Bocchiaro Flashcards
What is the background of the study?
Milgram found that people have strong inclinations to obey legitimate authority. However, there is little understanding about the nature of disobedience to unjust authority.
What are the aims of the study?
Bocchiaro was interested in understanding the personal (individual) as well as the social (situational) nature of variations in (dis)obedience led them to collect a variety of personality and values information from their participants.
What was the research method?
Considered a Lab experiment but is best viewed as a scenario study.
Where was the study held?
Amsterdam- VU University- in a laboratory
What was the IV?
There was no IV
What was the DV?
- whether the participant obeyed, disobeyed or blowed the whistle
- The scores on 2 personality inventories
What was the 2 personality inventories?
- HEXACI-PI-R
* Decomposed games
What was the sample?
Originally 160 participant but 11 of them were removed from the initial sample because of their suspiciousness about the nature of the study.
What was the reward the participants were given so they would take part?
Course credit or €7
Key findings
Possible conclusions
- People tend to obey authority figures, even if the authority is unjust.
- With regard to faith, there appears to be a trend suggesting that whistle blowers have more faith than either obedient or disobedient individuals.
Methodological issues- Research method
Methodological issues- validity
+ Personality test and social orientation test are both well established measures that provide valid measures.
+ Provides an ethical way to measure disobedience.
- Lacks ecological validity and mundane realism. Writing a statement to friends to take part in an unethical study is not a everyday task.
Methodological issue- Reliability
+ High reliability as there’s a standardised procedure. Means we can replicate and check for consistency.
Methodological issue- Sampling Bias
+ This study included women whilst Milgrams didn’t. More representative.
- All were university students (young) and doesn’t represent target population. As they’re students, they are more proactive which means they’re more likely to whistle blow.
