Social approach - Practical

Question 1

Introduction

Answer 1

• We wanted to look at the stigma that students get less obedient as they climb the social hierarchy of the year groups within the school system.
• Researchers have shown that throughout the teenage years a person is more likely to sense an ‘autonomy threat’. This is where a teenager feels like they no longer have autonomy and tries to gain it back by disobeying authority figures.
• In our practical we used a survey with questions that test a person’s obedience levels and their locus of control. Some relevant theories are:-
• Milgram (1963)’s study - Ordinary Man Gives Instructions - obedience fell when the person giving instructions was not wearing a lab coat. Uniform gives an impression of higher social hierarchy and this is demonstrated to have an effect of obedience. This links to our questions in the sense that authority figures such as teachers will have influence
• Hofling et al. (1966) study - Authority figures - higher in the social hierarchy such as teachers - were obeyed despite breaking hospital rules - blind obedience is following these orders despite having no explanation

Question 2

Aim

Answer 2

To test agency theory by investigating the effect of a social hierarchy on the levels of obedience in an institution.
Will a higher position in a social hierarchy (for example year-groups within school or job titles for teachers) affect an individual’s treatment of an authority figure?

Question 3

Experimental Hypothesis

Answer 3

• A higher level in the social hierarchy would result in a lower level of obedience, due to an increase in emphasis of individuality.
• For example in revision methods, as you grow older throughout the school, this may encourage autonomous states and individuals higher in the hierarchy. Therefore they may be less prone to falling into agentic states

Question 4

Null Hypothesis

Answer 4

social hierarchy has no effect on levels of obedience and our two-tailed hypothesis is that social hierarchy has an effect on obedience levels, in either direction.

Question 5

Operationalising hypothesis

Answer 5

• We decided to operationalise social hierarchy via the year groups within our school, with Year Seven being considered the lowest level of the hierarchy (due to being the youngest and least experienced within the school). Obedience in our study is characterised by how well the participants respond to authority figures - using a likert scale for some of the questions, for example “how well do you prepare for tests?” gives us a numerical value of obedience
• A person more likely to obey would also be more likely to prepare for something such as a test as it implies that the person wishes to please a person of higher authority. Positive responses to consequences points may also indicate a higher level of obedience because they agree that there should be consequences for not obeying. We are collecting self-report data.

Question 6

Methodology - Procedure

Answer 6

• To research, we used a questionnaire of 13 open and closed (multiple choice and likert scale) questions in order to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. This method was also time effective and participants could give honest anonymous answers, making our results more valid.
• When designing the questionnaire we did a pilot study of 4 people from each year to test the effectiveness of our survey. We were told our questions focused too negatively and promoted bad behaviours like cheating on tests so we edited our questions suitably. Otherwise, we got a positive result supporting our hypothesis.
• We included throw away questions to reduce demand characteristics as participants couldn’t figure out the objective of the questionnaire
• We also asked what subjects the respondents studied so we could screen out psychology students who may know the nature of the questionnaire

Question 7

Methodology - Sample

Answer 7

• We surveyed 6 year groups in the school, leaving out year 7s as they may have been distressed by the questions
• We selected the first 10 responses from each year group as our sample.
• This opportunity sample is quick and easy to obtain answers and ensures no ethical issues as there’s no pressure to take part. However it is not representative of the whole.
• sample size consisted of 60 students in total, 10 from each year group (8-13)

Question 8

Methodology - Controls

Answer 8

• The questions will be the same for every year group as this would allow the contrast of the different year groups answers.
• We used lots of closed questions which our well controlled as participants must answer in a clear way

Question 9

Results

Answer 9

• Our results supported our hypothesis, although not very strongly. This implies that there is an issue of destructive obedience within schools but it may be affected by other variables such as disposition, rather than simply social status.
• We can immediately see within our findings that participants lower down in the school were more inclined to complete the questionnaire (68 responses from Y8, 35 from Y9, 32 from Y10, 29 from Y11, 26 from Y12, 17 from Y13). This could be linked to a feeling of having to obey someone higher in the established social hierarchy.
• Our inferential statistical tests indicate that Year 11 prepared for tests the least, while both year 8 and year 13 prepared the most, although none of the scores were particularly high. This partially supports the hypothesis that younger years are more likely to obey. It could be argued that year 13s prepare more than other years due to the pressures of upcoming exams as opposed to obedience.
• As well as this, it was found that both year 8 and year 11 were both equally least likely to take no for an answer without an explanation, while year 13 were most likely. This has no specific correlation, and year 13’s score may be highest due to maturity levels.
• ## Year 8 was least likely to believe that their achievements were due to luck, while year 11 and 13 were most likely to believe this. This does not support the alternative hypothesis but rather supports the null, as it suggests that year 8s have a higher locus of control than older years.

Question 10

Strengths of practical

Answer 10

• As a survey went out, it was a quick and cheap way to get results.
• Many responses from each year groups - making it more generalizable to a wider group.
• The questionnaire asks the participants about their locus of control, and what they think of the type of obedience that goes round the school. This allows us to get an essence of whether they have an internal or external locus of control, which can lead to them being more obedient. The question of whether you obey authority, without question, was to see if students had an authoritative personality.
• We asked what subjects they take, which allowed us to cut out the psychology students, this made sure we had participants who didn’t know what we expected.
• The survey was anonymous, making it more likely for participants to give real answers and not socially desirable answers.
• There were no ethical issues, as we decided on a survey, no one could get harmed psychologically or physically. We also wrote the questions unbiasedly, meaning we didn’t put emphasis on the answers we would want. We also did not make the unsocially desirable answers seem that negative, as we did not want the participant to feel disrespected.

Question 11

Weaknesses of practical

Answer 11

• Only one method of gathering data - could have been more effective if we were able to interview, etc.
• Year 7’s did not participate as we thought that they were too easily influenced by others around them and could mean that they shared their answers. This could make more people decide to give socially desirable answers. We also did not want to promote doing your homework late, trespassing or drinking to such easily influenced individuals.
• We did not have an even amount of answers in each year group, this can create unbalance. Thus meaning, one answer could have the majority because more people in one year group answered the survey, usually altering the results in one way. This also creates a problem for our hypothesis, we predicted that as you increase in the social hierarchy within a school system, as the majority participants are year 8’s which we predict to be more obedient, they could sway the results in a way that wouldn’t support our hypothesis.

Question 12

Improvements

Answer 12

• Use a random number generator to pick 10 participants from each year group, thus making it a more even and balanced number of participants. This can lead to more reliable results.
• Could have made separate surveys (with the same questions) for the different year groups, this would make it easier to differentiate the results between year groups.
• Might have used year 7’s to make it more generalisable to the whole school system - going from the very bottom to the top.
• Found out the average answer for each question, for each year group, then interviewed 10 people from each year group, we could see if they matched up, or some socially desirable answers came forth.

Question 13

Conclusions

Answer 13

Implications for psychology:
- After going through our results, we found that students belonging to lower years were more obedient than those in the higher years who answered the survey judging from their responses. This proves that our hypothesis was correct that as you climb the social hierarchy, you become less right wing authoritarian and question authority more.
Applications:
- To mitigate destructive obedience, people need to be taught from their younger years to question authority and that authority figures are not always morally correct in their actions. This is to make sure they can object to any immoral commands given to them by people higher in the social hierarchy as higher years/ positions are already aware of this.
How the research can be applied, extended and built upon:
-Children should be taught from high school about studies like this and more renowned experiments such as Milgram, Burger, Hofling and many other social studies. Since the study is easily done through a questionnaire.
-It can be applied to different settings other than school, like in work places or in the general public. By doing this, we can find out if our hypothesis is true to other scenarios as well. (e.g would a pedestrian listen to the police or would a nurse give the wrong medication to a patient because the doctor told them to do so?)