Core Studies - Social Area

Question 1

What is social psychology about? How does milgrams study fit into the social area?

Answer 1

Social psychology is about how our behaviour is affected by other people. Milgrams’ study is in the social psychology area as it studied now people’s behaviour and obedience is affected by legitimate authority figures.

Question 2

Define obedience

Answer 2

Obedience is when you follow orders given by a person with authority over you. For example, a policeman

Question 3

What was the aim of Milgram’s study?

Answer 3

To see whether people will obey an authority figure to cause harm to another.

Question 4

What was the sample of Milgram’s study?

Answer 4

40 male participants aged 20 to 50 years old in USA. Volunteer sample recruited via an advertisement in a local newspaper.

Question 5

Procedure in milgram’s study?

Answer 5

Participants were shown an electric shock generator and asked to give increasing levels of electric shocks to the learner if he got any words incorrect on a word pair task.

Question 6

What was the research method in milgram’s study? What was the DV?

Answer 6

Laboratory study (pre-experiment as it only had one condition). Standardised procedure was used such as everyone using the same shock generator. the DV was the level of shocks participants gave on the shock generator

Question 7

What were the results of milgram’s study?

Answer 7

65% of participants went to 450V
100% of participants went to 300V

Question 8

Give on conclusion from Milgram’s study

Answer 8

People will obey an authority figure even if it means causing harm to another

Question 9

What were some methodological and ethical issues with Milgram’s study?

Answer 9

G - the sample consisted of 40 American males making it androcentric and ethnocentric, not generalisable of the wider population
R - it is a laboratory study (pre experiment) therefore has good control of extraneous variables, making it replicable and reliable
A - could be used in training to avoid destructive obedience and question immoral orders.
V - lacks ecological validity as the nature of the task is not an everyday activity, strong internal validity as it the shocks do measure obedience
E - deception, participants thought the experiment was on the effects of punishment, not obedience, therefore they did not give informed consent. Participants were given verbal prods like “it is essential that you must continue” this gave them the feeling that they did not have the right to withdraw

Question 10

What is a whistleblower?

Answer 10

Someone who exposes another person or organisation engaging in immoral activity

Question 11

What were the aims of the bocchiaro study?

Answer 11

• to see whether participants obey, disobey or whistleblow on an unethical study when given the option to
• to see what personal and social factors are related to disobedience and whistle blowing

Question 12

Research method of the bocchiaro study

Answer 12

It is a laboratory pre experiment has there was only one condition, no IV was manipulated.

Question 13

What did bocchiaro do to test the effectiveness and make sure the study was morally acceptable?

Answer 13

They did 8 Pilot studies - small trial of a proposed study

Question 14

What was the sample of the study?

Answer 14

149 undergraduate students, 96 women and 53 men
Self selected sample

Question 15

What was the procedure for the bocchiaro study?

Answer 15

Participants were greeted with a stern male experimenter, they were then told to write a statement encouraging others to take part in an experiments that was unethical as the side effects were hallucination and impaired cognitive abilities. The experimenter left the room to give participants the option to either write the statement, not write it, or whistleblow on the experiment by putting a form in the mailbox in the room.

Question 16

What happened after the experimenter came back in Bocchiaros study?

Answer 16

The participants were given dispositional measures (someone’s personality or social values/beliefs) such as a personality test. Religious it was assessed by asking participants the extent of their faith.

Question 17

What were the results of the bocchiaros experiment?

Answer 17

76.5% obeyed
14.1% disobeyed
9.4% whistleblew

Question 18

Conclusions of the bocchiaro’s study

Answer 18

• people tend to obey authority figures, even if authority is unjust
• disobedience or whistleblowing in the face of an unethical situation is difficult but those with strong faith find it easier

Question 19

Evaluation of bocchiaro study

Answer 19

G- 149 uni students. Generalisable because it is mixed gender but not generalisable as uni students are not representative of the wider population
R - they were asked to write a statement with the same words like “superb”. This makes it easily replicable therefore more reliable
A - help people to understand that whistleblowing is important because we want people to be able to whistleblow against immoral behaviour in an organisation
V - high ecological validity as participants thought it was a real life situation - that they were actually asked to write a statement supporting an experiment on sensory deprivation
E - participants were deceived however, they were debriefed at the end of the experiment.

Question 20

What are the social area features?

Answer 20

• How we are influenced by other people and the social context we are in
• how we are influenced by the real or imagined presence of others

Question 21

how does bocchiaros study fit into the social area?

Answer 21

It is in the social area because it looks at situational factors that determine whether we obey or disobey or whistleblow. All participants were affected by a stern experimenter who is the authority figure - even when he wasn’t in the room, the participants were influenced by his imagined presence leading to a high obedience rate (75.6%)

Question 22

Similarity between bocchiaro and milgram

Answer 22

Both milgram and bocchiaro used quantitative data
Milgram measured what percentage of people would go to 300v (100%)
Bocchiaro measured how many people would write the statement (76.5%)
This made it easier to compare whether participants obeyed the ordered to shock people further or write a statement asking people to take part in an unethical experiment making it objective.

Question 23

Differences between Milgram and bocchiaro

Answer 23

Bocchiaro had higher ecological validity
Bocchiaro was more generalisable

Question 24

why do people find it hard to whistleblow?

Answer 24

people are inclined to obey legitimate authority figures so they find it hard to whistleblow on people in authority who are engaging in unlawful or immoral activities

Question 25

What was the comparison group for in Bocchiaro’s study?

Answer 25

138 comparison students at the VU university were provided with a detailed description of the experimental setting and asked what they thought they would do and what the average student would do. This was to make a comparison between how obedient people think they will be compared to how obedient they actually are in the main experiment.