Participants were recruited through newspaper advertisements. Each participant was paired with another person, with one designated as the “teacher” and the other as the “learner.”
The learner (a confederate) was taken into a room and had electrodes attached to their arms. The teacher (the real participant) was in a separate room with an electric shock generator.
The teacher was instructed to administer electric shocks to the learner whenever they answered questions incorrectly.
The shocks were not real; the learner was an actor pretending to receive shocks.
The crucial aspect was that the teachers believed the shocks were genuine.
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2
Q
Harvey + Slatin (1976)
A
Examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils of diff social classes - sample of 96 teachers - each was shown 18 photos of children from diff social class backgrounds.
To control other variables, photos were equally divided in terms of gender + ethnicity were asked to rate children on their performance, parental attitudes to education, aspirations etc - found lower-class children were rated less favourably, esp by more exp teachers.
based their ratings on similarities b/w children in photos + pupils they’ve taught Teachers label pupils from diff social classes + use these labels to pre-judge pupils’ potential
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3
Q
Mason (1973)
A
Looked at whether negative or positive exp had greater effect - teachers were given positive, negative or neutral reports on a pupil + observed video recordings of the pupil taking a test to see if any errors were made
were asked to predict pupil’s end of year attainment - negative reports had much greater impact than positive ones on teachers’ exp