Fellow TIPSpersons -
This is a little off-the-cuff, but somebody (maybe everybody!)
in social psych knows the answer, and I don't.
I was just drafting a web version of George's Miller's "one-
is-a-bun" mnemonic image demo. It has worked extremely
well for me (in the 'live' version) for many years. I began to
wonder if maybe it hadn't worked _too_ well -- perhaps
my students are responding to the "demand characteristics"
of the demo (Orne's idea, I think) or they are showing a
sort of (undramatic version of) Milgram's "obedience to
authority." I then began to wonder if the Milgram effect
might not, indeed, be an Orne effect -- that is, if some
participants were "playing the game" of helping Milgram
demonstrate what they thought he wanted to find. I
don't have the Milgram paper(s) here at home, but I did
peek at some secondary accounts -- Hock's "Forty
studies..." and a few Intro books. I see descriptions of
"obedient subjects" and of "defiant subjects," but I see
not a word about "skeptical subjects." Did no participant
at all suspect a hoax? Did they really think psychologists
could do what it seemed Milgram wanted them to do?
I do wonder, really, if some of the sheep, and maybe
some of the goats, too, wern't "playing the game" --
not saying so being part of the game itself. (This being
what Orne suggested, although it was "hypnotic effects"
that he was concerned to debunk.
What say you?
(For those who like these web demo things, my draft
try at Pavio and Miller on mental images is at
http://www.unb.ca/psychology/likely/demos/images1.htm
First draft -- dunno if it's any good.)
-David
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David G. Likely, Department of Psychology,
University of New Brunswick
Fredericton, N. B., E3B 5A3 Canada
History of Psychology:
http://www.unb.ca/web/psychology/likely/psyc4053.htm
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