The Social Area

Question 1

What are the 2 classic and 2 contemporary studies in the social area

Answer 1

Classic: milgram (a) and pilliavin (b) contemporary: bocchiaro (a) and Levine (b)

Question 2

What is the background for milgrams study

Answer 2

Between 1933 and 1945, millions of innocent people were killed on command in nazi Germany. In particular, Adolf Eichman ran concentration camps and after the war, blamed being being obedient and following orders as the reason for taking lives. Some historians believed that Germans were especially obedient and that was the reason why the Holocaust was allowed to happen so Milgram wanted to study obedience in the general Us population to see if a similar effect would occur

Question 3

What is an appropriate aim for milgrams study

Answer 3

To investigate whether ordinary Americans would follow an unjust request from an authority figure, even if it would harm another person.

Question 4

What was the research method used in milgrams study

Answer 4

Controlled observation (not experiment as there is no IV) is was an observation of behaviour in a controlled setting - add context

Question 5

What was the sample in milgram study

Answer 5

40 males aged between 20 and 50 from New Haven area in the Us and from a range of jobs, obtained though a newspaper advert (self selecting sample) and direct mailing. They were paid 4 dollars 50 c for participation and were told it was theirs no matter what happened after they arrived. They believed they were taking part in a study of memory and learning.

Question 6

What was the procedure in milgrams study

Answer 6

Participants were told the experiment was investigating punishment and learning, they were tested individually and always held the ‘teacher’ role due to a fixed lottery. Patients saw the ‘volunteer’ who was actually a confederate strapped into a chair and were told the shocks were not harmful. The participants were also given a sample shock pf 45v from a shock generator. The teacher was seated in a room adjacent to the ‘learner” and read over the intercom a series of word pair association tasks. The teacher then asked the learner to identify the correct answer by pressing a switch. If the learner got the answer correctly they went onto the next question but if it was wrong the teacher administers a shock, the shocks increased each time by 15v. If the teacher expressed discomfort the experimenter used one of 4 prods (please continue, the experiment requires that you continue, it is absolutely essential that you continue, you have no choice, you must go on). At 300v the learner kicked the walll and after that, gave no answer to the next question and at 315, they kicked again and there’s no further feedback. The study ended when either 450v were reached or the participant withdrew, all ps were then debriefed and told tru nature and reintroduced to learner.

Question 7

What were the predicted results from milgrams study

Answer 7

14 final year psych majors from Yale were asked what they thought would happen and predicted 0-3% (mean 1.2%( would go to 450v

Question 8

What were the actual results from milgrams study

Answer 8

100% of ps went to 300v and 26 (65%) were obedient and went to full 450v qualitative: participants showed extreme tension (sweat, tremble, stutter, bite lip, groan, dig nails into skin) 14 showed nervous laughter or smiling and 3 had full blown seizures. comments made: “it’s not fair to shock the guy, he’s suffering in there”

Question 9

What was the concussion from milgrams experiment

Answer 9

That the situation produced strong tendencies to obey and had caused emotional strain and tension

Question 10

What is the background to pillioavins study

Answer 10

A women named kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in the street in the middle of the night in New York. There were at least 38 people that were known to have heard what happened but no one called the police as they all thought someone else would. This bystander apapthy was caused by diffusion of responsibility as the responsibility for intervention is shared among a group and not one person so no one helps. Darley and latane investigated this in lab settings to see if people would intervene when someone was having a seizure or if they saw smoke from a room and they were less likely when part of a group.

Question 11

What is the aim of piliavins study

Answer 11

To investigate diffusion of responsibility in a field setting and to investigate the inpact on helping behaviour of the 1. type of victim (perceived as drunk or ill) 2. Race of victim (if black or white) 3l someone setting an example of behaviour 4. Number of witnesses

Question 12

What was the research method for pillivins study

Answer 12

It was a filed experiment as there were 4ivs and it took place in the natural setting of the nyc subway

Question 13

What was the procedure for piliavins study

Answer 13

Piliavin arranged for a series of emergencies to take place on express trains on the nyc subway. Express train as made no stops so the journey was 7 and a half minutes long. Took place during weekdays from 11am to 3pm over 3 months. Four students who played roles of the victim, the model and two observers boarded the train. 70s into the journey the victim would stagger forwards and collapse in the critical area, until he received help he would remain lying on the floor looking up at ceiling. There were 103 trails in total on 38 trials the victim smelled like alc and carried a liquor bottle in a brown bag and on 65 trials, the victim appeared sober and carried a black cane. The students playing victims were all male, identically dressed and aged 26-35, 3 were white, 1 was black . The model was always a white Male aged 24-29 in informal clothes in 4 conditions (critical area early- assisted after 70s of collapse, critical late- after 150s, adjacent early and adjacent late) the ,model raised victim to sitting positions and stayed with him. 2 female observers sat in the adjacent area and recorded sex, race, number and location of helpers, number of ppl in carriage and time taken to help

Question 14

What was the sample for piliavins study

Answer 14

Around 4450 men and women in the carriages (opportunity sampling) with mean no 43 per carriage. 45% black and 55% white

Question 15

What were the results from pilliavins study

Answer 15

Victim with cane received spontaneous help on 62/65 trials (95%), median latency 5s, drunk victim had help on 19/38 trials (50%) , median latency 109s. Cane has 55/44% white black split helpers but with the drunk, mainly members of own race helped. Models were rarely needed but if model intervened early, this triggered more helping than when late. Victims helped faster with seven or more male passengers in critical than between 1-3. 90% of first helpers were male, 60% of the time victim was helped by more than one p. Observers heard women saying “it’s for men to help” “I’m not strong enough” “you don’t know what to do”

Question 16

What are conclusions of pilliavins study

Answer 16

Individual who looks ill more likely to be helped than one who appears drunk, men more likely to help than women,some tendency of same race helping, help quicker and more with more witnesses presto (no diffusion of responsibility)

Question 17

What was piliavins explanation of findings

Answer 17

The model of response to emergency situations. Observing an emergency creates an emotional arousal which bystander finds unpleasant. Level of arousal higher the more they can empathise, closer they are and longer it goes on. Level of arousal reduced by helping, getting someone else to help, leaving or rejecting. Response is an analysis of the cost reward model

Question 18

What is the background/aim to bocchiaros study

Answer 18

Wanted to achieve a greater understanding of the nature of disobedience to unjust authority. Wanted to investigate this experimentally by creating a paradigm that gives ps chance to obey, disobey or blow whistle against authorities encouraging immoral behaviours. Also want to find out if those who disobey or whistle bow have different personal characteristics

Question 19

What are the hypothesise in bocchiaros study

Answer 19

A higher % of ps will obey, there will be a lower level of whistle blowing than disobedience as it involves a direct confrontation. There will be an overestimation of tendency to disobey and blow whistle and there will be weak effects for personality variables

Question 20

What is the research method of bocchiaros study

Answer 20

Lab experiment and also self report as they took personality tests

Question 21

What happened in the pilot tests in bocchiaros study

Answer 21

Did 8 pilot tests (small scale preliminary study to evaluate the feasible of full scale) to ensure procedure was credible and morally acceptable. Post interviews shows ps believed cover story “ big surprise it wasn’t true” and that it was ethical “good for science”. 92 undergrads from vu uni in Amsterdam were in it

Question 22

What was the sample in bocchiaros study

Answer 22

149 undergrads form VU uni in Amsterdam 96/149 women and 53/149 men mean age 20.8, recruited by flyers in campus cafeteria (self selecting) got 7 euros or course credit. We’re told about take, benefits, risks, right to withdraw, confidentiality and gave consent. originally 160 but 11 removed as suspicious

Question 23

What was the procedure in bocchiaros study

Answer 23

Room 1- a male Dutch experimenter, dressed formally with stern demeanour met the participants and the ps were asked to provide a list of their friends names who went to the uni. Ps then given cover story (told investigating effects of sensory deprivation on brain function and recently did experiment on 6 peeps who were isolated and unable to see or hear, they all panicked had hallucinations and asked to stop and said it was frightening and that they want to recreate this and that young people might be more sensitive and they are worried about that). Ps then asked to write a statement to convince students on the list or do the sensory deprivation study and to send it though email and that they would be contacted for future promotions. The experimenter left room for 3 mins to give time to reflect. Ps then taken to second room with a computer to write statements, they had to include 2 adjectives (exciting, incredible, great, supurb’, not meant to mention negative effects. In the room there’s a Mai,box and research committee form to check if study breached ethical giddiness. The experimenter left for 7 mins to let them write. Ps then taken back to 1st room and did 2 personality inventories (hexaco-pi-r and social value orientation). They were probed for suspiciousness, given full debrief, asked not to discuss study , gave consent forum and email address to contact

Question 24

What were the dependent variables in bocchiaros study

Answer 24

The behaviour of the participants: disobedience = refused to write the statement. obedient and anonymous whistleblowing= wrote statement but reported experimenter to the human ethics committee. disobedient and open whistleblowing refused to write statement and reported experimenter to human ethics committee. Obedient= wrote statement

Question 25

What were the results from bocchiaros study

Answer 25

76.5% were obedient, 14.1% were disobedient and 9.4 whistle blowed (3.4% open, 6% closed). A separate sample of 138 students were asked what would they do? Obedient 3.6%, disobedient 31.9%, whistle blow 64.5% and what would the average student do? O 18.8%, D 43.9% and W 37.3%. Only six diff in personal qualities was whistleblowers have more faith

Question 26

What are conclusions from bocchiaros research

Answer 26

Behaving in a oral manner is challenging for people, even when the reaction appears to be the simplest path to follow

Question 27

What is the background from Levine research

Answer 27

Studies in several countries like the us, Saudi and Sudan found that people in urban areas tend to be less helpful than those in rural settings, most focused on population size

Question 28

What were the aims/hypotheses for Levine study

Answer 28

To see if the tendency to offer help is stable across different non emergency situations, to see if cultures vary in levels of help offered to people in need 3. To identify characteristics of cultures where strangers are more likely to be helped

Question 29

What is the research method of Levine study

Answer 29

Could be seen as field/quasi experiment as took place in outdoor natural settings and they didn’t pick what country ps were from. Correlation as looked at relationship between characteristics and helping. Observation was used as a way of collecting data and snapshot as Levine didn’t revisit the countries

Question 30

Describe the procedure of Levines study

Answer 30

Students returning to their home country (23 cities) collected data on helping behaviour, all college age and dressed neatly and casually. All confeds were male to control for gender effects. The largest city in each country had populations over 230,000. Three helping behaviours were used 2 were discarded, asking for change (as in Calcutta there is a small coin shortage) and posting a dropped letter (as people in tel aviv were scared they may contain explosives and absence of post boxes in less developed countries) . For dropped pen task, confed walked at practised moderate pace towards a solitary pedestrian in the opposite direction then when 10-15ft away, reached into pocket and dropped pen behind him. 214m and 210w, recorded as Helped if called out or picked up. For hurt leg: walked with heavy limp and leg brace, drop and stubble to reach pile of mags as they came in 20ft of passing pedestrian. 253m 240 w, helped if offered to help or did W/out offering. Blind task: confed dressed in dark glasses and white cane would find city centre intersection w crossing, traffic signals and steady p flow. Before light green would step up to corner, hold out cane and wait until helped, 281 trials (helped if told light green..). Each done in 2 or more locations in city centre during business hours in summer months between 92 and 97. For first 2, only alone walking no children, disabled, old, carrying stiff

Question 31

What were the results for levines study

Answer 31

Three most helpful cities out of 23 were Rio 93.33% helped, San Jose (costa rica) 91.33% and Lilongwe (Malawi) 86%. Three least helpful Singapore 48%, NYC 44.67% and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 40.33%. There was consistency across 3 helping behaviours, there was not a stat sig relationship between countries being collectivist/indiv and helping p- -0.17 or population size and helping p—0.03, small relationship between faster walking speed and less helping 0.26, but was sig for purchasing power parity p- 0.43 (how much average income was capable of purchasing) that lower PPP has higher levels of helping, no significant gender diffs and countries with simpatia culture (value being agreeable and good natured) were more helpful than those not 82.87% mean to 65.87% mean

Question 32

Conclusions of levines study

Answer 32

Overall levels of helping are inversely related to a countries economic productivity, countries with simpatia are more helpful on average

Question 33

Similarities and diffs between milgram and bocchiaro

Answer 33

Sim: used self selecting sample, received payment, took part individually, lab on a uni campus, formally dressed male with stern demeanour, studies involved deception. Diffs: carried out in diff countries, bocchiaro included female ps, bocchiaro ps left alone to consider actions, bocchiaro: hurt people they know, also obedience wasn’t incremental

Question 34

Similarities and diffs between piliavineand levine

Answer 34

Sim: data collected in the field, ps didn’t know they were taking part in research, data collected in an urban setting, person in need of help was a young male. diff: piliavin only in one country, levine in 23, piliavin did helping behaviour in one scenario. P: over one year L: over 3 years

Question 35

How has bocchiaro changed understanding from milgram and how changed understanding of ind, soc and cult diversity

Answer 35

Has: suggests a 3rd way people can respond to authority by whistleblowing hasn’t: similarly in high levels of obedience. Ind has: people with high faith are more likely to whistleblow hasn’t: suggests everyone will respond in a similar way, regardless of personality. Soc has! Female ps are just as likely to obey and students are as obedient as other professions. Cult hasn’t: carried out in Netherlands and found high levels of obedience so is cross cultural?

Question 36

How Levine has changed our understanding from piliavin and how changed understanding of ind, soc and cult diversity

Answer 36

Has: suggests nyc is a city where people are unhelpful, 90% first helpers male but no diff for Levine hasn’t: people are largely helpful. Soc: pili 90% of first helpers male but Levine had no gender diffs. Cult has: significant cult differences, simpatico culture