Social (CONTEMPORARY) - responses to people in authority - BOCCHIARO

Question 1

define a whistle blower

Answer 1

a person who reports wrongdoing to higher authority

Question 2

aims of the study

Answer 2

1. would people if given the opportunity blow the whistle against authorities being immoral
2. would people’s predictions of their behavior be the same as their actual behavior
3. would there be any individual differences between those who whistle blow and obey

Question 3

describe the sample

Answer 3

149 undergraduate students from the VU university, Amesterdam (96 women, 53 men with mean age of 20.8) They took part for either 7 euros or course credit
11 participants were removed from the initial sample of 160 because of there suspiciousness about the nature of the study

Question 4

describe the comparison group

Answer 4

138 undergraduate students from the VU university, Amsterdam

Question 5

describe the sampling method

Answer 5

participants were recruited via an advert/ flyers placed in the student cafeteria - volunteer sampling

Question 6

comment on the pilot studies

Answer 6

before conducting the study, 8 pilot tests were conducted involving 92 undergraduates in addition to the other groups from the VU university
these ensured the procedure was credible and morally acceptable
these tests served to standardize the experimenter-authority behavior throughout the experimental period

Question 7

describe the research procedure

Answer 7

each participant was greeted in the lab by a male Dutch experimenter who was formally dressed and had a stern demeanour
Participants were informed what their task was about potential benefits/risks of participation and about their right to withdraw at any time with no penalty. They were also ensured of the confidentiality of the information collected
The experimenter proceeded with a seemingly unjustified request for each participant to provide a few names of fellow students.
They were then given a cover story of how an Italian colleague and experimenter were investigating thee effects of sensory deprivation on brain function. 6 participants in Rome had spent time completely isolated unable to see or hear anything and suffered disastrous effects. All panicked, their cognitive abilities were temporarily impaired and some experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. 2 participants asked to stop because of the strong symptoms but were not allowed to do so because invalid data may have been collected. They said it had been a frightening experience.
The experimenters wanted to replicate the study at the VU uni using a sample of college students as there was currently no data on young people but some scientists thought that their brains would be more sensitive to the negative effects of isolation. Although it was difficult to predict what would happen, the experimenter wanted to proceed with the experiment.
A uni research committee was evaluating whether to approve the study and were collecting feedback from students who knew details about the experiment to help them make their decision. Participants were told that the research committee forms were in the next room

Question 8

comment on the type of study

Answer 8

lab study with no independent variable so is not an experiment - referred to as a scenario study

Question 9

describe the experimenter

Answer 9

Dutch experimenter who was formally dressed and had a stern demeanour

Question 10

describe the task

Answer 10

participants asked to write a statement to convince the students they had wrote down the names of to participate in the experiment. Statements would be sent to the identified students by mail. The experimenter left the room for 3 mins to allow participants to reflect on the decisions they were about to make, participants were then moved to the second room where there was a computer for them to use to write the statement, a mailbox and the research committee forms.
Participants were told to use two adjectives among ‘exciting, incredible, great and superb’ and were told to not include the mention of sensory deprivation. The experimenter told participants to begin and left the room for 7 mins.
If participants believed the proposed research was on sensory deprivation violated ethical norms they could anonymously challenge it by putting a form in the mailbox

Question 11

3 options the participants had

Answer 11

1. obey - write the statement
2. disobey - don’t write the statement
3. blow the whistle- report the study to the research committee by putting a form in the mailbox. Participants can blow the whistle anonymously by also writing the positive statement - means that they can defy safely

Question 12

what happened after the 7 minutes when the experimenter returned

Answer 12

invited the participants to follow him back to the first room where he/she was administered two personality inventories probed for suspicion, fully debriefed and asked to sign a consent form this time fully informed. The entire session lasted about 40 minutes

Question 13

what did HEXACO personality inventory measure

Answer 13

six major dimensions of personality
(honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, contentiousness, openness to experience)

Question 14

what did a nine item decomposed games measure

Answer 14

social value orientation - referring to how much weight a person attaches to the welfare of others in relation to their own

Question 15

the third personality inventory

Answer 15

participants were asked to state the strength and nature of their religious beliefs

Question 16

conclusions

Answer 16

1. 76.5% of the research group obeyed by writing the positive statement about the unethical experiment highlighting that people tend to obey authority even if authority is unjust
2. in the comparison group 64.5% believed they would blow the whistle; in the research group this fell to 9.3% highlighting how people think/what they say they and others will do in a situation often differs from what actually happens. The desire to feel like a ‘good’ person is overridden by the power of the situation
3. a significant difference was found with regards to fait, those with stronger religious beliefs being more likely to be whistle blowers highlighting that with regard to faith there appears to be a trend suggesting that whistle-blowers have more faith than either obedient or disobedient individuals

Question 17

strength of quantitative data collection in this study

Answer 17

enables comparisons between groups. For example 64.5%of the comparison group said that they would blow the whistle and inform the research committee about the study whereas only 9.3% actually did blow the whistle. This enable sus to draw conclusion that there is a difference between what people say they would do in a whistleblowing situation and what they would actually do

Question 18

weakness of quantitative data in this study

Answer 18

by itself it provides no insight into the reasons why behaviour actually occurs. For example we know that 9.3% participants in the research group were whistle-blowers who informed the research committee about the study but the data gives us no information about why they felt compelled to do so. This limits the usefulness of the results as we don’t really know why some people chose to obey, some defied and others blew the whistle on the researchers

Question 19

lack of informed consent

Answer 19

participants wee volunteers so did consent - they did not know the nature of the research so it can be argued that they did not give informed consent

Question 20

deception

Answer 20

participants were told a fictitious story about an experiment that involved harm to participants - also told the positive statements written to the students they wrote down the names of would be sent to them which was a lie

Question 21

protection from harm

Answer 21

researchers were careful to minimise the potential for distress so they made sure that the obedient act had no immediate consequences for anyone. Pilot studies were done to ensure they considered the procedure to be acceptable

Question 22

right to withdraw

Answer 22

participants were able to withdraw their results at the debrief stage if they felt that they had been treated unethically

Question 23

debrief

Answer 23

participants were fully debriefed about the nature of the study and given the right to withdraw their results

Question 24

low validity in self reports

Answer 24

participants could have deliberately answered questions in a way that makes them look more moral and pro-social. Means we may not get a valid picture of the type of person who obeys or blows the whistle

Question 25

comment on the reliability in this study

Answer 25

easy to replicate as it has a highly standardized procedure. The specific details of the cover story and details of the timings of the tasks are clearly documented for example the whole procedure took 40 mins. This means it would be easy for other psychologists to test for the reliability of the findings and see if they also see low levels of whistle blowing

Question 26

comment on the strength of the sampling method

Answer 26

volunteer - wide range of participants can be obtained for example every student who used the cafeteria would have seen the poster and have the opportunity to take part in the obedience study, obtaining students from different year groups studying different courses

Question 27

comment on the weakness of the sampling method

Answer 27

volunteer - may produce a biased sample for example only those students interested in psychology may have volunteered and therefore may be more pro-social than other students. This means that they may be more likely to disobey potential harmful instructions than other students

Question 28

comment on the sample in this study

Answer 28

limited only to students, participants had a mean age of 20.4. Older people may have learned to be less trusting of authority and so may have responded very differently in the study. Older people may be more likely to blow the whistle as they have more confidence in their own internal belief system and more confidence to challenge authority so it is harder to generalize the findings about whistleblowing beyond the sample of students

Question 29

comment on the ethnocentrism in this study

Answer 29

researchers looked at a sample from a single population (Dutch students) however they did assess religious beliefs as one of the variables that might affect obedience. Some account taken of culture

Question 30

comment on the practical applications in this study

Answer 30

gain understanding of whistle blower procedures
protects whistle blower from direct confrontation with authority figure so protects whistle blower from consequences