Social - Authority (/) Flashcards
Milgram, Bocchiaro, Piliavin, Levine
MILGRAM - Background
Investigating how the Holocaust happened: Milgram’s Jewish family escaped it.
Destructive Obedience
Dispositional hypothesis: Germans naturally conform - original belief which Milgram disproved
MILGRAM - Aim
To investigate the tendancy to Destructive Obedience
MILGRAM - Method
- 40male US volunteers, 20-50yrs told they’re in a learning experiment in the ‘Teacher’ role
- Believed ‘Learner’ to be someone they’re giving shocks to, but they’re a recording of a Confederate
- Lab Experiment
MILGRAM - Procedure
- Shocks ^ 15V every wrong answer and went up to 450V
- Participants encouraged to continue; told the experiment wouldn’t work if they stopped
MILGRAM - Results
- 100% went to 300V or more
- 1.2% were predicted to go up to max
- 65% went up to 450V (the max)
MILGRAM - Conclusions
- People more obedient to authority than expected
- Despite being stressed by destructive orders, people would obey regardless
- Situational Hypothesis (higher conformity caused by social processes between individuals)
MILGRAM - Generalisability
Only white men from US: IS ethnocentric
BUT similar results to what happened in Germany; ISN’T
MILGRAM - Reliability
+All participants were obedient enough to take the voltage up to 300V, when the ‘learner’ banged on the wall and shouted
+The teacher is always the naive participant
MILGRAM - Applications
- Explained real-world atrocities & help ex-soldiers with guilt
- Used by the International Criminal Court for predicting atrocities
- Educating ppl w/ Milgram’s study will help people avoid destructive obedience in their own lives
MILGRAM - Validity
High Internal, Low Eco: high demand characteristics; if a participant realised the real aim of the experiment, they are likely to stop, whereas in a natural situation the pressure may be much higher to comply
MILGRAM - Ethics
+Debriefed at end
-Right to withdraw, but discouraged
-Psychological & physical harm
MILGRAM - Link to Theme
If instructed to by an authority, people will conform to destructive obedience
MILGRAM - understanding of Individual, Social & Cultural Diversity
Not only Germans would be Obedient; but anyone would be
MILGRAM - Link to Area
Obedience towards authority - how the prescence of a figure of authority effects our behaviour/destructive obedience
Think back to #s for more
MILGRAM - Remember
Way to remember which study is which
Holocaust, Volts
BOCCHIARO - Background
Inspired by Milgram, wanted to investigate DISobedience; little prior research on whistleblowers
BOCCHIARO - Aim
To find how frequent disobedience & whistleblowing is when asked to do something by a figure of authority, and the difference between the recorded rates and the predicted rates
BOCCHIARO - Method
- 149 Students, Gynocentric
- Lab procedure with Single Condition
- Hypothesis: Students will vastly overestimate Whistleblowing
BOCCHIARO - Procedure
Pilot Tests to test Validity
Group 1 told to write letter to convince people to take part in Unethical Sensory Deprevation experiment
Group 2 told everything & Obedience
BOCCHIARO - Results
Overestimation of Whistleblowing, Underestimation of Obedience, Disobedience more common than Whistleblowing
BOCCHIARO - Conclusions
Whistleblowing is uncommon, overestimated, people rank themselves as ‘special’
BOCCHIARO - Generalisability
Dutch Uni, Religion had no correlation to results
BOCCHIARO - Reliability
Lab, Standardised
BOCCHIARO - Applications
Exxplains Whistleblowing in society, organisations, places of work etc. and why it may take time for bad practive to be identified & challenged
