Social Psychology Studies

Question 1

Milgram: Aim

Answer 1

To investigate obedience by testing how far an individual will go in obeying an authority figure asking them to harm someone

Question 2

Milgram: Research method

Answer 2

• controlled observation
• lab experiment
• volunteer sample

Question 3

Milgram: sample

Answer 3

• 40 male participants
• 20-50 years of age
• all from USA

Question 4

Milgram: methodology

Answer 4

• the 40 participants were given the role of the teacher and the leaner was a confederate
• lead to believe being assigned the teacher/student role was random
• were instructed to shock the student by the authority figure for every wrong answer in 15V increments
• if the participant hesitated to continue, the authority figure prompted them to continue
• process continued to up to 450V

Question 5

Milgram: Results

Answer 5

• both quantitative and qualitative data collected
• 100 % gave 300V+ to the student
• 65% gave the full 450V
• many participants showed signs of distress throughout e.g., sweating, trembling, nervous laughter
• 1 participant experienced a seizure due to stress
• protests were made by the participants, but after verbal prods from the authority figure they continued

Question 6

Milgram: conclusions

Answer 6

• people are more obedient to destructive orders than expected
• inhumane acts can be done by ordinary people
• people find obeying destructive orders highly stressful but they obey despite emotional responses

Question 7

Milgram evaluation: Strengths

Question 8

Milgram evaluation: Weaknesses

Question 9

Bocchiaro: Aim

Answer 9

to investigate the rate of obedience/disobedience/whistleblowing in a situation where no physical violence was involved

Question 10

Bocchiaro: Research Method

Answer 10

• Lab experiment
• volunteer sample

Question 11

Bocchiaro: Sample

Answer 11

• 149 in total (96 women, 53 men)
• mean age 20.8 years

Question 12

Bocchiaro: pilot tests

Answer 12

• 8 pilot tests were conducted with 92 participants to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable

Question 13

Bocchiaro: Methodology

Answer 13

• met by experimenter who informed them they were carrying out research on sensory deprivation
• said in last study all participants panicked or asked to stop
• experimenter said they wanted to conduct a similar study and were waiting for ethical approval
• each participant instructed to write a statement to convince other students to take part and told to use at least 2 of the following words:
  exciting, incredible, great and superb.
• participants could either write the letter, disobey or fill in ethical form to whistleblow
• given dispositional measures: HEXACO PI-R & decomposed games measure of social value

Question 14

Bocchiaro: results of comparison group

Answer 14

• 3.6% said they would obey
• most believed they would either disobey or whistleblow
• when asked to predict the behaviour of others, only 18.8% thought others would obey,