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Bocchiaro's study of disobedience and whistle-blowing (2012) - Coggle…
Bocchiaro's study of disobedience and whistle-blowing (2012)
AIM
to disobedience, obedience, and whistle blowing when pps are in an ethically wrong situation
METHOD
fake experiment (standardised and in lab) but really an observation
PARTICIPANTS
took place in Amsterdam university
2 sets of pps
149 in one set, self select, all bribed and briefed, given chance to withdraw
138 pps who were surveyed- what do they think will happen?
PROCEDURE (set 1)
arrived and were greeted by the experiment, asked to write something good about something that is not ethically right- did the comply to the statement? were they obedient or disobedient?
had the option to whistle-blow- open whistle blowers (put something in the box and been disobedient) and anonymous whistle blowers (filled out form and then complained)
hexasco test: measures how open, conscientious, emotional, honest, agreeable you are
social value orientation: do you do things for the benefit of everyone or just yourself?
PROCEDURE (set 2)
asked to imagine what they would do if they were in the main procedure and asked what they would do
also asked what the average student what do
RESULTS
the difference between what we think people will do and what they actually do is significantly different
quantitative - no difference in gender or religion
qualitative - obedient pps tried to justify their behaviours whereas the disobedient pps took responsibility
CONCLUSIONS
situational factors did lead to obedience but there are individuals who follow free will
people tend to follow orders from authority, even if its unjust, social cognitions is not equal to social interaction
EVALUATION
METHOD
good ecological validity as the situation of a psychologist carrying out a study is realistic, high level of control and standardisation which reduces extraneous variables, lab experiments are easy to replicate. However high levels of control usually results in lower ecological validity
ETHICS
none of the pps reported any extreme levels of stress, allowed to comment on ethical issues, aware they could withdraw. Some minor emotional stress to pps
RELIABILITY
high external reliability as done in a lab, high internal reliability as the standardisation helped each pp
VALIDITY
high ecological validity, high internal validity. Low validity due to high controls
SAMPLE
easy to get a good sized sample due to volunteer sample, similar backgrounds as all from one uni
DATA
researchers were interested in comparisons between disobedience and whistle blowing so easier to use quantitative data, no information on peoples reasons for behaviour
ETHNOCENTRISM
assessment of backgrounds goes someway to offset that all students were from the same uni, but cant assume that these results can be generalised