Psychology - Social area

Nature - Definition

Innate internal factors are what cause behaviour. Recognises that maturation plays a role, but the basis of characteristics are present from birth

Nature - Evaluation

• Can be scientific - easier to establish cause and effect

• Unethical/deterministic - suggests we cannot change our behaviour

Nurture - Definition

Refers to cause of behaviour coming from the environment

Nurture - Evaluation

• Ethical/free will - More opportunity to change behaviour

• Harder to establish cause and effect as you cannot study the environment separate from the innate

Interactionism

Certain behaviours are innate and some are a result of experiences.

Some behaviours we are predisposed to but may require environmental stimulation to be brought out

Key assumption one

Our behaviour is influenced by other people in the surrounding environment

Key assumption two

Our behaviour is influenced by our social situation rather than individual characteristics

Key assumption three

Our environment can determine our behaviour, we have little free will to change our behaviour

Milgram - Background

Interested in how many seemingly ordinary German people obeyed destructive orders during the holocaust - destructive obedience

Dispositional hypothesis - something distinctive about German culture - German’s are different hypothesis - that led to high levels of obedience

Situational hypothesis - Milgram interested in how aspects of the situation could be influential

Milgram - Aim

To investigate how obedient people would be following orders (administering electric shocks) from a person in authority

Milgram - Method

Controlled observation

DV - Obedience, operationalised as the maximum voltage given in response to the order

Milgram - Sample

40 male participants aged between 20-50 from New Haven, Connecticut

Self selected - Newspaper advertisement asked for volunteers to participate in a study of memory and learning at Yale University

Paid $4.50 for simply showing up

Milgram - Procedure P1

The naïve participant was introduced to the confederate and they drew rigged lots to see who would be the teacher and learner (both said teacher)

The participant (teacher) saw the learner get strapped to a chair and was shown the equipment - assured they would be painful but leave no lasting damage

Teacher taken to separate room - could only hear each other

Milgram - Procedure p2

The teacher was told the learner had to learn word pairs. If the learner got the question wrong, the teacher was to administer an electric shock by flicking a switch on the shock generator.

For each mistake, the teacher was instructed to move up a level. Volts increased from 15v-450v in 15 volt increments

As shocks were administered, all participants experienced same feedback from the learner

Milgram - Procedure p3 (only if you have time)

At 300V, the learner pounded heavily on the wall and no answer came. The teacher was told to treat no answer as a wrong answer and continue shocking. No answer or feedback came after 315V

The learner and teacher were reunited after and the ppt was fully debriefed

Milgram - Verbal prods

When the teacher protested that he did not want to continue, the experimenter used 4 verbal prods

‘you have no choice, you must go on’

‘the experiment requires you to continue’

Milgram - Results (Quantitative)

300V = 100%

450V = 65%

Milgram - Results (Qualitative)

Many participants showed signs of extreme stress e.g. sweating and laughing nervously

3 had full blown uncontrollable seizures

Milgram - Conclusions

The findings supported the situational hypothesis

The level of obedience was unprecedented - a survey carried out prior to the study by 14 university students estimated only 3% would continue to the end

Milgram - Possible reasons for obedience

Identified 9 possible reasons including -

• Ppt volunteered so had an obligation to continue - payment increased these feelings

• Participants assured the shocks weren’t dangerous (harmless)

• The right to withdraw was not clear (verbal prods)

• Carried out in a respectable environment of a top university (Yale)

Milgram - Reliability

All participants given the same instructions in the same order, such as the verbal prods, and the verbal feedback from the learner was given at specific intervals.

Repeated easily and findings checked by other psychologists, increasing the usefulness of the results

Milgram - Generalisability

The sample is both ethnocentric and androcentric so the results cannot be generalised to other groups such as women and Non-Americans. This means that the study lacks population validity.

Milgram - Ethical issues

Advert - learning study

Participants were led to believe that they were delivering real electric shocks

Milgram - Data

Milgram's study included both quantitative and qualitative data, so the results could be easily analysed/compared, plus they were detailed.

Give examples of quantitative + qualitative results

Bocchiaro - Background

Whistleblowing - reporting an unethical incident to higher authority.

Very little was known about whistle-blowers and whether they have certain psychological characteristics

Bocchiaro - Aim

To see how many people obey an unethical request and how many will respond by whistle-blowing to a higher authority

To investigate the accuracy of people’s estimates of obedience, disobedience and whistle-blowing in this situation

Bocchiaro - Method and design

Eight pilot studies carried out with a total of 92 participants to see if the procedure was both credible and ethically acceptable

Laboratory study (NOT EXPERIMENT NO IV) - scenario study?

Bocchiaro - Sample

149 University of Amsterdam students recruited through self-selected sampling - flyer in the university cafeteria

Mean age of 20.8

Each participant was paid 7 euros or given course credits

138 different participants were surveyed about how they would respond in the experimental situation

Bocchiaro - Procedure p1

Participant met with a stern experimenter who informed them they would be carrying out research into sensory deprivation.

Said that in the last study, ppts panicked and some asked for it to stop

They were awaiting ethical approval and asked participants to write a statement to convince other students to take part in the s.d procedure.

They were told to use at least two words from exciting, great, incredible and superb and that they couldn’t mention negative effects

Bocchiaro - Procedure p2

Participant was left alone in a room with a computer to compose their statement, a mailbox and some ethics committee forms to fill in if they believed it was unethical

Obedience/disobedience measured by whether they composed the statement

Whistleblowing measured by if they completed an ethics form and mailed it

Bocchiaro - Procedure p3

After 7 minutes, the experimenter returned and took the participant back into the first room.

They were given a set of dispositional measures including the HEXACO-PI-R test which measures six personality traits including emotionality.

Given the decomposed games measure of social values

Religiosity was tested

Participants were debriefed + gave written consent for their results to be used

Boacchiaro - Separate study

138 ppts asked to estimate likely obedience levels in this situation. Given a detailed description of the procedure and asked ‘what would you do?’ and ‘what would the average student at your university do?’

Bocchiaro - Main study results

Obey = 76.5%

Disobey = 14.1%

Blow the whistle = 9.4%

Bocchiaro - What would you do? Results

Obey - 3.6%

Disobey - 31.9%

Whistle blow - 64.5%

Bocchiaro - What would the average student do? Results

Obey = 18.8%

Disobey = 43.9%

Whistleblow = 37.3%

Bocchiaro - Conclusions

1) people are very obedient and whistle-blowing is uncommon
2) people overestimate tendency to blow the whistle and underestimate likelihood of obedience
3) little or no evidence to suggest dispositional factors affect obedience or whistle-blowing

Bocchiaro - Usefulness

The 149 participants were found to have largely obeyed (76.5%) compared to the minority who blew the whistle. Prior to this research, little was known about whistleblowing. Findings can be applied to the general population and employers will be aware that employees are unlikely to whistle-blow. This means that measures can be put into place to increase the likelihood, which is important in industries such as the NHS.

Bocchiaro - Reliability

Eight pilot studies were conducted to standardise the behaviour of the experimenter. Additionally, many aspects of the procedure were standardised, such as all participants being left in the room for seven mins

Repeated and checked to see if findings are similar - increases usefulness

Bocchiaro - Generalisability

Ethnocentric and biased in age - can’t generalise findings to other groups so lacks population validity

Bocchiaro - Ecological validity

Lab conditions and artificial scenario.

Milgram and Bocchiaro - Practical applications

Both enable us to predict and tackle the tendency to obey orders that directly/ indirectly lead to harm and suffering in others.  E.g. Milgram can be used to predict atrocities and is used for this by the International Criminal Court; Bocchiaro’s is more relevant to understanding everyday injustice in the work place- in particular the low rates of whistle blowing.

Milgram and Bocchiaro - Ethical issues

Both involved deception

Milgram - no explanation needed

Bocchiaro - Participants told they were involved in research on sensory deprivation + told that a previous study had taken place where participants were panicked and asking to leave

Milgram and Bocchiaro - Data

Milgram recorded the behaviour and comments of the participants, in addition to the number of participants who shocked to each level

Bocchiaro et al collected only numerical data, by recording the number of participants who composed/didn’t compose the statement and the number of participants who completed and mailed the ethics committee form

Milgram and Bocchiaro - Sample

self-explanatory

Diffusion of responsibility

Responsibility is shared amongst everyone present. When there are more people around, each individual is less likely to act responsibly because they feel the responsibility is spread out over everyone there

Piliavin - Aim

To investigate bystander behaviour outside of the laboratory environment where participants had a clear view of the victim.

Piliavin - Method

Field experiment

Piliavin - Sample

About 4,450 men and women who used the New York subway on weekdays

45% black 55% white

Piliavin - Procedure (models and victims)

4 teams of 4 researchers: 2 female observers, 2 males (one victim, one model)

Victims all male and dressed alike. Either smelled of liquor and carried a bottle or appeared sober and carried a cane. Acted identically in both conditions

4 model conditions - critical area late, critical area early, adjacent area late, adjacent area early

Piliavin - Procedure (observers)

One observer recorded the race, sex and location of every rider and helper along with how many people came to the victim’s assistance.

The second observer coded the DVs and the latency of the first helpers arrival

Both recorded comments spontaneously and attempted to elicit comments

Piliavin - Procedure

The victim stood near a pole in the critical area.

After about 70 seconds he staggered forward and collapsed

Until help, he remained on the floor

The model intervened after 70 seconds, 150 seconds or not at all

At the stop, the team disembarked, changed platforms and repeated the process around 6-8 times a day

Piliavin - Results

The cane victim was helped in 62 out of 65 trials (95%), while the drunk victim was helped in 19 out of 38 trials (50%

Piliavin - Conclusions

An individual who appears ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears drunk

When escape is not possible and bystanders are face to face with a victim, help is more likely to be forthcoming

Piliavin - Demand characteristics

Covert observation that took place in ppts natural environment (new york subway)

The victim appeared convincingly ill to the ppts

Naturally occurring behaviour so it can be generalised

Piliavin - Ethics

Yeah it’s bad

Decreases replicability due to the nature of the experiment - shouldn’t repeat as it can cause distress

Piliavin - Ecological validity

Covert!

Piliavin - Generalisability

55% white, 45% black - no other races recorded

Ethnocentric - only took place in NY

Theories about helping behaviour

Urban overload hypothesis - less likely to help due to sensory overload

Kin selection - altruistic to people from their bloodline to increase chance of it surviving

Social exchange theory - only help if there is a positive reward

Levine - Background

Previous research is limited -

• Unrepresentative opportunity samples

• Very few studies outside of USA

• Focused on population size

Levine - Aim

To examine the tendency of people in the largest city of 23 countries to help a stranger in a non emergency situation

Levine - Method

Cross-cultural quasi experiment carried out in the field that used an independent measures design

Levine - Community variables and how they were measured

Population size - United nations demographic yearbook

Economic wellbeing - PPP

Cultural values - rated from 1-10

Pace of life - average walking speed between two markers

Levine - Sample

1198 people over 23 countries

Opportunity sampling - the second person who crossed a predetermined line

Levine - Procedure - Experimenters

Data collected by responsible students or cross cultural psychologists and their students.

All experimenters were male, college age and dressed neatly and casually

Levine - Helping measures

Dropped pen - walked towards a pedestrian, ‘accidentally’ dropped the pen in full view and continued walking. Helping defined as calling back to the experimenter or picking up the pen to give it back

Hurt leg - experimenter walking with clear limp, dropped a pile of magazines. Helping defined as offering to help or helping without offering

Blind person - stepped up to corner of street, held out cane and waited until someone offered help

Levine - Results

Rio de Janeiro - 93%

Kuala Lumpur - 40%

Countries with simpatia were significantly more helpful (83%) compared to non-simpatia countries (65.87%)

Levine - Conclusions

There are large cross-cultural variations in helping rates

Helping across cultures is inversely related to a country’s economic productivity

Levine - Strengths

Generalisability

Demand characteristics

Usefulness

Levine - Weaknesses

Ethics

Piliavin and Levine - similarities

Nurture side of the debate

High in ecological validity

Unethical

Piliavin and Levine - Differences

Data

Ethnocentrism

Strengths of the area

Usefulness

Ecological validity

Weaknesses of the area

Ethical issues

Reliability

Yay!!!!