SOCIAL: Bocchiaro et Al. (2012) Flashcards
What was the main and additional aims of the study?
Main aim= To see how many people will obey, disobey or whisteblow to an unethical request by a higher authority.
Other=
1) to investigate the accuracy of people’s estimate of obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing
2) to investigate the role of DISPOSITIONAL factors in obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing
Why did Bocchiaro carry out this study?
Little research on disobedience as milgram only focused on obedience.
What is the design of the study?
Laboratory study
not experiment as Bocchiaro called it as only 1 condition.
What was the DEPENDENT variable; how was it operationalised?
Level of obedience, disobedience or whistleblowing
operationalised as composing the statement as instructed and mailing it, not composing, completing ethics form and mailing it.
What happened prior to the procedure and why?
8 Pilot studies involving 92 participants to check that the procedure was CREDIBLE (believable) and ETHICALLY ACCEPTABLE.
How many participants?
149 in main experiment all undergraduate students @ VU University of Amsterdam.
138 different experiments surveyed to estimate.
How was the sample for main procedure recruited?
Flyers were posted in cafeteria of the university.
Payment €7 or course credits.
VOLUNTEER/SELF-SELECTING
What were the 138 students asked in the survey after given a full description of procedure?
1) “What would you do?”
2) “What would the average student do?”
Describe the procedure.
1) Participants were met by a STERN experimenter who informed them of the fake experiment they wanted to carry out. They mentioned how the last time it was conducted all participants panicked and some even asked for it to be stopped but they were prevented from withdrawing. Said to be a frightening experience.
2) Participants instructed to write a statement to convince students to take part in this experiment not including any negative points and to use the words : EXCITING, GREAT, INCREDIBLE or SUPERB.
3) Participants were taken into a room with a computer to write statement, a mailbox and ethics committee forms. Experimenter left for 7 minutes.
4) Taken to first room and were given a set of DISPOSITIONAL MEASURES.
5) Participants were debriefed and explained about why they had to be deceived and signed a written consent.
Through what 3 forms were dispositional factors measured?
- HEXACO-PI-R personality test
- (measure personality traits: 1. honesty-humility 2. emotionality 3. extraversion 4. agreeableness(niceness) 5. conscientiousness 6. openness to experience) - Decomposed games measure of social values
- (to find out whether they were more focused on doing things to benefit themselves or for others) - Religiosity
- (about their religion: 1.what religion 2.frequency of worship 3. extent of faith)
How different were the estimates of obedience vs the actual results?
DRAMACTIC:
estimate for obey = 3.6% (personally) 18.8% (average)
actual = 76.5%
What were the estimates and result for whistleblowing?
Estimate = 64.5% (personally) 37.3% (average) actual = 9.4%
What results did the dispositional factors show?
NONE: no significant relationship between personality traits or social value orientation with DV
but slight relationship between depth of faith and more likely to whistle blow.
What are the 5 conclusions?
- People are very obedient and whistleblowing is uncommon
- people OVERESTIMATE tendency to whistle blow
UNDERESTIMATE tendency to obey - Little/no evidence suggesting dispositional factors affect obedience or whistleblowing
- We tend to see ourselves as ‘special’ and rate ourselves differently to ‘average people’
- The inaccuracy of estimates of behaviour suggests that all scenario-based research lacks validity.
Was the study RELIABLE?
As it is a LABORATORY study -> easy to replicate
also good INTERNAL RELIABILITY as all participants underwent similar experiences due to the careful standardising via pilot studies.
