An Attributional Analysis of Experimental Norms

Abstract

Like other social situations, experimental encounters are conceived as normatively structured in terms of the dispositional attributions that participants make about one another. Experimental norms or demand characteristics provide individuals with ideas about appropriate and expected behavior. One of these norms seems to be that of reciprocity, such that a likeable experimenter is supposed to get positive responses to his stimuli from subjects interacting with him. It seemed to us that a well-known series of initiation severity in dissonance might be explicable in these terms. Thus, we conducted a simulational study where observers heard the same experiment, with spliced-in variations in introductory rationale and subjects' responses to mild or severe electrical shock. The tape modifications produced differences in observers' ratings of the experimenter, primarily along affective dimensions, and these differences related closely to stimulus-rating changes both among and within conditions. We concluded that dispositionally different experimenters are created by their participation in or responsibility for the manipulations that define conditions and that the kind of person he appears to be may often influence what people consider to be appropriate conduct toward him and expected reactions to his stimuli.