The Social Animal

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The Social Animal

Elliot Aronson
The Univetiity of Texas at Austin

I
U. U. CEm'. LIS .!

ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL

LONDON
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To Vera, of course
 A cknowledgments

1 am indicated on the title page as the sole author of this book, and
it iscertainly true that I wrote down all the words and did most
of the thinking that produced chew. Accordingly, if there are any
stupidities in this book, they are mine, and if anything you read
on these pages makes you angry, Tm the person you should yell
at. At the same time, I want to confess that I never do anything

entirely by myself: Many people contributed their knowledge

and ideas to my word factory, and I would like to take this oppor-
tunity to thank them for their generous help.
Vera Aronson and Ellen Berscheid were particularly helpful.
They painstakingly went over the original manuscript, page by
page and line by line, making numerous suggestions and criticisms
that had a significant impact on the final form of this book. More-
over, their enthusiasm for the project was infectious and helped
me to climb out of frequent bouts of 'Svriter'is despair."
viii Acknoialedgmenis

Several other people contributed valuable ideas and sugges-

tions. Icannot possibly cite them all, but the most impactful
contributors were Nancy Aston, Leonard Berkowitz, David
Bradford, John Darley, Richard Easterlin, Jonathan Freedman,
James Freel, Robert Helmreich, Michael Kahn, John Kaplan,
Judson Mills, and Jev Sikes.
Thanks are also due to Judy Hilton and Faye Gibson, who
typed and retyped various drafts of the manuscript as if they
really enjoyed doing it, to Lyn EUisor, who worked patiently on
the bibliographical notes, and to William Ickes, who prepared
the indexes. Most of this book was written while I was a Fellow
at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at
Stanford, California, and I am deeply grateful to the staff of that
fine institution for providing me with the necessary leisure and
facilities.

Finally, I am pleased to report that my friend and mentor,

Leon Festinger, did not have anything to do with this manu-
script— directly. He never read it, and, to my knowledge,
he was
not even aware that I was writing He is,
however, responsible
it.

for its existence. I could say that he taught me all I

know about
social psychology, but that would be a lie. He taught
me some-
thing much more valuable than that: he taught me how
to find out
the things that neither I nor anybody else knew.

ELLIOT ARONSON
Contents

Why I Wrote This Book xi

1 What is Social Psychology? i

2 Conformity i
j

3 Mass Communication, Propaganda, and Persuasion 47

4 Self-Justification 89

5 Human Aggression 141

6 Prejudice 1 7

7 Attraction: Why People Like Each Other 203

8 Communication in Sensitivity-Training Groups 235

9 Social Psychology as a Science 269

Notes 29Z
Name Index 5/4
Subject Index 319
 V\fhy 1Wrote
This Book

In 1970-71, 1 was invited to spend the year in Stanford, Califor-

nia, at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
During that year, I was given all the support, encouragement, and
freedom to do whatever I wanted, and f was assured that f was
not responsible to anyone for anything. There, on a beautiful hill,
roughly 30 miles from San Francisco (my favorite city), with a
whole year in which to do anything my heart desired, I chose to
write this book. Surrounded as I was by the beauty of the coun-
tryside, and close as I was to the excitement of San Francisco,
why did I lock myself in a cubicle and write a book^ It's not that
I’m crazy and it’s not that I needed the money. If there’s any sin-
gle reason why I wrote this book, it’s that I once heard myself tell
a large class of sophomores that social psychology is a young
science—and it made me feel like a coward.
 The Social Afiimal

Let me explain: We social psychologists are fond of saying

that social psychology is ayoung science— and it fs a young sci-
ence. Of course, astute observers have been making interesting
pronouncements and proposing exciting hypotheses about social
phenomena at least since the time of Aristotle, but these pro-
nouncements and hypotheses were not seriously tested until well
into the twentieth century. The first social psychological experi-
menr (to my knowledge) was conducted by Triplett in 1897 (he
measured the effect of competition on performance) but it wasn’t
,

until the late 1930s that experimental social psychology really

took off, primarily under the inspiration of Kurt Lewin and his
talented students. By the same token, it’s interesting to note that,
although Aristotle first asserted some of the basic principles of
social influence and persuasion around 350 BC, it wasn’t until the
middle of the twentieth century that those principles were put to
the experimental test by Carl Hovland and his associates.
In another sense, however, to claim that social psychology is a
young science is to be guilty of a gigantic cop-out:
It’s a way of
pleading with people not to expect too much
from us. Specifical-
can be our way of dodging the responsibility
ly, It
for, and avoid-
ing the risks inherent in, applying
our findings to the problems of
the world we live m. In this sense,
protesting that social psychol-
ogy IS a young science is akin to claiming that
we’re not yet ready
to say anyt mg important, useful, or (if the reader will forgive
me for using an overused word)
relevant.
The purpose of this volume is unashamedly (but with some
trepidation) to spell out the relevance
that sodopsychological re-
search might have for some of
the problems besetting Lntem-
poraj society. Most of the data discussed in this volume ate
of the illustrations and examples,
Wver"
1 problems-induding
aggression, unrest,
and
political upheaval. This duality reflects two of my own biases-

the
'
w ?
best way to“‘'h
theTest
O’tperimental method is
understand a complex phenomenon.
is a truism
It IS
of science that the only way to really
know the world is ii to re-
 Why I Wrote This Book xiu

construct it that is, in order to truly understand what causes

what, we must
do more than simply observe-rather, we must be
responsible for producing the first “what” so that we
can be sure
that It really cuziscd the second
“what *’
My
second bias is that the
only way
to be certain that the causal relations uncovered in
experiments are valid is to bring them out of the laboratory and
into the real world Thus, as a scienust, I like to work in a labora-
tory , as a citizen, however, I like to have windows through which
I can look out upon the world Windows, of course, work in both
directions we often derive hypotheses from everyday life We
can best test these hypotheses under the sterile conditions of the
laboratory, and in order to try to keep our ideas from becoming
sterile, we attempt to take our laboratory findings back out
through the window to see if they hold up in the real world
Implicit m
all this is my belief that social psychology is ex-

tremely important— that social psychologists can play a vital role

in making the world a better place m
which to live Indeed, in my
more grandiose moments, I nurse the secret belief that social psy-
chologists are in a unique position to have a profound and benefi-
cial impact on our lives by providing an increased understanding
of such important phenomena as conformity, persuasion, preju-
dice, love, and aggression Now that my secret belief is no longer
a secret, I can promise only to try not to force it down the read-
er’s throat on the following pages Rather, I'll leave it to the

reader to decide, after he has finished this volume, whether social

psychologists have discovered, or can ever discover, anything
useful— much anything uniquely important
less
This IS and purposely so It is meant to be a
a slim volume,
brief introduction to the world of social psychology, not an
encyclopedic catalogue of research and theory Because I opted
to make it brief, I had to be selective This means both that there
are some traditional topics that I chose not to cover, and that I
have not gone into exhaustive detail with those topics that I did
choose to cover Because of this, it was a difficult book to write
I

have had to be more a “news analyst” than a “reporter For ex-

ample, there are many controversies that I did not fully describe
XIV The Social Animal

Rather, I exercised my own judgment; made an educated (and, I

hope, honest) assessment of what is the most accurate description

of the field, as of 1972; and stated it as clearly as I could.
This decision was made with the student in mind— tfiis book
was written for students, not for my colleagues. If Tve learned
nothing else in fifteen years of teaching, I have learned that, al-

though a detailed presentation of all positions is useful (and some-

times even fascinating) to one’s colleagues, it tends to leave
what time it is, and we, in
students cold. Students, in effect, ask us
effect, present them with showing the various time zones
a chart
around the world, a history of time-telling from the sun dial to
the Bulova Accutron, and a detailed description of the anatomy
of the wrist watch. By the time weVe finished, they’ve lost inter-
est in the question. Nothing is safer than to state all sides of all
issues, but few things are more boring. Although I have discussed

controversial issues, I have not hesitated to draw conclusions. In

short, I have attempted to be brief without being
unfair, and I
have tried to present complex material simply and clearly without
otiersimplifying. Only the reader can
determine how successful I
have been in accomplishing either of these
goals.
The Social Animal
I

What is
Social Psychology?

first person to formulate

As far as we know, Aristotle was the
persuasion. He was prob-
basic principles of social influence and
is a social animal,
ably not the first person to observe that man
of that statement
however, nor the first to marvel at the truth
its triteness and
msubstantial-
while simultaneously puzzling over
a social animal, so
ity.Although it is certainly true that man is
bees to mon -eys an
•
p
a host of other animals, from ants and
ammal Let looK
What does it mean to say that man is a “social
at some concrete examples:

four of his
A college student named Sam and ma^ke
watching a presidential candidate “ oppos-
'hm the opp
h™ b «
Sam is favombly impressed; he likes J sp
sincenty. After the
ing candidate because of his
 The Social Animal

the other students asserts that he was turned off by the candi-
date—that he considered him to be a complete phony— and that
he prefers the opposing candidate All of the others are quick to
agree with him Sam looks puzzled and a trifle distressed Final-
ly, he mumbles to his acquaintances, “I guess he didn’t come

across as sincere as one might hope for him to be ”

A second grade teacher stands before her class and asks, “What
IS the sum of six, mne, four, and
eleven^” A girl in the
third row puzzles over the question for several seconds, hesi-
tates, raises her hand tentatively, and, when called on, haltingly
answers, “Thirty^” The teacher nods, smiles at her, says, “Nice
work, Peggy," and pastes a gold star on her
forehead She then
asks the class, “What is the sum
of seven, four, eight, three, and
tens" Without wasting a
moment, Peggy leaps to her feet and
shouts, ‘Thirty-two»”

A four-year old boy is given a toy drum

for his birthday After
pounding on it for a few minutes, he casts it aside and studious-

tn
'«’«'<s One day, a friend comes
Iv P'^y « Sudden-
tears the drum from his friend’s grasp
and nrlr
proceeds to play with it as if it had always been his favorite

consumes two bowls of Wheaties

^aiirberauTetn
‘’'“'halon champion endorses the
nroLct and implies
product n, that heoweshis
1

athletic prowess in part to

the consumption of that
particular brand of cereTl
^

A housewife who has lived her entire I,fe in n

MonMm hnc 1,-ei
lite a small town in
 What ts Social Psychology ?
3

men, a high-school teacher from Kent, Ohio, asserted that the

slam students deserved to dje^even though she was well aware
of the fact that at least two of the victims were not participating
in the demonstration but were peacefully walking across cam-
pus at the time of the shooting Indeed, she went on to say,
“Anyone who appears on the streets of a city like Kent with
long hair, dirty clothes or barefooted deserves to be shot

Mary has just turned nine For her birthday, she received a
SuzieHomemaker baking and cooking set— complete with “her
own little oven Her parents chose this present because she
’*

seems very interested m culinary thingsand is forever helping

mommy and clean the house
set the table, prepare the meals,
“Isn’t It wonderful,” says Mary’s father, “how at age nine she ts
already interested in being a housewife’ Little girls must have
housewifery built into their genes Those women’s liberation
”
people don’t know what they’re talking about

But things do change George Woods is black, and when he

and I were growing up together in Massachusetts some SS years
ago, he considered himself a “colored boy” and felt inferior to his
white friends There were many reasons for this feeling That
George was treated like an inferior by the white community had
a direct influence upon him, of course, and a number of other
forces influenced him less directly In those days, George could
by turning on the radio and listening to Amos
‘

entertain himself
’n Andy,” a radioshow in which black adults were portrayed as
naive children, as stupid, lazy, and illiterate, but rather cute— not
were,
unlike friendly domesticated animals The black characters
see the
of course,played by white actors In films, George could
ot er
stereotyped “colored man,” usually a chauffeur or some
mennl Astandard plot would have the “colored
man
pany the white hero into a haunted house, where they wou
car

the^ colored
a strangeand ominous noise The camera pans in on
ect, o
man’s” face, his eyes grow large with fright, he screams,
4 The Social Aiimial

)our stuff*” and dashes through the door, not taking the time to
open It first Wc can only guess what George experienced while
\ icN\ ing these films in the company of his white friends
Most of George’s adult acquaintances were blacks who “knew
their place ” They ucre obsequious to whites, used hair straight-
cner in an attempt to look less black, and cared little about their
African heritage The idea was to be white, a goal which, of
course, was unattainable I would be amazed if this climate did
not lower George’s self-concept because such changes in self-
concept are not atypical A
famous study of black children in the
fortiesby Kenneth and Mamie Clark showed that, as early as age
three, many of the children had learned to feel inferior *
to whites
Although discrimination and unfairness are still very much a
part of our society,George Woods’ children, growing up m the
scyntics, need not face quite the same
prospect as George himself
did the mass media now depict blacks
m roles that arc not cxclu-
su cly menial, a new pride m blackness is emerging, along w ith an
interest m. and enthusiasm about, Afro American
history and
culture, and sales of hair
straightencr arc down The society is
mnucncing George’s children m a
much different way
’ than it
influenced George

sliould not be complacent in

“
10 Voi / I ‘*i.''"l“
direction On August

uorl
o"' billed The

'ditonals around the

«otId exnrL, ^1
'"‘''g"«>on of the citi-
eeni^
eenrs Onr
Onl) nine >eors later. Amencon plrmes dropped atomic

m
m
J neon e
M
T'lri
^' ‘"‘’""''“5
thousands suffered set ere
'’uTdred thou-

miurics. bhorrly tlierca

1
ter, a poll mdieatcd
that onI> 4 5 percent
^1’“'^"°", W'
'bat ue should not hafe
used
those n capons, and an astonishing 22
7 percent felt that ss e should
 What is Social Psychology? 5

have used many more of them before Japan had a chance- to sur-
render. Clearly, something had happened during those nine years
to influence opinion.

A Defifiition
What is social psychology? There are almost as many definitions
of social psychology as there are social psychologists. Instead of
listing some of these definitions, it might be more informative to

let the subject matter define the field. The examples presented in

the preceding pages are all illustrations of sociopsychological situ-

ations. As diverse as these situations may be, they do contain
one common factor; social influence. The opinion of Sam’s friends
on the merits of the presidential candidate influenced Sam’s judg-
‘ment (or at least his public statement regarding that judgment).
The rewards emanating from the teacher influenced the speed
and vigor of Peggy’s classroom responses. The four-year-old

seemed to find his toy drum more attractive because of the inad-
interest. The Olympic athlete
s
vertent influence of his friend’s
other hand,
influenceon our Wheaties-eating youngster, on the
to
was far from inadvertent; rather, it was intentionally designe
Montana
make him convince his mother to buy Wheaties. The
stereotype
housewife was certainly not born with an unflattering
put it there.
of black people in her head-somebody, somehow,
teacher in Kent, Ohio, came
to
Exactly how the high-school
a
believe that innocent people deserved to die is
us simp y
frighteningly current question; for now, let
this belief was almost certainly influenced
by her own m i

complicity in the tragic events on the campus,

t is ’

is genetic,
as Mary’s father says, that “housewifery ^
j
more likely that, from infancy omvard,
Mary
interest
encouraged every time she expressed an extent
dolls-to ^ ®
nine” things as cooking, sewing, and
tlian if she expressed an interest in football, boxing.
6 The Social Animal

It is also reasonable to assume that, if Mary’s kid brother had

shown an interest in “housewifery,” he would not have received a
Suzie Homemaker set for bis birthday. Also, as with young
George Woods, who felt inferior to his playmates, Mary’s self-
image could have been shaped by the mass media, which tend to
depict women in roles that the culture encourages them to play:
housewife, secretary, nurse, school teacher—the mass media rarely
depict women as biochemists, college professors, or business
executives. If we compare the young George Woods with his
children, we will see that the self-images of minority-group mem-
bers can change, and these changes can influence and be influ-
enced by changes in the mass media and changes in the attitudes
of the general population. This, of course, is
graphically illus-
trated by the opinions of Americans about the use of
the atomic
bomb in 1945.
The key phrase in the preceding paragraph is “social influ-
ence. And thisbecomes our working definition of social
psychology; the influences that people
have upon the beliefs or
behavior of others. Using this as
our definition, we will attempt to
understand many of the phenomena
described in the preceding
illustrations. How is a person
influence-or, pt another way,
influenced? Why
does he accept
what’s in it for him? What are
^ increase or decrease the
infl
fluence ^
Does such
effectiveness of social
influence have a permanent
effect, or is it

‘hat increase or de-

Ime nl'/TT™" r Can the

0^^ ?
0 ^ 'PPou-
1
"’“"y “ of the high-
‘oy preferences of young
chil drln' h" “ “he another person? Is it
Amuvh th^sr.
car or his box rfwJieaS H^^doTa person d^veT'''
HkingTut “n
frersTir d“ T
Most people are interested in questions
of this sort; in a sense.
 WhattsSoctal P^ychology^ 7

therefore, most people are social psychologists Because most of

us spend a good deal of our time interacting with other people-
being influenced by them, influencing them, being delighted,
amused, and angered by them— it is natural that most of us develop
hypotheses about social behavior Although most amateur social
psychologists test these hypotheses to their own satisfaction, these
“tests” lack the rigor and impartiality of careful scientific investi-

gation Often, the results of scientific research are identical with

what most people “know” to be true This is not surprising, con-
ventional wisdom IS usually based upon shrewd observation that
has stood the test of time But it is important that social psycholo-
gists conduct research to test hypotheses— even those hypotheses
that we all know are obviously true- because many things that we
“know” to be true turn out to be false when carefully investigat-
ed Although It seems reasonable, for example, to assume that
people who are threatened with severe punishment for engaging
m a certain behavior might eventually learn to despise that
be-

havior, it turns out that when this question is studied scientifically

is true people who
we are threatened
find that just the reverse
with mild punishment develop a dislike for the forbidden be-
anything, a
are severely threatened show,
if
havior, people who
behavior Li ewise,
slightmcrease in liking for the forbidden
we
most of us, from our own expenence, would guess
that, if

(be in our
overheard someone saying nice things about us
like that person-all
other things being
backs), we would tend to
that
is equa ly true is
equal This turns out to be true But what
tend to like that person even more if some
of
we
nice ore t
overhear him make about us are anything but
chapters
said about these phenomena in the following
social be avio^ P
In his attempt to understand human
advantage over
fessional social psychologist has a great .j
the amateu
teur social psychologists Although, like
,

begins with careful observation, he can

go ar ^y°
so t ^
does not need to wait for things to happen
how people respond, he can, in fact, make things pp
8 The Social Animat

he can conduct an experiment in which scores of people are sub-

jected to particular conditions (for example, a severe threat or a
mild threat; overhearing nice things or overhearing a combination
of nice and nasty things) Moreover, he can do this in situations in
.

which everything can be held constant except for the particular

conditions being investigated. He
draw conclu-
can, therefore,
sions based on data far more
numerous than those
precise and
available to the amateur social psychologist, who must depend
upon observations of events that occur randomly and under com-
plex circumstances.
Virtually all of the data presented in this book are based upon
experimental evidence. It is important, for this reason, that the
reader understand what constitutes an experiment in
social psy-
chology and that he understand the advantages, disadvantages,
ethical problems, excitements, headaches,
and heartaches that are
associated with this kind of enterprise.
Although an understand-
ing of the experimental method is important, it is by no means
essential toan understanding of the substantive
material presented
here. Therefore, the chapter
“Social Psychology as a Science” is
the final one in this book. The
reader may peruse this chapter
before reading on (if he prefers
to understand the technicalities
before delving into the substantive
material), or he can read it at
any point on his journey through
the book-whenever his interest
IS piqued.

People Who Do Crazy Things

Are Not Necessarily Crazy

^e socml psychologist studies

social situations that affect peo-

neural situations becLe

f^cLd
tvs
V a>s that
tf, can P“P'= “ tehave in
easi
y be classified as
abnormal. When I say “peo-
of people. To my mind,
incmar’"^
Sot increase
not f
our understanding of human
it does

behavior to classify
 What IS Social Psychology ? 9

these people as psychotic It is much more useful to try to under-

stand the nature of the situauon and the processes that were
operating to produce the behavior This leads us to Aronson’s
”
firstlaw “People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy
Let us take, as an illustration, the Ohio schoolteacher who
asserted that the four Kent S^’ate students deserved to die I don’t
think that she was alone in this belief—and, although all the people
who hold this belief viay be psychotic, I seriously doubt it, and I
doubt that so classifying them does much to extend our knowl-
edge Similarly, in the aftermath of the Kent slayings, the rumor
spread that the slam girls were pregnant anyway— so that it was a
blessing that they died— and that all four of the students were
filthyand so covered with lice that the mortuary attendants be-
came nauseated while examining the bodies These rumors, of
course, were totally false But according to James Michener they
,*

spread like wild fire Were all the people who believed and spread
these rumors insane^ Later in this book, we will examine the proc-
esses that produced this kind of behavior— processes to
which
most of us are susceptible, under the right sociopsychological
conditions
tendency to
Ellen Berscheid* has observed that people have a
perpetrator
explain unpleasant behavior by attaching a label to the
him rom
(“crazy,” “sadistic,” or whatever), thereby excluding
longer ave to
the rest of “us nice people ” In that waj, we no
worry about his behavior, because it has nothing
folks According to Berscheid, the danger in this
kind o
^
is that it tends to make us smug about our
own suscepti i ity o
the produce unpleasant be
situational pressures that ,

so ution o so
leads to a rather simple minded approach to the
problems Specifically, such a simple minded
tests to ^
dude the development of a set of diagnostic
who is a liar, who is a sadist, who is corrupt, w o

social action might then consist of js

institution
relegating them to the appropriate ’should
not to say that psychosis does not exist or that psy
10 The Social Animal

not be institutionalized Neither am I saying that all people are

same intense social
the same and respond exactly as crazily to the
pressures To repeat, what I saying is that some situational
variables can move a great proportion of us “normal” adults to
behave m very unappetizing ways It is of paramount importance
that we attempt to understand these variables and the processes
that produce unpleasant behavior
An might be useful Think of a prison Consider
illustration
the guards What are
they like^ Chances are, most people would
imagine prison guards to be tough, callous, unfeeling people
Some might even consider them to be cruel, tyrannical, and sadis-
People who take this kind of dispositional view of the world
tic^

might suggest that the reason people become guards is to have an

opportunity to exercise their cruelty with relative impunity
Picture the prisoners What are they like> Rebellious^ Docile?
No matter what specific pictures exist inside our
heads, the point
isthat there are pictures there-and
most of us believe that the
prisoners and the guards are quite
different from us in character
and personality
This WMy be true, but don’t be too sure
In a dramatic piece of
research, Phdip Zimbardo created
nicnt of the Psychology
a simulated prison m the base-
Department at Stanford University Into
this prison he brought a group of normal,
mature, stable, intelli-
gent young men By flipping a com, Zimbardo
designated one-
half of them prisoners and one-half of
them guardl and they
lived as such for six days What
happened’ Let’s allow Zimbardo
to tell us in his ovv n words

At the end of on^ six days we had to close down our mock
prison because what we saw was frightening
It was no longer
Zl ,
“ ''= "’h=re they ended and
’

o a u 1
become “prisoners
clearly differentiate between
roleni
role plaj "a
mg and self There were dramatic changes
<rvcr> aspect of their behavior, thinking
m virtually
and feeling In less than
 What is Social Psychology? II

a week, the experience of imprisonment undid (temporarily) a

lifetime of learning; human values were suspended, self-con-
cepts were challenged, and the ugliest, most base, pathological
side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified because we
saw some boys (“guards”) treat other boys as if they were
despicable animals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while other boys
(“prisoners”) became servile, dehumanized robots who thought
only of escape, of their own individual survival, and of their
mounting hatred of the guards.*
1

Conformity

social anima is t a
One consequence of the fact that man is a
of tension between values associate
lives in a state
wn
ality and values associated with conformity
James
t e
^o „
m
captured the flavor of one kind of conformity
description

be
Suddenly somebody began to run It may
remembered, all of a moment, an
for which he was now frightfully
east on Broad Street (probably
towar
a favorite place for a man to meet
hiswi e)
c„mphodv else began
. . port-
j.
~
j-an

a
to run, perhaps a newsboy in high spirits minutes,
ly gentleman of affairs, broke into a
from the ^
everybody on High Street,
crvstahzed into
crysta
house was running A loud mumble gradually
 ” '

H The Social Animal

’*
the dread word “dam “The dam
The fear was put has broke' ”
into words by a by a traffic cop,
little old lady in an electric, or
or by a small boy nobody knows who, nor does it now really
matter Two thousand people were abruptly in full flight “Go
east'” was the cry that arose—east away from the river, east to
safety “Go east' Go ea^t*”
A tall spare woman with grim eyes and a determined
chin ran past me down the middle of the street
I was still un-
certain as towhat was the matter, in spite of all the shouting I
drew up alongside the woman with some effort, for although
she was in her late fifties, she had a beautiful easy runmng form
and seemed to be m excellent condition “What is it^” I puffed
She gave me a quick glance and then looked ahead again, step-
ping up her pace a trifle Don’t ask me, ask God'” ‘
she said

This passage from Thurber, although comical,

is an apt illus-
tration of people conforming One or two individuals began run-
reasons, before long, everyone was running
wi?
Why?3 Because others were running
According to Thurber’s
story, w
en the running people realized
that the dam hadn’t given
way after al they felt pretty foolish
,
And yet, how much more
foolish would they have
felt if they hadn’t conformed, and the
dam had, in fact, burst^ Is conformity good
or bad’ In its simplest
sense, this isan absurd question But
words do carry evaluative
meaning t us, to be called an
individualist or a nonconformist is
a “good” person the label
evnUes‘^rn®''"'"‘^’i’n
° on a mountain top with
a rifle I

ha r 1 blowing through his

background To
be called a conformist
nm h "'""uT
IS

an imalTf^
“ “>nadequate” person it evokes
Avenue admen with grey flannel
sLs nnrk

“Lefls run it np^the AagpoleSa^^r sai^

imams' Fnr"“ r ^bat convey very different
‘'’f.‘"‘*“bst or “nonconformist,” we can substitute
“Tviate” f
^0 can substitute “team player”
Somrhow “I viate oes not evoke
)
Daniel Boone on the moun-
 Conformity

tain top, and “team player” does not evoke the cookie-cutter-
produced Madison Avenue adman
When we look a little closer, we see an inconsistency in the
way our society seems to feel about conformity (team playing)
and nonconformity (deviance) For example, one of the great
best sellers of the 1950s was a book by John F Kennedy called
Profiles m Courage, wherein the author praised several politicians
for their courage in resisting great pressure and refusing to con-
form To put It another way, Kennedy was praising people who
refused to be good team players, people who refused to vote or
act as their parties or constituents expected them to Although
their actions earned Kennedy’s praise long after the deeds were
done, the immediate reactions of their colleagues were generally
far from positive The nonconformist may be praised by histo-
rians or idolized in films or literature long after the fact
of his

nonconformity, but he’s usually not held m

high esteem, at the
conform
time, those people to whose demands he refuses to
by
This observation receives strong support from a number
ot ex-

periments in social psychology, most notably from

one “X ™
parueipate c
Schachter,* in which several groups of students
juveni e e in
group met for a discussion of the case history of a
quent named Johnny Rocco, which each member was given
to ireuss i
read After reading the case, each group was asked
range
and to suggest a treatment for Johnny on a scale that
treatmen
“very lenient treatment” on one end to very har
approximate y mn p
the other A typical group consisted of
three o °
ticipants, SIX of whom were real students and ,

con e e
paid confederates of the experimenter The
care u X
turns playing one of three roles that they had ,
j
position t a
in advance the raoda/ person, who took a
to the average position of the real students, the
a position diametrically opposed to the general
on
group, and the shder] sZse initial position •

deviate’s but who, in the course of ® i^arly ^hoiv ed

into a modal, conforming position In
that the person who was liked most was
was
conformed to the group norm, the deviate
i6 The Social Animal

Thus, the data indicate that the “establishment” or modal

group tends to like conformists better than nonconformists By
reporting these results, we do not intend to suggest that con-
formity is always adaptive and nonconformity is always maladap-
tive Clearly, there are situationswherein conformity is highly
desirable and nonconformity would constitute an unmitigated
disasterSuppose, for example, that I were suddenly to decide that
I was fed up with being
a conformist So I hop in my car and start
driving down the /e/i~hand side of the road— as a way of display-
ing my rugged individualism not very adapuve, and
not very fair
to you,if you happen to be driving
toward me (conformist-style)
on the same street
On the other hand, there are equally compelling situations in
which conformity can be )ust as disastrous and
just as tragic One
such example can be found m the memoirs
of Albert Speer Speer
was one of Adolf Hitler’s top advisors
In his memoirs, he de-
scribes the circle
around Hitler as one of total conformity devia-
tion was not permitted In such an
atmosphere, even the most
barbarous activities seemed
reasonable, because the absence of
issent, w ich conveyed the
illusion of unanimity, prevented any
individual from entertaining
the possibility that other options
mignt exist ^

In normal circumstances
people who turn their backs on reality
mockery and criticism of those
armmH Third Reich there were not such correc-
rives On
s^'f deception was multiplied as m
hall f
mirrors, becoming a
repeatedly confirmed
oictiirp nf
"ofM Which no longer bore any
lationship to the grim outside world In
those mirrors I could
nothing but my own face reproduced many times over =

What IS Conjonmty^

Itmom aT m a person’s behavior or

Zurof Pi-^Ze from a person or
group ne
of people Most situations are not as
extreme as tL exam-
 Conformity 17

pies cited above We will attempt to zero in on the phenomenon

of conformity by beginning with a less extreme (and perhaps
simpler) illustrauon Let’s return to our friend Sam, the hypo
thetical college student we first encountered in Chapter 1 Recall
that Sam watched a presidential candidate on television and was
favorably impressed by his sincerity However, in the face of the
unanimous opinion of his friends that the candidate was insincere,
Sam acceded— verbally, at least— to their opinion
Several questions can be asked about this kind of situation ( 1
What causes people to conform to group pressure^ Specifically,
what was m
it for Sam^ (2) What was the
nature of the group
pressure^ Specifically, what were Sam’s acquaintances doing to
can
induce conformity^ (3) Did Sam revise his opinion of the
didate during that brief but horrifying period when he
learned

that all of his fellow students disagreed with him^ Or

case that Sam maintained his original opinion, but only
mo i e ^
what he said about the candidate^ If there was a change
opin m
ion, was It permanent or merely transient^

Unfortunately, we cannot say precisely and

definite y w
was going on in Sam’s mind at the ume, because thwe
are ^ X
or
factors in the situation that we don’t know about
’

we know how confident Sam was in his initia

don’t ’
,

wit
don’t know how much he liked the people , ,

am
watched the candidate, we don’t know whether , ,

whet er e
himself to be a good judge of sincerity or , .

don’t know
the others to be good judges of sincerity, we
Sam IS generally a strong person or a wishy was y p uauonjhaus
>

experimental si
on What we do is instruct an
cL
Sam foun ims
somewhat like the one in which
control and vary the factors that we
a classic
Such a basic situation was devised by Sol You have
set of experiments Put yourself in the fol
.ptual ludg
volunteered to participate in an experiment
° P
particp
^ expert „
ment You enter a room with four other
g^^pij^peously,
line ( ‘"t
menter shows all of you a straight j pod
he shows you three other hnes “™P^” „ closest in
three hues
C) Your ,0b IS to judge which of the
 '

The Social Animal

X u
length to line X The judgment strikes you
being a very easy
as
one It IS perfectly clear to you that
line B is the correct answer,
and when your turn comes, you
will clearly say that B is the one
But Its your turn to respond The person
whose turn it is
looks carefully at the lines and
says “Line A ” Your mouth drops
open and you look at hm
quizically “How can he believe it’s A
B’” you ask yourself “He must be
Iher

mnderiand “h Alice m
ttee oe^e hh^d”'"
“Are both of
and he ako savs “1°^ ” v person responds,
“Cbe V; X O r « rhose lines
the correct line to be
Ime^^ You h i
Iv It’s vour turn “W^ • .
^ Sweat Final-
k':;ew ifairjhrie^'’''’ y- declare “I

expitm w^mfhr^^grK'm "

who answered ™"g‘"c. the individuals
first and gave Ae
employ of the experiment
and Cre”™
b?e“irwIstt“T^' ’ ‘“'f ~Tncr"edi-

judgments of various sizes

of lines whibtnn h"’
complete absence of errors
Indeed he !
physmal reality was so
clear-cut, that
heved that there would Iscf ^h'™' iT/'T I
be little, if anvviH^
But he was wrong When
fact with a majority ^?“P P'^f*:”'"
t vvnen taced
of their fellow
 Conformity 19

students agreeingon the same incorrect responses in a series of

twelve judgments, approximately one-quarter of the subjects
conformed at least once by responding incorrectly. When we
look at the entire spectrum of judgments, we find that an average

of 35 percent of the overall responses conformed to the incorrect

judgments rendered by Asch’s accomplices.
The situation in the Asch experiment is intriguing inasmuch
as, unlike many situations in which we may tend to conform,

explicit constraints against individuality. That

is,
there were no
the sanctions against nonconformity in many situations are clear
and unequivocal. For example, I hate to wear a tie, and under
most circumstances I can get away with this minor idiosyncracy.
On occasion, however, I can’t: I often find myself stopped at the
that
entrance to a restaurant and politely (but firmly) informed
I cannot
if I refuse to don the tie offered me by the headwaiter,

dine in that restaurant. I can either put on the tie and

eat t e m
but hungry.
restaurant, or leave, open-necked and comfortable,
very
The negative consequences of nonconformity are ma e
example of
But in Asch’s experiment (and in the hypothetical
Sam watching the candidate on television), the situations
w
exp
much more subtle. In these situations, there were no
for devian .

^va^ds for conformity and no explicit punishments

conform. ere
Why, then, did Sam and Asch’s subjects
be two major possibilities-, either they became
majority, t a
face of thejudgment of the unanimous
vit
opinions were wrong, or they “went along rifrht) in
(while inwardly knowing that their
judgment
order to be liked by the majority or to
avoid ei g
them for disagreeing.
^ individuals had
that
In short, what we are suggesung is
two important goals: the goal of being corre
^
staying in the good graces of other peopl
^
^ can J)C
expectations. In many circumstances, bot of the
r ^ .

satisfiedby a simple action. Driving on the g c^pcc-

other pc
road is the correct thing to do and icsatisfics ^p
rations. So, too, is sending flowers to
your
20 The Social Animal

Day, giving proper directions to a visitor in town, and studying

hard to perform well on an exam. Similarly, if others agreed with
your judgment of the lengths of the lines, you could satisfy both
goals by being true to your own estimate. But in Asch’s experi-
ment, these two goals were placed in conflict. If you were a sub-
ject in that experiment,
and you initially believed that the correct
answer was line B, then saying so might satisfy your desire to be
correct—but it might also violate the expectations
of your peers,
and they might think you to be somewhat queer.
On the other
hand, choosing line A might win you the acceptance of the
others, but unless you became convinced that they were correct.
It would violate your desire
to be right.
Was Sam convinced by his fellow college students that his
preferred presidential candidate
was a phony, or did he simply go
a ong wit their judgment in
order to be accepted, while con-
nnmng to believe in the sincerity of the
candidate? Again, I don’t
Sam IS a hypothetical person, we
cannot answer
definitively Were the
yielders in Asch’s experiment
their initial judgment was incorrect and the unani-
the others was right? We could ask them; in-
deed
the yielders were asked afterward
whether
^
^ differently or whether they

beLn Zhf.d“ P
bowed to prnnn n
r ”” I?.*’" “"‘I'"
^
'he subjects were
® subject’s place. Suppose you

your initial judgmerwas'crrm«“Th^^^ remained certain that

correct. This might
for von m u be embarrassing
wishy-washy. Moreo“ryiVZllld

S
ing
sat^lTb.
me eroLwnV
‘’T
expenmenter m order to save
''

face.
“hjects
'"‘gh' h^ve
who said they
been deceiv-
 Conformity

the accomplices as before, we would not require them to make

their judgments in the presence of the others. If the subjects’
private choices were identical with their public ones, then we
would see that the responses of the others in the original experi-
ment actually did convince the subjects that their initial judg-
ments were wrong. If, on the other hand, the subjects were going
against their own best judgment only in order to mollify the
group, then there would be significantly less yielding to the judg-
ments of others in decisions made in private. This proposition has
been tested experimentally on several occasions. The results are
consistent: although assurance of total privacy has not been
achieved in any of these studies, the greater the privacy, the less
the conformity. This finding has consistently held up, whether
the subjectswere judging lengths of lines, “ the numbers of metro-
nome clicks,® or the esthetic value of a piece of modern art,^ Thus,
it appears that pressure toconform to the judgments of others has
little (if any) effect on the private judgments of experimental
subjects.

Variables that Increase or

Decrease Confor^nity

In situations like the one investigated by Asch, one of the crucial

factors that determines the likelihood that the subject’s opinion
will conform to that of the majority is whether or not the major-
ity
is unanimous. If the subject is presented with
opinion only one
rily, histendency to conform to an erroneous judgment by the
majority is reduced sharply.® Moreover, if there is unanimity, the
actual size of the majority need not be very great in order f°^
tend-
to elicit
maximum conformity from a person. In fact, the
ency for someone as great
to conform to group pressure is about
when the unanimous majority consists of only three other people
3s it
is when the
unanimous majority is sixteen.
,
Another important pair of factors is the kind of person the
mdividual is and who constitutes the group. Individuals who have
® Benerally low opinion of themselves are far more likely to yie
20 The Social Animal

Day, giving proper directions to a visitor in town, and studying

hard to perform well on an exam. Similarly, if others agreed with
your judgment of the lengths of the lines, you could satisfy both
goals by being true to your own estimate. But in Asch’s experi-
ment, these two goals were placed in conflict. If you were a sub-
and you initially believed that the correct
ject in that experiment,
answer was line B, then saying so might satisfy your desire to be
correct—but it might also violate the expectations of your peers,
and they might think you to be somewhat queer. On the other
hand, choosing line A might win you the acceptance of the
others, but unless you became convinced that they were correct,
it would violate your desire to be right.
Was Sam convinced by his fellow college students that his
preferred presidential candidate was a phony, or did he simply go
along with their judgment in
order to be accepted, while con-
tinuing to believe in the sincerity
of the candidate? Again, I don’t
know; because Sam is a hypothetical person, we cannot answer
that question definitively.
Were the yielders in Asch’s experiment
convinced that their initial judgment was incorrect and the unani-
mous judgment of the others was right? We could ask them; in-
the yielders were asked afterward
c
differently or whether they
me'
merely said sm
1
A few of the subjects insisted that they really saw
'vay. But how can we be certain
. that the subjects were
" yo^^self in a subject’s place. Suppose you
boweri m'
though you remained certain that
voiir iniH
correct.This might be embarrassing
for vnii tn
*' "'ould make
wishv \v h'"
you appear weak and
Tt W 0
y”"
i ° P.P®®™®’’^®®r."'** l’® =-dmitting that you were

* instruction to present your oitm

judgment "A
’
possible that subjects who said they
actuallv saw
^ gtoup saw it might have been deceiv-
ine ^e
'
ing the^eme
experimenter in order to save face.
determine whether or not group pressure
actuallv
m” Lnnos^
j“<*en.ent? Let’s speculate for a mo-
''’® Asch experiment, but,
Zueh
though w allow
Mould 'n“'= ‘P
the real subjects
al-
to see the responses of
22 The Social Animal

to group pressure than those with high self-esteem. Furthermore,

task-specific self-esteemcan be influenced within a given situa-
tion. Thus, individuals who are allowed to have prior successes
with such a task as judging the lengths of lines are far less likely
to conform than those who walk into the situation cold. By the
same token, if an individual believes that he has little or no ability
for the task at hand, his tendency to conform increases.®
The other side of that coin, of course, has to do with the
makeup of the group exerting the pressure. A
group is more effec-
tive at inducing conformity if
consists of experts, (2) the
(1) it
members (individually or collectively) are important to the indi-
vidual, or (3) the members (individually or collectively) are
comparable to the individual in some way. Thus,
to go back to
Sam, our hypothetical college student, I would
speculate that it is
more likely that Sam would conform
to the pressure exerted by
his acquaintances if
he thought they were expert in politics and in
making judgments about human relations.
Similarly, he would be
more likely to yield to those people if they were important poten-

11
consequence to him. And
nnally, their being fellow college
students gives the judgment of
Sams acquaintances more impact on his behavior than, say, the
ju gmcnt o a group of ten-year-old
children, a group of hard-
hats or a group of Portuguese
biochemists.
Secure the individual feels in a given
^ ^
-irnnimr
liked and accepted by his
^ likely to voice disagreement
than if hTf^’ '

relationship with them. This asser-

tion Tfrnvr
and by James Dittes
j'” "'b^h College students were invited to
inin an ^

oh" W ™ group and were' subsequently

i" 'hat
n oun tecT"?," “n”"'
of tbe group were informed rhat,
ft am- fffn.
of tbe group, the members could
rcmnve'anv O’™''".''' the
^ interests of efficiency.
The group then
TnZ d
'

of juvenile delinquency.
Periodically, the
d cussion was interrupted and
each member was asked tLate
ciery other member on h.s value
to the group. After the discus-
 Conformity 23

sion, member was shown how the others rated him; in actual-
each
ity, members were given prearranged false feedback. Some
the
members were led to believe that they were well-accepted, and
popular.
others were led to believe that they were not terribly
sub-
Each member’s conformity was measured by the opinions he
an
sequently expressed in the discussion of juvenile delinquency,
of
by his vulnerability to group pressure during the performance
a simple perceptual task. The results showed that, for the *

those who were

uals whovalued their membership in the group,
likely to conform
led to feel only moderately accepted were more
than \v ere t losc w lo
to the norms and standards set by the group
ot ler uor s,
were led to feel that they were totally accepted. In
in a group to
it’s easier for an individual who is securely csconce
deviate from that group.

Rev)ards and Funishvtents

verstis bifomation

As I suggested earlier, tltere are two

possible

might conform. One is that the behavior

0 S
erroneous.
him that his initial judgment was ridiciile) or
as rejee
may wish to avoid punishment (such
i

croup
love or
to gain a reward (such as
the
Furthermore, the behavior of
ment and in similar other experiments punishment. This
a reward o
ter of attempting to obtain m c„n^^
that there « as a er>
can be inferred from the fact
respo^
when subjects were allowed to ^;,[!-rions in which wc con*
are j™">
the same time, there
At i,j|,jvior is mir only
form to the behavior often rclv on other i>eo-
guide to appropnatc .quotation from Thiir-
ple as a tsaniplc of this type
of this Chapter gives an
her at the beginning when phys.ca
of conformity. more and
uncertain, people rely
beeom« '> to conforoi
reality
-that is.
; ,h„. are more lihely
me.
more on “social reality
H The Social Animal

towhat other people are doing, not because they fear punishment
from the group, but because the group’s behavior supplies them
with valuable information about what is expected of them. An
example should help clarify this distinction: Suppose that you
need to use the toilet in an unfamiliar classroom building. Under
the sign “Rest Rooms” two doors, but, unfortunately, a
there are
vandal has removed the specific designations from the doors— that
is, you cannot be certain which is the Men’s room and which is
the Women’s room. Quite a dilemma—you are afraid to open
either door for fear of being embarrassed or embarrassing others.
As you stand there in dismay and discomfort, hopping from one
foot to the other, the door on the left opens and out strolls a dis-
tinguished-looking gentleman. With a sigh of relief, you are now
willing to forge ahead, reasonably secure
in the knowledge that
left is for men and right is for women.
Why
are you so confident?
^ we have seen, research has shown
vidual has in the expertise and trustworthiness
more faith an indi-
that, the

of the other person,

the greater the tendency to follow
his lead and conform to his
behavior. Thus, the distinguished-looking
gentleman would al-
mort certainly be followed, to a
greater extent, than, say, a seedy-
looking fellow with wildly staring
eyes.
Similarly, it is alleged that,
in Turkey, it is considered gracious
or a guest to belch after a
meal as a way of showing his host that
e enjoye t e meal. Suppose
you didn’t know this, and you were
visiting t eoinc of a Turkish dignitary
in the company of some
diplomats from the U.S. State
Department. If, after the meal,
esc gent emen began to
belch, chances are you would belch
providing you with valuable
information. On the
were m
the same home in the company of a
rrpw rtf K^
Bulgarian Olympic wrestling team
-trid th \
wrtl S 7y guess is that you
^ ^ mg. That is, you would likely consider this an
f

failure ^ f
to follow sun, you might indeed
^ you for your
belch, too-not because
of the information they supplied,
but because you feared rejection
by go..g .14 wi*
w.*?
 Conformity 25

I would suggest that conformity that results from the observa-

tion of others for the purpose of gaining information about proper
behavior tends to have more powerful ramifications than con-
formity in the interest of being accepted or of avoiding punish-
an
ment. I would argue that, if an individual finds himself in
other
ambiguous situation wherein he must use the behavior of
own behavior, it is likely he will repeat
people as a template for his
his newly learned behavior, without cue, on subsequent similar
he later re-
occasions. This would be the case unless, of course,
or incor
ceived clear evidence that his actions were inappropriate
rect. Thus, to go back to our example, suppose
you are reinvited
to the home of the Turkish dignitary for dinner.
But this time
or on t you
you are the only guest. The question is: Do you
should make the
belch after the meal? A
moment’s reflection
the rst mea
answer perfectly clear: If you had belched after
that it was the proper
t
his home because you realized
would have been the case had you dined m
the y.
(as
belc w
the diplomats), you would be quite likely to
had belched the
alone with the dignitary. However, if you
(as
time out of fear of rejection or punishment .

of the u g
the case had you dined in the company
tiers),

lone g/est.
almost certainly not belch
you would
To go back to Sam and the pohnca
vision, you can now readily understand
one

why it would be so difficult for us to predict

cn
7
w
„
S’"!
I
j

|j

been
actually vote in the election. If he had
to P
with the group to avoid punishment or
would be likely, in the privacy of the
opposition to the view expr^ed by b>s acqu
^ 0" the
jnforma-
other hand, Sam had been using the group „ndidate that he
candidate
against the
tion, he would almost certainly vote
had initially preferred. , become a
To repeat; when reality
thisVc"®'"'"'”’
The genera
7,
major source of information. , (j„ Stanley
researc P'
is nicely illustrated by some hat -joplc con-
,

dcmonstra ed P
Sehaehter and his students, who
as person
form to others even in assessing something
26 The Social Ainvml

syncratic as the quality of their own emotions ” Before describing

”
this research, we must first clarify what we mean by “emotions
According to William James/* an emotion has both a “feeling”
content and a cognitive content Specifically, if we are walking in
the forest and bump into a hungry and ferocious bear, we under-
go a physiological change This change produces excitement—
physiologically, this is a response of the sympathetic nervous
system that is similar to one that might be produced by coming
across a person with whom we are angry We
interpret this re-
sponse as fear (rather than anger, say, or euphoria)
only when we
cognitively become aware that we are in the
presence of a fear-
producing stimulus (a ferocious bear) But
what if we experi-
enced physiological arousal in the absence
of an appropriate
stimulus’ For example, what if
someone surreptitiously slipped
into our drink a chemical that
produced the same physiological
response’ Would we experience fear’ William James would
probably say that we wouIdn*t-not unless there was an appropri-
ate stimulusaround
Here where Schachter enters the picture
IS
In one experi-
menr, su )ects were injected
either with epinephrine— a synthetic
orm 0 a rena in, \\ hich causes
physiological excitation— or with
harmless placebo All the
subjects were told that chemical this
called “suproxin ” Some of the subjects
vvlirt rli
^'ne were informed that there would be side
cfFf'rrc
heart and hand tremors
fhes H
mclT’/hen rb"'' "T of epinephrine Accord-
experienced the epinephrine symp-
toim' the I

explanation In effect, when the

ss rmlmT n
noZZ .
W themselves, “My heart is

mceu eZn/f"’^
^
u "’"’'‘"S because of this injection I

“'hee subjects were not

fme
^hus, when thZ hearts start-
dTouZ . 1
hands started trembling,
makrof
"
Th w hat were they to
Ze
.

aro. nd them “"'d 7 " 'whatever the peo-

ple around made of ,r
Speafically, a stooge was introduced
'he subjects were informed
that he had also
Zen edZ""”" ” In one
°[ ^ptoxin situation, the stooge
was nrnan
Wis programmed to behave in a euphoric
manner, in another, he
 Conformity ^7

yourself
was programmed to express a great deal of anger. Picture
in this situation* You are alone in this room with a person
who
supposedly has just been injected with the same drug
you had
received. He bounces around energetically, and happily
wads up
waste bas-
paper into balls and begins sinking hook shots into the
ket. His euphoria is obvious Gradually, the chemical
you were
your eart
given begins to take effect, and you begin to feel
emotion o
pounding, your hands trembling, and so on. What
fee ®
you feeP Most subjects in this situation reported a
imagine t at
euphoria— and behaved happily. On the other hand,
stooge you were
instead of being place in a room with a euphoric
to be ave m an
placed in a room with a stooge programmed
about a questionnaire
you o
angry manner: He complains
annoyance, ® P
filling out and eventually, in a fit of extreme
into t e
the questionnaire up and angrily hurls it
,nnar-
Meanwhile, the symptoms of epinephrine
ent, you feel your own heart pounding,
are
and your an
f
S
„ ^
the vast major y
tremble How do you feeP In this situation,
m
an angry fas
the subjects felt angry and behaved
It should be nold that, if subjects were given ^
that pro uces n
P™*
y
.

;
IS, an injection of a benign solution

the symptoms °
or if they were forewarned about
they ha/been given, they were relatively
of the stooge
was
influenced
To sum up this experiment when

and explainable, the subjects

clear
by behavior of other peop
the
emotions
e
ph^l
^
of which
experiencing a strong physiological ^ther anger
were not clear, they interpreted their own sup-
of other ^
.^yj,o
p p
or euphoria, depening on the behavior
posedly were in the same chemical boat.

Responses to Social Influence

Thus far, we have been describing tw action was

based
more or less commonsensical terms
i

jjy
rewards
being
upon (1) whether the individnal was
or punishments oj* by a need to
know, and on W
relanve
 ^

28 The Social Animal

permanence of the conforming behavior Let us move beyond

this simple distinction to a more complex and more useful classifi-

cation that applies not only to conformity, but to the entire

spectrum of social influence Instead of using the simple term
conformity, I would like to distinguish between three kinds of
responses to social influence compliance,
identification, and
mternalizatwn “

Compliance This term best describes the

mode of behavior of
a personwho is motivated by a desire to gam reward or avoid
punishment Typically, his behavior is
only as long-lived as is the
promise of the reward or the threat
of punishment Thus, one can
induce a rat to run a maze efficiently
by making him hungry and
p acing 00 at the end of the maze One can also get a South
Vietnamese peasant to recite
the pledge of allegiance to the
threatening him with pam if
he doesn’t comply

(nn
/ dnrich him if he does Remove the
stop running,
remove fbeV°° threat of punishment and the Vietnamese
will cease reciting
r
the pledge of allegiance

* ^ssponse to social
about 'j influence brought

Sno^as "fl'tencer In identi-

,n o"
particul’ar way Su^Tsuch^Lh
rather, he adorns a '""msically satisfying,
^ behavior because
particular'beh”"

S
satisfvincT

ffianhe
hf
c^^lf

IS det r"®

mffillrafScot “
°

tob7"
1
it puts him in a
'he person or persons with
"
he adopts, although he values
does
Thus, [f an individual finds ™
a Of a group attractive or
annealintr m cntr,« l
from hainc^7'
nonntde'rToXrrrrdiitr:^™
nliancel bur simnl. u ® punishment (as in com-
° 'his as the
nordiolffiUncr^
named Charlie m ho happLs 77
oe a"™™’’?"''
to warm, dynamic,
a
exciting per-
 Conformity 29

son, and ever since you were a young child, you loved him a lot
and wanted to grow up to be like him Uncle Charlie is a corpora-
tion executive who has a number of strong opinions,
including a
con-
deep antipathy to social-welfare legislation— that is, he is
and
vinced that anyone who really tries can earn a decent wage,
that, by handing money to people, the government
only succee s

in eliminating their desire to work As a young child, you hear

an it
Uncle Charlie announce this position on several occasions,
because you
has become part of your system of beliefs— neither
because ®
thought It through and it seemed right to you, nor
(or threatened to punis you
Charlie rewarded you for adopting
become 0 your
for notadopting) this posmon Rather, it has
system because of your liking for Uncle Charlie,
w ic as pr

your h e t at w
duced in to incorporate into
you a tendency
IS his

or
Internalization The internahzation of a value
to
most permanent, most deeply tooted response
belief is t
The motivation to internalize a particular „jf5on
right Thus, the reward for the belief is

who provides the influence is perceived to be trus y^

good judgment, we accept the belief our own
grate it into our own system of values
One f
will become
becom
source and
system, it becomes inipendent of its
extremely resistant to change

Let us discuss some of the important '’compliance is

isticsof these three responses to socid
m .ndividual, be
effect
the least enduring and has the least punish
cause people comply merely circumstance
f the
ment The compiler understands the i circumstance no
and can easily change his behavior
en w
longer prevails At gunpoint, I could I’®
ojj quickly
removed, Ij
thing, Lt with the%hreat of death ^“1.3 ,..„d

shrug off those statements and their imp

ic
a cookie
and generous to his younger brother generous person
become b
from his mother, he will not necessarly
30 The Social Animal

because of it He has not learned that generosity is a good thing m

and of Itself— what he has learned is that generosity is a good way
to get cookies When the cookie supply is exhausted, his generous
behavior will eventually cease, unless that behavior is bolstered by
some other reward (or pumshment) Rewards and punishments
are very important means, then, to get people
to learn and to per-
form specific activities, but are very limited as techniques of social
influence because they must be ever present
to be effective— unless
the individual discovers some additional
reason for continuing to
perform the rewarded behavior This last point will be discussed
shortly
Continuous reward or punishment is
not necessary for the
response to social influence that
we call identification The person
with whom the individual identifies
need not be present at all,
what IS needed is only the individual’s desire to be like
that person
or wamp e, if Uncle Charlie moves to a different city, and
mom s (or go by without your seeing him, you will
y«!>ts)
^ beliefs similar to his as
long as ( 1 ) he remains
^ holds the same beliefs, and
belLfs TT^
( 3 ) these
‘’y counteropinions that are more con-
vit,n„ ' ^ token, these beliefs can be changed if
Undr^rh-!' l’ n
change of heart, or
Clnrhi- h j
ifyour love for Uncle
S group
t^bange if a person or
'ban Uncle Charlie
Ifess'^i d ff "’"t
r/r r cdl! '"'i" suppose you are
“ group of new, exciting
friends who PlT Charlie, are strongly
u elfare If v'niiid " in favor of social
n'
you mav moreAan) your uncle,
a more imnortanr'd*'^ bke them Thus,
^ supersede a previous identi-
fication

be dissipatedbv 1
on a brf throurT" ^ through identification can
If =>
also

P=tson has taken

y ith a counterargumtt"bf ?n\™erfan“t“''''^^

nent response to social

‘i influence precisely ‘V
because a person’s
 Conjonmty 3>

motivation to be right is a powerful and self-sustaining force that

does not depend upon constant surveillance in the form of agenK

on his continued
of reward or punishment, as does compliance, or
esteem for another person or group, as docs identification
that any specific action may
be ue to
It IS important to realize
For examp e,
cither compliance, identification, or internalization
let us look at a simple piece of behavior
obedience of the aws
people ca e
pertaining to fast driving Society pays a group of
highway patrolmen to enforce these laws, and, as we a novv,

people tend to drive \v ithin the speed limit if they are orewarne

that a certain stretch of highway is being carefully scrutinize y

clear case o
these patrolmen This is compliance It is a
penalty jPP°^,^
obeying the law in order to avoid paying a
oun
were to remove the patrolmen As soon as people ^
It, many would increase their speed But
some peop e mig
imue to obey the speed limit, a person might
o 7
because his father (or hisUncle Charlie) always
limits or always stressed the importance
of
,
conform
This, of coursi IS identification Finally, ^
spec
to the speed limit because he*s convinced that
that obedience of such laws helps to
prevent

driving at moderate speed is a sane and

g^jon you
i

havior" This internalization And with mte nahzation,y^

is
be avi
would observe more flexibility in the
say, on ®
under certain conditions— at 6 00 AM, mdi
perfect visibility and with no traffic f™"
. mdividual,
vidual might exceed the speed limit To individual
t e i
however, might fear a radar trap, and y be
might be Identifying to a very rigid
in i
less responsive to important changes ,.pcnonse to social
in
Let us look at the major component pnuer-tlie
comp
influence In compliance, the important compliance
power of the mfluencer to dole out have the
power
a
and the punishment for noncomphance spankings,
with
to praise, give love, provide cookies, paste gold
to
have
hold allowances, and so on, teachers employees
stars on our foreheads or flunk us
out o
32 The Social Animal

have the power to praise, promote, humiliate, or discharge us. The

United States government has the power to increase or withhold
economic and military aid from a dependent nation. Thus, our
government can use this technique to influence, say, some country
in Southeast Asia to hold a more or less democratic
election. Re-
wards and punishments are effective means for producing this
kind of compliance, but we might ask whether
or not mere com-
pliance is desirable: to induce a nation
to hold a democratic elec-
tion is easier than to induce the rulers
of that nation to think and
rule democratically.
In identification, the crucial
component is attractiveness— the
attractiveness of the person with
whom
the individual identifies.
Because the individual identifies
with the model, he wants to hold
t e same opinions
that the model holds. Suppose
you
admire a
person, and he takes a particular
stand on an Unless you
issue.
aye strong feelings or solid
information to the contrary, there
will be a tendency for you to adopt
this position. Incidentally, it is

announces a position, there will be a tend-

reject that position or
adopt the opposite position.
Simnnw
ro™e particular group (the
Tohn Tf’
Weathermen) and That group
comest,r,„
f
y®" •'now nothing about the issue,
vour tend?
^ ^ other things being
equal

component is credibility-the
crcdibilitvTf'l’i!"'’"’
'’’7“^°" '“PP'i'^ ‘he information. Fm
ami L, ^ statement
ex-
by a person who is highly credi-
ble-that k
ted to he
‘'O''’
“P=‘‘ “d truthful-youdvould
because of your desire to be correct,
‘t,
Recall our
example of the diplomats
at the Turkish dinner
party Your
expertise made their behavior

inet 7“'’ 7’" *0 right thing to do. Accord-

after a 7 *^ihavior (your tendency to belch
wood become
tmal™l;“;;';rddii:Th;"'t
^ 0° ‘hereafter, because you believed it
to be tight
 Conformity 33

Recall the experiment on conformity performed by Solomon

Asch, in which social pressure induced many subjects to conform
to the erroneous statements of a group. Recall further that when
the subjects were allowed to respond in private, the incidence of
conformity dropped considerably. Clearly, then, internalization
or identification was not involved It seems obvious that the sub-
jects were complying to the unanimous opinion of the group in

order to avoid the punishment of ridicule or rejection. If either

identification or internalization had been involved, the conform-
ing behavior would have persisted in private.
The trichotomy of compliance, identification, and internaliza-
tion is a useful one. At the same time, it should be made clear that,

most ways of classifying the world, it is not perfect; there are

like

some places where the categories overlap. Specifically, although it

is true that compliance and identification are generally more
temporary than internalization, there are circumstances that can
increase their permanence. For example, permanence can be in-
creased an individual makes a firm commitment to continue to
if
interact with the person or group of people that induced the
original act of compliance. Thus, in an experiment by Charles
Kiesler and his associates,'" when subjects believed that they were
going to continue interacting with an unattractive discussion
group, they not only complied publicly, but they also seeme to
internalize their conformity: that is, they changed their private
opinions as well as their public behavior. This kind of situation
will be discussed in greater detail in
Chapter 4.
^ j- j ua
• •
i

Permanence can also result if, while complying, an indivi

discovers something about his actions, or about the consequence
of his actions, that makes it worthwhile for him to continue te
(tne
behavior even after the reason for his original compliance
orne
reward or punishment) is no longer forthcoming. This is
out by some of the research done on that aspect of socia
known as behavior modification. Typically, in behavior mo i ^
fion, an attempt
is made to eliminate
unwanted or mala /
behavior by systematically punishing that behavior, by
^
alternative behaviors, or both. For example, various attempts
been made to use this technique as a way of getting peop e to
34 The Social Ammal

smoking cigarettes” An individual might be given a senes of

painful electric shocks while performing the usual rituals of
smoking-that is, while lighting a cigarette, bringing it up toward
his lips, inhaling, and so on After several trials, the individual will
refuse to smoke Unfortunately, it is fairly easy for a person to
notice that there is a difference between the experimental situa
tion and the world outside He realizes that he will not be shocked
when he is smoking outside of the experimental situation Conse-

quently, he may later experience a little residual anxiety when he

begins to light a cigarette, but because electric shocks are clearly
not forthcoming, his anxiety eventually fades Thus, many people
who temporarily cease smoking after this form of behavior modi-
fication will eventually return to cigarettes after electric shock is

no longer a threat How about those who stay off of cigarettes

after behavior modification^ Here is the point Once an individual
has been induced to comply, and therefore
does not smoke for
several days, it is possible for him
to make a discovery over the
cars, he may have come to
) believe that it was inevitable that his
mouth feel hot, dry, and unpleasant
upon waking every morning,
but after refraining from cigarettes
for a few days, he may dis
delightful
it feels to have a fresh,
j unparched mouth
i his discovery may
be enough to keep him from smoking again
lus, a t lough compliance,
m
and of itself, usually does not pro
duce long lasting behavior, it
might set the stage for events that
v\ ill lead to more permanent effects

Obedience CIS Cl Fotjh of CoynpUdiice

of compliance are, in general, ephem-

eral This docs not mean that they
are trivial Impermanent
beliavior can be extremely important
This fact has been demon-
by Stanley Milgram
strated dramatically
m
his studies of obedi-
ence Picture the scene Subjects volunteer
*
for an experiment
They arc told that the experiment is a study of the effects of
punishment on memory, but this is a he Actually, is a study of
it
 Co?ifonmty 55

the extent towhich people obey authority. In each trial, the

experiment has tu'o participants, one of whom is
assigned the role

of teacher, and the other, the role of learner. The

teacher is in-

smiaed to present the learner with a series of stimuli. The

learner,

who is strapped to an electrified

chair in a separate room, is sup-
bj pressin^ one
posed to respond appropriately to each stimulus
activ;atcs one of the
of four levers in front of him; this response
lights in front of the teacher. To assist in the learning process, t le
electric s loc o
informed that he must deliver an
,,
teacher is
learner respon s ’

increasing intensity, each time the

actuality, the
or each time he fails to respond. In ^
e.vperimenter s, and is no real >
“victim,” is an accomplice of the
(who is a
wired to the electricity, but the teacher
i

the next
firmly believes that the victim in
'
, jj,,,

electricity. Each time the victim fails to

voltage on „c,,cntor ami
•

subject supposed to increase the g

is

point of 15 volts to a high out of the

150 he osks to be let
begins to grunt and moan; at .
I

experiment. At 180 he cri^ out jh”/’'

voK
pain. The pointer moves beyond p ^ point I.ilicicd
-eU™ Short
|

As
Danger: Severe Shock. oound the wall and
responding,
the victim, instead of g ^ „ot con-
beg to be let out of 'he roo- to inetcahe
stitute a correct 'espons'- ® ^ |,„cr,
^
sh
the voltage and press the victim, hut iintliing
the “leatLg" t^Prarominous' s^nce. Of coutse, 1^
emanates from the room ^nonsc so, once again, the expen-
docs not constitute a -j!! .L ,|,c voltage ami press the
subject to increase
J'

menter instructs the

shock button. were a ramloiii sample of
, ..„_.;„,vnt
The participants in 'h'S e^P ^^.,,j„.(.ollar workers ami blue-
businessmen, profcssiona ’ people cnntinuccl to
What per S low long
collar workers. cvpcriiticttt’ I
end o
to the vcr>
administer shocks
36 The Social Animal

would you have continued^ Every year in my social psychology

pose these questions, and every year, some 99 percent of
class, I

the four hundred students in the class indicate that they would
not continue to administer shocks after the learners began to
pound on the wall The guesses made by my students are consist-
ent with the results of Milgram*s survey of forty psychiatrists at
a leading medical school The psychiatrists predicted that most
subjectswould quit at 150 volts, when the victim first asks to be
freed These psychiatrists also predicted that only about 4 per-
cent of the subjects would continue to shock the victim after he
refused to respond (at 300 volts), and that less than
1 percent
would administer the highest shock on the generator
How do subjects respond when they are actually in the situa-
tion^ Interestinglyenough, Milgram found that, in the typical
study as described above, the great majority of his subjects—
more than 62 percent— continued to administer shocks to the very
end of the experiment— although some of them
required a degree
of prodding from the experimenter
Milgram s results are provocative and somewhat dismaying in
their implications an astonishingly large proportion of people
uill cause pain to others in
obedience to authority The research
may have important counterparts m the world outside of the
experimental laboratory For example,
it is difficult to read these
studies 'Without noticing a loose
kind of similarity between the
behavior of Milgram’s subjects and
the blind obedience expressed
by Adolf pchmann, who attributed
his responsibility for the
murder of hundreds of thousands of
innocent civilians to the fact
t at e was a good bureaucrat
merely obeying orders issued by
his superiors m the Nazi regime Similarly,
mour own decade.
Lieutenant Wilham Galley, who was convicted
of the deliberate
and unprovoked murder of women
and children in My Lai, free-
ly admitted to these acts, but said that
he felt that this was justi-
fiable obedience to the authority of his
superior officers
As provocative as these comparisons are,
we should be cau
tious lest ue ovennterpret Milgram’s results
Given the fact that
62 percent of the subjects in Milgram’s experiment complied
 Conformity 37

with the experimenter’s command, some commentators have been

tempted to suggest that perhaps most people would have behaved
like Adolf Eichmann or Lieutenant Galley if they found
them-
should be
selves in a similar situation. This may be true; but it

emphasized that there are, in fact, some real and important

Ca
ences between the situations encountered by Eichmann, by
studies, the
ley, and by Milgram’s subjects. In most of Milpm’s
authority figure issuing the orders was a scientist in a prestigious
laboratory at Yale University. In this society, we have been con-
responsible, enevo
ditioned to believe that scientists tend to be ,

true i t e scientis
lent people of high integrity. This is especially
respected
is affiliated with a well-known and highly
like Yale. The subjects might reasonably
would ^ ^
scientist would issue orders that *iLrtv not
This was c y
jury of a human as part of his experiment.
true in either the Eichmann or the Galley examp es.

co
Some evidence in support of this conjecture
He conducted a
ther research by Milgram*.
paring the obedience of *off “utos to the commands
s
Yale University with the obedience J
rundown
of a scientist working in a suite of pf (he in-
commercial building in the downtown
s °PP.
(he Yale
Connecticut.
dustrial city of Bridgeport, only 48
scientist achieved an obedience
rate o p Thus, re-
percent of the subjects in Bridgeport
w . ^jjenr.
reduce the
moving the prestige of Yale 48 percent
is soil a

degree of obedience somewhat.

O conducting the smdy
the
high figure. My
guess is that, if
peop j hjvc been
obedient,

were not a scientist, even fewer obedience is the

t ®
Another factor that reduces _ Milgram found
that,

physical absence of the issued his orders

room and
out o dropped to
when the experimenter was jjj,n( subjects
by telephone, the number
of f« X subjects w ho did con-
below 25 percent. Moreover, specifically-
they a "unu
tinue with the experiment
c > supposed to-a
tnej
intensity than
tered shocks of lower
38 The Social Animal

never bothered to tell the experimenter that they had deviated

from the proper procedure This last datum, I feel, represents a
touching attempt by some individuals to be responsive to the
demands of legitimate authority while, at the same time, mini-
mizing the pain that they inflict on others It is somewhat remi-
niscent of the behavior of Yossarian, the hero of Joseph Heller’s
novel Catch 22, who “accidentally” dropped his bombs over an
empty field adjacent to the Italian village designated as his target

The “Uiimvolved” Bystander as Conformist

Several years ago, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was

stabbed to death in New York City This was a tragic event— but
not, initself, a particularly novel occurrence After all, a major m
population center, brutal murders are not uncommon What was
interesting about this event is the fact that no less than thirty-
eight of her neighbors came to their windows at 3 00 AM m
response to her screams of terror— and remained at their windows
watching in helpless fascination for the 30 minutes it took her
attacker to complete his grisly deed Not
one came to her assist-
ance, not one so much as lifted the phone
to call the police Why^
Well, perhaps the onlookers were sleepy
or dazed After all,
one IS hardly in
control of his mental faculties at three o’clock
full
m the morningPerhaps But it was m
broad daylight that Eleanor
Bradley, while shopping on Fifth Avenue
m
New York, tripped,
fell, and broke her leg She
lay there for 40 minutes a state of m
shock, \\hile literally hundreds of
passersby, in turn, paused
momentarily to gawk at her, and then kept
on walking
Why did these bystanders fail to helps
Are people in big cities
impervious to the distress of others^ Have
they become so accus
toircd to disaster that they can be
nonchalant m
the face of pain
and violence^ Were the bystanders in these
situations different
from you or me m
some ways The answer to all of these
questions appears to be “No ” Interviews with the
conducted
bjstandcrs in the Genovese murder revealed that they were any-
 Conformity 39

thing but nonchalant— they were horrified Why, then, didn t

they intervene^ This a difficult question to answer, subsequent

is
did
ly, however, some clues about the reason these bystanders
nothing were suggested by the results of a series of ingenious

experiments conducted by John Darley, Bibb Latane, and their

colleagues These investigators hypothesized that the very num-
anyone
ber of people witnessing these tragedies mitigated against
there are a
helping— that is, a victim is less likely to get help if
large number of people watching his distress Thus, nomnter
In this case, it
vention can be viewed as an act of conformity
people were e ning
appears that, for each individual, the other
supportive or e ping
the appropriateness and reasonableness of
reasonable ®
behavior As we have seen, it is often
be mis ea
from others Occasionally, however, it can ^
in crmca
tends to be particularly misleading
uncool to
society. It IS considered gauche and
to appear
alone, most
tions m
public When we are not
less sexu
less fearful, lessworried, less anxious, or y
blase
we really are For example, from the
patrons of topless restaurants
and
aroused
V ^ pro\crbiaI
guess that they were sexually f,, ,he
guc
visitor from Mars would never the
room by merely observing
j fc

patients in a dentist's waiting

impassive looks on their faces the
consider the case of
With these things in rnind,
pf t^^enue Suppose) on
woman who and broUe her I'K
fell you sec a « omin
arrived at the scene 10 \| 5 ^oP,fort What else do )ou
on the ground in glancing
lying '’PJ’”'" ^,n„ past the m oman,
peop e
see scores of
You ^r|,at « ill ) on conclude-
see’ It
on their w y
at her, and continuing mapproprntc for
c
IS conceivable that )OU may she’s into\iperhaps
)ou to mtcricne P‘^'^j'''P*
nerhaps the « bole
dung is being
pla) a ourself
cated, perhaps she IS
-’iinnKc a public fool of i
and out-
by Allen Funt, ou ask
<>
staged ) all.” ) )
'f)oui other
on “Candid Camera’ )
damn iniponanr.
self, “If It’s so
 Conformity

was calling the police or that it someone else’s duty to do so.

To Darley and Latane” arranged an experimental

test this idea,
situation in which subjects were placed in separate
rooms, but

with each other by means of micro-

were able to communicate
one anot er
phones and earphones. Thus, the subjects could hear
stage a
but couldn’t see one another. The investigators then
recording t at
simulated epileptic attack: they played a tape
the participants.
imitated an epileptic seizure on the part of one of
led to ^
In one experimental condition, each subject was
was '
that he was the only person whose microphone
subject was e
during the seizure; in other conditions, each
believe that one or more people were tuned in
also.
on y is
showed that if the subject thought that he was the
»

he was far more likely to leave his room and

w cP >^ry

were listening, too. T e g

was if he thought that others
number of people he thought were listemng, the ess y

*
The behavior of the onlookers in the
and of the subjects in the Darley-Latan6 .P/Se
rather grim picture of the human condition. ^ ..

avoid felpin^g each other if at all -‘|'“;::4„rbiSty

o
provides a bad example by not intervening, p-.knns there
for action seems the least bit diffuse? Perhaps
inspired to c
are situations in which people are
their fellows. An incident in my own “P^"' .
»jLonal Park
light on this issue. I was camping m j „ to sleep
recently. It was at night, and I
was just PP
late
^
whether
when I heard a man’s voice cry out. I .
^^.|,cthcr some
was a cry of pain, surprise, or joy.
1 MO ,

it
" ^
people were just horsing "“""‘I 'j cowled out of my
skep-
campers was being attacked by a bear. * cobwebs out of
to shake u,

ing bag and looked around, trying

my from v
head and trying to ascertain rrom all over the
come, when I noticed a strange j-rrinc on a
*single
area, a myriad of flickering dozens
bei--^carried
g by
point. Th^
were lanterns and flashlights
40 The Social Animal

people doing anything about Jt^” Thus, the fact that there are a
lot of people around, rather than increasing the likelihood that
someone will help, actually decreases the likelihood that any one
of them will help
This IS an interesting conjecture, but is it true^ To find out,
Latane and Rodin” conducted an experiment constructed around
“a lady in distress ” In this experiment, a female experimenter
asked college students to fill out a questionnaire The experi-
menter then retired to the next room through an unlocked col-
would return when they finished the
lapsible curtain, saying she
questionnaire A
few minutes later, she staged an “accident”
What the students actually heard was the sound (from a hidden
tape recording) of the young woman climbing a chair, followed
by a loud scream and a crash, as if the chair had collapsed and she
had fallen to the floor They then heard moaning and crying and
the anguished statement, “Oh, my God, my foot I I
”
can’t move it Oh my get this thing off me
ankle 1 can’t
The cries continued for about a minute and gradually subsided
The experimenters were interested in determining whether or
not the subjects would come to the young woman’s aid The
important variable m the experiment was whether or not the
subjects were alone in the room Of those who were alone, 70
percent offered to help the young woman, of those who were
participating in pairs, only Thus,
20 percent offered help it is
clear that the presence of
another bystander tends to inhibit
action When interviewed subsequently,
each of the unhelpful
subjects who had been m
the room with another subject had
concluded that it probably wasn’t serious,
partially because of the
inactivity of their partner
In the Genovese murder, there
was probably an additional
reason why the bystanders did not help In such a situation, it may
be that, if people are aware that an event
is being witnessed by
others (as were the bystanders in
the Genovese case), there is a
diffusion of^ responsibility That is, each bystander may have felt
that It wasn t solely his responsibility— others
were watching, too
Accordingly, each bystander might have
felt that someone else
 Conformity 43

cause it was not part of a controlled experiment. One of the major

problems with observational data like these is that the observer
has no control over the people in his situation are. Thus,
who
differences between people always loom as a possible explanation
for the differences in their behavior. For example, one might
argue that individuals who go camping are— by nature or experi-
ence—kinder, gentler, more thoughtful, and more humane than
New Yorkers. Perhaps they were Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts as
children— hence the interest in camping— and, in scouting, they
were taught to be helpful to other people. One of the reasons for
a
doing experiments is to control this kind of uncertainty. Indee ,

recent experiment lends support to my speculation about my

campground experience. This was an experiment performe y
a train in
Irving Piliavin and in one of the cars of
his associates”
the New York subway system. In this experiment, an accomp ice
presence o
of the experimenters staggered and collapsed in the
several individuals riding the subway. The “victim
ceiling. i ms
stretched out on the floor of the train, staring at the
was repeated one hundred and three times under
a
scene
of conditions. The most striking result was that, a
the time, people spontaneously rushed to the aid of the
was ma
individual. This was especially true when the victim
seem obviously percent of the
som
ill; in more than 95

offered help immediately. Even when the “victim

a ^ ^
given a liquor bottle to carry and was made to ree o
’ »

o
received immediate help from someone on 50 percent
a
Unlike the behavior of the subjects that Darley an
^

with, the helping behavior of the people on ^e su

not affected by the number of bystanders. Peop c P
often and just as speedily on crowded trams (w
be a diffusion of responsibility) as they did on
trains. Although the people doing the helping
w ere
^"d Darlcy-
Genovese casc^he Fifth Avenue
(as in the case,

Eatanc experiments), they were also in two

did have
although very much unlike Yoscmitc '
on the
^P j-iding
things in common with the campground: (Op
42 The Social Amvtal

of campers running to the aid of the individual uho had

screamed It turned out that his scream had been one of surprise
caused by a relatively harmless flare-up m his gasoline stove The
other campers seemed almost disappointed when they learned
that there was no help needed Unfortunately, I had difficulty

getting back to sleep because, as a social psychologist with a great

deal of faith m
scientific data, I spent the night puzzling over the
fact that my fellow campers had behaved m a totally different
manner than the subjects m the Darley-Latane experiments
Why had the campers behaved so differently^ In what way
were the situations different^ There were at least two factors
operating in the campground that were either not present or were
present only to a very small degree m the situations previously
discussed One of these factors my use, in the pre-
is reflected in
ceding paragraph, of the term “my fellow campers ” Specifically, a
“common fate” or mutuality may be engendered among
feeling of
people sharing the same interests, pleasures, hardships, and envi-
ronmental conditions of a closed environment like a campground,
a feeling of mutuality that is stronger than among people who
are merely residents of the same planet, county, or city second, A
somew hat related factor is was no escape from the face-
that there
to face aspect of the situation the onlookers in the Genovese case
could walk away from their windows into the relative protection
and isolation of their own homes, the people on Fifth Avenue
could walk past the woman lying on the sidewalk and keep on
going, right out of her environment, the
subjects in the Darley-
Latane experiments w ere not m a face-to face relationship xvith
the \ictim, and they knew that they could escape from the tn-
aironment in a \cry short time In the campground, the events
were occurring in a relatuely restricted environment, whatever
the campers allowed to happen that
night they were going to
ha\ c to face squarely the next morning It seems that, under these
circumstances, individuals arc more willing
to take responsibility
for each other
Of course, this is mere speculation The behavior of the
campers at oscmite— while provocative— is not conclusive, be-
 COTjfCTTTZty *
4?

a dilemma when his general ethical respon^ility to socw

dietswith his more spedfic ethical responabili^’’ to
vidual subject in his experiment; and to compound the SiUUtjOAV
the conflict is greatest when he is investigating such
issues asconformity, obedience, helping, and the like
general, the more important the issue, (1) the greater the
tial benefit for society, and (2) the more likely it is that

vidual subject will experience discomfort, anvicty, v^t

Again, for a more complete treatment of this topic, the
directed to Chapter 9.
44 The Social Animal

same subway car do have the feeling of sharing a common fate,

and (2) they were in a face-to-face situation with the victim
from which there was no immediate escape.

A Note on Ethics
In their quest for knowledge, experimental social psychologists
occasionally subject people to some fairly intense experiences. In
we have discussed experiments in which people
this chapter alone
have been led into conflict between the evidence of their own
eyes and the unanimous judgments of other people; in which they
have been ordered to deliver intense electric shock to an appar-
which scores of innocent people riding
ently suffering victim; in
a subway train have been forced to witness the apparent agony of
a person in distress.
These procedures may raise serious ethical questions. more A
complete treatment of ethics is presented in Chapter 9; here, let
it make two genera! points: First, it is the responsibility
suffice to
of experimenters in this field to protect the experimental sub-
all

ject from harm. The experimenter must take steps to insure that
his subjects leave the experimental situation
in a frame of mind
that is at least as sound as it was when
they entered the experi-
mental situation. This frequently requires postexperimental “de-
briefing procedures that require more
time and effort than the
main body of the experiment.
Given the ethical thin ice that experimenters must skate upon,
why bother with these kinds of experiments at all? This brin^
me to the second point of ethics that
I want to emphasize at this
time: For a social psychologist, the ethical issue is not a one-sided
affair. In a real sense, he is obligated to use his skills as a researcher
to advance our knowledge and understanding of human behavior
for the ultimate aim of human betterment. In short, the social
psychologist has an ethical responsibility to the society as a
whole; he would be remiss in fulfilling this responsibility if he
failed to carry on his research to the best of his ability. He faces
Mass Communication,
Propaganda,
and Persuasion

is
say that we live in an age of mass communication,
a truism to
indeed, can even be said that we live in an age characterized by
it

^tempts at mass persuasion. Every time we turn on the radio or

rV set, every time we open a book, a magazine or a newspaper,
someone is trying to educate us, to convince us to buy his prod-
us to vote for his candidate, or to subscribe to
uct, to is
get
'crsion of what is right, true, or beautiful. This is most obvious in
(aspirins,
^dvcrtising:manufacturers of nearly identical products
o
or example,
or toothpastes, or detergents) spend vast amounts
nioncy to persuade Influ-
us to buy the product in their package.
ence through can c
mass communication need not be blatant— it
Even when communicators arc not making
'cry subtle indeed. a
infiucnc
.
*^ect attempt
to sell us something, they can succeed in
*ng the way
we look at the world.
(
 Mass Covwninicationj Propaganda, and Persuasion 49

illustrated by the man-

Such biased coverage was dramatically
that occurred m
ner in which the media handled the non-riot
in May, 1970. The
back-
Austin, Texas, during the first week
were running
ground of the story is a familiar one. Tensions
students and local pn>i“
high between University of Texas
student
loiing a confrontation at an impromptu
against the invasion of Cambodia
by U.S troops. D>i™g
marched ^’

demonstration, some 6000 students

with po ice,
broke a few windows, and skirmished j • •

policemen and smdents

were tear-gassed and several
what
event “mpared to
But this was a mere preface-a minor
in protes ag
seemed to be coming. A few days later, j
a
State killings, the students planned f7he
expeemd to turn
town Austin-20,000 students were ^
Austin atyCouncil, however, refused
,
students
In frustration and anger, the ®
,
sidewalks where
the marc
their leaders decided to confine t -j-.j- of armed
itwould not be illegal. Rurno^
hooligans were descending on
Auson
abounded
the intention of assaulting the ^^^"“^rnot known
to the effect that
“lied in and were
for their friendliness to ”ainst anyone dis-
vio e
determined to take strong and sidewalk. In retro-
obeying the law untrue,

W Zic almost certainly

a^L^pCnnolnt . that *ey w.e^^^

cause the probability
pushing itself off Sniffing an e.xcitmg
to e violence.
certain to be a prelude networks were alerted,

news reams affiliate ' was defused at

story, situation
the evniosive
As it turned our, however
the eleventh hour: a team 5j nioment, in convinc
j
48 The Social Animal

Let’s look at something supposedly objective— like the news

Are the newsmen trying us anything^ Probably not But
to sell

here, the mass media can exert a subtle influence on our opinions
simply by determining which events are given exposure Take
television newscasts, for example It has been said by no less an
expert than the director of the British Broadcasting Corporation
that television news is a form of entertainment Accordingly,
when news programming make decisions about
those in charge of
which news event to cover and which fraction of the miles of
video tape and film that they use m a day is presented to the pub-
lic, they make their decisions, at least in part, on the basis of the

entertainment value of their material Film footage of a flooded

metropolis has much more entertainment value than footage de-
voted to a dam that was built in order to prevent such flooding it
IS simply not very exciting to see a non-flood m action And yet,
the non-flood may be more important news Just as such action
events as football games are more entertaining on TV
than such
quiet events as chess matches, it is more likely that riots, bomb-
ings, earthquakes, massacres, and other violent acts will get more
air timethan stories about people helping each other, people work-
ing to prevent violence, and so on Thus, news telecasts tend to
focus on the violent behavior of individuals— college students,
black militants, policemen— because “action” makes for more excit-
ing viewing than does a portrayal of people behaving in a peace-
ful, orderly manner This coverage does
not present a balanced
picture of what is happening m
the nation— not because the people
who run the news media are evi! men who are trying to manipu-
late us, but simply because they are trying
to entertain us And in
trying to entertain us, they may, unwittingly, be influencing us
toward the belief that most people behave violently, and that
human behavior is different now than it was twenty years ago
This may cause us to be unhappy, and even depressed, about the
temper of the times or the state of the nation Ultimately, it might
affect our vote, our tendency to contribute money to our alma
mater, our desire to visit major urban centers, and so on As we
shall see, it may actually cause people to behave violently
 Mass Covwmmcatton, Pi opagaiida, and Persuasion
5*

prised at the bags under his eyes and at how tired and
old he looks
Sometimes, on these occasions, he has difficulty finding the right
word, he hems and haws and sounds inarticulate
His opponent with the well stocked campaign chest does not
need to appear on this kind of program Instead, he spends vast
amounts of money video taping spot commercials Because he
pays the cameramen and the director, his countenance is captured
only from the most flattering angles His own personal make-up
man works extra hard to remove the bags from under his eyes and
tomake him appear young and dynamic His wife, watching at
home, never saw him looking so well The interviewer asks him
questions that have been prepared and rehearsed in advance, so
that his answers are reasonable, concise, and articulate If the can-
didate does happen to stumble over a word or to draw a blank, the
cameras are stopped and the scene is shot over and over again
until It IS letter-perfect
The situation outlined above is no nightmarisli projection into
the future, but an approximation of what actually occurred dur-
ing the 1968 presidential election In a startling, behind the scenes
account of Richard Nixon’s campaign, journalist Joe jMcGinniss
reported on the adeptness with which Nixon’s advisors controlled
the image of the candidate that was projected to the American
people In reporting these events, AIcGinniss suggests that TV^
may be a povv erfu! means of seducing v oters to v ote for an image
of a randi d ate rntherthnn the candidate himself Or, as one Nivon
staffer put It “This is the beginning of a whole new concept
This IS the vv ay they’ll be elected forev crmorc The next gu) s up
will have to be performers”* Specifically, wliat tlic staffer was

referring to was a TV which the situation was

program in
arranged so that it looked as though candidate Nixon w as sponta-
neously answ enng questions phoned in b) v oters In rcalit) he w as ,

answ enng questions prepared by his staff and carcfull) rehearsed

When a voter asked a question on the telephone, Nixon’s staff
question, atrnb
simply reworded it m the form of the prepared
to the voter, and allowed candidate
Nixon to
uted the question
rccitc his prepared answer
50 The Social Anmial

members of the police force, m favor of allowing the students to

march, was instrumental in the judge’s decision This event—
especially because of the role played in it by the police— resulted
not only in the total absence of violence, but in a genuine explo-
sion of good will and solidarity among various diverse elements
of the community Twenty thousand students did march, but
they marched in a spirit of harmony Co-eds offered cold drinks
to the police officers who were diverting traffic away from the
parade route, students and policemen exchanged friendly greet-
ings, shook hands warmly, and so on Interestingly enough, the
national TV networks completely ignored this encouraging turn
of events Because most of us were aware of the fact that teams of
nationally prominent newsmen from a variety of news media had
descended on the city during the week, the lack of coverage
seemed puzzling indeed An unsettling explanation was provided
by Mann and Ira Iscoe who stated “Since there was no
Philip
violence, news media teams left town and there was no national
publicity, a commentary whose implications are by now sadly
self-evident’’*
As
have said, this form of influence is probably uninten-
v\ e
networks are not trying to create the illusion that most
tional, the
people are violent Let us look at a more conscious, more direct
attempt to persuade people by the judicious selection of material
to be presented in the media Imagine the following situation
Two individuals are running for President of the United States
One of the candidates has far less money to spend on his campaign
than the other Accordingly, in order to get maximum “free”
exposure, he appears on many panel type programs on television,
such as “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation ” The interviewers
on these panels are seasoned reporters
who are not always sympa-
thetic to the candidate Frequently, they ask him difficult ques-
tions— occasionally, they ask him questions that are downright
hostile The candidate finds himself forever on the defensive
Sometimes, the camera catches him at an unflattering angle, or in
the act of scratching his nose, or with his mouth hanging open, or
yav\ning, or fidgeting While viewing at home, his wife is sur-
 Mass CoifWitmicatiOTiy Propaganda, and Persuasion
53

necessarily mean that he is immune to persuasion In the case

of
many consumer products, the public will tend to buy a specific
brand for no other reason than the fact that it is heavily adver-
tised
Let’s look at the headache-remedy business Daryl Bern/ a
social psychologist, provides us with an interesting analysis of
our susceptibihty to TV
commercials even when we know that
they are biased According to Bern, a well known brand of aspirin
(which we’ll call “Brand A”) advertises itself as 1 00 percent pure
aspirin, the commercial goes on to say thar government tests have
shown that no other pam remedy is stronger or more efFecrive
than Brand A What the makers didn’t bother to mention is thar
the government rest actually showed that no brand was any
weaker or less effective than any of the others In other words, all
tested brands were equal— except in price, thar is For the privilege
of gulping down Brand A, the buyer pays nearly $1 00 for one
hundred tablets According to Consumers Union, equally effec-
tive aspirin is available in some places for one-fifth the price (one
hundred tablets for 19 cents) Or perhaps you prefer a buffered
aspirin that “works twice as fast as regular aspirin,” buffered so
that It won’t upset your stomach, as you’ve heard that plain aspi-
rin may do The same government test showed that this brand
works no faster than regular aspirin, nor is there any difference
between the two in the frequency of stomach upset This well-
known brand sells for around $1 50 for one hundred tablets A
lesserknown buffered aspirin costs roughly 25 cents for the same
quantity Which brand sells better^ Guess
Two other major brands of pain reliever of a kind known
generically as APC tablets have combined the mam ingredient
(aspirin) with phenacctm and caffeine The worth of these ex-
pensive additives^ Apparently nothing positive, and phenacetm
m
large doses is suspected as a cause of serious kidney damage
combi
sounds great m the advertising “Not one, not two, but a
nation of medically proven ingredients” Though
the tested

effectiveness of these products was not greater

than that of simp e

aspirin, the price certainly was, ranging from SI

40 to $1 60 ior
one hundred tablets bonus the consumer wig t get
The only
52 The Social Animal

Many readers of McGmniss’ book declared that such practices

were unethical Others staunchly maintained that it was simply
good politics The question that concerns us here is not the hon-
esty of the procedure, but whether or not it was effective It is
tempting to believe that, especially m
a close election, such gim-
mickry could play a decisive factor On the other hand, at least
one astute observer, John Kenneth Galbraith, has commented that
Nixon may have won m
spite of these devices Unfortunately,
there is no way to assess how well this strategy actually worked
in this specific campaign No one studied it at the time What we
can do look at this and other issues in a more general way First,
is

let us look at the broad issue of persuasion through the mass

media Subsequently, we will look at specific techniques of per-
suasion
The broad question is this How credible and effective are
obvious attempts to package and products (toothpaste, aspirin,
sell
presidential candidates) through the mass media^
The pnma facie
evidence appears to suggest that it’s extremely Why
effective
else would corporations spend
hundreds of millions of dollars a
year trumpeting their products^' We
have all seen children being
seduced by toy commercnls that artfully
depict the most drab
toys in such a way that they are irresistible
The aim is to get kids
to demand that their parents buy them the flashy looking toys
they vc seen on TV, and it seems to work for a while But kids
catch on after a time, I’ve seen my
own children, after several
disappointments, develop a healthy skepticism
(alas, even a cer-
tain degree of cynicism) about
the truthfulness of these commer-
cials This kind of skepticism
is common in adults recent A
public opinion poll showed that
75 percent of the respondents
believed that TV commercials contain untruthful arguments
oreover, the results indicate that the
more educated the person,
the more skeptical he is, and that
people who are skeptical be-
lies e that their skepticism makes
them immune to persuasion This
might lead us to conclude that the mere fact
of knowing that a
communicator is biased serves to protect us from being influenced
by his message This is probably not true, however Simply be-
cause a person thinks that he is immune to persuasion does not
 Mass Coimmmicattojjj Propaganda, and Persuasion
55

ginda” as “the systematic propagation of a given ”

doctrine
and “education” as “the act or process of imparting
knowledge or
skill ” Again, we could all agree that
aspirin ads are propaganda,
hut what about the American film and television
industries,
w Inch, until recently, depicted blacks in almost exclusively
stere-
otyped rolcs^ Or, more subtly, w hat about textbooks in Ameri-
can history that ignore the contribution of blacks and
Jews to the
American secne^ Is this merely imparting knowledge^
The problem of differentiating education and propaganda can
be more subtle still Let us look at arithmetic as taught in the pub
he schools AVhat could be more educational^ By that I mean,
what could be more pure, objective, factual, untainted by doc-
tnne^ Watch out Think back to your elementary school days
Do you remember the examples used in your arithmetic text^
Most of the examples dealt with buying, selling, renting, working
for wages, and computing interest As Zimbardo and Ebbeson*
point out, these examples do more chan simply reflect the capital
istic s) stem m which the education is occurring they system

atically endorse the system, legitimize it, and, by implication,

suggest that It is the natural and normal way As a way of illus
tracing multiplication and percentages, the textbook has Mr Jones
borrowing §1000 at 8 percent interest from a bank in order to
purchase a new car Would this example be used in a society that
felt that It was sinful to charge interest, as early Christian societies

believed^ Would this example be used in a society that believed

that a person shouldn’t seek possessions that he can’t afford^ I am
not suggesting that it’s wrong or evil to use these kinds of illustra
tions marithmetic books, I am merely pointing out that they are a
form of propaganda, and chat we should recognize them as such
In practice, whether a person regards a particular course of
instruction as educational or propagandistic depends, to a large
extent, on his values Reflect, for a moment, on a Him about drug
school
abuse that my children were required to see in their high
at one point, the film mentioned the fact that many hard
core
school
addicts began by sampling marijuana I’m certain that most
officials would regard the presentation of this
piece of factua

information as a case of “imparting knowledge, and that most

54 The Social Animal

with either of these brands is a greater frequency of stomach

upsets (according to the same government sponsored study)

Such blatant attempts at mass persuasion seem pitifully obvi-
ous Yet the cash registers ring, and tremendous numbers of con-
sumers apparently set aside their skepticism e\en though they
know that the message is an obvious attempt to sell a product Of
course, there may be a basic difference between a person’s sus-
ceptibility to aspirin commercials and his susceptibility to com-
mercials for presidential candidates When we are dealing with
products that are identical or very similar, it may be that mere
familiarity with the brand name makes a huge
difference Robert
Zajonc* has shown that, all other things being equal,
the more
familiar an item is, the more attractive
it is Suppose I walk into
a grocery store looking for a laundry
detergent I go to the deter-
gent section and I am staggered by the wide
array of brand names
Because it doesn t matter too much to
me which one I buy, I may
simply reach for one that is most
familiar— and chances are it is
familiar because I’ve heard and
over and o\er and over again
seen the name on TV
commercials
My
guess is that the influence due
mere y to familiarity becomes less
important as issues become
more important Thus, it may be
fallacious to assume that people
because he became a household word like
M fr>,
*
\ j
^ *
Bayer ” We will say more about this
near the end of this chapter

Education or Tropaganda

Asp.rm commercials are obvious

attempts to sell something at a
high price by intentionally misleading
the audience They can be
consi ere propaganda Selling” a presidential candidate, how -
eser, is much more complicated could be considered an at-
It
tempt to educate the public on the
policies and virtues of the
candidate by allowing him to present
liis views ns clearly, effici-
ently,and articulately as possible What
is the difference between
propaganda and education’ My dictionary
(The American Heri-
tage Dictionary of the English Language,
1969) defines “propa-
 Mass Coimmmication, Propaga 72 da, and Persuasion
57

prying you loose from your money? Let’s turn the clock
back a
few minutes You open your door m
response to the ringing of
the doorbell, and standing there is a middle-aged man in a con-
servative business suit, welj-tailored and well-pressed He looks
you squarely in the eye, introduces himself as a vice-president of
the City National Bank, and asks you if you would contribute a
few dollars to a charitable organization (that youVe never heard
of) , using exactly the same words as the fellow in the loud, check-
ered jacket Would you be more likely to contribute some
money?
I was struck by this phenomenon a few years ago when I saw
the poet Allen Ginsberg on one of the late-night talk shows Gins-
berg was among the most popular of the poets of the so called
beat generation, his poem “Howl” had shocked and sumulated
the literary establishment m
the fifties On the talk show, Ginsberg
was at It againhaving just finished boasting about his homosexu-
ality, he was talking about the generation gap The camera panned
m He was fat, bearded, and looked a trifle wild eyed (was he
stoned?), long hair grew m
unruly patches from the sides of his
otherwise bald head, he was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt with a
hole in It, and a few strands of beads Although he was talking
earnestly— and, in my opinion, very sensibly— about the problems
of the young, the studio audience was laughing They seemed to
be treating him like a clown It dawned on me that, in all proba-
bility, the vast majority of the people at home, lying in bed
watching the poet from between their feet, could not possibly
take him seriously— no matter how sensible his message, and no
matter how earnestly he delivered it His appearance and his
audience s
reputation were, m all probability, overdeterminmg the
conservative-
reaction The scientist in me longed to substitute the
the wi -
looking banker in the neatly pressed business suit for
said t e
eyed poet and have him move his lips while Ginsberg
same words off camera guess is that, under these circum
My
would have been well receive
stances, Ginsberg’s message
done Indeed,
No need Similar experiments have already been
speculations about the effects of prestige
on persuasion are
 .

5^ The Social Animal

marijuana enthusiasts would probably regard it as “the systematic

propagation of a given doctrine”— that is, the implication that
marijuana leads to the use of addictive drugs. By the same token,
the reader might reflect on sex education in the schools as viewed
by a member of the John Birch Society or by the editor of Play-
boy magazine; or he might recall that a process that the Chinese
communists call re-education would be referred to as “brainwash-
ing” by most Americans. This is not to say that all communica-
tions are drastically slanted and one-sided. Rather, when we are
dealing with an emotionally charged issue about which people’s
opinions differ greatly, it is probably impossible to construct a
communication that people on both sides of the issue would agree
was fair and impartial. We
will present a more detailed discussion
of communication as viewed through “the eye
of the beholder”
in the next chapter. For now, it is important to note that, whether
we call it propaganda or education, persuasion is a reality. It won’t
go away if we ignore it. We
should therefore attempt to under-
the experimental literature on persuasion.
What factors increase the effectiveness
of a communication?
Basically, there are three classes of
variables that are important:
(1) the source of the communication (who
says it), (2) the
nature of the communication (how
he says it), and (3) the char-
acteristics of the audience (to whom he says it)

The Source of the Qovmiumcatton

Credibility. Picture the following

scene: Your doorbell rings,
an \\ en you answer it, you find a
middle-aged man in a rather
loud, checkered sports jacket.
His tic is loose, his collar is frayed,
his pants need ironing, he needs
a shave, and his eyes keep looking
off to the side and over your head
as he talks to you. He is carry-
ing a small can in his hand with a slot
on the
top and he’s trying to
convince you to contribute a few dollars
to a charitable organiza-
tion that you vc never heard of. Although
his actual pitch sounds
fairly reasonable, what are the possibilities of his succeeding in
 Mass Commumcatton, Propaganda, and Persuasion 59

This same phenomenon has received repeated confirmations

by several different investigators using a wide variety of topics
and attributing the communications to a wide variety of com-
municators Careful experiments have shown that a judge of the
about
juvenile court is better than most people at swaying opinion
United
juvenile delinquency, that the Surgeon General of the
States can sway opinion about health insurance, and that a medical
journal can suay opinion about whether or not antihistamines
should be dispensed without a prescription
What do Robert
and the niedical
Oppenheimer, the judge, the Surgeon General,
is, what is the differ-
journal have that Pravda doesn’t have’ That
effectiveness’ Aristotle
ence that makes the difference in their
said that we believe “good” men, by
which he meant men of high
term “credible which
moral calibre Hovland and Weiss use the
removes the moral connotations that are
presentm the Aristote-
Sur-
definition Oppenheimer, a juvenile court judge, and the
lian
is not to say that
they are nec-
geon General are all credible-that
expert and trustworthy
Larily “good,” but that they are both ^
influenced by someone who
makes sense to allow yourself to be
what talking about It makes
trustworthy and who knows
he’s

senseforpeVtobemfluencedbyJRobertOppenhamerw^^^^^^
he IS voicing an opinion about
atomm power and ‘

the Surgeon General

for people to be influenced by
These are exp ,

talking about health insurance

men But not all people are equally
municator Indeed, the same
influenced ^7
communicator may ^“
audience as S S
some members of an
byothers as possessinglow credibility
cer^
Moreover certain “periph-

eral”attributes of the
communicator may
,
members of the audience,
or remarkably
given communicator either remarkably

‘“^r^henomenon was forcefully d— “^^^"GoIdTn';-^

ment that I performed in collaboration ' use-
wAa^p^^ extolling the was
which we presented sixth grades communicator
fulnessand importance of anth prestigious
engineer from a p b
introduced either as a prize-wmmng
T' 3
58 The Social Amvial

ancient More than 300 years before Christ, Aristotle, the world’s
first published social psychologist, wrote

We believe good men more fully and more readily than others
this istrue generally whatever the question is, and absolutely
true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divid-
ed It IS not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on
rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker
contributes nothing to his power of persuasion, on the contrary,
his character may almost be called the most effective means of
persuasion he possesses *

It required some 2300 years for Aristotle’s observation to be put

to a rigorous scientific test
This was accomplished by Carl Hov-
land and Walter Weiss ' What these investigators did
was very
simple They presented large numbers of people with communi-
a
cation that argued a particular point of
view— for example, that
building atomic-powered submarines was
a feasible undertaking
(this experiment was performed
m
1951, when harnessing atomic
energy for such purposes was merely
a dream) Some of the peo-
ple \\ ere informed that the argument
was made by a person pos-
sessing a great deal of credibility,
for others, the same argument
was attributed to a source with low
credibility Specifically, the
argument that atomic powered submarines
could be built in the
near future w as attributed to
cither J Robert Oppenheimer, a
nationally known and highly
respected atomic physicist, or to
friiid/i the official
newspaper of the Communist Party in the
bovict Union— publication not
a famous in the United States for
Its objcctiMty and
truthfulness Before reading the arguments,
the members of the audience were
asked to fill out some rating
scales that revealed their opinions
on tlie topic They then read
the communication A
large percentage of those people who be-
lieved that the communication came
from J Robert Openheimer
changed their opinions— they then bclicv ed
more strongly in the
feasibility of atomic submarines Very
few of those who read an
identical communication attributed to Pratda shifted their opin-
ions in the direction of the communication
 Mass Conmiimication, Propaganda, and Persuasion 6i

use? Most often, it’s some mountainous professional football

player who must squint hard at the cue-card in order to make out
the name of the sponsor’s product. For the past several years, one
former
of the most persistent peddlers of breakfast food has been a
Olympic decathlon champion, who is probably far more effective
at selling“Wheaties” than some learned professor of nutrition
more
would be, even if the professor were acknowledged to be
far

expert on the subject. Why are athletes so

effective
p pitchmen?
like them and
It may besimply that many people in the audience
want to identify with them. In fact, it
has been shown a con- m
beautiful woman-simply
trolled laboratory experiment that a
because she was beautiful-could have a major impact on the
opinions of an audience on a topic
wholly irrelevant to her beau-
furthermore, her impact was greater when she open-
ty, and that,
the audience. us,
ly expressed a desire to influence
when we like
be inLenced by people we like-and
she wants us to
are more influenced when he or
our
almost as though we change
ions. It’s
because we find him
attractive
a favor” for a person-simply
of
even though tha^t person has no chance /
being persuaded by someone
the same tLn, we seem to resist
don’t like, even if he is an expert. Whyshould this be .

a closer look,
'^at
Let’s take
Increasing Tnistworthiness.
unattractiven^s do
doe attractiveness or
or
For one thing, they can increase '“
XTher "son
one ght ^ggest ha
m
Following this line of argument
that some^f us are influenced
by
that, because we like them, we /ore preju-
token, may be that the reason w y
it
pvneriment were less

diced sixth graders in the Aronson- o

engineer was
influenced by the black true, then if
've
jj ,i,is is
trust bla
that they simply did not j that a person
in epcn
could offer the audience clear ofl-cctive communi-
is trustworthy, that
person should be a «7
cator, even though he is
‘^''’‘be y ,rustsvorthy to
himself' seem ciea y
j ,

How does a person make

6o The Social Annml

university, or as a man who ^ one

might expect, the engineer wa imiuencing
the kids’ opinions about arithmetic than the dishwasher But, in
addition,we varied the race of the communicator in some of the
he waswhite, and in others, black Several weeks prior to the
trials,

experiment, the children had filled out a questionnaire designed to

measure the degree of their prejudice against black people The
resultswere striking Among those children who were most
prejudiced against blacks, the black engineer was less influential
than the white engineer, although both men delivered the same
speech Moreover, among those children who were the least
prejudiced against blacks, the black engineer was more influential
than the white engineer It seems unreasonable that such a periph-
eral attribute as skin color would affect
a man’s credibility to his
audience It might be argued that, in a purely rational world, a
prestigious engineer should be able to influence sixth graders
about the importance of arithmetic regardless of
the color of his
skin, but apparently this is not a
purely rationalworld depending
upon the individual listener’s attitude toward
blacks, he was either
more influenced or less influenced by a black
communicator than
by an otherwise identical white communicator
This kind of behavior is not very adaptive If the quality of
your life depended on the extent to
which you were to allow a
communication about arithmetic to
influence your opinion, the
expertise and trustworthiness
of the communicator would seem to
e t e most reasonable factors
to heed To other
the extent that
actors (such as skin color)
decrease or increase your susceptibil-
ity to persuasion on an issue irrelevant to
such factors, you are
bchaung ma maladaptive manner But,
although such behavior is
ma a apti\ e, it should not be very
astonishing to anyone who has
c\cr watched commercials on
TV
Here, not only are various
peripheral aspects of the
communicator emphasized, but fre-
quently, the only aspects of the
communicator that the viewer is
able to perceive arc totally
peripheral and irrelevant to the com-
munication Who IS an expert on
the topic of razor blades or
shaving cream^ Well, perhaps a barber,
maybe a dermatologist or
a chemist Who
is it that tells us what
blades or lather we should
 Mass Coswmmicatiojij Propaganda, cmd Persuasion

he not trying to influence them Suppose a stockbrolter calls

IS

you up and gives you a hot tip on a particular stock Will

you
buy’ It’s hard to be sure On the one hand, the broket is probably
an expert, and this might influence you to buy On the other
giving you this
hand, the stockbroker has something to gam by
tip (a commission), and this could
lower his effectiveness But
wife that a par-
suppose you happened to overhear him telling his
ticular stock was about to rise Because
he was obviously not

trying to influence you, you might be more readily influenced

experiment by blame
This IS exactly what was discovered in an
In this study, a conversation was
Walster and Leon Festinger”
staged between two graduate students m which one of them ex-
The situation was arranged so that
pressed his opinion on an issue

an undergraduate subject was allowed to

was clear to t e s “”7fh«
non In one experimental condition, it j

the graduate students were well

aware of h'®
could
knew that anything be.ng said
tool therefore, the sub, eet
him with the intention of
coneeivably be directed at
situation was arrang d
Topinio/ In the other condition, the
the graduate s'c^cnts were unawar
that the subject believed that

of his presence in the next room In

opini
more in the direction of the
opinion changed significantly

holding up his can of shaving

cream
M .jj
5“
all that
no
fluence®us-the “Foamy” company P^['™be opcr-
is

money not to sell shaving cream ^

^the
ating m his own self-interest, if we M reason he’s up there
situation.It would be clear to us t
factors
make ^ gLuldn’t these
with the shaving cream IS to effective’ No
make him less trustworthy an nvnUed (rather than his
cd (ra
is mvoh
Where our hkmg for a communicator ^
expertise), we seem to behave
as
communicator
him Accordingly, as we ha\e seen,
change them-but
wants us to change our °P'"'“"®’ ' football
„ ge
true that
only about trivial issues That is,
62 The Social Animal

us m spite of the fact that we don’t like him^ One way is for him
to argue against his own self-interest If a person has nothing to
gain (and perhaps something to lose) by convincing us, we will
trust him and he will be more effective An illustration may be
helpful Suppose that Joe “The Shoulder” Napolitano, a habitual
criminal recently convicted as a smuggler and peddler of heroin,
was delivering a communication on the abuses of the American
judiciary system Would he influence you? Probably not Most
people would probably regard him as unattractive and untrust-
worthy he seems to fir clearly outside of the Aristotelian defini-
tion of a “good man ” But suppose he was arguing that criminal
justice was too lenient — a criminal could almost always beat
the rap if he had a smart lawyer, and that even if
a criminal 'were
convicted, the sentences normally meted out
are too soft Would
he influence you? I’m quite certain he would,
in fact, Elaine Wal-
stcr, Darcy
Abrahams and P® performed that experiment a few
years ago and confirmed that hypothesis
In the actual experiment,
we presented our subjects with a newspaper clipping of an inter-
view between a news reporter and
Joe “The Shoulder” Napoli-
tano, who was identified just as I have identified him
here In one
experimental condition. Joe “The
Shoulder” argued for stricter
courts and more severe sentences
In another condition, he argued
^ ^ should be more lenient and the sentences less
severe Wealso ran a parallel set of
conditions in which the same
a respected public official When
Joe hebhoulder argued for more lenient
courts, he was total-
y me ective, indeed, he actually caused the subjects’ opinions to
change slightly in the opposite
direction But when he was argu-
ing for stricter, more powerful
courts, he was extremely effec-
tive as e ectivc as the respected
public official delivering the
same argument This study demonstrates
that Aristotle was not
completely correct-a communicator
can be an unattractive, im-
moral person and still be effective, as
long as it is has
clear that he
not nng to gam (and perhaps something to
lose) by persuading us
The
trustw orthincss of a person
who is not particularly attrac-
tive can also be increased if his audience
is absolutely certain that
 Mass Cosimitmicatton, Propaganda, and Persuasion

are presented affect the relative impact on either side’ ( 4 )

What is
communication
the relationship between the cffecnveness of the
and the discrepancy that exists between the audience’s original
opinion and the opinion advocated by the communication’

ago, I was
Logical versus Emotional Appeals Several years
living in acommunity that was about to vote on whether or not to
combating tooth decay
fluoridate the water supply as a means of
reason-
An information campaign that seemed quite logical and
fluoridation It consisted
able was launched by the proponents of
dentists describing the benefits
ot
largely of statements by noted
reduction of tooth
fluorides and discussing the evidence on the
well as statenients by
decay in areas with fluoridated water, as
to the effect that
physicians and other health authorities
mn has no harmful effects The
opponents used an

was much more emotional in flavor For

examp e, one
th in_
^
sisted of a huge picture of a
rather ugly rat, along
in your
scription “Don’t let them put rat-poison
supply ‘’"f ‘"f
The referendum to fluoridate the water
prove
course, this incident doesn’t
fv Aat^ ™
^^
feated Of
mainly because
emotional appeals are superior,
scienoLally controlled study we h-e "O id
not a
fluoridation
people would have voted on Ocular
Lculated, nor do we know whether the
reached more people, whether it
ponents’ literature, and so forth
this area is far from conclusive, there
one early
jjj
dence favoring an appeal thaus measure the
George W H
j
study, for example, ^ particular
pe
extent to which he could induce p appeal he used
political candidate as a
function o w ,^j„g55age that was
He demonstrated that individuals w
or
^ ^ endorsed by
voted for the cana
primarily emotional in tenor ^
extent than did people w
the message to a greater
logical
message that was primarily reason-it seems
good reaso
to
for a
tL word primarily is italicized
 )

64 The Social Animal

players can get us to use "Foamy” and beautiful women can get
us to agree with them on an abstract topic, but it seems unlikely
that they could influence us to vote for their presidential candi-
date, or to adopt their posmon on the legalization of marijuana

To summarize this section we might list these phenomena

1 Our opinions are influenced by individuals who are both

expert and trustworthy
2 Acommunicators trustworthiness (and effectiveness) can
be increased if he argues a position apparently opposed to his
own self interest
3 A communicator s trustworthiness (and effectiveness) can
be increased if he does not seem to be trying to influence our
opinion
4 At least where
trivial opinions and behaviors are concerned,
if we person and can identify with him, his opinions and
like a
behaviors will be more influential upon our
own than their con-
tent would ordinarily warrant
5 Again, where trivial opinions and behaviors are concerned, if
we like a person, we will tend
be influenced by him even if it is
clear that he is trying to influence us and that he stands to profit
by doing so

The Nature the Qominumcatxon

The manner in which a communication is stated plays an impor-

tant ro e m determining its effectivenessThere are several ways
mw ic communications can differ from one another I have
se cctc our that I consider to be among
the most important ( 1
s a communication more persuasive if it is designed to appeal to
t e au lence s reasoning
ability, or is it more persuasive if it is
aimed at arousing the audience’s
emotions^ (2) Should the com-
munication present only one side
of the argument, or should it
also include an attempt to refute
the opposing view^ (3) If two
sides are presented, as m
a debate, does the order in which they
 Mass Cosimmmcation, Propaganda, and Persuasion (>1

great that we try not to think about them Thus, it has been

argued that, if a communieanon arouses a great deal of fear, we

tend not to pay close attennon to it
What does the evidence tell us’ The overwhelming weight of
experimental data suggests that, all other things being equal, the
more frightened a person communication the more likely
is by a

he IS to take positive preventive action The most prolific

re-

searchers in this area have been Howard Levcnthal

and his asso-
people to stop
ciates In one experiment, they tried to induce
exposed to
smoking and to take chest X-rays Some subjects were
presented with the
a low-fear treatment they were simply
X-rayed Others
mendation to stop smoking and get their chests
moderate fear they were shown a film depict-
were subjected to
revealed that he had lung
ing a young man whose chest X-rays
to the high-fear condition
saw the
cancer The people subjected
same film that the “moderate-fear” people
saw-and, m addition,
color film of a
they were treated to a rather gory
who mo«
operation The results showed that those people
stop smoking and most
likely
frightened were also most eager to
to take chest X-rays ,

true for all people’ It is not There is a r Y

Is this

mon sense leads some people to believe that a gre

un er condi-
leads to inaction it does-for certain people,
discovered is that peop e
w ^
tions What
Leventhal
(hig se
sonably good opinion of themselves j f
ones who are most likely to be
opinions of t e
arousal People with low ^ commu-
hkely to take immediate "“'O" here is the
'''w‘fea[-buf(and
o
nication that aroused a great deal much like the
interesting part) after a delay,
they
“^mmediate action vas
T f
subjects with high self esteeiti
be
not required, but action could „„„ ,f they were ex-
self-esteem were more likely to take -pj,,.

posed to a communication that arouse S ’’

opinion of
people
ttason for this may be that „.th the vorld
difficulty coping
themselves have a great deal of
66 The Social Animal

define the major problem with research in this area Namely,

there are no foolproof, mutually exclusive definitions of “emo-
tioml” and “rational ” In the fluoridation illustration, for example,
most people would probably agree that the antifluoridation pam-
phlet was designed to arouse fear, yet, it is not entirely illogical,
because it is indeed true that the fluoride that is used in minute
concentrations to prevent tooth decay is used in massive concen-
trations as a rat poison On the other side, to present the views of
professional men is not entirely free from emotional appeal it may
be comforting (on an emotional level) to know that physicians
and dentists endorse the use of fluorides
Because, in practice, operational distinctions between “logical”
and “emotional” are difficult to draw, some researchers have
turned to an equally interesting and far more researchable prob-
lem the problem of the effect of various levels of a specific emo-
tion on opinion change Suppose you wish
to arouse fear in the
hearts of your audience
as a way of inducing opinion change
Would be more effective to arouse just a little fear, or should
It

you try to scare the hell out of them^ For example, if your goal is
to convince people to drive more
carefully, would you be more
you show cd them gory technicolor films of the broken
effectiv c if
and bloody bodies of the victims of highway
accidents, or would
you be more effective if you soft-pedaled communication—
your
s ow ing crumpled fenders, discussing
increased insurance rates
uc to careless driving, and
pointing out the possibility that peo-
° druc carelessly may have their
driver’s licenses suspend-
n
c ^ Common sense argues on both sides of this street On the one
lan It suggests that a
,
good scare will motivate people to action,
on t c other hand, it argues that too
much fear can be debilitat-
ing— t lat IS, It might interfere with a
person’s ability to pay atten-
tion to the message, to comprehend
it, and to act upon it WeVc
all bclie\cd, at one time
or another, that “it only happens to the
other guy —it can t happen to me ”
Thus, people continue to drive
at \ery' high speeds, and to insist on
druing after tlicy’\c had a
few drinks, c\en tliough they should know better Perhaps this is
because the possible negative consequences of these actions arc so
 Mass CoiimmntcaUon, Propaganda, and Persuasion 69

recommendations that do not include such instructions For ex-

ample, a campaign conducted on a college campus urging sm-
dents to take tetanus shots included specific instrucuons about
where and tv hen they were available The campaign materials

included a the location of the student health service

map showing
and a suggestion that each student set aside a convenient time to
stop by. The results showed that high-fear appeals
were more
effective thanlow-fear appeals in producing favorable attitudes
toward tetanus shots among the students, and that th^ also in-

the shots The high-

creased the students’ stated intentions to take
ly specific instructions about how to go
about getting the shots

did not in any way effect these opinions

and intentions, but the
actual behavior Oi those
instructions did have a big effect on the
to proceed, 28 percen
subjects who were instructed about how
those who received no spe
actually got the tetanus shots, but of
cific instructions, only 3 percent
actually went down to
action
In a control group exposed only to the c
shot taking “ P
fear-arousing message-there was no
’

^
produce ac 1
instructions alone are not enough to
necessary component for action in , ,,
,,,„arette
were uncovered in
Very similar results
experiment In attempting to help
people give up J
j
rettes, found that a high fear
Leventhal
greater intention to stop
smoking
a much however it
specific behavior,
panied by recommendations for
produced^ittle results Similarly, ^f waK
^nnk F^nty -if
Lgazme instead of a pack of cigarettes,
urge to smoW’
^
when you have the
relauve y
arousing communication were nrnduced the best
nation of fear arousal and specific ji^^oj^mg less four
in this condition
wer
results, the students procedure
to the
experimentalj pr
month; after they were subjected

One-sided versus jf'^^^fdoumstaentisneces-

trying to persuade your stated your
opkff /yo“ dimply
'
sary Would you persuade more peop
68 The Social Animal

A high-fear communication overwhelms them and makes them

feel like crawling into bed and pulling the covers up over their
heads Low or moderate fear something that they can more
is

easily deal with at the moment they experience it But if given

time— that is, if it*s not essential that they act immediately— they
will be more hkely to act if the message truly scared the hell out
of them
Subsequent research by Leventhal and his co-workers lends
support to this analysis In one study, subjects were shown films
of serious automobile accidents Some subjects watched the films
on a large screen from up close, others watched them from far
away on a much smaller screen Among those subjects with high
or moderate self esteem, the oneswho saw the films on the large
screen were much more likely to take protective action, subse-
were the ones who saw the films on the small screen
quently, than
Subjects with low self-esteem were more likely to take acaon
when they saw the films on a small screen, those subjects with
low self esteem who saw the films on a large screen reported a
great deal of fatigue and stated that they
had a great deal of diffi-
culty even thinking of themselves as
victims of automobile acci-
dents Thus, It does seem that people
with low self-esteem are
overwhelmed by fear, if an immediate response is necessary
should be relatively easy to
It
make a person with high self-
esteem behave like a person with
low self esteem We can over-
whelm him by making him feel that there is nothing he can do to
prevent or discover a threatening
situation This will lead most
people to bury their heads in the
sand— even those who have high
self esteem Conversely,
suppose you wanted to reduce the auto-
mobile accident rate, or to help
people give up smoking, and you
were faced with low self-esteem
people How
would you pro-
cce ^ If you construct a message
that contains clear, specific, and
optimistic instructions,
it might increase the feeling among the
members of your audience that they can cope
with the danger
Experiments by Leventhal and his
associates show that fcar-
arousing messages that contain specific
instructions about how,
when, and where to take action are much more effective than
 Mass Covwmmcationf Propaganda, and Persuasion 7 *

When talking to the party faithful, they almost invariably deliver

a hell-raising set of arguments favoring their own party platform
and candidacy. If they do mention the opposition, it is in a deri-
sive, mocking tone. On the other hand, when appearing on net-

work TV or when speaking to any audience of mixed loyalties,

oppos-
they tend to take a more statesmanlike position, giving the
to de-
ing view a reasonably accurate airing before proceeding
molish it.

running for
The Order of rresetitation. Imagine that you are
invited to address a
the city council. You and your opponent are
a close election many
large audience at the local high school It is
the outcome
members of the audience are as yet undecided-and
on writing and
may hinge on your speech You have worked hard
your seat on the stage, the master o
rehearsing it As you take
ceremonies asks you whether you would
pre ,

ponder this for a moment You

t in ?
speak last. You ’

firstimy have an advantage, because first j]

nm^
early, then my opp
,

if Ican get the audtence on my stde

also have
not only have to sell himself, but he’ll ^ ^
l
me-he’ll be bucking a trend
On the ^thej hand’J

— JA
ence on
speak last, I may have an advantage,
“ ,

leave the auditorium, they may

by my oppo j
heard The early statements made
,

how powerful, will be buried by memorable In

being last my speech will be
wore
confusion, you race off the stage, fin p -which
Surely, he must
your friend, the social psychologist
order has an advantage , you
answen^X are m
a one
I'm afraid that if you expect
for a disappointment Moreover,
i
remarks, you
social psychologist’s your speech at
all
^|,yering
might miss the opportunity of ever s
election i
Indeed, you might even miss the involving both
is a The
Needless to say, the issue simply, possible
it as P
learning and retention I’ll try to state
70 The Social Animal

view and ignored the arguments against capital punishment, or

would you be more persuasive if you discussed the opposing argu-
ments and attempted to refute them^ Before trying to answer this
question, let us try to understand what is involved If a communi-
cator mentions the opposition's arguments, it might indicate that
he IS an objective, fair minded person, this could enhance his
effectiveness On the other hand, if a communicator so much as
mentions the arguments on the other side of the issue, it might
suggest to the audience that the issue is a controversial one, this
could confuse the audience, make them equivocate, and it might
ultimately reduce the persuasiveness of the communication With
these possibilities in mind, it should not come as a surprise to the
reader that there is no simple relation between one sided argu-
ments and the effectiveness of the communication It depends to
some extent upon the intelligence of the audience the more in-
telligent the members of the audience are, the less likely they are
to be persuaded by a one sided argument and the more likely they
are to be persuaded by an argument that brings
out the important
opposing arguments and then proceeds to refute them This
makes sense an intelligent person is more likely to know some of
the counterarguments— when the communicator
avoids mention-
ing these, the intelligent
members of the audience are likely to
conclude that the communicator is either
unfair or is unable to
refute such arguments On the other
hand, an unintelligent person
is less apt to know of the existence of opposing arguments If the
counterargument is ignored, he is persuaded, if the counterargu-
ment IS presented, he may get confused
Another factor that plays a vital role position of
is the initial
the audience As we might expect, if a member of the audience is
already predisposed to believe
the communicator’s argument, a
one sided presentation has a greater
impact on his opinion than a
two sided presentation If, however,
a member of the audience is
leaning in the opposite direction,
then a two sided rcfutational
argument is more persuasive Most politicians seem to be well
aware of this phenomenon, they tend to present vastly different
kinds of speeches, depending upon who
constitutes the audience
 Mass Covwiimicatwny Propaganda, and Persuasion 73

to back, and if is still several days away, you should

the election
speak first of your speech will interfere with the
The primacy
audience’s ability to learn your opponent’s arguments, with the
election several days away, differential effects due to memory
are

negligible But if the election is going to be held

immediately

after the second speech, and there is going to be a prolonged

coffee break between the two speeches, you would do well to
speeches, the
speak last Because of the coffee break between
of the secon
interference of the first speech with the learning
make up its
speech will be minimal, because the audience must
has reten-
mind right after the second speech, the second speaker
effect wou pre
tion working for him Therefore, the recency
speech will e t e
dominate all other things being equal, the last

more persuasive ^
clever experiment by
.

These speculations were confirmed in a

In this
Norman Miller and Donald Campbell
’

simulated lury trial was arranged, m

which the subjects were pre-
transcript o
sented With a condensed version of the ®
against the
J °^
trialof a suit for damages brought
side o
an allegedly defective vaporizer The pro
t ®
for t e
consisted of the testimony of witnesses jndthe
s a y
examination of defense witnesses by the
plaint! ’

plaintiff’s
opening and closing speeches of the
side of the argument consisted of
the testimony °

the defense, the defense

version of this
opening and closing were
transcript was arranged so that
all of t P^ofX^
p”o arguments
B
placed in
placed in one block and all of the
^[,3^ intervened
another block The investigators
vane
Ccrween the read-
between the reading of the two argumen verdict A
announce
ing of the last argument and the between
recency effect was obtained when between the second
the first and second arguments and a ® ^
obtained when
argument and the verdict Aj -cond arguments and
^
there was a small gap between the verdict The
fi

argumen
a large gap between the second
72 The Social Animal

issues are similar to the common-sense issues that you, as our

hypothetical politician, pondered alone It is true that, all other
things being equal, the audience’s memory should be better for
the speech that was made last, simply because it is closer in time to
the election On the other hand, the actual learning of the second
material will not be as thorough as the learning of the first mate-
rial, simply because the very existence of the first material inhibits
the learning process Thus, from our knowledge of the phenom-
ena of learning, would appear that, all other things being equal,
it

the first argument will be more effective, we’ll call this the pri-
inacy effect But from our knowledge of the phenomena of reten-
tion, on the other hand, it would appear that, all other things
being equal, the last argument will be more effective, we’ll call
this the recency effect
The two approaches seemingly make for op-
fact that these
posite predictions does not mean that it doesn’t matter which
argument comes first, nor does it mean that it is hopeless to at-
tempt to make a definitive prediction What it does mean is that,
by knowing something about the way both inhibition and reten-
tionwork, we can predict the conditions under which either the
primacy effect or the recency effect will prevail The crucial
variable is ri7«e— that is, the amount of
time that separates the
events in the situation (1) the amount
of time between the first
communication and the second communication, and
(2) the
amount of time between the end of the second communication
and the moment when the members
of the audience must finally
make up their minds Here are the crucial points
(1) Inhibition
(interference) is greatest if very little time elapses between the
two communications, here, the first communication produces
maximum interference x\ith the learning of the second communi-
cation,and a primacy effect will occur— the first speaker will have
the advantage (2) Retention is greatest,
and recency effects will
therefore prevail,when the audience must make up its mind im-
mediately after hearing the second communication
Okay Is the candidate for city council still on the phonc^
Here s the plan If the two speakers present their arguments back
 Mass Covimumcatioriy Propaganda, and Persuasion IS

ion change indeed, several investigators have found that this

“linear” relation holds true A
good example of this relation was
provided by an experiment by Philip Zimbardo Each of the

college women recruited for the experiment was ashed to bring a

close friend with her to the laboratory Each pair of friends
was
and
then presented with a case study of juvenile delinquency,
then each of the subjects was ashed, separately and
private, to m
subject was led
indicate her recommendations on the matter Each
to believe that her close friend disagreed with
her— either by a
Zimbard^o found
small margin or by an extremely large margin
the friends judg-
that the greater the apparent margin between
toward w at t ey
ments, the more they changed their opinions
supposed were the opinions of their friends
literature also turns
However, a close scrutiny of the research
of reasoning pre
up experiments that disconfirm the hne
several
sented above For example, Carl Hovland, O J j r
Muzafer Sherif" argued that, if a particular
position, it is, in e
fers considerably from a person’s own
’
.

W^nce,” and he uill mj"

side of his “latitude of
influenced by it They conducted an experiment
opinio g
curvilinear relation between discrepancy an -ome-
that, as a small
d.sctepancy
“curvilmear I mean
what, so did the degree of opinion '
eg slacken, and
continued to increase, opinion change oDinion
large, the
finally, as the discrepancy became
change became very small When the "j L’s take a closer
almost no opinion change was observe , red
look experiment The commvinica
at this uhether their
ystrong
hot issue-one that the subjects felt , 5rlc of
continue P
state should remain “dry”— that is, , , ((,e Jis-
aj^^
hquor-or whether it should chanp
t e

tnbution of alcohol and “go wet

1
cubiects n ere a

virtually equally divided strongly that

the
“"^J^bj’ects
some 01 tne su
felt
representative sample j
, , ,, should
go " et,
stateshould remain dry, others felt Lets m ere then
and yet others took a moderate position
74 The Social Animal

topic of this experiment (a jury trial) serves to underscore the

immense practical significance that these phenomena may have If
it IS true that the order of presentation has an effecton such things
aswhether a jury finds a defendant guilty or innocent, then our
procedures should be examined and steps should be taken to
trial

prevent any possible miscarriages of justice due to primacy or

recency effects

The Size of the Discrepancy If a communicator is talking to

an audience that strongly disagrees with his point of view, will
presenting his position in its most extreme form be more effective,
or will modulating his position by presenting it in such a way that
It does not seem terribly different from the audience’s position’

For example, suppose you believe that, in order to stay healthy,

people should exercise vigorously every day, any vigorous exer-
cise would be helpful, but an hour’s worth would be preferable

Your audience consists of a group of college professors who seem

to believe that turning the pages of a book is sufficient exercise for
the average person Would you change their opinion to a greater
extent by arguing that people should exercise for a full houi* every
day, or by suggesting a briefer, less taxing regimen’ In short, what
ISthe most effective level of discrepancy between the opinion of
the audience and the recommendation of the communicator’ This
IS a vital issue for
any propagandist or educator
Let us look at this situation from the point of view of the
audience As I mentioned in Chapter
2, most of us have a strong
desire to be correct— to have
“correct” opinions and to perform
reasonable actions When someone
comes along and disagrees
with us it makes us feel uncomfortable
because it suggests that
our opinions or actions may be wrong or based misinforma-
on
tion The greater the disagreement, the greater
our discomfort
is
How can we reduce this discomfort’ Simply by changing our
opinions or actions The greater the disagreement, the greater our
opinion change will be This line of reasoning, then, would sug-
gest that the communicator should argue for one hour per day of
ngorous exercise, the greater the discrepancy, the more the opin-
 Mass Conmumcatton, Propaganda, and Persuasion 77

My own personal preference is for the second mode Accord-

ingly,with two of my students—J Merrill Carlsmith and Judith
Turner— I began to speculate about what factor or factors might
make such a difference We
began by accepting the notion dis-
cussed above the greater the discrepancy, the greater the
dis-

comfort for a member of the audience But we reasoned that this

does not necessarilymean that he will change his opinion There
ways in which he can reduce this discomfort ( 1
are at least four
commumcator
he can change his opinion, (2) he can induce the
for his origina
to change hts opinion, (3) he can seek support
views, in spite o
opinion finding other people who share his
by
t e com
what the commumcator says, or (4) he can derogate
is stupid, or
municator-convince himself that the communicator
invalidate that persons
immoral, or a Commie-and thereby

situations, inclu ®
In a great many commumcanon
‘

message is e
that pertain in these experiments, the .

or magazine .

as a written statement (as a newspaper

not approac y
example) or by a communicator who is
platform,
audience (as on TV, on the lecture
audience w
the subject is often alone, or part of an
eac
have opportunity to interact with
no ^
recipient of
virtually impossi e
these circumstances, it is

the communication either to have -upport This

immediate
mumcator’s opinion or to seek u,, j^jcomfort-
of
leaves the recipient two major ways ^pp,„,pn,cator
der ^ 'e

he can change his opinion, or he can

Under w\at circumstances would - difficult
derogate the communicator
difficult to 1^^
pcrso
to derogate a liked and respected onh; expert
difficult to derogate someone /mun.cator’s ercdibil
on the under discussion But it t
issue ^ deroffate him
,

be
ity were ambiguous, it would not '
, . ifacommuni-
Following this line of reasoning.
wesugge '
between
greater t
cator’s credibility were high, the impact he
the greater
his viem and the audience’s views,
 ^

76 The Social Animal

divided into groups in which all three opinions were represented.

Each group was presented with a different communication, so
that in each group, there were subjects who found the communi-
cation close to their own position, some who found it moderately
discrepant from their own position and some who found it ex-
tremely discrepant from their own position. Specifically, one
group was presented with a “wet” message, which argued for the
unlimited and unrestricted sale of liquor; another group was pre-
sented with a “dry” message, which argued for complete prohibi-
tion; and a third group was presented with a moderately “wet”
message, which argued to allow some drinking but with certain
controls and restrictions. The greatest opinion changes occurred
when there was a moderate discrepancy between the actual mes-
sage and the opinions of individual members of the audience.
What an exciting state of affairs! When there exist a substan-
tialnumber of research findings that point in one direction and a
similarly substantial number of research
findings that point in a
different direction, doesn’t necessarily
it mean that someone has to
be wrong; rather, it suggests that there is a significant factor that
hasn t been accounted for— and this is indeed
exciting, for it gives
the scientist an opportunity to play
detective. I beg the readers’
indulgence here, forI would like to dwell on this issue— not only
for substantive value, but also because it provides us with an
its

opportunity to analyze one of the more

adventurous aspects of
socialpsychology as a science. Basically, there are two ways of
proceeding with this game of detective.
We
can begin by assem-
ming all of the experiments that show
one result and all of those
that show the other result and
(imaginary magnifying glass in
hand) painstakingly scrutinize them,
looking for the one factor
common to the experiments in group A and lacking in those in
group B; then we can try to determine,
conceptually why this
factor should make a difference.
Or, conversely, we can begin by
speculating conceptually about what
factor or factors might make
a difference; then we can glance through
the existing literature,
with this conceptual lantern in hand, to see if the experiments in
group A differ from the experiments in group B in this dimension.
 Mass Cojmiiumcation, Propaganda, and Persuasion 79

bility But we didn’t stop there we constructed an experiment in

which we systematically investigated the size of the discrepancy
and the credibility of the communicator in one research design
several
In this experiment, college women were asked to read
terms of
stanzas from obscure modern poetry and to rank them in
how good they were Then each woman was given an essay to
specifi-
read purporting to be a criticism of modern poetry that
some su
cally mentioned a stanza that she had rated poorly For
this particular stanza in g
owing
jects, the essayist described
opinion of the
terms-this created a large discrepancy between the
students in t is
communicator and the opinion voiced by the
subjects, the essayist was
on y
experimental condition For some
set
mildly favorable in the way that he described the stanza-this
essayist an t e stu en
up a moderate discrepancy between the
in this condition In a third condition, the
essayist was ™ F
place 1 P
scornful in his treatment of the stanza-which
1

ents of this communication m

a “mild discrepancy ,
e
Finally, to one-half of the women m the experiment, t .

the essay was identified as the poet T S Ehot, a ig /

communicator, to the
identified as a college student
allowed to re-rank the stanzas When
m
rest of the subjects,

S
the
subjects
T
the communicator, the essay had the
" “™,
5 „epantfrom
dents when its evaluation of the stanza
was
identified
when a fellow student of medium
credi
theirs, “^ „ j,cn ,t
as the essayist, the essay produced a little °P‘"'°" . "j; a great
° ^
was slightly discrepant from the opinion ^
j on>
only a
discrepant and
deal of chLge when it avas n>oderateIy
little when
opinion change It was extremely discrj
To'^ sumup thl section, the '-"i^rcredThiht), .1-=
accounted for when a communicator and tlic
greater the discrepancy between the
mc" ’ « advocates
persuaded,
Mcw au
of the audience, the more the is
doubtful
s
on the other hand, w hen a communicator niodcratc
opinio
or slim, he will produce maximum
=>

discrepancies
78 The Social Animal

would have on the opinions of the audience However, if the

communicator’s credibility were not very high, he would be, by
definition, subject to derogation This is not to say that he could-
n’t influence the opinions of the audience He probably would be
able to influence people to change their opinions, if his opinions
were not too different from theirs But the more discrepant such a
communicator’s position is from those of his audience, the more
the audience might begin to question his wisdom, intelligence, and
sanity The more they question his wisdom, intelligence, and
sanity, the less likely they are to be influenced by him Let’s
return to our example involving physical exercise Imagine a 73-
year old man, with the body of a man half his age, who had just
won the 26 mile Boston Marathon If he told me that a good way
to stay m
condition and live a long healthy life was to exercise
vigorously for one hour every day, I would believe him Boy,
would I believe him' He would get much more exercise out of me
than if he suggested that I should exercise for
only ten minutes a
day But suppose that a person somewhat less credible, such as a
high school track coach, were delivering
the communication If
he suggested that I exercise ten minutes
a day, his suggestion
would be within my own latitude of
acceptance, and he might
influence my opinion and behavior
But if he advised me to exer
CISC Mgorously for an
hour a day, I would be inclined to write
urn off as a quack, a health freak,
a monomaniac— and I could
comfortably continue being indolent
Thus, I would agree with
o\ land, Harvey, and Shcrif a
person will consider an extremely
iscrepant communication to be
outside of his latitude of accept-
ance-buc only if the communicator is
not highly credible
Armed with these speculations, my colleagues and I scruti-
nize t e existing experiments on this issue, paying special atten-
tion to the ways m which the communicator was described Lo
discovered that each of the experiments that
showed a direct linear relation
between discrepancy and opinion
cliangc happened to describe the
source of the communication as
more credible than did those whose results
showed a curvilinear
relation This confirmed our speculations about
the role of credi-
 Mass Covtimimcauon, Vropagmda, and Persuasion

doesn*t think very highly of himself, he probably believes that he

stands a better chance of being right if he goes along with the
recommendations of the communicator

Prior Experience of the Audience Another audience-related

factor of considerable importance is the frame of mind that the

audience is prior to the communication An audience can

in just
be made receptive to a communication if it has been well fed and

is relaxed and happy Conversely, members of an audience can be

made less receptive and less persuasable if they are forewarned
going to be made to persuade them This
is
that an attempt is
from their
especially true if the content of the message differs
own beliefs I would argue that the phrase, “And now, a message
from our sponsor ” renders that message less persuasive t an it

glide into it
would have been the communicator had simply
if

without prologue The forewarning seems to say

“Watch out, m
going to cry to persuade you ” and people tend to respon y
marshalling defenses against the message This i

demonstrated in an experiment by Jonathan

Freedman and Uav a
Sears “ Teenagers were told that they would
be hearing a wi
Allowed to rive
entitled “Why Teenagers Should Not Be
with his
minutes later, the speaker presented them .

given wi
tion In a control condition, the same talk was
contro co
ten minute forewarning The subjects in the
were more thoroughly convinced by the
commumca i
were those who had been forewarned ,

A more elaborate audience-preparation phenomeno

an
his associates,
developed by William McGuire and ,

effect e
appropriately dubbed the inoculation
seen that a two-sided (refutational)
presen«tion
resentation
tor convincing most audiences tnan than a one ^^ded
Jt^onfaner-
Expanding on this
McGuire sugges e
phenomenon,
son receives prior exposure to a brief
a subse
then able to refute, he tends to be “immunize g
quent fuU-blown presentation of the same ’
immunizes a
same way that a small amount of an attenuate
8o The Social Animal

Characteristics c»f the Audience

Sex and Self-esteein All listeners, readers, or viewers are not

alike Some people are more difficult to persuade In addition, as

we have seen, the kind of communication that appeals to one per-

sonmay not appeal to another For example, the intelligence of a
member of the audience and his prior opinion will play major
roles in determining whether a two-sided communication will be
more effective than -a one-sided communication
There are several other factors that play important roles For
example, it seems that women
can be more easily persuaded than
men This is probably because, in our society, women are social-
ized to be more submissive and less skeptical than men, and are
rewarded for submissiveness rather than assertiveness If this is
true,we may soon witness a change, as women are now freeing
themselves from their traditional passive role *
What effect does an individual’s personality have on his per-
suasability^ The one
personality variable that is most consistently
related to persuasability is self-esteem
An individual who feels
inadequate as a person is more easily influenced
by a persuasive
wmmunication than an individual who thinks highly of himself
This seems reasonable enough, after
all, if a person doesn’t like
himself, then it follows that he doesn’t
place a very high premium
on his o\\ n ideas Consequently,
if his ideas are challenged, he may
not be very reluctant to gi\e them
up Recall that people want to
be right If a person who has high
self-esteem listens to a commu-
nication tint at \ ariancc
is with his own opinion, he must make up
IS mind whctlier
he stands a better chance of being right if lie
changes his opinion or if he
stands pat A
person with high self-
esteem may experience some conflict when he finds himself in
isagrecment with a highly
credible communicator For a person
\\it\ low self-esteem,
there is little or no conflict— because he

he erroneous to conclude that w

, omen are more easily persuad
c an men buch a conclusion max be an example of non conscious male
chamanism See pp 177-178 *
 Mass Conmmmcatton, Propaganda, and
Persuasion 83

build resistance to pro Communist

propaganda would be to teach
TOurses on Communism, presenting both sides
of the argument
Ten years ago, such a suggestion would have met with derision
Twenty years ago, Senator Joseph McCarthy would have con-
sidered this a Communist inspired idea It is hoped that the day of
the ostrich is over,we cannot resist propaganda by burying our
heads in the sand The person who is easiest to brainwash’ is the
‘

person whose ideas about Americanism are based upon slogans

that have never been senously challenged

Hov) Well Do the Principles Work^

Suppose you inherited a television station Here is a golden

opportunity to change people’s opinions on important issues You
have just finished reading this chapter (so you know how to do
it) and you're in control of a very powerful medium of commu

mcation You choose your favorite issue, let’s say that you are in
favor of free health care, and you would like to persuade others to
agree with you How do you set about doing it^ That’s simple
You choose a time sloe following a highly intellectual program
(m order to be certain that intelligent people are watching) and
accordingly, you present a two sided argument (because tw o
sided arguments work best on intelligent people) You arrange
your arguments in such a manner that the argument in favor of
free medical care is stronger and appears first (m order to take
advantage of the primacy effect) You describe the plight of the
poor, how they get sick and die for laclvof adequate medical care
and you do it in a manner that inspires a great deal of fear, at the
same time you offer a specific plan of action because this combi
nation produces the most opinion change and the most action
in
your
the most people You present some of the arguments against
"Vou
position and offer strong refutation of these arguments
arrange things so that the speaker is an expert, is trustw
orrhy an
is extremely likeable You make your argument as strongl) posi
berw ecn
tive as you are able, in order to maximize the discrepancy
82 The Social Animal

full blown attack by that virus In an experiment

person against a
by William McGuire and Dimitn Papageorgis,^^ a group of peo-
were then subjected to a
ple stated their opinions, these opinions
mild attack— and the attack was refuted These people were sub-
sequently subjected to a powerftd argument against their initial

opinions Members of this group showed a much smaller tendency

to change their opinions than did the members of a control group
whose opinions had not been previously subjected to the mild
attack In effect, they had been inoculated against opinion change
and made relativelyimmune Thus, not only is it often more
effective as a propaganda technique to use a two sided refutational
presentation, but, if it is used skillfully, such a presentation tends
to increase the audience’s resistance to subsequent counterpropa-
ganda
How does the inoculation effect work^ Prior exposure, in the
form of a watered down attack on a person’s beliefs, produces
resistance to later persuasion because person becomes
(1) the
motivated to defend his beliefs, and (2) he gams some practice in
doing so Often, beliefs that we hold are never called into ques
tion, uhen they are not, it is relatively easy
for us to lose sight of
why we hold them Thus, if subjected to a severe attack, such
beliefs may crumble In order to motivate a person to bolster his
beliefs, he must be
made aware of their vulnerability, and the best
way to do this is to attack them mili^ly The person is then better
equipped to resist a more serious q^^tack
This is an important point that is frequently ignored or mis
understood by people who make important decisions For exam-
ple, in the aftermath of the Korean W^ar, \vhen several of our
prisoners of war were supposedly brainwashed by the Chinese
Communists a Senate committee recommended that, order to m
build resistance
among the people to brainwashing and other
forms of Communist propaganda, courses on “patriotism and
Americanism should be instituted in our public school system
’

But Mhlliam iMcGuirc’s results suggest that the best way to help
our GIs resist anti American propaganda would be to challenge
their belief in the American w ay of life, and that the best w ay to
 Mass Covmmmcatton, Propaganda, and Persuasion
85

they attempted prevent members of their audience from m-

to
vennng arguments in refutation of the message being presented to
them This was accomplished by simply distracting the audience
somewhat while the communication was being presented Two
groups of students who belonged to a college fraternity were
required to listen to a tape-recorded argument about the evils of
college fraternities The argument was erudite, powerful, and, as
you might imagine, widely discrepant from the beliefs of the
members of the audience During the presentation of the commu-
nication, one of the groups was distracted Specifically, they were
shown a highly entertaining silent dim Fescinger and Maccoby
reasoned that, because this group was engaged in two tasks simul-
taneously— listening to the tape-recorded argument against frater-
nities and watching an entertaining film-their minds would be so
occupied that they would have little or no opportunity to think
up arguments m
refutation of the tape-recorded message The
members of the control group, on the other hand, were not dis-
tracted bydim, therefore, they would be better able to devote
a
some of communication by think-
their thoughts to resisting the
ing up counterarguments The results of the experiment con-
firmed this reasoning The students who were distracted by
watching the film underwent substantially more opinion change
against fraternities than did the students who were not distracted

Although experiment suggests one way of overcoming

this
audience resistance, the effects of such techniques are of short
duration and, hence, of limited value In general, beliefs that peo-
ple hold important are difficult to change through direct commu-
nication On the face of it, there appears to be a basic difference
between an on the one hand, and
issue like free medical care,
atomic-powered submarines, whether
issues like the feasibility of
the
antihistimines should be sold without a prescription, and
practical importance of arithmetic, on the other
What is r e
that the medical care issue is
more
difference^ One difference is
submarines, any-
important Who cares about atomic-powered
ot
way’ It’s of trivial importance But what are the components
“important” or “trivial”’
this question, 've must ^ rs
In order to provide an answer to
84 The Social Animal

the argument presented and the initial attitude of the audience

And then you sit back, relax, and wait for those opinions to start
changing
It’s not that simple Imagine a typical viewer Let’s say that
she IS a 45-year-old middle class housewife who is strongly op-
posed to government intervention She feels that any form of
social legislation is undermine the democratic way She
a plot to
stumbles across your program while looking for an evening’s
entertainment She begins to hear your arguments in favor of free
health care As she listens, she becomes slightly less confident in
her original convictions She is not quite as certain as she had been
that the government shouldn’t intervene in matters of health
What does she do^ If she is anything like the subjects in Lance
Canon’s” experiment, she would reach over, twist the dial on her
TV set, and begin to watch Laugh in ” Canon found that, as a
‘

person’s confidence is weakened, he becomes less prone to listen

to arguments against his own beliefs Thus, the very people who
might be most susceptible to having their opinions changed are
the ones least liLely to continue to expose themselves to a com-
munication designed for that purpose
Suppose you can get a captive audience and force them to
listen That’s not as difficult as it
seems, for example, you may be
able to get permission to show
your TV
program to a classroom
full of high-school students or
army recruits In such situations,
the viewers cannot
walk over and change the channel Will your
program ha\e an effect on the opinions of
your audience^ Nor
necessarily We
can force people to listen to a communication,
wc can even force people to pay close
attention to the content
(by gi\ing an exam afterwards in a
classroom situation, for exam-
ple,offering high rewards for
good performance and severe
punishments for poor performance), but
we cannot be certain
that their opinions will change
When faced with information
that runs counter to their beliefs,
people have a tendency either to
distort us meaning or to invent
counterarguments on the spot In
this w ay, they arc able to a\ oid changing
their opinions
It is possible toovercome some of this resistance Leon Fes-
tingcr and Nathan Maccoby” conducted an experiment in w hich
 Mass Covmiunication, Propaganda, and Persuasion 87

Nader would not influence Sam as easily or as thoroughly as a

statement by Nader about cars, sealing wax, cabbages, or kings
Individuals resist having their attitudes changed, thus, direct com-
munications that challenge existing attitudes tend to be less influ-
ennal In order to change attitudes, we must first understand what
motivates this resistance Why
do people distort messages that
differ from their own Why do they invent counter-
attitudes^
arguments^ Why IS it important for them to avoid changing their
attitudes’ These are important and complex questions, and I will
attempt to answer them in the next chapter
86 The Social Animal

examine what we mean by the term “opinion,” which we’ve been

using throughout this chapter On the simplest level, an opinion is
what a person believes to be factually true Thus, it is my opinion

that there are more than 40,000 students enrolled at The Univer-
sity of Texas, that wearing seat belts reduces traffic fatalities, and
that New York Gty is hot m the summer Such opinions are
primarily cognitive— that is, they are unemotional, they take place
m the head rather than in the gut They are also transient— that is,
they can be changed by good, clear evidence to the contrary
Thus, if Ralph Nader (whom I regard as a highly credible source
on the traffic issue) presented me with data indicating that seat
belts, as they are currently constructed, do not reduce fatalities
significantly, I would change my
opinion on that issue
On the other hand, suppose that a person holds the opinion
that Jews engage in “sharp” business practices, or that Orientals
are sneaky, or that people under twenty-five have a special wis-
dom, or that the United Stales of America is the greatest (or most
awful) country in the history of the world, or that York New
City IS a jungle How do these opinions differ from the ones stated
m the preceding paragraph^ For one
thing, they are evaluative—
that IS, they imply likes or dislikes
For a person to believe that
Orientals are sneaky implies strongly
that he doesn’t like Onen-
ta s The opinion that New
York City is a jungle is different from
the opinion that New
York City is hot the summer The m
opinion that New
York City is a jungle cognitive— it
not simply
is
is a so highly evaluative and highly emotional An opinion that
includes evaluative and an emotional component is called an
attitii e ^
Compared to opinions, attitudes are extremely difficult
to change

TJ a
extremely liberal person who swears by
p ader Accordingly, Sam is influenced by everything that
Nader uncovers about cars, safety, government abuse, the mili-
Mry industrial
complex, and so on But suppose, for example, that
Nader conducted an exhaustive study that indicated that, terms m
of intelligence, blacks w ere genetically inferior to whites Would
this be likely to affect Sam’s opinion^
Because the issue is rooted
in an emotional complex, it is likely that such a statement by
4
Self-Justification

young man is being

A
Picture the following scene
him under^ a P^'^ypno- -gg--
^hthy notS place?
tellshim that, Jhen the
g='•“hes, a d /rumthemL
P
closet, get his raincoat an^d and
blocks to the AikK
mp
umbrella, (3) walk eight
of cigarettes, a"
purchase six cartons ^ of
his apartment,
he willj p
told that as soon as he reenters
It” and will be himself
again
immediately
four,
When the clock strikes joshes grabs his
heads for the dons
closet,
for cfgarettes
the
umbrella, and trudges out ° it is a clear.
errand ( 1 )

There are a fewstrange things a o ^ ^

sunshiny day-thete isn t a clou same price as
adk cigsaett J’for the
store half a block away that
you g
and (3) the
the A&P eight blocks away,
smoke
 Self-justification 91

terms. Recall that these investigators injected people with epi-

nephrine. Those who were forewarned about the symptoms
caused by this drug (palpitations of the heart, sweaty palms, and
hand tremors) had a sensible explanation for the symptoms when
me.”
they appeared; “Oh, yeah, that’s just the drug affecting
how-
Those who were misled about the aftereffects of the drug,
their symptoms.
ever, had no such handy, logical explanation for
tried to
But they couldn’t leave the symptoms unjustified-they
were either
account for them by convincing themselves that they
the social stimuli in
deliriously happy or angry, depending upon
the environment. i, ji
The concept of self-justification can be applied more broadfy
disaster, such
still. Suppose you are in the midst of a great natural
around you, buildings are toppling and
as an earthquake. All
Needless
people are getting killed and injured.
frightened. Is there any need to seek If
^
people
around you: the injured
Certainly not, the evidence is all
justifications
and the Lvastated buildings are ample
that there is an earthquake
But suppose, instead,
you hear stor es of the dam
town. You can feel the tremors, and “ed-but you
age done to the other town. You are terribly

devastated area:
afe not in the midst of the
people around you have been hurt, and
no
to
f j ^ , Yes.
Lve been damV^- Would you need
Much like the people in A e Schacter-Singe P
'
.

reactions to ep p
encing strong physiological
hypno 1
knowing why, and much like our . j- o^vn
be ."chn=‘'
coat an 5 galoshes, you would
situa , y
actions or feelings. In this ,s

justify the fact that you re scare

situations are
^ jjjaster
nothing to be afraid of ,1 occurred several
years
not hypothetical examples-thcy 7 investigators col-
ago in India. In the aftermath
o a q What
lected and analyzed the
rumors Indian
, Prasad,' an
they discovered was occurred in a neigh-
f ''“^"/a^ter
when
psychologist, found that, Wlag
village in question
that the residents of the
Lring town such
90 The Social Antfjtal

He arrives home, opens the door, reenters his apartment,

snaps out of his “trance,” and discovers himself standing there in
his raincoat and galoshes, with his umbrella in one hand and a
huge sack of cigarette cartons m
the other He looks momentarily
confused His friend, the hypnotist, says,
“Hey, Sam, where’ve you bcen^”
“Oh, )ust down to the store ”
“What did you buy>”
“Um um ”
It seems that I bought these cigarettes

“But you don’t smoke, do you^”

“No, but um um I’m going to do a lot of entertain-
ing during the next several weeks, and some of my friends
”
smoke
“How come you’re wearing all that rain gear on such a sunny
day5”
Well actually, the
weather is quite changeable this time
of year, and didn’t want to take any chances ”
I

“But there isn’t a cloud in the sky ”

“Well, you never can tell ”
“By the way, where did you buy the cigarettes^”
“Oh, hch, heh Well, um down at the A&P ”
“How come you went that far’”
Well, um um it was such a nice day, I thought it
might be fun to take long walk ”a
Most people are motivated to justify
their own actions, be-
liefs, and feelings When
a person does something, he will try, if
at all possible, to con\ince
himself (and others) that it was a
ogica reasonable thing to do
,
There was a good reason why Sam
per ormed those silly actions—
he was hynotized But because Sam
n t
I now that he had been hypnotized,
and because it was
apparently difficult for him
to accept the fact that he was capable
o c a\ing in a totally
nonsensical manner, he went to great
lengths to convince himself
(and his friend) that there was a
met lod to his madness, that his
actions w ere actually quite
sensible
The cspcrimcnt by Stanley Sthichter md Jerry Singer dis-
cussed m Chapter 2 (pp 25-27) tan also be understood in tlicse
 Self jmtificaUon 93

sistent Stated differently, two cognitions are dissonant if, con-

sidering these cognitions alone, the opposite of one follows
two
from the other Because the occurrence of cognitive dissonance is
unpleasant, people are motivated to reduce it, this is roughly
analagous to the processes involved in the induction and reduc-
tion of such drives as hunger or thirst— except that, here, the
physiological
driving force is cognitive discomfort rather than
hold two ideas that contradict each other is to dirt
discomfort To
philoso
with absurdity, and— as Albert Camus, the existentialist
pher, has observed— man is a creature who spends his
entire life in
absurd
an attempt to convince himself that his existence is not
absurd—
How do we convince ourselves that our lives are not
one
that how do we reduce cognitive dissonance’ By changing
IS,
render them more com-
or both cognitions m such a way so as to
or by adding new
patible (more consonant) with each other,
bridge the gap between the original cou-
cognitions that help
pons Let us cite an example that is, alas,
all too X
fainiliar ^
'he
cigarettes and then
people Suppose a person smokes
smoking to lung can-
Surgeon General’s report linking cigarette
cer and other respiratW
cognition “I smoke cigarettes” is
dissonant with
cLmuou
eognm^^ T
Clear y, t e
“cigarette smoking produces cancer
way to reduce dissonance in such
ing^ The cognition “cigarette
a situation

“
is "> S
^ people,
smo e
sonant with the cognition “I do not j
’
stop
It IS not easy to give up
smoking
issonanee_ ,In all
to «duce dissonance’
What does he do
smoking and failfd
probability, he will try to make light
'attempt to
rette smoking produces cancer g example,
of the evidence linking experimental evidence
that the e P
he might try to convince himself ople
he mig t
IS inconclusive In addition, eSecu that, if
convinc
who smoke and, by so doing, .
j pus He
Sam, Jack, and Harry into
tipped b
might switch to a filter oroducing materials
traps the ca P
believing that the filter smoking
that are
consonant ^v,th
Finally, he might add cognitions
92 The Social Animal

could feel the tremors but were not in immediate danger, there
was an abundance of rumors forecasting impending doom. Spe-
cifically, the residents
of this village believed and helped spread
rumors to the effect that (1) a flood was rushing toward them;
(2) February 26 would be a day of deluge and destruction; (3)
there would be another severe earthquake on the day of the lunar
eclipse; (4) therewould be a cyclone within a few days; and (5)
unforeseeable calamities were on the horizon.
Why in the world would people invent, believe, and commu-
nicate such stories? Were these people masochists? Certainly,
these rumors would not help the people to
feel calm and serene.
One rather compelling explanation for
this phenomenon is that
the people were terribly frightened
and, because there was not
ample justification for this fear, they
invented their own. Thus,
they were not compelled to feel
foolish. After all, if a cyclone is
on the way, isn’t it perfectly
reasonable that I be wild-eyed with
tear. This explanation
is bolstered by Durganand
Sinha’s study
ot rumors, Smha investigated
the rumors being spread in an
n * 2 n^vi
^gefollowingadisasterofsimilarmagnitude.Thema-
the situation in Prasad’s study and the one
jn inas study was that the people
being investigated by Sinha
a actua
y suffered the destruction and witnessed the damage.
ey were scared, but they
had good reasons to be scared— they
had no need to seek
additional justification for their fears. Thus,
IT rumors contained
no prediction of impending disaster and
o serious exaggeration.
Indeed, if anything, the rumors were
example, one rumor predicted
wJT (falsely) that the
would be restored within a very short time.
^
^1
•
we have been discussing here has been
process
theory of human cognition by Leon Fes-
j \
called the theory
of cognitive dissonance. As theories
^ remarkably simple
one, but— as we shall see— the range
o 1 app icatKm is enormous.
First, we will discuss the formal
aspects 0 t e theory, and
then we will discuss its ramifications.
^ica y, cognitive dissonance
is a state of tension that occurs
w enever^ an individual
simultaneously holds two cognitions
(ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions)
that are psychologically incon-
 Self-justification 95

to reduce dissonance (the need to convince oneself that one is

right) leads to behavior that is maladapuve and therefore
irra

people
Uonal For example, psychologists who have tried to help
people
give up smoking have reported the incidental finding that
who try to give up smoking and fail come, in time, to develop a
less intense attitude toward the dangers
of smoking than those

who have not yet made a concerted effort to give it up The

key

apparent paradox is a person’s degree of commitment to a

to this
to an action or
paracular action The more a person is committed
threatens
belief, the more resistant he will be to information that
his action or
that belief,and the more he will attempt to bolster
belief If he has tried to quit smoking
and has failed, is com “
intense in his bel'e”hat
mitted to smoke Thus, he becomes less
smoking is dangerous By the same token,
I
1 „se
person who had recently built a magnificent
near San Francisco would be less
Lack on the San Andreas fault
an immnen q
receptive to the arguments predicting
renting the °
than would a person who was only
committed, he doesn
months The new homeowner is
thing
believe that he has done an absurd nresent'
for a
Let us stay with cigarette smoking
an extreme example Suppose 7°“
,n,!tionL maximum
'

major cigarette company-yuu your lob consists

*"
,

to the idea of cigarette g

commitment
of producing, advertising, and
selling
™ ikq,, of peo
‘‘^n, m a
pleLf It’s t^e that cigarette dtth of a
sense, you are partially responsible j
j,

great Lny p/ople

nance Your cognition
Th.
I
7“^^ “
am
,
a dec
„ the early
be dissonant with your cognition , tn reduce this
disso
people” In
death of a great many link
evidence
nance, you must refute the order to further
between cigarettes and cancer ’
person, you might
a go
j

convince yourself that you are ,

j,sbelieve the
evi

go so far as to demonstrate how If yo t need is great

yourself
dence by smoking a great deal
94 The Social Amnial

m an attempt to make his behavior less absurd m spite of its dan-

ger Thus, he might enhance the value he places on smoking, that
IS, he might come to believe that smoking is an important and
highly enjoyable activity that is essential to his sanity “I may
lead a shorter life, be a more enjoyable one ” Similarly,
but it will
he might actually try to make a virtue out of smoking by devel-
oping a romantic, devil may-care image of himself, flouting dan-
ger by smoking cigarettes All such behavior reduces dissonance
by reducing the absurdity of the notion of going out of one’s way
to contract cancer The individual justifies his behavior by cog-
nitively minimizing the danger, or by exaggerating the impor-
tance of the action In effect, the individual has succeeded either
in building himself an attitude or in changing
an existing attitude
Imagine a 16 year-old girl who has not begun to smoke After
reading the Surgeon General’s report, is
she apt to believe it^ Of
course The evidence is objectively
sound, the source is expert
and trustworthy, and there is no reason
not to believe the report
And this is the crux of the
matter Earlier in this book, I made
the point that people strive
to be right, and that values and beliefs
become internalized when they
appear to be correct It is this
striving to be right that
motivates
people to pay close attention to
w at other people are
doing and to heed the advice of expert,
^ustworthy communicators This is
extremely rational behavior
ere are forces, however,
that can work against this rational
e avior The theory of cognitive dissonance does not picture
man as a rational animal,
rather, it pictures man as a rationalizing
anima According to the underlying
assumptions of the theory,
man is motivated not so much
to be right— rather, he is motivated
to e leve that he is
right (and wise, and decent, and good)
ometimes, a person s
motivation to be right and his motivation to
eieve t at e is right are
working in the same direction This is
w at IS appening with the young lady who doesn’t smoke and,
t ere ore, nds it easy
to accept the notion that smoking causes
lung cancer This would also be
true for a smoker who encoun-
ters the evidence linking
cigarette smoking to cancer and does
succeed in giving up cigarettes Occasionally,
however, the need
 Self-jiisufication 97

Do you think that any amount of rational evidence or argu-

ment could induce Mr Landry to believe that cigarette smoking
causes cancer^ At the close of the preceding chapter, we dis-
cussed the fact that information campaigns are relatively ineffec-
tive when they attempt to change deep-seated attitudes
can We
now see precisely why information campaigns are of limited
effectiveness If people are committed to an attitude, the informa-
tion that the communicator presents arouses dissonance, fre-
way to reduce the dissonance is to reject or to
quently, the best
distort the evidence The deeper a person’s commitment to an
attitude, the greater his tendency to reject dissonant evidence
may may not be convinced by the case of
Mr
The reader or
that cigarettes
Landry It is always possible that Landry believed
were good for people even before he began to J
true, his excitement about
the henehts ot
Obviously, if this were
attributed to dissonance uc
cigarette smoking could hardly be
a demonstrationof a c ear case o
more convincing would be
attitudinal distortion m a unique event Such a
a
provided several years ago by (of all things)
the Ivy League It was an important
game between Princeton
and Dartmouth It was billed as a grudge of
game earne t e eepn
became evident on the field the
in t e istory
being one of the roughest and dirtiest
All-American na
school On the Princeton team was an clear
became increasmgly
Ka^maier, as the game progressed, it
were out 'o im
that the Dartmouth players
piled on, an
carried the ball, he was gang-tackled,
game with a b™^e
was finally forced to leave the
exact y
while, the Princeton team was not
Kazmaier’s injury, a Dartmouth player
va
broke cur
with a broken leg Several fistfights
suffered >
injuries vere
course of the game, and many

couple of
"‘'“ometime after the game, a
C^ntn
Hastorf of Dartmouth and Hadley ghoucd
both campuses with their l6-niin P students
'The
films of the game to the students
on each campus
96 The Social Ammal

enough, you might even succeed in convincing yourself that

cigarettes are good for people Thus, in order to convince your-
self that you are wise, good, and right, you take action that is
stupid and detrimental to your health This analysis is so fantastic
that Its almost beyond ht\ic{~alviost
The following is a ver-
batim account of the first part of a news item released in Novem-
ber, 1971, by the Washington Post News Service

Jack Landry pulls what must be his

30th Marlboro of the day
out of one of the two packs on his
desk, lights a match to it and
tells how he doesn’t believe
all those reports about smoking and
cancer and emphysema
He has just begun to market yet another cigarette for Philip
A orris USA and is brimming with satisfaction over its pros-
pects ^

square with his conscience the spending of

5 million in these United
States over the next year to lure
people into smoking his new
brands
Its not a matter of
that,” says Landry, Philip Morns’ vice
presi ent for marketing
“Nearly half the adults
smoke It s a basic commodity
this country m
for them I’m serving a need
studies by pretty eminent
medical and
scientific
thorities one on a theory of stress,on how a heck of a lot of
^ cigarette smoking to relieve stress,
’u
^ worse off And there are plenty of
stu^ les that indicate
that cigarette smoking those
^ and all
diseases are not
related ”
satisfaction, says Landry, comes from being very good
competitive business, and he will point out
thnr pI°i
big-selling A^arlboro has just passed
Ampno* cbacco Ts the
m No 2 cigarette seller m America
(K T
J Reynolds IS still No
1)
Why a new cigarette now>
A Landry
Ampr”
^
inspiration of the marketing of a new
cigarette, which Landry predicts confidently will
hivp
share of the American market within 12
fi?
^ ^ percent will equal about five billion cigarettes
7 u
and a I?
healthy profit for Philip Morns S ^ U A
 Self-^usttficatwn 99

were extremely sensible and plausible, and others were so im-

plausible that they borderedon the ridiculous Jones and Kohler
were interested m determining which of the arguments the people
would remember best If people were purely rational, we would
expect them to remember the plausible arguments best and the
implausible arguments least why in the world would a person
want to keep implausible arguments in his head^
Accordingly,
arguments
the rational man would rehearse and remember all the
arguments
that made sense and would slough off all ridiculous
com-
does the theory of cognitive dissonance predict^
It is
What
forting to haveall the wise men on your side
and all the fools on
silly argument in
the other side When a person reads or hears a
some dissonance, because it
favor of his own position, it arouses
or t e inte i
some doubts about the wisdom of his position
raises
every time e
gence of the people who agree with him Likewise,
side of the ^
hears a plausible argument on the other
the possi 1
y
arouses some dissonance, because it suggests 1

arguments
the other side may be right Because these
them-that is, e mg
sonance, he will try not to think about
learn them very well, or he might simply ®
Thetr s«b,ects d d not^
.s exactly whai Jones and Kohler found
manner ey ®
remember in a rational-functional
member the plausible arguments that were m ag
arguments that were
theirown position, and the mphmMe
agreement with the opposing position cognitive
Those of us who have worked °
, behavior
man is cap
dissonance do not deny that
behavior is
The theory merely suggests that a g-'Lt °
not rational— although, from inside, it
y
m^S -
^
indeed If you ask the hypnotized feels is

raincoat a sunny day, he’ll P™

on “
of p,^ bp Morns
why he
sensible, ifyou ask the vice-preadent bim-he’ll tell
smokes, he’ll give you a reason that ma es

you how good It IS a’particular set

of arp
Kohler’s subjects why they remcm P
arguments they
insist t
ments rather than others, they’ll pf those
that

remembered were a fair and representa

i
98 The Social Animal

were instructed to be completely objective and, while watching

the him, to take notes of each infraction of the rules, how it
started,and who was responsible As you might imagine, there
was huge difference in the way this game was viewed by the
a
students at each university There was a strong tendency for the
students to see theirown fellow students as victims of illegal ag-
gression, rather than as perpetrators of illegal aggression More-
over, this was no minor distornon it was found Princeton
that
saw fully twice as many violations on the part of the
students
Dartmouth players as the Dartmouth students saw Again, people
are not passive receptacles for the
deposition of information The
manner in which they view and interpret information depends
upon how deeply they are committed to a particular belief or
course of action Individuals will
distort the objective world in
order to reduce dissonance The
manner m
which they will dis-
tort and the intensity of their distortion
are highly predictable

Dissonance-reductwn and Rational Behavior

I have referred to dissonance

reducing behavior as “irrational"
t IS I mean that
y it is often maladaptive,
in that it can prevent a
person rom learning
important facts or from finding real solu
ions to is problems
On the other hand, it does serve a purpose
Uissonance reducing behavior
is ego defensive behavior, by re-
ducing dissonance, we
maintain a positive image of ourselves-an
^ 2t depicts us
as good, or smart, or worthwhile Again,
oug t IS ego defensive
behavior can be considered useful, it
‘^^sfrous consequences In
the laboratory, the irration
^^^°^^uce reducing behavior has
^
Vrate H m been amply demon
s a number of experiments A particularly interesting
in a study by Edward Jones and Rika
o er
^6
^hese investigators
selected individuals who were deep
y committed to a position
on the issue of racial segregation— some
0 ^ were in favor of segregation, and others were
opposed to it These individuals
were then allowed to read a series
of arguments on both sides of the issue
Some of these arguments
 Self-justification lOI

of this predecision behavior is perfectly rational. Let us assume

you make a decision— you buy a VW Microbus. What happens
next? Your behavior will begin to change: No longer will you
seek objective information about all makes of cars. Chances are
you may begin to spendmore time talking to VW owners. You
will begin to talk about the number of miles to the gallon as

though it were the most important thing in the world. My guess

is that you prone to spend much time thinking about
will not be
the fact that the wind can make driving a Microbus in windy
mountain passes particularly hazardous; your failure to attend to
this shortcoming could conceivably cost you your life.

How does this sort of situation come about? Following a de-

significant
cision— especially a difficult one, or one that involves a
ex-
commitment in time, effort, or money— people almost always
alternative is
perience dissonance. This is so because the chosen
are sel om
seldom entirely positive and the rejected alternatives
cognition that you
entirely negative. In this example, your
about any
bought a Microbus is dissonant with your cognition
positive
deficiencies that the car have. Similarly, all the
may
buying but did not uy
aspects of each car that you considered
not uy t at can
are dissonant with your cognition that you did
out exc usnc y
A good way to reduce such dissonance is to seek
and avoi negam e
positive information about the car you chose
a ve
information about it. One source of
safe information is

ments; it is a safe bet that an ad will

not run *
,

that “
product. Accordingly, one might predict .

read a
recently purchased a new car will begin to
jus own
selectively— he will read more ads about
pure ase
purchase than people who have not recently
tend to
model; moreover, owners of new cars wil
ads for other makes of cars. This is etactly '' « ''
Danuta Ehrlich and her colleagues' in a we -

advertising readership. In short, Ehrlich s

decision was
that his drasio
a dccisionfa person tries to gain r^uranee
wise by seeking information that is certain to ^ to
Avenue
People doLt always need help
from
goo
gain reassurance; they can do a pretty I
100 The Social Anuml

they read It is important to note that the world

is not divided

into rational peopleon the one side and dissonance-reducers on

the other Although it is undoubtedly true that people are not all
the same— and, accordingly, that some people are able to tolerate
dissonance better than others— basically, we are all capable of
rational behaviorand we are all capable of dissonance-reducing
behavior, depending upon the circumstances Occasionally, the
same person can manifest both behaviors in rapid succession
The rationality and irrationality of human behavior will be
illustrated over and over again during the next several pages, as
we list and discuss some of the wide ramifications
of man’s need
for self-justification These ramifications
run virtually the entire
gamut of human behavior, but for the
sake of conserving time
and space, we will sample only a few of these Let us begin with
the decision making process-a
process that shows man at his
most rational and his most irrational in quick succession

Dissonance as a Consequence
of Making a Decision

Suppose you are about to

make a decision— about the purchase of
a new car, for example
This involves a significant amount of
money, it is, by definition,
so
an important decision Your family
ISgrowing, so you ve decided
on a station wagon But what kind^
ou It e a VW
Microbus, a compact foreign model, or a
large, expensive
one from General Motors^^ There are various
advantages and disadvantages
to each good
The Microbus gets
“in,” but you’ve heard that it’s not very
e arge GM car has plenty of room and power,
is safe,
It s expensive to buy and operate The more compact car is
youVe heard that it has an excellent repair
^ guess is that, before you
make the decision, you will
^ek as much information asyou can Chances are you will read
onsumer eports to find out what this expert, unbiased source
as to say Perhaps you’ll
confer with some friends who own the
various cars under
consideration You’ll probably visit the auto-
mo 1 e ea ers to test-drive the cars to see how each one feels All
 Self-jiistification 103

camps What do you do^ You could try to flee from your coun-
try, you could try to pass as a member of a different religious
group, or you could sit tight and hope for the best Each of these
options IS extremely dangerous It is very difficult to escape or to

pass and go undetected, and if you are caught trying to flee or

pass, the penalty is immediate execution On the other hand, de-
ciding to sit tight could be a disastrous decision, if it turns out
that your religious group is being systematically annihilated Let
us suppose that to sit tight That is an important de-
you decide
cision— and, naturally, produces a great deal of dissonance In
it

order to reduce dissonance, you convince yourself that you made

peo-
a wise decision— that is, you convince yourself that, although
treated
ple of your religious sect are made to move and are being
unfairly, they are not being killed unless they break the
law

Suppose months later, a respected man from your

that,
all the men, women,
and children
tells you that he has witnessed
who had been deported from the town being butc ere
recently
to dismiss t is
mercilessly I would predict that you would try
convince your
information as untrue— that you would attempt to
Accor mg y
self that the reporter was lying or hallucinating
although,if you had listened to the man
who tried to warn you,
being s aug
you might have been able to escape— you end up
tered ,
^
Fantastic’ Impossible’ How could anyone not ta e t
are an a
spected man” seriously’ The events described above
1944, to tic J
rate account of exactly what happened, in
Sighet, a small town in Hungary ** , ,

and se ecrive P
The processes of cognitive distortion
to information may ha\e been an important
factor m ,

0 ing
tion of the Vietnam In a thought-pro\
war in ^ ^
the Pentagon Papers, Ralph White suggeste
t
j

blmded our leaders to information that

itc pu
Vhcrc
the decisions they had already made As \
*

of me "i
tendency, a\hcn actions were out
.
^'as a
their
decision-makers to align their ideas with escalate
)ust one of many examples, the decision to
the price
,
mnonn"
^
the bombing of North Vietnam w as made at
102 The Social Animal

themselves An experiment by Jack Brehm'* demonstrates how

this can come about Posing as a marketing researcher, Brehm
showed each of several women eight different appliances (a
toaster, grill, and the like)
an electric coffee maker, a sandwich
and asked that she rate them in terms of how attractive each ap-
pliance was to her As a reward, each woman was told that she
could have one of the appliances as a gift— and she was given a
choice between two of the products she had rated as being attrac-
tive After she chose one, it was wrapped up and given to her

Several minutes later, she was asked to rate the products again
It was found that after receiving the appliance of her choice, each
woman rated the attractiveness of that appliance somewhat high-
er,and decreased the rating of the appliance that she had a chance
to own but decided against Again, making a decision produces
dissonance cognitions about any negative aspects of the pre-
ferred object are dissonant with having chosen it, and cognitions
about the positive aspects of the unchosen object are dissonant
with not having chosen it To reduce dissonance, people cogni-
tively spread apart the alternatives
That is, after the decision,
they emphasized the positive attributes of the appliance they de-
cided to own while de-emphasizmg
its negative attributes, for
the appliance they decided not to
own, they emphasized its nega-
tive and de emphasized its positive attributes This
attributes
basic phenomenon has been
extended and further clarified by a
number of different investigators ®

Some Historical Examples of the Consequences

of Decisions
It is impossible to overstate the potential importance of this phe-
nomenon When I mentioned that ignoring danger in order to
reduce dissonance could conceivably
lead to a person’s death, I
meant that literally Suppose a
madman has taken over your
country and has decided to
eradicate all members of your reli-
pous group But you don’t know that for sure What you do
know IS that your
country is being occupied, that the leader of
the occupation forces does not
like your religious group very
much, and that, occasionally, members of your religious group
are forced to move from their homes
and are kept in detention
 Self-pistification 105

and Scott Fraser These experimenters attempted to induce each

of several homeowners to put up a huge, ugly sign in his front
yard that read “Drive Carefully ” Because this sign would have
uglified his property, the typical homeowner refused to do it

only 17 percent complied However, each subject in a different

group of homeowners was first “softened up” by an experimenter
m
who “put his foot the door” by getting him to sign a petition
favoring safe driving Because the signing of a petition is an easy
thing, virtually all ofthem complied A few weeks later, a dif-
ferent experimenter went to each homeowner with a huge, ugly
percent of these
sign reading “Drive Carefully” More than 55
property
homeowners allowed the sign to be put up on their
it increases
Thus, when a person commits himself in a small way,
further in that irec
the probability that he will commit himself
tion This phenomenon is known as escalation

key d""™-
The Impomnce of Irrevocability One of the
nants of whether or not a person engages m
of t ®
evaluation after a decision is the irrevocability
make
This needs some explaining Occasionally, we
that you "”6
cisions For example, if you had indicated
deasion
$100,000 house near San Francisco, but the
effort tty* S
ized,chances are you u ould not expend any i,
jg
ut
Vince yourself of the wisdom of the decision,
J

put your money down and you knew that

you “ ,

back, you would probably start

** or the
the oun ,

dampness in the basement, the cracks in

fact that It happened to be bu.lt on the
San
irrevocability
evidence for the importance of ^
clever study of the cognitive gyrations o S^*^ ,

track Robert Knox and James I**'-**'" ahead)

, l,ad
>
piewho were on their way to place $2
to p a
decided on their horses and were about
the inv cstigators asked them how certain t
52 w in-
"
horscs w ould win Because they w ere on > ^j|«tors col-
dow , their decisions w ere not irrevocable indow , after
larcd other bettors )ust as they w ere Icav mg t e
104 The Social Antmal

crucial evidencefrom the CIA and other sources that made it

bombing would not break the will of the North Viet-
clear that
namese people, but, quite the contrary, would only strengthen
their resolve

It is instructive, for instance, tocompare McNamara’s highly

factual evidence-oriented summaryof the case against bombing
in 1966 (pages 555-563 of the Pentagon Papers) with the Joint
Chief’s memorandum that disputed his conclusion and called
the bombing one of our two trump cards, while it apparently
Ignored all of the facts that showed the opposite Yet it was the
Joint Chiefs who prevailed

White surmises that the reason that they prevailed was that their
advice was consonant with decisions that had already been made
and with certain key assumptions that proved to be erroneous
Escalation is a process that continues to feed on itself Once a
small commitment is made, it sets the stage for ever increasing
commitments The flavor of this kind of cognitive escalation is
nicely captured in an analysis of the Pentagon Papers by the news
magazine Time

Yet the bureaucracy, the Pentagon Papers indicate, always de-

manded new options, each option was to apply more force
Each tightening of the screw created a position that must be
defended, once committed, the military pressure must be main-
‘2
' ^
tained

This process has been investigated under controlled experi-

mental conditions Suppose you would
like to enlist someone’s aid
in a massive undertaking, but
you know that the job you have m
mind for him is so difficult, and will require so much time or
effort, that the person will surely decline What should you do^
One possibility is to get him involved in a much smaller aspect of
the job— one that is so easy that he wouldn’t dream of turning it

down This action serves to commit him to “the cause ” Once he

ISthus committed, the likelihood of his complying with the larger
request increases This was demonstrated by Jonathan Freedman
 Self ]iist:fication 107

the positive aspects)— much the same way the women did after

choosing an appliance in Jack Brehm’s experiment In this in-

stance, an efficacious path of dissonance reduction
would entail a
adopt a
change in your attitude about cheating In short, you will
something like
more lenient attitude Your reasoning might go
this “Cheating isn’t so bad, under some circumstances As long as
nobody gets hurt, it’s really not very immoral-anybody would
so how could it be
do It— therefore, it’s part of human nature
should not be severely
bad’ If anyone gets caught cheanng, he
punished, but should be treated with understauding
Suppose that, after a difficult struggle,
you decide Tiot to
dissonance’ Once again,
you
cheat How
would you reduce
of t
could change your attitude about the morality
justify t e act t a
the opposite direction That is, in order to
yourself mat
you gave up a good grade, you must convince
sin, that it’s one of
the lowest things *
cheating is a heinous
can do, and that cheaters should be found out an y

to
The interesting and important thing
hypothetica y
that the initial attitudes of the people
cou e
above could have been virtually identical It
one came wi
decisions were a hair’s breadth apart— that
other
of resisting, decided to cheat, while the
but .

resist Once the de

ace of chLing, but decided to
cheating S
been made, however, their attitudes toward
sharply as a consequence of their decisions Mijic” m
test by J^dso"
These speculations were put to the
an experiment with sixth graders Mills first
^
tudes toward cheating He then had them The
_.fs
petitive exam with prizes being offered
^1^1^ to
situation was arranged so that it was cheat,
for child en to
the ojf.jdren
without cheating, and so that it was easy
As one tmg^i^^^
thinking It would go undetected
the students cheated and others did not 1
te) about cheat-
graders w ere again allowed to indirate how
ing In general, those children who had
106 The Social Animal

having placed their bets, and asked them how certain they were
that their horses would win. Typically, an individual who had
just placed his bet gave his horse a better chance of winning than
did one who was about to place his bet. In short, when the deci-
sion is irrevocable, more dissonance gets reduced; people are
more certain they are right a^ter there is nothing they can do
about it.

The Decision to Behave Inrmorally. How can we corrupt an

honest person^ Conversely, how can we get a person to be more
honest? One way is to capitalize on the dissonance that results
from making Suppose you are a college stu-
a difficult decision.
dent enrolled in a biology course. Your grade will hinge on the
final exam that you are now taking. The key question on the

exam involves some material that you know fairly well— but, be-
cause of anxiety, you draw a blank. You are sitting there in a
nervous sweat. You look up and, lo and behold, you happerl to be
sitting behind the smartest guy in
the class (who also happens,
fortunately, to be the guy with the most legible handwriting in
the class).You glance down and you notice that he is just com-
pleting his answer to the crucial
question. You know that you
could easily read his answer if you chose to. What do you do?
Your conscience tells you that it’s wrong to cheat—and yet, if
you don t cheat, you are certainto get a poor grade. You wrestle
with your conscience. Regardless of
whether you decide to cheat
or not to cheat; you are doomed
to experience dissonance. If you
cheat, your cognition “I am
a decent moral person” is dissonant
with your cognition “I have just
committed an immoral act.'* If
you decide to resist temptation, your cognition “I want to get a
good grade is dissonant with your cognition “I could have acted
in such a way that would have insured that I got a good grade,
but I chose not to.”
Suppose that, after a difficult struggle, you decide to cheat.
How do you reduce dissonance? Before you read on, think about
itfor a moment. One way to reduce dissonance is to minimize the
negative aspects of the action you have chosen (and to maximize
 Self-iustification 109

The Psychology of Inadequate Justification

Attitude change as a means of reducing dissonance is not, of

course, limited to post-decision situations This can occur in
countless other situations, including every time a person says
something he doesn’t believe, or does something stupid or im-
moral The effects can be extremely powerful Let us look at
some of them
In a complex society, we occasionally find ourselves saying or
doing things that we don’t completely believe For example, Sam
Businessman enters the office and sees his secretary wearing a
perfectly atrocious outfit with pmk stripes and orange polka dots
“How do you like new dress^” she asks timidly “Very pret-
my
ty,” he answers Theoretically, Sam’s cognition “I am a truthful
person” is dissonant with his cognition “I said that dress was very
pretty, although I believe it to be a disaster ” Whatever disso-
and
nance may bearoused by this inconsistency can be easily
quickly reduced by Sam’s cognition that it’s important not to
hurt people “I lied so as not to hurt her, why should I tell her
” This is an
that It’s an ugly It serves no useful purpose
dress^
completely justi-
effective way of reducing dissonance, because it

situation-
fies the action Sam took In effect, the justification is

determined We will call this external justification m

But what happens if there is not ample external justification
the situation itself^ For example, imagine that Sam Businessman,
who IS a rather conservative pe'rson, finds himself
at a
^
party with many people whom he doesn’t know very
conversation turns to politics The people are talking wit
rien
about the fact that the United States seems to be making y
Sams e le is a
overtures toward the People’s Republic of China
but genera e
complicated one, he has mixed feelings about it, y
IS opposed
to our dealing with the Chinese
Communists
he feels that they are evil and we should not compromise wi
so pious,
evil Partly because Sam’s companions are sounding
partly as a lark, he gradually finds himself taking a much
mo
s ^
liberal-radical position than the one he really holds
uf fact, Sam even goes so far as to assert that Mao se u g
io8 The Social Animal

lenient toward cheating, and those who resisted the temptation to

cheat adopted a harsher attitude toward cheating
The data from expenment are provocative indeed One
Mills’
thing they suggest ismost zealous opponents of a given
that the
position are not those who have always been distant from that
position For example, one might hazard a guess that the people
who are most angry at the apparent sexual promiscuity associated
with the hippie subculture may not be those who have never been
tempted to be sexually promiscuous themselves Indeed, Mills’
data suggest the possibility that the people who have the strongest
need to crack down hard on this sort of behavior are those who
have been sorely tempted, who came dangerously close to giving
m to this temptation, but who finally resisted People who almost
decide to live in glass houses are frequently the ones who are most
prone to throw stones

Early m this chapter,

I discussed the fact that the desire for

self-justification an important reason why people who are

is

strongly committed to an attitude on

an issue tend to resist any
direct attempts to change that
attitude In effect, such people are
invulnerable to the propaganda or education
in question can We
now see that the same mechanism that enables a person to cling to
an attitude can induce him to
change an attitude It depends on
which course of action will serve most
to reduce dissonance
under the circumstances A
person who understands the theory
can set up the proper conditions
to induce attitude change in
other people by making
them vulnerable to certain kinds of
beliefsFor example, if a modern Machiavelli were advising a
contemporary ruler, he might
suggest the following strategies
based upon the theory and data
on the consequences of decisions
1 If you avant someone to form more positive attitudes toward
an object get him to commit himself to own that object
2 If you want someone
to soften his moral attitude toward
some misdeed tempt him so that he performs that deed, con
versely, if you want someone
to harden his moral attitudes
toward a misdeed tempt him—but not enough to induce him to
commit the deed
 Self-^ustificatwn II

also begin to be more receptive to information that indicates the

extent of the corruption and brutality of Chiang Kai shek s gov-

of belief
erninent To repeat if an individual makes a statement
that IS difficult to justify externally, he will attempt
to justify it

tniefnally by making his attitudes more consistent with the state-

ment
justi ca
We have mentioned a couple of forms of external
non One is the idea that it*s all right to tell
a harmless he in or er
of Sam an is
to avoid hurting a person’s feelings— as in the case
is when a person
is run
secretary’s unattractive dress Another
and, therefore, not responsible for his own actions Still anot er
in am s
form of external justification is reward Put yourself
shoes for a moment, and suppose that you and I
both were at t a
to Red C ina,
pu
cocktail party, as the conversation turned
you and say “Hey, I would like you to
aside
come
in favor of Mao Tse-tung and Chinese communism
After co g
more, suppose I handed you $5000 for doing it
the money, you gasp, put the $5000 in your
hilt T e nex
discussion, and defend Mao Tse-tung to the
experience a y
mg when you wake up in bed, would you
n "nce> I Your cognition “I
dL’t thmk so
Mao Tse-tung and Chinese communism that 1 ^
nprcon
”
an
dissonant with the cognition “I am a truthful for
But, at the same time, you have adequate externa
e
having made that statement “I said those favora „
order to earn $5000—
an i
Chinese communism m
In effect, you have 5000 cognitions that are attitude
mg made that statement You don’t have to so tc y
toward Mao m
order to justify that ^ tji.nk it’s

you made the statement you made it vot b > I

order to get the $5000 You

re c
true,but m
edge that you sold your sou! for $5000 an .r.j.rrs that ue
Saying’is believing, that is, an abun-
begm to behev c our own lies—but only i
..—ments that run
ic s
dance of external justification for making t to elaborate
counter to our original attitude can now begin
We
1 10 The Social Animal

a better leader than Chiang Kai-shek and that the Chinese people
are better off under communism than they’ve been in hundreds of
years Somebody counters Sam’s argument by talking about the
millions of people that Mao supposedly murdered in order to
achieve a unified government In the heat of the situation, Sam
replies that those figures are grossly exaggerated Quite a per-
formance for a man who does, in fact, believe that Mao killed

millions of innocent people during his rise to power

When Sam awakes the next morning and thinks back on the
evening’s events, he gasps in horror “Oh, my God, what have I
done^” he says He is intensely uncomfortable Another way of
putting It is that he is experiencing a great deal of dissonance His
cognition “I misled a bunch of people, I told them a lot of things
about Red China that I don’t really believe” is dissonant with his
cognition “I am a reasonable, decent, and truthful person ” What
does he do to reduce dissonance^ He searches around for exteriial
First, it occurs to Sam that he might have be^n
lustifications
drunk, and therefore not responsible for what he said But he
remembers that he only had one or two martinis— no external
justfication there Because Sam cannot find sufficient external
justification for his behavior, it is necessary for him to attempt to
justify his behavior internally— the
by changing his attitude in
direction of his statements That is, if Sam can succeed in con
vincing himself that his statements were
not so very far from the
truth, then he will have reduced
dissonance— that is Ins behavior
of the preceding night will no longer
be absurd in his own view
I do not mean to imply that Sam would suddenly become an
avowed Maoist What I do mean is that he might begin to feel a
little less harshly about
the Chinese Communists than he had felt
before he made those statements
Most events of this world are
built m
such a way that they are neither completely black nor
completely white, there are many gray areas Thus, Sam might
begin to take a different look at some of the events that have
taken place m
China during the past fifty years He might start
by looking into some of Mao’s writings and being disposed
toward seeing wisdom there that he hadn’t seen before He might
 .

Self-justification

After the experiment was over, an

inter-
dollar for telling the lie
viewer asked the “he-tellers” how they had enjoyed the tasks that
they had performed earlier in the experiment The results were
paid
clearcut Those students who had previously been
packing had
dollars for lymg-that is, for saying that the spool
been enjoyable— actually rated it as being dull This
who a een
prising— It was dull But what about the students
t at t e tas
paid only one dollar for telling their fellow student
rate the task as an enjoya
was enjoyable^ They did, indeed,
who receivedabundance o e\ e
an
one In other words, people
t be leve it,
but didn
nal justification for lying told the lie
ea o
those who told the he the absence of a great
m
justification did, indeed, move m
the direction o
e levi g

what they said was true „ . ,_.„.non

believing p
Research support for the “saying is
has extended beyond relatively unimportant -hcvn
dullness of a monotonoustask Attitude '^baiy®
'i.„.i,,otion of
an t ® S
on such important issues as police brutality Cohen”
r
marijuana In one experiment, for example, j ^
mdueed Yale students to engage m a
‘'iment
of counterattitudmal behavior Cohen police
Haten
immediately after a student not which m students The
towar
had behaved in a rather brutal manner bchwed
t e P°
students (who strongly believed that , actions
badly) were asked to write an essay strongest,
to
taken by the police Students were urge muster
action
most forceful defense of the police efforts
’vyte
Before writing the essay, students j ten dollars,
ents
There were four conditions some stu ^ fourth
others, five dollars, still others,
one °
, ^\rotc lus cssa>,
eac ^
the paltry sum of fifty cents After the police
he was asked to indicate his ow n
prn a tlic row ard.
smaller
actions The results are ^\ho vrotc
m sup
Thus, p P cents
the greater the attitude change fift>
mej,
port of the NewHaven police for the
e tow
developed a more favorable attitu
1 12 The Social Animal

on our earlier discussion of conformity Recall that in Chapter 2

we found that, in order to get overt compliance, the greater the
reward, the greater the probability that a person would comply
But now we can go one step further in order to produce an
actual change m attitudes, the greater the reward, the less likely it

IS that any attitude change will occur If all I want you to do is to

recite a speech favoring Mao Tse tung, Richard Nixon, or any
one, the most efficient thing for me to do would be to give you
the largest possible reward This would increase the probability
thatyou will comply by making that speech But suppose I have
a more ambitious goal suppose I want to effect a lasting change in
your attitudes and beliefs In that case, just the reverse is true The
smaller the external reward that I give you to induce you to re
cite the speech, the more likely it is that you will be forced to

seek additional justification, in the form of convincing yourself

that the thingsyou said were actually true This would result in
an actual change of attitude, rather than mere compliance The
importance of this technique cannot be overstated If a person
changes his attitude because he makes a public statement for mini
mal external justification, that attitude change will be relatively
permanent, the person is not changing his attitudes because of the
reward (compliance) or because an attractive person influenced
him (identification) He’s changing his attitudes because he has
succeeded in convincing himself that his previous attitudes were
incorrect This is a very powerful form of attitude change
Thus far, we have been dealing with highly speculative ma
terial These speculations have been investigated scientifically in
several experiments Among these is a classic study by Leon
Festinger and J Merrill Carlsmith Festmger and Carlsmith
asked college students to perform a very boring and repetitive
series of tasks— packing spools,
turning screws, and so on The
experimenter then induced them to lie about the task, specifically,
he employed them to tell a co ed (who was waiting to participate
in the experiment) that the task she would be performing was
interesting and enjoyable Some of the students were offered
twenty dollars for telling the he, others were offered only one
 h
Self--}Ustification

this reasoning Those who cheated in order to obtain a small

cheating more than
reward tended to soften their attitudes about
Moreover
those who cheated m
order to obtain a large reward
those temptation
who resisted m
the face of a large reward tended
cheating to a greater extent than
to harden their attitudes about
reward-just as one might
those who resisted in the face of a small
expect

The analysis of the disso-

Dissonance and the Self-concept
nance phenomenon presented m this section requires a departure
experiment by Festmger
from Festinger's original theory In
original
and Carlsmith, for example, the f disso^
“1 believe the task is dull is
went like this the cognition
the task was "S
nant with the cognition “I said
theory in a
years ago, I reformulated the „
of h™^e jjjsically,
Mention on the individual's conception
that dissonance is ™
this reformulation suggests
is t rea e
situations where the self-concept , above is

important aspect of
^uth the cognition
not that the cognition I said A misled
” Rather, the crucia fact ^
‘I believe ‘not X' „
people the cognition “I have
sai
,,® ,
^ dissonant
with my
for p
could have bad consequences p „ that “I am a
dissonant with my cognition
self-concept, that is, it is
person
decent, reasonable, truthful „ that most indi-
is based upon
the assu
This formulation p .^uMn’t
vidualshketothinkofthemsevesasW^^^
someone unless there h
ordinarily mislead him
especially if, m misleading that ^ g ^
believes that
could be disastrous Icgahrcd
drfniteiy not be
marijuana is dangerous an the use of
ma speech advocating
Suppose he is induced to the statement
to an

ma'riiuana Suppose further to be irrcio

indnidua
audience consisting of ^5^ of marijuana
^1^^
cably committed to a of the
the Daughters
of a H
(for example, members
114 The Social Animal

than did the people who wrote the essay for one dollar, the peo
pie who wrote the essay for one dollar developed a more favor-

able attitude toward the actions of the police than did the people
who wrote the essay for ten dollars, and so on The less the exter-
nal justification in terms of money, the greater the attitude
change

What
ts Inadequate Jitstificauon^ Throughout this section,

we have been refermg to “inadequate” external justification and

“an abundance” of externa! justification These terms require
some additional clarification In the Festmger-Carlsmith experi-
ment, allof the subjects did, in fact, agree to tell the lie— includ
ing all of those paid only one dollar In a sense then, one dollar
was adequate to induce the subjects to tell the he, but,
as It turns out, wasn’t sufficient to keep them from feeling
it

foolish In order to reduce their feelings of foolishness, they had

to reduce the dissonance that resulted from telling a he for so
paltry asum This entailed additional bolstering m the form of
convincing themselves that it wasn’t completely a and that the
lie,
task asn’t quite as dull as it
seemed at first— as a matter of fact,
when looked at in a certain May, it was actually quite interesting
It would be fruitful to
compare these results with Judson
iMills data on the effects of cheating
among sixth graders Recall
that in Mills experiment, the decision to
about whether or not
cheat was almost certainly a difficult one
for most of the children
This IS why they experienced dissonance regardless of whether
they cheated or resisted temptation
One could speculate about
what would happen if the rewards to be gained by cheating were
very large For one thing, it would be more tempting to cheat—
therefore, more people would
actually cheat But, more impor-
tant, if the guns for cheating
were astronomical, those who
cheated would undergo very little attitude change A'liich like the
college students who lied in Festinger and Carlsmith’s twenty
dollar condition, those who cheated for a great rew ard would
have less need to reduce dissonance In fact, Mills did include this
refinement in his experiment, and his results are consistent with
 °

Self-Justification 117

greater the disso-

tentialharm, the greater the dissonance, the
nance, the greater the attitude change

Inadequate Rewards as Applied to

Education A great deal of
phenomenon ap-
research has shown that the insufficient-reward
making of “unter-
plies to all forms of behavior-not simply the
been ffiat.
attitudinal statements For example, it has
^
task fot very lit
person actually performs a rather dull
more enjoyable than ;f h had^
justification, he rates the task as
great deal of external justificat.on
L mean that people would rather
for performing ^
receive low
and t y f
^^
doing a job People prefer to receive high pay
for
But if they ^te
off^ed low FX
work harder for high pay
to do it, t ere
doing a job, and still they agree
tween the dullness of the task and the low
qualities
^ (j,e

to
W
dissonance, they attribute good ^ ^
o t e
come more to enjoy the mechanics j
far-reaching
nomenon
than with a high salary This phf J
consequences For example, lets foreign-language
^
classroom If you want Johnny ,
high
, ^ praise,
rewar
vocabulary, then you should
1 ,
g Will
good "
prLnts, and the like are after
grades,
words, just
Johnny recite the foreign pi"" words, will the

the rewards are no longer it But if

the ex-
/ j^p^t
high rewards mahe him n own )ustifi-

tefnal rewards are not

too high, Joh"^,

even
foragn
cation for performing the g oontiniie to
In short, e is
make a game of it
j^poJ ,s out and the
long after
memorise the foreign vocabulary
rewards have been withdrawn

that, soon
•It should be mentioned '^[jJp,°jJj'debri"fed as j
discussed here, each
subject ""’g" > „„empt «as "1=*
5
finished his role in the of the subjects

causing a permanent chang P >

experiment, this is
ato an exp ^„„„de
impomnt to debrief ^^jects a change in
when the experiment induces
116 The Social Ammal

American Revolution, or prohibitionists) In this case, there are

no dangerous consequences for the audience, because they are
unlikely to be changed by Sam’s communication That is, the
communicator is in little danger of doing anyone any real harm
According to our view of dissonance theory, Sam would not
change his attitude, because he is not doing anyone any harm
Similarly, ifSam were asked to make the same statement to a
group of individuals whom he knows to be irrevocably commit-
ted to the use of marijuana, there would be no possibility of a
negative beha\ioral change in the audience Again, he stands little

chance of doing harm, because the members of his audience al-

ready believe what he is telling them On the other hand, if Sam
were induced to make the identical speech to a group of individ-
uals who have no prior information about marijuana, we expect
that he would experience much more dissonance than m the other
situations His cognition that he is a good and decent person is
dissonant with his cognition that he has said something he doesn’t
believe,moreover, his statement is likely to have serious heliej or
behavioral consequences for his audience To reduce dissonance,
he should convince himself that the position he advocated is cor-
rect This would allow him to believe that he has not harmed
anyone Moreover, in this situation, the smaller the incentive he
receives for advocating the position, the greater the attitude
change I recently tested and confirmed this hypothesis in collab-

oration with Elizabeth Nel and Robert Helmreich We found

an enormous change in attitudes toward marijuana when subjects
were offered a small reward for making a video tape recording of
a speech favoring the use of marijuana—
but only when they were
led to belie\e that the tapewould be shown to an audience that
was uncomvntted on the issue On the other hand, when subjects
were told that the tape would be played to people who were
irrevocably committed on the subject of marijuana (one way or
another), there was relatively little attitude change on the part of
the speaker Thus, lying produces a greater attitude change in the
liar when he is undercompensated for lying, especially when the

lie is apt to cause another person some harm the greater the po-
 Self-pisttfication 119

me those things that contribute to their

own health and welfare
and welfare of others If children would en)oy
and to the health
kids or enjoy not cheating or not stealing
7iot beating up smaller
vigilance and curtail its
from others, then society could relax its

extremely difficult to persuade people (espe-

punitiveness It is
smaller
mlly young children) that it’s not enjoyable to beat up
under certain conditions, they
people But It is conceivable that,
behavior is
persuade themselves that such
the scene
Let’s take a closer look Picture
beating “P.
of a five-year-old child who enjoys
with him, but »
no ava. So
go
old brother You’ve tried to reason
of the younger uh >dj “d
in order to protect the welfare
person out of
hoped) in order to make a “nicer”
punish the
er,Vu begin to
fiTHumler of punfshments
that
number 01
Each parent has at his disposal a j^

range from the extremely mild

comer for
t e c 1
severe (a hard spanking, forcing ^ month)
of
two hours, and depriving b'™ P
j®,jj|,j,ood that the
threat, gteater t
The more severe the
iohi
youngster will mend his v. lys y
yo /
„j.
again as soon as
L may very well hit his brother

’’'"suppose instead, that you VuX^^^ o ""f

threat of severej^u^
ishment In either case (under Heisavare
expenen
mild punishment), the ohdd ^1^^^ l,e
his little broth
that he IS not beating up ^
would very much hke to beat
b™
“P effect,

urge to hit his brother

and doesn t, severe

“How come I’m not beating up *0 ^o"my sufficient

external
in
threat,he has a ready answer ,f j do, my father
justification “I’m not beating
corner, and
keep me from
IS going to spank
me, stand me 1,35
proiidc
month I„s brother
watching television for a for
,

jusuficanon
the child ample external
XI hile he’s being
watched experiences
dissonance.
P up
The child the mild 'b«« f Hoxx com j'n, not beating
m
himself.
too But when he asks
ii8 The Social Anwial

For certain rote tasks, we, as educators, probably do not care

whether Johnny enjoys them or not, as long as he masters them
On the other hand, if Johnny can learn to enjoy them, he will
perform them outside of the educational situation Consequently,
with such increased practice, he may come to gam greater mas-
tery over the procedure— and he may retain it indefinitely Thus,
at least under some conditions, it may be a mistake to dole out
extensive rewards as an educational device If a student is provid
ed with just barely enough incentive to perform the task, we may
succeed in allowing him to maximize his enjoyment of the task
This may serve to increase his long-range retention and perform-
ance I am not suggesting that inadequate rewards are the only
way that people can be taught to enjoy material that lacks inher-
ent attractiveness What I ant saying is that piling on excessive
external justification may inhibit one of the processes that can
help set the stage for increased enjoyment

Insiiffictent Punishment Thus far, we have been discussing

what happens when a person’s rewards for saying something are
meager The same process works for punishment In our e\ ery-
day lives, we are continually faced
with situations wherein those
who are charged
with the duty of maintaining law and order are
threatening to punish us if we do not comply with the demands
of society As adults, we know that if we exceed the speed limit
(and get caught), we will end up paying substantial fine If it
a
happens too often, we lose our license learn to obey the
So we
speed limit when there are patrol cars m the vicinity Youngsters
m schoolknow that, if they cheat on an exam and get caught,
they could be humiliated by the teacher and severely punished
So they learn not to cheat while the teacher is m the room watch-
ing them But does harsh punishment teach them that it’s wrong
to cheat^ I don’t think so I think
that it teaches them to try to
avoid getting caught In short, the use of threats of harsh punish-
ment as a means of getting someone to refrain from doing some-
thing that he enjoys doing necessitates constant harassment and
vigilance It would be much more efficient and would require
much less noxious restraintif, somehow, people could enjoy do
 Self-justificatton 12 1

external
than before In short, lacking adequate
less attractive

iustification for refrainingfrom playing with the toy, they suc-

hadn’t played with it
ceeded in convincing themselves that they
like it On the other hand, the toy did
because they didn’t really
severely reat-
not become less attractive for those who were t
-
the forbidden toy as hig
ened These children continued to rate
found it more desirable than t^y
ly desirable-indeed, some even
condmon
had before the threat The children m
the severe threat

reasons for not playing with the

had good external consequent
additional reasons-and
therefore had no need to find
ly, like the toy
they continued to Urairmricallv
our findings
Jonathan Freedman” extended
Illustrated the permanence of the
attractive battery
“crucial toy” an extremely
hurling objects »t »
scurries around children
Naturally, all ot
toys were sickly by comparison
t e
preferred the robot He then aske others
toy, threatening some re-
the^chool and never
with severe punishment He then ft

turned Several weeks later, a /““"g The chil-

administer some paper and

J ^ children
^o.Uing for Freed-
dren were unaware of the fact tna or
.plated to the toys
man or that her presence w« *" st so
happened that
earl
the threats that had occurred ) Preedman
she was administering her test mt e
toys were
his experiment--the paper and
had used for ^
casually scattered about 1 hang around v
hile she
jo
to
pencil test to each child, ^e might vant
scored it-and suggested, the m room
"‘^“f'^one
had left
The
amuse himself with those ^
rmsistent with
our on n
hig been mildly
Freedman’s results are ^^ svho had
t e
overwhelming majority of robot, they
re us
threatened weeks earlier other hand,
mstrad did,
played with the other toy® ^ly threatened
who b^^^^tireativasnoteffec-
mafonty of the children
m,ld
.n fact, play with the
“or_but the effect of one
subsequent behavio
til e m inhibiting
120 The Social Anrmal

my little brother’” he doesn*t have a good answer, because the

threat is so mild thatit does not provide a superabundance of

The child is not doing something that he wants to

justification
do— and while he does have some justification for not doing it, he
lacks complete justification In this situation, he continues to ex-
perience dissonance He is unable simply to reduce the disso-

nance by blaming his inaction on a severe threat The child must

find a way to justify the fact that he is not aggressing against his

little brother The best way is to try to convince himself that he

really doesn’t like to beat his brother up, that he didn’t want to do
It in the first place, that beating up little kids is not fun The less

severe the threat, the less the external justification, the less the
external justification, the greater the need for internal justifica-
tion Allowing people the opportunity to construct their own
internal justification
can be a long step toward helping them
develop a permanent set of values
To performed an experiment at the Harvard
test this idea, I
Lniversity nursery school m
collaboration with J Merrill
Cirlsmith “ For ethical reasons, we did not try to change basic
values like aggression— parents, understandably, might not ap-
prove of our changing important values Instead, we chose a
trivial aspect of behavior-toy preference

We
first asked five-year old children
to rate the attractiveness
of several toys, then we chose one toy
that a child considered to
be quite attractive, and we told him he
couldn’t play with it We
threatened half of the children with
mild punishment for trans
gression— I would be a little angry”,
we threatened the other
half with more severe
punishment— “I would be very angry, I
would have to take all of the toys and home and never come
go
back again, I would think you were
just a baby ” After that, we
left the room and allowed the children to play with the other
toys— and to resist the temptation of playing with the forbidden
ones All of the children resisted the temptation— none played
with the forbidden toy
On returning to the room, we remeasured the attractiveness
of all of the toys Our results were both striking and exciting
Those children who underwent a mild threat now found the toy
 Self-]tistificatton 23

went through,
no matter how much pam and effort you
to look much like
no way that an inconsiderate slob can be made
with ingenuity, you can convince
Prince Charmmg-but a little
people might call sloppy,
yourself that he isn’t so bad What some
casual Thus, is
for example, you might consider p j
his dirty laundry
round
|
radio loudly at night and his leaving
easy go'^g e ow
only serves to demonstrate what an ^
material things, 1 s y
because he’s so nice and casual about
would forget about the money h
understandable that he

tolerable Con-
but he’s certainly
Prince Charming he isn’t,
would have een
trast this with what your attitude
you had J
no investment of effort Suppose
and encountered the same roommate ,s no
vestment of effort, there is no re m»
dissonance, there is no need for
you to ^ pg- 35

good light My guess is that you „,s to move to a

slob and try to make g
an inconsiderate
different location .vnenment by Judson
in
These speculations were tested J" [ypreered to )0in
worn
Mills and me “ In this study,
college as
at discuss various
regu y
a group that would be meeting
sex
pects of the psychology of through a screening
hav
wanted to )om, they would first ^ group could
test designed to insure that =''' P“P ®,^„5„uPtion served to set
the

discuss sex freely and openly the women "ere

procedure n « rViird of
to
stage for the initiation , required them
of
assfgned to a severe initiation P^^fj^J^pennienter) a list
con
recite aloud (in the ® j passages from
,

obscene words and a few

rath evperimcn
that the
temporary novels (It should
e ptppcdure w as
w ^
was performed m the late fifties,
j he toda) )

far Lre embarrassing for most toeedure, mw

Jj"
obscene The
One-third of the students but not
that
they recited a list of words adrn j ,0 the
group
^''bjects vvere ^,lP„cd to
final one-third of the sub,ecc
Each
out undergoing an initiation
122 The Social Animal

threat inhibited behavior as much as nine weeks later Again, the

power of this phenomenon rests on the fact that the child did not
come to devalue this behavior (playing with the toy) because
some adult told him it was undesirable, he convinced himself that
It was undesirable

My guess is that this process may well apply beyond mere toy
preference to more basic and important areas, such as the control
of aggression Partial support for this guess can be derived from
some correlational studies performed m
the area of child develop-
ment that indicate that parents who u ^ severe punishment to
stop a child’s aggression tend to have children who, while not
very aggressive at home, display a great deal of aggression at
school and at play away from home ** This is what we would
expect from the compliance model discussed in Chapter 2

The ]usuficauo7i of Effort

Dissonance theory leads to the prediction that, if a person works

hard to attain a goal, that goal will be more attractive to him than
tosomeone who achieves the same goal with little or no effort
An illustration might be useful Suppose you are a college student
who decides to )oin a fraternity In order to be admitted, you
must pass an initiation, let us assume that it is a rather severe one
that involves a great deal of effort,
pain, or embarrassment After
successfully completing the ordeal,
you are admitted to the fra
ternity When you move into the fraternity house, you find that
your new roommate has some peculiar habits for example, he
plays his radio loudly after midnight,
borrows money without re-
turning It, and occasionally leaves
his dirty laundry on your bed
In short, an objective person might
regard him as an inconsiderate
slob But you are not an objective person any longer your cog
nition that you went through hell and high water to get into the
fraternity isdissonant with any cognitions about your life in the
fraternity that are negative, unpleasant, or undesirable In order
to reduce dissonance, you will try to see your roommate in the
most favorable light possible Again, there are reality constraints—
 Self-pstification 125

the initiation experi-

more than one way to reduce dissonance In
for example, we found that people who go through a great
ment,
deal of effort to get into a dull
group convince themselves that
more interesting Is this the only way t at
the group IS
con d have
have reduced dissonance’ No They
so gre« Indee t ey S
selves that their effort wasn’t
,

This
used both strategies simultaneously enereie^
practicalproblem To the extent that all o a
are not aimed in one direction, the potency 0
j,

Thus, suppose you

effect IS diminished
a great ea
and you want your team to have , through
t put e
and camaraderie Yon mig
hesiveness,
to
^ you
a rugged initiation in order
would want all of the dissonance ““ teammates
e hkes his
reduced by each player s deciding himself that, “Ah,
to conv^^^
more If a player chooses, instead, j,ssonance without
initiation, h
it wasn’t such a tough j^ught
,

te^nimates As a
eoae^,j
increasing his esteem for
dissonance
succeed in channelling the initiation so

direction of intragroup it a lark You

consider
severe that a person would
be u how
emphasizing
might bolster this “channelling y difficult for
order to
severe the initiation is, in
a player to think of it as easy

The Justification of Cruelty

Over and over again we have people We

^^^“‘"eason'able
to convince ourselves that
we on issues

cause u
f attitudes

have seen how this can example, that P

^cgal-
.

We have

"
that are important to us and
son makes a counterattitudina! J„on, and he learn
little group of
ization of marijuana for te' shown to a
mam
that the video tape of
that
tends
T“"„„„ee
to co
himself that
,,,,c
persuasable youngsters,
he
isn’t so bad-as a means of making
juana
 a

124 The Social Anmial

on a discussion being conducted by the members of the

listen in
group she had )ust joined Although the women were led to
believe that the discussionwas a “live,” ongoing one, what they
actually heardwas a prerecorded tape This was done so that each
of the women, regardless of what kind of initiation she went
through, would be hearing exactly the same discussion The
taped discussion was arranged so that it was as dull and as turgid
as possible After it was over, each subject was asked to rate the
discussion in terms of how much she liked it, how interesting it

was, how intelligent the participants were, and so forth

The supported the predictions Those subjects who
results
underwent or no effort to get into the group did not enjoy
little

the discussion very much They were able to see it as it was—

dull and boring waste of rime Those subjects who went through
a severe initiation, however, succeeded in convincing themselves
that the same discussion was rather interesting and worthwhile
The same pattern of results has been shown by other investi-
gators using different kinds of unpleasant initiations For example,
Harold Gerard and Grover Mathewson®’' conducted an experi-
ment similar in concept to the Aronson-Mills study, except for
the fact that subjects in the severe-mitiation condition were given
painful electric shocks instead of a list of words to read
obscene
aloud The results paralleled those of Aronson and Mills subjects
who underwent i senes of severe electric shocks m order to be-
come members of a group hked that group better than subjects
who underwent a senes of mild electric shocks
should be clear that we are not asserting that people enjoy
It

painful experiences— they do not—

nor are we asserting that
people enjoy things that are merely
associated with painful ex-
periences What we are stating is that, if a person goes through a
painful experience in order to attain
some goal or object, that
goal or object becomes more attractive
Thus, if on your way to a
discussion group you got hit on
the head by a brick, you would
not like that group any better, but if you volunteered to get hit
on the head by a brick m order to -join the discussion group, you
would definitely like it better
It should be noted that, m most dissonant situations, there is
 Self-pistification 127

circumstances, any informa-

more than they deserved In such
reduce disso
tion that put the victims m a bad light helped to
t ey
nance by implying that it was, in fact, a good thing t at
believe that the victims
were
died In addition, this eagerness to
in ways that were
sinful deserved their fate was expressed
and
more direct several members of the Ohio National Guard mam-
die, an a e
tamed stoutly that the victims deserved to
school teacher, whom James M.chener
so far as to state that, “Anyone who appears on '
clothes or ^
city like Kent with long hair, dirty applied
say that this dictum pp
serves to be shot She went
” on to

even to her own children ’* . , rra7v-but

It IS tempting simply to
write such peop
^
g
we should not make such judgments ig y
t

tainly true that people are not as ex

all
c^^^e influenced
influ^^
teacher, it is also true that just
about everyone

in this direction To illustrate this pom

)“^efore
,
be.™
j-ecame Premier
behavior of Nikita Khrushchev,
of the Soviet Union In his
memoirs,
doesn’t believe
self as a skeptical person
tough and
0 w
everything he’s told He cited several exa P
^j^ppj people,
scan
cism and reluctance to believe ,
^^nh Stalin But
this regaru
and compared himself favorably, in
credulity when t
let’s look at Khrushchev’s assuming
Soon after Stalin’s death,
Bena ° members of the

leadership, butKhrushchev convince arrest-

dangerous
Presidium that Bena was a Dissonance
theory

ed, imprisoned, and

eventually
j^j5 central role
m
would lead to the prediction
t nega-
to believe
mig ^
willinff
Bena’s downfall, Khrushchev let’s illow
But
absurd
absur
him-no matter how
tive things about
in his own word
Khrushchev to tell it

over
Th'
After It was all

and said ‘ Listen to what my chief bodyg ^

me and raped m)_
man came over to you that he
I want jier g
Bena has been arrested
grader A ye
stepdaughter, a seventh
126 The Social Ammal

evil person In this section, we wil! discuss a variation on this

theme Suppose you performed an action that caused a great deal
of harm to an innocent person Let us suppose further that the
harm was real and unambiguous Your cognition “I am a decent,
fair, and reasonable person” would be dissonant with your cogni-

tion “I have hurt another person ” If the harm done is clear and
real,then you cannot reduce the dissonance by changing your
opinion on an issue, like the people in the marijuana experiment
did In this situation, an effective way to reduce dissonance would
be to maximize the culpability of the victim of your action— to
convince yourself that the victim deserved what he got, either
because he did something to bring it on himself, or because he
was a bad, evil, dirty, reprehensible person
This mechanism might even operate you did not directly
if
cause the harm that befell the victim, if
you only disliked him
(prior to his victimization)and were hoping that harm would
befall him For example, after four
students at Kent State Univer-
sity were shot and killed by
members of the Ohio National
Guard, several rumors quickly spread to
the effect that (1) both
of the shm girls were pregnant and,
therefore, it was a fortunate
thing that they were killed, because
it protected them and their
parents from shame and humiliation,
(2) the bodies of all four
kids were cra,wling with lice, and
(3) the victims were so ridden
with syphilis that they would have
been dead in two weeks
anyway
These rumors were totally untrue It 'was true that the slam
students were all clean, decent, bright
kids Indeed, two of them
were not even involved in the
demonstration that resulted in the
tragedy, but were peacefully
walking across campus when they
were gunned down Why were the
townspeople so eager to be-
leve and spread these rumors^ It is impossible to know for sure,
but my guess is that it was for reasons similar to the reasons that
rumors were spread among the people
m
India studied by Prasad
and Sinhi (see
pp 91-92)— that is, because the rumors were com-
forting Picture the situation Kent
is a conservative town Many
of the townspeople were infuriated at the radical behavior of
some of the students Some probably were hoping that the stu-
dents would get their comeuppance, but death was, perhaps,
128 The Social Animal

mother died and my wife had to go to the hospital, leaving the

girl at home alone One evening buy some
she went out to
bread near the building where Beria There she came
lives
across an old man who watched her intently She was fright-
ened Someone came and took her to Beria’s home Beria had
her sit down with him for supper She drank something, fell
asleep, and he raped her ” Later, we were given a list of more
than a hundred girls and women who had been raped by Beria
He had used the same routine on all of them He gave them
some dinner and offered them wine with a sleeping potion
in It

It seems fantastic that anyone would believe that Beria actually

perpetrated this deed on more than one hundred women And
yet, Khrushchev apparently believed it— perhaps because he had
a strong need to believe it
These examples seem to fit an analysis based on dissonance
theory, but they do not offer definitive proof For example, it
might be the case that the National Guardsmen at Kent State be-
lieved that the students deserved to die even
before they fired on
them, or that Khrushchev would have been prone to believe those
fantastic stones about Beria even before he had caused Beria’s
demise might even be true that Khrushchev didn't believe
It

those stories, but merely pretended

that he believed them in
order to discredit Beria
In order to be more certain that this
process really exists, it is
essential for the social psychologist
to remove himself from the
helter skelter of the real world
(temporarily) and test his predic-
tions in the more controlled
world of the experimental labora
tory Ideally, if we want to measure
attitude change as a result of
dissonant cognitions, it is important to know what the attitudes
were before the dissonance arousing event occurred Such a situ-
ation was produced in an expenment
performed by Keith Davis
and Edward Jones They persuaded students to volunteer to
help with an experiment each student’s participation consisted of
watching another student being interviewed and then, on the
basis of this observation, telling that other student that he be-
lieved him to be a shallow, untrustworthy, and dull fellow The
 Self-justification itg

major finding in this experiment was that subjects

who volun-
teered for this assignment succeeded in
convincing themselves
In short, after
that they didn’t like the victim of their cruelty.
student, tey
saying things that were certain to hurt the other
they oun im
convinced themselves that he deserved it— that is,
hurt him. simi ar resu
less attractive than they did before they
In this stu y,
^

m i
stems from an experiment by David Glass.”
viduals who considered themselves to be
good and ecent peop ,

'
to pe
when induced to deliver a series of electric shocks
is interesting
to n
pie, came to derogate their victims. It
held hig se “
this result is clearest among people who _
causing anot e p
consider myself to be a scoundrel, then
t ere
suffer does not introduce as much dissonance; ,

less of a need to convince myself that

leads to the rather ironic result that
he deserved
it is
his
^
I am such a nice person
do something
that, if I

pain, I must convince myself that

you are a
around hut g
because nice guys like me don’t go
mg
you must have deserved every nasty
t
pie, this

There are circumstances that ® namely, people

mentione
phenomenon. One of those was victims.
Lh low self-esteem have less need
dotogotm P
is the
Another factor that limits the ^^,jlljng
it t e vi
capacity of the victim to retaliate, equity
to’ retaliate at some future
time, then a arm action by
has no need
nee to J'
will be restored, and he thus ^ ^ T7!ipn ggr-
Rer-
j
]

by
ingenious experiment
derogating his victim. In an
128 The Social Animal

mother died and my wife had to go to the hospital, leaving the

girl at home alone One evening she went out to buy some
bread near the building where Beria lives There she came
across an old man who watched her intently She was fright-
ened Someone came and took her to Beria’s home Beria had
her sit down with him for supper She drank something, fell
asleep and he raped her ” Later, we w ere given a list of more
than a hundredgirls and women who had been raped by Beria

He had used the same routine on all of them He gave them

some dinner and offered them wine with a sleeping potion
m It

It seems fantastic that anyone would believe that Bena actually

perpetrated this deed on more than one hundred women And
yet, Khrushchev apparently believed it— perhaps because he had
a strong need to believe it
These examples seem to fit an analysis based on dissonance
theory, but they do not offer definitive proof For example’^
might be the case that the National Guardsmen at Kent Srat'"
lieved that the students deserved to die even before they
them, or that Khrushchev would have been prone to believ
fantastic stories about Beria even before he had caused
demise It might even be true that Khrushchev didn^t
those stones, but merely pretended that he believed
order to discredit Bena
In order to be more certain that this process really
essential for the social psychologist to remove himself
belter skelter of the realworld (temporarily) and test
tions in the more controlled world of the expp»*>^
tory Ideally, if we want to measure attitude change as
dissonant cognitions, it is important to know what d
were before the dissonance arousing event occurred S
ation was produced in an experiment performed by K
and Edward Jones They persuaded students to v«
help with an experiment each student’s participation
watching another student being interviewed and
basis of this observation, telling that other student
lieved him to be a shallow, untrustworthy, and dull
 Self pistification 129

this experiment was that

subjects who volun
major finding in
teered for this assignment succeeded m
convincing themselves
a/ter
their cruelty In short,
that they didn’t like the vicum of
the “'her student, they
saying things that were certain to hurt
that is, t ey
convinced themselves that he deserved it— ,

they hurt him simi a

less attractive than they did before
Glass ” In this ««dy'
md -

stems from an experiment by David

themselves to be good and ‘>^“0 p p ,

vidualswho considered
shocks to other p~
when induced to deliver a senes of electric
It is
pie, came to derogate their victims
esteem If I
this result is clearest among people
who held hig
_.,5on to
then oausmg
consider myself to be a scoundrel, j [,^^5
suffer does not introduce as
much dissona ,

that he d-er«d
’
^
less of a need to convince myself
that it is I”^^
leads to the rather ironic result ‘ you
do J
some th mg j causes
I amsuch a nice person that, if I
pain, 1 must convince myself that
you are
innocent peo
^
around
Lcause nice guys like me don’t go
pie, you must have deserved
every nasty ’ ® j^iny of this
J^nerjI'ty
There are circumstances that
phenomenon 0"® jp„„ate their iictims
need
with low self esteem have less
'<>
„n is the
Another factor that limits ,s able and Milling
I
capacity of the victim to retaliate ^qintj
then a by
to retaliate at some future time, ujofi his action
has no
will be restored, and he thus j,. Olcn Ber-
derogatmg hisvictim In m
ingenious ® P
j,j

pinntecred for
m
scheid nnd her associates,” college painful cicctnc
^
experiment xvhich each of them
m „i,. act derogated
,
his

shock to a felloM student, "f 'he

.itock But half,

X ictim IS a result of having is that

fc'turnabout-that
va o ll cm
students were told that there -__nrtunit\ to shod
giv en the opp ^bje to
the other students vv ould be ^
ere
Those vv ho vv ere led to believe ''''
,|,c a .ctims vv
'J'®'
not derogate them
n doers had no
* ’
'
retaliate did
able to retaliate, dissonance
" “” ,t,cc themseb cs i lat
con j
in order to
need to belittle their v ictims
the \ icnms desen cd it
130 The Social Animal

These results suggest that, dunng a war, soldiers might have a

greater need to derogate civilian victims (because they can’t re
tahate) than military victims During Lt Galley’s court martial
for his role in the slaughter of innocent civilians at My Lai, his

psychiatrist reported that the Lieutenant came to regard the

Vietnamese people as less than human Perhaps the research
reported in this section helps to shed phenome
some light on this
non Social psychologists have learned that people do not per-
form acts of cruelty and come out unscathed I do not know for
sure how Lt Galley (and thousands of others) came to regard
the Vietnamese as subhuman, but it seems reasonable to assume
that when we are engaged in a war m which, through our actions,
a great numberof innocent people are being killed, we might try
to derogate the victims, in order to justify our complicity in the
outcome We might poke fun at them, refer to them as “gooks,”
dehumanize them, but once we have succeeded in doing that,
watch out— because it becomes easier to hurt and kill “sub-
humans than to hurt and kill fellow human beings Thus, reduc-
ing dissonance in this way has terrible future consequences— it
increases the likelihood that the
atrocities we are willing to com-
niit will become greater and
greater We
will elaborate on this
theme in the next chapter For now, I
would like to enlarge on a
point I made in Chapter I In the
final analysis, each person is
^countable for his own actions Not everyone behaved as Lt
Galley behaved, but many did
Therefore, before we write off
their behavior as merely bizarre,
or merely crazy, or merely vil
lamous, It would be wise to examine
the situation that sets up the
mechanism for this kind of behavior
We
can then begin to
understand the terrible price we are
paying for allowing certain
conditions to exist Perhaps,
eventually, we can do sometiiing to
avoid these conditions
Dissonance theory helps to shed some
light on this mechanism
Of course,
this kind of situation is not limited to wars great A
number of violent acts can be perpetrated on innocent victims
that can lead to justifications, which,
in turn, can produce more
violence Imagine that you live in a society that is unfair to minor-
ity groups like blacks and Chicanos Just to take a wild example,
let us pretend that the whites were not allowing the blacks and
 Self-justification

instead \yere pro-

Chicanos to attend first-rate public schools, but
education. As a
viding them with a second-rate and stultifying
the average ac
consequence, after several years of schooling,
educated and less
child and the average Chicano child arc less well
demonstrate t is
motivated than the average white child. They
Suc^ a situatio^
by generally doing poorly on achievement tests.
leaders to justi
provides a golden opportunity for civic
to reduce issonancc.
discriminatory behavior and, hence,
“colored people ate stupid (because y
see," they might say,
see
perform poorly on the achievement test); .

resources V Y
were when we decided against wasting our
education. cse p P
provide them with a high-quality .

refer to as a ^
unteaehable.” This is what sociologists
prophecy. It provides a perfect justification n " fd
lect So, too, is the attribution of
moral
“d
Chicanos. We imprison these people in almost
we set up a situadon in which the color of =

him to p P
inevitably unleashes forces that prevent
the opportunities for growth and sue-
"fpeople
Americans. Through the magic of respectability,
ceeding and living in the luxury of
m
comforts, and
He becomes painfully aware ‘'’c °PP° 1'“ j’^n jeads him to
If his r
luxuries that are unavailable to him. f^r
violence or if his despair leads him
to
j j^ow-
his .white brother to sit back complacent Y’ .
jj^^ral inferior-
this behavior ‘o
^ome
ingly, and attribute ^
ity. As Edward Jones and Richar . -tribute the cause
to

some misfortune befalls us, we ten

same mis-
but w c
cause
something in the environment; attribute the
fortune befalling another person,
we tend to
persona ity-
to something inherent in his

The Psychology of Inevitability

^ ^

George Bernard Shaw was hard

hit by h’
_ cannot get rid

he tried to make light of it. He

^
dance.
,1 ^qa^e it

of the family skeleton, you

may as
132 The Social Animal

sense, dissonance theory describes the ways that people have of

making their skeletons dance— of trying to live with unpleasant
outcomes This is particularly true when a situation arises that is
both negative and inevitable Here, people attempt to make the
best of things by cognitively minimizing the unpleasantness of the
situation In one experiment, Jack Brehm*® got children to volun-
teer to eat a vegetable that they had previously said they disliked a
lot After they had eaten the vegetable, the experimenter indicated
to one-half of the kids that they could expect to eat much more
of that vegetable m
the future, the remaining kids were not so in-
formed The kids who were led to believe that it was inevitable
that they would be eating the vegetable in the future succeeded
m convincing themselves that that particular vegetable was not so
very bad In short, the cognition “I dislike that vegetable” is dis-
sonant with the cognition “I will be eating that vegetable in the
future ” In order to reduce the dissonance,
the children came to
believe that the vegetable was really not as noxious as they had
previously thought John Darley and
Ellen Berscheid" showed
that the same phenomenon works
with people as well as with
vegetables In their experiment, college
women volunteered to
participate in a senes of meetings in
which each co-ed would be
discussing her sexual behavior and
sexual standards with another
CO ed whom she didn’t know Before beginning these discussion
each woman was given two folders
sessions,
Each of the folders
contained a personality description
of a young woman who had
supposedly volunteered for the same
experience, the descriptions
untamed a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant characteristics
Half of the subjects were led to
believe that they going to
were
interact with the young woman described in folderA, and the
remaining subjects were led to believe
that they were going to
interact with t!ie one described
in folder B Before actually meet-
ing these CO eds, the subjects were
asked to evaluate each of them
on the basis of the personality descriptions
that they had read
Those subjects who felt that it was inevitable that they were
going to be sharing their intimate secrets with the young woman
described mfolder A found her much more appealing as a person
than the one described in folder B, whereas those who believed
that they were going to have to interact with the young woman
 Self-pistification 03

as
described m folder B found her much more appealing Just
w ith vegetables, inevitability makes the heart grow fonder T e
with
knowledge that one inevitably going to be spending time
is

the positive aspects of that person— or, at

another person increases
people tend to make
least, decreases his negativ e aspects In short,
know bound to occur
the best of something that they is

The Importance of Self-esteem

commit-
Throughout this chapter, we have seen how a
person’s
or c ange
ment to a particular course of action can freeze
the m o i
attitudes, distort his perception, and determine
mation he seeks out In addition, vve have ^^rwavs—
become committed to a situation in a number
of i
I ,

to a
by making a decision, by working hard in order
’

^
by believing that something is inevitable, by ,
hurting so
tion that has serious consequences (such as
deepest
soon As vve have mentioned before, the
whic a P
ment takes place in those situations in .-non
cruel or
esteem is at Lke Thus, if I perform a
it turns my
this threatens my self-esteem, because
person n
possibility that I am a cruel or stupid
theory o
experiments that were inspired by the ^ ^,5
in tho-
nance, the clearest results were obtained ^“^rone
involved Moreo
which esteem was
a person’s self
indivi
might expect, we have seen that those they behave
dissonance when
est self esteei; experience the most
in a stupid or cruel manner pcreem’ Theoreti-
„if
Whathappens when a person has
low s
3(.„on, he
or
cally, if he were to commit a stupid
is
„ngnition “I have
would not experience much dissonance ‘
I am a
wit
done an immoral thing” is consonant schlunk
h.mjlf^^be
sehlunk ” In short, a person who believes ^
way
expects to do schlunky things Another difficult
not ”
person who has low self esteem will 2^^ immoral
co
to commit an immoral action—bemuse other hand,
concep
action IS not dissonant with his self
 34 The Social Animal

ifa person has high self-esteem, he is more likely to resist the

temptation to commit an immoral action, because to behave im-
morally would produce a great deal of dissonance
I tested this proposition m collaboration with David Mettee®*
We predicted that individuals who had a low opinion of them-
selves would be more likely to cheat (if given the opportunity)
than individuals who had a high opinion of themselves It should
be made clear that we were not making the simple prediction that
people who believe themselves to be dishonest will cheat more
than people who believe themselves to be honest Our prediction
was a little more daring, it was based on the assumption that, if a
normal person receives a temporary blow to his self-esteem (for
example, if he is jilted by his girl friend or flunks an exam) and
thus feels low and worthless, he is more likely to cheat at cards,
kick his dog, wear mismatched pajamas, or do any number of
things consistent with his having a low opinion of himself As a
function of feeling that they are low people, individuals will
commit low acts
In our experiment,we modified students* self esteem (tem-
porarily) by
giving them false information about their personali-
ties After taking a personality test, one third of the students
were given positive feedback, specifically, they were told that
the test indicated that they were mature, interesting, deep, and so
forth Another one-third of the students were given negative
feedback, they were told that the test indicated that they were
relatively immature, uninteresting, rather shallow, and the like
The remaining one-third of the students were not given any
information about the results of the test
Immediately afterwards, the students were scheduled to par-
ticipate m
an experiment, conducted by a different psychologist,
that had no apparent relation to the
personality inventory As a
part of this second experiment, the subjects participated in a
game of cards against some of their fellow students This was a
gambling game m
which the students were allowed to bet money
and were told that they could keep whatever money they won
In the course of the game, the subjects were presented with a few
opportunities to cheat m a situation where it seemed impossible
that they could be detected The situation was arranged so that, if
 SeIf~pistification *35

a student decided 7Wt to cheat, he would certainly lose, whereas,

if he decided to cheat, he would be certain to win a sizeable sum
of money
The results clearly showed that those students who had previ-
self-esteem
ously received information designed to lower their
the
cheated to a far greater extent than those who had received
re-
high self-esteem information The control group— those that
ceived no information— fell exactly m
between These findings
parents and
suggest that it would be well worth the effort of
reaching
teachers to alert themselves to what could be the far
self-esteem
consequences of their own behavior as it affects the
that ow
of their children and students Specifically, if it is true
e
self esteem is antecedent of criminal or crue
an important
possible to e p
havior, then we might want to do everything
individuals learn to respect and love themselves

Physiological and Mottvatwnal Effects of Dissonance

In the past
How far can the effects of dissonance extend^
several years, researchers have shown that it can go ,

tudes, It can modify the experience basic physio

way we
dissonance re
drives Under certain well specified conditions,
hunger, *
tion can lead hungry people to experience less
people to experience less thirst, and people
undergoing m
efectricshock to experience less pain Here s
how it ^
, ,

person is induced to commit himself to a situation

m ,

Will be deprived of food or water for a long time,

or m
Will experience electric shock, and has /ow externa _
His cogni i
for doing this,he will experience dissonance
cernmg his hunger pangs, his parched throat, or t ^ volun-
tia
tncal shock are each dissonant xr ith his cognition
^
teered to go through these experiences and is T* nces
dissomnce,
much mreturn In orderto reduce this
that the t ’
himself
-11 that
LlldL the isn’t so intense, or
lUC hunger 1311 ,
1.
«tomSh.ng
ThlS should not bee
.

bad. or the pain ,cnV

nr rlrn isn’t rn orent This
so great
Ithough hunger, thirst, and pam all ha\c ^“uolomcal
strong p > o
a well documented fact that they hate a
136 The Social Animal

component For example through suggestion, mediation, hypno-

sis, placebo pills, the bedside manner of a skillful physician, or

some combination of these, perceived pain can be reduced Ex-

perimental social psychologists have shown that, under conditions
of high dissonance arousal, ordinary people, without any special
skills in hypnosis or meditation, can accomplish the same ends for

themselves
Thus, Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues” have subjected
many people to intense electric shocks one-half of these people
were in a high dissonance condition— that is, they were induced
to commit theitnelves to volunteer for the experience and were
given very little external justification-and the other half were in
a low-dissonance condition— that is, they had no choice in the
matter and had a great deal of external justification The results
showed that those people in the high-dissonance condition tended
to report that they experienced less pam than people in the low-
dissonance condition Moreover, this phenomenon extended be-
yond their subjective reports there is some evidence to indicate
that the physiological response to pain (as measured by the
galvanic skin response) was somewhat less intense the high- m
dissonance condition In addition, the pain of subjects in the
high dissonance condition interfered less with the tasks they
were performing Thus, not only was their pain reported as less
intense, but it also affected their behavior less intensely
Similar results have been shown for hunger and thirst Jack
Brehm^° reported a senes of experiments in which people were
deprived of either food or water for long periods of time In addi-
tion to experiencing hunger or thirst,
these individuals were
experiencing either high or low dissonance for much the same
reasons that Zimbardo’s subjects were experiencing high or low
dissonance Specifically, some of the subjects had low external
justification for undergoing the hunger or thirst, while others had
high external justification For the dissonant subjects, the best
available way to reduce the dissonance was to minimize the ex
perience of hunger or thirst In separate experiments on hunger
and tliirst, Brehm reported that the subjects the high-disso- m
nance condition said they were less hungry (or thirsty) than
 Self-pistificatwn 137

low dissonance subjects who were deprived of food (or \\ ater)

for the same length of time Again, thiswas no mere verbal re-
port— after the experiment, when all of the subjects were allowed
to eat (or drink) freely, the high-dissonance subjects actually
consumed less food (or water) than the low-dissonance subjects

A Look at the Theory as Theory

evident that the theory of cognitive dissonance has been a

It is

very useful theory Indeed, m

the fifteen years since its incep-
tion, It more research and uncovered more
has generated far
knowledge about human social behavior than any other theory
m psychology At the same time, it should be pointed out that, in
formal terms, it lacks the elegance that one usually associates with
rigorous scientific statements Conceptually, the major weakness
in the theory stems from the fact that its application is not limited

to situations that are inconsistent on logical grounds alone Rath-

er, the inconsistencies that produce dissonance are psychological
inconsistencies This is what makes the theory exciting Unfortu
nately, it also renders the theory lessthan perfectly precise It
the
would be relatively easy to make a precise statement about
instances
domain of the theory predictions were limited to
if its
of logical inconsistency There are precise rules for determining
whether conclusions do or do not follow from premises on t e
basis of formal logic For example, take the famous syllogism

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

Ifsomeone believed that Socrates was not mortal, while accept

mg the first two premises, this would be a clear case of disso
nance
By contrast, let us take the typical dissonance situation

1 belie\e that smoking cigarettes causes cancer

1 smoke cigarettes
 Self-pistification 139

all of his time protecting his ego, he will never grow In order to
grow, we must learn from our mistakes But if a person is intent
on reducing dissonance, he will not admit to his mistakes Instead,
he will sweep his mistakes under the rug, or, worse still, he will
turn them into virtues The autobiographical memoirs of former
presidents are full of the kind of self-serving, self-justifying state-
ments that can best be summarized as “if I had it all to do over
”
again, I would not change a thing
On the other hand, people do frequently grow— people do
frequently profit from their mistakes How^ Under what condi-
tions^ Ideally, it would be useful for a person to be able to bring
himself to say, in effect, “O K , Iblew it What can I learn from
the experience so that I will not end up m this position again^”
This can come about in several ways

1 Through an understanding of our own defensiveness and

dissonance-reducing tendencies
2 Through the realization that performing a stupid or immoral
action does not necessarily mean that we are irrevocably stupid
or immoral people
3 Through the development of enough ego strength to toler-
ate errors m ourselves
4 Through increasing our ability to recognize the utility of
admitting error

Of course, it is list these procedures than it is to

far easier to
accomplish them How
does a person get in touch with his own
defensiveness and dissonance-reducing tendencies^ can we How
come moral people like ourselves can occa-
to realize that bright,
sionally perform a stupid or immoral action^ It is not enough to
know It superficially, in order to untilize this know ledge, a person
may need to experience it and practice it A situation that encour-
ages this kind of practice will be discussed in Chapter 8
138 The Social Anmial

The cognition “I smoke cigarettes” is not inconsistent with the

cognition “cigarette smoking causes cancer” on formal logical
grounds It is inconsistent on psychological grounds, that is, the
implications of the two statements are dissonant because we know
that most people do not want to die But it is sometimes difficult

what will be psychologically inconsistent for any

to be certain
one person For example, suppose you have great admiration for
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then you learn that, throughout his
marriage, he was carrying on a clandestine love affair Will that
cause dissonance^ It is difficult to know If you place a high
value on marital fidelity and you also believe that great men
should not violate this sanction, then you will indeed experience
some dissonance To reduce it you will cither change your atti-

tudes about Roosevelt or soften your attitudes about marital

infidelity Because a large number of people probably do not hold
both of these values simultaneously, however, they will not ex-
perience dissonance Moreover (and most important), the degree
of dissonance is certain to be small compared to what it would be
ifyou had violated your own values— as was true in Judson Mills’
experiment with the youngsters who cheated on their test This is
the point as I mentioned previously, dissonance theory makes its

clearest and strongest predictions m

those situations in which the
dissonance is a function of a person’s
behavior that violates his
own concept If you think of yourself as intelligent and you
self
do something stupid, if you think of yourself as moral and you
do something immoral, if you think of yourself as kind and you
do something unkind— these are the situations in which disso-
nance theory makes its strongest and most unambiguous state
ment, and these are the situations that we have emphasized in this
chapter

Man Cannot Live by Consonance Alone

Near the beginning of this chapter, I made the point that people
are capable of rational, adaptivebehavior as well as dissonance-
reducing behavior Let’s return to that issue If a person spends
)'

Human Aggression
 Hionm Aggression '43

child who
possessions against the encroachment of others, and the
consi ere
goes out of his way to clobber his brother, are hot
si
aggressive On a more subtle level, if a neglected wi e su

passive
corner during a party, this may be an act of
Also, a child who wets his bed, a jilted boy frien w o
,

doggedly attempts to
suicide, or a student who ,,

be la e e a^
mathematical problem could conceivably
tions of an aggressive tendency man And w at o
m ,

exerted by the state in its attempt to

maintain
which peopl
the less direct forms of aggression through
people o i e
race or religionhumiliate and degrade
be ca led by the blanket
religions^ If all of these behaviors are to
term “aggression,” the situation indeed con us
is
through
increasing our understanding of
a of the popular
^tT
this morass and separate the “assernve
p j^j^jj^^tion can
definitionfrom the destructive aspects
T ^
.
behavior that
ot
be made between behavior that harms accord
does not harm others The outcome is jh^ student
mg to this distinction, the S''"'"? tvould not be
doggedly sticking to his Pf Strangler,
jhe Boston
considered aggressive, but the behavio
the clobbering child, the suicidal b^y/^^fl^^ressne
mg, neglected wife would all be considere because, by
er
But this distinction is not altoget intention of
the
it
concentrating on outcome alone, crucial aspect
of the
this is
person perpetrating the act, and aggression as a
de ne
definition of aggression I would ® definition,
pam
behavior aimed at causing harm or performing an
act o
o
the football player is not considere cfiicicntl)
bring to ciusc
aggression if his aim is simply to ,5

as possible— but he ts behaving succeeds m doing so

pam or injury to his man, whether or i,,,
father 'U
us
To suppose a three y""'
Illustrate; eaen cause
«;effectual Km^>^
anger The slap be totally
father to laugh But it is,
nonetheless, a cibou mt
^
the same child may, in total innocen contusions
,

his father’s eje, causing sc\crc

pam a
142 The Social Annml

Looking at my son, I became dismayed and upset as I began to

think about what had happened to me Had I become so brutal-

ized that I could answer such a question so matter-of-factly— as
if my son had asked me how a baseball ismade or how a leaf

functions^ Had I gotten so accustomed to human brutality^

We’re of unspeakable horror— of Biafra, of
living in an era
East Pakistan, of My Lai Of course,
events of this kind are not
peculiar to the present decade A
friend once showed me a very
thin book— only ten or fifteen pages long— that purported to be a
capsule history of the world It was a chronological listing of the
important events in recorded history Can you guess how it read^
Of course-one war after another, interrupted every now and
then by a few other events, such as the birth of Jesus and the
invention of the printing press What kind of species is man if the
most important events in hts brief history are situations in which
people kill each other en massed
Man IS an aggressive animal With the exception of certain
rodents, no other vertebrate so consistently and wantonly kills

members of his own species We have defined social psychology

as social influence— that is, one person’s (or group’s) influence on
another The most extreme form of aggression (physical destruc-
tion) can be considered to be the ultimate degree of social influ-
ence Is aggression part of the nature of man> Can it be modified^
What are the social and situational factors that increase and
decrease aggression^

Aggression Defined

It IS difficult to present a clear definition of “aggression” because,

in the popular vernacular, the term is used in so many different
ways Clearly, the Boston Strangler, who made a hobby of stran-
gling women in their apartments, was performing acts of aggres-
sion But a player making a driving tackle is also
football
considered aggressive A
tennis player who charges the net is
called aggressive So, too, is a successful insurance salesman who
is “a real go getter ” The child who staunchly defends his
own
 Htwian Aggression 145

ment,
when turned inward, thanatos manifests itself in self-punisi
out
which, in the e\treme case, becomes suicide, when
turne
destructiveness,
ward, this instinct manifests itself in hostility,
energy must
and murder Freud believed that this aggressive
continue to build up and pro uce 1
come out somehow, lest it
ness This notion can be described as a
“hydraulic t eory t a
building ^
IS, the analogue is one of water pressure
it wi pro
tamer unless aggression is allowed to dram oft,
society is ess
some sort of an explosion According to Freud,
tial as a means of regulating this insunct
and of e pmg m
the destructive
energy
sublimate it— that is, helping men turn
acceptable, or even useful, behavior
aggressiveness
Taking the notion of man’s natural .

further, there are some scholars who feel that

„ u
state is killer, but that his
not only a
^ cnggest that
these sc 0 ar
unique animals, consequently,
among
to call man’s behavior brutal is to libel
point of view has been expressed eloquently
by Y Storr

We generally describe the most ^gg'^d-ectives th-it

cruelty as brutal or bestial, developed inimals
such behaviour IS characteristic of
less
^ brunl be-
t e ex
than ourselves In truth, however, „|jel m mture
haviour are confined to man, and
t
f^ct is th^t
other sombre
to our savage treatment of each has ever
es
we are the cruellest and most rut p horror
walked the earth, and that althoug atrocities
history
when we read in newspaper or hearts that
each
committed by man upon man,
we impulses
one of us harbours withm himself ^hose s^ savage
S
an
which lead to murder, to torture,

even
There is a lack of definitive or suppose
is insti such
ject of whether or not aggression jhe evidence,
that IS why the
controversy still ^rrimentation v
and e\p
as It stems from observation of,
IS, X,ng Yang
cies other than man In one such ^^jjl
mstinctivel)
ftiyt 1
Kuo* attempted to explode the
144 The Social Ajirmal

would not be defined as an act of aggression, because its painful

consequences were unintended
It might be useful to make one additional distinction within

the category of intentional aggression, namely, a distinction be-

tween aggression that is an end in
itself and aggression that is

instrumental in achieving some goal Thus, a football player

might intentionally inflict an injury on the opposing quarterback
in order to put him out of the game and thus increase his own
team’s probability of winning This would be instrumental ag-
gression On the other hand, he might perform this action on the
last play of the last game of the season to “pay back” the quarter-

back for some real or imagined insult or humiliation, here, the

aggressive act would be an end in itself Similarly, dropping a
bomb on a ball bearing factory in Munich during World War II
can be considered an act of instrumental aggression, while shoot-
ing down some defenseless women and children can be consid-
ered an act of aggression as an end in itself The “button man”
who, working for the Mafia, guns down a designated victim is

probably behaving mstrumentally, thrill killers like Leopold and

Loeb probably weren’t

Is Aggresswe7iess Instinctive^

Psychologists, physiologists, ethologists,

and philosophers are in
disagreement over whether aggressivenessis an innate, instinctive
phenomenon or whether such behavior has to be learned This is
not a new controversy it has been raging for centuries For ex-
ample, Jean Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage^
(first published in 1762) suggested
that man, in his natural state,
is a benign, happy, and good creature, and that a restrictive
society forces aggressiveness and depravity upon him Others
have taken the view that man in his natural state is a brute, and
that only by enforcing the law and order of society can we curb
or sublimate his natural instmcts toward aggression Sigmund
Freud* is a good example of a proponent of this general position
Freud suggested that man is born with a death instinct, thanatos
 Human Aggression >47

from an aquarium, leaving only one male alone with no appro

theory of
priate sparring partner^ According to the hydraulic
instinct, the need to aggress will build up to the
point w here the

cichhd will attack a fish that doesn’t usually serve as an appropri-

ate stimulus for attack,and that is exactly what happens In the

absence of his fellow male cichlids, he attacks males of other
Moreover, a
species— males that he had previously ignored
i

eventuall,^ attack and

males are removed, the male cichlid will
kill females „ ote
. , «
Berko\uK, one
the controversy continues Leonard
And
aggression, believes that
our nation’s leading experts on human
nonhumans in that learning
humans are essentially different from
their aggressive e
plays a more important role in
humans, aggressiveness a function of a
is
“I ,

responses Thus, . though

tween innate propensities and learned
It IS true that many animals
from insects to »P=* '

a gross ov ers
"f
p
animal who invades his territory, it is
some popular writers have,
that man is P™
imply, as
behave
f
grammed to protect his territory
and “Sg"®' >

is much
sponse to specific stimuli There
Berhovvitz’s contention that man’s
Indeed, there even a Eood deal
infinitely modifiable and flexible ^
^ ,

of evideke for such flexibility

ar
"“?^3“„TeSrbraTon=
by electrically stimulating a certain
'
can ev oke an aggressive ""P”"* not
’"f "“ssion, but that docs
considered to be the neural center gg ,|| alu a)
s
area is stimu ate
mean that, vv hen this ,
„,onkcv s vv ho are
attack If a monkey is in P''“'"^'i indeed
u.erjrehv. he will
lessdominant than he in their so stinuihted,
attack them when the appropriate =7 ,„,nce of
stimulated vv
but if the same area is 1
atiack,
dominant 1
monke) s vv ho arc wore 1 siological
the scene
rather, he will tend to flee responses,
depending
widelj Our
stimulation can produce snades for humans
appears to
upon learning This
these
conclusion from rev lew ing „„portant
component m man.
I

ness may instinctiv e

hav e an
146 The Social Animal

stalk and His experiment was a very simple one He

kill rats

raised a kitten in the same cage with a rat Not only did the
cat refrain from attacking the rat, but the two became close com-
panions Moreover, the cat refused cither to chase or to kill other
rats It should be noted, however, that this experiment does not
prove that aggressive behavior is not instinctive, it merely
demonstrates that aggressive behavior can be inhibited by early
experience Thus, in an experiment reported by irenaus Eibl
Eibesfeldt,® it was shown that rats raised in isolation (that is,

without any experience in fighting other rats) will attack a fellow

rat when one is introduced into the cage, moreover, the isolated

rat uses the same pattern of threat and attack that experienced
rats use Thus, although aggressive behavior can be modified by
experience (as shown by Kuo*s experiment), Eibl Eibesfeldt
showed need to be learned
that aggression apparently does not
On the other hand one should not conclude from this study that
aggressiveness is necessarily instinctive, for as John Paul Scott*
has pointed out, in order to draw this conclusion, there must be
physiological evidence of a spontaneous stimulation for fighting
from within the body alone The stimulus in the above
that arises
experiment came from the outside-that is, the sight of the new
rat stimulated the isolated rat to fight Scott concluded from his
survey of the evidence that there is no inborn need for fighting
if an organism can arrange its life in
such a way that there is no
outside stimulation to fight then he will not experience any
physiological or mental damage as a result of not expressing ag
gression This view contradicts Freud s contention and, in effect,
asserts that there is no instinct of aggression
The argument goes back and forth Scott’s conclusion has
been called into question by the distinguished ethologist Konrad
Lorenz ^ Lorenz observed the behavior of certain cichlids which
are highly aggressive tropical fish Male cichhds will attack other
males of the same species apparently as an aspect of territorial
behavior— that is to defend their territory In its natural environ

ment, the male cichlid does not attack female cichhds, nor does
he attack males of a different species— he only attacks males of his
own species What happens if all other male cichhds are remo\ ed
 ,

Hmmn Aggression

from an aquarium, leaving only one male alone with no appro

theory of
priate sparring partner’ According to the hydraulic
point where the
instinct, the need to aggress will build up to the
fish that doesn’t usually serve
as an appropri-
cichhd will attack a
ate stimulus for attack, and that isexactly what happens In Ae
cichlids, he attacks males of
other
absence of his fellow male
Moreover, if all
species-males that he had previously ignored
eventually attack and
males are removed, the male cichhd will
kill females , „ , > c
the controversy continues
And Leonard BerkovviK, one o
experts on human aggression, believes that
our nation’s leading
nonhumans in that S
humans are essentially different from
aggressive e
plays a more important role in their
humans, aggressiveness is a function of a
and learned responses ®
uveen innate propensities , ’

^
It IS true that many animals from insects to
it is a gross
over
P
animal who invades his territory,
have, that man is P™
imply, as some popular writers
gmmmed to proLt his terntory and behave^"dence W^fltupprr
o ^pport
is much
sponse to specific stimuli There
Berkowitz’s contention that
deal
Ind there^reven a good
infinitely modifiable and flexible ,
example,
For^examp^
of evideLe for such flexibility among
by electrically stimulating a certain area can be
can e\ oke an aggressive response
t e m y
neural center o
considered to be the
nionkey will alwa)
s

mean that, when this area is '^.^hrmonkei s v ho are

the presence
attack If a monkey IS in „,|| mdeed
less dominant than he in their so stimulated,
appropriate are
attack them when the presence of
« hi e P^,
but the same area is stimulated
if

monkeys who are more dominant

-ne^ Thus, the same ph>siological
pm^^p >
rather,^ will tend to flee 'he
Stimulation can produce
widely Our
trnynj^«^
,« cnadcs for humans
upon learnmg tL
appears to be
conclusion from rc\ icw mg
these j,„portant
component in man, j

ness may ha^e an mstincme

146 The Social Animal

stilk and kill His experiment was a very simple one He

rats

raised a kitten msame cage with a rat Not only did the
the
cat refrain from attacking the rat, but the n\ o became close
com-
panions Moreover, the cat refused either to chase or to kill other
rats It should be noted, however, that this experiment does
not

prove that aggressive behavior is not instinctive, it merely

demonstrates that aggressive behavior can be inhibited by early
experience Thus, in an experiment reported by irenaus Eibl
Eibesfeldt,*’ it was shown that rats raised in isolation (that is,

without any experience in fighting other rats) will attack a fellow

rat when one is introduced into the cage, moreover, the isolated
rat uses the same pattern of threat and attack that experienced
rats use Thus, although aggressive behavior can be modified by
experience (as shown by Kuo*s experiment), Eibl-Eibcsfeldt
showed need to be learned
that aggression apparently does not
On the other hand, one should not conclude from this study that
aggressiveness is necessarily instinctive, for as John Paul Scott®
has pointed out, in order to draw this conclusion, there must be
physiological evidence of a spontaneous stimulation for fighting
from within the body alone The stimulus in the above
that arises
experiment came from the outside— that is, the sight of the new
rat stimulated the isolated rat to fightScott concluded from His
survey of the evidence that there is no inborn need for fighting
if an organism can arrange its life such a way that there is no
m
outside stimulation to fight, then he will not experience any
physiological or mental damage as a result of not expressing ag
gression This view contradicts Freud’s contention and, in effect,
asserts that there is no instinct of aggression
The argument goes back and forth Scott’s conclusion has
been called into question by the distinguished ethologist Konrad
Lorenz ^ Lorenz observed the behavior of certain cichlids, which
are highly aggressive tropical fish Male cichhds will attack other
males of the same species apparently as an aspect of territorial
behavior— that is, to defend their territory In its natural environ
ment, the male cichlid docs not attack female cichhds, nor does
he attack males of a different species— he only attacks males of his
own species What happens if all other male cichhds are removed
 —
Htmian Aggression 149

toys who when this expectancy was

experienced frustration
thwarting was what caused the children to behave
thwarted, this
the psychiatrist
destructively In accord with this distinction,
most serious riots by
Jerome Frank has pointed out that the two
in the geographical
blacks m
recent years did not take place
atts an
took p ace in
areas of greatest poverty, rather, they
bad for blacks as they
Detroit, where things aren’t nearly as
some other sections of the country The
point is, g
m 1

bad, relative to what “Whitey” has

started by people whose faces are in the ^
frequently started by people who have recently
out\f the mud, looked around, and
noticed

doing better than they are, and that

unfairly Thus, frustration is not
the system
simply the
that o*
i

is

°
^
^ ,

be
deprivation
It IS the result of relative
^ better job
educated and you choose to be educated, 1 y
than I do, I will not experience :';i.,rcol
that But if we’ve both or a woman) am
lar job and I (because I’m
black, or a
^
handed a broom, I 'WiU feel frustrate *
^ ^ j
^iso feel
education
get an education, but an 1
every time I turn
frustrated This frustration will be «Tvhne people
on the TV and see all those beautiful eople, and
live m, and all those lovely share inVen
all of that gracious living and frustrations faced
by
j

you consider all of the economic " that there

minority groups in this affluent unsatisfied
there
J’ ,5
are so few As long as there
riots P 1
j by
eliminating ,
can be reduceu y
aggression Aggression
oe aggressiuu
will be
Will xigg*—
hope-or by satisfying it African
r,pnnle The South
apathe p P ^rc pre
hopeless people is an
A
blacks and the Haitians of the
The saiing grace
^h
vented from hoping for anything
bette

that-theoretically.
a' 'east
^ ^
of
b
United States is

promise
Dmise We
we leauH our
teach uui w...
”,h.s
unless
hnnc st
,u.; hope stands a
reasonable

to improve their lives But ij^bei

will
utablc
some turmoil
ance of being fulfilled,
chance
 The Social Animal

point for the social psychologist is that it is modifiable by situa-

tional factors How can be modified^ How much can it be

it

modified^ Should it be modified^ Before getting to these ques-

we must first
tions, understand what the situational factors are
and how they operate

Frustration

Aggression can be caused by any unpleasant or aversive situation,

such boredom, and the like Of these aversive situations,
as pain,
the major instigator of aggression is frustration If an individual is
thwarted on his way to a goal, the resulting frustration will in-
crease the probability of an aggressive response This does not
mean that frustration always leads to aggression or that frustra-
tion IS the only cause of aggression There are other factors that
will determine whether or not a frustrated individual will ag-
gress— and there are other causes of aggression
A clear between frustration and
picture of the relation
aggression emerges from a well known experiment by Roger
Barker, Tamara Dembo and Kurt Lewin ® These psychologists
frustrated young children by showing them a roomful of very
attractive toys, which they were then not allowed to pl-iy with
The children stood outside a wire screen looking at the toys, hop
ing to play with them— even expecting to play with them—but
were unable to reach them After a painfully long wait, the chil-
dren were finally allowed to play with the toys In this experi-
ment, a separate group of children were allowed to plsy with the
toys directly without first being frustrated This second group of
children played joyfully with the toys But the frustrated group,
when finally given access to the toys, were extremely destructive
they tended to smash the toys, throw them against the wall, step
on them, and so forth Thus, frustration can lead to aggression
important to distinguish between frustration and depriva-
It is

tion Children who simply don’t have toys do not necessarily

aggress Rather, the research with children indicates that it was
those children who have every reason to expect to play with the
 Hmnan Aggression '51

be frustrated In a of experiments, Albert Bandura,

classic senes

and his associates” demonstrated that simply seeing another per-

aggressive behavior o
son behave aggressively can increase the
was to have
young children The basic procedure in these studies
‘
Bobo ’
doll (the kind
an adult knock around a plastic, air filled
been knocked down) Sometimes t e
that bounces back after it s
aggression with verbal abuse
adult would accompany his physical
against the doll The kids were then
allowed to play « ith the doll
imitate t e aggres
In these experiments, not only did the children
sive models, they also engaged in
other forms o aggres
aggressive e °
behavior after having witnessed the
behavior o an a i
adult In short, the children copied the
,

serve as
mg someone else behave aggressively
to
them to behave aggressively It is important
children did not confine their
behauor to ™f
aggression
invented new and creative forms of of
is
that the effect of a model gencrahzes--it
the children doing exactly what
adults are ^ j

f
™ ,
commit a g
that children can be stimulated to
actions Bandura and his co workers have a
reward
the outcome was important if the aggressive
itnessed it

ed for his aggressiv'e behavior

th^
weie subsequently more nggressive
model being punished for and his
j Brrkowitz
Carrying this one step furth , ,^^^1 frustrated or
associates” have shown aggres
angered, the mere presence of an
^^ 1
associated w itli
orimcnt, college
Sion will increase his aggressiveness
„ ere made angrv
a m
sonic o t
students were made angry -ound and others
room in which a gun was left was
J„„nron racl et)
m 1 room m ^^hlch a neural „„cn the oppor
substituted for the gun The
siibjec s college
^ fellow
idmimstcr sonic pres
tunity to nngrN in the
student Those mdi\ idinls w ho
In more clcc
^tjniinistcrcd
(t ic gn presence
cncc of the nn-grcssi\ c stimulus m tlic

trie shocks than did tliosc

who were ” certain cues
tint arc
ot icr w
of the badminton nckcr In
150 The Socuil Annual

Social Learning and Aggression

Althougli frustration and pam can be considered the major causes

of aggression, there are many factors that can intervene, either to
induce aggressu c behavior in a person who is suffering very little

pun or frustration, or, comerscly, to inhibit an aggressive re-

sponse in 1 person \v ho is frustrated These factors are the result

of socnl learning AVe ha\e already seen how social learning can
inhibit an aggressu e response recall that, when we stimulate the
area of a monkey’s brain that characteristically produces aggres-
monkey w ill not aggress if he is in
su e beha\ lor, the the presence
of a monkey whom be has learned to fear Another qualification
based upon social learning is the intention attributed to an agent
of pain or frustration One aspect of behavior that seems to dis-

tinguish man from other animals is man’s ability to take the

intentions of others into consideration Consider the following
situations (1) a considerate person accidentally steps on your
toe, or (2) a thoughtless person that you know doesn’t care about
you on vour toe Let us assume that the amount of pressure
steps
and pain is exactly the same in both cases My guess is that the
latter situation would e\ okc an aggressive response, but the
former \\ ould produce little or no aggression Thus, I am suggest-
ing that frustration and pain do not inexorably produce aggres-
sion Tlie response can be modified— and
one of the primary
things that can modif) aggression is the intention attributed to
the frustrator This phenomenon was demonstrated in an experi
ment by Shabaz Malhck and Boyd McCandlcss,‘“ in which they
frustrated third grade school children child s
by having another
clumsiness prevent them from achieving a goal that would have
resulted in a cash prize Some of these children were subsequently
provided with a reasonable and “unspiteful” explanation for the
behavior of the child \v ho fouled them up Specifically, they were
told that he had been “sleepy and upset ” The children in this
condition directed much less aggression against the “thwarting
child than did children who were not given this explanation
On the other side of the com, certain stimuli can evoke ag-
gressiv c behavior on the part of individuals who do not appear to
 Hitman Aggression *53

But this probably not true Overt aggression is no longer

IS
ac-
necessary for survival Moreover, to equate creative
human
aggression is to
tivity and high achievement with hostility and
of a pro em or
confuse the issue It is possible to achieve mastery
a skill without hurting another person
or even without attempt-
without reducing
ing to conquer It is possible to reduce violence
desire to solve problems This is a difficult
man’s curiosity or his
because the western mind-and per-
distinction for us to grasp,
particular— has been frame
haps the American mind in
well with eating so
success with victory, to equate doing
an
M F Ashley Montagu'* feels that an oversimplification
provided
interpretation of Darwin’s theory has
necessari y t e
with the mistaken idea that conflict is
during
Ashley Montagu that it was convenient,
states

trial revolution, for the top dogs,

who were °
being a
by talking
ers, to justify their exploitation

struggle for survival, and about tto this

danger^r^ .
5 jj^jt th_^
(anf®only the fittest) to
kind of reasoning
the sur
cause us to ignore or play down mimals For
for man an
sive and noncompetitive behavior cooperatne
Kropotkin” concluded
example, Peter man) forms
have great surviv ^^e for
behavior and mutual aid conclusion The
to suppo
of life There is ample evidence termites,
certain socia mse
cooperative behavior of j^noun is a ,

Per aps n
ants, and is well known
bees, as tjescnbcd
chimpanzee t at
form of behavior in the in
ohimpanrees are
like *
“altruistic ’’
It goes something (jocsn’t Tlie
has foo “
adjoining cages One chimp ,I,c
"ucalih)"
beg
foodlcss chimpanzee begins to n rehicnncc
In a nse, the^^
clump hands ov er some of his food
the
With which he does so makes p dearly cn)oy
keeping

indicates that he likes the

food and >
„tge to share
Accordingly, w
sugge^s^j^^ , ,
It for himself

may have deep roots, indeed been hrgel)

j,-, oe
has
ignore
it
been giv en much attcntion-mdecd,
152 The Social Animal

associated with aggression will increase a person’s tendency to

aggress As Berkowitz puts it, “An angry person can pull the
trigger of his gun if he wants to commit violence, but the trigger
[that IS, the sight of the gun] can also pull the finger or otherwise
elicit aggressive reactions from him, if he is ready to aggress and
does not have strong inhibitions against such behavior

h Aggression Necessary?
Survival of the Fittest Some scholars have suggested that cer-
tain kinds of aggression are useful and, perhaps, even essential

Konrad Lorenz,” for example, has argued that aggression is “an

’’
essential partof the life-preserving organization of instincts
Basing his argument on his observation of nonhumans, he sees
aggressiveness as being of prime evolutionary importance, allow-
ing the young animals to have the strongest and wisest mothers
and and enabling the group to be led by the best possible
fathers
leaders From
their study of Old World monkeys, the anthropol-
ogist Sherwood Washburn and the psychiatrist David Ham-
burg” concur They find that aggression within the same group
of monkeys plays an important role in feeding, reproduction, and
m determining dominance patterns The strongest and most ag-
gressive male in a colony will assume a dominant position through
an initial display of aggressiveness This serves
to reduce subse-
quent serious fighting within the colony (the other males know
who’s boss) Furthermore, because the dominant male dominates
reproduction, the colony increases its chances of survival as the
strong male passes on his vigor to subsequent generations
With these data in mind, many observers urge caution in at-
tempting to control aggression m
man, suggesting that, as in
lower animals, aggression is necessary for survival This reasoning
is based, in part,
on the assumption that the same mechanism that
drives one man
to kill his neighbor drives another to “conquer
outer space, “sink his teeth” into a difficult mathematical equa-
tion, “attack” a logical problem, or “master” the universe
 « ,

Human Aggression *55

it sometimes has
Catharsis Thereis another sense in which

aggressiveness serves a useful and perhaps a nec

been argued that
position pe
essary function I refer here to the psychoanalytic
believed that, un ess man
cifically, as mentioned earlier, Freud
the aggressive en
were allowed to express himself aggressively,
exp o e, eit er
ergy would be dammed up and would eventually
mental illness Is there any
m the form of extreme violence or in
The evidence, sue as it i

evidence to support this contention^

can lea to a sta
suggests that conflict about aggression ^
led some
emotional tension in humans This has ^
of an aggressi P
the faulty conclusion that the inhibition
m humans produces either serious symptoms or
for “nd^on
.f
sive behavim But there is nodirect evidence
expression of aggre^^n
“But, still,” one might ask, “is the
leastthree ways in
beneficiaP” There are at
energy can be discharged (1) by expen uunching a
physical activity, such as games, ^ru«ive form of
bag, and so on. (2) by engaging m or u rit
fantasy aggression-
>n

b‘m. an
trouble, saying nasty things about acceptable ig
Let us take the one— engagi g
first procedure
gressive behavior There is choanalytically
oriented
works, and it is amply promoted P ^
chiatrist
Wilh^ni
,

distinguis e P
therapists For example, the an un-
Menninger has asserted that ““"’P^^^Tg^sn e drive’”'
the in com
usually satisfactory outlet for idencc tint
It would seem reasonable to
ask if there i
/ gis of
the
aggressiveness find-
petmve games reduce i_ uncqunocal
find
Listing data, Berkowitz'- could ,ctivit) rc-

t at college
ings to support the contention stuJj of
duces aggressiveness Similarly,
an m ^ idence to sup
athletes: Warren Johnson” found not on!) « ;
port the notion of catharsis
Ho ” won„ on the pb) mg drWs
tl 1
been
Lsurd to argue that wars have
‘54 The Social Amvial

perhaps because it did not fit m with the temper of the times or
with the needs of those who were profiting from the industrial

revolution
Let us look at our own society As a culture, we Americans
seem to thrive on competition, we reward winners and turn away
from losers For two centuries, our educational system has been
based upon competitiveness and the laws of survival With very
few exceptions, we do not teach our kids to love learning— we
teach them to strive for high grades When sportswriter Grant-
is not whether you win or
land Rice said that what’s important
lose, but how you play was not describing the domi-
the game, he
nant theme in American life, he was prescribing a cure for our
over concern with winning From the Little League ball player
who bursts into tears after his team loses, to the college students
m the football stadium chanting “We’re number one‘”, from
Lyndon Johnson, who’s judgment was almost certainly distorted
by his oft stated desire not to be the first American President to
lose a war, to the third grader who despises his classmate for a
superior performance on an arithmetic test, we manifest a stag-
gering cultural obsession with victory Vmcc Lombardi, a very
successful professional football coach, may have summed it all up
With the simple statement “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only
thing ” What is frightening about the acceptance of this philoso
phy is that it implies that the goal of victory justifies whatever
means we use to win, even if it’s only a football game— which,
after all, was first conceived as a recreational activity
It is certainly true that, in the early history of man’s evolu-
tion, a great deal of aggressive behavior was adaptive But as ue
look about and see a world full of strife, of international and
interracial hatred and distrust, of senseless slaughter and political

we feel justified in questioning the survival value of

assassination,
this The biologist Loren Eisley paid tribute to our an
behavior
cient ancestors, but warned against imitating them, when he
wrote “The need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people
than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger, and the
bear”'"
 t

Himtim Aggression >57

and hostile feelings toward the

tension, a good deal of anger,
group that expressed their feelings
won
technician, while the
the technician, n
feel relieved, relaxed, and not as hostile toward
at it
short, expressing hostility would serve as a catharsis— is,

feelings, eing a
would purge the insulted subjects of their hostile
good Freudian, Kahn expected these results. He
was surprised
to t e contrarjc
and (to his credit) excited to find some evidence
express the aggresio
Specifically, those who were allowed to
and hostility for t e tec
subsequently felt greater dislike
than did those who were inhibited from expressing t

Sion.In other words, expressing .

e as
tendency to aggress, it tended to increase it. ,
th
prediction from the
will have already derived this y ^
cognitive dissonance: making aggressive nerson,
I hate a p P
additional justification. In short, if I say donejo
cognition ^at I haj
or do harm to him in some way, the
would be dissonant with my cognitions
g-ainst a
five aspects of that person. Hence, and^accen-
person, I will try to play down all
of his g P
disso-
.11 -c LI- as a way of re
'
&
of his bad characteristics
1 I
tuate all

nance. I will also try to find additional Crate,"! will

a xv-..
students ai
Once have shot some dissenting
I issenting
^

convince myself that they really > them: once I

senting students even more than f .. Lai,I will
be
chi
have slaughtered some women and .i Ayman than 1
ar
even more convinced that Orientals , , . Wack people a
ave
was before I slaughtered them; once I jj^jt they
will become
even mor
decent education, I education to
ro
are stupid and couldn’t have profite fendency
toward
reduce the 7
begin with. Violence does not
violence: violence breeds more
in
-loy engaging
peop e
This is not to say that some ]j(.„er (less
deny that t ey or
violence. Neither is it to jnsulring him.
tcn-sion.
tense) after hitting someone, do relieve
sense
throwing dishes at him. These acts assert their
long
They also provide an opportunity ^ dolence in the
of power. But they also set the stage f
1 56 The Social Amnial

Eton, It IS even more absurd to hope that we can prevent them

there This is not to say that people do not get pleasure out
of

these games They do But engaging in these games does not

decrease aggressiveness
Let us look at the second form of aggression— fantasy There
IS some evidence that engaging m
a fantasy of aggression can
make people feel better, and can even result in a temporary re-
duction in aggressiveness In an interesting experiment by Sey-
mour Feshbach,” students were insulted by their instructor, then,
one half of the students were given the opportunity to write
imaginative stories about aggression, while the other half were
not given this opportunity There was also a control group of
studentswho were not insulted Feshbach’s results showed that,
immediately afterward, the people who had been given the
opportunity to write stones about aggression were slightly less
aggressive than were those who were not given this opportunity
It should be pointed out that both of these groups of insulted
students were considerably more aggressive than a group of stu
dents who were not insulted at all Thus, the utility of fantasy

aggression was limited did not reduce a great deal of aggressive

it

energy It is also important to emphasize that, mfantasy aggres-

sion, no one actually gets hurt
The fact that no one actually gets hurt in a fantasy assumes
great importance when we look at the effects of actual aggression
Does an overt act of aggression reduce the need for further ag-
gression^ No As a matter of fact, the bulk of the evidence indi-
cates that )ust the opposite
is true— that is, hurting another person
actually increases the aggressor’s negative feelings toward the
victim and, accordingly, may result in greater future aggression
Paramount among this research is a study by Michael Kahn In
Kahn’s experiment, a technician taking some physiological meas-
urements from the subjects proceeded to insult and humiliate
them In one experimental condition, the subjects were allowed
by expressing their feelings about the terh
to vent their hostility
nician In another condition, they were inhibited from expressing
this aggression What would psychoanalytic theory predict
would occur^ That’s easy the inhibited group would experience
 Human Aggression 159

children And what do wc see onTV^ In the fall of 1969, George

survey of
Gerbner and his associates conducted an exhaustive
television programmirtg during prime time
and on Satur ay
of every
mornings found that violence prevailed in eight out
He
ten plays Moreover, the rate of violent episodes
was eight per
matter
program hour Cartoons-which are the favorite viewing
violence ^ ^
of most young children— contain the most
only
j1 t'ot
ninety-five cartoon plays analyzed in this study,
contain violence ,

Spokesmen for the ma)or networks have attempte to

TV
” 0 involve
shrug off the Bandura experiments because they do
^
aggression against people After all, who cares about w at a 1

-
evidence demo
does to a “Bobo” dolP Recent experimental
strates, however, that the effects of
watching ,

Kids to wa °P
limited to walloping a “Bobo” doll it induces
8 P
other as well In one study, Liebert and Baron"
Untoucha es,
of subjects to a TV production of “The n a
,

tremely violent cops and-robbers type of program

condition, a similar group of children were
expose to a p
event or
duction of a highly action oriented sporting
to play
length of time The children were then allowed
w«^hed^,

room with a group of other children Those who

had

the violent TV program showed far more ® event

other children than those who had watched the spo g
studies show thu those
Finally, back in the real world, several
°
children who watch more aggressive P™8'‘a^®
more evidence of turning to aggressiveness as cmdies are
correlation
problems " It should be noted that these
not conclusive themselves— that they o
is,
by
watching violence on TV causes kids to c fforsome
tions It may be that kids who happen to like aggr ag
other reason) watch a lot of TV
aggression
^^hy the
gressive ways to solve their problems
This is 1^
jn the
so i
evidence from controlled experiments is “The
^
Liebert and Baron study, we knoav that , , aircressi^e
pro u
Untouchables,” and nothing elscj that
158 The Social Anividt

run Perhaps it would be more adaptive for people to simply ex-

press their anger with the simple statement “I am feeling angry at

you because of what you did ” This might relieve the tension, and
it seems to provide an opportumty for self-assertion At the
same
time, because there is no damage, no name-calling, and no one
gets hurt, it does not lead to an increase in aggression
To sum up this section, I would say that expressing aggres-

sion m fantasy does seem to produce some minor relief from

anger or frustration, and seems to make people feel a little
it also
more comfortable, but the overwhelming evidence runs counter
to the catharsis notion Basically, expressing aggression tends to
reduce the attractiveness of the target and increases the probabil-
ity of aggressive behavior

Catharsis and Vubltc Policy What does all of this tell us about
public policy^ In spite of the evidence against the catharsis hy-
pothesis, It still seems to be widely believed by most average peo-

ple-including those people who make important decisions that

affect all of us Thus, it is frequently argued that playing foot-
ball” or watching people getting murdered on the TVscreen”
serves a valuable function m draining off aggressive energy As
we have seen, neither seems to be true Recall that Albert Ban-
dura and his associates found consistent evidence to support the
notion that children use adult aggressors as models for their own
behavior They beat the hell out of a “Bobo” doll after watching
an adult This phenomenon is not limited to preschool
hit the doll
children several investigators have shown that seeing films of a
vicious fight increased the aggressive behavior of a wide range of
subjects, including juvenile delinquents, normal female adults,
hospital attendants, and high school boys Indeed, after survey-
ing the evidence m
their report to the Surgeon General, psychol-
ogists Robert Liebert and Robert Baron state that, of eighteen
studies on this issue, sixteen support the notion that watching
violence increases subsequent aggression among the observers
The evidence suggests that violence on TV
is potentially

dangerous, in that it serves as a model for behavior— especially for

 Hwnan Aggression i6i

tion of the conditions that brought it about. Violence breeds

violence— not only in the simple sense of the victim striking back
against hisenemy, but also in the infinitely more complex and
more insidious sense of the attacker seeking to justify his violence
by exaggerating the evil that exists in his enemy and thereby
increasing the probability that he will attack him again (and
again, and again . . .). There never was a war to end all wars—
atti-
quite the contrary: bellicose behavior strengthens bellicose
tudes, which increase the probability of We
bellicose behavior.
must search for alternative solutions. A milder form of instrumen-
talaggression might serve to redress social ills without
producing
an irreconcilable cycle of conflict. The strike, the boycott, the
nonviolent sit-in have all been used effectively in this decade
to

awaken this nation to real grievances. Accordingly, I would echo

Loren Eisley*s call for a gentler people and for a people more
tolerant of differences between one another— but not a
people
another,
people who will love and trust one
tolerant of injustice: a
(and even
but scream, strike, boycott, march, sit-in
who will yell,
vote) to eliminate injustice and cruelty. Again, as we have
like
countless experiments, violence cannot be turned on and off
a faucet. Research has shown over and over again that the only
to
solution is to find ways of reducing violence as ave continue
reduce the injustice that produces the frustrations that frequent y
erupt in violent aggression.

Toward the Reduction of Violence

mans propensity
If we assume, then, that the reduction of
toward aggressiveness worthwhile goal, how should we pro
is a
ceed^ It tempting to search for simple solutions.
IS
No ess an
sso
expert than the president of the American Psycholog.ca
elation has suggested, in his presidential address, that we eve op
an anticruelty drug to be fed to people (especially nationaM^^'
scale,
ers) as a way
of reducing violence on a universal
quest for such a solution is understandable and even somew
a

touching, but it is extremely unlikely that a drug cou

i6o The Social Animal

behavior in the kids-because a similar group of kids that watched

a sports event behaved less aggressively than those who
watched
”
“The Untouchables
In sum, there is fairly clear evidence that watching violent
behavior on TV will increase the aggressive behavior of children
But children do tend to find such fair entertaining Accordingly,
because this kind of programming is probably a good way to sell
“Barbie” and “Ken” dolls, the networks will not curtail it— unless
there is a public outcry Indeed, in the face of mounting evidence
from psychological laboratories that links viewing of aggressive
behavior with performing aggressive behavior, the amount of
violence on NBC increased between 1968 and 1969
How knowledgeable are those who produce, package and
distribute violence on andTV m
films’ They tend to view them-
selves as hard working men who are merely responding to a need
Recently, Samuel Arkoff, board chairman of American Inter-
national Pictures (one of our leading manufacturers of violent
films), said “Maybe the need to view violence will someday be
reduced to watching pro football Unfortunately, the data
indicate that this need is being increased, not satiated, by people
like Mr Arkoff How responsible are these people’ “The effects
on society’” asks Joe Wizan, the producer of “Kansas City
Prime ” “I don’t give it a thought Psychiatrists don’t have the
answers, so why should P”®'

Aggression to Attract Public Attention There is still another

function that \iolent aggression might serve In a complex and
apathetic society like ours, it might be the most dramatic way for
an oppressed minority to attract the attention of the silent ma-
jority No one can deny that the effects of the Watts and Detroit
riots served to alert a large number of decent but apathetic peo-
ple to the plight of black people m
America, and no one can
doubt that the bloodshed at the state prison at Attica, New
York,
has led to increased attempts at prison reform Are such outcomes
worth the dreadful price in human lives’ I cannot answer that
question Bur, as a social psychologist, what I can say (again and
again) is that violence almost never ends simply with a rectifica-
 Uwnan Aggression 163

Pimishinent. To the average citizen, an obvious way of re-

ducing aggression is to punish it. If one man robs, hits, or kills
another, the simple solution is to put him in prison or, in e.xtreme
cases, to kill him. If a child aggresses against his parents, siblings,
or peers, we can spank him, scream at him, remove his privileges,
or make him feel guilty. The assumption here is that this punish-
ment will teach him a lesson,” that he will “think twice” before
e performs that activity again, and that
the more severe the pun-
is ment,
the better. But it is -not that simple. Severe punishment
as been shown
to be effective temporarily, but, unless used with
wreme caution, it can have the opposite effect in the long run.
servations of parents and children in the real world have dem-
onstrated time and
again that patents who use severe punishment
cn to produce children
who are extremely aggressive.” This
ggressweness usually takes
place outside the home, where the
punishing agent. But these naturalistic
'uuonclusive. They don’t necessarily prove that pun-
ishm^
aggression, in and of produces aggressive chil-
itself,
dren
of
punishment probably do a lot
' "'ell— that is, they are probably harsh and ag-
erewivt'^

simnlv
may be that their children are
general aggressive behavior of their parents,
Indeed
shown that, if children are physically pun-
ished bir
^ previously treated them in a
wd nurm^ ^ warm
wishes comply with the adult’s
hand child^ from the scene. On the other
punished by an impersonal,
cold adnlr T ?
™mply
once the aduh- with the adult’s wishes
Tr
believe Tb^.-.^ere is some reason to

the contpv^
can be useful if it is applied judicially in
*1,°^ warm relatirtncKlTv
relationship.
On other ?
tJne *
factor of
hhment “Smfivance to the efficacy of pun-
is its

punishment can hT'Zt”

A
severe or restrictive
of the nrimtr!, frastrating; because frustration is
avoid usinc aggression, it would seem wise to
mg tactics when trying
to curb aggression.
162 The Social Ammal

developed that would reduce cruelty without completely

tran-

quihzmg the motivational systems of its users Chemicals cannot

mahe the fine distinction that psychological processes can Thus,
we can conceive of a gentle, peace-loving man like Albert Ein
stem, who is simultaneously a fountainhead of creative energy,
courage, and resourcefulness Such men arc produced by a subtle

combination of physiological and psychological forces, of inher-

ited capacities and learned values It is difficult to conceive of a
chemical that could perform as subtly Moreover, chemical
control of human behavior has the quality of an Orwellian night-
mare \\ horn would we trust to use such methods^
There probably are no simple foolproof solutions But let s
speculate about some complex and less foolproof possibilities
based upon what w c’vc learned so far

Viire Reason I am certain that wc could construct a logical,

reasonable set of arguments depicting the dangers of aggression
and the misery produced (not only in victims but in aggressors)
by aggressive acts I’m even fairly certain that we could convince
most people that the arguments were sound, clearly, most people
would agree that war is hell and that violence in the streets is un-
desirable But such arguments probably would not significantly
curtail iggrcssive behavior no matter how sound, no matter how
convincing Tlic individual— even if he is convinced that aggres-
sion, m gcncnl is undesirable— will behave aggressively, unless he
firmly believes that aggressiveness is undesirable for him As
Aristotle obscrv cd more than 2000 years ago, many people can
not be persuaded by rational argument alone— especially when
the issue concerns their own personal behavior‘For argument
based on knowledge implies ms ••uction, and there arc people
whom one cannot instruct ^ Moreover, because the problem of
the control of aggression is one that first occurs m
early child-
hood— that IS at a time when the individual is too young to be
reasoned with— logical arguments arc of little value It is for these
reasons that social psychologists have searched for alternative
techniques of persuasion Many of these have been developed
well
with young children in mind, but are adaptable to adults as
 Human Aggression 165

he’s not hitting his brother. In other words, his external justifica-
tion (in terms of the severity of the threat) is minimal; therefore,
he must add his own order to justify his restraint.
justification in
He might, for example, convince himself that he no longer enjoys
hitting his little would not only explain, justify, and
brother. This
make sensible his momentary peaceful behavior, but, more im-
portant,it 'would decrease the probability of his hitting his little

brother in the future. In short, a counteraggiessive value would

have been internalized: he would have convinced hhnself that, for
hi??!, hitting someone is not a good or fun thing to do.

Although this process has been shown to work in several

highly controlled laboratory experiments, ir has one major prac-
tical drawback: before it can be applied, it is essential for the
parent to know, for each child, exactly what sort of threat to use.
It is important that it not be too severe, or else the child will have

no need to seek additional justification for his lack of aggression.

On the other hand,it must be severe enough for him to refrain

from aggressing momentarily. This is crucial, for if a parent

administers a threat or a punishment that is not quite severe
enough to get the child to desist momentarily, the entire process
will backfire: the child will consciously decide not to stop his
 a

164 The Social Animal

Hamblin and his colleagues.” In this study, hyperaggressive boys

were punished by their teacher by having privileges taken away
from them. Specifically, the boys had earned some tokens that
were exchangeable for a wide variety of fun things; but each time
a boy aggressed, he was deprived of some of the tokens. During
and after the application of this technique, the frequency of
aggressive actions among theseboys practically doubled. It is
reasonable to assume that this was the result of an increase in
frustration.
Severe punishment frequently results in compliance, but it

rarely produces internalization. In order to establish long term

nonaggressive behavior patterns, it is important to induce a child
to internalize a set of values that denigrates aggressiveness. In
experiments discussed more fully in Chapter 4, both Merrill Carl-
smith and I and Jonathan Freedman” demonstrated that, with
young children, threats of mild punishments are far more effec-
tive than threats of severe punishments. Although these investiga-
tions dealt with toy preference in children, I would speculate
punishment would curb aggression in the
that threats of mild
same way. Suppose a mother threatens to punish her child in
order to induce him to refrain, momentarily, from aggressing
against his little brother. If she is successful, the child will ex-
perience dissonance. The cognition “I like to wallop my little

brother” is dissonant with the cognition “I am refraining from

wallopingmy little brother.” If he were severely threatened, he
would have an abundantly good reason for refraining: he would
be able to reduce dissonance by saying, “The reason that Tm not
hitting my brother is that I’d get the daylights beaten out of me
if I did— but I sure would like to.” However, suppose his mother

threatens to use a punishment that is mild rather than

severe—
punishment strong enough to get the child to stop his
just barely
^his instance, when he asks himself why he’s not
hitting his infinitely hittable little brother at the moment, he can’t
use the threat as away of reducing dissonance-that is, he can’t
easily convince himself that he would be walloped if he hit the
kid, simply because it’s not true—yet he must justify the fact that
 Hwmm Aggression 16;

he*s not hitting his brother In other words, his external justifica
therefore,
non (in terms of the severity of the threat) is minimal,
his restraint
he must add his own justification in order to justify
He might, for example, convince himself that
he no longer enjoys
and
hitting his little brother This would not only explain, justify,
make sensible his momentary peaceful behavior, but,
™
hitting is i
pottant. It mould decrease the probability of his
brother m the fumre In short, a counteraggiessive
™
hmself that,
have been internalized he would have convinced
to o
him, hitung someone is not a good or fun thing i
several
to work in
Although this process has been shown
highly controlled laboratory experiments, it has one
m j

is
drawback before it can be applied,
it
tical
what sort °
parent to know, for each child, exactly
or else t e
It IS important that it not be too severe,
for his a gg
no need to seek additional justification
enough or h m to refrain
^
On the other hand, it must be severe
crucm
from aggressing momentarily This is
administers a threat or a punishment
t
^4
enough to get the child to desist moment yi
^
ec
will backfire the child will consciously
that e
aggression, even though he knows ,.j gg.
This child experiences dissonance, too ^
g for
cognition
gressmg” is dissonant with the
.

ft ” How does the child reduce

yable to hit his
that it s
vmcing himself that it’s worth it I
This
^
little brother that he’s willing
even to of ag-
ter
reasonmg serves to increase the long punishment can
gressive behavior Thus, although less
aggmssive,
to°i,prr>me
be an effective meins of helping a chj Careful
light y
the technique cannot be used intensity of
the

consideration must be given to the n somewhat

threat to be administered This,
o cou ’ father

from child to child For some chi! not be severe

may be a not easily
too severe, for others,
level can be found
enough Again, the proper
i66 The Social Animal

The important point is that a threat that is not severe enough to

bring about a momentary change in behavior will actually
increase the attractiveness of the unwanted behavior

fnmshinent of Ag^^resswe Models A

variation on the theme
of punishment involves punishing someone else Specihcally, it
has been argued that it might be possible to reduce aggression by
presenting the child with the sight of an aggressive model who
comes to a bad end The implicit theory here is that the individual
who IS exposed to this sight will, in effect, be vicariously pun
ished for his own aggression and, accordingly, will become less
aggressive probable that, in our nation’s past, public hang-
It is

ings and floggings were arranged oy people who held this theory
Does It works Gross data from the real world does not support

the theory For example, according to the President’s Commis

Sion on Law Enforcement,®* the existence and use of the death
penalty does not decrease the homicide rate Moreover, on the
level of casual data, the mass media frequently depict aggressive
people as highly attractive (Bonnie and Clyde, for example, or
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), even though they are
eventually punished This tends to induce individuals to identify
with these violent characters
The evidence from controlled experiments presents a more
precise picture Typically, in these
experiments, children watch
a film of an aggressive person
who, subsequently, is either re
warded or punished for his aggressiveness Later, the children are
given an opportunity to be aggressive
under circumstances simi
lar to the ones shown
m
the film The consistent finding is that
the children who watched the film
in which the aggressive person
was punished display significantly less aggressive behavior than
the children w ho w atched the film of the person being rew arded
As mentioned previously, there is also some evidence to indicate
that the kidswho watched the aggressive film character being
punished displayed less aggressive behavior than did children who
watched an aggressive film character w ho was neither rew arded
nor punished On the other hand— and this is most crucial to our
 Human Aggression i6j

discussion—seeing a model being punished for aggression did not

decrease the general level of aggression below that of a group of

never exposed to an aggressive model

In
children who were
indicate
other words, the major thrust of the research seems to
aggressive be-
that seeing an aggressor rewarded will increase
increase
havior in a child, and that seeing him punished will not
the child’s aggressive behavior (but it’s not clear that seeing an
behavior) t
aggressor punished will decrease his aggressive
aggressive
might be just as effective not to expose the child to
the portraya
models at all The implications of this research for
been discusse
of violence m
the mass media have already

Anot er po^i
Keviarding Alternative Behavior Patterns
^'^hen e e a\
ity that hasbeen investigated is to ignore a child
be avior
aggressively and to reward him for nonaggressive
that
strategy is based, m
part, upon the assumption
ave ^
.

dren (and perhaps adults as well) frequently be ,

as a way of attracting attention For ac-

preferable to being ignored Paradoxically* then, p
as a rew
gressive behavior may actually be interpreted
^
pays attention to me
e^ry i
loolv, gang' Mommy ” wa
,
te ted m^an
again Th.s .dea
httlebrother I th.nk I'll do it
experiment conducted at a nursery school y ““
to
Rogers Elliot"’ The nursery school
on the part
^ds Attliesimc
Ignore all aggressive behavior cliildrcn,
ttme, the telchers were asked to be very '’’^hey uere
and especially to give them a lot of attention ^
as
doing things incompatible wtth aggress.onJ«cn
friendly manner, sharing toys, and coope aagressne
a few weeks, there was a noticeable
behavior In a more elaborateexperjmcn^
stnted that frustration need not ncccss y r jjcha'
rather, it can lead to construeme
training I"
been made attracts e and appealing of
> four Sonic
study, children averc allo^^cd to play
m ^ bcluMor, uhilc
constru
these groups were rewarded for
i68 The Social Animal

others were rewarded for aggressive or competitive behavior

Then the kids were deliberately frustrated This was accom-
plished by building up the expectation that they would be shown
a series of entertaining movies and be allowed to have fun In-
deed, the experimenters went so far as to begin to show a movie
and to hand out candy bars to be eaten later But then the frustra-
tion was administered the experimenter abruptly terminated the
movie at the point of highest interest and took the candy bars
away The children were then allowed to play freely Those chil-
dren who had been trained for constructive behavior displayed
far more constructive activity and far less aggressive activity than
those in the other group
This research is encouraging indeed It is unlikely that parents
can ever succeed in building an environment for their children
that IS totally free of frustrations Even were this possible, it
would not be desirable, because the world outside is full of frus-
and a child who is sheltered from frustration
trating situations,
will experience greater pam and turmoil when he is finally ex-
posed to frustrating events But it w possible to train children to
respond to frustrating events m
ways that are constructive and
satisfying, rather than m ways that are violent and destructive

Building Empathy Toward Others Seymour Feshbach notes

that most people find it purposely inflict pain on
difficult to
another human being, unless they can find some way of de-
humanizing their victim “Thus the policeman becomes a ‘pig/
and the student a ‘hippie ’ The Asiatic becomes a ‘Gook,’ ‘yellow
people are treacherous,* and besides, *we all know that life is
cheap in the orient As I have noted time and again in this
’

book, the kind of rationalization that Feshbach points out not

only makes it possible for us to aggress against another person, but
it also guarantees that we will continue to aggress against him

Recall the example of the schoolteacher living in Kent, Ohio,

who, after the killing of four Kent State students by Ohio Na
tional Guardsmen, told author James Michener"" that anyone
who walks on the street barefoot deserves to die This kind of
 Human Aggression 169

Statement understandable only if we assume that it was

made
is

by someone who had succeeded in dehumanizing the victims of

but
this tragedy. We
can deplore the process of dehumanization,
us to
at the same time, an understanding of the process can help
reverse it. Specifically, if it is true that most
individuals must
act 0
dehumanize their victims in order to commit an extreme
aggression, then, by building empathy among people, aggressive

acts will become more difficult to commit. Indeed, Norma an

Seymour Feshbach” have demonstrated a negative correlation

between empathy and aggressiveness in children: the
more em-
pathy a person has, the less he resorts to aggressive actions.
is a com-
Exactly how empathy among people can be fostered
point;
plex problem. We
are not quite ready to discuss it,
at this
nur-
but in Chapters 7 and 8, we will suggest how it might be
tured. First, however, we must take a closer look at the
other si e
that
of the coin: dehumanization; the kind of dehumanization
not tm y
occurs in prejudice; the kind of dehumanization that
hurts the victim, but hurts the oppressor as well. Read
the first

paragraph of the next chapter and you’ll see what I mean.

 ,

Prejudice

Come here'" Somnvhu

„ .
..Hcv boy'
A white policeman ye na
then rushed at me,
in-

bothered, I retorted ^ snorting, “What d'ja sa)

your
flamed, and stood demanded, “U hat’s
“‘"f
he fnsh Imaphysi-
boy=’’ QuicUy ", j -Dr Poussamt
-What’s a our first name
I
name, boy=” Frightened.
He angrily chuck
" stance and
.^d a threatening
’’
Clan
Itoya" When hcsitared hc^^
I
,
,„rd. I multered in pro-

his fists ' *

clcnchcd ^
brutal, ta. bellow
mg, Al- ,

found humiliation.
continued his psy S cal ,011 hear
Hc
call
the nest tunc
I
am, i,„j
Youheara-Ihestitatcd
his oppressor
1 t .he hero lash out at
Hollywood would
IW' Poussamt sim-
„orld. Dr.
andcmcigcMctorious
Put m t
172 The Social Aiimial

ply slunk away, humiliated— or, m his own words, “psychologi-

cally castrated ” The feeling of helplessness and powcrlessness
that IS the harvest of the oppressed almost inevitably leads to a
diminution of self-esteem that begins even in early childhood
Many years ago, Kenneth and Mamie Clark* demonstrated that
black children, some of whom
were only three years old, were
already convinced that being black was not a good thing— they
rejected black dolls, feeling that white dolls were prettier and
generally superior This experiment suggests that educational
facilities that are “separate but equal” are never equal because
they imply to the minority child that he is being segregated be-
cause there is something wrong with him Indeed, this experiment
played a major role in the Supreme Court decision (Brown v
Board of Education) that declared segregated schools to be
unconstitutional
This diminution of self-esteemis not limited to blacks it
affects other oppressedgroups as well In a study similar to the
Clark and Clark experiment, Philip Goldberg* demonstrated that
women have been taught to consider themselves the intellectual
men In his experiment, Goldberg asked a number of
inferiors of
female college students to read several scholarly articles, and to
evaluate them in terms of their style, and so on For
competence,
some students, specific articles
were attributed to male authors
(for example, John T McKay), for others,
the same articles were
attributed to female authors (for
example, Joan T
AIcKay) The
female students rated the articles much
higher if they were attnb
uted to a male author than if they were attributed to a female
author This was true even when
the articles dealt witii topics
that are typically regarded as the province of women, such as
elementary education and dietetics In other words, these women
had learned their place”— they regarded their own output as
necessarily inferior to that of males, just as the black youngsters
learned to regard black dolls as inferior to white dolls This is the
legacy of a prejudiced society
Social scientists have defined “prejudice” in a variety of ways
Technically, there are positive and negative prejudices, I can be
 Prejudice 73

or prejudiced in favor o
mo
prejudiced against modem artists
am mea
ern artists. This means that, before I am introduced to

(who modern artist), I will be me me to i

I’ve been told is a

“"j to
or dislike him— and be inclined to expect
I will
the concept
characteristics in him. Thus, if I associate
artist” with effeminate behavior, I would
be fille ®
looking
throug t e
disbelief if Sam Smear were to swagger
or i
^
for all the world like the middle linebacker
^
Packers. If associate the concept
I
Smear were
would be astonishe i
liberal political view, I

wearing a William Buckley political button.

ThL expectations ate coVLta It

otype,” like the word of identical

char-
tne ^„riburion r
refers to an overgenerahzauon varia- ^^tual
acteristics to any person in a group, blacks
believe that
tion among members of that group. ’
material-

are full of a natural sense that

Tj vj are rhythmic, or
virtually a is
istic, is to assume that „gssions. Stereotyping
g^'h^ng
Jews go around
virtually all however; it is
a
not necessarily an intentional . of the worl ,

frequently merely a way

of
have a specific pi«urc
or New
and we all do it to some “Irish priest” -
the ster
in our mind when we h^='V';^'''"To the extent that
or “I«>‘=" it is an adap-
York cab driver” „„1| accurate,
otype is based on world. On t c
with the
way °f
tive, short-hand differences
hand, if it blinds us to "^‘“„„„,ially dangerous.
people, it baseS «PO^
most stereotypes
i-lteCt concocted by tl
nwd-ial’ot am
.
„^^.n

— book .. if '
P^f an education,
» think or oiaeixs
P and s
t is
it helpful to
m
.

earfer in this
earlier
- ‘
them off .“"..
‘’i’
disposed toward
donies- ^
justifies
iustihes -e •ing
our depn
yeing biologic^ cleaner.
women a
-
die vaeuum
^cne
chink of j

tic drudgery. i*"“

*74 The Social Ammal

In such cises, stereotyping is, indeed, nbusive It should be plain,

moreover, that stercotjping can be painful to the target, even if

the stereotype would seem to be neutral or positive For example,

It IS not necessarily negitn e to attribute “ambitiousness” to Jews
or “a natural sense of rhythm” to blacks, but it is abusive, if only
because it robs the individual Jew or bl ick person of his right to
be treated as an individual with his own individual traits, be they
positive or negative
In this chapter, we will not be discussing situations thit con-
cern prejudice “in favor of” people, accordingly, the working
definition of prejudice that wc will employ will be limited to
negative attitudes We will define prejudice as a hostile or nega-
tive altitude toward a distinguishable group based on generali7a-
tions derived from faulty or incomplete information TIuis, when
we say that an individual is prejudiced against blacks, we mean
that he is oriented toward behavnng with hostility toward blacks,
he feels that, with perhaps one or two exceptions, all blacks are
pretty much
the same, the characteristics he attributes to blacks
are either totally inaccurate or,
at best, based upon a germ of
truth that he zealously applies to the whole
group as a
Prejudiced people see the world m ways that are consistent
with their prejudice If Mr Bigot
secs a well-dressed, white,
Anglo Saxon Protestant sitting on a park bench sunning himself
at three o clock on a Wednesday afternoon, he thinks nothing of
It he sees a w ell dressed black man
If
doing the same thing, he is
liable to leap to the
conclusion that the person is unemployed-
and he becomes infuriated,
because he assumes that his hard-
earned taxes are paying that enough in
shiftless good-for-nothmg
wtlfire subsidies to keep him in passes
good clothes If Air Bigot
Mr Anglo s iiouse and notices that a trash can is overturned and
some girbagc is strewn ibout, he is apt
to conclude that a stray
dog his been scirchmg for food If he passes Mr Garcia’s house
and notices tlic same thing he is inclined
to become anno) cd, and
to assert tint ‘
those people live like pigs” Not only docs preju
dice influence liis conclusions,
his erroneous conclusions justify
and intcnsif) his ncgitivc feelings Thus, negative stereotypes do
 Prejudice
ns
not simply there in a dormant state, rather, they form part
lie
of
a person’s attributton process
When we see a person doing a rela-
tively reasonable thing, we
will attribute motives and causes to
his behavior that are consistent with our stereotypes
In his classic book The Nasiire
of Vrejudtee, the late Gordon
Allport reported the following dialogue

Mr X The trouble with the Jews is that they only take care of
their own group
Mr Y But the record of the Community Chest campaign
shows more generously, in proportion to their
that they gave
numbers, to the general chanties of the community, than do
non-Jews
Mr X That shows they are always trying to buy favor and
intrude into Christian affairs They think of nothing but mon-
ey, that IS why there are somany Jewish bankers
Mr y But a recent study shows that the percentage of Jews
m the banking business is negligible, far smaller than the
percentage of non Jews
Mr X That’s just it, they don’t go in for respectable busi-
*
ness, they are only in the movie business or run night clubs

This dialogue illustrates the insidious nature of prejudice far

better chan a mountain of definitions In effect, the prejudiced
Mr X
IS saying “Don’t trouble
me with facts, my mind is made
up ’’ He makes no attempt to dispute the data as presented by Mr
Y He either proceeds to distort the facts m order to make them
support his hatredof Jews, or be bounces off them, undaunted,
to a new area of attack A
deeply prejudiced person is tirtuilly
immune to information It is reasonably safe to assume that all of
is against an ethnic, national, or
us are prejudiced-whether it
specific geographical areas as places to Inc,
racial group, against
or against certain kinds
of food Let’s take food as an evampic
not to cat insects Suppose someone (like
In this culture, n e tend
caterpillars, grasshoppers, Grants
Mr Y) were to tell you that
of protein and, when carefully prepared,
were a great source
I'ould that coniincc you to cat thcm=
were estremcly tasty
176 The Social Animal

Probably not Like Mr X, you’d probably find some other reason

for your prejudice, such as the fact that insects are ugly After
all, in this culture, we eat only aesthetically beautiful creatures-
like lobsters’

The Pre]udtced '‘^LtberaV^

Not all prejudiced thinking is as blatant as that of Allport’s Mr

X Many individuals who regard themselves as fair-minded,
decent people are capable of a more subtle form of prejudice For
the relatively secure member of the dominant majority, it is
sometimes difficult to empathize with the plight of the victim of
prejudice He may sympathize^ and wish that it weren’t so, occa-
sionally, however, a little hint of self-righteousness may creep into
his attitude, a slight
tendency to lay part of the blame on the vic-
tim This may take the form of the “well-deserved reputation ”
It goes something like this
"If the Jews have been victimized
throughout their history, they must have been doing something
wrong ’
Or "If those people don’t 'want to get into trouble,
why don t they just
” (slay out of the headlines, keep their
mouths shut, don’t go where they’re not wanted, or whatever)
Such a suggestion constitutes a demand
that the outgroup con-
form to standards that are more stringent that are set
than those
for the majority
Ironically, this
tendency to blame the victim for his victim-
ization motivated by a desire to see the world as a just place As
IS

Melvin Lerner and his colleagues

have shown,® people tend to
assign responsibility for any inequitable outcome that is other-
wise
if two people work
difficult to account for For example,
equally hard on the same task, and,
by a flip of a coin, one re-
ceives a sizeable reward
and the other receives nothing, observers
show a strong tendency to rate the unlucky person as having
worked less hard Apparently, people find it scary to think about
living m a world where hard workers can get no pay— therefore,
they decide that the unpaid worker must not have worked very
hard, even though they saw that the reward was determined by a
 Fre]udice 177

mere flip com By the same token, if six million Jews get
of a
butchered for no apparent reason, it is somehow
comforting to
believe that they must have done something to
deserve it *

Co7ifessioris of n AMe Many liberals are too

Chaiivimst
sophisticated to blame the 1 ictim
for his plight get so sophis We
ticatcd that we know, for example, that IQ tests are prejudiced
instruments that unintentionally discriminate in favor of white,
middle class suburbanites by stating their examples in terms and
phrases that are more familiar to children reared the suburbs m
than to children reared in the ghetto or on the farm Thus, before
we conclude that was stupidity that caused a black person, a
it

Chicano, or the resident ofa rural community to do poorly on an

IQ test, ue demand to know whether or not the IQ test was
culture-free Bur we are not sophisticated enough to escape com
pletely from certain kinds of prejudice Let me state a personal
example In Chapter 3, while discussing individual differences in
persuasabihty, I made the point that women are more persuasable
than men This is based upon a well known study by Irving Jams
and Peter Field A close inspection of this experiment, however,
suggests that it is heavily weighted against women in much the

same way that IQ weighted against rural and ghetto

tests are
residents The topics of the persuasive arguments included civil
defense cancer research, von Hindenberg, and so on— topics in
which men are probably more interested and more expert than
women Thus, the results may simply indicate that people are
more persuasable on topics that they don’t care about or don’t
know about If someone were to perform a similar experiment
using topics that women tend to know more about the chances
are that men would end up looking more persuasable than
women

of our
•The astute reader may ha^ e noticed that this is a nwJder form
that we have victimized In Chapter 4 we
tendency to derogate a person
that if X hurts F he
tends to derogate F turn him into a non person

•ind hurt him again Now we see that if X notices that F has gotten the

short end of the

stick, he somehow feels that F must have done something
to deserve it
178 The Social Anmal

I hadn’t realized this It was pointed out to me (in no uncer-

tain terms) by a female social psychologist The lesson to be
gained from this example is a clear one When we are reared in a
prejudiced society, we often accept those prejudices uncritically
It is easy to believe that women are gullible, because that is the
stereotype that is held by the society Thus, we tend not to look
at supporting scientific data critically and, without realizing it,

we use the data as scientific support for our own prejudice

Carrying one step further, Daryl and Sandra Bern* sug-
this
gested that the prejudice againstwomen that exists in our society
IS an example of a non conscious ideology— is, a set of beliefs

that we accept implicitly but of which we are unaware, because

we cannot even conceive of alternative conceptions of the world
In example, we are socialized in such a way that
this culture, for

we cannot even imagine a woman going out to work as a physi-

cist or a crane operator while her husband
stays home vacuuming
the floor and taking care of the kids If we were to hear of such
a situation, we would leap to the conclusion
that something was
wrong with the husband Why^
Because such an arrangement is
not held to be a real option m our society Much as a fish is un-
aware that his environment
wet, we don’t even notice the
is
existence of this ideology because it is
so totally prevalent
Recall the example in Chapter 1 in which
little Mary received
a SuzicHomemaker set (“complete with her own little oven”)
for her birthday By the time she was nine, she was conditioned
to know that her place was in the
kitchen This was done so thor-
oughly that her father was convinced that “housewifery” was
genetic in origin This is no mere fantasy
Studies by Ruth Hart-
ley indicate that, by age /ive, children have already developed
clearly defined notions of what
constitutes appropriate behavior
for women and men This non conscious
ideology can have vast
consequences for society For example,
Jean Lipman Blumcn*
reports that the \ ast majority of women w ho, in early childhood,
acquired a traditional view of ihcirscx role (that is, “a woman’s
place IS in tlic home ’) opt not to seek advanced education, on the
other hand, those women who had acquired a more egalitarian
view of sex roles show a much stronger tendency to aspire to
advanced education
 Fre]udwe >79

Causes of Prejudice

As we have seen, one determinant of prejudice

in a person is a
need for sclf-justification In the last two chapters,
for example,
we have shown we have done something cruel to a person
that, if
or a group of people, we derogate that person or group
in order
to jusafy our cruelty If we can convince ourselves
that a group
is unworthy, subhuman, stupid, or
immoral, it helps us to keep
from feeling immoral if we enslave them, deprive them of
a
decent education, or murder them We
can then continue to go
to church and to feel like good Christians, because it isn’t a fellow
human that we’ve hurt Indeed, if we’re skillful enough, we can
even convince ourselves that the barbaric slaying of women and
children is a Christian virtue—as the crusaders did when, on their
way to the holy land, they butchered European Jews in the
name of the Prince of Peace Again, as we have seen, this act of
self-justificanon serves to intensify subsequent brutality
Of course, there are other human needs in addition to self-
jusnfication For example, there are status and power needs
Thus, an individual who is low on the socioeconomic hierarchy
may need the presence of a downtrodden minority group in order
to be able to feel superior to somebody Several studies have
shown that a good predictor of a person’s degree of prejudice is

whether or not his social status is low or declining Regardless of

whether it is prejudice against blacks’ or against Jews,” if a per-
son ’s socurf s'txrns' rs low or tfen'ivavig', ihr ar cyr tc be mere pre/Vs
diced than someone whose social status is high or rising It has
been found that people who are at or near the bottom m terms of
education, income, and occupation are not only highest in their
dislike of blacks, but they are also the ones most likely to resort to
“
violence in order to prevent the desegregation of the schools
These findings raise some interesting questions Are people of
low socioeconomic and educational status more prejudiced be-
they most
cause (1) they need someone to feel superior to, (2)
members,
keenly feel competition for jobs from minority group
(3) they are more frustrated
than most people and, therefom,
prob-
more aggressive, or (4) their lack of education increases the
view of the world
ability of their taking a simplisnc, stereotypic
i8o The Social Animal

It IS difficult to disentangle these variables, but it appears to be

true that each of these phenomena contributes to prejudice
Indeed, it should be clear that there is no single cause of preju-
dice Prejudice is determined by a great many factors Let’s take

a look at the major determinants of prejudice

In this chapter, we will discuss four basic causes of prejudice

(1) economic and political competition or conflict, (2) displaced

and (4) conformity to existing
aggression, (3) personality needs,
socialnorms These four causes are not mutually exclusive— in-
deed, they may all operate at once—but it would be helpful to
determine how important each cause is, because any action we
are apt to recommend in an attempt to reduce prejudice will
depend on what we believe to be the major cause of prejudice
Thus, for example, if I believe that bigotry is deeply ingrained in
the human personality, I might throw my hands up in despair and
conclude that, in the absence of deep psychotherapy, the major-
ity of prejudiced people willalways be prejudiced This would
lead me reduce prejudice by reducing
to scoff at attempts to
competitiveness or by attempting to counteract the pressures of
conformity

Economic and Political Competition Prejudice can be con-

sidered to be the result of economic and political forces Accord-
ing to this view, given that resources are limited, the dominant
group might attempt to exploit or derogate a minority group in
order to gain some material advantage Prejudiced attitudes tend
to increase when times are tense and there is a conflict over
mutually exclusive goals This is true whether the goals are eco-
nomic, political, or ideological Thus, prejudice has existed be-
tween Anglo and Mexican-Amencan migrant workers as a
function of a limited number of jobs, between Arabs and Israelis
over disputed territory, and between Northerners and Southern-
ers over the abolition of slavery The economic advantages of
discrimination are all too clear when one looks at the success
certain craft unions have had m
denying membership to
blacks and, thus, in keeping them out of the relatively high pay-
ing occupations they control For example, in a recent study, it
 Prejudice i8i

was found that only 3 7 percent of union

controlled apprentice-
ships were filled by blacks as of 1966-m increase of
only 1 per-
cent over the previous ten years
Moreover, m
the mid sixties,
the U
S Department of Labor surveyed four
major cities m
search of mmority-group members serving
as apprentices among
union plumbers, steamfitters, sheetmetal workers,
stone masons,
lathers, painters, glaziers,and operating engineers In the four
cities, they failed to find a single
black person thus employed
Clearly, prejudice pays off for some people ”
It has also been shown that discrimination, prejudice,
and
negative stereotyping increase sharply as competition for scarce
jobs increases Thus, in one of his classic early studies of preju-
dice in a small industrial town, John DolJard documented the fact
that, although there was initially no discernible prejudice against
Germans m the town, it came about as jobs became scarce

Local whites largely draivn from the surrounding farms mani-

fested considerable direct aggression toward the newcomers
Scornful and derogatory opinions were expressed about these
Germans, and the native whites bad a satisfying sense of superi-
ority toward them The chief clement m the permission to
be aggressive against the Germans was rivalry for jobs and
status in the local woodenware plants The native whites felt
definitely crowded for their jobs by the entering German
groups and in case of bad times had a chance to blame the
Germans who by their presence provided more competitors for
the scMcer ^ohs Thece. seemed to be no traditional pattern of
prejudice against Germans unless the skeletal suspicion of all
'*
out groupers (always present) be invoked in this place

Similarly, Americans harbored little or no negative

feeling

toward the Chinese immigrants who were working on the con-

of the
struction of the transcontinental railroad during the middle
nineteenth century At that time, jobs were plentiful and the
pay
Chinese were performing an arduous job for very little
They were generally regarded as sober, industrious, and law-
abiding After the completion of the railroad,
however, jobs be-

came more moreover, when the Civil War ended, there

scarce,
 82 The Social Animal

was an influx of former soldiers into this already tight job market
This was immediately followed by a dramatic increase in nega-
tive attitudes toward the Chinese the stereotype changed to
“criminal,” “conniving,” “crafty,” and “stupid ” A recent poll
conducted by the National Opinion Research Center indicates
that this tendency is still with us In 1971, most anti black preju-
dice was found in groups that were just one rung above the
blacks socioeconomically Moreover, this tendency is most pro-
nounced in situations in which the two were m close competition
for jobs
These data appear to indicate that competition and conflict
breed prejudice At the same time, there is some ambiguity in
interpreting the data, because, in
some instances, the variables of
competition are intertwined with such other variables as educa-
tional level and family background In order to determine wheth-
er competition causes prejudice m and of itself, an experiment is
needed But how can we proceed^ Well, if conflict and compe-
tition lead to prejudice, it should be possible to produce prejudice
in the laboratoryThis can be done by the simple device of (1)
randomly assigning people of differing backgrounds to one of
two groups, (2) making those groups distinguishable in some
arbitraryway, (3) putting those groups into a situation where
they are in competition with each other, and
(4) looking for
evidence of prejudice Such an experiment
conducted by
was
Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues*® in the natural environment of
a Boy Scout camp The were normal, well adjusted,
subjects
twelve year-old boys who were randomly
assigned to one of two
groups, the Red Devils and the Bulldogs
Within each group, the
kids were taught to cooperate This
was done largely through
arranging activities that made each
group highly intradependent
For example, within each group, individuals cooperated in build-
ing a diving board for the swimming facility, preparing group
meals, building a rope bridge, and so on
After a strong feeling of cohesiveness developed within each
group, the stage was set for the conflict The researchers ar-
ranged this by setting up a senes of competitive activities in
which the two groups were pitted against each other in such
games as football, baseball, and tug of-war In order to increase
 Prejudice 183

the tension, prizes were awarded to the winning team This re-
sulted in some hostility and ill will during the games In addition,
the
the investigators devised rather diabolical devices for putting
groups into situations specifically designed to promote conflict
In one such situation, a camp party was arranged
The invesu
gators set it up so that the Red Devils
were allowed to arrive a
the refreshments
good deal earlier than the Bulldogs In addition,
consisted of two vastly different kinds of
food about half of the
half was
food was fresh,appealing, and appetizing, the other
because of the general
squashed, ugly, and unappetizing Perhaps
early arrivcK confiscate
competitiveness that already existed, the
leaving “"y
most of the appealing refreshments,
'
esting, less appetizing, squashed,
and
arrived and saw how they
adveLries When the Bulldogs finally
taken advantage of, they
were “
had been
noyed-so annoyed that they began to
call

Because the Red

rather uncomplimentary names J
got
that they deserved what they Namec^lmg
and responded m kind
f
resented this treatment short time,
and, within a very
escalated into food throwing
was in progress
full scale not were eliminated
ga
Following this incident, competitive .
, i,ad
was
and a great deal of social contact id
been aroused, however, 'I^s”d,’ty^contmued to escalate,
Inde
nor eliminate the hostility ^ benign activities

even when the two groups ^^Xentually, the investigators

as sitting around accom-
Hxac 7 how this was
Exactly
succeeded m reducing the
hostility
later in this chaper
phshed will be discussed

The “Seapegaor Jalsld, mpart,

by

that chap
pain or boredom In of his
,
mtohou
Ldency frustrated mdiv.dual
for a ^
frustration Frequently, ’’U'™™ For ex-
’
£ direct retaliation
how
by His teacher,
Tpi: fa si^Te'^oM
184 The Social Animal

can he fight back? The teacher has too much power But this

frustration may increase the probability of his aggressing against

a less powerful bystander— even if the bystander had nothing to

do with his pain By the same token, if there is mass unemploy-

ment, who is the frustrated, unemployed worker going to strike
out against— the economic system? The system is much too big
and much too vague It would be more convenient if he could
find something or someone less vague and more concrete to blame
for his unemployment The President? He’s concrete, all right,
but also much too powerful to strike at with impunity
The ancient Hebrews had a custom that is noteworthy in this
context During the days of atonement, a priest placed his hands
on the head of a goat while reciting the sins of the people This
symbolically transferred the sin and evil from the people to the
goat The goat was then allowed to escape into the wilderness,
thus clearing thecommunity of sin The animal was called a
scapegoat In modern times the term “scapegoat” has been used to
describe a relatively powerless innocent who is made to take the
blame for something that not his fault Unfortunately, he is not
is

allowed to escape into the wilderness, but is usually subjected to

cruelty or even death Thus, if an individual is unemployed, or
has depleted his savings, he can’t very easily beat up on
if inflation

the economic system, but he can find a scapegoat In Nazi Ger-

many, was the Jews, in the rural South, it was black people
it

Several years ago, CarlHovland and Robert Sears*® found that, in

the period between 1882 and 1930, they could predict the num-
ber of lynchings in the South m
a given year from a knowledge
of the price of cotton during that year As the price of cotton
dropped, the number of lynchings increased In short, as people
experienced an economic depression, they probably experienced
a great many frustrations These frustrations apparently resulted
inan increase in lynchings and other crimes of violence
It IS difficult to be certain whether these lynchings were moti-

vated by the psychological aspects of frustration or whether they

were partly due to the kind of economic competition that we
discussed earlier for the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Ger-
As
many, the zeal with which the Nazis carried out their attempt to
erase all members of the Jewish ethnic group (regardless of eco-
 Prejudice 185

nomic status) strongly suggests that the phenomenon

was not
part) psy-
exclusively economic or political, but was (at least in
well-controlled ex-
chological.” Solider evidence comes from a
Individuals
periment by Neal Miller and Richard Bugelski.”
minority groups.
were asked to state their feelings about various
being deprived of
Some of the subjects were then frustrated by
were given an arduous an
an opportunity to attend a film, and
difficult series of tests instead. They
were then asked to restate
about the minority groups. These subjects showed
their feelings
some evidence of increased prejudicial responses f«'>»'2ou
h
frustrating experience. Acontrol group that did
did not undergo any change in preju
the frustrating experience

to pin down
the^eno^non
‘"“Additional research has helped
even more precisely. In one “P^^^^^r'tltbrSo^
great deal
subjected college students to a
these students were highly .
pon pictures that
wrKestories^^^^^^^^^
subjects were then asked to
they were shown. For ° ,he others, they
Je\
these pictures were assigned after being frus-
major 'j"
were L. There were two "^d more
trated, anti-Seminc who
c^^^^ than did people
aggression toward the Jewis difference between
were not anti-Semitic; and (2) characters they
and
the anti-Semitic students I„ short, frus-

Pi»- "'-SKI' ''uh-

viduals tend to displace ^ disliked to begin
powerless,
depends on what
is
that are relatively
Moreover, the form the lynchings and
„„ in question;
deemed
allowed or approved renccs, unless they are
pogroms are not frequen subculture,
su
culture or
, ^
appropriateby the dominant

human tendenc)-,
he Vreptdiced
The mayV
may a
scapegoats
menr of aggression onto
i86 The Social Animal

but It IS not true that all people do it to a like degree We have

already identified socioeconomic status as a cause of prejudice
Also, we have seen that peoplewho dislike Jews are more apt to
displace aggression onto them than are people who do not dislike
Jews We can now carry this one step further There is some
evidence to support the notion of individual differences in a
general tendency to hate In other words, there are people who
are predisposed toward being prejudiced, not solely because of
immediate external influences, but because of the kind of people
that they are Theodor Adorno and his associates” refer to these
individuals as “authoritarian personalities ” Basically, the authori-
tarian personality has the following characteristics he tends to be
rigid in his beliefs, he tends to possess “conventional” values, he
IS intolerant of weakness (m himself as well as in others) he tends
,

to be highly punitive, he is suspicious, and he is respectful of

authority to an unusual degree The instrument developed to
determine authoritarianism (called the F scale) measures the ex-
tent to which each person agrees or disagrees with such items as
these

1 Sex crimes such as rape and attacks on children deserve more

than mere imprisonment, such criminals ought to be publicly
whipped or worse
2 Most people don realize how much our
t lives are controlled
by plots hatched in secret places
3 Obedience and respect for authority are the most important
virtues children should learn

A high degree of agreement with such items indicates authoritar-

ianism The major finding js that people who are high on author-
itarianism do not simply dislike Jews or dislike blacks, but, rather,
they show a consistently high degree of prejudice against all
minority groups
Through an intensive clinical interview of people high and
low on the F scale, Adorno and his colleagues have traced the
development of this cluster of attitudes and values to early child-
hood experiences in families that are characterized by harsh and
threatening parental discipline Moreover, people high on the F
 Prejudice 187

scale tend to have parents who use love and its withdraw al as their

major wayof producing obedience In general, the authoritarian

personality, as a child, tends to be very insecure and highly
de-
unconscious
pendent on his parents, he fears his parents and feels

hostility againstthem This combination sets the stage for the

which, be-
emergence of an adult with a high degree of anger,
displaced aggres
cause of fear and insecurity, takes the form of
individual maintains an
Sion against powerless groups, while the
outward respect for authonty
personality has added
Although research on the authoritarian
dynamics 0 preju ice, it
to our understanding of the possible
are correlational that is,
should be noted that the bulk of the data
cannot be ce -
we know two variables are related-we
only that
tain what causes what Consider, for
“^mp e, t ^ ,

between a person’s score on the F scale Xlh

n' ot
lU true
as a child AI hough
tion practiL he was subjected to
and hig y prej
that adults who are authoritarian

ents who tended to be harsh and to

necessari y
socialization technique, it is not
prejudice pe p
caused them to develop into v „j,|y preju-
e,^^
themse ves, be JigWy
the parents of these people tend,
diced against minority groups ^eVue to con-
development of prejudice in P
as described
in

formity through the ” consciously picks

^
Chapter 2 That is, it may be because he identi-
up his beliefs about minorities !c P,
^ ^uch simpler
lies with them This is
quite di e •
colleagues,
offered by o
than, the explanation j repressed
child’s unconscious hostility
j

which IS based on the

fear of his parents is not
nrnnie preiudicc
This IS not to imply 'b“'’ Pcng.cts Rather, it is
to
childhood co^
deeply rooted in unconscious array of preju-
suggest that many people may
P^P'*'
s l!nee
Moreoa er, some
diceson Mommy s or Daddy Jiighly
dc-
specific,
take
conform to prejudices that subculture" Let’s
that e act of con-
pending upon the norms „re|udice as an
prejud.
look at the
phenomenon of
a closer
formity
i88 The Social Animal

Prejudice Through Conformity It is frequently observed

that there is more prejudice against blacks in the South than in
the North This often manifests itself in stronger attitudes against
racial integration For example, in 1942, only 4 percent of all
Southerners were in favor of the desegregation of transportation
facilities, while 56 percent of all Northerners were in favor of it
”
Why5 Was it because of economic competition^ Probably not,
there is more prejudice against blacks in those southern commu-
nities in which economic competition is low than in those north-
ern communities in which economic competition is great Are
there relatively more authoritarian personalmes in the South than
in the North’ No Thomas Pettigrew” administered the F scale
widely m the North and in the South, and found that the scores
are about equal for Northerners and Southerners In addition,
although there more prejudice against blacks m the South, there
is

is less prejudice against Jews in the South than there is m the

nation as a whole, the prejudiced personality should be preju-
diced against everybody— the Southerner isn’t
How, then, do we account for the ammosity toward blacks
that exists in the South’ It could be due to historical causes the
blacks were slaves, the Civil War was fought over the issue of
and so on This could have created the climate for great-
slavery,
er prejudiceBut what sustains this climate’ One possible clue
comes from the observation of some rather strange patterns of
racial segregation in the South One example, that of a group of
coal miners in a small mining town in West Virginia, should suf-
fice the black miners and the white miners developed a pattern
of living that consisted of total and complete integration while
they were under the ground, and total and complete segregation
while they were above the ground How
can we account for this
you truly hate someone, you want to keep away
inconsistency’ If
from him—why associate with him below the ground and not
above the ground’
Pettigrew has suggested that the explanation for these phe-
nomena is conformity In this case, people are simply conforming

to the norms that exist in their society (above the ground') The
historical eventsof the South set the stage for greater prejudice
against blacks, but it is conformity that keeps it going Indeed,
 Prejudice 189

frustra-
Pettigrew believes that, although economic competition,
prejudice, the
tion, and personality needs account for some
a function of slavish
greatest proportion of prejudiced behavior
is

conformity to social norms. , n

One
How can we be certain that conformity is responsible.
between a person’s prejudice and
way is to determine the relation
For ®
his general pattern of conformity.
racial tension in South Africa"
showed that *ose mdividu^
vane y
who were most to conform to a great
likely

norms also showed a higher degree of

more
In other words, if conformists are
thing to
that prejudice may be just another
determine" the role of conformity
is
way to
to a person’s prejudice when he moves to a
1
expect
counmy. If conformity is a faaorin
individLls to show
<!--l“<=Jr:r™rmomSdidal,and
the no
they move into areas in which by a less
to show dramadc decreases
In one srady, Jeanne
'
"J'"
prejudicial norm. And that is what ®PP New
^ moved to
'

Watson" found that people

York City and had come into j„ another
study,
anti-Semitic t
people became more and came
Pettigrew found that, as SouthemeK norms, they
discnimnatory set ot
intoWntact with a less
blacks^
became less prejudiced against .^vely overt, as in
the
ran
The pressure to conform f
-L „ a prejudicial
an ’
Asch experiment. On the other of accurate
evi-

norm might simply be due »^ This can

o ®
dence and a preponderance .
basis of
hearsay,

lead people to adopt

ne^nve atmudra ^ ,be

Examples of this kind of ^^^^rSpher Marlowe’s Tfo /cw

comiderChnstophc^^^^^^
literature. For example,
Shakespear money-
of Malta or William ^ conniving,^
depict the J tempted to
Both of these works jnight be
hungry, bloodthirsty,
“mging soine unfo^-
^
conclude that Marlowe
and P
.^^bich resulted
m these
Jews
nate experiences with one thing; the
portraits-exceptj’for
ter and unflattering
190 The Social Animal

been expelled from England some 300 years before these works
were written Thus, it would seem that the only thing with w hich
Marlowe and Shakespeare came into contact was a lingering
stereotype Unfortunately, their works not only reflected the
stereotype, but undoubtedly contributed to it as well
Bigoted attitudes can also be fostered intentionally by a bigot-
ed society For example, one investigator” interviewed white
South Africans in an attempt to find reasons for their negative
attitudestoward blacks What he found was that the typical
white South African was convinced that the great majority of
crimes were committed by blacks This was erroneous How did
such a misconception develop’ The individuals reported that
they saw a great many black convicts working in public places—
they never saw any white convicts Doesn’t this prove that blacks
arc convicted of more crimes than whites’ No In this case, it was
merely a reflection of the fact that the rules forbade white con
\icts from working m public places* In short, a society can create
prejudiced beliefs by law or by custom In our own society, until
\cry recently, newspapers tended to identify the race of a crimi
nal or suspect if he was nonwhite, but never bothered to mention
the w rong doer’s race if he happened to be white This has
undoubtedly contributed to a distorted picture of the amount of
crime committed by nonwhites Again, until very recently, it
w asrare to see a black face on television in a nonstcreotypic role
or in a commercial This created the illusion that blacks arc in-
consequential members of our society— people who don’t use
aspinn or shaving cream, who don’t have real problems or real
emotions Moreover, if the participation of blacks is limited to
stcrcot) pic roles like the characters in “Amos ’n Andy” or the
song and dance man on a variety show, this strengthens the stcre-
ot)pc that blacks arc stupid, shiftless, lazy, and have a natural
sense of rhythm In the past several years, black athletes have
been appearing on TV
screens with greater frequency, I would
guess that whites from rural northern towns who do not have
much direct contact with blacks would be surprised to learn that
there actually arc blacks who arc unable to run the 100 yard dash
in less than 10 seconds’
 Prejudice igt

As we have seen, prejudiced attitudes can be changed. This

can occurwhen a person comes into contact with different social
section of
norms— for example, when he moves to a more liberal
perhaps begins to identify with people
who
the country, and
are experience
hold less prejudiced opinions. But such changes
prejudice on a
by few people. Is it possible to reduce
relatively
large scale?

Stateway s Can Change Folkways

Court
In 1954, the United States Supreme
uncqua
but equal schools were, by definition, .

c-naratcd
ChiefVstice Earl Warren, when
black
race a
from white children on the basis of
status in
feeling of inferiority as to their
and minds
affect their hearts “
m launched our
^ j J
done.” Without our quite
exciting, g
sa'c “P"‘‘
nation into one of the most
ments ever conducted. people were
P
this historic
In the aftermath of
opposed to integrating the ®
forced to mingle
in

They predicted a holocaust if the . moralit>’-mcan-

schools. They argued that
you
the same school.
force p p i

ing that, although you can other. This

liU
you cannot force people to . ,
j sociologist,
William
disting
echoed the sentiments of the “statc«a)-s

Graham Sumner, who, yearn carter desegregation be

don’t change folkways.
delayed until attitudes could
^ Y 5 ,
be c a g
believed that
the

Social psychologists at
Thus, if you
wn
attitudes.
then
way to change behavior is ^
against blacks,
jujjjccd
get bigoted adults to
become .^ LiMrcn to attend school ""U
social
they will not hesitate to better, nuny
bigot-
blacks. Although they tw could change
cqnfid^t- that they ,
scientists were relatively
mformation ca P i,
ed attitudes by launching
 z

192 The Social Animal

“
16 -milIimeter” approach to the reduction of prejudice: If preju-
diced people believe that blacks are shiftless and lazy, then all you
have to do is show them a movie— movie depicting blacks as
industrious, decent people. The idea is that you can combat mis-
information with information. If Shakespeare believes that Jews
are conniving bloodsuckers because he has been exposed to mis-
information about Jews, tell him the truth, and his prejudice will
fade away. If a white South African believes that blacks commit
most of the crimes, show him the white convicts, and he’ll change
his beliefs. Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple. Whether
prejudice is largely a function of economic conflict, conformity
to social norms, or deeply rooted personality needs, it is not easily
changed by an information campaign. Over the years, most peo-
ple become deeply committed to their prejudicial behavior. To
develop a liberal attitude to blacks when all of your friends and
associates are still prejudiced is no easy task. A mere movie can-
not undo a way of thinking and a way of behaving that has per-
sisted over the years.
As the reader of this book has learned, where important issues
are involved, information campaigns because people are in-
fail,
clined not to sit still and take in information that is dissonant with
their beliefs. Paul Lazarsfeld,** for example, described a series of
radio broadcasts presented in the early forties that were designed
to reduce ethnic prejudice by presenting information about vari-
ous ethnic groups in a warm and sympathetic manner. One pro-
gram was devoted to a description of Polish-Americans, another
was devoted to Italian-Americans, and so forth. Who was listen-
ing^ The major part of the audience for the program about
Polish-Americans consisted of Polish-Americans. And guess who
made up the major part of the audience for the program on
Italian-Americans^ Right. Moreover, as we’ve seen, if people are
compelled to listen to information that is uncongenial, they will
reject it, distort it, or ignore it—in much the same way that Mr. X
maintained his negative attitude against Jews despite Mr. Y’s in-
formation campaign, and in much the same way that the Dart-
mouth and Princeton students distorted the film of the football
game they watched. For most people, prejudice is too deeply
 Prejudice 193

rooted m their own belief systems, is too consistent with their

and encour-
day-to day behavior, and receives too much support
by a book, a
agement from the people around them to be reduced
film, or a radio broadcast

Although changes in
The Effects of Equal-status Contact
as we have seen, it
is
attitude will affect changes in behavior,
education What sociff
often difficult to change attitudes through
psychologists have long known, but
have only
can
understand, is that changes in behavior
attitudes On the simplest level, it has
been argue
f
’
,
^
and whites could be brought into direct
contact, p
with the rea y
viduals would come into contact
eventua y,
experience, not simply a stereotype, ^
contact must a p
to greater understanding The
tion m which blacks and whites
l^^f
with blacks,
many whites have always had a great
but typically m situations m which th ^
P
washroom
d-shwashers, shoe shme toys,^^
roles as slaves, porters,
attendants, and domestics This
km
prejudice against
by whites and,
increase stereotyping anger of
It also serves to
increase jjnth
blacks
blacks Until recently, equal “'J^equines our society m
occupat
because of educational and Supreme Court
segregation
and because of residential
decision changed all that equal
instances of
19
Occasionally, even before ,
tended to
support
place In
status integration had taken , attitude change
the notion that behavior change wiP Collins” ex
iv a
Deutsch and y
a typical study, Morton
ammed of whites
the attitudes
toward b^ ,eh,te

projects Specifically, m J^seeregated

manner-that
®S
families were assigned to *t“'*dmgs
separate and
IS,they were assigned to ted-black
In another project, the Resident m
same lulling
to the their
white families were assigned greater
reported a p
the integrated project
194 The Social Animal

attitudes towards blacks subsequent to their moving into the

project than did residents of the segregated project From these
findings, It would appear that stateways can change folkways,
that you can legislate morality—not directly, of course, but
through the medium of equal status contact It seems clear that if
diverse racial groups can be brought together under conditions of
equal status, they stand a chance of getting to know each other
better This can increase understanding and decrease tension, all
other things being equal *

The Vicarious Effects of Desegregation It wasn’t until much

later that social psychologists began to entertain the notion that
desegregation can affect the values of people who do not even
have the opportunity to have direct contact with minority
groups This can occur through the mechanisms that we have
referred to m Chapter 4 as the psychology
of inevitability Spe-
cifically, if I know that you and I will inevitably
be in close con-
tact, and I don’t like you, I will experience
dissonance In order
to reduce dissonance, I will try to convince myself that you are
not as bad as I had previously thought I will set about looking for
your positive characterisucs, and will try to ignore, or minimize
the importance of, your negative characteristics Accordingly,
the mere fact that I know that I must at some in close
point be
contact with you will force me to change my prejudiced attitudes
about you, all other things being equal Laboratory experiments
have confirmed this prediction For example, children who be-
lieved that they must inevitably eat a previously disliked vegeta-
ble began to convince themselves that the vegetable wasn’t so
bad** Similarly, college women who knew they were going to
ha\e to work intimately with a woman who had several positive
and negativ e qualities developed a great fondness for that woman
before they e\en met her, this did not occur when they were not
led to anticipate working with her in the future

•It should be noted that the study alluded to in this paragraph took
^ace in public housing projects rather than in private residential areas.
1 his IS a crucial factor that will be discussed in a moment
 Prejudice ^95

it’s a far cry from a bowl of

Admittedly, vegetables to rela-

tionsbetween blacks and whites Few social psychologists are so

naive as to believe that racial intolerance, which is deep
seated,

can be eliminated by people reducing their dissonance throng

events
coming to terms with what they believe to be inevitable
conditions, such events caw pro-
would suggest that, under ideal
individua s wi
duce a divimution of hostile feelings in 77iost

discuss what I mean by “ideal conditions in a moment,

theoretical ones ow
letus put a little more meat on those
take
might the process of dissonance reduction
year-o
45-year-old white Southerner whose 16 fU.f
South et us assu
tends a segregated school in the Deep
he has a ^ative attitude toward blocks, based
part on m
t at a a
and lazy and
belief that blacks are shiftless ,

Suddenly, t e e
oversexed and potential rapists
down by the JuLce Department the following
haired, Lb.le daughter must go to n^he ea
the sure and local officals. while
fact that there s
T 'can be done to
clearly convey the j .yhe
prevent it-it’s the law of the
'“f.
allow h h^ld to obta.Ln edu-
father might, of course, refuse to school But „
cation, or he could send her to
an
^*P^'’^'''f(.Lblv costly So he
terribly drastic o
such measures are either . pj,; cogni
an
decides that he must send her to inevitably attend
daug ter
non that his fair-haired young cognition that
the same school with blacks IS
<l'f „uess is that he
oes
blacks are shiftless rapists Vv
hat
ou
, , w Are they really

will begin to re-examine his beliefs a people^ He

Do really go aro
all that shiftless^ they jnclination to
time, concoct and
may take another look— this jp
blac s the
look for the good qualities in ^55 ,hat, by
d
exaggerate bad, unacceptable blacks v'ou
his “tw
time September rolls around, ,s vastly

ma positive direction o\er an

have shifted ^ .Lg process has
! is P
advantages ,
oversimplified But look at the
A "-“hanism h« y^^s
information campaign f
his negative
nwtwates the indiv idual to alter
196 The Social Animal

This analysis strongly suggests that a particular kind of public

policy would be most potentially beneficial to society— a policy
that is the exact opposite of what has been generally recommend-
ed. As mentioned previously, following the 1954 Supreme Court
decision, there was must pro-
a general feeling that integration
ceed slowly. Most public and many social scientists
officials
believed that, in order to achieve harmonious racial relations, inte-
gration should be delayed until people could be re-educated to
become less was
prejudiced. In short, the general belief in 1954
that the behavior (integration) must follow a cognitive change.
My analysis suggests that the best way to produce eventual inter-
racial harmony would be to launch into behavioral change. More-
over, and most important^ the sooner the individuals are made to
realize that integration is inevitable, the sooner their prejudiced
attitudes will begin to change. On the other hand, this process
can be (and has been) sabotaged by public officials through
fostering the belief that integration can be circumvented or de-
layed, This serves to create the illusion that the event is not in-
evitable, In such circumstances, there will be no attitude change;
the result will be an increase in turmoil and disharmony. Let’s go
back to our previous example: if the father of the fair-haired
daughter is led (by the statements and tactics of a governor, a
mayor, a school-board chairman, or a local sheriff) to believe that
there s away out of integration, it is clear that he will feel no
need to re-examine his negative beliefs about blacks. The result is
apt to be violent opposition to integration.
Consistent with this reasoning is the fact that, as desegrega-
tion has spread, favorable attitudes toward desegregation have
increased* in 1942, only
30 percent of the whites in this country
favored desegregated schools; by 1956, the figure rose to 49 per-
cent; finally, in 1970, as it became
increasingly clear that school
desegregation was 75 percent of the white popu-
inevitable, fully
lation was in favor of it. in the South (taken by it-
The change
self) is even more dramatic: in 1942, only
2 percent of the whites
in the South favored integrated schools; in 1956, while most
southerners still believed that the ruling could be circumvented,

only 14 percent favored desegregation; but by 1970, as desegre-

gation continued, just under 50 percent favored it. Of course,
 Frepidtce «97

their attitudes
thisdoes not prove that the reason people change
terms wit
toward school desegregation is that they are coming to
what IS inevitable— but it if highly suggestive ^ l j i
effects of school de-
In a careful analysis of the process and
the question of w y vio
segregation, Thomas Pettigrew raised

lence occurred during the desegregation of

some cornmumties,

such as Little Rock and Clinton, and not

others, sue as o
m
fu
folk and Winston-Salem His conclusion, which lends
has genera y
support to our reasoning, was that “violence
ed in localities where at least some of the
segregation i
hints thatthey would gladly return to
generally
occurred, peaceful integration has
peop e v
forceful leadership In other words, if
there
^
the opportunity to reduce dissonance,
noticed
early ^as 1953, Kenneth B Clark”
e
during the desegregation in some of
t
than
was
covered that immediate desegreganon ,n those
viole
gradual desegregation Moreover, employed
places where ambiguous or inconsistent same kind
v
or where community leaders tended desegregate dur-
units
of thing happened when military g policies Mere
P
mg World War II trouble was greatest
ambiguous

But All Other Things Are

Not a'very com-
oversimp
ceding section, I presented an j
indicating

plex phenomenon I did this j - .deal conditions

But
how things can proceed theoretica y , com-
ahva>s some
condiuons are seldom ideal There the comph-
plicating circumstances Let
us now comphca^'®”^
to iscuss
cations, and then proceed
might be eliminated or reduced reduced m an
....dice v.as
that P f,et that
it
When 1discussed the fact
® introduce
integrated housing project, I ^nmnlications are
s^ong
was a pubhc hou.ng ^
,

if It involves pn\ ately ow

ned hous ^
neighhorhoo .

^
belief among whites that , economic co
.ntroduces
This e
real-estate values decrease
198 The Social Animal

flictand competition, which mitigate against the reduction of

prejudiced attitudes. Indeed, systematic investigations of inte-
grated private housing shows an increase in prejudiced attitudes
among the white residents.®®
as I mentioned, the experiments on the psychology
Moreover,
of inevitability were done in the laboratory where the dislikes
involved were almost certainly not as intense as racial prejudice.
Although it is encouraging to note that these findings were paral-
leled by the data from desegregation in the real world, it would
be naive and misleading to conclude that the way to desegrega-
tion will always be smooth as long as individuals are given the
opportunity to come to terms with inevitability. Frequently,
trouble begins once desegregation starts. This is due, in part, to
the fact that the contact between black and white children (es-
pecially if it is begun in high school) is usually not equal-status
contact. Picture the scene: A I6-year-old black from a poor
family, after being subjected to a second-rate education, is sud-
denly dropped into a learning situation in a predominately white
middle-class school taught by white middle-class teachers, where
he finds he must compete with middle-class whites who have
been reared to hold middle-class values. In effect, he is thrust into
a highly competitive situation for which he is unprepared, a situ-
ation in which the rules are not his rules and the payoffs are made
for abilities that he has not yet developed. He is competing in a
situation that, psychologically, removed from his home turf.
is far
Ironically enough, these factors tend to produce a diminution of
his self-esteem— the very factor that led to the Supreme Court
decision in the first place.®*

Thus, a newly desegregated high school is typically a tense

place. It is natural for black students to attempt to raise their self-
esteem. One way of raising self-esteem is to stick together, lash
out at whites, assert their individuality, reject white values and
white leadership, and so on.®*
Let me sum up the discussion thus far: (1) Equal status con-
tact under the ideal conditions of no economic conflict can and
docs produce increased understanding and a diminution of preju-
dice.” (2) The psychology of inevitability can and docs set
up
for
pressures to reduce prejudiced attitudes, and can set the stage
 .

Prejudice 199

conditions
smooth, nonviolent school desegregation, imder ideal
neig -
(3) Where economic conflict is present (as in integrated
domiciles) there an increase in preju ice
borhoods of private is

in a competi-
attitudes ( 4 ) Where school desegregation results
there is 0 ten
tive situation involving serious inequities for blacks,
that is at east
an increase in hostility of blacks toward whites
self esteem
partially due to an attempt to regain some lost
The tension ' ®
Interdependence—A Possible Solution
remin s
frequently the initial result of school desegregation
experirne
somewhat of the behavior of the children in the
tension a
Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues ” Recall that
by p
tilitywere produced between two groups ,

Once t e 0
situations of conflict and competition
established, it could no longer be
reduced
^ ^
a matter 0
the conflicts and the competition As '
,n
trust was firmly established, bringing hos-
^
equal status, noncompetitive had
these groups
tilityand distrust For example, the childre sittinu near
were simply sitting
trouble with each other even when they
each other watching a movie ’
the hostiht)
How did Sherif eventually succeed
m reducing° they
in situa
By placing these groups of children to

were mutLlly inrerdependent-situations >" For

acco p
cooperate with each other in order to b) dam
example, the investigators set up that the
s)stcm
aging the water supply system The ^ j ^mediately
On
coopcrated^nim
could be repaired /as if the chddren
ro e
another occasion, the camp truck t ajain,
^ ^ ^
it

get h^
M ere on a camping trip In order to could onl)
^\as necessary to pull it up a rather regardless o
puUed ,.-„cthcr—
accomplished if all of the kids £^^^,u3||j,,hcre«as
Mhether they Mere Bii/Wogt or Red „irnc stereoi'P'"'bcticr,
a diminution of hostile feelings an "j- get along
rr,
c}
bo)s made friends across groups, t
and they began to cooperate ;„*prKdeBee-i
needed o
The key f ictor seems to be
lion w herein the mdii iduals need
one -t 'X and we
i;nfortuniieb
thc.r g
one another
lothcr in order to accomplish
200 The Social Animal

kind of situation is not characteristic of most

classrooms.
this
competing
Typically, children in a classroom are isolated entities,
and at-
with each other during class or on exams for the respect
tention of the teacher. Because historical forces have
made the
atmosphere
classroom a laboratory for desegregation effects, the
of intense competitiveness is unfortunate— especially
when the
groups concerned tend to be competing on unequal terms. ^

Although competitiveness in the classroom is typical, it is not

inevitable. Many classrooms are conducted in a more cooperative

vein,and more could be conducted in that manner. In a recent

study, my colleagues and I observed both the performance of
children and their mutual attraction in a cooperative classroom
atmosphere.®® Specifically, in two fifth-grade classrooms, children
were divided into five-member learning groups. A few of the
groups were taught some material (biographies of famous Ameri-
cans) in the traditional manner— a teacher communicated the
material, drilled her students, posed questions, and so on. A few
of the groups learned the material without a teacher in an inter-
dependent manner. In this situation, each child was given one
paragraph of the biography to study. He then tried to communi-
cate it to his learning group. This is analogous to giving each per-
son a piece of a jig-saw puzzle. There was no opportunity to
compete and there was no teacher to please— rather, each child
depended upon all of the others in order to learn the material.
The results showed that the mutually interdependent group
learned the material as well as the more traditional (competitive)
group; but the children in the interdependent group increased
their liking for each other to a greater extent than the children in
the more traditional learning group. In a similar vein, Dorothy
Singer®® studied several integrated fifth-grade classrooms in which
a cooperative atmosphere had been initiated. She found that
white children in these classrooms were less prejudiced against
blacks than were children in segregated fifth-grade classrooms.
Although interdependence is certainly a promising strategy,
it should be clear to the reader that the problem of
prejudice is a
complex one, and that there are no cheap solutions. We once felt
mere-
that prejudice could be reduced through mass education or
These tech-
ly by increasing contact between ethnic groups.
 Prepidice 201

niques, taken by themselves, are not very effective And yet,

this is encouraging Recall that, at
one
prejudice is on the wane,
It was argued that desegregation would be
time, impossible, it

was once believed that a good deal of prejudice is generally the

the result of a deeply rooted personality disorder that
must be
indicates
cured before desegregation can proceed The evidence
been true
that, for the vast majority of individuals, this has not
is desegregation
the first wedge in the diminution of prejudice
tireless in
In the words of Thomas Pettigrew, one of our most
vestigators in this area,

racial desegregation
i
Some cynics have argued that successful
o ^
the South will require an importation of tens
of bigote
psychotherapists and therapy for millions _
ers Fortunately for desegregation, of
erners, this will not be necessary, a
thoroigh r
p ^
sufficien PX
southern interracial behavior will be
Itself

Although Pettigrew may have been overly

though we are beginning to learn how
P">^’“/4se of our dis-
In the next two chapters, we will broaden 7 v,e
reduction n
cussion on prejudice and prejudice
will look at the positive or negative each
I,I,e
have for another, and investigate why s^o
i

^^,ll jook
other and some dislike each other In C ’understanding
underst
interpersonal
Ut atechnique aimed at increasing
through honest face-to-face communication
7

Attraction: Why People

Like Each Other

Early m this book I described [*(,acks on the

and in the real world, in P“P’^ "“uoncd incidents m
needs of their fellow human attempting
‘’“"f ,without
which people watched someone being K „rnimd and o'^r
a
to help, in which people walked
^ -nuc adcwalk,
m
woman with a broken leg lying on a hi apparcnti) fall

which people, hearing a woman m the nex

di no
off a step ladder and injure herself, which people
needed assistance I also described a person to
suffer

went a step further by apparently m blind obcdicnw to

se\crc pam a large number of iimividua j

administer
c
the mmands ot
commands authority figure,
of an autnom/ tnc pet'
^frerthe
,nfrc\cn after
sc\ ere electric shocks to another
human Dci g
thc^ oor,
pounded on the o * pcoplet
son screamed cam.
reamed in pain, how
ma >*
and then fell into an ominous silence
204 The Social Animal

through fear, hate, and prejudice, can deprive one another of

their civil rights, rob one another of their freedom, and even
destroy one another
With all of these events m mind, T asked if there is any way
to diminish aggression and to encourage people to take responsi-
bility for the welfare of their fellow human beings In this chap-
ter, I will ask this question in a more formal manner what do we
know about the factors that cause one person to like another’
The question is almost certainly an ancient one The first
amateur social psychologist, who must have lived in a cave, un-
doubtedly wondered what he could do to make the fellow in a
nearby cave like him more or dislike him less— or, at least, to make
him from clubbing him on the head Perhaps he bared his
refrain
teeth as a means of showing his neighbor that he was tough and
might bite a chunk out of the Iatter*s leg, if the neighbor behaved
aggressively As luck would have it, this simple gesture worked,
and the baring of teeth, now called a smile, gradually evolved into
a social convention— a way of getting people not to hurt us and
perhaps even to like us Charles Darwin presents an interesting
discussion of this phenomenon m a little book called T he Express-
ston of Emotions in Man and Animals *
After several thousand years, people are still speculating about
the antecedents of attraction—how to get the guy at the next
desk, in the next house, or in the next country to like us more, or
at least to refrain from putting us down or trying to destroy us
What do we know about the causes of attraction’ When I ask
my friends why they like some of their acquaintances better than
others, I get a wide variety of responses The most typical re-
sponses are that people like most (1) those whose beliefs and
interests are similar to their own, (2) those who have some skills,
abilities, or competencies, (3) those with some pleasant or “ad

mirible” qualities, such as loyalty, reasonableness, honesty, and

kindness, and (4) those who like them in return
These reasons make good sense They are also consistent with
the advice given by Dale Carnegie in a book with the chillingly
manipulative titleHovj to Win Enends and Influence People
Manipulative title notwithstanding, this interpersonal recipe book
 Attraction Why People Like Each Other 205

seems to have been exactly what people were looking for

it

wasn t
proved to be one of the best sellers of all time And it
simple for-
simply conforming Americans who were looking for
mulae for pleasing people the book was translated into
irty t

five different languages and was avidly read

around the g 0 e
to
Carnegie’s advice simple if you want someone
is deceptively

like you, be pleasant, pretend that you like him,

lavish y, an e
m things that he’s interested in, “dole out praise

^ ‘hey
Are these tactics effective’ To a
limited
Is It true?
e a /
are effective There are data from well control
with p
experiments that indicate that we like people
characteri
acteristics more than those with unpleasant
’

peop e w
like people who agree with us more than
more than
with us. we like people who like us
like us, we like people who cooperate
with us mo

who compete with us, we like people who

prai
j^jg^al
people who and so on These
criticize us,
attraction can be gathered under one
sw P, ® ® ard
maximum
we like people whose behavior provides us with
at minimum cost ‘
-rd thcort of ,
a
should be readily apparent that
It
example, it « ould
groun or p
attraction covers a great deal of
like pe P
allow us to explain the fact that we p]ei,nngus
because pr y
more than people who are homely,
the same tune,
it w
“aesthetic” rewards ’ At similar* to
ours
diet that we people wit ®P'. pm-
xvill like
fjsi ard us b)
bccausc, when we run into such peop ,
/ udicfs-that is, b)
or
aiding us with consensual validation " ,\lorco' cr,
opinions arc
helping us to bcliev c that our ^
prejudice

as we learned in the preceding ,|,c cm ironnient

and hostilitv can be reduced is
by other rather
m such a w ay that indiv iduals ‘“’°P'^”, „|ation is that cooper-
than compete Another w ay of stating ironiuent « ’

anon leads to attraction Thus, "'’“b" a

clawrooai
s e-^^
summer camp, as in Muzafer Shen j
mJ Aronson et a
Singer
situation, as m the experiments bj
2o6 The Social Animal

there is an increase in mutual attraction

if people spend some time
re-
cooperating with each other. Cooperative behavior is clearly
warding by definition— a person who cooperates with us is giving
our
us aid, listening to our ideas, making suggestions, and sharing
load.
A general reward-cost theory can explain a great deal of
human attraction, but not all of it— the world is not that simple.
For example, a reward-cost theory of attraction would lead us to

suspect that, all we would like people

other rhings being equal,
who live in close proximity to us, because we can get the same
reward at less cost by traveling a short distance than we can by
be true that peo-
traveling a great distance. Indeed, it does tend to
ple do seem to have more friends who live close by than friends
who live far away; but this does not necessarily mean that it is
their physical proximity that makes them attracrive: their physi-
cal proximity may simply make it easier to get to know them, and
once we get to know them, we tend to like them. Moreover, as
we pointed out earlier in this book, individuals also like things or
people for which or for whom they have suffered. For example,
in an experiment by Judson Mills and me,‘° we saw that people
who went through an unpleasant initiation in order to become
members of a group liked that group better than did those who
became members by paying a smaller price in terms of time and
effort. Where is the reward? The reduction of suffering? The
reduction of dissonance? How does the reward become attached
to the group? It is not clear.
Moreover, simply knowing that something is rewarding does
not necessarily help us to predict or understand a person’s be-
For example, recall that, in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, we ana-
havior.
lyzedwhy a person conforms and why he changes his attitudes,
and we discussed several reasons: out of a desire to win praise, to
be liked, to avoid ridicule; out of a desire to identify with some-
one whom he respects or admires; out of a desire to be right; or
out of a desire to justify his own behavior. In some way, all of
these behaviors make sense, or feel good, or both, and therefore
can be considered rewards. But simply to label them as rewards
in
tends to obscure the fact that there are important differences
 )

Attraction Why People Like Each Other 207

kind among them Although both the desire to be right and the
desire to avoid ridicule, when gratified, produce a state of satis-

faction, It IS frequently the case that the behaviors a person must

employ to gratify these needs are opposite in kind For example,
m judging the size of a line, a person might conform to group
pressure out of a desire to avoid ridicule, but he might deviate
from the unanimous opinion of the other group members out of
a desire to be right Little understanding is gamed by covering
both behaviors with the blanket phrase “reward ” For the social
psychologist, a far more important task is to attempt to determ ne
the conditions under which one or the other course of action wli
be taken This point will become clearer as we begin to discuss
some of the research on interpersonal attraction

The Effects of Praise and Favors

lavishly
Recall that Dale Carnegie advised us to “dole out praise
our
That makes sense surely, we can “win friends by praising
efforts But does it a
teachers’ ideas or our emplo) ees’
at
work^ Let’s take a closer look Common sense suggests t t

are situations in which might be more useful

criticism
For example, suppose you arc a brand new college
ms ^
and
lecturing of graduate students
to a class full
^
theory that you are developing In the rear of
J j
two students One of these fellows is nodding an
s
^
looks as though he is in rapture At the close , ^ur
he comes up and you that you are a
6^,“"
tells ,„kar
ideas are the most brilliant he s eicr heard It

his ea f-ndicouls
that, of course But the other fellow shakes
occasionally during your presentation and a
(|,]t
tip and tells you that there arc several aspects ®
points these “ft
don’t make sense Moreoser, he fcalire
That evening, while ruminating
ikourh basicall)
that tne remarks made by the second pcrso
j . ou to
,
/•

pomts an
incorrect, contained a few uorthuhilc .,„n,f;cant
rethink a few of your assumptions This lea s
2o8 The Social Animal

modification of your theory. Which of these two people will you

like better? I don’t know. Although praise is clearly rewarding,
disagreement that leads to improvement may carry its own re-
wards. Because I am, at this point, unable to predict, in advance,
which of these behaviors is more rewarding, it is impossible to be
sure which of the two students you will like better.
Let us take a different example, one that involves the attribu-
tion of ulterior motives to the praiser. Suppose that Sam is a
draftsman, and that he produces an excellent set of blueprints. His
boss says, “Nice work, Sam.” That phrase will almost certainly
function as a reward, and Sam’s liking for his boss will probably
increase. But suppose Sam is having an off day and produces a
sloppy set of blueprints— and knows it. The boss comes along and
emits the exact same phrase in exactly the same tone of voice.
Will that phrase function as a reward in this situation? I am not
sure.Sam 7my interpret the statement as his boss’s attempt to be
encouraging and nice, even in the face of a poor performance;
and because of the boss’s display of considerateness, Sam may
come to like him even more than he would have had he, in fact,
done a good job. On the other hand, Sam may attribute all kinds
of ulterior motives to his boss: he may leap to the conclusion that
his boss is being sarcastic, manipulative, dishonest, nondiscrimi-
nating, patronizing, or stupid— any one of which could reduce
Sam s liking for him. A
general reward-cost theory loses a good
deal of its value if our definition of what constitutes a reward is
not clear. As situations become complex, we
find that such gen-
eral notions decrease in value,because a slight change in the social
context in which the reward is provided can change a “reward”
into a punishment.
Research in this area indicates that, although people like to be
praised and tend to like the praiser," they also dislike being
manipulated. If the praise is too lavish, if it seems unwarranted, or
(most important) if the praiser is in a position to benefit from
ingratiating himself, then he not liked very much. Edward E.
is

Jones and his students” have carried out a great deal of research
on this problem. In a typical c.xperiment, an accomplice watched
 Attraction: Why People Like Each Other 209

ayoung woman being interviewed, and then proceeded to evalu-

ate her.The evaluations were prearranged so that some women
heard a positive evaluation, some heard a negative evaluation, and
some heard a neutral evaluation. In one experimental condition,
the evaluator was supplied with an ulterior motive: in this condi-
tion, the subjects were informed in advance that the evaluator

was a graduate student who needed subjects for her own experi-
ment, and would be asking her (the subject) to volunteer. The
results showed that subjects liked those evaluators who praised

them better than those who provided them with a negative evalu-
ation—but there was a sharp drop in how much they liked the
will
praiser with the ulterior motive. As Jones puts it, “flattery
get you somewhere.'*
Favors
the same token, we like people who do us favors.
By
can be considered rewards, and we do tend to like people who
classic
provide us with this kind of reward. For example, in a
girls m
study by Helen Hall Jennings,” it was shown that, among
performe t e
a reformatory, the most popular were those who
most services for others— specifically* those who initiate
new
part 0
and interesting activities and helped other girls become a
these activities. Our liking for people who do us favors
is
even to situations in which these favors are not intentiona .

was demonstrated by Albert and Bernice Lott” m

on young children. The researchers organized children
m
groups of three for the purpose of playing a game t at ,

of choosing various pathways on a board. Those who ,

enough to choose the safe pathways won the game, ma g

wrong choice disaster. The children
led to
were, e m ,

ing single file in an imaginary mine field,

at t
of
active even after they were exploded. If the child
°
the line chose the wrong path, he was “blown up
c
game), and the child next in line would, of course,
ferent path. Leaders who happened to choose \
others to a successful completion of the
safely
cated that those children who were rewarded ( >
their tcamm
at the goal) showed a greater liking for
210 The Social Animal

course, had been instrumental in helping them achieve the re-

ward) than did those children who did not reach the final goal.
In short, we like people who contribute to our victory more than
a
those who do not— even if they had no intention of doing us
favor.
But, as with those who praise us, we do not always like people
who do favors for us; specifically, we do not like people whose
favors seem as though they may have some strings attached to
them. Such strings constitute a threat to the freedom of the re-
ceiver. People do not like to receive gifts, if a gift is expected in
return; moreover, people do not like to receive favors from indi-

viduals who are in a position to benefit from that favor. Let’s take
an example: If you were a teacher, you might enjoy receiving
gifts from your students. On the other hand, you might be made
pretty uncomfortable if a borderline student presented you with
an expensive gift just before you were about to grade his term
paper. Strong support for this reasoning comes from an experi-
ment by Jack Brehm and Ann Cole.” In this experiment, college
students were asked to participate in a study (which the experi-
menter characterized as important) in which they would be giv-
ing their first impressions of another person. As each subject was
waiting for the experiment to begin, the “other person” (actually
a stooge) asked permission to leave the room for a few moments.
In one condition, he simply returned after a while and resumed
other condition, he returned carrying two cokes—
his seat. In the
one for himself and one for the subject. Subsequently, each sub-
ject was asked to help the stooge perform a dull task. Interesting-
ly enough, those students who had 7iot been given the coke by the
stooge were more likely to help him than those who had been
given the coke.
The this research is that favors and praise are not
upshot of
universal rewards. For a starving rat or a starving person, a bowl
of dry cereal is a reward— it is a reward during the day or during
the night, in winter or in summer, if offered by a male or by a
female, and so on. Similarly, for a drowning man, a rescue launch
is a reward under all circumstances. That is, such rewards are
 1 1

Attraction Why Feopie Like Each Other 21

But praise, favors, and the like are not trans

“trans-situational ”
whether or not they function as rewards depends
situational
be extreme-
upon minor situational variations, some of which can
ly subtle Indeed, as we have seen, praise and favors can even
attractive than
function to make the praiser or the favor doer less
had he kept his mouth shut or kept his hands
he would have been
advice is not always sound
in his pockets Thus, Dale Carnegie’s
tech-
If you want someone to like
you, doing him a favor as a

nique of innratiation is indeed risky

is a more certain
Getting someone to do you a favor
your attractiveness
using
ter 4,
favors to increase
described a phenomenon that
f
we called the )“«>fe«ion
harm to
out that, if a person causes
of cruelty ” Briefly, I pointed
jusnfy his behavior ^
another, he will attempt to
take a look at th
victim We
are now prepared to
^
com we do someone a favor, we
that if

by convincing ourselves that the recipien

tractive, likeable, deserving °
,|„5 effort (or
,, c
did
to ourselves, “Why in the world o^se Sami a
whatever) tor sam
spend all of this money, or
hell of a nice guy, that s
why' . Jecker and
This Idea was put to the m a
P.„
David Tandy- In this a rather sub-
ena
concept formation task that
stantialsum of money After t xp
^ , center,
who ex-
oyer, one third

approached y P^^^
of the subjects were experiment and
P
his own fun f
plained that he was using he
would mean that
Ls running short-wh.ch
^ed. As^a sp^^^„
^^g^^^^
to stop the experiment
would you mind returning . j by the
experimenter,
of the subjects were PF“<^W; would
1
third
=

secretary,
^d^hem
if they

but by the departmental psychology depart-

remaining
return the money as a sF*™’ low The
which was -unning their v innings
merit’s research fund,
asked to
one third of the subjects subjects «ere
“\be
anyone Finally,
as a special favor to
212 The Social Animal

fill out a questionnaire in which they got a chance to rate the

experimenter. Those who had been cajoled into doing a
subjects
special favor for the experimenter found him most attractive—
they had convinced themselves that he was a decent, deserving
fellow.
Similar results were obtained in an experiment by Melvin
Lerner and Carolyn Simmons,*’ in which groups of subjects were
allowed to observe a student who appeared to be receiving a series
of electric shocks as part of an experiment in learning. After
watching for a while, some groups of subjects were allowed to
vote (by private ballot) on whether or not the “victim” should
continue to receive electric shocks. Other groups of subjects
were not allowed to vote on this procedure. All subjects who
were allowed to vote did, indeed, vote for the termination of the
shocks; but some groups of voting subjects were successful in
effecting a termination of the shocks, while others were not. It
turned out that the subjects who were successful at stopping the
shocks rated the victim as significantly more attractive than did
those who were not allowed to vote, or those
whose vote was
ineffective.Thus, doing a favor for someone will increase your
liking for him, butonly if the effort that you expend results in a
successful outcome.

Tersonal Attributes

As I have already mentioned, there are several

personal character-
isticsthat play an important role in
determining the extent to
which a person will be liked. In this section,
we will examine two
of the most important; competence and
physical attractiveness.

Competence. It would seem obvious that, all other things

^

being equal, the more competent a person is,

the more we will
like him. This is probably because people have
a need to be right;
we stand a better chance of being right if we surround ourselves
with highly able, highly competent people. But, as we continue
 Attraction Why People Like Each Other 213

interpersonal at-
to learn in this chapter, factors that determine
spelled out in
traction are often complex, they cannot always be
simple terms As for competence, there is a great deal of appar-
literature that demon-
ently paradoxical evidence in the research
strates that, in problem-solving groups,
the participants who are
idea men tend
considered to be the most competent and the best
« How can we explain ttas
not to be the ones who are best liked
One possibility is that, although we *
^
apparent paradox^
a person who has a great deal of ability
around competent people,
us uncomfortable He may seem unapproachable, dis-
may make
tant,superhuman If this were true, we might like him more were
he to show some evidence of fallibility
were a brilliant mathematician
For
as well as a
^ P

and a fastidious dresser, I might like turn better if,

numbers blew an easy layup,
while, he misadded a column of
stain on his tie
appeared in public with a gravy
speculating a 0
Several years ago, I was Gallup poll
data f™”
when I chanced upon some startling
when John Kennedy was President,
ally increased
Cuba at the Bay
immediately after his 2 '’°”
of P.ga m
1961 This
,
a S ^ [

mCade
P/otp.

p^ewof the

fact that this

(an ,s“ till commonly known as)
that It was immediately dubbed ^

-the Bay of Pigs fiasco

” Wh« History’s

situation inwhich a national 1 niiracu

until t a
truly great blunders (up ,

Whv q , possibil-
came to like h™ more for it
lously, people
ity IS that John Kennedy may athletic, he was a
witty, c
young, handsome, bright, ’
^ ^ Hero, and an
polmcal
voracious reader, a master f H^a^eautiful
ivife

uncomplaining endurer of P F*'” P boy

, cute kids (one
of
(who spoke several Some evidence
and talente have
blunder) could
,
and one girl), a
' for
fallibility (like being responsible , '
hIic eye and, hence,
in the puDl y
served to make him more human
more likeable
214 The Social Animal

Alas, this is only one of several possible explanations, and (as

the reader knows all too well by now) the real world is no place
to test such a hypothesis. In the real world, there are too many
things happening simultaneously,any one of which could have
increased Kennedy’s popularity. For example, after the fiasco
occurred, President Kennedy did not try to make excuses or to
pass the buck; rather, he manfully accepted full responsibility for
the blunder. This selfless action could have done much to make
him more attractive in the eyes of the populace. In order to test
the proposition that evidence of fallibility in a highly competent
person may make him better liked, an experiment was needed.
One of the great advantages of an experiment is that it eliminates
or controls extraneous variables (such as the selfless assumption of
and allows us, therefore, to assess
responsibility) the effect of one
variableon another more accurately.
I performed such an experiment in collaboration with Ben

Willerman and Joanne Floyd.** Each subject listened to a simple

tape recording featuring one of four stimulus persons: (1) a
nearly perfect person; (2) a nearly perfect person who commits
a clumsy blunder; (3) a mediocre person; and
(4) a mediocre
person who commits a clumsy blunder. In preparation, each sub-
jectwas told that he would be listening to a person who was a
candidate for the “College Quiz Bowl,” and that he would be
asked to rate the candidate by the kind of impression he made, by
how likeable he seemed, and so forth. Each tape consisted of an
interview between the candidate (stimulus
person) and an inter-
viewer, and contained a set of extremely
difficult questions posed
by the interviewer; the questions were of the kind that are gen-
erally askedon the “College Quiz Bowl.” On one tape, the stimu-
lus person showed a high degree of competence— indeed, he
seemed to be virtually perfect, answering 92 percent of the ques-
tions correctly and, in the body of the interview, when asked
about his activities in high school, he modestly admitted that he
had been an honor student, the editor of the yearbook, and a
member of the track team. On another tape, the stimulus person
(actually the same actor using the same tone of voice) was pre-
 Attraction: Why People Like Each Other 2*5

percent
sented as a person of average ability: he answered only 30
he admitted
of the questions correctly and, during the interview,
school, had been a
that he had received average grades in high
tried out for
proofreader on the yearbook staff, and that he had
the track team but had failed to make it.
On the other two
recordings (one of the “superior” person
and one of the aver-

age” person), the stimulus person

committed an embarrassing
he clumsily spilled a cup
blunder: near the end of the interview,

of coffee all over himself. This

“pratfall” was created by n>al™g

a tape recording that included sounds

the raping of a chair, and the
of commonon
anguished vmice of the stim
my
“
spilled coffee all over
person saving “Oh my goodness. I’ve
control, this tape was repm-
achiev^ L.vimum
spliced onto a copy o
duced, and one copy was of
superior person, while the other rop^
This ’^our experimratal
the tape of the average person. g Mnndered and
superior a ity
conditions: (1) a person of
i
'
average ability who
person of
(2) one who did not;
and (3) a
blundered, and (4) one who
did not.
. j.. ...as rated most
,

a blu
The superior person who committed , blunder
average person who commi
attractive; the blunder) was
was rated least attracuve. ‘ person (no blunder)
the
second in attractiveness, and attractive
inherently
was
finished third. Clearly, there ffee. although it did
a
about the simple act of spilling °
pe^^^ person,
mak-
dimemion ^ perfect
to the
serve to add an endearing
mg him more h more mediocre
and, hence,
mediocre person appear that stronger evidence
to

less attraedve. This P^r/; irdegree

o
of eompe-
a t
support our contention that, g avident of
fallibility
attractive some
tence does make a person
still lurtner.
increases his attractiveness

Physical Attractiveness. effect in

“eauty has^'any
er a man’s handsomeness
or a ® g„de, and most
salary. I,
advancement,
determining his or her
214 The Social AmmaX

Alas, this IS only one of several possible explanations, and (as

the reader knows all too well by now) the real world is no place
to test such a hypothesis In the real world, there are too many
any one of which could have
things happening simultaneously,
increased Kennedy’s popularity For example, after the fiasco
occurred. President Kennedy did not try to make excuses or to
pass the buck, rather, he manfully accepted full responsibility for
the blunder This selfless action could have done much to make
him more attractive in the eyes of the populace In order to test
the proposition that evidence of fallibility m a highly competent
person may make him better liked, an experiment was needed
One of the great advantages of an experiment is that it eliminates
or controls extraneous variables (such as the selfless assumption of
and allows us, therefore, to assess the effect of one
responsibility)
variableon another more accurately
I performed such an experiment m collaboration with Ben

Willerman and Joanne Floyd ” Each subject listened to a simple

tape recording featuring one of four stimulus persons
(1) a
nearly perfect person, (2) a nearly perfect person who commits
a clumsy blunder, (3) a mediocre person, and (4) a mediocre
person who commits clumsy blunder In preparation, each sub-
a
ject was told that he would be listening to
a person who was a
candidate for the “College Quiz Bowl,” and
that he would be
asked to rate the candidate by the kind of
impression he made, by
how likeable he seemed, and so forth Each tape consisted of an
interview between the candidate (stimulus
person) and an inter-
viewer, and contained a set of extremely
difficult questions posed
by the interviewer, the questions
were of the kind that are gen-
erally askedon the “College Quiz Bowl ” On one tape, the stimu-
lus person showed a high degree
of competence— indeed, he
seemed to be virtually perfect, answering percent of the ques-
92
tions correctly— and, in the body of the interview, when asked
about his activities in high school, he modestly admitted that he
had been an honor student, the editor of the yearbook, and a
member of the track team On another tape, the stimulus person
(actually the same actor using the same tone of voice) was pre-
 ^

Attraction Why People Like Each Other 217

liked whom among the children themselves The clearest results

were obtained for the males the physically attractive boys were

liked better than the physically unattractive

boys Moreover, un
were considered to be more aggressive than their
attractive boys
children were aske to
attractive counterparts, and, when the
tended to nominate
name the classmates that “scared them,” they
the unattractive children Of course, it
may be that the homely
scary man m
boys ivere more aggressive and did behave
a

not observe the actual behavior of the

ncr The researchers did
®
At the same time, t
children in the nursery school
to attribute «s
pendent evidence that people do tend
physically attractive kids, regardless
of ^e
Karen Dion
emerges from another study by ^^^a^ces,
sfurbances
severe classroom d
asked to examine reports of rather
by a teacher Attached to eac ,P
apparently written
^
photo of ihe child who was said «
In some instances, the photo was that of an
fh “ ’

in others, the photo was that

of an ‘
ye children,
on
women tended to place more blame
'
® gyeryday
this w P
and to leap to the conclusion that , attractive,
picture P
behavior When the child was As
eir J behavior
however, adults tended to excuse
t
everyone, but like
“ she plays
one woman put it, not be
anyone else, a bad day can occur „mttractive gnl
was
seriously” When
DO seriously
taken too ncu . w
Pv
* r-
,,„„ation described
o,ruation
in m
e s
pictured as the culprit in exactly
t

exactly the same way, a ^“P”" to teach

a problem
,
,

luld^e quite bratty and

would
woul/bequimbrattyandwoud^^^^^^^^^^^
P™‘’“‘'Zh7w, toother children
to pick ”
ers She would probably try uem
^
her own age All in all s'’®
nnstrated that
good looking
andF‘
Finally, Harold Sigall
us
"merwo-nn-for better
women have more impact on yyas made to appear
experiment, a
woma „
or for worse In this
either physicallyattractive or una the un
m
j^an and,
phshed by taking a naturally ,,1 fitnng
clothing,

attractive condition, providing

2i6 The Social Ammal

will laugh and indicate that the question is absurd, but ask him
whether he’s aware of the physical attractiveness of his students
or employees and (if he’s hpnest) he’ll probably admit that he is
Chances are that their physical attractiveness will affect his judg-
ment of them, whether he realizes it or not Several experiments
have underscored what many of us have long suspected if you
want people to like you and treat you well, it pays to be beautiful
We like beautiful and handsome people better than homely peo-
ple, and we attribute all kinds of good characteristics to them
In one study by Elaine Walster and her associates,*® students
at the University ofMinnesota were randomly matched by com-
puter for blind datesThey had previously been given a battery of
personality tests Which of their many characteristics determined
whether or not they liked each other^ Was it their mascu-
linity, feminity, dominance, submission, dependence, independ-
ence, intelligence, or attitude similarity^ It was none of these
things The one determinant of whether or not a couple liked
each other and actually repeated their date was their physical
attractivenessIf a handsome man was paired with a beautiful
woman, they were most likely to desire to see each other again
In another study, Karen Dion and her
colleagues*^ showed
college students photographs of three
other college age people,
one was physically attractive, one was average,
and the third was
unattractive The subjects were asked to
rate each of the people
depicted on these photographs on
twenty-seven different person-
ality traits,and were asked to rate their future happiness The
physically attractive people were assigned
by far the most desir-
able traits and the greatest prognosis
for happiness This was true
whether it was men rating men, men rating
women, women rat-
ing men, or women rating women
This IS not simply a conceit held by college students Karen
Dion and Ellen Berscheid^® found that, even nursery
as early as
school, children are responsive to the
physical attractiveness of
their peers In their study, Dion and Berscheid
first had several
independent judges (graduate students) rate the physical attrac-
tiveness of nursery-school students Then they determined who
 Attractioni Wljy Veople Like Each Other 2 19

Please note that, thus far, our discussion

of beauty has been

limited to “visual" beauty. But there are other kinds of beauty. It

a terribly conserva-
turns out that our visual perception exercises
tive influence on our and behavior. We are we e to
feelings
attrac-
our cycs-cspccially as a means of determining physical
once we have categorized a person
tiveness. And as we have seen,
attribute other qua ities
0
as pretty or homely, we tend to
to strike us as being
peLn-for exampli pretty people are likely
homely people Jn
Lre warm, sexy, exciting, and delightful than
discussing 'ens.t.vity-trainmg group^
the next chapte?, I will be
Some of these groups allow people
to engage m
experiene
experiences. For example, one such
acquainted “ohu oth^^
jl,„sole-
“turn off their eyes" and become
ly through the sense of touch. After ® ^ diminution
’’opo” “
exercises, group members typically _ , js

of their prior stereotypes. Basically,

nonvisual
S tiei-

little “hLeliness" in a

pants are frequently astonished

f
to lear
f>
the

sensitive pe
incredibly warm, gentle, and „ funny-
with is,
having a nonvisual encounter gfter^even one
such
I dou »

looking guy with the pimples.

encounter with him, a
nonvisual To the extent
again as merely a of the
to^bea>me aware
enable p
that such experiences can p y^faimess due to
the

nonvisual aspects of beauty, that w

we have discussed
physical beauty
inequitable distribution of
may be reduced.

Sbmlarity and Attraction

While
A d to Marty.
and is in ^hey agree
Sam goes to a cocktail party
they chat for only a few of the income
u he inequity hntory’
completely on several issueMne ^^^^.jhur in world
a
tax structure, the status returning home,
Upon
and the superiority of Beefoter g Marty• and t a
deal
he bkes g
announces to his wife that
2I8 The Social Anmal

fitting her with a frizzy blond wig that did not quite match her
skin coloring, and making her complexion look oily and unwhole-
some Then, posing as a graduate student in clinical psychology,
she interviewed several college males At the close of the inter-
view, she gave each subject her own personal, clinical evaluation
of him Half of the subjects received evaluations that were highly
favorable,and the other half evaluations that were very unfavor-
able We found that, when she was homely, the men didn’t seem
to care much whether they received a good evaluation or a poor
evaluation from her m both situations, they liked her a fair
amount When she was beautiful, however they liked her a great
deal when she gave them a favorable evaluation, but, when she
gave them an unfavorable evaluation, they disliked her more than
m any of the other conditions Interestingly enough, although
the men who were evaluated negatively by the attractive woman
said that they didn’t like her, they did express a great desire to
return m order to interact with her in a future experiment These
data seem to indicate that the negative evaluations from the beau-
tiful woman were so important to the subjects
that they wanted
the opportunity to return so as to induce her to change her evalu-
ations of them
Taking all of this research into consideration, it appears to be
true that physical beauty is more than skin
deep We are more
affected by physically attractive people
than by physically un-
attractive people, and unless we are specifically abused by them,
M e tend to like them better Moreover,
in situations involving
trouble and turmoil, beautiful people
tend to be given the benefit
of the doubt— they receive more favorable homely
treatment than
people This begins at a very young age The
disconcerting aspect
of these data is that there is a strong possibility prefer-
that such
ential treatment contains the seeds of a
self fulfilling prophecy
w e know that, if people are treated poorly (or well) ic affects the
,

way they come to think of themselves Thus, homely children

may come to think of themselves as bad” or unloveable, if they
‘

are continually treated that way Ultimately, they may begin to

behave in a way that is consistent with this self concept, a way
that IS consistent with how they were treated to begin with
 Attraction Why People Like Each Other 221

con-
competence that a person feels when he induces someone to
vert overcomes any tendency that he might
have to actively dis-

other person for being the sort who

would hold an
like the
“awful” opinion to begin with

Liking Leads to Liking

There is sull another reason why

we tend to like
opinions that are similar to ours It may
be that, a ot
'’“Jf
P
person s opinion is sim
being equal, if we learn thar a
prone to beheve that he
will
own^vl might be
and when he gets to know us This can be „f
power u
cause, as it turns out, the single most
is whether
whether one person will like another

nSmvestigators have d;—

deed does make the heart grow fonder self-doubt, the
shown that the greater a persons jn 3 study by
fonder he will grow of the in
J, ,
while „„„
waitig „ participate
P
Elaine Walster,” university co
an experiment, were approached by
a ra
accomplice m
mg, well-dressed young man Lung man struck
the employ of the experimenter
T her,
in
up a conversation with the subject, ^
'
expenmcnter ,

and proceeded to make a date

At t is p
soom for the
,

entered and led the young

woman into purpose of
tcddtha P^^^^^
experiment young woman was
Itself The
compare the resu
the study was to ° course of this
j
that she (the subject) had esalumon
j scad an
procedure, the young woman ^ descriptions
o

of her ou n peLnaW Half of to raise

themselves that were highly P^?"

’ dcscnptions
—^jj read
,

their self-esteem temporarily

The o , to lover
their

these of
that were quite negatne, ,,,e.r feehnP
to increas
self-esteem temporanly and. thus,
220 The Social Animal

considers him to be a wonderful and intelligent person. Literally

dozens of tightly controlled experiments by Donn Byrne and his
associates” have shown over and over again that, if all you know
about a person are his opinions on several issues, the more similar
his opinions are to yours, the more you like him.
Why is agreement important? There are at least two possibili-
ties: (1) The person who shares our opinion on an issue provides

us with a kind of social validation for our beliefs— that is, he pro-
vides us with the feeling that we are right. This is rewarding;
hence, we like those who agree with us. If a person disagrees with
us, this suggests the possibility that we may be wrong. This is
punishing; hence, we don’t like people who disagree with us. (2)
It is likely that we make certain negative inferences about the

character of a person who disagrees with us on a substantive issue,

not simply because his disagreement indicates that we may be
wrong, but rather, because we suspect that his opinion on that
issue indicates that he is the kind of person we have found in the
past to be unpleasant,immoral or stupid. For example, suppose
you believe that the penalties for smoking marijuana are too
severe. You then meet a man who tells
you that he believes that
marijuana smokers should be put away
for several years. I then
come along, ask you if you liked that man, and you say “No.”
Am I to conclude that
(1) you didn’t like him because hearing
him state his belief suggested to you that your belief might be
wrong, or (2) you didn’t like him because, in your experience,
people who favor harsh punishments for marijuana users tend to
be unpleasant, immoral, inhuman,
bigoted, harsh, cruel, conven-
tional, punitive, and stupid?
Both of these factors undoubtedly play
a role. There is some
evidence to suggest that the second
factor may be of less impor-
tance. This stems from Harold
Sigall’s brilliant investigation of
the psychological^ effects of conversion.”
Sigall showed that, if
peopleware highly involved with an issue, they prefer a “disagreer”
to an agreer, if they can succeed in converting him to their
way of thinking. In short, Sigall demonstrated that people like
converts better than loyal members of the flock. Apparently, the
 Attraction Why People Like Each Other 223

something spe-
differ, we are inclined to infer that there must be
cial and unique about us that he finds attractive In short, people
me my-
tend to suspect that, where opinions differ, “He
likes for
” Because this realization is especial y
self— not for my opinions
gratifying, we tend to like that person most

seems
And Opposites Do Attract-Sometwies The old adage
flock toget er t at is,
to be right birds of a feather do tend to
are simdar tend to 1 e eac
people who share opinions that ^
it’s far more
complicated than
As we have ,ust learned, however,
that if someone likes us, we like him better if Im is
of the n °
us These data are consistent with some
that are rnore en
gators who have studied relationships
° “S*”
those can be produced in the sociopsye
that studies of
studies^ot
who has done
“^ustive
Robert Winch, “ for example,
engage an
the personality characteristics of several
oppos
pies, finds that, under certain conditions jcter
who have ”cc
IS, people tend to choose people
coincide with)
istics that complement (rather than
needs and characteristics “,,nder some con-
The reader will note that I used the jj^tory data m
there are
ditions,” because it turns out that couples
investigators n
this research area some
^y^'cms, o
tend to have complementary need
nee sys
ried couples tend to have similar u opposites
toget
whether birds of a feather flock j5[,os are under
personality c i
attract depends on which tidiness

consideration Imagine a person

who uas
“ someone uho
such a person would be disincline “ .
^ slob would
not
j

casual to tbe point of slovenliness 1

ould seem
reason
person
be too happy with an overly neat
able to assume that neat a person
°he same token,
and slobs would flock with slobs y gn intro
-
who was extroverted might not - fo sit home vatc
o
whose idea of a goo
verted person different set
mg TV On
charactenstics-say,
the other hand,
‘f

nurturance-depen ^ “then
Y
a different
222 The Social Animal

insecurity Finally, as part of the experiment, the girls were

asked

to rate how much they liked a wide variety of people— a

teacher,

a friend, “ . . and sincewe have one space left, why don’t you
also rate that fellow whom you were waiting with’” Those wom-
en who received unfavorable information about themselves (from
the personality test) showed far more liking for their male ad-
mirer than did those who received favorable information about
themselves In short, we like to be liked— and the more insecure
we feel,more we appreciate being liked and, consequently,
the
the more we like someone who likes us

The Relation Between Smiilarity and Being Liked. have We

already seen that the factors that determine whether or not a
person will be liked are not as simple as Dale Carnegie would
have us believe Let’s push this further by taking a look at the two
variables that we
have recently discussed similarity and being
liked Because we
like people who hold opinions that are similar
to ours, and because we like people who like us, shouldn’t it follow
that we will like a person a great deal if we learn that he is both
similar and that he likes us’ No The evidence suggests that these
two factors are not additive Edward Jones and his colleagues’®
have demonstrated that, although it’s nice to be liked by someone
who shares our opinions and values, it’s apparently far more ex-
citing to be liked by someone who doesn’t Each of the college
women in this experiment
had a brief conversation with another
woman m which she discovered either that they were in agree-
ment or in disagreement on a number of issues After the conver-
sation, the subject was allowed to eavesdrop on a conversation
that the other woman (actually a stooge) was having with a third
person During this conversation, the other woman discussed her
feelings about the subject m one condition, she indicated that she
liked her, m another condition, she indicated that she disliked her
How did this affect the subject’s feelings about the stooge’ The
subjects tended to have the greatest liking for people with dis-
similar attitudes who liked them Thus, although we generally
like people who have attitudes similar to our own, if we encoun-
ter someone who likes us in spite of the fact that our opinions
 Attraction Why People Like Each Other “5

After a while, you excuse yourself to refill your glass You return
and find him with his back turned to you, deep in conversation
with another person— and he’s talking about you So, naturally,
you pause to listen Clearly, the things he says about you will
have an impact upon how you feel about him It is obvious that
he has no ulterior motives, indeed, he doesn’t even know that you
are eavesdropping Thus, if he tells his partner that he was im-
pressed by you, that he liked you, that he found you bright,
witty, charming, gracious, honest, and exciting, my guess is that
this would have a positive effect on your hking for him On the
other hand, if he indicates that he was unimpressed, that he dis-
stupi
liked you, that hefound you to be dull, boring, dishonest, ,

on
and vulgar, my guess is that this would have a negative effect
your liking for him
to you,
So far so good But I’m sure that’s not very interesting
grandmother
you’ve always known that Everyone and his
e
knows that the more good things we hear about ourselves, t

to con us) an t e
better we like the speaker (unless he’s trying
more bad things we hear about ourselves, the more
we is e i

happens to
person who says them Everybody knows it-but it
consecutive c
untrue Imagine this You have attended seven
tail parties and, miracle of miracles, the same genera eve
occurred each time you chat with a man for severa
leave, and when you come back, you overhear
him ta '"S
mig
you It’s the same man each time His responses
with X®”’
constant throughout his seven encounters ,

par
might vary There are four possibilities that are ‘
.
j

terestmg to me (1)you overhear the person saying

seven occasions, t f y
positive things about you on all
things a
hear him sayingexclusively negative 5 ,yely
are ^ I

seven occasiJns,^(3) his firstWe of evaluations

negative, but they gradually become “ and
on,
post
they equal his statements in the exclusively exclu-
evataoo"s are
then level off, and (4) his Best couple of
Sively positive, but they gradually become ™
situation, and
neg
they equal his statements m
the exclusively
him most attractive
then level off Which situauon would render
224 The Social Animal

picture emerges: a person who is very nurturant might be miser-

able he found himself in a relationship with a highly independ-
if

ent person. By the same token, what could be better for a

dependent individual than to live out his life with his head on the
bosom of someone who really enjoyed being nurturant? The
same holds true for masculinity-feminity, assertiveness-passivity,
and dominance-submissiveness. And, in a somewhat more face-
tious vein, what union could be happier than that of a sadist with
a masochist?
In long-term relationships, sociological factors also combine
with need-complementarity to play a sizeable role in determining
the extent to which two people will be attracted to each other
and stay together. Society sets forth certain “role norms” for
married couples: for example, society expects husbands to be rela-
tively dominant and wives to be relatively submissive. If the com-
plimentarity of the needs of a couple coincide with the role
norms set forth by society, it increases the chances of marital
happiness. It should also be noted that, although the notion of
need-complimentarity and the notion of opinion similarity fre-
quently lead to opposite predictions about attraction, this is not
necessarily true. People with certain complementary personality
needs can be in complete agreement in their opinions about a
given issue. To use an example just mentioned, it seems likely
that a dominant male and a submissive
female will share the same
opinions concerning sex roles in marriage—
that a man should be
dominant and a woman submissive. It should be obvious to the
reader that these role norms are
continually in flux; my
own guess
(and hope) is that the nineteenth-century role norm of the sub-
missive wife is currently in the process
of being changed.

The Gam and Loss of Esteem

We have seen that our being liked by a person increases the like-
lihood that we Let us take a closer look at this
will like him.
relation: Imagine you meet a young man
that, at a cocktail party,
for the first time and have an animated conversation with him.
 ‘

Attraction Why People Like Each Other iij

problem in devising a way to perform the experiment was one of

credibility How do we provide a believable situation in which,
in a relatively brief period of time, the subject (1) interacts with
a preprogrammed confederate, (2) eavesdrops while the pre-

programmed confederate evaluates him to a third party, (3)

engages in another conversation with the confederate, (4)

eavesdrops again, (5) converses again, (6) eavesdrops again— and
so on, through several pairs of trials To provide any kind of a
cover story would indeed be difficult, to provide a sensible cover
story that would prevent subjects from becoming suspicious
would seem impossible Bur, m collaboration with Darwyn Lin-

der, I did devise such a situation The devices we

used to solve
these problems are intricate, and they provide a unique
opportu-
socio
nity to look behind the scenes of an unusually fascinating
descri e
psychological procedure Accordingly, f would like to
provide t e
this experiment m
some detail, in the hope that it will
an
reader with an understanding of some of the difficulties
social psy-
excitements involved in conducting experiments in
chology

When the experimcn e

the subject arrived for the experiment,
that was con
greeted her and led her to an observation room
one-way win
nected to the main experimental room by a
to
and an audio-amplification system The experimenter
subject that two girls were scheduled for this
hour one ^
be the subject and the other would help perform
t

wou
ment— and that because she had arrived first, she
helper The experimenter asked her to wait ^
^evv „„niites
room to see if the other girl had arrived yet A
subject was a
later, through the one-way window, the
wit
the experimenter enter the experimental room
female student (the paid confederate) The ,imild
the confederate to be seated for a moment
and 1
to her c
return shortly to explain the experiment
instruc
entered the observation room and began the
i

real subject (who herself to be the con ^

believed _
^
to
experimenter told her that she was going
e o
forming a verbal conditioning experiment on t
i
226 The Social Animal

to you^ Which situation would render him least attractive to

)ou’
According to a simple reward-cost idea of liking, you should
like him most in the first situation, in which he says exclusively
positive things, and you should like him least (or dislike him
most) in the second situation, m which he says exclusively nega-
tive things This seems obvious Because positive statements are
rewarding, the more the better, because negative statements are
punishing, the more the worse
A few years ago, I developed a gam-loss theory of inter-
personal attraction that makes a rather different prediction My
idea IS a very simple one It suggests that increases in positive, re-
warding behavior from another person have more impact on an
individual than constant, invariant reward from that person
Thus, if we take being liked as a reward, a person whose liking
for us increases over time will be liked better than one who has
alw a) s liked us This would be true even if the number of rewards
were greater from the latter person Similarly, losses in rewarding
beln\ lor have more impact than constant punitive behavior from
another person Thus, a person whose esteem for us decreases
over time will be disliked more than someone who has always dis-
liked us— even if the number of
punishments were greater from
the latter person To return to the cocktail party for a moment, I

would predict that you would most in the gam

like the individual
disliking you and gradually m
situation (where he begins by
creases Ins liking) and that
you would like him least in the loss
condition (w here he begins by hking
you and gradually decreases
his liking for you)
In order to test mj theory, 1
needed an experimental analogue
of the cocktail party situation—
but for reasons of control, I felt
that It would be essential to
collapse the several events into a
single long session In such an
experiment, it is important that the
subject be absolutely certain that his evaluator is totally unaware
that he (the evaluator) is being overheard this eliminates the pos-
sibility of the subject’s suspecting that the evaluator is intention-

ally flattering him when he says positive things This situation

presents a difficult challenge for the experimentalist The central
 Attraction Wh^ Peopic lake Each Otbr-

ould enable the expcnmcntcr and the object tx''

storj^” "w
form expenment on tcrba! behaxior, because it p'\>\'vcc;
their
the proce^^'e
the other girl with a credible e\planatton for
they would follow
The major tanable was introduced dunng the
confederate Du ^
mgs that the experimenter had with the
subject was
their meetings, the m
the observation room, Un w
_
counting the mini er o,
ing to the contersation and dutifully
Because she had been
plural nouns used by the confederate
io behete that the confederate
thought that the exTajnnaent m-
natural f"'' '« "•
vobed impressions of people, it «as quite
perimente^o ask the confederate to expr^
her
evaluated ha
heard herself being
ihe subject Thus, the subject
e occasions
a fellow student on set en successn

Note how, by using a cover stoty that

involving “interpersonal attracoon,
we
, eightv
four of eiehtv-four
our aim without arousing suspicion-only
procedure
subjects were suspicious of this n) pma-
Vhere were four major
of the
'^^"rbv the C-
tive-the successive evaluations 1,5 ^successive

federate were all highly pos'"'®’

-3,^,1, c first few evahi-
evaluations were all very negative, ( ) g positive,
gra ua ^
ations were negative, but they f ,j,c positiv
e
reaching an asymptote
evaluations in the positive
at a leve
con 1
>
.
j

-;';;;';:|s-tlie L few
c negative,
evaluations were positive, but y t E
^ evaluations in
the
negative
equal to the
leveling off at a point
negative condition thcsubiects in the
gam
1

^e results confirmed
our
,
l,c„ir than the
sub-
in
condition liked the c‘’"W'"'“;S";e ”nie token, the subjects
condition confederate n'o-e
iects m
the positive ) , ,
. ^ ,j,e

loss condition had

a tendenc) jj^uld be stres-^
the I
228 The Social Anmtal

that IS, he was going to reward the other student for

certain

words she used in conversation He told the subject that these

rewards would increase the frequency with which the other
girl would use these words He went on to say that his particu-

lar interest was “not simply in increasing the output of those

words that I reward, that’s already been done In this experi-
ment, we want to see if the use of rewarded words generalizes
to a new situation from the person giving the reward when the
other a different person who does not reward
girl is talking to

those specific words ’’ Specifically, the experimenter explained

that he would try to condition the other girl to increase her
output of plural nouns by subtly rewarding her with an “mmm
hmmm” every time she said a plural noun “The important
questionis will she continue to use an abundance of plural
nouns when she talks to you, even though you will not be
rewarding her^" The subject was then told that her tasks were
(1) to listen m
and record the number of plural nouns used by
the other girl while the latter was talking to the experimenter,
and (2) to engage the other girl m
a senes of conversations (m
which the use of nouns would not be rewarded) so that
plural
the experimenter could listen and determine whether general-
ization occurred The experimenter told the subject that they
would alternate in talking to the girl (first the subject, then the
experimenter, then the subject) until each had spent seven ses-
sions with her
Theexperimenter made it clear to the subject that the other
girl must not know the purpose of the experiment, lest the
results be contaminated He explained that, in order to accom-

some deception must be used The experimenter said

plish this,
that, as much
as he regretted the use of deception, it would be
necessary for him to tell the girl that the experiment was about
interpersonal attraction (“Don't laugh, some psychologists are
actually interested in that stuff ") He said that the other girl
would be told that she was to carry on a series of seven short
conversations with the subject and that, between each of these
conversations, both she and the subject would be interviewed—
the other girl by the experimenter and the subject by an assist-
ant in another room— to find out what impressions they had
formed The experimenter told the subject that this “cover
 Attractioji Why People Like Each Other 23

they may not fill her with delight She already knows that her
husband thinks she’s attractive, she will not turn cartwheels at
hearing about it for the thousandth time On the other hand,
if

the doting husband (w ho m

the past was always full of compli-
was
ments) were to tell his wife that he had decided that she
unattractive, t is
losing her looks and that he found her quite
deal of pain, because it represents a is
would cause her a great
tmct loss of esteem ,

Is she doomed to experience either boredom or pam No, e

Mr oting
cause there are other people m the world and
Mrs oting in
arrive at the party a total stranger engages
and
sincerity, t at e
conversation After a while, he says, with great
n
finds her very attractive guess is that she woul not
My
ma es er
boring It represents a distinct gam for
her, it
at all
stranger
good, and it increases the attractiveness of the
experimental find
This reasoning is consistent with Previous
mgs O Harvey’* found a tendency for subjects to ,
J
positively to strangers than to friends,
when eac
.„b,ects
evaluations 0
as the sources of relatively positive
negativ
Moreover, subjects tended to react more y
than to strangers, when experiments
'''"®<f"^‘f"?''sevlral
Similarly,
negative evaluations of the subjects jjehavior of
impact o
have shown that strangers have more n i, ,

ami
young children than either parents or other receiving
to rece
accustomed
^easomble to assume that children are
adults
approval from parents and other jep-
familiar Therefore, additional
approval rom
jtranger ts a
approval “ reater
resent much of a gam However,
should result g
gam and, accordmi to gam-loss theory,
improvement m performance bleak picture
suggest a rather
These results and speculations favor m
e
of the human condition— we seem to being hurt by
the eyes of strangers while, at the to this con-
fnends and other familiar people Be i^.p^^ard and look
at
steps
elusion, however, let us take a few of mdi
aso ^ .

the impact that gam or loss of esteem cness

j
perceived
viduals-quite aside from its effect on the
230 The Social Anmal

are in line with our general theoretical position: a

gain has more

impact on liking than a set of events that are all positive and a
loss

tends to have more impact on liking than a set of events that are

all negative. Spinoza may have had something like this in mind
when, nearly 300 years ago, he observed:

Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into

love, and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not pre-
ceded it. For he who begins to love a thing which he was wont
to hate or regard with pain, from the very fact of loving, feels
pleasure. To this pleasure involved in love is added the pleasure
arising from aid given to the endeavor to remove the pain
involved in hatred accompanied by the idea of the former
object of hatred as cause.**

The Care and Feeding of Friendship

One of the implications of gain-loss theory is that, in the words

of the well-known ballad, “You always hurt the one you love."
That is, once we have grown certain of the rewarding behavior
of a person, that person may become
less potent as a source of
reward than a stranger. We
have demonstrated that a gain in
liking is a more potent reward than the absolute level of the lik-
ing; accordingly, it is likely that a close friend (or a mother, a
brother, or a mate) is behaving near ceiling level and, therefore,

cannot provide us with a gain. To put it another way, because we

have learned to expect love, favors, and praise from a friend, such
behavior is not likely to represent a gain in his esteem for us. By
the same token, the good friend has great potential as a punisher.
The closer the friendand the greater his past history of invariant
esteem and reward, the more devastating is the withdrawal of his
esteem. In effect, then, he has power to hurt the one he loves—
but very little power to reward him.
An example may help to clarify this point. After fifteen years
of marriage, a doting husband and his wife are getting dressed to
attend a formal dinner party. He compliments her on her appear-
ance— “Gee, honey, you look great.” She hears his words, but
 Attraction: Why People Like Each Other 233

close friends and marriage partners are the ones that are least
likely to provide us with gams in esteem is most characteristic of
relationships in which people are not open or honest with each
other. In a closed relationship, people tend to suppress their minor
annoyances and to keep their negative feelings to themselves This
results in a fragile plateau that appears positive but that can be
devastated by a sudden shift in sentiment. But in an open, honest,
“authentic” relationship, one m which people are better able to

share their true feelings and impressions (even their negative

ones), no such plateau is reached Rather, there is a continuous

Zigzagging of sentiment around a point of relatively high esteem

In a relationship of this sort, the partners are reasonably
clo^ to
a e
the gain condition of the gain-loss experiment. In this light,
two peop e are
Carnegie’s advice can be seen to be inadequate If
genuinely fond of each other, they will have a more
satisfying
they are
and exciting relationship over a longer period of time if
have t an 1
able to express whatever negative feelings they may
they are completely “nice” to each other at all times.
0 au
In the next chapter, I will discuss the advantages
ticity in human relations in greater detail.
232 The Social Animal

of the evaluator One study is highly pertinent in this respect

Joanne Floyd^® divided a group of young children into pairs, so
that each child was either \vith a close friend or with a stranger
m
One child each pair was then allowed to play a game in which
he earned several trinkets He was then instructed to share these
with his partner The perceived stinginess of the sharer was
manipulated by the experimenter some subjects were led to
believe that the friend (or stranger) was treating them generous-
ly, and others were led to believe that the friend (or stranger)
was treating them in a stingy manner Each subject was then
allowed to earn several trinkets of his own, and was instructed to
share them with his partner As expected, the subjects showed
the most generosity m the gam and the loss conditions— that is,
they gave most trinkets to generous strangers and stingy friends
In short, they were relatively stingy to stingy strangers (and why
not^ the strangers behaved as they might have been expected to
behave), and to generous friends (“Ho hum, my friend likes
me— so what else is new^”) But when though they
it looked as
might be gaming a friend (the generous stranger), they reacted
with generosity, likewise, when it looked as though they might
be losing one (the stingy friend), they also responded with gen-
erosity Although It appears to be true that “you always hurt the
one you love,” the hurt person appears to be inspired to react
kindly— rather than “in kind”—in an attempt to re-establish the
positive intensity of the relationship This suggests the comfort-
ing possibility that individuals are inclined to behave a way m
that will preserve stability in their relations with others
Let us return to Mr and Mrs Doting for a moment Al-
though Mr Doting has great power to hurt his wife (by telling
her that he thinks she’s losing her looks), Mrs Doting is apt to be
very responsive to such criticism, and will likely strive to wm
back what she has lost by trying once more to make herself at-
tractive in the eyes of her husband Carrying this speculation a
step further, I would suggest that the more honest and “authen-
tic” a relationship, the less the possibility of reaching the kind of
dull and deadening plateau on which the Dotings appear to be
stuck What I am suggesting is that an analysis that suggests that
8

Communication in
Sensitivity-Training
Groups

In Chapter 2, we came upon a scene in which a

^
were judgments on
sitting around in a circle passing ^
experimentj
Ime This las the setting of Solomon Asch's
on conformity As you recall, the beha\ior of °
statc- ,

m were
that circle was inauthentic— that is, they They
real P
ments that were quite diflferent from their r

had an agenda mmind, and it was hidden °

influence or
agenda was to attemp
viduals m the group their

traming^g
A great deal of mj thinking about sensitivity and
influenced b> Michael Kahn, a highly be safcl>
chanter can
trainer Indeed, much of what is original many ideas con
Dasid “ comcrsations and
attributed to him 1 am also indebted to
e
tamed in this chapter emerged during a series ot ^^jijbcrating on a

arguments ue had while %ve were the prom

forthcoming book on sensitiMt} training
 Covwiwncation in Senstttvity-TTatnmg Groups 237

or delin-
officers,hippies, members of the State Department,
couples, unmarrie
quents, there have been groups for married
confrontation groups, with
couples, and families, there have been
in another, and man-
hippies and cops in one, blacks and whites
een
agers and their employees another But most groups ave
m
a lawyer, a laborer,
heterogeneous-the same group might contain
a nun, a divorcee, a happily married
woman, a banker, a student
and seven-
T-groups have become a phenomenon of the sixties
often sensational) publicity
ties-they have received wide (and
uncritical, cultish,
they hav^e been treated with an
have been casug ed
zJhy some of their proponents, and they
of the devil, as a ^“bver
ive
bv the right wing as an instrument
eating away at the
form of brainwashing
thenationInmy,udgment,sen.t.^—
that is
J
menace tha
»
- V
er the panacea nor the

means of increasing a
human relations
person
y
s--rr3 “X time-or,

provide people with some

very
as a

» p™ ""

‘"“prlmaVy focus m Jmmun^

'
Akhough
training group as an
instr traditional
discuss only the

What IS a T-groups
statement of
- m nrnvide a general
I will I will elabo-
In this section Subsequently,
T-group “ describing uhat a
what a L^t us begin by
?;r:u;t^“T;;.cally,.t.sno„
236 The Social Anhml

manipulate that person’s behavior. What I would like to describe

for you in this chapter is quite a different kind of group. In
this

group, from ten to twenty people are sitting around in a circle.

Unlike the group in the line-judging experiment, this group has
no specific task agenda. Typically, the members have no inten-

tion of solving any specific problem. The intent of the group is

not to manipulate anyone. Quite the contrary— the intent is to be

authentic and to talk straight. The group I am describing is usual-
ly referred to as an encounter group, sensitivity-training group,
or human-relations training group (T-group for short). The
various terms are often used interchangeably but, in fact, they do
connote differences in orientation and technique.
Broadly speaking, the term “T-group” refers to the more
conservative, more traditional group, in which the primary em-
phasis is on verbal behavior and the group discussions are almost
exclusively confined to the here and now. It is associated with
East Coast centers, principally the National Training Laboratories
in Bethel, Maine, The term “encounter group” is most often asso-
ciated with the more radical the human-potential move-
wing of
ment; the activities of such groups often include a heavy dose of
such nonverbal procedures as touching, body movement, dance,
massage, and so on. Although they tend to be associated with
such West Coast centers as Esalen Institute, encounter groups
may be found throughout the United States. In recent years,
many of the more traditional T-groups have incorporated some
of these nonverbal procedures, but they still remain relatively
conservative. I will use the term “T-group” throughout this
chapter; the groups that I will be describing are more toward the
traditionalend of the spectrum, although they may make use of
some of the more recent innovations usually associated with the
term “encounter group.”
Although these groups have been in existence since just after
World War II, they have burgeoned and proliferated dramatical-
ly in the past ten years. They are held in all sections of the coun-
try and their members include individuals from all walks of life*
There have been specialized groups consisting solely of college
students, high-school teachers, corporation presidents, police
 1

Communication in Sejtsitfvity-Training Groups 239

(or my employees, or wompfi)?” “Why do other people

while I tend tp he alone?” “Why do I have
diffi-
friends easily,
that
culty in opening up to peoplg?" “What is there about people
makes them so untrustworthy?” “How can I handle my anger?
“Am I really the bitch that my ex-husband says I am? What 0
I do that turns people off?” -'Why is it that, when I
meet a guy,
all he wants to do is take me to bed?”
achiet e
In addition to allowing q person the opportunity to
highly personal and individual goals, most groups
attempt to
attempt to
provide an atmosphere whereip the participants can
achieve a number of general goals:

to examine on
1. To develop a spirit of inquiry, a willingness
own behavior and to experiment with one s
role t e « 0 m .

2. To develop an awareness of ijipta things about more

interpersona re . 1

3. To develop greater authenticity in

compelled to p ^ '

to feel freer to be oneself and pot ffel

4. To develop the ability to act in 3 collaborative J
an su
dependent manner with peers, superiors,
manner.
rather than in an authoritative or submissive
conflicts “"d
5. To develop the ability to resolve

through problem solving, rather than throng

manipulation.

The Vrocess: Things are LcarJJcd. The

How
portant distinguishing characteristic of a T-group
is
^
ty which people learn. Again, a T-group is
^ occur, it’s
lecture course. Although a great deal of learning
in
not the kind of learning that can be easily rough
, I,
a traditional teacher-student relationship. It i
•
i^^^n
doing, learning through experience. In a
'felines and
trying things out, by getting
vcrlia'llv or
J>y
>>y expressing those feelings to other
pcop , jmlividiial
nonverbally. things out not onl>
"Trying P
„unity
^
understand his own feelings, it also allows 11 effects other
uf benefitting from learning about how lus c ^
people. If I want to know whether or not P-'P'^
niampulativc person, 1 Simply behave an ,
r.-i
the group to tell me how my behavior nukes
1
238 The Social Animal

seminar-that is, it is not a group m

which members communicate
and abstract concepts about the world It is not a group
in
facts
which the leader is a traditional teacher, who tries to impart
knowledge by lecturing to the members as though they were
an

audience Neither is it a committee that performs tasks or solves

problems that have originated outside the group itself
A T'group experience is educational—but educational in a
way that is different from what we are accustomed to It is differ-
ent both in the content of the material that is learned and in the
process by which the learning takes place

The Content What Gets Learned Generally, a person in a

T-group learns things about himself and his relations with other
people It can be said that, m a college psychology course, I learn
how people behave, in a T-group, I learnhow / behave But I
learn much more than that I also learn how others see me, how
my behavior affects them, and how I am affected by other people
Historically, T-groups began as a means of teaching people
“interpersonal skills ” For example, a business executive, a minis-
ter, a labor leader, or a school teacher might come to learn things

about being a skillful leader— how to get the best out of people,
how to give orders without infuriating the recipient, or how to
negotiate a contract without coming to blows While these skills
are still being learned m
T-groups, the emphasis has begun to
shift m
recent years toward more personal goals, such as learning
to understand one’s own feelings and those of other people Thus,
many people are motivated to participate in a T
group because
they believe that there may be something missing in their lives A
person may feel alienated from other people, he may feel that life
is going by too quickly, he may feel that he wants something

more out of life than waking up in the morning, eating breakfast,

going to work, coming home, watching television, and going to
sleep In short, many people are searching for greater understand-
ing and greater enrichment of their lives through these groups
This does not mean that a person has to be in the middle of an
existential crisis m order to join a group, many people join be-
cause they have specific confusions and are searching for specific
answers “Why
do I have trouble getting along with my
children
240 The Social Animal

An implicit assumption underlying these groups is that very

little can be gained if someone tells how we are supposed to

us
feel, how we are supposed to behave, or what we are supposed to
do with our lives A parallel assumption is that a great deal can be
gained if we understand what we*re feeling, if we understand the

kinds of interpersonal events that trigger various kinds of feel-

ings, if we understand how our behavior is read and understood
by other people, and if we understand the wide variety of options
available to us The role of the T-group leader is not to present us
with answers, but simply to help establish an atmosphere of trust
and of intensive inquiry m
which we are willing to look closely
at our own behavior and the behavior of others
It is in this sense that a T-group is not a therapy group The
leader does not attempt to interpret our motives or probe into
our experiences outside of the group, in addition, he tends to dis-
courage other group members from doing this Instead, he simply
encourages us to behave and to react to the behavior of others

The Cultural Island As we race through life, we are fre-

quently distracted Thoughts about the work we must do
compete for our attention with the person we are supposedly lis-
tening to now, thoughts about the person we must see during the
next hour distract us from the work we
are trying to do now, as
we stand at the cocktail party, balancing a drink in one hand and
holding a cigarette m the other, “listening” to the pompous fel-
low in the flashy suit,we glance over his shoulder to see who else
IS at the party, and we begin to wonder why we didn’t go to that
other party instead This kind of minimized in a
distraction is
T group, because there is literally
no alternative to paying atten-
tion Here, we are in a room— on a “cultural island”— with several
other people for
days, or a weekend) with
two weeks (or ten
nothing to do, no agenda to work, and
no one directing us toward
any specific action We
are meeting for twelve to sixteen hours a
day—there s nothing else happening Initially, this can be some-
w hit frightening As we learn to pay attention to others, to listen,
to look, we begin to pick up nuances of speech and behavior that
we didn t think we were capable of noticing W^e also begin to
 Conmiuntcatton in Sensitivity -Training Groups
241

in
listen to ourselves more, to pay attention to those rumblings
our gut and to try to make sense out of them in the context 0
what IS going on in the room, outside of our gut
at
Okay, but what happens’ How do people get started’
IS there to talk about’ Typically, the group begins with the lea er
(trainer) outlining the “housekeeping” schedule
when meals wi
an so
how long each session will last before it breaks,
be served,
0
on He may or may not proceed to outline his philosop y
or may
groups and the limits of his own participation He may
not discuss the “contract”—what the participants do not
ey
do In any case, he soon falls into silence Minutes j^ss
ot ®
seem like hours The group members may look at eac
00
out the window Typically, the participants will
trainer for None is forthcomii^
guidance or direction
his discomfort is y
several minutes, someone might express
or may not be responded to Eventually, a typicalm ,

one will express some annoyance at the leader ge S m

of this This IS a waste of time come yo’’ ^e not
How S ,1
^
job’ What the hell are we paying you for’ Why
may be a
J
us what we’re supposed to do’” There ^‘PP ,

plause in the background But someone else mig P

t
_
ask the first person why he’s so bothered by a lac 0
does he need someone to tell him what to do’ And
the g yp P T ,5

off and running

learning From Each Other

can w e learn P P
How docs learning occur’ How ^ jjl
uommimicating
arc not experts’ We learn through
^no\\ how to communicate-or do -e’
'-'cryday h\cs, when wc think VC arc CO
^0 a person, that person is hcanng something . l,ur.
cc
Suppose, for example, that Fred has v arm jj/n-
i

out of siiyncss or out of a fear of

^
Uf,osc to
*^uU to express these feelings directly He ma) ^j.(*4sric
'

uicatc those w arm feelings by engaging m a teas .

 The Social Animal

assumpuon nnderly.ng
tee groups rs

An >mpUcn
little

feel,
can be gamed if
how we are supposed
A
to
parallel
^
behav ,

as»-P«^ *
^e are slppo^ed to

do ;ith our lives

it nndtsld the
we unoe
feeling,
named if we understand uchat we’re

own behavior and the behavior of

“^s
at our The
m this sense that a T-group "o”
It IS
is
mto
interpret
leader does not attempt to ^,^5 to dis-
group, m addi he^^
^
our experiences outside of the
,

doing th
courage other group members from j hers
react to the behavior
encourages us to behave and to

The Cultural Island As we race

’5'^’ do
quently distracted Thoughts about the
jisedly hs-
compete for our attention with the person ^ ™P/“tmg the
person we ^
tenmg to now, thoughts about the
next hour distract us from the work we
hand and
we stand at the cocktail patty, balancing a drink
holding a cigarette m the other, listening P
low m the flashy suit, we glance over his should
we
the party, and we begin to wonder
IS at
why ^
distraction
other party instead This kind of atten
alternative
T group, because there is literally no several
is an
non Here, we are m
a room— on a “cultural
'
, ^yjth
days, or a
other people for two weeks (or ten
one ire B
nothing to do no agenda to work, and no ^ ^
any specific action We
are meeting for , he some-
Initially,
day-there’s nothing else happening , listen,
o
M hit frightening As we learn to pay attention ^hat
nuances of spe
to look, we begin to pick up
we didn’t think we were capable of noticing
 Covmmmcatton m Sensitivity -Training Groups 241

listen to ourselves more, to pay attention to those

rumblings m
our gut and to tty to make sense out of them in the context of
what IS going on m
the room, outside of our gut
Okay, but what happens’ How do people get started’ What
IS there to talk about’ Typically, the group begins with the leader
(trainer) outlining the “housekeeping” schedule when meals will
be served, how long each session will last before it breaks, and so
on He may or may not proceed to outline his philosophy of
groups and the limits of his own participation He may or may
not discuss the “contract”—what the participants do not have to
do fn any case, he soon falls into silence Minutes pass They
seem like hours The group members may look at each other or
out the window Typically, the participants will look at the
trainer for guidance or direction None is forthcoming After
several minutes, someone might express his discomfort This may
or may not be responded to Eventually, in a typical group, some-
one will express some annoyance at the leader “I’m getting sick
of this This IS a waste of time How come you’re not doing your
job’ What the hell are we paying you for’ Why don’t you tell
us what we’re supposed to do’” There may be a npple of ap-
plause in the background But someone else might jump in and
ask the first person why he's so bothered by a lack of direction—
does he need someone to tell him what to do’ And the T group is
off and running

Learning From Each Other

How does learning occur’ How can we learn from people who
are not experts’ We learn through communicating But we all

know how to communicate— or do we’ Occasionally, m our

everyday lives, when we think we are communicating something
to a person, that person is hearing something entirely different
Suppose, for example, that Fred his warm feelings for Jack but,
diffi-
out of shyness or out of a fear of being rejected, he finds it
cult to express these feelings directly He may choose to commu-
nicate those warm feelings by engaging m a teasing, sarcastic kind
242 The Social Animal

of banter. Jack may not understand this as warmth, however; in-

deed, the sarcasm might hurt him. Furthermore, in our culture, it

is communicate hurt feelings, because it indicates

difficult to

weakness and vulnerability. So Jack keeps quiet. Thus, Fred,

oblivious to the fact that his behavior is disturbing to Jack, con-
tinues to express his warmth via sarcastic jocularity— continuing
to hurt the person he likes— until he succeeds in driving him away.
Not only does Fred lose out on what could have been a warm
relationship, but, also, to the extent that this is common modus
his
operand!, Fred has failed to learn from this experience, and may
continue to alienate the very people toward whom he feels most
warmly.
It may be useful to view the interaction between two people
as a chain of events, as illustrated in the following figure.

The World of the The World of the

PERSON RECIPIENT

The Person (P) has some feelings about the Recipient (R). He
intends to communicate a particular feeling. This manifests itself
m some kind of behavior— some words, a gesture, a smile, a look,
or whatever. The Recipient perceives this behavior in his own
 Conmmmcatton m Sensitimty-Trmimg Groups

way, based upon h|s own needs, feelings, past history, opinions
about P, and so on This perception of P’s
behavior evokes a feel-
ing m
K (warmth, anger, annoyance, love, fear, or whatever)
1 his feeling is quickly translated into an interpretation
of what
Ps intentions were, which, in turn, Rows into an evaluation
of
what kind of a person P js
There are possibilitiesfor error along any point in the links
of chain Thus, to return to our example, Fred (P) has some
this
warm, loving feelings (P,) toward Jack He intends to commu-
nicate these (Ps)— bur he does it in an oblique, noncommittal,
self-protective way he teases Jack, makes fun of his clothes, is
jocular and sarcastic (Pa) Jack perceives this sarcasm and teasing
It causes him pain (jRs), and he decides that Fred was try-

ing to put him down (Rz) He concludes, therefore, that Fred is

a cruel, aggressive, unfriendly person (R4)

Error can occur m a different part of the chain Imagine a
totally new' situation inwhich Fred is completely direct and hon-
est, but Jack IS suspicious Suppose that Fred expresses his warmth

directly— by putting his arm around Jack’s shoulder, by telling

Jack how much he likes him, and so on But in this case, such
behavior may be too fast for Jack Accordingly, Jack may feel
uncomfortable, and, instead of simply admitting his discomfort,
he may interpret Fred’s behavior as manipulative in its intent he
may evaluate Fred as an insincere, political, manipulative person
The process described above may be familiar to readers of
this book It has been discussed m Chapter 6 under the term
attribution If see a person behaving in a particular way, we
we
have a strong tendency to attribute some motive or personality
disposition to him on the basis of his behavior If this process can
be explored and examined, there is a great deal of potential leam-
ing in the encounter for both Fred and Jack Is Fred too scared to
accept
display his warm feelings openly^ Is Jack too suspicious to
important
genuine warmth without vilbfymg Fred? These are
insight, but the
questions whose answers can produce a lot of
real
opportunity for gaining this msigbt rarely occurs in the
share their
world This learning can occur only if Fred and Jack
feelings with each other The T
group provides an atmosphere in
orked through 1 he
which these feelings can be expressed and vv
244 The Social Animal

group accomplishes this by encouraging the participants to stay

with their feelings and to avoid “short-circuiting” the process by
skipping from Fred’s behavior (Pj) all the way to Jack’s attribu-
tion (Rz), and, ultimately, to Jack’s evaluation of Fred (i?0»
without exploring the intervening events

Openness and the Need for Privacy

Basically, then, a T-group is a setting in which people are

provided with the opportunity to “talk straight” to each other—
and to “listen straight ” The emphasis is on the here and now,
rather than on past history Thus, a participant is not encouraged
to explain to everyone the kind of person he is, nor is he encour-

aged to reveal his childhood experiences, his )ob anxieties, or the

intricacies of his sex life He may talk about these things if he
chooses, but he usually learnsmore if he simply allows events to
happen, reacts to the events openly as he experiences them, and
allows others to respond to him as he js rather than as he describes
himself to be “Openness” is the key aspect of behavior in a
T-group Many critics of T-groups have reacted against the em-
phasis on openness, because they believe that it violates the dig-
nity of the individual and his need for privacy But, in this
context, openness does not mean detailed self-revelation, it simply
means straight talk between two or more people In a competent-
ly conducted T group, a norm is established that provides each
member with the right to as much physical and emotional privacy
as he desires Participants are encouraged to resist any pressure to
make them reveal things that they would rather hold private But
ifa member does wish to express something m
a group, he is
helped to learn how to express it directly, rather thin obliquely
For example, if Bill is angry at Ralph, it is his right to keep that
anger to himself, if he so chooses But if he chooses to express his
anger, it is much more useful (for Bill, for Ralph, and for every-

one else concerned) if he expresses it directly by telling Ralph

about his feelings than it is if he expresses it by any one of a num-
ber of indirect means— such as making snide remarks or sarcastic
 CoTTWUttiiciitton iJi SefisttitHty-TTaintng Groups 245

statements, grunting whenever Ralph talks, making fun of Ralph

covertly, or lifting his eyes toward the ceiling,
so that everyone
can feel his contempt for Ralph If Bill makes
a snide remark,
someone in the group will almost invariably ask him ir he has
any
feelings about Ralph that he wants to share with
the group He is
not forced to share his feelings— but he's discouraged from talking
in riddles and encouraged to translate the muddy language of
sarcasm into straight talk
This is not to deny that, in some groups, a great deal of co-

ercion IS used to make people reveal things that they might prefer
not to reveal Sigmund Koch, a vocal and erudite critic of the
human-potential movement, provides a graphic description of
some of the more lurid and extreme examples of coercive groups
But he goes beyond that and asserts that all T-groups constitute a
threat to human dignity and “a challenge to any conception of
the person that would make life worth living Koch has sound-
ed a warning siren that is well worth heeding Personally, I would
prefer not to participate in a group that invaded my privacy and
pressured me to make self-re veahng statements against my better
judgment, but I believe that Koch’s condemnation of all T-
groups on these grounds is based upon a misunderstanding of the
term “openness" and an overgeneralization of his limited ex-
posure to the goings on in “far out” groups At the same time, I
would agree with Koch to the extent of advising people to steer
clear of encounter groups, unless they are competently conduct-
ed and unless they practice the value that no one has to do any-
thing that he doesn’t want to do More will be said about this

near the end of the chapter

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

prewously,
The Importance of h?medmcy As I mentioned
their feelings
members of T-groups are encouraged to express
abide by this, each is
directly and openly When the participants
able to receive immediate {eedbacl^ on how
people interpret at

to gam insight
he says and does In this way, a participant is able
246 The Social Animal

and statements have on other peo-

into the impact that his actions
ple. Once he is free to do whatever he wants
gains this insight, he
with it: that is, people are not advised to perform only those
actions that no one finds objectionable; rather, they are allowed
to see the consequences of their behavior and to decide whether
the price they are paying is worth it. They are also given the
opportunity of finding out that there may be more options open
tothem than they may have realized. To illustrate, suppose I per-
form an action that angers my wife. If she doesn’t express this
anger, I may never become aware of the fact that the action I’ve
performed makes her angry. On the other hand, suppose she
gives me immediate feedback; suppose she tells me how these
actions on my part make her feel angry. Then, I have at least two
options: I can continue to behave in that way, or I can stop be-
having in that way— the choice is mine. The behavior may be so
important that I don’t want to give it up. Conversely, my wife’s
feelings may be so important that I choose to give up the be-
havior. In the absence of any knowledge of how my behavior
makes her feel, I don’t have a choice. Moreover, knowing exactly
how she feels about a particular set of actions may allow me to
explore a different sec of actions that may satisfy needs as well my
as her needs.
The value of feedback is not limited to the recipient. Fre-
quently, in providing feedback, a person discovers something
about himself and his own needs. If a person feels, for example,
that it’s “wrong” to experience anger, he may block out his
awareness of this feeling. When
the expression of such feelings is
legitimized, he has a chance to bring them out in the open, look
at tht.m,and to become aware that his expression of anger has not
caused the world to come to an end. Moreover, the direct expres-
sion of a feeling keeps the
encounter on the up-an-up and, thus,
helps to prevent the escalation
of negative feelings. For example,
if my wife has
learned to express her anger directly, it keeps our
discussion on the issue
at hand. If she suppresses the anger, bur it
leaks out in other ways—
at different rimes and in different situa-
tion— I do not know where her hostility is coming from. I may
get self-righteous about being abused for no apparent reason.
This makes me angry, and the escalation is on.
 )

Conmixmicatton in Sensttwity-Training
Groups 247

Feelings versus Evaluatiom People

often need some coaching
in how to provide feedback We
often do it m
a way that angers
or upsets the recipient, thereby causing more
problems than we
solve Indeed, one of the aspects of
T-groups that sometimes
frightens and confuses people who have never
been in a properly
conducted group is that their prior experiences with providing
and receiving feedback have not always been pleasant This is one
of the reasons why it is so difficult to commumcate what happens
in a T-group to people who have never experienced one Specifi-
cally, when we describe this aspect of a T-group, we are de-
scribing behavior of a sort that allof us have had experience
with— much of it unpleasant And yet, we’re trying to say that
such behavior can be productive in a T-group To say this, how-
ever, may make the group seem to be a magical, mystical thing,
which It’s not The way this can happen is better illustrated than
described in the abstract I will do this byprovidmg an example of
“improper” feedback, and of how people can be taught to modify
their method of providing feedback (without modifying its qual
jty) in order to maximize communication and understanding
This example is an event that occurred in an actual group session
In the course of the group meeting, one of the members
(Sam) looked squarely at another member (Harry) and said,
“Harry, I’ve been listening to you and watching you for a day
and a half, and I think you’re a phoney ” Now, that's quite an
accusation How cm Harry resyond^ Another way of asking the
question is What are Harry’s options^ He has sev eral he can ( 1
agree with Sam, (2) deny the accusation and say that he s tiot a
phoney, (3) say, “Gee, Sam, I’m sorry that you feci that way ,

or (5) feel sorry for

(4) get angry and call Sam some names,
these
himself and go into a svilk Taken by themselves, none of
is un-
responses is particularly productive In the “real world, it
likely that Sam would have come out with this
statement, if he
hive been
had come out with it, there almost certainly would
trouble But doesn’t Sam ha\ e the right to express this judgment
After all, he’s only being open
This seems to be a dilemma T
groups encourage openness,
to this dilemma is
but openness can hurt people The solution
at the same time, to
rather simple It is possible to be open and,
248 The Social Animal ,

express oneself in a manner that causes a minimum of pain. The

"key rests in the term “feeiing": Sam was not expressing a feeling,
he was expressing a judgment. As I mentioned previously, open-
ness in a T-group means the open expression of feelings. By
“feeling,” I mean, specifically, anger or joy, sadness or happiness,
annoyance, fear, discomfort, warmth, and the like. In the terms
of the figure on page 242, Sam has leapt to Rt, instead of sharing
Ri and Ri.
How was this encounter handled in the T-group? In this situ-
ation, the group leader intervened by asking Sam if he had any
feelings about Harry. In our society, people are not accustomed
to expressing feelings. It is not surprising, then, that Sam thought
for a moment and then said,“ Well, I feel that Harry is a phoney.”
Of course, this is not a feeling, as defined above. This is an opin-
ion or a judgment expressed in the terminology of feelings. A
judgment is nothing more or less than a feeling that is inadequate-
ly understood or inadequately expressed. Accordingly, the leader
probed further by asking Sam what his feelings were. Sam still
insisted that he felt that Harry was a phoney. “And what does
thatdo to you?” asked the leader. “It annoys the hell out of me,"
answered Sam. Here, another member of the group intervened
and asked for data: “What kinds of things has Harry done that
annoyed you, Sam?” Sam, after several minutes of probing by
various members of the group, admitted that he got annoyed
whenever Harry showed affection to some of the women in the
group. On further probing, it turned out that Sam perceived
Harry as being very successful with women. What eventually
emerged was that Sam owned up to a feeling of jealousy and
envy— that Sam wished that he had Harry’s smoothness and suc-
cess with women. Note that Sam had initially masked this feeling
of envy; rather, he had discharged his feelings by e.xpressing dis-
dain, by saying that Harry was a phoney. This kind of expression
IS ego-protccting: because we live in a competitive society, if Sam
had admitted to feeling envious, it would have put him “one
down” and put Harry “one up.” This would have made Sam
vulnerable— that is, it would have made him feel weak in relation
to Harry. By expressing disdain, however, Sam succeeded in put-
 Covmiumcation m Sensmvity-Tramtng Groups
249

ting bwiself ‘ one up ” Although his behavior iras successful as an

ego-protecting device, it didn’t contribute to
Sam’s understand-
ing of his own feelings and of the kinds
of events that caused
those feelings, and it certainly didn't contribute
to Sam’s under-
standing of Harry or to Harry’s understanding
of Sam (or, for
that matter, to Harry’s understanding of himself)
In short, Sam
was communicating ineffectively As an ego-defensive measure,
his behavior was adaptive, as a form of communication, it was
extremely maladaptive Thus, although it made Sam vulnerable to
admit that he envied Harry, it opened the door to communica-
tion, eventually, it helped them to understand each other More-
over, a few other men also admitted that they felt some jealousy
about Harry’s behavior with women This was useful informa-
tion for Harry, m that it enabled him to understand the effects his
behavior had on other people
As we know, Harry has several options he can continue to
behave as he always has, and Jet other people continue to be
jealous and, perhaps, to express their jealousy m terms of hostility,
or he can modify his behavior in any one of a number of ways m
order to cause other people (and, ultimately, himself) less diffi-
culty The decision is his Should he decide that his “enviable”
behavior is too important to give up, he has still gained enormous-
ly from his encounter with Sam in the T-group Specifically, if a

similar response occurs in the real world, Harry, who now knows
the effect his behavior may have on other men, will not be sur-
prised by their responses, will be more understanding, will be less
likely to overreact, and so forth
But who needs a groups Couldn’t Sam and Harry have done
just as well by themselves^ No They almost certainly
would
have ended simply by calling each other names, hurting each
other’s feelings, and making each other angry But
suppose thy

had the benefit of a trained counselor m human relations-would-

n’t that be as good as a groups Probably not One of the great

advantages and excitements about the T-group is that

ue don r

sense) Rather, each

deal with expert opinion (m the traditional
feelings By sharing
person is considered an expert on his oun
their feelings, the other membere of the
group can be enormously
250 The Social Annual

helpful to Sam and Harry Specifically, the other group members

contributed to the data Harry was gathering by expressing their
own feelings about Harry’s behavior
Indeed, if the other members of the group do not spontane-
ously express their feelings, the group leader might specifically
ask them to do so Why is this important^ Let’s take two opposite
cases First, let us assume that Sam was the only person in the
room who felt envious In that case, it would ,iave been relatively
safe toconclude that the situation was largely Sam’s problem, and
he could then work on it Sam would have gained the under-
standing that he is inordinately jealous or envious of people who
do particular things, as evidenced by the fact that no one else ex-
perienced such feelings toward Harry On the other hand, if it
came out (as it did in reality) that several people also felt envious
of Harry, it would be clear that the problem was one that Harry
himself might want to face up to
This IS another reason why it is important for the group that
each member be honest and open m
expressing his feelings If all
of the members of the group actually experienced
envy of Harry,
but (out of kindness, or fear, or shyness) none of them admitted
to It, then It would have left Sam with the feeling
that he was an
extraordinarily envious person If, on the other
hand, very few of
the other members felt this envy, but they
wanted to support Sam
and did so by claiming this feeling of
enviousness, then this would
a\ c left Harry with the feeling
that he was causing a lot of nega-
tne feelings m
other people by his behavior when, fact, he m
wisn t It would also leave Sam with
the feeling that his behavior
was not extraordinary Thus, a
desire to protect Sam would cer-
tainly not be doing him any good—it would be protecting him
trom an understanding of himself
Of course, the preceding example was a relatively
easy one to
ca with It ended up
with Sam feeling admiration and envy for
^ '\hat if Sam hates Harry— should
he express his ha-
tre \\ hat if Sam belie\ es that Harry is an evil person— should he
express that beliefs Here again,
we can see the difference between
a feeling and an c\aluation It
would be useful if Sam would
express the feelings undcrljing his
judgments and evaluations
 Covnmtnication in Sensitivity -Trammg Groups

made him angry’ Is

Did Harry do something that hurt Sam and
thinhs he’s an evil person’ Sam
this why Sam hates Harry and
Harry’s evilness Sam I hate
will not get very far by discussing
“No, I’m not’ Sam Wei
you, Harry, you are evil” Harry
giving you feedback l‘ke
we re
that is the way I see it. I’m just
m here ” Harry “That’s your P^oblem-beside
supposed to do
” By calling Harry names,
Sam sets
vou^e not so great yourself
femself and
up the situation in a Ly that invites Harry to
to ead ™th
listen But Sam were
cLnterattack, rather than to
.

"Ot But t helps us to pay

he angry at us or hurt by us-.t’s
IS
w«lt Ae pro
tention and to try to deal
Why IS It tempting for Sam to call Harry
about his own hurt’ The reaso
talk makes us vul
clear by now Being hurt P““ tI,rougj, J.fe
protecting
nerable In *15 society,
we t
j, Javioral armor, so
ourselves, in effect, each of
u inauthentic
^
hurt u h
that other people can t

our
behavior-that is, we mask rocess of short
circuit-
through p
This IS often accomplished at it
we are so successful
mg Sometimes,
feelings from ourselves as well , of feelings is

feedback exp
In summary, then,
recipient to list
a lot easier for the This is true for
back m the form of judgments judgments about
^
two major reasons First, a P"“" conjecture Thus,
Sam s
purely » being
another person are about Harry’s
being p X ^nd l,I^el> not
Opinions about Harry s ^ ^5 ,

an evil person may

reflect Harry knous
theoric
pjJ„y ^Only
they are merely Sam s is only guessing
s being P guc
for sure whether he or angry is
not a
he is feeli g guessing about
Ins
Sam’s statement that Samj
or a theory-it is an ,,

feelmgs-he knows
^cm, m • or niaj not
ci
Harry
for sure ^
world who knoavs them
252 The Social Animal

judgments, but, if
about Sam’s intellectual theories or pontifical
of interacting with Sam, he is probably very inter-
he is desirous
ested in knowing about Sam’s feelings and what role he (Harry)
plays in triggering those feelings.
of
The second major reason why feedback expressed in terms
feelings preferable to feedback expressed in terms of judgments
is

is that, when Sam states an opinion

or a judgment about Harry,
he is saying something about Harry only, but when he states
a

feeling about Harry, he is also talking about himself. Thus, the

statement of feeling is a gift: metaphorically, it is Sam opening

the door to his home and letting Harry in. When Sam states a
judgment about Harry, however, he is storming Harry’s barri-
cades and laying something on him. Harry has good reason to
resist this, because Sam has no right to be in his home without
an
invitation. Harry can let him in by telling him what his feelings
are; likewise, Sam can Harry
let in by him what his
telling

feelings are.*

Feelings and Intentions. Frequently, in a T-group (or in the

“real world”), one person will say or do something that hurts

another. If the recipient (K) does get to the point of expressing
his hurt, the person (P) may insist that hurting wasn’t his inten-
important that he expresses this; but, in a T-group, it is
tion. It is
important to move beyond this. If P says, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t
mean to hurt you— I really like you,” and R
answers by saying
“Oh, that’s fine, I feel better about it that may smooth
now,”
things over and make things tolerable. Much of the time, all we’re
after is interpersonal relations that are tolerable. But sometimes
we want more than that— we want to learn something about our-
selves and the other person. We
accomplish this by moving be-
yond our tendency to paper over events such as this— by moving
toward an exploration of the process. “Why is it that I hurt peo-
ple when I don’t intend to?” or, “Why am I so easily hurt?”
If P docs not intend to hurt J?, there is often a tendency for him
to deny the legitimacy of Ks hurt, saying, in effect, “What right
do you have to be hurt, now that you know that I didn’t intend
to hurt you?” Again, this kind of attitude does not increase P’s
 Covmmmcatwn m Sensmvtty-Trammg Groups 253

learninR If I spilled a cup of hot tea

on my friend s lap, the fact

completely remove the hurt

that I did not intend to does not ^

express concern that he s

may want to reach out to my friend and
clumsiness, to try to earn rom
hurt— and then examine my own
probability of my doing it in the future “
It, so that the
time, may be that the tea wa n t aU that
reduced At the same it
my
hot The eroup may be useful m
helping friend
-l-jonship-not to dec^
ore the ms and outs of this complex
5
who IS right and who is wrong, but to
help “
In a 1
nature of our relationship
selves each other, and the
group, people do not attempt
d“ide “ be
made
wrong, rather, an attempt is gh ffor him to
pnoncrh
misunderstood, it is not e
learned If a person is
me I' om be tar
nobody understands
sulk and say, “Alas,
productive if he tries to find
J ^j^erease the probability
ran
understand him, and what he accomplish
in the future Jn
that he will be understood ability
part 01 p
this, each individual
must assume some
for what happens to him

The Role of the Group Leader

or a
T
uroup
, 1 g IS not a therapist
of a P
The leader* or “trainer j, he does not
teacher, and he does not members of the
behavior of
offer depth interpretations
the participants
He is, first

group, nor does he deliver means that his feel

member of the gro any
and foremost, a p ^
mgs are as much a part of aloof from
hold himself
Other member of the group

•In thisl^n I
much more
‘‘J'

tm.ls’^n^'swre ‘aTong
W M
readily than others thing as a
ma sense there
is no such
i
trainers
^ nno^
would serious
so on Thus
the same time I would amer described
m this sectio
of the trainer
fault with the behavior
2 54 The Social Animal

the group, and his feelings are not hidden from the group Un-
like a therapist, he isnot in any assymetncal relationship to the
group, doing all the listening and none of the disclosing As a
member, it is also appropriate for him to receive feedback from
the participants This can be an extremely important function, for
the manner in which he gives and receives feedback serves as a
model for the other participants If he gives feedback openly and
without evaluation and receives feedback without being defen-
sive, his group will learn faster

But, of course, he is also a professional who has had more

experience in such matters than the other participants, although
he will disclose his own he does other things as well He
feelings,
may underscore what is going on so that important events do not
slide by He may occasionally make a “group-level” intervention,
describing where the group seems to be headed, in terms of its

own dynamics He will help individuals work through their en

counters, helping the participants to discuss their feelings (rather
than their judgments), until such time as the group members
themselves learn to do this for one another Again, this learning is
by the way he discusses his own feelings He also lends
facilitated
support to those group members who are taking risks and making
themselves vulnerable, until the participants learn to support one
another This is an extremely important function of the trainer
It ISthrough his attitude and behavior that a general atmosphere
of caring and supportivencss develops Thus, a well-run T-group
IS not run m
an atmosphere of tugging and shouting (as is fre-
quently implied by the mass media), rather, it is the atmosphere
of care and support, encouraged and modeled by the trainer, that
makes possible for the people
it m the group to try things out and,
ultimately, to Icam
Occasionally, the leader must step in to prevent a group mem-
ber from getting hurt Thus, if a person is being unfairly criti-
ci7cd or* bhndsidcd,”the leader should intervene When I use the
term “blmdsidcd,” I am referring to a situation like the one that
dc\ eloped between Sam and Harry When Sam called Harry a
phoney, Harry was left in a aery difficult and painful position
He was being nailed, bur, because he didn’t know what he had
 Ccmwmmcauon m Sensitivity-Trammg Groups
« „
255

“where it was coming

done to elicit the attack, he didn’t know
= Recall rhatrhe leader
from ” How could Harry defend himself
Harry
intervened by spotlight (momentarily) offof
taking the
belonged This inter-
and focusing on Sam-where it properly
it

protect Harry from the pain and

vention served to
protecting him
ment of an unjust attack, without
once Sam was able to re
something of importance from Sam,
and more useful
phrase his statement in a more fair

some situations in which it

There are
(as in the ^^ove
opinion, for a trainer ro intervene
should not do all of the work
the trainer
own work ““h*
when the group has learned to do its
trainer’s pfrspe’^tive ,n many .^iHrmatter
non can be more helpful than an
purpose of a
how brilliant that act of ® „,cipants how brilliant
show
group IS not for the trainer to hu,, to
t
he IS Experience helps a trainer decide
intervene m a wide variety
of less
j the trainer, the
when not to intervene The “P,
In addition, everything
bl«nde j
likely IS he to commit a senous
gi, to ft. m,ii, jyyj-,” J: S, h. ..." «•"
the
• trai
The more experienced »
learning experience
for
his <^n
help convert a blunder of nature of the
beca-e^of^M
theVoup It IS a truism that, gets

T-group, anything that happens tnay not be

able to

pro^rly processed The "St ermr and, thus, to

Lfd error, but he is able '<> •’''P P

o P of the group,
contribute to the learning ' workings
^
f^nihtat B
The rramer attempts to j^punat-
in ns token, he
helpmg the group to unfold ^
mg It or forcing it into a spe rnembers, inviting
attempts to hold the
door °P“ ' Occasionally, a
to
them
them to participate
’"’‘*0“^ something to say
J because he has
participant will be hurting ? |„p,nff onto center
stage
the on^^g a „ay. mth
Lt IS afraid to take
become awa^
p„<,

experienced trainer of _^__^

a ges
word, a loolc, a nod, or
*
256 The Social Anbml

Although not is in a unique and power-

a therapist, the trainer
ful position in the group. This means that he sometimes must use
caution, lest he have too much impact on the group members. For
example, even when he has strong feelings about an event, he will
often refrain from jumping in with an expression of those feelings
have had the opportunity to express theirs. In
until after others
addition, because of his roleand power, it is likely that some
members of the group will be reminded of their relations with
other powerful figures in their lives; because of the permissive
atmosphere of the group, they may choose the leader as the target
of some of their hostile feelings toward others in positions of
authority. This is a tricky situation; but, if it is useful, the leader
may allow it to happen. Subsequently, he may want to explore
with the group, and with the particular member, the extent to
which the leader’s behavior may have elicited the hostility, and
the extent to which the hostility may
have been a response to his
role. In any event, the leader must learn to come to terms with his
own power; for him to ignore it, or to pretend that it isn’t there,
could be malfunctional for the group.

The Application of T-group Learning

to the World Outside

Throughout this chapter we have made a distinction between the

T-group and the “real world.” This can be misleading. In most
respects, the T-group is a real-world situation. The people in
these groups do not play games with each other; their interactions
are real, their emotions are real, the difficulties they get into with
other people are real. There is one major difference between
human interactions in the T-group and human interactions else-
where. In the T-group, the norm is openness; accordingly, the
participants are oriented toward making themselves vulnerable
and arc set 7wt to take advantage of one another’s vulnerability.
This is not true outside the T-group; we cannot expect others to
be vulnerable, nor can we be certain that others will not take
advantage of our vulnerability.
 Covwiximcation in Senstuinty-TTammg Groups 257

Let me illustrate When two or more people are engaged m

some sort of relationship, whether it be in a T group or in
the

outside world, they usually have some feelings

about each other

If these feelings are not understood, they

can get in the way of

hand But let us take the situation outside of the T-

the taslc at
six member com-
group Suppose that you and I are members of a
children Suppose that
mittee to raise funds for underprivileged
and personable 1 m
you are intelligent, creative, athletic, wealthy,
really feeling competitive with you, I
want the other
t ey 1 e an
members to like and admire me more than ^
propose an idea
you Because of those feelings, if you
to ridicule it, to argue
Lnds, I will be prone to find fault with it,
ide
It down, even if it’s a good ,de^-especmlly if it s a
-gro p
)ust come back from
a
But suppose I’ve

that help
you
Z Would
are^itting, put
I

my
immediately stand up, cross
hand on your shoulder and
over to whem
y.^^lm

competitive, but /“O S

Lily feeling jealous and
^
and L a ter'rilic guy-I want »
do that Because
you
,
First of I’d be frightened to
all,

protected environment of a^
norm rf^openne^ss You
relatively
t
inclined to interact according my confes
of the vulnera e ncmnn that
might take advantage y^^
proceed t
p^^ ^
Sion has left me in, and p through our
round us an
group of people to rally
o*pcr‘0"oc
present to inter- „
confrontation There isn’t an ^gp
vene in order to help me salvage
p ^ my T-
Furthermore, because you
of forcing
group, I have no business using
my ^P^^ | ^ means
you to play my game with me sensitive to you and
ity training should have
taug t you
jl,3n

your style, so as not to coerce y ^ baked sensituity

feel iL being An excellent Bob, Coral
training on the rampage was p y ^ from a weekend
Ted and AUce In one about to leate
a

and feeling self ^

encounter duvi
encouuLci he hopes she enjojed
^^^that
3^
^

restaurantwhen the headwaiter she asks

mean that=
the meal “Do you really
258 The Social Ammal

Well, then, if these specific techniques are not transferable to

the outside world, T group training of any valued Yes the im
is

portant learning more than mere techniques— and such learning

is

IS transferable Specifically, I can apply any insights I may have

had about myself m the T group and any communication skills

(talking and listening) that I learned in the T-group To illus-
trate, let us go back to the committee meeting When you pro

pose a good idea, I feel awful I also feel a compulsion to find

fault with your idea But if, in the T group, 1 had learned to con-
front my feelings of envy and competitiveness, I may stop and
think about whether your idea was really a bad one, or whether
I’m )ust being competitive again If I can be aware of my jealousy
and my need to compete, perhaps I can curb them and, thereby,
become a more productive committee member Subsequently, if
I get to know you better and begin to trust you, I may decide to

share with you (in private) my prior feelings of competitiveness

Perhaps I can do it in a way that will serve to invite you into a
closer, more honest relationship, without attempting to force you
into one

Research on T-groups Do They Really Work^

Most people who have participated m a competently conducted

T group kno'w that something important happens there They
know It because they have experienced important changes m
thcmscKes and have seen others change Moreover, nearly all T-
group leaders can show you a great many letters from “satisfied
customers Carl Rogers, one of the better known group leaders,
has published a typical response from a participant

1 am more open spontaneous I express myself more freely I

am more s) mpathctic, cmpathic and tolerant I am more confi-
dent I am more religious m mj own way My relations with
m\ famil), friends and co workers are more honest and I
expressm\ hkes and dislikes and true feelings more openly I
admit Ignorance more readily 1 am more cheerful I want to
help others more *
 Covmnnucatton m Semitmty-Trammg Groups 259

Although It IS encouraging and gratifying to know that indi-

relations with
viduals feel better about themselves and their
course, consn-
others, these spontaneous testimonials do not, of
tute scientific data The problem is that only a small percentap
What about the
of the participants send spontaneous letters
others^ It is possible that little of
importance happene to t em

One step beyond letters, m terms of scientific rigor, are ques-

tionnaires With a questionnaire study, we can get responses from
not simply rom t
a random sample of participants and
have been done in which
Several studies
choose to wrim letters
individuals “
questionnaires avere mailed to the ? ^35^
these stu les * °
pation in a T-group Almost all of ^ I

Sorehow'the'’L"Leport of a
objective It would be helpful to
know sever
group that
What were the specific events that i,a/been
some
produced the specific outcomes If ijnjgss he knows
Unte
have occurred*
changed, would the same resu ts
hard-headed scientist^
for sure “what causes what,”
somewhat skeptical-and with S®”** „ore than a subtle
,

outcome reported by a person may

e
g effort,
The participants
bit of self-deception they
and money in that group, if the “P®™ , jj^emselves that it was
would feel absurd Perhaps
they convi

an important event, much m the sanie '

j jyjjs and me
conducted by Judson
the initiation experiment
the im-
(pp laa-iiT;
tpp 123-124) to minimize
not „„ .mention person
On the other hand, it is y feelings If a
portance of a person’s
awareness
ha throughS a group, T
because he g
feels better about himself
this IS not to be brushed ^sing X-croup experience re-
b ,

tific Indeed, my opinion, if a

m understanding,
more
suits in a person’s feeling by the panic-
^'"ported the
more tolerant, and all those a mpb justification for
then that , for sev-
pant m
Carl Rogers’ group,
Moreover,
)

if these
Listence of T-groups
26 o The Social A7iifnal

eral months (as reported by many participants), then it is hard to

argue against being a real and significant event in the individ-
its

ual’s life— regardless of whether we, as scientists, fully understand

the phenomenon.
These two sides of the question do not exclude each other.
The humanist can continue to revel in the impact that group ex-
periences have on participants, without necessarily denigrating
the scientist who
trying to determine whether the effects ex-
is

tend beyond the self-reports of the participants; the scientist can

continue to try to find out “if” and “why” in precise ways,
without disparaging T-groups simply because the phenomenon
is difficult manner as he would like.
to investigate in as precise a
Why are T-groups so hard to investigate? Basically, because
it s difficult for the scientist to control
and manipulate the vari-
ables that supposedly produce the outcomes.
So many things are
happening at once in a T-group that, after it is over, it is im-
possible to know what factors were crucial in making a person
feel good. Ideally, the hard-headed scientist is tempted to plant a
couple of stooges in a T-group, have them behave
in a well con-
trolled, predetermined manner,
and measure the effects this
would have on the other participants. Such a procedure would
encompass the controls and the impact that constitute
the kind of
experiment that has played such a major role
in increasing our
understanding of the social animal. But this kind
of procedure is
simply not feasible. The T-group is one
of the few sanctuaries of
honesty left on this planet. The implicit
(and often explicit)
assumption of the participants is that
people are at least trying to
e honest. For the experimental
social psychologist to bring in his
apparatus of deception would
be a serious violation of this
contract.”
hat we
are left with is some
kind of compromise. Most of
t c research
done on T-groups lacks the control and precision of
tea oratory experiments that
weVc been discussing through-
out this volume. It remains difficult
to be certain about what
causes what. At the same time,
after surveying the research liter-
ature, I am compelled to draw the conclusion, albeit tentatively,
that important changes do take place in T-groups,
and that these
262 The Social Amtnal

group experience He then remeasured the ethnic prejudice of

all of the individuals Those who had gone through the T-group
showed a sharp reduction m ethnic prejudice, those who had not
gone through the T-group showed no sizeable change
Two recent experiments have shown conclusively that, after
participating in a sensitivity-traming group, people become more
hypnotizable ^ Now, it may seem that susceptibility to hypno-
tism IS not a very desirable outcome—but consider what it means
Several researchers have demonstrated that people who are less
suspicious and more trusting than others are more easily hypno-
tized The fact that participating in a T-group increases the ease
With which a person can be hypnotized suggests strongly that
T-groups foster a sense of trust in their participants These are
exciting findings for two reasons (1) generally, it is not easy to
help people to learn to trust each other using other techniques,
and (2) from a scientific pome of view, susceptibility to hypno-
sis, because It IS involuntary m nature, is a very convincing out-
come-far more convincing than a person’s own self-assessment
of his increase m trust
In another experiment, Marvin Dunnette® organized and set
up ten separate T-groups Some of these groups were led by well-
tnincd, highly competent trainers, others were led by trainers
Inaing only a little prior experience In addition, three groups of
a different sortwere set up these were run as discussion groups in
avhich the participants talked about current events, played games,
soiled puzzles, and so on Before the groups started, and again
aftersc\cnl sessions, the members were measured for their em-
pathy M ith other people in their group— specifically, on how well
the) could predict the preferences of the members of their own
group for \arious actiMtics, occupations, and the like The mem-
bers of tlic T groups shou cd a greater increase in empathy than
the members of
the other groups Morco\ cr, within the T-groups
ihcmschcs, the greatest eventual empathy occurred in those
groups ha\ing the more competent leaders and showing more
member interaction
This
last experiment is of interest not only for its results and

for methodological soundness but, in addition, because it xaas

its

conducted b) an experimenter \\ ho x\ as seriously skeptical about

 ^'

CoTnmiimcatton in Sensitivity -Training Groups 263

T-groups Just a year earlier, Marvin Dunnette (along with John

T-
Campbell) wrote a highly critical review of research on
groups After performing his own experiment, Dunnette wrote

results seem to me to be firm

evidence that T groups
These
claim for them
may be accomplishing what their advocates
It appears from these meager but
provocative results that I-
to now ot icR
groups may truly be a medium for getting
properly^be sharpened,
better-that the Quest for Love may
experience
focused, and guided by the T-group

What Constitutes a Good or a Bad Outcome'^

T-groups have been crniczed because

group experience, an individual may seek
psyc ° 8 f ,

or bad^om
mg What does this mean’ Is it a good outcome
come’ It’s hard to be certain It could be
t at
1

might a so
hurt by the T-group experience It 1
,

result of the T-group

focus,
mdn idual u as
fllacayr 'were there came into clear -i.-nna Alter-
that he was in ne
able to see for the first time
natively, might mean that the group P^oy
it needed
courage to seek out the therapy that
wante
™ ^
P)
thought he
Or, It might simply mean that he
1
jgnjjht the
couldget^tcheaVymaTgroup,wh™th.sM^^^^
so
therapy from a more appropriate ^ p5^.
instructive to compare taao rccent^ar
chiatrists In one, Ralph Cranshaaa “ follou mg hr"'
hospita
uals who needed psychiatnc 1
(-onsidercd this
a
training group
experiences in sensitivity
on ^„p5 impb'ug
tragic outcome, and laid the
blame for it
,,,,er.

that the scnsitivity-training

movcmen ynic )our-
il,,,
anot le
menting with human beings In ,
,, sensin' nv

nal,James Cadden and Ins .

5 yiicse investiira'""
program for incoming medial .ff-rt-it helped
some 01
bene 'U'’
found that the program had a ehntric couiveliy
their students become avv arc of a n w —_
264 The Social Animal

Moreover, the number of serious psychiatric crises

among these
students was lower than that for similar
groups m
previous years
enabled the
This was attributed to the fact that the T-group
individuals to handle their crises more effectively.

Some Dangers of Group Encounter-

Let the Buyer Beavare

The dynamics of a T
group are powerful This means that a
ex-
group encounter can be an exciting, exhilarating, enriching
perience in which a great many emotions are felt and in which
a

lot of learning takes place But, as with any powerful

situation,

there are some dangers Individuals frequently experience anger

and frustration, physical or emotional attraction for another
member of the group, and intense joy or sadness These experi-
ences can produce understanding and growth, if they are dis-
cussed and worked through However, if they are ignored or are
mishandled by the group, they can produce upset, pain, humilia-
tion, and loss of dignity, which could persist long after the group
encounter has terminated
Suppose you are a person who is interested in joining a group
Has the preceding paragraph frightened you^ Good' Has it
scared you out of considering a group experience’ I hope not
The occurrence of serious disturbances in groups run by well-
trained professional leaders is extremely small After a thorough
study of groups conducted under the auspices of the National
Training Laboratories, Charles Seashore stated “The incidence
of serious stress and mental disturbance during sensitivity training
IS difficult to measure but it is estimated to be less than one per-

cent of participants and in almost all cases occurs in persons with

a history of prior disturbances ”**
The question to be asked is “How do I maximize the proba-
biht) of having a good experience and minimize the probability
of having a bad one’” Basically, there are two ways first, make
certain you do not group unless it is being conducted by a
join a
skilled, experienced, competent trainer, and second, make certain
 Communication in Sensitivity -Training Groups 265

that the philosophy and techniques of the group are consistent

with your own values. I will address the remainder of this section
to those readers who are thinking about joining a group. The rest
of you can skip to the next section, “The T-group and Empathy
Formation.”

recent years, with the

The Competency of the Trainer. In
demand tor
burgeoning of interest in group encounter, the
Into t is
groups has exceeded the supply of competent trainers.
individual who, fresh torn an
breech has leapt the well-meaning
has eci e to
exciting experience as a participant in a T-group,
as a group leader.
“turn on” his friends by setting himself up
may be, he is
Stay A'way! No matter how good his intentions
grou^p. e
almost certainly not equipped to handle a
about "
jority of “bad trips” we hear and read
a very su ' ® “
just such groups. Leading a group is . . .

experience, an
requires a great deal of training,

well as a strong sense of responsibility.

Dont trust 1
Ph.D., *
Moreover, even a psychologist with a -o.„nriate
do therapy, may not
e PP
licensed and accredited to ^
^
group leader if he has not had the requisite
j^jpj jp
few centers in the country that offer
group leadership to qualified individuals. .
. gj,i,cl.
Led is the N^onal Training ‘^“^oratory
Maine. There is one (and only one) jj-crediting
formed for the P"''P'’“ Social Science
0 Applfed
trainers— the International Associanon pp rigor-
(lAASS). Its procedures for that
geing certain
only sure-fire
ous. Accordingly, the > jaASS,
and well-traine
your leader is competent 20036, for a
Washington, DC
at 1755 Massachusetts Ave. NW.
list of its accredited members.

have been describing

Types of Groups. In this a maxi-
‘='”P'"’ id, there
is

relatively conservative groups—

group “far-out
of
mum of freedom, a minimum .
Zmiio that I ani most
procedures. This happens to be the
hmd of group
266 The Social Animal

comfortable with But, as we have indicated, there are all kinds of

groups Let’s look at a couple of extreme examples some groups
are conducted in the nude There is a lot of learning that can
take

place in such a group— for example, people have a chance to over-

come excessive modesty, hangups about their bodies, and so on
Itcan be a freeing experience But if you don’t feel ready for
such an experience, you should make certain that you don’t wan-
der into this kind of group by accident There are also groups in
which a great deal of screaming, yelling, and physical violence is

encouraged This may have some value for some people, if you’re
not one of these people, however, you shouldn’t stumble into
such a group In short, you should do everything you can to
inform yourself of the nature of the group before agreeing to
participate
In general, you might want to steer clear of groups that do
not allow you to say “no ” As Michael Kahn” puts it, no one
should be forced to do something he doesn’t want tado Recog
nizing that coercion can be very subtle, Kahn suggests that the
word “no” should be actively supportedby the leader— m this
way, the freedom not to comply becomes a norm This does not
mean that it’s always good for group members to avoid situations
that look frightening or painful—sometimes, important growth is

possible in those situations—but the individual himself should be

the one to make the decision He
should be encouraged to try if
he feels ready— and equally encouraged
to decline if he does not
Growth is an exciting (and often painful) experience—but no one
person can “grow” another A
person indicates that he’s ready to
grow when he rakes that leap on his ow?!, and not because he is
being coerced

The T~gronp and Empathy Formation

In the chapters devoted to aggression and prejudice, the point

w as made that it is a lot easier to hurt or kill another person if he
has first been dehumanized When wc think of a South Viet
namese peasant as a “gook,” wc about putting the
feel less guilty
 Covmmmcauon in Sensmvtty-Trammg Groups 267

children When we
torch to his house or killing his wife and
student as a long haued‘

think of a police officer as a “pig” or a

proceed to hurt him Une
weirdo,” it keeps us from hurting as we
is the potential to
of the aspects of T
groups that is most exciting
icates, w en
reverse this process As the research literature in
they are talking straig
individuals are in a situation in which
gain mutual under
and listening to each other, they begin to
does not always lead to
«™tion I
standing Understanding
you are not
understand you and decide that
may
concluding t at y ^ f
son, but I would have difficulty “
choose not to be
person Accordingly, I might
be very
Lver to associate with you, but it would great
without experiencing a
to choose to hurt or to kill you
of guilt and emotional pain

ity and distrust out m the open,

cases,
other in exasperation, gnd to process their
they eventually begin to jhe/ end up by
own feelings honestly and P ^ rarely do they
flinging themselves into person ar « perron
At
““L
awaren
leave without some groups were not the
^ them out
the beginning of this occasioLlly make
panacea that their extrem l T frroups probably
cannot
to be I repeat that properly used, they
save the svorld all by ’
,ng self
awareness and under-
for increasing
offer a viable technique
standing among people
9

Social Psychology
as a Science

Pavel
The disanguished Soviet psychologist
served that man satisfies his
organize the un-
a
(1) he observes his environment is^science), and
known in a sensible and meaningful ^ nrder to create
(2) he reorganizes the known pj.,ence, I would
something new (this is art) From the two are
often
psyc o
add the observation that, in social his science
In this
art to ennch
blended the experimentalist uses ^
chapter, I will try to communicate
how

Many of the ideas contained m Hmdbook^ o!

several years ago m
an article I Carlsmith Ia™ P'',“
„„
Psychology in collaboration with J ^t^ibution to m> think S
acknowledge DrCarlsmith s xinpo
this topic
270 The Social Anmtal

In Chapter 2, I described an incident at Yosemite National

Parle Briefly, what happened was this when awakened by sounds
of distress, a great many campers rushed to the aid of the person
who needed Because the behavior of these campers was
help
decidedly different from the behavior of witnesses to the
Genovese murder (thirty eight people watched a woman being
stabbed to death without attempting to help m any way), I spec-
ulated about what may have caused this difference in behavior in
the two situations But no matter how clever or adroit my specu-
lations might have been, no amount of thinking and cogitation
could make us certain that these speculations were correct The
reason for this is that there are literally dozens of differences be-
tween the Yosemite campground situation and the Genovese
murder case How can we be certain that the factor that I men
tinned constitutes a crucial difference— the difference that made
the difference’
We ran into a similar problem in Chapter 7 In that chapter,
we mentioned the almost unbelievable fact that, while John
Kennedy was president, his personal popularity underwent an
increase immediately after he committed a great blunderThat is,
afterKennedy’s tragic miscalculation known as the Bay of Pigs
Gallup poll showed that people liked him better than
flasco, a
they had just before that incident We
speculated about what
could have caused that shift toward greater popularity, and sug-
gested that It might have been because committing a blunder
served to make Kennedy seem more human, thus making people
him But because there were many factors involved
feel closer to
m Kennedy’s behavior, it is impossible to be certain that my spec-
ulation was accurate In order to get some definitive evidence in
support of the proposition that blunders can humanize people
who appear perfect, it was necessary to go beyond observation
\\ c had to design an experiment that allowed us to control for
extraneous variables and test the effects of a blunder on attraction
complex situation
in a less
This IS why social ps) chologists perform experiments Al-
though some experiments m
social psychology arc exciting and
 j

Social Psychology as a Science 271

interesting in form and content, the process of designing and

conducting experiments in social psychology is not fun and
games It is time-consuming and laborious work, and it almost
always puts the experimenter m
an ethical bind Moreover, in
striving for control, the experimenter must often concoct a situa
non that bears little resemblance to the rcal-vvorld situation from
that
which he got his original idea In fact, a frequent criticism is
of
laboratory cxperinients arc unrealistic and contrived imitations
human interaction tint don’t reflect the “real world” at all But is

this truc^
examine
Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to
an
one laboratory experiment closely, considering its advantages
realistic approac
disadvantages, as well as an alternative, more
that might have been used to study the same issue
An ^periment
our purpose 1 he reader
performed by Judson Mills and me’ suits
we showed that peop e w
may recall that, in this experiment,
expended great effort (by undergoing a severe
membership into a group liked the group more
than 1 p P

who became members with little or no effort rol-

ixty
Hcre’s how the experiment was performed 1

e
lege women who volunteered to participa
initially
of sex were su jects 0
discussions on the psychology
beginning of the
Each person was Lted individually At the
study, the experimenter explained that
“j," actual
namics of the group discussion process
to
topic of the discussion wasn’t important partici- >

hav "I Plenty o p^^

selected “sex” order to be cert.n of
m
pants, because most people are interested because
beca he
plained that he had encountered a
major
had chosen sex as the topic specifically, JJVecause
a gr
people found it difficult to discuss sex in p , seriously
any impairment of the flow of the subiects feh
^ny
invalidate his results, he needed to
know i
subjects
sex
hesitancy to enter a discussion about .
have no
t a
^
heard this, every one indicate
each and
instructions were
difficulty These elaborate
 )

272 The Social Animal

for the important event to follow The reader should note how
the experimenter’s statements tend to make the following material
believable
Up to this point, the instructions had been the same for each
subject Now it was time to give each of the people in the various
experimental conditions a different experience— an experience
that the experimenters believed would make a difference This is

called the independent variable

Subjects were randomly assigned in advance to one of three
conditions a condition in which one-third of them would go
through a severe initiation, one in which one-third would go
through a mild initiauon, and one in which one-third would not
go through any initiation at all For the no-initiation condition,
subjectswere simply told that they could now join the discussion
group For the severe- and mild initiation conditions, however,
the experimenter told each subject that, because he needed to be
positive that she could discuss sex openly, he had developed a
screening device, a test for embarrassment, which he then asked
her to take This test constituted the imtianon For the severe-
initiation condition, the test was highly embarrassing it required
the subject to read aloud, to the male experimenter, a list of
twelve obscene words and two detailed descriptions of sexual
activity taken from current novels (This may not seem terribly
embarrassing to today’s reader, but remember, this was in 1959'
The mild initiation subjectshad only to read aloud a list of words
related to sex that were not obscene
After the initiation, each subject was allowed to eavesdrop on
a group discussion being conducted by members of the group
that she had just joined In order to control the content of this
material, it was actually a cape
recording, but the subjects were
led to believe that it was a live discussion Thus, all subjects—
regardless of whether they had gone through a severe initiation, a
mild initiation, or no initiation—listened to the same group dis-
cussion The group discussion was about
as dull and as boring as
possible. It imolved a halting, inarticulate
analysis of the second-
ary sex characteristics of lower animals— changes in plumage
 ®

Social Psychology as a Science 273

among birds, intricacies of the mating dance of certain spiders,

and the like. The tape contained long pauses, a great deal of hem-
ming and hawing, interruptions, incomplete sentences, and so on,
all designed to make it boring.
At the end of the discussion, the experimenter returned with
a set of rating scaleson which the subject was to rate how inter-
esting and worthwhile the discussion had been. This is called
the dependent variable, because, quire literally, the response is
assumed to be “dependent” upon which of the experimental con-
ditions the subject had been assigned to.
supported the hypothesis: Women who
went
The results
group
through a mild or no initiation at all, saw the
initiation,
be
discussion as relatively dull. But those who suffered in order to
exciting^scu^ion.
admitted to the group thought it was really an

discussion that all the students

Remember, it was exactly the satne
were rating. j . „ • •

in designing
Judson Mills and I spent several hundred hours
writing a scrip
this experiment, creating a credible situation,
rehearsing t e ac
the tape recording of the group discussion,
t ®
who played the roles of group members, constructing
tion procedures and the measuring instruments, .

procedure,
teers to serve as subjects, pilot-testing the
subjects through the experiment, and explaining
t
®
for t e ^
of the experiment to each subject (the reason
^
what it meant, and so forth). What we
or er 0 g
people through a severe initiation in
who go
into a group tend to like that group better t P
fi,ere
through a mild initiation (or no initiauon at a )
[

^
must be a much simpler way! The reader may
vague resemblance between the procedure use /
pri
and other initiations, such as those used by .

those used by some college fraternities and ot

m
^
or organizations. Why, then, didn’t Judson
is n^ /
advantage or
ouvaiiuage of tne
the reai-iiie suuauu,*, which
real-life situation, -
.
_
gj the
^
study but also far more dramatic and realistic. is,

advantages: real-life initiations would be more

274 The Social Anmml

they would have more impact on the members) , we would

not

have had to go to such lengths to design a group setting that the

participants would find convincing, the social interactions would
involve real people, rather than mere voices from a tape record
mg, we would have eliminated the ethical problem created by the
use of deception and the use of a difficult and unpleasant experi-
ence in the name of science, and finally, it could all have been
accomplished m a fraction of the time that the experiment
consumed
Thus, when we tahe a superficial loolt at the advantages of a
natural situation, it appears that Mills and I would have had a
much simpler job if we had studied existing fraternitiesHere s
how we might have done it We could have rated each group’s
initiation for severity, and interviewed the members to de-
later
termine how much they liked their group If the members who
had undergone a severe initiation liked their fraternities more
than the mild or no initiation fraternity members, the hypothe
SIS would be supported Or would it^ Let’s take a closer look at

why people bother to do experiments

we were to ask the man on the street to name the most
If
important characteristic of a laboratory experiment, he would
probably say “control “ And this ts a major advantage Experi
ments have the advantage of controlling the environment and the
variables so that the effects of each variable can be precisely
studied By taking our hypothesis to the laboratory. Mills and I
eliminated a lot of the extraneous variation that exists in the real
uorld The severe initiations were all equal in intensity, but this
would have been difficult tomatch, had we used several “severe
initiation fraternities Further, the group discussion was identical
for all subjects, in the real world, however, fraternity members
would ha\c been rating fraternities that were, in fact, different
from each other Assuming we had been able to find a difference
betw een the “se\crc initiation” fraternities and the “mild initia-
tion fraternities, how would we have known whether this was a
function of the initiation rather than of the differential likabihty
that already existed m the fraternity members themselves^ In the
 Social Psychology as a Science 275

experiment, the only difference was the severity of the initiation,

so we know that any difference was due to that procedure

The Importance of Rajidom Assignment

experiment,
Control IS a very important aspect of the laboratory
but It’s not the major advantage of this procedure A
still more

assigned to
important advantage is that subjects can be randomly
the different experimental conditions This
means that eac su
n
ject has an equal chance to be m any condition in the stu y
con itions is t e
deed, the random assignment of subjects to
experimental method and no -
crucial difference between the
advantage 0 t e ran
experimental approaches And the great
this any
assignment of people to conditions is ,

almost
haven’t been thoroughly controlled are
conditions mean^ ^
tnbuted randomly across the various
extremely unlikely that such vanab
es
It IS

suits in a systematic fashion An example mig P ,

are a scientist and

you
this point Suppose you
makes men ^ ppy
SIS that marrying beauuful women
you test this Let us say that you
hypothesis’
thousand men who are married to beauti u w
^ them all

sand men who are married to ugly u

the men m
married to
a “happiness” questionnaire Lo and behol^
beautiful women are happier than the men woman
Up-miful
married to a beau
en Does this mean that being
makes you happy’ No It may be t con-
get a
more good-humored, and easier to adnntage
(who h ^
sequently, beautiful women „rv them So it may
over ugly women) seek these men ^ women The
be that being happy caxires men
to m a , is some
also
problem doesn’t end there It is
'earned to a
third factor that causes both l —gnev itisconccu-
beautiful woman One such factor cou jjcmg

able that being rich helps make men happ).

276 The Social Animal

rich IS what attracts the beautiful women So it’s possible that

neither causal sequence is true—it is possible that happiness does

wives
not cause men to marry beautiful wives and that beautiful
do not cause men to be happy
And the problem is even more complicated It’s more compli
cated because we usually have no idea what these third factors
might be In the case of the happiness study, it could be wealth,
it could also be that handsomeness causes men to be happy
and
also attracts beautiful women, it could be social grace, athletic
ability, power, popularity, using the right toothpaste, being a

snappy dresser, or any of a thousand qualities that the poor re-

searcher does not know about and could not possibly account for
But if he performs an experiment, he can randomly assign his
subjects to various experimental conditions Although this pro
cedure does not eliminate differences due to any of these variables
(money, social grace, athletic ability, and the like), it neutralizes
them by distributing these characteristics randomly across various
experimental conditions That is, if subjects are randomly as
signed to experimental conditions, there will be approximately as
many rich men in one condition as in the others, as many socially
adept men in one condition as the others, and as many athletes in
one condition as in the others Thus, if we do find a difference
betNvcen conditions, it is virtually impossible that this would be
due to individual differences in any single characteristic, because
all of these characteristics had equal (or nearly equal) distribu-

tion across all of the conditions

Admittedly, the particular example of happy men and beauti-
ful \\i\cs does not easily lend itself to the confines of the experi
mental laboratory But let us fantasize about how we would do it
if e could Ideally, we would take fifty men and randomly as
sign ta\cnty five to beautiful wives and twenty five to ugly
\vi\cs A
few months later, we could come back and administer
the happiness questionnaire If we find that the men v,e assigned
to the beautiful wives are happier than the men wc assigned to
the ugly wives, we would know what caused their happiness—ue
did' In short, ihcir happiness couldn’t easily be attributed to
social grace, or handsomeness, or money, or power— these were
 °

Social Psychology as a Science in

randomly distributed among the experimental conditions. It al-

most certainly must have something to do with their wives
characteristics.
To repeat, this example is somewhat fantastic— even social
for scien-
psychologists must stop short of arranging marriages
tific purposes. But this does not mean that we
cannot test impor-
laboratory
tant,meaningful, relevant events under controlled
look at
conditions. This book is loaded with such examples. Let s
advantaps of to
one of these examples as a way of clarifying the
a corre anon e
experimental method; In Chapter 5, 1 reported
spends watching vio ence o
tween the amount of time a child
to his prob-
TV and his tendency to choose aggressive solutions
TV cap« w on
lems. Does that mean that watching aggression
to become aggressive? Not necessarily. It
mig t. ut ”•
simply hke to ware
mean that aggressive kids
.jvatched
^

aggressive i
that these kids would be just as
“Captain Kangaroo” all day long. But then some J ^ ^
“F"”
came along and proved that watching '''°
situation in
lence.* How? By randomly assigning
some i
, -pv . ,

which they watched an episode of The ‘

andslugere^^^^^^^
series in wLh people bea^kdl, rape,
bite

fifty minutes per episode. As a an athletic

some other kids to a situation in whi y
event for the same length of time. Tn F
Untouch-
re wa
stood an equal chance of being selected ^cre among
character
ables”; therefore, any differences in

the kids in this experiment were ,.^5 found that

perimental conditions. Thus, when
the m ag-
^
showe^l^^.^
who watched “The Untochab
es
the kids
pessiveness afterward than lead to
violence can
&
itdoes suggest quite strongly that
violence. we conducted a
, -v^^nr* If
Let us return to the initiation j^itiation
fraternities
or
survey and found that members ^-j^bers of
mild*ini“^'
find each other more attractive than ® severity of

rnities, then
tion fraternities, we would have^
members
^ jbat
frafcmity
^ ^ fraternity
otf 3
^
initiation and liking for other
278 The Social Animal

positively correlated By “positively correlated” we mean that the

more severe the more a member will like his group
initiation, the

No matter how highly correlated the two variables are, however,

we cannot conclude, from our survey data alone, that severe
the group All we can conclude from
initiations cause liking for

such a survey is that these two factors are associated with each
other.
It is possible that the positive correlation between severe initi-

ations and liking for other members of a fraternity not be- exists

cause severe initiations cause members to like their groups more,

but for just the opposite reason It could be that high attractive-
ness m a group causes severe initiations If group members see

themselves as highly desirable, they may

try to keep the situation
that way by maintaining an elite group Thus, they might require
a severe initiation m
order to discourage people from joining,
unless those people have a high desire to do so From our survey
data alone, we cannot conclude that this explanation is false and
that severe initiations really do lead to liking The data give us no
basis for making this choice, tell us nothing about
because they
cause and effect Moreover, as we
have seen in our previous ex-
ample, there could be a third variable that causes both severe
initiations and liking Who would like to give and receive a severe
initiation^ Why, people with strong sadomasochistic tendencies,
of course Such people may like each other not because of the
initiation but because “birds of a feather” tend to like each other
Although this may sound like an outlandish explanation, it is cer-
tainly possibleWhat is more distressing for the researcher are the
countless other possible explanations that he can’t even think of
The experimental method, based, as it is, on the technique of
random assignment to experimental conditions, eliminates all of
these in one fell SAVoop The sadomasochists in the experiment
have just as much chance of being assigned to the no-initiation
condition as to the severe-mitiation condition In the real-world
study, alas, most of them would most certainly assign themselves
to the se\crc-mitiation condition, thus making the results unin-
tcrprctablc.
 Social Psychology as a Science

The Challenge of Experimentation

in Social Psychology

Control versus Impact All is not so sunny m the world

of
connected with
mentation There are some very real problems
of t e major
doing experiments I mentioned that control is one
impossible to exerase
advantages of the experiment, yet, it is
ne
complete control over the environment of human
su jects

of the reasons why many psychologists work wit rats,

contro a
than people, is that it enables the researcher to
t e time o
everything that happens to his subjects from
exper.ment-cl.ni ra d «,
birth until the ume he completes the
playmates, ^
exercise, degree of exposure to human
o no ^
experiences, and so on Social psychologists j,
their experi
subjects in cages in order to control i
^5 fpj a
also makes
this makes for a happier world for
the subjects, it

slightly sloppy science individuals differ

Control IS further limited by the
fa

from one another countless subtle ways

m ^ Y
niake state-
what
course,
ments about what people do By this
we me ,
conditions
time under ^
most people do most of the ^ ^ are present
individua
To the extent that unmeasured j]|
people
not e
in our results, our conclusions may ^ charactens-
abilities, pe
Differences m
2ttitudes, values,
a e
people re-
ties, and recent past experiences
can v i...,
to control
spond in an experiment Thus may not affect
itself,
'hHamesituanon
the
the experimental situation
each person in exactly the same way ,,„nrroIlmi: the
expen-
F^hermore, when we do succeed person. «e
e sa
mental setting so that it is exactly subject
t
^1^^^ ,I,e

tun the real risk of making the has at l^st

j “stenle" Th'
IS inclined not to take it seriously or barren
^ /j-jetn e
tuo meanings germ free, and ( )
as Jios.^
(1) ^^.f/^.free”
experimenter should strive to ma for the
subject
If^su
“unliteiiKe
without making it barren or
28 o The Social Animal

ject doesn’t find the events of an experiment interesting and

absorbing, the chances are that his reactions will not be spontane-
ous and that our results, therefore, will have little meaning. Thus,
in addition to control, it is just as essential that an experiment
have impact upon the subjects. They must take the experiment
seriously and become involved in it, lest it not affect their be-
havior in a meaningful way. The difficulty for social psycholo-
gists is that these two crucial factors, impact and control, often
work one increases, the other tends to de-
in opposite ways: as
crease. This is the dilemma that faces experimenters: how to
maximize impact upon the subjects without sacrificing control
over the situation. This requires considerable creativity and inge-
nuity in the design and construction of experimental situations.
This leads us into the problem of realism.

Realism. Early in this chapter, I mentioned that a frequent

criticism of laboratory experiments is that they are artificial and
contrived imitations of the world, that they aren’t “real.” What
do we mean by “real”? As J. Merrill Carlsmith and I have pointed
out,’an experiment can be realistic in two separate ways: If an
experiment has impact upon a subject, forces him to take the mat-
ter seriously,and involves him in the procedures, we can call this
experimental realism. Quite apart from this is the question of how
similar the laboratory experiment is to the events that frequently
happen to people in the outside world. This can be termed 7www-
dane realism. Often, a confusion between experimental realism
and mundane realism is responsible for the criticism that experi-
ments are artificial and worthless because they don’t reflect the
real world.
Perhaps the difference between the two realisms can be illus-
trated by an example of a study high in experimental realism but
low in mundane realism. Recall the experiment by Stanley Mil-
gram* discussed in Chapter 2, in which each subject was asked to
deliver a series of shocks, of incrc^ing intensity,
to another per-
son who was supposedly wired to an electrical apparatus in an
adjoining room. Now, honestly— how many times in our every-
day life are we asked to deliver electric shocks to people? It’s
 Social Psychology as a Science zSi

unrealistic— but unrealistic only in the mundane sense Did the

procedure have experimental realism— that is, was the subject

wrapped up in it, did he take it seriously, did it have impact on
him, was it part of his real world at that moment^ Or was
he

merely playacting, not taking it seriously, going through the mo

tions, ho humming Milgram reports that his subjects expen
it^
let Milgram
enced a great deal of tension and discomfort But I II
subject looke e i
describe, in his own words, what a typical

businessman enter the

I observed a mature and initially poised
laboratory smiling and confident
Within 20 minutes he ivas
wreck
reduced to a twitching, stuttering
approaching a point of nervous collapse
He cons a J P .

one pom he pushed

on his earlobe, and twisted his hands At
his fist into his forehead and
muttered Oh o ,

to every wor P
And yet he continued to respond
’
menter, and obeyed to the end

a pttson 1"
This hardly seems like the behavior of v'lubiects
s subjects
to
situation The things that were happening
happen
were real— even though they didnt , „„;.imJe
everyday existence Accordingly, it woul ^.^urate indi
that the results of this experiment are a rea y
sim
cation of the way people would react if a
occur in the real world

Deception The importance of jU.j essential qual

ly
tty
be overemphasized The best way
to destg'; a setttng that wtll
ts

the subjects At the same time, it is

toac
be a—
t
q
le
interesting

cho
m dis
to

-uts the sociops)

guise the true purpose of the study P »hos
g, rector
logical experimenter in the posmon ° ,
j,jor\ihatthepla)
re '"S
setting the stage for action but not and arc designed
IS all about Such settings are called a situation
m
to increase experimental realism y P Jjemg inhibnet^J’'
which the subject can act ’'atoenUy. studied Tor
[rcing
his be " ere to
knowing just which aspect of j subjects
example, m the Aronson-Mills inination
282 The Social Animal

that they were taking a test for embarrassment, in order to screen

them membership in a group that would be discussing the
for
psychology of sex— this was the cover story In reality, they were
being subjected to an initiation to see what effect, if any, this
would have on their liking for the group If the subjects had been
aware of the true purpose of the study before their participation,
the results would have been totally meaningless Researchers who
have studied this issue have shown that, if a subject knows the
true purpose of the experiment, he does not behave naturally but
cither tries to perform in a way that puts him in a good light or
tries to “help out” the experimenter by behaving in a way that

makes the experiment come out as predicted Both of these out-

comes are disastrous for the experimenter The experimenter can
usually succeed in curbing the subject’s desire to be “helpful,”
but the desire to “look good” is more difficult to curb Most peo-
ple do not want to be thought of as weak, abnormal, unattractive,
stupid, or crazy Thus, if given a chance to figure out what the
experimenter looking for, most people will try to make them-
is

selves look good or “normal ” For example, m

an experiment de-
signed specifically to elucidate this phenomenon," when subjects
Nvcrc told that a particularoutcome indicated that they possessed
a “good” personality trait, they exhibited the behavior necessary
to produce that outcome far more often than when they were
told that It reflected a negative trait
Although this behavior is
understandable, docs interfere with meaningful results It is for
it

this reason that subjects are deceived

about the true nature of the
experiment
To illustrate, let s look again at Solomon Asch’s classic experi-
ment on conformity Recall that, in this study, a student was
*

assigned the task of judging the relative

size of a few lines It was
a simple task But a few' other students
(who were actually ac-
complices of the experimenter) purposely stated an incorrect
judgment When faced with this situation, a sizeable number of
tlic subjects jicldcd to the implicit group pressure and stated the
incorrect judgment Tins was, of course, a highly deceptive
experiment The subjects thought that they xv ere participating in
an experiment on perception, bur, actually, it xx as their conform-
 Social Psychology as a Science

ity that was being studied Was this deception necessary! I think

so Let’s play it back without deception Imagine yourself a sub-

ject in an experiment in which the experimenter said, “I am inter-
ested in studying whether or not you will conform in the face of
group pressure,” and then he told you what was going to happen
My guess is that you wouldn’t conform My guess is that almost
no one would conform—because conformity is considered to be a
weak and unattractive behavior What could the experimenter
orm
have concluded from this! Xhat people tend to be noncon
misleading uc
ists! Such a conclusion would be erroneous and

an experiment would be meaningless u xa

Recall Milgram’s experiments on obedience
He founda that or
percent of the average citizens in his experiment
w ere wi "’S °
in obe
administer intense shocks to another person
experimenter’s command Yet, each year, when “f”, r

experimental situation to the students my m class an as

perce
they would obey such a command, only about 1

that they would Does this mean that my students ^

in
than Milgram’s subjects’ I don’t think so I t ‘
unless
look goo •

people, if given half a chance, will try to

Milgram had used deception, he would have
people e
suits that simply do not reflect the way to
^
situations
are led to believe that they are in real
^
re ax, an
give people the opportunity to sit back,
^
to how they would behave if ,
we wou g P
hou pc p |

a picture of
people would like to be, rather than

Ethical Problems Using deccpuon

may be the
haps the only) way to get useful in situations,
but it
people behave most complex and imp
m ..u.ral problem
seno
does present the experimenter with a
Basically, there are three problems

tell lies to people pc

1 It IS simply unethical to
2 Such lie telling often leads into i

cause the people setMng as to

c\
^
no posmon
t
experimenter is reall) studying,
284 The Social Animal

theirinformed consent For example, in Asch’s experiment, it is

conceivable that some students might not have agreed to par-
ticipate, had they known m
advance that Asch was interested
m examining their tendency toward conformity, rather than
their perceptual judgment
3 Experimental procedures often entail some unpleasant ex-
periences, such as pain, boredom, anxiety, and the like

Do the ends justify the means^ This is a debatable point Some

argue that, no matter what the goals of this science are and no
matter what the accomplishments, it’s not worth it if people are
deceived or put through some discomfort Others, on the oppo-
site end of the spectrum, insist that social psychologists are find-

ing things out that may have profound benefits for mankind, and,
accordingly, almost any price worth paying for the results
is

My own position is somewhere in between I believe that the

science of social psychology is important, and I also believe that
experimental subjects should be protected at all times This means
at least five things

1 Procedures that cause intense pain or discomfort should be

avoided, if at all possible If the experimenter exercises a great

deal of ingenuity and caution, he can

usually succeed in testing
his hypothesis without using
extreme methods Although a less
intense procedure usually produces
results that are less clear,
experimenters might choose to sacrifice some clarity in the
interests of protecting their
subjects
2 Experimenters should be
ever alert to alternative procedures
to deception If some other
viable procedure can be found, it
should be used
3 Experimenters should provide their subjects with the real
option of quitting the experiment
if their discomfort becomes
too intense
4 The experimenter should spend considerable time with each
subject at the close of the experimental
session, carefully ex-
plaining the experiment, its true
purpose, the reasons for the
deception, and so on He should go out
of his nay to protect
 Social Psychology as a Science 285

the dignity of the subject, to avoid making him feel stupid or

gullible about having “fallen for” the deception He should
make certain that the subject leaves the scene in good spirits—
feeling good about himself and about his role m the experiment
This can be accomplished by any earnest experimenter who is
willing to take the time and effort to repay the subject (with
information and consideration) for the very important role the
subject has played m the scientific enterprise
5 Finally, the experimenter should not undertake an experi-
ment that entails deception or discomfort just for the hell of
it ” Before entering the laboratory, the experimenter should be

certain that the experiment is sound and important— that

he is

seeking the answer to an interesting question and that he is

seeking it in a careful and well organized manner

Most experimenters m
social psychology are extremely
sensi-

experiments
tive to the needs of their subjects Although some
discomfort,
entailprocedures that cause a considerable amount of
the vast majority of these procedures contain a great many
safe
the
guards for the protection of subjects For example, from
point of view of subject discomfort, most readers would
®
that Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience is one ®
^ at
most difficult studies reported m this book Yet it is evi ent
t

Milgram worked hard after the experiment to turn t ^

t is a
experience into a useful and exciting one for his subjects
experimen
he was successful Some time after the
»
clear that
percent of the participants reported that they were g
a

taken part in the study, 15 I per cent reported neutra g >

t ey p
and only 1percent
3 that they were sorry
stated
pared Furthermore, a university psychiatrist
pie of the subjects and found no injurious
” > , 1,5

’gnj
was ms
typical response was that their participation
enriching

The Tostexpertmental Session The j.[of the

sometimes called debriefing, is an extremely importan p
mea
experiment Nor only is it of great value as a
286 The Social Animal

the
some of the discomforts and deceptions that occurred during
experimental session, it also provides the experimenter with an
can
opportunity to instruct the subject so that the experiment
become an educational experience In addition, it allows the
experimenter to determine the extent to which his procedure
worked— and from the one person who knows best
to find out
(the subject) he might improve the procedure In short, the
how
prudent experimenter regards his subjects as colleagues— not as
objects For those of you who have never had first-hand experi-
ence with a debriefing session, a description of exactly what is
involved and how subjects are treated may provide a more com-
plete understanding of the experimental technique
At first, the experimenter encourages the subject to give his
overall reaction to theexperiment and to ask any questions he
might have He then tries to determine why the subject respond-
ed as he did and whether he interpreted the procedures the way
they were intended If there was any deception involved, was the
subject suspicious of tlie cover story’ If the subject was suspi-
cious, the experimenter must decide whether his suspicions were
great enough to have affected his behavior If so, then the sub-
responses cannot be included
ject’s m
the data of the experiment
Because the researcher is interested m
how subjects spontaneously
behave, any responses that arc motivated by suspicions cannot be
spontaneous, and arc most hkcly invalid If more than a few sub
jeetsmust be discarded for reasons of suspiciousness, the entire
experiment must be scrapped
Througliout this first part of the debriefing, the experimenter
probes to tr)
to learn as precisely as possible what the subject’s
reactions v\crc, and whether he was suspicious The subject is
tlicn informed of the deception It is important that tlie pace be
gradual and tlic manner gentle, so that the subject isn’t suddenly
confronted w ith I can picture Lucy (in the
the information
‘
Pemuts” comic strip) as the
world’s worst experimenter How
might she break the news to Charlie Brown’ “You’ve been
fooled, we’ve been Ijing to you and )ou fell for it-ha' ha'”
Clcarlv , this kind of approach must be av oidcd
 Social Psychology as a Science 287

Every experimenter has his own technique for debriefing. I

will discuss my own procedure in some detail: I begin by asking

the subject whether the experiment was perfectly clear— if he has
any questions about either the purpose or the procedure. I usually
ask some open-ended questions— for example, I might simply ask
him to tell me frankly how the experiment struck him. Because
people do react differently, it does help me to know his feelings.

I then begin zeroing in any part of the procedure

by asking him if

seemed odd, confusing, or disturbing to him. If he does have any

suspicions, they will probably be revealed by this procedure, or
at least I will see signs that indicate the need for further probing;
but, if not, I continue toward greater specificity and ask if he
eye.
thinks there may be more to the experiment than meets the
This is a giveaway. It tellshim, in effect, that there avas more
than meets the eye. Many subjects will indicate that they do
think so. This does not necessarily mean that they had strong and
definite suspicions; it means, rather, that some people know that
experiments,
deception frequently a part of certain psychology
is

and that they are vaguely suspicious about the probability of this
being one of those. own questioning may have helped con-
My
t e
firm these suspicions. It is important that we recognize
subject’s lack of gullibility. It is also important that we com-
municate that being fooled by the procedure is not a matter of
stupidity or gullibility, but that it is a function of the procedure—
because if it’s a good experiment, virtually everyone gets foo e
This is crucial: being “taken in” hurts only if it leads us to con-
clude that we are extraordinarily stupid or gullible. But thiys not
good one,
true with these
experiments. If the experiment is a
everyone will be “taken in.” Accordingly, it is imperative that
this c ear to
the experimenter
take the time and trouble to make
the subject. determinant
This frequently the crucial
one factor is
his
of whether the subject goes home feeling good about
taKC
uiftn or
pation ?^_i A
feeling like a- fool. Any experimenter who docso t in a
special care with this part of the experiment has no business

sociopsychological laboratory.
. . -iv
If the subject invite im
voices specific suspicions, I
288 The Social Animal

how they might have affected his behavior. His answer to this
question is crucial. If he does have some clear suspicions (right or

wrong), and if these did affect his behavior, I will discard his
data. Obviously, this decision is made in ignorance of whether or

not his results supported the hypothesis! If he is not on target, I

will tellhim that it was reasonable for him to be suspicious, that

there is more to the experiment, and I will then proceed to de-
scribe what we’re studying and the reasons for using deception. I
try to level with the subjects by sharing my own discomfort
about using deception. I also try hard to explain why I think the
results might be important.
If the subject is feeling uncomfortable, or angry, or disdain-
ful, I want to know it so I can deal with it. But most subjects are
polite. To help the subject build up the courage to tell me off (if
he feels like it), I try to share my own questions and criticisms
about the procedure and its impact, in the hope that this will
remove any reluctance he may feel in talking about his skepti-
cisms, his feeling that the whole experiment seemed trivial and
meaningless, his annoyance, his discomfort, or the fact that the
procedure had more of an impact on him than 1 had intended.
Subjects are usually eager to help me improve the experiment,
and frequently have provided me with many valuable suggestions.
To close the session, I ask that subjects try to keep their labo-
ratory experiences secret. If future subjects
know the study’s
purpose in advance, their reactions will be invalid and could lead
to our drawing incorrect conclusions
about the results. avoid To
this waste of time, experimenters
need to secure the help of each
person participating in the study. I have had good success at
maintaining secrecy by emphasizing the would
great harm that
be done to the scientific community
if sophisticated subjects
provided me with results that falsely supported my hypothesis."

In this chapter, I have tried to present

the advantages of the
experimental method, and I have tried to show how complex and
challenging it is to design a laboratory
experiment in social psy-
chology. In addition, I have tried to share some of the e.xcitement
 Social Psychology as a Science 289

I feelin overcoming difficulties, and tried to explore the ways I

attempt to insure the well-being, as well as the learning, of my
subjects. Experimental subjects have contributed a great deal to
our understanding; we are in their debt. Tbe knowledge, infor-
mation, and insights described in the first eight chapters of this
book are based upon the techniques and procedures discussed in
this chapter, as well as upon the cooperation of our experimental
subjects. Ultimately, our understanding of the social animal in all
of his complexities rests on our ingenuity in developing tech-
niques for studying his behavior that are well-controlled and
impactful without violating the essential dignity of those
individualswho contribute to our understanding by serving as
experimental subjects.

The Morality of Finding Out Unpleasant Things

There is one additional

ethical consideration— a rather knotty one:
me motal responsibility of the scientist for what he discovers.
hroughout this book, I have been dealing with some extremely
powerful antecedents of
persuasion. This was particularly true in
.
4, in which I discussed techniques of self-persuasion, and
in some of the subsequent
chapters, in which I discussed some of
^ 6 applications
of these techniques. Self-persuasion is a very
powerful force
because, in a very real sense, the “persuadee”
never knows
what hit him. He comes to believe that a particular
not because Robert Oppenheimer or T. S. Eliot
J.
or
Shoulder” convinced him that it was true— he comes
to hr
e leve it because he has convinced himself. What’s more, he

rend^^^^^^
know why or how he came to believe it. This
^ P^^nomena not only powerful, but frightening as
Well A
^ ^ know why I came be believe X, I am relatively
free'
all I know is that X is true-and
belief,
even in ^ar more likely to cling to that
t e face
of disconfirming evidence.
® "lechanisms that I described people to
can be used to get
290 The Social Animal

brush their teeth, to stop bullying smaller people, to reduce pain,

or to love their neighbor. Many people might consider these to
be good outcomes; but they are manipulative just the same.
Moreover, the same mechanisms can also be used to get people to
buy particular brands of toothpaste and perhaps to vote for par-
ticular political candidates. Isn’t it immoral to uncover ways of
manipulating people?
Let me be honest: I have some ideals as a human being— for
example, I would like to eliminate bigotry and cruelty. If I had
the power, I would employ the most humane and effective meth-
ods at my disposal in order to achieve those ends. I am equally
aware that, once the methods are developed, others might use
them in an attempt to achieve ends that I think are wrong. This
causes me great concern. I am also aware that you may not share
my values— therefore, if you believe that these techniques are
powerful, yoti should be concerned.
At the same time, I should hasten to point out that the phe-
nomena I have been describing are not new. It was not a social
psychologist who got Mr. Landry hooked on Marlboros, and it
was not a social psychologist who induced Lt. Galley to wantonly
kill Vietnamese civilians. They did what they did on their own.

Social psychologists are attempting to understand these phenome-

na and scores of others that take place in the world every day,
phenomena that have been occurring since the time that the first
two people on earth began interacting. By understanding these
phenomena, the social psychologist may be able to help people to
refrain from a particular kind of behavior when the people them-
selves decide that it is maladaptive.
But the mere fact that a working social psychologist knows
that the phenomena he is working with are not of his own crea-
tion docs not free him from moral responsibility. His research
often crystallizes these phenomena into highly structured, easily
applicable techniques. There is always the possibility that some
individuals may develop these techniques and use them for their
own ends. In the hands of a demagogue, these techniques could
conceivably turn our society into an Orwellian nightmare. It is
 Science 291
Social Psychology as a

social
the resp°nsibilmes of
not my intention to preach about
cognizant of are what I belie
Dsvcholoeists What I am most
psycnoiogists. the
thev are to educate
to be my own responsibihtiK. by poten-
techniques might be ^
“e
public about how these (
j
Ll manipulators like me!),to
remain

and to continue to do research

aimed
of how
f“ "g
he thinks
^
how he
standing of the social animal,
behaves.
Notes

Chapter 1 What is Social Psychology^

1 J^^lesMithener, Kent State What Happened and Why

(Ne\\ ^ork Random House, 1971)
2 Kenneth Clark and jMamte Clark *
Racial Identification and
Preference m Negro Children, in Readmes in Social Psychol
01,7 , ed T M Newcomb and E L Hartley (New York
Holt, 1947),
pp 169-178
3 Jonathan Hams, Hirosbnna A Study w Science^ Politics, and
the Ethics of War (Menlo Park, Calif Addison Wesley,
1970)

4 Michencr, op cit

5 nicn Bcrscheid, personal communication

 ,

Notes 293

6 PhilipZimbardo, The Psychological Pouer and Pathology of

Imprisonment (a statement prepared for the S House of U
Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee
No 3 Hearings on Prison Reform, San Francisco, Calif
October 25, 1971), p 3

Chapter 2 Conformity

1 Copyright © 1933, 1961 by James Thurber From The Day

‘

the Dam Broke,” in My Life and Hard Times (New

York
Harper, 1933), 47 (Originally printed in The
Neu
pp 41,
Yorker )
2 Stanley Schachter, “Deviation, Rejection, and Communica-
tion," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psycology, 46 (1951)
190-207.

3 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich Memoirs, tr Richard

Winston and Clara Winston (New York Alacmillan, 1970)

4 Solomon Asch, “Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Alodifi-

cation and Distortion of Judgment,” in Groups, Leadership
and Men, ei M H
Guetzkow (Pittsburgh Carnegie, 1951),
Independence and
PP 117-190 Solomon Asch, ‘Studies of
Conformity A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Ma-
jority," Psychological MonographSf 70 (1956) No 9, W o e
No 416
5 Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard, "A Study of Normative
Ju g
'ind Informational Social Influence Upon Individual
ment,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
(1955) 629-636
Re-
6 Jane Alouton, Robert Blake, and Joseph Olmstead, “The
Htionship Between Frequency of Yielding and
of Personal Identity,” Jostmal of Personality, 24 (195 )
^
347
7 Michael Argyle, “Social Pressure Public and m
Psycjo ogy,
tions,”Journal of Abnormal and Social
(1957) 172-175.
'
8 Solomon Asch. “Effects of Group Pressure Upon 'h®
cation and Distortion of Judgment,” m Groups,
^
 R
294 The Social Animal

and Men, ed M H Guetzkow (Pittsburgh Carnegie, 1951),

pp 117-190
9 Bernard Mausner, “The Effect of Prior Reinforcement of the
Interaction of Observer Pairs,” Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 49 (1954) 65-68 Bernard A-lausner, “The
Task on the
Effect of One’s Partner’s Success in a Relevant
Interaction of Observed Pairs,” Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 49 (1954) 557-560 Solomon Goldberg
and Ardie Lubin, “Influence as a Function of Perceived Judg-
ment Error,” Human Re!ati072s, 11 (1958) 275-281.

10 James Dittes and Harold Kelley, “Effects of Different Condi-

tions of Acceptance Upon Conformity to Group Norms,”
Journal of Abnor7nal and Social Psychology, S'i (1956) 100-
107

1 1 Leon Festinger, “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes,”

Human Relations, 7 (1954) 117-140
12 Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer, “Cognitive, Social, and
Physiological Determinants of Emotional State,” Psychologic
cal Review, 69 (1962) 379-399.
13 W\\U^n^ Principles of Psychology (New York Smith,
1890)

14 Herbert Kelman, “Piocesses of Opinion Change,” Public

Opinion Quarterly, 25 (1961) 57-78

15 Charles Kiesler, Mark Zanna, and James De Salvo, “Deviation

and Confoiniity Opinion Change as a Function of Commit-
ment, Attraction, and Presence of a Deviate,” Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology,
3 (1966) 458-467.
16 Carolin Kuctner, Edward Lichtenstein, and Hayden Mees,
Modification of Smoking Behavior A
Review,” Psychologi-
cal Bulletin, 70 {196S) 520-533,

17 Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal

of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67 (1963) 371-378
Stanley Milgram, “Some Conditions of Obedience and Dis-
obedience to Authority,” Human Relations, 18 (1965) 57-76

18 Stanley iMilgram, “Some Conditions of Obedience and Dis-

obedience to Authority,” Hot/mj/ e/n/zonr, 18 (1965) 57-76
 ,

Notes 295

“Bystander
19 John Dirley and B.bb L-itane,
Emergencies Diffusion of /""'"ll , ^tane
ehty and Socml Psychology, 8 (1968)
of Bvstand f
and John Darlev, “Group Inhibition
ity
tion Emergencies,” Journal of Peiso7}a
m Rodin
^atane and Jud uh
chologv, 10 (^968) 215-221
“A Lads in Distress 5'>b‘b'"'’E„Rf
FarDOTmniMl and
Intervention, Jouniel of Exper
gets on Bystander
Social Psychology, 5 (1969) 189-202
,Li,,tinv
20 Bibb Latane and Judith Rodin, “A '”^“'7nKrvention,”
on Y
Effects of Friends and Strangers (ig^g) 189-202
Psychology,
Journal of Experimental Social

Darlev and Latane, op cit

c,niar-

Irving Pihaiin, Judith Rodin,

and Jane
R',f ™’ p^,
itanism An Underground ^J^299
289
and Social Psychology, 13 (19<S9)
ality

Propaganda,
Chapter 3. Mass Communication,
and Persuasion

Ira Iscoe,
“Mass R^ayo'' p^„,onstntion,"
1 Phihp Mann and
Organization Reflections
108-113
Ameucaii Psychologist, 26 0 J*
/
io/^r fNc\' York

2
JoeMcGinn,ss,TI,e«<d2/teP-end«t.96S(N
Pocket Books, 1970), p 160 „ (Belmont,

3 Darvl Beni,
Cahf Brooks/Cole, 1970) Esposu^'
Attitudmal EffcU
4 Robert Za, one, “The Social rsy
^^^^^^

Journal of Personality and

Supple77)eut,9 (196S) 1-2 infltieiictaS

(Reading,
and Changing Behavior

Rhvs —
A-.aintle. h.1
1969)
..
•Rhetoric tr
Aristotle, “Rhetoric,”tr
W Ruja
Rh)^^^^^^,,,„r},
Roberts,
195 )• P
,954),
25

York .M"
one and Poetics (Ness
296 The Social Ammal

7 Carl Hovland and Walter Weiss, “The Influence of Source

Credibility on Communication Effectiveness,” Public Opinion
Quarterly, 15 (1951) 635h5SO

8 ElliotAronson and Burton Golden, “The Effect of Relevant

and Irrelevant Aspects of Communicator Credibility on Opin-
ion Change,” Journal of Personality, 30 (1962) 135-146

9 judson Mills and Elliot Aronson, “Opinion Change as a Func-

tion of Communicator’s Attractiveness and Desire to Influ-
ence,” Journal of Personality cmd Social Psychology, 1 (1965)
173-177

10 Elaine Walster, Elliot Aronson, and Darcy Abrahams, “On

Increasing the Persuasiveness of a Low Prestige Communi-
cator,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2 (1966)
325-342

11 Elaine Walster and Leon Festmger, “The Effectiveness of

‘Overheard’ Persuasive Communications,” Journal of Abnor-
mal and Social Psychology, 65 (1962) 395-402
12 George Hartman, “A Field Experiment on the Comparative
Effectiveness of ‘Emotional’ and ‘Rational’ Political Leaflets in
Determining Election 'ResvdtsJ' Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 51 {1936) 336-352
13 Howard Leventhal, “Findings and Theory in the Study of
Fear Communications,” in Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology, Yo\ 5, ed L Berkowiiz (New York Academic
Press, 1970),
pp 119-186
14 Carl Hovland, Arthur Lumsdaine,
and Frederick Sheffield,
Experiments on Mass Conmmmcation (Princeton Princeton
University Press, 1949)
15 Norman and Donald Campbell, “Recency and Primacy
iMiller
m Persuasion as a Function of the
Timing of Speeches and
Measurements,” Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
59 (1959) 1-9
Philip Zimbardo, “Involvement
and Communication Discrep-
ancy as Determinants of Opinion Conformity,” Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 60 (1960) 86-94

7 Carl Hovland, O J Harvey, and Muzafer Sherif, “Assimila-

tion and Contrast Effects in Reaction to Communication and
 y

Notes 297

Attitude Change,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychol-

ogy, 55 (1957) 244-252

Merrill Carlsmith,
18 Elliot Aronson, Judith Turner, and J
“Commumcatioa and Communication
Credibility
JJor
ancy as Determinants of Opinion Change,” Joumal of
mal and Social Psychologyy 67 (1963) 31-36

19 Irving Jams and Peter Field, “Sex Difference

and Pe^onality
Factors Related to Persuasibility,” in Personality
and erniasi
L Jams (New Haven, Conn
bility, ed C I Hovland and I

Yale University Press, 1959), 55-68

pp
Distraction
20 Jonathan Freedman and David Sears, “Warning,
an oci
and Resistance to Influence,” fouriial of Personality
Psychology^ I (1965) 262-266
‘The Relative
William McGuire and Dimitri Papageorgis,
Efficacy of Various Types of Prior Belief
De '
,

ducing Immunity Against Persuasion,” Journal of

and Social Psychology 62 (1961) 327-337 y

Exposure
22 Lance Canon, Self-confidence and Selective
‘

DissonancCy e
formation,’ in Confiicty Decision and
tmger (Stanford Stanford University Press, 1964), pp
23 Leon Festmger and Nathan Maccoby,
‘
On
Abnornia a
suasive Communications,” Journal of
Pryc/jo/ogy, 68 (1964) 359-366

Chapter 4 Self-justification

Rumore^and^
1 Jamuna Prasad, “A Comparative Study of
y
ports m Earthquakes,” British Journal of
(1950) 129-144
^
2 Durganand Sinha, “Behavior in “ Journal
Psychological Study of Reports and
Rumou ,

of Psychology (1952) 200-209 /cmh-

Dissonance
3 Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive
ford Stanford University Press, 1957)

4 Austin AniericajjylAox 18, 1971, p 69

298 The Social Anmal

5 Albert Hastorf and Hndley Cantnl, “They Saw a Game A

Case Study,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Pfychology, 49
(1954) 129-134

6, Edward Jones and Rika Kohler, “The Effects of Plausibility

on the Learning of Controversial Statements,” Journal of
Abnormal and Social Psychology, 57 (1958) 315-320
7 Danuta Ehrlich, Guttman, Peter Schonbach, and Judson
Isaiah
Mills, ‘
Exposure to Relevant Information,”
Postdecision
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 54 (1957) 98-
102

8 Jack Brehni, ‘
Postdecision Changes in the Desirability of Al-
ternatives,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 52
(1956) 384-389
9 Leon Festmger and Nathan Maccoby, “On Resistance to Per-
suasive Communications,” Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology, 68 (1964) 359-366
10 Elie Wiesel. Night (New York Avon, 1969)
11 Ralph White, “Selective Inattention,” Psychology Today,
November 1971, pp 47-50,78-84
12 ‘^Pentagon Papers The Secret War” Time, June 28, 1971, p

13 Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser, “Conipl lance Without

Pressure The Foot-m-the-Door Technique,”
Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 4 (1966) 195-202
14 Robert Knox and James Inkster, “Postdecision Dissonance at
Post Time, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology,
/ ^ 8
(1968) 319-323
15 Judson Changes in Moral Attitudes Following
iMills, Temp-
tation,” Journal
of Personality, 26 (1958) 517-531
16 Leon Fcstinger and J Merrill Carlsmith, “Cognitive Conse-
quences of Forced Compliance,”
Journal of Abnoinnal and
Social Psychology, 58 (1959) 203-210

17 Arthur Cohen, “An Experiment on Small Rewards for Dis-

crepant Compliance and Attitude Change,” in Exploi ations in
Cognitive Dissonance, by J W
Brchm and A R Cohen
(New York Wilcv, 1962), pp 73-78
 Notes 299

18 It should be mentioned, m passing, that the

ing- phenomenon has produced -- ™ntroveisn^
support the
weight of e\ idence tends to 7 " ,
read
of thisjssue^read
d-msion
this^est For a more detailed
of
Elliot Aronson, “The Theory Soetd
Current Perspective,” in Advance
L Berkowitz (New York Academic
,

Psychology, Vol 4, ed
Press, 1969), 1-34
pp

o.n,rress and Prohlenis

Theory
Aronson, “Dissonance g Sn^ 'rrJhook
cd
ed
Elliot
in Theones Cogmttve Cnnror^jy ^^"[‘^Neucoii.l.
Theanes of Cognmve
R P Abelson E Arons<m,W J
and P ”
c^
R,„d
M J Rosenberg, ‘The Theory
of
Advances m
McNally, 1968), pp 5-27
fp ,.cuve," m
Cognitive Dissonance Current P A Berkowitz
Experimental Social
‘’fjjg) pp 1-34
(New York Academic Press, 19 Aronson Opm
. Elizabeth Nel, Robert „f the
the AdvotiteT of Di
ion Change m mn
Meinmg
„Th. A Clartfi-
iudience
PersomUty
nance,” Journal of
Inadequate Just.
(1969) 117-124 a Effects of

Aronson and J |u«.on of

Fo 5^4.
3 Elliot „
Jonrml of rffccts of Cogni
588 Bcha' lor
^ „g term
,
rreedn,an.^^Lo^S^e,p,„me„ta/ sunn; psychotoity.
,4 Jonathan

9°5)‘’
145'1^5 Vincent Nms
1 Ti

^etT'Son::

irrktL^sirandjuy""^;^;,^^^
300 The Social Aminal

27 Hirold Genrd nnd Grover Mathewson, “The Effects of

Seventy of Initntion on Liking for a Group A Replication,
Jotirnal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2 (1966)
278-
287

28 James Michener, Kent State What Happened and Why

(New York Random House, 1971)
29 Ibid

30 Nikita Khrushchev, Khushchev Remembers, tr and ed

Strobe Talbott (Boston Little, Brown, 1970)

31 Keith Davis and Edward Jones, “Changes m

Interpersonal
Peiception as a Means of Reducing Cognitive Dissonance,’
Journal of Abnoimal and Social Psychology, 61 (1960) 402-
410
32 Da\id Glass, Changes m
Liking as a Means of Reducing
Cognitive Discrepancies Between Self esteem and Aggres-
sion Joinnal of Personality,}! (\96''t) 531-549
33 Ellen Beisclieid David Boyc, and Ehme Walster ‘Retaliation
as a Means of Restoring Equity, Journal of Personality and
Social Psycholoiry^ 10 (1968) 370-376

34 Ldward Jones and Richard Nisbeit, The Actor and The Ob-
serxer Diveigent Peiceptiom of the Causes of Behavior
(New York General Learning Press, 1971)
35 George Bernard Shaw, Selected Piose, ed Diarmuid Russel
(New ^ork Dodd, Mead, 1952)
36 Jack Brehm ‘
Increasing Cognitive Dissonance b) a Fait-
AccomphJ' Journal of Abnormal and Social Psycholoi'y, 58
(1959) 379-382

37 John Darle\ and Ellen Berscheid, “Increased Liking as a Re-

sult of the Anticipation of Personal Contact,’ Human Rela-
tions, 20 {1967) 29-40
38 Elliot Aronson and Da\id Mcttee, Dishonest Beha\ior as a
‘

Function of Different Levels of Self-esteem,” Journal of Per-

sonality andSocial Psychology, 9
(1968) 121-127
39 Phihp Zimbardo, The Cogmtixe Control of Motnation
(Glenview, 111 Scott, Forcsman, 1969)
 Notes 301

of Cognitive D'ssomnce^
40 Jack Brehm, “Motivat.onal Effects
Motivation, 1962 (Li
in Nebraska Symposium on
Press, 1962),
51-7?
versity of Nebraska pp

Chapter 5 . Human Aggression

Social Contract
and Discourses
1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The
(New York Dutton, 1930)

- Sigmund Freud, Beyond ^”""^1948)

P^y^ho-Ana ysis, IV o
H^ogarth P«-
Press ^
dt Institute of
ew
(New lorK
. . C. Human Aggression
Aearession (
Anthony Storr,

to the Rat,
f fhe Cat’s Response
Zing Yang Kuo, “Genesis „ 24
in Instinct (Princeton
Van os ’
Ritualized

Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, ''^^llf^'^^i%choamlysisy°l

Fighting m
Animals,” in (New ^ork
(Violence "u,,, ed
and War),
ana -- -J

Grune & Stratton, 1963) „f Chicago

^ggzctt'd'HCh'Cg
t'aui scou,
John Paul Scott,
^
(Ne"
(Nc"
Press, 1958) Marione Wilson
Konrad Lorenz, 0« 1966 )
Brace pot
Yoik Harcourt, .

t™)”;,"
, „„ 1^‘g;

versity of lov.a iMcCandless ''

nrcMogy,

»sr“6J‘
. Albert Bandura^D^_
hI,n,t«yon -^;„(, 94 ,) 525-
 V
Notes 303

See
24. Michael Kahn, “^3
Psyc of Reducing
Personality and Social >
^ Means
in Liking ^gg„s-
also David Glass, “Change
Leon-
Cognitivc 0964) 531-549, and
PersonalHy,n (19
)
siot” Jottrttal of ^
Emotional Tension,
ard Berkowitz,
as the
^“.“n
Reduction 0
‘Hostility Catharsis
Psych, any, 25 (1962)
23
3
(New
^
25 Konrad Lorenz, On >966 WiUja-
s 42 (19
York Harcourt, Brace Health,
)
,

Mental
“Recreation and
Commtm, cation (

a
346 f

^r^rSelsf 196r _

. .rn„ J

27,

^ggresjwe Ri^h^*''’ and Audiovisu^

sual
ford University. 99^ _veness by 244-
“Enhancement o> psychology,
as,
Canadi of
Displays,” immediate Effects

Walder,
Televised ^6(1
/1072, m j Leopold
Psychology, d Eron. ^ ^u-wp

l^’Mclntytc he^a''”" c rr«nberg. Girls' Atlitndes

3

V.olen«
,n “The Psvchological Per-

Clark,
Kenneth., . „ican ^ a
32 . r*
spective,
302 The Social Aiimial

582 Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila Ross, “A

Comparative Test of the Status Envy, Social Power, and
Secondary Reinforcement Theories of Identificatory Learn-
ing,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67 (1963)
527-534 Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila Ross,
‘
Vicarious Reinforcement and Imitative Learning,” Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67 (1965) 601-6(17

12 Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePige, “Weapons as Ag-

gression-eliciting Stimuli,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology,! (1967) 202-207
13 Leonard Berkowitz, Control of A (Egression (unpublished,
1971), p 68

14 Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, tr Marjorie Wilson (New

York Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)
15 Sherwood Washburn and David Hamburg, The Implica-
tions of Primate Research, in Primate Behavior Field Studies
of Monkeys and Apes, td I DeVore (New York Holt, Rine-
hart & Winston, 1965),
pp 607-622
16 M F Ashley A'lontagu, On Being Human (New York Haw-
thorne Books, 1950)

17 Peter Kropotkin, Mtitual Aid (New York Doubleday, 1902)

18 Henry Social Behavior in Primates,” in Comparative

Nissen, ‘

Psychology, ed C
P Stone (3rd cd , New
York Prentice-
Hall. 1951),
pp 423-457
19 Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey (New York Random
House, 1946),
p 140
20 William Menninger, Recreation and Mental Health,” Recre-
‘

42 (1948) 340-346
21 Leonard Berkowitz, Control of Aggression (unpublished,
1971)
22 Warren Johnson, “Guilt-frce Aggression for the Troubled
Jock, Pjycbo/t)gy Today, October 1970,
pp 70-73
23 Seymour Fcshback, ‘The Drive-reducing Function of Fan-
tasy Bcha\ior,” Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
50 (1955) 3-11
 Notes 305

and
Mnnlitv of Violence
41. Seymour Feshbach, “Dynamics a Consideration
, Avtertcan
Aggression. Some Psychological

Psychologist, 26 (1971) 281-292- why

j
State: What PP
42. James Michener, Kent
(New York ..The Relationship
es
43. Norma Feshbach and Seymour Groups,
Between Empathy and . [02-107.
Developmental Psychology, (

Chapter 6. Prejudice Negro

, Esulams the
P^^„0oni House,
AlvmPoussaint.“ANegroPsyc^
1.
Conirontat.on
Conjrontanu,.
(New
s--
Psyche.”
Psyche,” in
ana
1971),
„„ 183-184
1S1-184 _ Ij.nrification
Identification
PP Clark.
Kenneth Clark and
Mam^
Hartley (New York
i”(New
b
rr“d’TWwc-bandE
Hori947).pP lf9;;«^„,„p,e,udicedAg^^

Gordon Allporc, 13'H Function of

„[.[ pp „ as a
Addison-Wesley, of Person-
journal of
Melvin Lcrner, ^tttractij

Performer’s ^jjoiogy, 1 H jsjon-conscious Sex-

Socal Psyc [j
nS-U6
auty and 22-26.
and Sa^^^^^ naber
Daryl Bern of Male
and Female
PryHio'ogy 83-91
ists,” 0960)
6

P>y
IncU'dmS
0 aZ
304 The Social Ammal

33 Aristotle, “Rhetorjc,” tr W Rhys Roberts, m

tonc and Poetics (New York Modern Library, 1954), p 22

34 Robert Sears, Eleanor Maccoby, and Harry Levin, Patterns of

Child Rearing (Evanston, 111 Row, Peterson, 1957) Diana
Baumrmd, “Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on
Child Behavior,” Chid Development, 37 (1966) 887-907
Wesley Becker, “Consequences of Different Kinds of Paren-
tal Discipline,” in Revievo of Child Development Research,

Vol 1, ed MLHoffman and L W

Hoffman (New York
Russell Sage, 1964)

35 Robert Hamblin, David Buckholt, Donald Bushell, Desmond

EUis, and Daniel Ferntor, “Changing the Game from ‘Get
the Teacher’ to ‘Learn’,’ Trans Action, January 1969, pp
20-31

36 Elliot Aronson and J Alernll CarJsmith, “The Effect of the

Seventy of Threat on the Devaluation of Forbidden Behav-
ior,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 (1963)
584-588 Jonathan Freedman, “Long-term Behavioral Effects
of Cognitive Dissonance,” Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 1 (1965) 145-155

37 US President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Ad-

ministration of Justice, The Challenge of Crime m a free
Society, A Report (Washington, DC US Government
Printing Office, 1967)

38 Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila Ross, “Imitation of

Film mediated Aggressive Models,” Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 66 (1963) 3-11 Albert Bandura, Doro-
thea Ross, and Sheila Ross, “Vicarious Reinforcement and
Imitative Learning,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychol-
ogy, 61 (1963) 60J-607

39 PaulBrown and Elliott Rogers, “Control of Aggression am

Nursery School Class,” Journal of Experimental Child Psy-
chology, 2 (1965) 103-107.

Joel Davirz,
‘
The Effects of Previous Training on Postfrus-
40
tration Behavior,” Journal of
Abnonnil and Social Psychol-
ogy, ‘M (1952) 309-315
 t

Notes 305

41. Seymour Feshbach, Consideration ,

American
Aggression Some Psychological
Fsycbo\ogist,16 (1971) 281 292 and Why
State- What PP
42. James Michener, Kent
(New York ‘
“The Relationship
43. Norma Feshbach and Seymour ’
^ ^ Groups,
Bettveen Empathy and Aggressi
Develop7}iental Psychology (

Ilhapter 6. Prejudice
Negro

1. Alvin Poussaint, “A
Negro
York Random House,
Psyche,
Psyche,” mConfrontaua,.
CoiifT v*-
1971),PP 183-184
riark c"““Tprv-
Kenneth Clark and Readings
^York
(NewY
Neweomra’ndE L Hartley
"frr:d‘T^M
Against Women=”
HoM947^ PP prejudiced

S
Gordon
A;
Allpott, r*e
PP
(Cambridge, Mass

Function of
Addison-Wesley.^9 performance^ aa^a^

Melvin Lerner,
C J. ^„„ctivencss, 7

Performers Re'V j^gy, 1 conscious Sev-

„„ry and
Social F^y
^ All
„
and 97^, PP^_^
Daryl Bern and Female

Doll Press, 193

g John ^ Social Change mid

I
Prejudice,
1964J
rrcc Vecss,
 The Social Annual

Burrus, “Education.
11 Melvin Tumin, Paul Barton, and Bernie
Prejudice, and Discrimination A Study
Readiness for m
Desegregation,” American Sociological
RezieWj 23 (1958),
41-49
m (New York Holt, Rine-
12 Mitchel Le\itas, America Crists

hart Winston, 1969)

13 John Dollard, “Hostility and Fear m Social Life,” Social

Forces, 17 (1938) 15-26

“The Acceptance of
14 Andrew Greeley and Paul Sheatsley,
American,
Desegregation Continues to Advance,” Scientific
December 1971, 13-19pp
Hcod,
15 Muzifer Sherif, O J Haney, B Jack White, Willnm
Cooperation
and Carolyn Shenf, hitergroup Conflict and
The Robbers Cave Experiment (Norman, Okla University
of Oklahoma Institute of Intergroup Relations, 1961)

16 Carl Ho\land and Robert Sears, “Minor Studies of Aggres-

Indices,
sion Correlation of Lynchmgs with Economic
Journal of Psychology, 9 (1940) 301-310

17, Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich Metnoirs, tr Richard

Winston and Clara Winston (New York Macmilhn, 1970)
18 Neal Miller and Richard Bugelski, “Minor Studies in Aggres-
sion The Influence of Frustrations Imposed by the
In-group
on Attitudes Expressed toward Out groups,” Journal of Psy-
choloi^y, 25 (1948) 437-442
of
19 Donald Weatherley, Anti-Seniitism and the Expression
Fantasy Aggression,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy-
chology, 62 {1961) 454-457
20 Theodor Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson,
Else
and R Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality
(New
York Harper, 1950)
21 Greeley and Sheatsley, op cit

22 Thomas Pettigrew, “Regional Differences m Anti-Negro

Prejudice,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 5

(1959) 28-36
Factore
23 Thomas Pettigrew, ‘Personality and Sociocultural
and Intergroup Attitudes Cross-national Comparison,
A
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2 (1958) 29-42
 Notes

24 Je^nne Watson, “Some Social and Psychological

Situations
Related to Change in Attitude,” Human Relations, 3 (19S0)^
15-56

25 Ian A5acCrone, Race Attitudes tn South Africa (London

Ox-
ford University Press, 1937)

26 Paul Lazarfield, ed Radio and the Primed Pai^e

, (New York
Duel!, SJoan & Pearce, 1940)

27 Morton Deutsch and Mary Ellen Collins, Interracial Housing

A Psychological Evaluation of a Social Experiment (A-Iinne-
apolis University of A-linnesota Press, 1951) See also Daniel
Wilner, Rosabelle Walkley, and Stuart Cook, Human Rela-
tions tn Interracial Housing (A-finneapolis University of
A4innesota Press, 1955)

28 Jack Brehm, “Increasing Cbgnitive Dissonance by a Fait-

AccotnpUf^ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psycbologyy 58
(1959) 379-382

29 John Darley and Ellen Berstheid, ‘

Increased Liking as a Re-
suit of the Anticipation of Personal Contact,” Human Rela^
twjis, 20 (1967) 29-40
30 Thomas Pettigrew, ‘Social Psychology and Desegregation
Research,” American Psychologist, 16 (1961) 105-1 12

31 Kenneth Clark, “Desegregation An Appraisal of the Evi-

dence, ’
of Socm/ /srwer, 9 (1953) No 4
32 Samuel Stouffer, Edward Suchnian, Leland DeVinnc), Shir-
ley Scar, and Robin Williams, Jr, “The American Soldier
Adjustment During Army Life, ’ in Studies in Social Psychol-
ogy m WW ll,Vo\ 1 (Princeton Princeton UniversitvPress.
1949)
33 Bernard Kramer, Residential Contact as a Detemmiant of
Attitudes To'u.ard Negrttes (unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion, Harvard University, 1951) Alvm Winder, “White Atti-
tudes Towards Negro-White Interaction an Area of m
Changing Racial Composiaon,” American Psychologist, 7

(1952) 330-331
and
34 Steven Asher and Vernon Allen, “Racial Preference
Social Comparison Processes,” Journal of Social Issues, Janu-
ary 25, 1969, pp J57-I66
308 The Socwl Ammal

35 Julius Lester, “Beep’ Beep' Bang' Umgawa' Black Power'”

Confrontation Issues of the 70's, ed R Kytle (New York
Random House, 1971), 162-181pp
36 Deutsch and Collins, op cit

37 Muzafer Shenf and Carolyn Shenf, An Outline of Social ?sy-

chology (New York Harper & Bros 1956) Shenf, Harvey,
,

White, Hood, and Shenf, op cit

38 Elliot Aronson, Nancy Aston, James Dehoney, and John
Rozsa, Interdependence in the Classroom (m preparation,
1972)

39 Dorothy Singer, Toe Impact of Interracial Classroom Ex-

posure on the Social Attitudes of Fifth Grade Children, (un*
published, 1964)

40 Thomas Pettigrew, ‘Social Psychology and Desegregation

Research,” American Psychologist, IS (1961) 61-71

Chapter? Attraction Why People Like Each Other

1 Charles Darwin, The Expression of Emotions in Man and
Animals (New York Appleton, 1910)
2 Dale Carnegie, Hotx to Win Friends and Influence People
(New York Simon Sc Schuster, 1937)

3 Thomas Lemann and Richard Solomon, Group Chanctens ‘

tics as Revealed m Sociometric Patterns and Personality Rat-

ings ' Sociometry, 15 (1952 ) 7-90
4 George Homans, Social Behavior Its Elementary Forms
(New York Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961)
5 Elaine Walster, Vera Aronson Darcy Abrahams, and Leon
Rottman, ‘ Importance of Physical Attractiveness in Dating
Behavior,’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5
-'^’066) 508-516
 Notes 309

O B Wh.te, Wto Ho^

J Harvey,
Sherif, Intergroup
Conflict m f Oklahoma
University
(Norman. Okla
Ctioe Experiment
Relations, 1961)
Institute of Intergroup

in tiie
Rozsa, Interdependence
of
1972)
^ Effect
of Severity
12
10 Elliot Aronson and ’
.. of
Abnonml and
for a G oup._f^^
Initiation on Liking
(1959)
Social Psychology, 59 ..Eejctions to
Evalu-

1, Morton Deutsch -<1 bt

as Influencen y
ations by Others
93-112
etry, 22 (1959) Appleton-Century-
(New York App
Edward Jones, /iisra»«m»
(2nd ed .
New
Isolation
, eadership and
13 Helen Hall Jenning^i,t.ea*«»P
Green, 19 Posnwe
York Longmans. pe,„„,on of
Abnormal
14 Bernice Lott -d of

A-
07 ^Xewb.cHBcdoc« Psychology, 3

13 jack Brehm and ^d Social

of fers
Freedom,” Journal
Fn"Ctio^
(1966) 420-426 Person as a
“LikinR a
Relations, 22 d
16 Jon Jecker and
Doing Him a Favor,
of

12 mL Lerner
to the -Innocent
a^
Victim
'
and Social Py „,Soh-
Uem
, So
of Fersoiiality
p

18 Robert Bales, Social Prye'"'^-

^ ed .
N'"

York Holt, 19S8), pp

3 o8
The Social Animal

35 Julius Lester, “Beep’ Beep' Bang' Umgawa' Black Power'”

Confrojitation Issues of the 70\ ed R Kytle (New York
Random House, 1971), pp I<S2-I8I
36 Deutsch and Collins, op cit,
37 Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Shenf, A 71 Outline of Social Psy-
chology (New York Harper & Bros 1956) Shenf, Harvey,
,

White, Hood, and Shenf, op ctt

38 Elliot Aronson, Nancy Aston, James Dehoney, and John
Rozsa, Interdependence in the Classroom (in preparation,
1972)

39 Dorothy Singer, Tne Impact of Interracial Classroom Ex-

posure on the Social Attitudes of Fifth Grade Children, {un-
published, 1964)

40 Thomas Pettigrew, “Social Psychology and Desegregation

Kesezrch," Atuertcau Psychologist, 15 (1961) 61-71

Chapter 7 . Attraction Why People Like Each Other

1 Charles Darwin, The Expression of Emotions in Man and
Amviais (New York Appleton, 1910)
2 Dale Carnegie, Hcv, to Wm Friends and Influence People
(New York Simon 8c Schuster, 1937)
3 Thomas Lemann and Richard Solomon, Group ‘
Characteris-
tics as Revealed m Sociometnc Patterns and Personality Rat-
ings,’ Sociomelry, 15 (1952) 7-90
4 George Homans, Social Behavior Its Elementary Forms
(New York Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961)
5 Elaine Walster, Vera Aronson, Darcy Abrahams, and Leon
Rottman, “Importance of Physical Attractiveness in Dating
Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5
(1966) 508-516
6 Donn Byrne, “Attitudes and Attraction ” in Advances in Ex-
perimental Social Psychology, Vol 4, ed L Berkowitz (New
York Academic Press, 1969)

7 Muzafer Sherif and Carolyn Shenf, Groups in Harmony and

Tension (t^ew York Harper 8c Bros 1953) Muzafer Shenf,
,
 Notes 3”

Harper & R^'

Needs (New York
DanvynLmd
31. E\Uot Aronson and ’ j.^ntal of

Expertmem
32. Ibid „ Q/iijjosa'r Ethics mid

Bened.ctus de Lyle (New York

33, “^^^X’drew
Eweiidatioiie, tr
Ana
‘De hnellecms
Dutton, 1910) Conccp-
Uesolution of
Facto^
„ O.J
34.
Harvey, “Personality ^^^^^
Incongruities,”
Sociomei y, .,p„.
tual

Harold Stevenson, Agents for ChiH^"’^"'

!5. «rc
Strangers as R^n ^ r,y,Mogy,
ents and j
formance,” /o®”"' «f
183-185 rriet<^> ”i’
(1963) , R.utird mid

disserra
(unpublished doctoral
1964)

n,„Scnstt.vm’-TranungGroup5
Communicatio
Chapters. Oinnor Pc
,,,olov)

1 Sigmund Koch, “5"^

coherent science ^ <un-

rrain
5e«r,r,v,ry
2 Lchael Kahn,
of Age.”
Group comes
" S;'. Set .969, P ’«^„,,„g.„dro..orungUhom.o^^

dnXrApphcanom^^^^^^^
310 The Social Anmial

ter, “Role Differentiation in Small Decision-making Groups,”

m The Family, Socialization, and Interaction Process, ed T.
Parsons and R F Bales (Glencoe, 111 Free Press, 1955)

19 Elliot Aronson, Ben Willerman, and Joanne Floyd, “The

Effect of a Pratfall on Increasing Interpersonal Attractive-
ness,” Psychonomic Scietice, 4 (1966) 227-228
20 Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, and Rottman, op cit

21 Karen Dion, Ellen Berscheid, and Elaine Walster, “What is

Beautiful is Good,” Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology (1972, m press)
22 Karen Dion and Ellen Berscheid, “Physical Attractiveness and
Sociometric Choice in Nursery School Children” (mimeo-
graphed research report, 1971)
23 Karen Dion, “Physical Attractiveness and Evaluations of
Children s Transgressions,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology (1972, m press)
24 Harold and Elliot Aronson, “Liking for an Evaluator as
Sigall
a Function of Her Physical Attractiveness and Nature of the
Evaluations,’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 5
(1969) 93-100
25 Byrne, op cit

26 Harold ‘The Effects of Competence and Consensual

Sigall,
Validation on a Communicator’s Liking for the Audience”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16 (1970) 251-
258
27 Paul Secord and Carl Backman, * Interpersonal Congruency,
Perceived Similarity, and Friendship, Sociometry 11 (1964)
’
,

115-127
28 Elaine Walster, ‘The Effect of Self-esteem on Romantic
Likmg’ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1

(1965) 184-197
29 Edward Jones Linda and Elliot Aronson, The Recipro-
Bell, ‘

cation of Attraction from Similar and Dissimilar Others A

Study m Person Perception and Evaluation ” m Expeumeiital
Social Psychology, ed C G
McCImtock (New York Holt,
Rinehart & Winston, 1971), 142-183pp
 Notes

2 Robert Liebert and Robert Baron, “Some Immednte Effects

of Televised Violence on Children’s Behavior,” Develop-
mental Dsychology^ 6 (1972, in press)

3 Elliot Aronson and J Merrill Carlsmith, “Experimentation in

Handbook of Social Psychology,
Vol
Social Psychology,” in
Reading. Mass
2,ed G
Lindzey and E Aronson {2nd ed ,

Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp 1-79

Obedience,” Jojmial
4 Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of
(1963) 371-378
of Abnormal mid Social Psychology, 67

5 Ibid, fin
Van Hoose, 'The
6 ElliotAronson, Harold Sigall, and Thomas
Journal of Experi-
Cooperative Subect Myth or Reality’’’
I-IO
mental Social Psychology, 6 (\910)
“Effects of Group
Upon
7 Solomon Asch,
cation and Distortion of Judgment,
m ^ ’
.pjjj
mid Men, ed M H Kuetzkow (Pittsburgh Carnegie,
Asch, “Studies of Indep
pp 117-190 Solomon
Conformity A Minority of 9 Whole
Monographs, 70 (
19J6)
jority,” Psychological
No 416
8 Elliot Aronson, “Avoidance of
(1966) 238
non," Psychological Reports, 19
3 1 The Social Anbnal

opinevt Program (unpublished master’s thesis, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, 1964).

5. Maivin Dunnette and John Campbell, “Effectiveness of T-

group Experiences m ManagenalTrainmg and Development,”
Psychological Bulletin^ 70 (1968). 73-104.

6. Irwm Rubin, “The Reduction of Prejudice Through Labora-

tory Training,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 3
(1967) 29-50.

7. Charles Tart, “Increases in Hypnotizability Resulting from a

Prolonged Program for Enhancing Personal Growth,” Jour-

mi of Abiwnmt Psychology, 75 (1970); 260-266. Jerrold
Shapiro and Michael Diamond, “Increases in Hypnotizability
as a Function of Encounter Group Training Some Confirm-

ing Evidence,” Jomml of Abiwnnal Psychology, 79 (1972):

112-115.

8. Marvin D. Dunnette, “People Feeling. Joy, More Joy, and

the ‘Slough of Despond.’” Journal of Applied Behavioial
Science, 5 (1969) 25-44.

9. Ibid, p. ^2.

10 Ralph Cranshaw, “How Sensitive is Sensitivity Tiaining*”

Ameucan Journal of Psychiatiy, 126 (1969) 86*8-873.

11. James Cadden, Frederic Flach, Sara Blnkeslee and Randolph

Charton, “Growth m
Medical Students Through Group
Process,” Avieucan Jomval of Psychiatiy, 126 (1969) 862-
868

12. Charles Seashore, “What is Sensitivitv Training-" NTL In-

stitute Nc'us and Reports, April 1968.
13. Kahn, op at.

Chapter 9. Social Psychology as a Science

1. Elliot Aronson and Judson Alills, “The Effect of Severity of

Initiation on Liking for a Group," Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 59 (1959) 177-181.
 Notes 3'3

2 Robert Liebert and Robert Baron, “Some Immedntc Effects

Deiehp-
of Televised Violence on Children’s Behavior,”
mentttl Psychology, 6 (1972, in press)

Merrill Carlsmith, “Experimentation

in
3 Elliot Aronson and J
Social Psychology,” in Handbook of Social Psychology, o
Reading, Miss
2,ed Lindzey and E Aronson (2nd ed
G ,

Addison-Wesley, 19«9), pp 1-79

of Obedience,
4 Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study
Psychology, 67 (1963) 371-378
of Abnormal and Social
5 Ibid , p 377 ‘

Van
6 ElliotAronson, Harold Sigall, and Thomas
Journal of Experi-
Cooperative Subect Myth or Reality^”

^
10
mental Social Psychology, 6 (1970)
I

7 Solomon Asch, “Effects of Group

cation and Distortion of Judgment,’
m
Ornegie I
and Men, ti Kuetzkovv (Pittsburgh
M H an
“Studies of Independence
pp 117-190 Solomon Asch,
Conformity A Minority of Ko 9, Whole
Monographs, 7 (
)ority,” Psychological
No 416
Communica*
Intcr-5ub)cct
Elliot Aronson, "Avoidance of
238
cion,” Psychological
Reports, 19 (1966)
Name Index

Abrahams, Darcy, 62, 296, 308,310 Bell, Linda, 310

Adorno, Theodor, 186-187, 306 Bern, Daryl, 53-54, 178, 295, 305
Allen, Vernon, 307 Bern, Sandra, 178, 305
Allport, Gordon, 175-176, 305 Bena, Laventn P , 127-128
Aristotle, xn, I, S8-59, 62, 162,295, Berkowitz, Leonard, viii, 141, 147,
304 151-152, 155,301,302,303
Argyle, Michael, 293 Berscheid, Ellen, vii, 9, 129,
Arkoff, Samuel, 160 132-133,216-217, 292,300,
Aronson, Elliot, 9, 59-62, 77-79, 307,310
120-121,116-117, 123-124, Bettelheim, Bruno, 305
134-135,164, 200-201,206, Blake, Robert, 293
214-215, 217-218, 226-230, Blakeslee, Sara, 312
259, 271-275, 280, 281-282, Boone, Daniel, 14-15
296, 297, 299, 300, 304, 308, Boye, David, 300
309,310,311,312,313 Bradford, David, viii, 235
Aronson, Vera, vu, 308, 310 Bradley, Eleanor, 38
Asch, Solomon, 17-21, 33, 189, Brehm, Jack, 102, 106-107, 132,
235-236,282, 284, 293,313 136-137,210,298,300,301,
Asher, Steven, 307 307, 309
Ashley Montagu, M F, 153,302 Brown, Paul, 167, 304
Aston, Nancy, vin, 308, 309 Buckholt, David, 304
Bugelski, Richard, 185, 306
Backman, Carl, 310 Bunker, Douglas, 311
Bales, Robert, 309 Burrus,Bernie, 306
Bandura, Albert, 151,301,302,304 Bushell, Donald, 304
Barker, Roger, 148-149, 301 Byrne, Donn, 220, 308, 310
Baron, Robert, 158-159, 303,313
Barton, Paul, 306 Cadden, James, 263-264, 312
Baumrmd, Diana, 304 Galley, William, 36-37, 130, 290
Becker, Wesley, 304 Campbell, Donald, 73-74, 296, 312
 2

Nofne Index

Campbell, John, 263 Elliott, Rogers, 167

Camus, Albert, 93 EIIis, Desmond, 304

Canon, Lance, 84, 297 Lyn, viii

Ellisor,

Cantnl, Hadley, 97-98, 298 Eron, Leonard, 303

Carlsmith,J Merrill, 77-79,
112-115, 120-121, 164, 269, Ferntor, Daniel, 304
Feshbach, Norma, 169, 305
280, 297, 298, 299,304,313 168-169,
Feshbach, Seymour, 156,
Carnegie, Dale, 204-205, 207, 211,
302, 305
221-222,233,308
Festinger, Leon, vm, 23-24, 63,
Charton, Randolph, 312
84-85, 92-94, 112-115, 294,
Chiang Kai-shek, 109-111
296, 297, 298
Clark, Kenneth, 4, 161-162, 172,
Field, Peter, 177, 297
197, 292, 303,305,307
Flach. Frederic, 312
Clark,Mamie.4,172,292,305
Floyd, Joanne, 214-215, 232, 310,
Cohen, Arthur, R 113-114, 298
,
311
Cole, Ann, 210, 309
193-194, 307, Frank, Jerome, 149
Collins, Mary Ellen, 298
Fraser, Scott, 104-105,
308
Freedman. Jonathan, uu. 8h
Cook, Stuart, 307 104-105, 121-122,
164, 297,
Cranshaw, Ralph, 263, 3 1
298, 299, 304
Cronkite, Walter, 141 vm
Freel. James,
FrenVcl-Brunsu
Darley, John, viii, 39-43, 132-133,
Freud, Sigmund.
144-146, f 155, jj,
i'J

295, 300, 307

Darwin, Charles, 153, 204, 308 Kenn«Ii,S2
Galbraith, John
Davis.Keith, 128-129, 300
Davicz, Joel, 167-168, 304
Dehoney, James, 308, 309
Dembo, Tamara, 148-149, 301
gSSSs*
Gibson. Fa>e,\ 111
De Salvo, James, 294 Ginsberg, Allen,
57
308
Deutsch, Morton, 193-194, 307, GlaS!.DaMd, 129,
00,30!
309 122, 305
Goldberg, Philip,
DeVmney, Leland, 307 Solomon, 205
Goldberg,
Diamond, Michael, 312 Golden, Burton, 5^.
Dion, Karen, 216-217, 310 Andren.!0«
Dittos, James, 22, 23, 294
Greeley,
Green, James, W
Dollard, John, 181, 305,306 Greenberg, BS,
303
Dominick, J R 303 Gutman, Isaiah, 29
,

Dunnette, Marvin, 262-263, 3 u

304
Hamblin, Robejl6!-lM.
Eastcrlin, Richard, > m Hamburg, Das Id,
1 52.30-

Ebbcsen.Ebbe, 55, 295 Harns,Jonathan.29.

178. 305
Ehrlich, Danuta. 101, 298 Hartle). Ruth.
30i
Eibl-Eibesfeldc,Ircnaus, 146, Hartmann, Dona^-
'
Eichmann, Adolf, 36-37 Hartmann. Geujge -
j,
•
Einstein, Albert, 162
302 *"n’b6°3k'3..
Etsley, Loren, 154, 161,
Eliot,T.S.79.289
 1

3i6 The Social Animal

Hastorf, Albert, 97-98, 298 LazarsfeId,Paul, 192-193, 307

Heller, Joseph, 38 Lefkowitz, Monroe, 303
Helmreich, Robert, viii, 116-117, Lemann, Thomas, 308
299 LePage, Anthony, 302
Hilton, Judith, vm Lerner, Melvin, 176-177, 212, 305,
Hmdenburg, Paul von, 177 309
Hitler, Adolf, 16 Lester, Julius, 308
Homans, George, 308 Leventhal, Howard, 67-69, 296
Hood, William, 306, 308, 309 Levin, Harry, 304
Hovland, Carl, xii, 58-59, 75-76, 78, Levinson, Daniel, 306
184,296, 306 Levitas, Mitchel, 306
Lewin, Kurt, xii, 148-149, 301
Inkster, James, 105-106, 298 Lichtenstein, Edward, 294
Iscoe, Ira, 50, 295 Liebert, Robert, 158-159, 303, 313
Linder, Darwy n, 226-230, 311
James, William, 26, 294 Lindzey, G, 313

Jams, Irving, 177, 297 Lipman Blumen, Jean, 1 78, 305

Janowitz, Morris, 305 Lombardi, Vmce, 154
Jecker,Jon, 211-212, 309 Lorenz, Konrad, 146-147, 152, 301,
Jennings, Helen Hall, 209, 309 302,303
Johnson, Lv'ndon, 154 Lott, Albert, 209, 210, 309
Johnson, Warren, 155-1 56, 302 Lott, Bernice, 209, 210, 309
Jones, Edward, 98-99, 128-129, Lubm, Ardie, 294
131,208-209, 222-223,298, Lumsdame, Arthur, 296
300, 309,310
MacArthur, Douglas, 219
Kahn, Michael, vm, 156-157,235, Macaulay, Jacqueline, 303
266, 303, 311, 312 McCandless, Boyd, 150, 301
Kaplan, John, viii Maccoby, Eleanor, 304
Kazmaier, Dick, 97-98 Maccoby, Nathan, 64-85, 297, 298
Keen, Rachael, 311 MacCrone, Ian, 307
Kelley, Harold, 22, 23, 294 McGinniss, Joe, 50-52, 295
Kelman, Herbert, 294 McGuire, William, 81-83, 297
Kennedy, John F ,15,213-214,270 McIntyre, J J 303 ,

Khrushchev, Nikica, 127-128, 300 Malenkov, G, 127,218

Kiesler, Charles, 33, 294 Mallick, Shabaz, 150, 301
Klapper, Joseph, 303 Mann, Philip, 50, 295
Knights, Robert, 311 MaoTse tung, 109-112
Knox, Robert, 105-106, 298 Marlowe, Christopher, 189-190
Koch, Sigmund, 245, 311 Mathewson, Grover, 124, 300
Kohler, Rika, 98-99, 298 Mausner, Bernard, 294
Kramer, Bernard, 307 Mees, Hayden, 294
Kropotkin, Peter, 153-154, 302 Mennmger, William, 155, 302, 303
Kuetner, Carolm, 294 Mettee, Daiid, 134-135, 300
Kuo, Zmg Yang, 145-146, 301 Michener, James, 9, 126-127, 168,
292, 300, 305
Landry, Jack, 96-97, 290 Miles,Matthew, 3 1
Landy, David, 21 1-212, 309 Milgram, Stanley, 34-38, 280-281,
Latane, Bibb, 39-43, 295 283,285, 294,313
 Name Index 3*7

Miller,Neal,185,306 Shapiro, Jerrold, 312

Miller, Norman, 73-74 296 ,
Shaw, George Bernard, 131, 300
Mills, judson.vm, 107-108, 114-115, Sheatsley, Paul, 306
123-124, 138,259,271-275. Sheffield, Fredrick, 296

281-282,296, 298, 299,309, Sherif, Carolyn, 306, 308, 309

182-183,
312 Sherif, Muzafer, 75-76, 78,
296,306,308,309
Mouton, Jane, 293
Sigall, Harold, 217-218, 220-221,
Nader, Ralph, 86, 87 310,313
Nel, Elizabeth, 116-117, 299 Sikes, Jev, vm
Nisbett, Richard, 131, 300 Simmons, Carolyn, 212, 509
309
Nissen, Henry, 302 Singer, Dorothy, 200, 308,
90-91, 294
Nixon, Richard, 50-52, 54, 112 Singer, Jerome, 25-27,
Durganand, 91-92, 126, 297
Nowlis, Vincent, 299 Sinha,
Slater, Philip, 309
Olmstead, Joseph, 293 Solomon. Leonard, 309
Oppenheimer, J Robert, 58-59,289 Solomon, Richard, 308
306
Speer, Albert, 16, 293,
Papageorgis, Dimitri, 82, 297 230, 311
Spinoza, Benedictusde,
Pettigrew, Thomas, 188-189, 197, Stalin, Joseph,
127
201,306,307,308 Star, Shirley 307
311
Piliavin, Irving, 43, 295 Stevenson, Harold,
145,301
Piliavin, Jane, 295 Stott, Anthony,
Poussainr, Alvin, 171-172, 305 307
Stouffer, Samuel,
Prasad, Jamuna, 91-92, 126, 297 Suchman, Edward, 307
Graham, 191
Sumner, William
Rice, Grantland, 154
Rodin, Judith, 40, 295 Tart,Charles,312
Rogers, Carl, 258-259,311 Teevan.J J.303
303
Rogers, Elliot, 304 Thomas, Edward,
Roosevelt, Franklin ,D138
Thutber, James,
13-14, 2>, a

Ross, Dorothea, 301, 302, 304 Triplett, N, XU

Ross, Sheila, 301, 302, 304 Tumin, Melvin, 306
77-79, zvi
Rottman, Leon, 308, 310 Turner, Judith,
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 144, 301
Rozsa, John, 308, 309 Vahquet.I M,51' ,,,
Rubin, Irwin, 261 -262 , 312

Sanford, RNevitt, 306 Walder, Leopold.

303
Schachter, Stanley, 15, 25-27, Walkley. 296,
62-63, 21
90-91,293,294 Wakter.Elame,
Schonbach, Peter, 298 300,308,310
146, 301 303
Scott, John Paul, Walters, Richatd,
Sears, David, 81, 297 ivi
Warren, Earl, 152,302
Shenvood.HZ.
Sears, Pauline, 299 Washburn.
306 lo
Sears, Robert, 184, 299, 304,
Seashore, Charles, 264, 312
Watson, Jeanne,
Weatherley.
Donald I8
.

U
58 39
Secord, Paul, 310 Weiss, Walter,
Semonov, Pavel, 269 White, B Jacl.ioe.au
189-19
Shakespeare, William,
318 The Social Animal

White, Ralph, 103-104, 298 Winder, Alvin, 307

Whiting, John, 299 Wizan, Joe, 160
Wiesel, Elie, 298
Willennan, Ben, 214-215, 310 Zajonc, Rob’fert,’ 54, 295
Williams, Robin, Jr , 307 Zanna, Mark; 294
Wilner, Daniel, 307 Zimbardo, Philip', 16=11, 55, 75,
Winch, Robert, 223, 311 136, 293,295, 296,300
Subject Index

and, 205,
snsensual validation
Aggression 141-169
catharsis in, 155-158
cognitive dissonance and,
118-122, 164-166
definition of, 142-144
displaced, 180, 185
dominance and, 147 S:rbo°i»nd.2.2-2.0
fantasy in, 156-158 competence.
blunders and
frustration and, 148-149, 213-215
167-168 altracmeness,
ph> steal
“hydraulic' theory of, 144-145 215-219 ,,2
instinct and, 144-148 n,seandfasomand,207
as instrumental, 144 206
roxtmtt) end. 7't
m the mass media, 158-160 :„ardtheor> n ' 2»5
“
model effects on, 151, 158-160, idselfcsteem 221
166-167 21!«27
mtlartt) nnd.
219
motives for, 152-161 ereot) pes and.
punishment and, 163-167 ractneness
215 219
reduction of, 161-169 ,d attraction.
social learning and, 15(H152 communicator. 61
fa
beha\ lor and, 146-
32
territorial ad identification.
concept. 218
Attitude ^5 the self
vs opinion, 86-87 nbution
see also Persuasion 1
aggression
Altitude change See
Persuasion
,
attraction. 208
Attraction, 203-233 iprcjudicc, 13 .
7JJ-236.
,,0-710
208-2 •2,21 llcnticrelationsli'P
and attribution,
cognitive dissonance and,
horitarianpcrsonal'ts.
122-12S. 206-207
complcmcmaritvand.223
320 The Social Animal

Beauty See Attractiveness of sensitivity-group trainers, 265

Behavior modification, 33-34 Competition, 154
Brainwashing, 82-83 and prejudice, 180-183, 198-200
Bvstander intervention, 38-42 Compliance, 28-34
distinguished from identification
Catharsis and internalization, 29-34
and aggression, 155-158 forced, 111-114
and public policy, 158-160 motives for, 28
Cognitive dissonance, 89-139 and persuasion, 1 1 1-1 14
and aggression, 118-122, 164-166 power and, 31-32
alternative modes of reduction, Conflict
124-125 about decisions, 100-108
application in education, 117-118 and prejudice, 180-183
and attitude change, 108-117 Conformity, 13-44
and attraction, 122-125, 206-207 definition of, 16
and counterattitudinal advocacy, adaptive and maladaptive forms
111-114 of, 16
and cruelty, 125-131 examples of, 1-2, 13
decision making and, 100-108 factors influencing, 21-23
and distortion, 97-98 group pressure and, 17-21
effort and, 122-125, 271 and individualism, 14-16
and escalation, 103-105 and hkme, 15-16
historical examples of, 102-104, motives for, 19-20, 23
126-128, 130 and persuasion, 1 1 1-1 14
and immoral beha\ lor, 106-108 and prejudice, 187-190
inevitability and, 131-133 social status and, 22-23
ph\ siological and motivational types of, 27
effects of, 135-137 Consensual validation and
and rational behavior, 98-100 attraction, 205, 219-221
and rumor transmission, 91-92 Contracts
and the self concept, 115-117, m experimentation, 283-289
129,133-135,138-139 in the sensitivity-trainmg group,
theor\ of, defined, 92-94, 241,244-245, 260
137-139 Cooperation
Comniitmenr, 94-108, 135-137 and attraction, 200-201, 205
Communication, 47-87 and the reduction of aggression,
and distraction, 84-85 167-168
logical vs emotional appeals, and the reduction of prejudice,
6S-69 199-201
the nature of, 64-79 survival value of, 153-154
o\ crheard,63 Correlation, 277-278
and sclcctn e exposure to and causal inference, 278
information, 84, 93-98 Counterattitudinal advocacy,
in the scnsitu it) -training group, 111-114
235-267 Cover stor) insociopsjchological
source of, 56-64 research, 273-274, 281-283
sc‘' iho Persuasion 23-25
Crcdibilitv',
-!?CC of communicator, 56-64
., 212 - 2 :
and internalization, 32-34
 2

Subject Index 321

Cruelty and cognitive dissonance, Experimentation

125-131 and causal inference, 275-278
debriefing in, 285-289

Debriefing m sociopsychological deception in, 281-289

research, 285-289 ethical problems with, 43-45,

Deception in sociopsychological 117, 260, 281-291

group,
research, 281-289 in the sensitivity-trammg
260-265
Decision making and cognitive
dissonance, 100-108 m social psychology, 2'59-291
57-64
Dehumanization, 10, 130, 168-169, Expertise of communicator,
171-172
Dependent variable, definition of, Fantasy in aggression,
Favors and attraction, 207-2
1
273
Deprivation Fear arousal
65-69
vs frustration, 148-149 and persuasion,
91-92
relative, 149 and self justification
training
Desegregation, 194-197 Feedback m the sensitivity
group, 245-253
Deviance, 15,22, 23
Dissonance See Cognitive Feelings
247-252
dissonance vs evaluations,
and intentions, 232-253
Distortion training group,
in the sensitivity
cognitive dissonance and, 97-98
243-253
prejudice and, 174-177
Frustration i<t-I64.
Dominance and aggression, 147 148-149, 1«3 !«.
and aggression,
167-168
Education 148-149
vs deprivation,
and cognitive dissonance, prejudice, 183-185
117-118
and
and propaganda, 54-56 ^.nwpersonal
.•Gam-loss” theory
Effort and cognitive dissonance,
122-125,271
Ego defense, cognitive dissonance of aggression,
•Hydraulic theory
and, 98-100, 138-139 144-145
Empathy
and the reduction of aggression, :ation, 28-33
168-169 rmencss
m the sensitn it) -training group, ,

258, 261-263.266-267 187-lW

ciudice,
Encounter group 236 bchavionc^n^ j,,
see flho Sensuivit) training ssonanceanilOS-i
group
Ethics in experimentation, 43-45, 3e;oariable,dr«:n.-"«»'-
117,260.281-291
Elxpcriential learning them W31-'»
sensiiiMt) training group,
239-240
Experimental control, 273-278
xs impact, 2"9-281
221-—
'ractiou
Experimental realism, 2SO"28l
320 The Social Animal

Beauty See Attractiveness of sensitivity -group trainers, 265

BehaMor modification, 33-34 Competition, 154
Brainwashing, 82-83 and prejudice, 18^183, 198-200
Bvstander intervention, 38-42 Compnance, 28-34
distinguished from identification
Catharsis and internalization, 29-34
and aggression, 155-158 forced, 111-114
and public policy, 158-160 motives for, 28
Cognitiv e dissonance, 89-139 and persuasion, 111-114
and aggression 118-122,164-166 power and, 31-32
alternative modes of reduction, Conflict
124-125 about decisions, 100-108
application in education, 117-1 18 and prejudice, 180-183
and attitude change, 108-117 Conformity, 13-44
and attraction, 122-125, 206-207 definition of, 16
and counterattitudinal advocacy, adaptive and maladaptive forms
111 114 of, 16
and cruelt\, 125-131 examples of, 1-2, 13
decision making and, 100-108 factors influencing, 21-23
and distortion, 97-98 group pressure and, 17-21
effort and, 122-125, 271 and mdividuahsm, 14-16
and escalation, 103-105 andlilsine, 15-16
historical examples of, 102-104, motives for, 19-20, 23
126-128, 130 and persuasion, 111-114
and immoral beha\ lor, 106-108 and prejudice, 187-190
inevitability and, 131-133 social status and, 22-23
ph\ siological and motivational t)pes of, 27
effects of, 135-137 Consensual validation and
and rational behavior, 98-100 attraction, 205, 219-221
and rumor transmission, 91-92 Contracts
and the self concept 115-U7, in experimentation, 283-289
129, 133-135, 138-139 m the sensitivity training group,
theorx of,defltied, 92-94, 241,144-245,160
137-139 Cooperation
Commitment, 94-108, 135-1 37 and attraction, 200-201, 205
Communication 47-87 and the reduction of aggression,
and distraction 84-85 167-168
logical vs emotional appeals, and the reduction of prejudice,
65-69 199-201
the nature of 64-79 survival value of, 153-154
overheard, 63 Correlation, 277-278
and selective exposure to and causal inference, 278
information 84,93-98 Counterattitudinal advocacy,
in the sensitivity training group 111-114
235 267 Cover story in sociopsychological
source of, 56-64 research, 273-274 281-283
see also Persuasion Credibility, 23-25
Competence of communicator, 56-64
and attraction, 212-215 and internalization 32-34
 0

Stibject hidex 323

fear aqd,?l'r92
desegregation, 194-198
prejudice and, 179
toward foods, 175-176 dissonance
198-201 see aJfO Cognitive
and self-esteem, 171-172, Self-per^uasion.’^S?
“well-deserved reputation” Cognitive dissonance,
phenomenon and, 176
in persuasion,
71-74 26/
Primacy effect
Sensitivityrtraining gW,235
Propaganda, 47-56 application of, 256 258
in advertising, 51-54 attribujion in, 242-244 ^

in education, 54-56 characteristic?

in the mass media,
47-54
feedback in^ 245-253
in news reports, 48-50 dangers of, 245 2,6«66
50-5^
in presidential campaigns, deffpition of, 237-241 ,
^44
see also Persuasion ^ emphasis on here
attraction, 206 239-2W
Proximity and experiential learning
in,

Punishment 0 ^ - ,07 goals pfi 238-239

^ ^ , 244-245
“,244
and authoritarianism, 1 86 10
/
Openness vs. pr.vao)
as frustration, 163 researphon, 258 263 .
insufficient, 118-122
as a means of reducing 253-256
aggression, 163-167 typei of,
265-266
Encounter group
see n/fo
Random assignment in Simiiarny 710-224
experimentation, 275-2/0
_

an^sntaclion,219
7 1-/**- 223
Recency effect in persuasion, vs.
complementarity,
Reward. See Justification^ Social fompanson
25-27
Reward theory of attraction, and emotion,
205-211 e,ampl«of’\v,4
23 24
Rumors. 91-92 social reality.
Social infl'^ence
“Scapegoating, 183-185 28-33
method, 25-79,^ ';P‘’orr«prnsesro,
Scientific
93-ya Compliance,
Selective exposure, 84, jeealro
Identification,
see also Distortion
Internalization
Self-concept
attractiveness and, 1 1
see also Self-esteem
186-194
Self-esteem ^

and attraction, 2 Z 1 2 /Z
-
Social learning .e^isi
and cognitive dissonance,- 135
modification
;e»/fnBetasior
115 - 117 129 133
,
, ,

138-139 269-29.
2^22 ^ras'’=^Sce,'?S’.
and conformity, 6
67-69, definition of,
and persuasion,
prejudice and, 171 I'Z, Social statu'!.
75-23
Self-fulfilling prophecy, 13 U‘ and conformity^//,
173 , 218-219
andpreiud'«,l'9-
Self-justification,
89-139
322 The Social Animal

and authoritarianism, 186-187 cognitive dissonance and,

and conformity to the group, 108-117
22-23 distraction and, 84-85
Interdependence, 199-201 fear and, 65-69
see also Cooperation forewarning and, 81-83
Internalization, 29-33 immunization against, 81-83
credibility and, 32-34 logical vs emotional appeals and,
Irrevocability m
decision-makings 65-66
105-106 one-sided vs two-sided
arguments and, 69-71
Justification order of presentation of
of effort, 122-125 arguments and, 71-74
external vs internal, 109-113 overheard communication and,
inadequate, 109-131, 135-137 63
see also Self-justification and propaganda, 47-56
self-esteem and, 67-69, 80-81
Leadership role in the sensitivity-
size of the discrepancy and, 74-79
training group, 240-241,
Power of the influencing agent,
253-256, 265
31-32
Liking
Praise and attraction, 207-212
of communicator, 61, 64
Prejudice, 171-201
see also Attraction
and attribution, 174-176

Male chauvinism causes of, 179-190

as a form of
prejudice, 177-178 cognitive dissonance, 179, 192,
194-198
Mass media
aggression in, 158-160 conformity, 187-190
persuasion and, 47-54 economic and political
competition, 180-183
Nonconformity, 14-16 frustration and displaced
see also Conformity, Deviance aggression, 185-185
Non-conscious ideology, 178 personality, 185-187
self-justification, 179
Obedience, 34-38 socialization, 186-194
as a form of compliance, 34-38 social status, 179-182
insecurity and, 186-187 definition of, 172-176
Openness in the sensitivity-training and distortion, 174-177
group, 239-253,256-258 male chauvinism as a form of,
Opinion vs attitude, 86-87 177-178
Opinion change See Persuasion non conscious ideology' and, 178
Order of presentation of reduction of, 191-201
arguments, 71-74 by equal-status contact,
193-194
Persuasion, 47-87 by information campaigns,
attractiveness of the 191-193
communicator and, 61, 64 by'mutual interdependence,
audience characteristics and, 199-201
70, 80-83,177-178 b\ vicarious effects of
3M The Social Animal

Stereotype, 173-175, 181-182, Trustworthiness

189-190, 193,219 of communicator, 57-64
see also Credibility

Territorial behavior, 146-147 Violence

T-group, 236 factors in the reduction of,
see also Sensitivity-training 161-169
group see also Aggression