A preliminary investigation was undertaken to scrutinize the relationship between hypnotic susceptibility, as measured by the Spiegel Hypnotic Induction Profile, and conformity, determined by means of the classic Asch (1) paradigm. It was assumed that suggestibility is the construct mediating the synthesis of these two research areas. The profile was administered to 8 male and 2 female subjects following which they participated in the Asch compliance paradigm of line-length estimation. Significant correlations between hypnotic susceptibility and conformity as well as between hypnotic susceptibility and grade of conformity suggest that hypnotic susceptibility is a reasonable predictor of conformity, and both appear to be tied to the construct of suggestibility. These data lend validational support to Spiegel's profile which has come under dispute in recent years.
The present studies sought to investigate variables related to the mediation of the experimenter's expectancy effect and the generality of this phenomenon. It was hypothesized that the type of experimental task, defined by the presence or absence of factual or emotional components, and the structure of the task, defined by the ambiguity which the subject faces in making the judgments required of him, exert a moderating influence on the transmission of the experimenter's expectancy. Two studies employing a Rosenthal replication and numerosity estimation (Study 1) and a modified Rosenthal replication and modified numerosity estimation (Study 2) were run. 40 male experimenters ran 154 female subjects in both conditions across each of these studies. Subjects rated photographs of faces for success or failure in the Rosenthal replications and the number of dots per stimulus card in the numerosity estimations, with positive and negative expectancies induced in the former and over- and underestimation biases in the latter. It was concluded that the type of task and task-structure are indeed crucial variables for the transmission of the experimenter's expectancy.
Psychology finds itself faced with a paradox owing to epistemological and extraepistemological considerations. The paradox in question stems from the problem of discovery, which some consider to be the life-blood of science (Hanson, 1965). It is argued that psychology, in virtue of its strict hypotheticalism and its faithful adherence to scientific conventionality, has virtually foreclosed the possibility of discovery in its own practice. Moreover, its scientistic character has, ironically, rendered it less scientific. Furthermore, in light of its ambiguous philosophical underpinning, namely, the assumption of positivism and scientific realism, inter alia, psychology has tended to disqualify other competing, perhaps more authentic, epistemologies out of hand; consequently, it has generated very little coherent theory. Psychology's extant failure to disambiguate its fundamental postulates, combined with its relative methodological exclusivity, has rendered it somewhat blind to its past and augurs poorly for its future. Finally, transcendental realism (Bhaskar, 1978) is discussed as possibly a more apposite philosophical substrate which, if understood and faithfully applied, would liberalize psychology epistemologically and render it more philosophically coherent.
128 Ss were given the task of estimating the IQs of 10 women whose photographs they viewed. 4 Es were assigned to each of 4 conditions, 3 of which were of expectancy inducement and one of which was of no-expectancy inducement. No expectancy effects were observed.
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