S - Bocchario Flashcards
Aim
investigate rates of obedience, disobedience and whistle-blowing.
Background
- Milgram found that people have strong inclinations to obey legitimate authority, irrespective of their beliefs, feelings or intentions.
- Previous research has allowed us to gain important knowledge of the mechanisms of obedience. However there is little understanding about the nature of disobedience to unjust authority. Little is known about the following:
(a) Who are the people that disobey or blow the whistle?
(b) Why do they choose the challenging moral path?
(c) Do they have personal characteristics that differentiate them from those who obey? - This study took the first step towards stimulating research on these topics. It used the generic Milgram paradigm as a starting point – authority requesting immoral actions of participants – but aimed to go well beyond it in providing participants the option to take personal action against an unjust system (in this study, with an unethical experiment) by giving them the chance to obey, disobey or blow the whistle against authorities who encouraged immoral behaviours.
- The study also 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 (Milgram, 1974).
- The researchers’ interest in understanding the personal (individual) as well as the social (situational) nature of variations in (dis)obedience led them to collect a variety of personality and values information from their participants.
Method
- Bocchiaro et al consider this study as a laboratory experiment. However, like Milgram, there was in fact no independent variable so the study may be best viewed as a laboratory study, or as Bocchiaro et al say a ‘scenario study’.
- The study took place in a laboratory at the VU University in Amsterdam, so conditions could be controlled eg the procedure was standardised so the experimenter-authority behaviour and cover story were consistent throughout the experimental period. Two specially prepared rooms were used. Timings for when the experimenter left the room were kept the same for all participants.
- Data was gathered on the number of participants who obeyed by writing a statement in support of the sensory deprivation study; those who disobeyed by refusing to write the requested statement and those who became whistle blowers by reporting the experimenter’s questionable conduct to the Research Committee, and through the scores on the two personality inventories (the Dutch version of the 60-item HEXACO-
PI-R – tgis measured the six major dimensions of personality, and a nine-item Decomposed Games measure – this measured Social Value Orientation - SVO). - 138 comparison students from The VU University were provided with a detailed description of the experimental setting. They were then asked “What would you do?” and “What would the average student at your university do?”
Sample
- 149 undergraduate students (96 women, 53 men, mean age = 20.8, SD = 2.65) took part in the research in exchange for either €7 or course credit.
- NB. A total of 11 participants were removed from the initial sample of 160 because of their suspiciousness about the nature of the study.
Procedure
- Eight pilot tests, involving 92 undergraduates from the VU University in Amsterdam, were conducted to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable. These tests also served to standardise the experimenter-authority behaviour throughout the experimental period.
- The comparison group was provided with a detailed description of the experimental setting. They were then asked “What would you do?” and “What would the average student at your university do?”
- Participants were informed about what their task was, about the potential benefits/risks of participation, and about their right to withdraw at any time with no penalty. They were also assured of the confidentiality of the information collected.
- Each participant was greeted in the laboratory by a male, Dutch experimenter who was formally dressed and had a stern demeanour.
- The experimenter proceeded with a (seemingly unjustified) request for each participant to provide a few names of fellow students and then presented the cover story.
- The gist of the cover story:
- The experimenter and an Italian colleague were investigating the effects of sensory deprivation on brain function.
- A recently conducted experiment on six participants in Rome who spent some time completely isolated, unable to see or hear anything, had disastrous effects – all panicked, their cognitive abilities were temporarily impaired, some experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. Two participants asked to stop because of their strong symptoms but were not allowed to do so because invalid data may then have been collected. The majority said it had been a frightening experience.
- The experimenters wanted to replicate this study at the VU University using a sample of college students as there was currently no data on young people but some scientists thought that their brains may be more sensitive to the negative effects of isolation.
- Although it was difficult to predict what would happen, the experimenter wanted to proceed with the experiment.
- A University Research Committee was evaluating whether to approve the study and were collecting feedback from students who knew details about the experiment, to help them make their decision.
- Participants were told that Research Committee forms were in the next room.
- Participants were to write a statement to convince the students they had previously indicated to participate in the experiment. Statements would be sent to the identified students by mail.
- The experimenter left the room for three minutes to allow participants to reflect on the action-based decisions they were about to make,
- Participants were then moved to a second room where there was a computer for them to use to write their statement, a mailbox and the Research Committee forms.
- Participants were told to be enthusiastic when writing their statements and had to use two adjectives among “exciting”, “incredible”, “great” and “superb”. Negative effects of sensory deprivation were not to be mentioned.
- The experimenter told participants to begin and left the room for 7 minutes.
- If a participant believed the proposed research on sensory deprivation violated ethical norms he/she could anonymously challenge it by putting a form in the mailbox.
- After the seven-minute interval the experimenter returned and invited the participant to follow him back to the first room where he/she was administered two personality inventories, probed for suspicion, fully debriefed and asked to sign a second consent form, this time fully informed.
- The entire session lasted approximately 40 minutes.
Results
- Of all the respondents in the comparison group:
- Only 3.6% indicated they would obey the experimenter. Most believed they would be either disobedient (31.9%) or whistleblowers (64.5%).
- When asked to predict the behaviour of other typical students at their university, only 18.8% thought an average student at VU University would obey, while they believed most other students would either disobey (43.9%) or whistleblow (37.3%).
- Of the 149 participants in the experimental situation:
- 76.5% obeyed the experimenter (n = 114), 14.1% disobeyed (n = 21) and 9.4% (n = 14) blew the whistle.
- Among whistleblowers 6.0% (n = 9) had written a message (Anonymous whistleblowers) and 3.4% (n = 5) had refused to do so (Open whistleblowers).
- No significant differences were found in any of the groups in relation to gender, religious affiliation (Christian/Islamic), or religious involvement (defined in terms of church attendance). However a significant difference was observed with regard to faith (defined as a confident belief in a transcendent reality), X² (2,149) = 6.74, p = .03
- Results for individual differences in personality among the three groups showed no statistically significant differences in any of the six personality factors measured by the HEXACO-PI-R.
- Results in terms of SVO showed that “prosocial” and “individualistic” participants were not unequally distributed among the three groups,
X² (2,118) = 2.25, p = .32 - Qualitative data from the study showed that those participants who obeyed did so because of external forces - “It was expected of me, that’s why I continued’’, ‘‘I cooperated because the experimenter asked me to’’; they had entered the agentic state and were not responsible for their behaviour.
- However, the opposite was true for disobedient participants, who felt responsible for their actions. ‘‘I don’t want to do unethical things, I would be very disappointed in myself’’, ‘‘I disobeyed because I felt responsible towards friends’’, ‘‘If the experiment would really hurt people, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that’.’
Conclusions
- People tend to obey authority figures, even if the authority is unjust.
- How people think/what people say they and others will do in a given situation often differs from what actually happens. The internal cognitive processes of ordinary people wanting to appear “good” often differ from the outward pervasive power of situational forces that bind behaviour to a range of seemingly innocuous features in any given behavioural context.
- Individuals behave in completely different ways than expected when they find themselves in certain circumstances that are unfamiliar and somewhat extreme.
- Behavioural acts of both disobedience and whistleblowing are psychologically, socially and economically demanding for people, notably whistleblowers.
- Behaving in a moral manner is challenging for people, even when the reaction appears to observers as the simplest path to follow.
- With regard to faith, there appears to be a trend suggesting that whistleblowers have more faith than either obedient or disobedient individuals.
Method Evaluation
One strength of using a controlled observation is that you have high control over extraneous variables.
This means that you should only be measuring what you intended to measure and therefore nothing else should confound the results
In Bocchiaros study they tested all participants in the same rooms and were given the same instructions to follow which meant they had high control meaning there was little room for other variables to influence the results.
A weakness of a controlled observation is that they can still be low in ecological validity.
This means it might be hard to compare the results to real life as p’s are tested in artificially contrivedenvironments.
In Bocchiaros study the participants had volunteered for a study and were being tested in an unfamiliar environment which could lead them to show more/less obedient behaviours compared to a real lifeexperience.
Data
Bocchiaros study collected both quantitative data and qualitative data.
This is a strength as it improves the validity of the research as we can compare statistics in terms of behaviours observed as well as gaining insight into why p’s behaved in this way.
Bocchiaros collected quantitive data in terms of percentage of p’s who obeyed, disobeyed and whistleblowed as well as recording down comments made during the study and in the debriefing. This allows us to understand clearly how and why they behaved in this way in the study.
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Ethics
Signed a consent form giving consent to take part before the study (NOT informed) cover story was read out
Participants were deceived they did initially think this was a real study to be carried out.
All participants were debriefed and fully informed consent was gained after the research. Participants were given a written debriefing form that outlined the reason for the fake cover story, as well as an email address to contact in case they wanted to complain or ask further questions about the study. During the debrief they made sure that participants did not feel uncomfortable about their obedience and about the fact they had been deceived
Participants were told they could withdraw at any time - before or after being asked to write the supporting statement - without penalty
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Reliability
A strength of this study is that it is high in reliability
This study used standardization to ensure the procedure could be replicated and also it used psychometrics (personality measures) which have been shown to be high in reliability.
In Bocchiaros study all ps were told the same cover story and given the same instructions/timings during the experiment. They were also given the Hexaco personality test which has high internal consistency as it uses a number of statements so consistency of responses can be checked and also the decomposed games has been shown to have good test retest reliability.
Validity
A weakness of a controlled observation is that they can still be low in ecological validity.
This means it might be hard to compare the results to real life as p’s are tested in artificially contrivedenvironments.
In Bocchiaros study the participants had volunteered for a study and were being tested in an unfamiliar environment which could lead them to show more/less obedient behaviours compared to a real lifeexperience.
Sampling Bias
Both males and females so has population validity
Cognitive bias as they were all students so specific standard of understanding – maybe they were more authoritative
Ethnocentrism
Research which only focuses on one cultural perspective is called ethnocentric as it might presume that this cultural perspective is ‘normal’.
This means it can be hard to generalise the findings of the research to other cultures.
Bocchiaros study was carried out in the Netherlands and the authority figure was Dutch. Research suggests we are more likely to obey someone of similar ethnicity so it might of been lower if the authourity was from a different ethnicity. This studies findings could be seen as ethnocentric as they are only looking at the Dutch but it allows us to see that it is not only Americans which show a high level of obedience (Milgrams) but other cultures also do.
