fellow students to take part in the sensory deprivation study
What did the anonymous whistle-blowers category of behaviour mean in Bocchiaro’s study?
wrote a statement persuading fellow students to take part in the sensory deprivation study but also reported the experimenter asking them to do this to the human ethics committee
What did the open whistle-blowers category of behaviour mean in Bocchiaro’s study?
Refused to write a statement persuading fellow students to take part in the sensory deprivation study and also reported the experimenter asking them to do this to the human ethics committee
What did the obedient category of behaviour mean in Bocchiaro’s study?
wrote a statement persuading fellow students to take part in the sensory deprivation study
What are some quotes from participants from Bocchiaro’s study?
“I don’t want to do unethical things”
“I disobeyed because I felt responsible towards friends”
Did Bocchiaro’s study have internal reliability?
Yes as it had many controls and all participants experienced the same procedure
Did Bocchiaro’s study have external reliability?
There were 149 participants, and a fairly consistent effect was shown, but there could always be more
Did Bocchiaro’s study have internal validity?
Not really, It was potentially studying other things, such as morals and it was an extreme situation and there may have been demand characteristics.
They were offered course credit
Did Bocchiaro’s study have external (population) validity?
Yes because there was a fairly large and different sample, but they were all university students
Did Bocchiaro’s study have external (ecological) validity?
Not really, it wasn’t that true to life as they would usually have time to think before whistle blowing
Which ethical guidelines did Bocchiaro uphold?
Debrief Consent (not fully informed) Confidentiality withdrawal competence
Which ethical guidelines did Bocchiaro break?
Deception - the whole story was false
No informed consent
protection from harm - stressful situation
withdrawal - little bit of coercion - given a reward
Was Bocchiaro’s study ethnocentric?
Yes as all of the participants were from amsterdam and responses to people in authority is culturally specific, but it could potentially apply to other cultures
What are two similarities between Milgram and Bocchiaro?
Both used a self selecting sample and was pretty much all false
What are two differences between Milgram and Bocchiaro?
The samples were very different
They examined different things
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the free-will determinist debate?
They all had to choose whether to whistle blow - 9% did whistle blow
Their actions were determined by the environment - the experimenter - 76% did obey
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the nature-nurture debate?
nurture - operant conditioning - were given course credit - positive reinforcement
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the holism-reductionism debate?
Holistic - unintentionally investigated several areas - did 2 separate personality tests
reductionist - power of the environment only looked at
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the usefulness of research debate?
security services and governments would make great use of it
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the socially sensitive debate?
It could lead to more crime - more women than men so could argue that women are more likely to whistle blow than men - faith had an effect on whistle blowing so could lead to racism
How does Bocchiaro’s study link to the individual-situational debate?
individual - some whistle blew and some did not - personality tests/faith changing whistle blowing
Situational - effects of person of authority
