The social area Bocchiaro et al 2012 OCR

The social area Bocchiaro et al. (2012) OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Before we begin. . . I have had a tip-off from another teacher about what is coming up in your exam. For ethical reasons, I cannot say anything; but if I were to leave the room leaving something on the board then that would be fine. So write down the following question and make sure you know the answer – and keep this between us. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Example of (fake) exam question OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Bocchiaro, Zimbardo and Van Lange (2012) To defy or not to defy: an experimental study of the dynamics of disobedience and whistle-blowing OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Do you know who these people are? What do they have in common? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Do you know who these people are? What do they have in common? (Below; left to right): Cynthia Cooper, World. Com; Coleen Rowley, FBI; Sherron Watkins, Enron. Named TIME’s 2002 Persons of the Year. Each was a whistle-blower in her respective field. (Above) Edward Snowden – worked for the CIA and NSA. Leaked documents to several news outlets. Many of the documents were linked to global surveillance programs. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 (Above) Mark Felt – FBI agent who helped uncover the Watergate scandal. Went by the name ‘Deep Throat’ and denied involvement until 2005. 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Whistle-blowers • Whistle-blowing is ‘reporting wrongdoing to higher authorities’. • It often involves people in business or government reporting misconduct to managers, etc. • A current trend is people reporting misconduct to the media, which then makes it public. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Why does this research exist? • Ethical issues prevent psychologists from using Milgram’s procedure to continue research into disobedience. • Bocchiaro et al. wanted to investigate if there was a common characteristic among whistle-blowers. What makes them disobey? What are they thinking/feeling at the time? • Is there a ‘type’ of person who is more likely to whistle-blow? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Aim • To investigate if disobedient participants and whistle-blowers have different personality characteristics to those who obey. • To test whistle-blowing in an experimental setting. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area The design Bocchiaro et al. replaced the physical violence used in Milgram’s study with a softer psychological aggression. They expected lower levels of whistle-blowing than disobedience, due to whistle-blowing having the possibility of direct confrontation and perhaps future involvement (this could take the form of giving evidence, reporting it to managers, etc. ). OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Why isn’t using a scenario (a task where participants imagine what they would do) an acceptable method? As seen in Milgram, people are very poor at predicting their actual behaviours. Think back to how far researchers predicted people would go in Milgram; the actual results were far more extreme. This is why Bocchiaro et al. decided to create a real life task in which obedience, disobedience and whistle-blowing were all an option. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Pilot tests • A series of pilot studies was conducted to ensure that the study was credible and morally acceptable. • Participants believed the cover story and supported the research. • ‘Cool and interesting research, good for science’ (quote from a participant). OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Participants A sample of 149 undergraduate students (96 women, 53 men, mean age = 20. 8) took part in this research in exchange for either 7 euros or course credit. Participants were recruited by flyers posted in the campus cafeteria of the VU University at Amsterdam (originally there were 160 participants but 11 were removed due to their suspicion). What are the strengths and weaknesses of the sample method? Does using a self-selected sample affect the results? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 What are the strengths and weaknesses of the sample? What about the participants being paid/course credit? 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Activities • Activity 1 will get you thinking about whistle-blowing in general. • Handout 1 is the scenario used by Bocchiaro et al. Read the scenario before continuing to the next slide. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Method Participant is greeted by the experimenter. Presented with the cover story (the scenario you read through). Participant is asked to write a supportive statement for the research and is left for 7 minutes to do so. In the room there is a mailbox and Research Committee forms (see next slide for details). After 7 minutes the experimenter returns. The participant is given two personality inventories, probed for suspicion and debriefed. Overall the procedure takes 40 minutes. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Research Committee Form The Free University aims to promote excellent and ethical research. All research should strive to minimise the risk to participants, so that they will not be exposed to any more risk than they would encounter in their usual lifestyle. Participants should be protected from psychological harm (anxiety, stress, embarrassment, humiliation). Researchers should inform participants if they see signs of psychological problems that the latter are unaware of. If you think that the research on sensory deprivation violates the abovementioned basic ethical norms, please report this to the Human Ethics Committee by checking the box below and putting this document in the mailbox. Thanks for your valuable cooperation. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Ethics • Great care was taken in the debrief. Justification for the use of deception was carefully explained. The experimenter was trained to use simple language and to go slowly. Care was taken to ensure that loss of trust in future research was minimised. • Participants were encouraged not to discuss the study with others; they were given a written debrief and an email address to contact if they had any further questions. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Personality inventories • 60 -item HEXACO-PI-R. Measures six personality dimensions (Honesty. Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience). • Social Value Orientation was also measured. This allows participants to be classed as ‘prosocial’, ‘individualistic’ or ‘competitive’. • Participants completed these inventories. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Personality inventories • 60 -item HEXACO-PI-R. Answer the questions on your handout and then use the score sheet to score yourself. For example, for sincerity you need to add up your score for 6 and 54. You then need to add in your score for 30 (you reverse it, however, so if you said 1 then that scores 5). • Compare your scores for the six measures to see your dominant characteristic. • Social Value Orientation allows you to be classed as ‘prosocial’, ‘individualistic’ or ‘competitive’. This can be found online but is hard to use. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Results Those who wrote the recommendation were obedient. Those who refused were disobedient. Those who reported the experimenter to the research committee were whistle-blowers. Open whistle-blowers were those who reported it and refused to comply with the previous request (to write the supportive statement). OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 Anonymous whistleblowers were those who reported it but had complied with the previous request (to write the supportive statement). 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Results Including a separate sample of 138 who had the study described to them and were asked two questions How do you think people will answer this question? How would you answer it? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 What do you think the actual results will be? Do we overestimate or underestimate our obedience? 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Results No significant differences between the groups (obedient, disobedient or whistle-blowers) were found when gender, religious affiliation or religious involvement were tested. However, a significant difference was found for faith (a confident belief in a transcendent reality). The effect was small so talk of a trend is more suitable (whistle-blowers have more faith). No significant differences between the personality types (as measured by the HEXACO-PI-R). Tests on the SVO data suggest that ‘prosocial’ and ‘individualistic’ were not equally distributed between the three groups. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Explanation of results and link to Milgram Obedient participants in the study explicitly justified their immoral behaviour by allocating personal responsibility to external forces: • ‘It was expected of me, that’s why I continued. ’ • ‘I cooperated because the experimenter asked me to. ’ • ‘That was the task, so I executed that. ’ On the contrary, the defiant participants felt fully responsible for their actions inside the laboratory: • ‘I don’t want to do unethical things’, ‘I would be very disappointed in myself. ’ • ‘I disobeyed because I felt responsible towards friends. ’ • ‘If the experiment would really hurt people, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that. ’ OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Conclusions The experiment casts doubt on the use of imagined scenario research. With people being so poor at accurately predicting their behaviour, should such research ever be used? Lends support to the ‘better than average’ phenomenon (the idea that everyone believes themselves to be better than the average person on various attributes). The act of whistle-blowing is difficult. What could happen to a whistle-blower in real life? Situational pressures have a profound and powerful effect on individuals. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Evaluation Validity • • Are the results generalisable? Can we be sure that the participants believed the task was real? Reliability • • • Were the participants deceived? Was this justified? Did they break any other ethical guidelines? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 • Was the sample size big enough? Did everyone have a similar experience? • Is the task a common everyday task? Are the costs of whistleblowing in the study the same as they would be in real life? Other Ethics • Ecological validity • • Does this study support the individual or the situational side of the debate? What practical use does the study have? Who could use it and how could they use it? 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Milgram and Bocchiaro had different types of sample. Milgram only used 40 men from different occupations whereas Bocchairo used men and women from the university. Therefore Bocchario is more representative of how the whole population respond to authority including women. A similarity is that both studies recruited their sample using the selected method. Bocchairo put flyers up in the university canteen asking people to take part in some research for 7 euros and similarly Migram put an advert in the newspaper asking people to take part in research $4. 50. Therefore both studies may have only recruited people that have a lot of time and not a lot of money which means the ppts reaction to an authority may figure may not be representative of 1 the whole population including busy OCR Psychology for A level Year 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited working people

The social area Links to debates • Does the study support the individual or situational explanation of behaviour? • Did everyone respond to the situation in the same way? Which side of the debate would this place the study on? • Do we have control over our own behaviour (free will) or is it determined by other forces? • What may have influenced the participants’ behaviour? Is there evidence for free will and determinism? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Links to areas/perspectives • Bocchiaro falls under the social approach as the study focuses on the way that the environment and other people influence our behaviour. • The study looks at how the request from an authority figure (the researcher) and the environment (the university) influence the participants’ decision to obey, disobey or whistle-blow. OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Links to key themes • This study suggests that people are still as obedient as they were in 1963 (Milgram’s study). People still believe that they will be less obedient than they are (as seen by asking other participants what they would do). • In terms of changing our view of responses to authority, this study actually confirms the findings from the classic study. So although the contemporary study doesn’t further our understanding, it does help us understand that the concept of obedience isn’t time-locked. • Individual, social and cultural diversity – the contemporary study was carried out in the Netherlands and the classic study took place in the USA. As they both found high levels of obedience, however, it can be said that obedience occurs across cultures (although the level of obedience may vary across cultures). OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Milgram vs. Bocchiaro Use your comparison sheet to compare the two studies. Below are some questions that may help you. Sampli ? Deception ng me Study loca ti on (both in Harm? OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 stitution a thod? nd country )? Sample? 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited

The social area Further reading www. bbc. co. uk/news/health-29280108 www. theguardian. com/society/2014/nov/22/there-were-hundreds-of-uscrying-out-for-help-afterlife-of-whistleblower OCR Psychology for A level Year 1 2015 © Hodder & Stoughton Limited