Unit 2 - Social Classic Core Studies Flashcards
Summarise the background of Milgram’s study
The Holocaust, the obedience of the Nazi soldiers and if the Germans were unique or applied to everyone
What does Obedience mean?
The compliance with commands made by authority
What does Autonomous State mean?
When you direct your own actions and take responsibility for them
What does Agentic State mean?
When you allow others to direct their actions and pass off responsibility to them
What was the aim of Milgram’s study?
To investigate what level of obedience participants would show when asked to deliver electric shocks to someone by an authority figure
Describe Milgram’s sample
40 males from New Haven, aged 20-50, wide range of occupations
What was Milgram’s sampling method
Self - selecting. Advertisement in local newspaper, driect mail to locals and payment of $4.50 (50 cents for travel)
Summarise Milgram’s procedure
- Told investigating punishment and learning
- Tested individually
- Participants saw the “volunteer” strapped to a chair and were told the shocks were not harmful
- The participant was given a sample shock of 45V
- Teacher would read a word-pairing task over the intercom and “learner” would reply with 1 of 4 buttons
- If teacher expressed discomfort the ‘authority figure’ replied with “Please continue”, “You have no choice, you must go on” etc.
- If learner got wrong the teacher would administer electric shock increasing by 15V each time
- Experimented ended at 450V or if withdrew.
What were Milgram’s quantitative results?
100% - 300V shock
65% - 450V shock (max)
What were Milgram’s qualitative results?
- participants showed signs of extreme tensions:
- sweating
- trembling
- biting lips
- digging nails into skin - 14 showed nervous laughter and smiling
- 3 had full blown seizures
- when refused to continue showed signs of extreme agitation and anger
What were Milgram’s conclusions?
- All humans have the capability to obey orders when given by an authoritative figure
- Situation generates extraordinary tension and emotional strain
How did Milgram try to explain his findings?
- Yale Uni - prestigious environment - good rep
- Lab coat - strong authoritative figure
- Wanted money/reward?
- Guilt of ruining the experiment
- Told they had ‘no choice’
What ethics did Milgram break?
- Withdrawl
- Protection from harm
- Deception
What ethics did Milgram uphold?
- Informed Consent
- Confidentiality
- Debriefing
- Competence
Was Milgram’s study ethnocentric?
Yes - only carried out in one area of the USA which may not reflect other cultures
No - has been carried out by other researchers in other cultures producing similar results
Did Milgram’s study have internal reliability?
Yes - has been replicated by other researchers
Did Milgram’s study have external reliability?
Yes - 40 males was large enough
Did Milgram’s study have internal validity?
It could have been testing the levels of empathy for the leaner
Did Milgram’s study have population validity?
Cannot be generalised to females and was a self-selecting sample
Did Milgram’s study have ecological validity?
No - not an everyday life task
Summarise the background of Kitty Genovese
Early hours of the morning in March 1964, 38 respectable citizens watched a killer stalk a woman in three separate attacks. Twice the sound of their voices and glow of bedroom lights scared him off but he returned to stab her. No one called the police until she was dead. Kitty was have heard to say “Oh my God! He stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!”
Summarise the background of Piliavin’s study
- Kitty Genovese
- Darley and Latane - investigated into the psychology behind Kitty Genovese - showed diffusion of responsibility with their ‘seizure study’
What does bystander apathy mean?
Where people fail to help someone in need when other people are present
What does diffusion of responsibility mean?
Where bystanders don’t take responsibility to help victims where there are other bystanders present as each feels someone else can help
What were the 4 hypotheses in Piliavin’s study?
- Type of victim - drunk/ill
- Race of victim - black/white
- Someone setting an example - model behavior/not
- Number of witnesses - relationship between helping + witnessing ?
What were the IV’s of Piliavin’s study?
2 Victim Conditions
- ill/drunk
- black/white
2 Model Conditions
- critical/adjacent
- help quickly/help slowly
What were the DV’s of Piliavin’s study?
What the observers recorded:
- Comments made by passengers
- Passengers race/gender
- Location of passengers
- Time took to help
Summarise Piliavin’s procedure
- NYC subway between same stops (7.5 mins) between 11am - 3pm on weekdays
- 4 teams of students (2m, 2f), 1 victim, 1 model and 2 observers
- Staged 103 times, 6-8 trials each day by each time
- 70s into the journey, the victim dressed in same casual clothes (3 white, 1 black) would stagger forwards and collapse and remain there until helped
- 38 trials - victim smelt of alcohol and carried liquor
- 65 trials - victim sober and had a black cane
- Model (white male in casual clothes) 24-29 and had 4 conditions:
- critical area 70s
- critical area 150s
- adjacent area 70s
- adjacent area 150s - When helping would sit up victim and stay with him
- 2 female observers secretly record notes
Describe the sample Piliavin used
4450 people, 45% black 55% white - urban based and no children, disabled and full time workers
What sampling method did Piliavin use?
Opportunistic sampling
What were Piliavin’s quantitative results?
- Ill victim 62/65 received help and median time was 5s
- drunk victim 19/38 received help and median time was 109s
- 45-55 split in race - no real impact
- In 60% of the trials where the victim recieved help (81), victim helped by more than one person
- 81% spontaneous helpers and 90% of these were male
- In 21/103 trials 34 passengers left the critical area
What were Piliavin’s qualitative results?
- Own race normally first to aid if drunk
- High levels of spontaneous help
- The model helping from different sections had no effect on passenger behavior
- The model helping early triggered more helping behavior
- Victims helped more when more men in critical
- More comments when drunk victim - women comments:
- “It’s for men to help him”
- “You feel so bad when you don’t know what to do”
What were Piliavin’s conclusions?
- An individual who appears to be ill is more likely to receive help than drunk
- Men more likely to help than women
- Some tendency for same-race helping, especially if same race
- Diffusion of responsibility not observed
- Longer no help, less impact the model has, more likely individuals will leave immediate area and observers make comments
How did Piliavin explain his finding?
- Observing an emergency can create an emotional arousal state in bystander which is unpleasant. This will be higher if:
- the more the observer can empathise with victim
- closer observer is to emergency
- longer emergency continues with no help
This will be lower if:
- observer helps directly
- observer goes to get help
- observer leaves the emergency scene
- observer rejects the victim as deserving of help - REMEMBER AROUSAL COST-REWARD MODEL
ie. costs and helping = effort, embarrassment
rewards and helping = praise, feel good about self
costs and not helping = self blame, guilt, judgement
rewards and not helping = less effort, doesn’t effect you
Was Piliavin’s study ethnocentric?
Yes - only took part in one part of NYC
No - NYC is big city, everyone from everywhere
What ethics did Piliavin break?
- Deception
- Informed Consent
- Withdrawal
- Protection from harm
- Debriefing
What ethic did Piliavin uphold?
- Confidentiality
Did Piliavin’s study have internal reliability?
Yes - could be repeated
No - some difficulties with experiment
ie. spontaneous help and imbalance of drunk/ill trials because of one teams dislike
Did Piliavin’s study have external reliability?
Yes - 103 trials (but should have been more drunk)
Yes - 4450 participants with race split
No - sample may lack generalisablity as only urban based and no children, disables or full-time workers
Did Piliavin’s study have internal (construct) validity?
- If carriage was busy victim may not have had enough room to collapse
- Some passengers may have witnessed more than once
Did Piliavin’s study have population validity?
No - lacks generalisabilty
Did Piliavin’s study have ecological validity?
Yes - fairly true-to-life
No - collapse dramatic and more plausible if older victim
Which debates does Milgram relate to?
- Individual / Situational
- Freewill / Determinism
- Usefulness of Research
How does Milgram relate to the Individual / Situational debate?
- The situation showed discomfort however 35% walked away showing individual personalities can be more powerful
How does Milgram relate to the Freewill / Determinism debate?
- The 65% who administered the full 450V can be said to have had their behavior determined by the situation
- The 35% that walked away were showing their freewill and able to choose how they act
How does Milgram relate to Usefulness of Research?
- Suggests that authoritative figures can almost always assume that those lower will be obedient
- Can be used positively (schools) can also be used for malicious purposes
- Shows us not to be blindly obedient and to think about out actions
What areas / perspectives does Milgram relate to?
- Social area
2. Individual Differences area
How does Milgram relate to the Social area?
Shows how people’s behavior can be influenced by others around them. The participants did not want to administer the 450V but did anyway because of the prods given by the experimenter.
How does Milgram relate to the Individual Differences area?
Growing recognition that the same situation would not affect everyone in the same way, some obedient and some disobedient. This explanation would require factors to do with them as an individual.
How does Milgram relate to the key theme of responses to people in authority?
Tells us that obedience to people in authority - even to cause harm - is much more common that it seems.
Which debates does Piliavin relate to?
- Freewill / Determinism
- Reductionism / Holism
- Psychology as a science
How does Piliavin relate to the Freewill / Determinism debate?
The results show that people obviously will have freewill over their behavior as some victims did not receive help at all. The drunk victims only received spontaneous help on 50% of the occasions.
How does Piliavin relate to the Reductionism / Holism debate?
- The results can be explained as holistic as it takes into account other factors (cognitive, physiological) rather than explaining helping behavior as the result of one factor
- Could be argued as holistic as it misses out other reasons of helping behavior like kindness and unselfishness
How does Piliavin relate to Psychology as a Science?
Shows inductive research as the theory Piliavin developed was about how people behave when witnessing and emergency was it was then developed from data collected and attempted to explain it
What areas / perspectives does Piliavin relate to?
- Social area
2. Biological area
How does Piliavin relate to the social area?
Investigates the impact that other people have on our behavior and if them helping is increased or decreased by other people witnessing it
How does Piliavin relate to the biological area?
The observation that observing an emergency will create an emotional arousal state that the observer will find unpleasant. Suggests there’s something going on in our bodies that we have no control over and will determine how we act.
How does Piliavin relate to the key theme of responses of people in need?
The likelihood of being helped in an emergency does not have to be reduced by there being many witnesses present, however may be affected by bystanders seeing how other witnesses behave. More likely people will be helped if their emergency is beyond factors under their control.
