Paper 2 - Bocchiaro on obedience, disobedience and whistle blowing Flashcards
What type of study is this ?
Controlled laboratory observation
What does the background section of this study include ?
The understanding gained from Milgram’s study was extremely valuable but doesn’t give any insight into the nature of disobedience to an unjust authority.
When ordered to obey by an unjust authority, one option is to disobey, an other option is to whistle blow.
At the time of Milgram’s study there was no insight into what type of people disobey or whistle blow.
The first step is to create a research paradigm where people have the option to obey, disobey or whistle blow. The set up must be personally engaging and have mundane realism. Also, it must be ethically sound so that no psychological harm occurs.
What was the aim of this study ?
To investigate how people deal with an unjust and unethical request by and authority figure, when given the option to obey, disobey or whistle blow.
Also to investigate the difference between how people think they behave and actually behave.
What were the research predictions for this study ?
Participants will be more obedient than in Milgram’s study as they’re not asked to harm anyone, instead they’re asked to engage in verbal hostility which is seen as less intense.
Participants will be less likely to whistle blow than obey as whistleblowing means the pps will come into contact with the unjust authority or have to deal with those of higher authority.
Participants will obver estimate the tendency to disobey or blow the whistle, when asked to predict other behaviour.
Personality characteristics will not have much of an effect on a persons behaviour (obeying, disobeying or whistleblowing).
Explain the sample in this study.
A total of 149 university undergraduates from VU university of Amsterdam took part (96 women and 53 men), a mean age of 20.8.
A self elected sample was obtained by posting flyers in the university canteen. They were paid 7 euros or course credit.
Originally, 160 pps but 11 were removed as they were suspicious about the nature of the study.
Explain the pilot test section of the method.
prior to conducting the main study, a series of 8 pilot tests were conducted using 92 students. These were to check that the procedure was believable, ethical and experimenter-authority behaviour was standardised. The pilot pps judges the study as ethical and believable. The university of Amsterdam institutional review board approved the project design
Explain the materials section of the method
Research committee ethics form: HEXO-PI-R, to assess six basic personality traits: honesty, humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience. There were 60 statements on the tests, pps shad to indicate their agreement with the statement on the tests using a Likert scale (1 strongly disagree, 5 strongly agree).
Decomposed games measure: a 9 item test that assesses how much importance someone places on the welfare of another person in relation to their own welfare, called social value orientation, it allows pps to be labelled as prosocial, individualistic, or competitive. The researcher used this because the paradigm created a dilemma in which self interest clashed with collective interest.
Explain the comparison students section of the method.
A group of 138 comparison students were given a detailed description of the study and asked to predict what they would do and what the average student would do. 64.5% said they would whistleblow.
Explain the whole procedure of the study.
Each pps went to a psychology laboratory and was greeted by a male Dutch experimenter(played by a confederate) who has a stern manner and was formally dressed.
The experimenter asked the pps if they could provide names of a few fellow students, he explained that the research we are doing is on sensory deprivation, previous pps reported that it was a frightening experience, we need college students who will take part. A university research committee is evaluating whether to approve the study. It would help if you could convince those students you names to take part, and if you could help convince the committee that the study is ethical so that they can approve it.
The experimenter then left the rom for 3 minutes to allow the pps to reflect.
On his return he said we’ll move to the next room where you can fill in the statements for you friends and the form for the research committee. You must be enthusiastic in statement, please use at least 2 of the words: incredible, great, superb, exciting. please don’t mention the negative effects of sensory deprivation.
The pps was then lead to a second room where there was a computer ( to report to fellow students) and the research committee and a mail box where they could anonymously post their form.
The experimenter then left the room for 7 minutes.
They then completed 2 personality tests (HEXO-PI-R and decomposed games measure).
The whole procedure lasted 40 minutes.
Explain the debriefing section of this study.
each pps was carefully debriefed to ensure that they understood the true reason for the deception and also that they knew the true nature of the study. Researchers were concerned that the pps shouldn’t loose trust in psychological research, they should have confidence that all studies need to be ethically approves, therefore this is ethically acceptable. Closed questions were used during the debrief.
Explain the contribution that individual differences had to the results of this study.
The researchers considered whether there was any differences in the three main groups of pps. There were no significant trends within gender or religion, however, there was a trend within whistle blowers having greater faith than the obedient and disobedient pps.
Explain the contribution that personality had to the results.
No significant differences between any of the 3 groups in terms of the 6 traits that the HEXO-PI-R test measured.
Explain the contribution that social orientation had to the results of this study.
Each pps was further classified by social orientation by the decomposed games measure (prosocial, individualistic or competitive). Pps received a classification if they got 6 or more on each category. A total of 28 students failed to be classified.
3 pps were competitive but this number wasn’t sufficient to be used in the analysis.
A chi^2 analysis of the remaining 18 students found a pattern in prosocial and individualistic in the 3 types of pps.
Explain the contribution anonymous and open whistle blowers had to the results of this study.
14 blew the whistle, 5 did so openly by filling out the ethics form and refusing to write a supporting statement about the study.
5 was too small of a number to be used for the analysis, so open and anonymous whistle-blowers pps were all considered as whistle-blowers.
why is what people think they do and actually do is different ?
- we belive that we are special and rational and able to resist social influences.
- this creates a blindness. we underestimate our own vunerability to social pressures therefore making ourselves more venerable as we have no awareness that we will be influenced.
