Bocchiaro (social)

Question 1

What is social influence?

Answer 1

Refers to the influence an individual had to change the thoughts, feelings or behaviours of another

Individuals in authority have social influence over those with lower social status

Question 2

What is whistleblowing ?

Answer 2

Involves informing on a person or organisation who are engaging in unlawful or immoral activities

Question 3

What is disobedience ?

Answer 3

The rejection of the influence of authority figures and behaving in accordance with ones own internal morals and beliefs

Question 4

What were the aims ?

Answer 4

Investigate rates of obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing in a situation that does not involve physical harm but that is ethically wrong

To investigate the accuracy of estimates of obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing in this situation

To investigate the role of dispostional factors in obedience, disobedience and whistleblowing

Question 5

What was the pilot study ?

Answer 5

92 under grad students from VU uni took part in 8 pilot studies

The pilot studies were conducted to ensure the procedure was credible and morally acceptable

Also helped standardise the experimenter-authority behaviour for the main study

Question 6

Sample ?

Answer 6

149 under grad students from VU uni

Recruited through flyers in uni cafe

96 males 53 females

Average age 20.8

P’s were given €7 or course credit for taking part

Question 7

Ethics ?

Answer 7

P’s signed consent forms and were told they could withdraw with no penalty and were guaranteed confidentiality

Once p’s had completed the questionnaires they were debriefed and told the true aim

P’s received the experimenters email address

Question 8

Procedure

Answer 8

Greeted by duch experimenter who had a stern manner

P’s asked to write down names of fellow students

P’s were asked to write a statement to convince the students they had named to take part in the study, the experimenter left the room for 3 mins
The experimenter returned and took them to a second room

Second room they were told to write up the statement on a computer

The experimenter left them in there for 7 mins then took them back into the first room to complete a personality test

Question 9

What was the HEXACO test ?

Answer 9

A self report measure which measures 6 personality values with 10 questions per value

Question 10

What does HEXACO stand for ?

Answer 10

Honesty
Emotionality 
Extraversion 
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness 
Openness to experience

Question 11

What was the social value orientation test ?

Answer 11

Made up of 9 dilemmas which created conflict between self interest and collective interest

Answers were classified as prosocial individual or competitive

Question 12

Predicted results ?

Answer 12

What would you do ?
Obedient = 3.6 %
Disobedient = 31.9%
Whistleblower =64.5%

What would the average student do ?
Obedient= 18.8%
Disobedient = 43.9%
Whistleblower = 37.3%

Question 13

Results ?

Answer 13

Obedient = 76.5%
Disobedient =14.1%
Whistleblower = 9.4%

Question 14

Results of the hexaco test ?

Answer 14

Not found to be significant

Question 15

Conclusions ?

Answer 15

What people think they will do and what they actually do often differs. This difference is more likely when the circumstances are unfamiliar or extreme

People are generally obedient

Whistleblowers have more faith than individuals who are obedient

Question 16

Strengths of this study ?

Answer 16

High levels of control which makes the study replicable

If the finding of the replication match the original study we know there is high reliability

The experimenters behaviour was standardised

Good ethics

Question 17

Weaknesses of this study ?

Answer 17

Its not clear weather this study measured whistleblowing or levels of support for the research in the cover story

P’s did not have as much to lose as most potential whistleblowers e.g losing their job so the study has low ecological validity

Sample size - characteristics not representative of target population so difficult to generalise, volunteer sample so could be bias