what area of psychology?
social
what is social power
the influence that an indivdual has to change anothers thoughts , feelings or beliefs.
what do authorative figures hold
social power to influence others below their social status
what do orinary people have
strong inclinations to obey legitimative authorative figures.
a whistleblower
a person who exposes individuals or organisations involved in immoral or unlawful activities
what does independent behaviour / defiance require
rejection of social power to behave in accordance with their own morals , intentions and beliefs.
background
Milgram had discovered that people have strong inclinations to obey authorative figures irrespective of their beliefs , feelings and intentions. previous studies allowed us to gain understanding of the mechanisms of obedient behaviour but there was still little research of the nature of disobedience to unjust authority.
what did the study want to discover?
who were the people who disobey / blow whistle to unjust authority?
why do they choose the challenging moral path?
do they have persornal characteristics which differentiate from those who obey?
research method
controlled labatory experiment
where did the study take place
a labatory at the VU university in amsterdam
what were controls of the experiment
the experimenter - authority behaviour and cover story. using the same 2 specially prepared room. the time the experimenter was out of the room after they left.
what was data gathered on
the amount of people who obeyed and wrote a statement of support towards the use of sensory deprivation study. the amount of people who refused to write the statement / those who whistle blew by reporting the experimenters preposed study to the research comitty. the score on the personality invantories - hexaco and svo
sample
149 undergraduates students , 96 males and 53 females with a mean age of 20.8.
pilot test
there were 8 pilot tests including 92 undergraduate students from the VU uni of amsterdam to see if the procedure was credible and morally acceptable and to standardise the experimenter - authority behaviour through the experimental period
what was the comaprison group presented
a detailed explination of the experimental setting. they were then asked “what would you do” and what would the average student at your university do”
what was the procedure of the experimental group
partcipents would be greeted at the door by a dutch experimenter formally dressed with a stern expression. particapents were fully informed about what their task was , the benefits / negatives , and that they had the right to withdraw at any time with no penalty , aswell as the fact that theyd have full confidentiality. the experimenter would then ask the particapent if they could name some fellow students from their university and gave them a cover story
what was the cover story
the dutch experimenter and another italian experimenter had done a study in rome regarding sensory deprivations effect on brain function. in this study 6 particapents were deprived of all their senses and were isolated. however , this study showed that there were severe side effects where particapents experienced hallucination and cognitive decline. 2 particapents wanted to withdraw from the study due to symptoms being to strong but were unable to do so to avoid inavlid data being collected. majroity said it was a frightening experience. the experimenters wanted to repeat this experiment as VU uni with students on young people as scientists have thought younger brains may be to sensitive to deprevations negative effects.
it is diffucult to predict and experimenters want to proceed.
a university research comittee however first has to evaluate wether they are allowed to go ahead w the study and that they were looking for feedback from studenrs who knew about the experiment to help make a decision. they were told the forms were in the room next door . particapents were to write a statement to convince students they had prevoisuly stated to take part in the study , these statments were then said to be direcltly mailed to the students. particapents were then moved to a second room with a compouter to wrote their statemnt ,a mail box and a research comittee form.
how many minutes did the researcher leave.
3 minutes
what were particapents told to do when writing the statemnt to friend
use enthusiatsic langauge such as exciting , great and supberb and to not mention negative effects of sensory deprivation.
how could the particapent challenge writing the unethical statemnt
by putting a research comitee form in the mail
what happened aftr the 7 minutes in the 2nd room
they were taken to the 1st room again and adminstered 2 persoanlity inventories , the hexaco and the SVO , they were also probed for suscpicion , given debrief of the truth of the studdy and asked to sign a 2nd consent form , fully informed.
control group result
3.6% indicated they would obey but the majority claimed they would whistle blow or be disobedient.
when asked to predict how many other students would obey they said 18.8% but the majority else would either whistle blow or disobey
real study results
76.5% obeyed , 14.1% disobeyed , 9.4% blew the whistle
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mental health through hisoptry13
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BIOLOGICAL AREA1
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blakemore and cooper2
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maguire1
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sperry19
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casey1
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COGNITIVE AREA2
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grant8
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simon and chabris1
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moray1
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loftus and palmer16
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SOCIAL AREA1
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milgram29
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levine1
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pilliavan1
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bocchairo31
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DEVELOPMENTAL AREA1
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bandura6
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lee1
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chaney1
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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE AREAS1
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baron and cohen1
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gould1
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P1 - experiments41
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criminal psychology1
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research paper 165
