SOCIAL AREA: Bocchiaro et al.

Question 1

Bocchiaro et al.: Aims

Answer 1

• aimed to find out if people who do or not do not blow the whistle have different personality characteristics from one another

Question 2

Bocchiaro et al.: Sample

Answer 2

• 149 undergrads
• 96 women and 53 men 20.8 years on average
• originally 160 but now 149 as 11 became too suspicious

Question 3

Bocchiaro et al.: Measures

Answer 3

• complied - obedient
• refused - disobedient
• rejected reporter’s questionable conduct to the research committee by ticking the box on the form and placing it in the mailbox - whistle-blowers

Question 4

Bocchiaro et al.: Procedure

Answer 4

• male Dutch experimenter greeted ps with a stern demeanour, formally dressed
• asked ps to provide names of others who might participate in the study
• presented cover story to them
• asked them to write a statement to convince previously indicated students to take part in research
• allowed them three minutes for this
• entered a second room with a form where they could choose to report experimenters for questionable conduct or not; seven minutes given for the decision
• completed 2x psychometric tests
• debriefed and care taken to make sure participants were not uncomfortable after study; asked not to discuss study with others and given an email address should they want to complain or needed further information

Question 5

Bocchiaro et al.: Psychometric tests

Answer 5

HEXACO-PI-R test: Likert scale indicating how much they agreed with statements about their personality. Ten questions each on six dimensions of personality (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to new experiences).
Social Value Orientation: nine items; based on decisions for each item, could be classified as having a prosocial, individualistic or competitive orientation

Question 6

Bocchiaro et al.: Results

Answer 6

Predicted that an average of 18.8% of university students would be obedient and 37.3% would be whistle-blowers; actually 76.5% were obedient and 9.4% were whistle-blowers.
No statistically significant differences found in either of the psychometric tests; only trend was that whistle-blowers were more likely to have a faith

Question 7

Bocchiario et al.: Conclusions

Answer 7

Concluded that behaving in a moral manner is challenging for some people, even when these reactions appear to observers (e.g. the people who gave predictions) to be the simplest path

Question 8

Bocchiaro et al.: Validity

Answer 8

Could be that some people simply supported research of this kind; could be low in face validity if this were the case.

May be that participants volunteered enemies or people they dislike for the study, knowing full well the study is immoral

Plausible scenario for uni students; high in ecological validity

However, in a real-life situation, whistle-blowing may not be so easy as it might cost somebody their job; less ecologically valid

Question 9

Bocchiaro et al.: Reliability

Answer 9

All ps received the same cover story and psychometric tests

SVO confronts ps with 9 items and are only classified as having a particular orientation if they score 6 or more consistent choices

HEXACO-PI-R has ten statements for each of the six dimensions of personality; across statements, a settled pattern could emerge that would override anomalous results

Question 10

Bocchiaro et al.: Ethics

Answer 10

Confidentiality respected

Consent sought twice; beginning with consent form and end giving consent for data to be used

Were allowed to withdraw

Debriefed and told that their behaviour was nothing to be ashamed of

HIgh level of deception

First consent was not fully informed as they did not know the true aim of the study

Not protected from harm; may have felt uncomfortable when learning that they would, under pressure, write a statement in support of research that could harm a friend of theirs, who they recommended

However, those who were disobedient or whistle-blowed may have come away with a superior sense of self-worth; learned that if they were ever asked to really do something unethical, they would have the willpower to say no

Question 11

Bocchiaro et al.: Ethnocentrism

Answer 11

Only conducted on sample in the Netherlands

However, high levels of obedience suggest that Milgram’s findings weren’t true only to the people of the USA; high levels of obedience are cross-cultural

Question 12

Bocchiaro et al.: Areas and Perspectives

Answer 12

Social area; confirming the influence of other people on our behaviour
Individual differences; openly interested in finding out if different personality traits are specific to obedient people, or whistle-blowers etc.

Question 13

Bocchiaro et al.: Key Theme

Answer 13

Bocchiaro et al. tells us that people now are as obedient as they were in the 1960s (Milgram), that people in the Netherlands are at least as obedient as those in the USA and that people are much more likely to be obedient than they think they are

Question 14

Bocchiaro et al.: Individual / Situational

Answer 14

Situational: 3.6% predicted to be obedient, actually 76.5%; situation has a lot of control over our actions

Individual: 23.5% of ps were disobedient or a whistle-blower; some individual factors that enable some to resist the power of a situation

Question 15

Bocchiaro et al.: Free will / Determinism

Answer 15

Determinism: so many people were obedient (76.5%); a situation that Bocchiaro et al. had created had a determining influence on participants

Free will: 23.5% not obedient or whistle-blowers, showing people can control their own behaviour

Question 16

Bocchiaro et al.: Usefulness

Answer 16

More negative uses than positive ones; bad employers could draw the conclusion that requiring employees to behave unethically is more likely to result in obedience than whistle-blowing

Could be used by other researchers; provides a replicable scenario that could be applied to other situations or in other places to see if people elsewhere or in the future are any less likely to obey than was seen in this study