A student recruits 80 adult volunteers at an adult learning centre. The volunteers are told that the investigation will examine whether a person's clothing affects willingness to follow an instruction. They give written consent to being observed and are allocated by computer to one of two equal-sized groups.
Each volunteer enters the same quiet room alone and watches one of two pre-recorded clips. Both clips show the same 25-year-old confederate making the request, "Please put the bundle of unused envelopes on the shelf before you leave." In one clip the confederate wears a private security officer's uniform; in the other, he wears ordinary clothes. The clips use the same camera position and sound level. The student records whether each volunteer moves the envelopes. Afterwards, every volunteer is fully debriefed and offered the opportunity to withdraw their result.
Evaluate the method used in this investigation.
76 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Psychology 4.2 Theories/Explanations, covering 4.2.1 Situational factors on conformity and crowds, 4.2.2 Situational factors on culture and obedience; criticisms, 4.2.3 Situational Factors research study: Bickman (1974), 4.2.4 Dispositional factors on conformity, crowds, morality, obedience, 4.2.5 Brain in dispositional factors; criticisms, and 4.2.6 Dispositional Factors research study: NatCen (2011). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.