A researcher recruits 30 university graduates for a simulated 'Corporate Decision-Making and Financial Auditing' workshop. They are told they are testing a new automated auditing software.
Participants are assigned to teams of five. In each team, four members are actually confederates of the researcher, and one is the real participant. The group is presented with a series of financial ledgers containing clear, unambiguous evidence of corporate embezzlement by a fictional beloved charity's director.
The confederates, following a pre-arranged script, systematically argue that the evidence is "inconclusive" and pressure the participant to sign off on a falsified audit report that clears the director of any wrongdoing, stating: “We all need to agree to pass this module; if you don't sign, we all fail.” The researcher, acting as the workshop director, tells the group: “A unified report is essential for your future employment references.”
During the session, participants exhibit high levels of anxiety, sweating, and hesitation, with 75% eventually signing the falsified document. During the debriefing, several participants expressed feeling intense guilt, shame, and fear that their actual academic integrity had been compromised and recorded.
Assume you have suggested two modifications to this laboratory-style simulation to address either ethical issues (such as protection of participants from psychological distress or deception) or methodological issues (such as the artificial nature of the task).
Discuss the implications of these suggested modifications on the design and findings of the research.
276 exam-style questions on OCR A Level Psychology Debates, covering Nature/nurture, Freewill/determinism, Reductionism/holism, Individual/situational explanations, Usefulness of research, Ethical considerations, Conducting socially sensitive research, and Psychology as a science. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.