The actual presence of another person who makes judgments within a range prescribed by the experimenter is not essential. Norman Walter (1952) demonstrated that a prescribed norm can be produced through introduction of norms attributed to institutions with high prestige. A prescribed distribution of judgments given by tape recording is similarly effective (Blake and Brehm 1954). A prescribed range can also be established, without social influence, through prior experience in a more structured situation with the light actually moving distances prescribed by the experimenter (Hoffman, Swander, Baron, and Rohrer 1953).
A technique such as the autokinetic device has two advantages for studying norm formation and other aspects of group relations. First, compared with gross behavioral observations, it yields shortcut precise judgmental indices along definite dimensions reflecting an individual’s own appraisal of the situation. Second, the judgmental or perceptual reaction is an indirect measure; that is, it is obtained in relation to performance and situations that do not appear to the subjects as directly related to their group relations, their positive or negative attitudes. The feasibility of using judgmental variations in this study constituted the basis of its use in subsequent studies dealing with various aspects of group relations.
At this point, longitudinal research will bring more concreteness to the process of norm formation. As Piaget (1932) demonstrated in his studies of rules in children’s groups, the formation of new rules or norms cannot take place until the child can perceive reciprocities among individuals. Until then the child abides by rules because people important in his or her eyes or in authority say to. But when the child is able to participate in activities and grasp the reciprocities involved and required of the situation, then new rules arise in the course of interaction, and these rules become the autonomous rules to which the child complies with inner acceptance. Although they contrast with some still prevalent psychological theories (e.g., Freud’s), these longitudinal findings are in line with observations on norm formation and internalization in adolescent cliques and other informally organized groups. These considerations are among the ones that led us to an intensive study of ego-involvements and to experimental units tapping ego-involvements in interpersonal relations and among members occupying differing status positions in a group.
These experimental units represent extensions of the summarized approach to the assessment of positive or negative interpersonal relations, status relations prevailing among the members of ingroups, and positive or negative attitudes toward given outgroups and their members.
The first units along these lines dealt with interpersonal relations. It was postulated that since estimates of future performance are one special case of judgmental activity in which motivational factors are operative, the nature of relations between individuals (positive or negative) will be a factor in determining variations in the direction of these estimates. This inference was borne out first in a study showing that estimates of future performance are significantly affected by strong positive personal ties between subjects.7 In a later unit, the assessment of personal relations through judgments of future performance was extended to include negative as well as positive interpersonal relations (Harvey and Sherif 1951). In line with the hypothesis, it was found that individuals tended to overestimate the performance of subjects with whom they had close positive ties and correspondingly to underestimate the performance of those with whom they had an antagonistic relationship.
The study of status relations in small groups followed (Harvey 1953). This study is related to feature 3 of the essential properties of groups discussed earlier in this chapter, namely, the rise and effects of a status structure. Observations by the sociologist William F. Whyte gave us valuable leads in formulating the specific problem of this study. During one period, a street corner clique that Whyte observed was engaged seriously in bowling. Performance in bowling became a sign of distinction in the group. At the initial stage, some low-status members proved themselves on a par with high-status members, including the leader. This ran counter to expectations built up in the group hierarchy. Hence, in time, the level of performance stabilized for each member in line with his relative status in the group.
In his experiment, Harvey first ascertained the status positions of individual members in adolescent cliques. He did so through status ratings by adults in close contact with the subjects, through sociometric ratings from clique members, and through observations of some of the cliques by the experimenter during their natural interaction. Cliques chosen for the final experiment were those in which there was high correspondence among the status ratings obtained.
The overall finding was that the higher the status of a member, the greater his tendency and that of other group members to overestimate his future performance. The lower the status of a group member, the less the tendency of other group members and of himself to overestimate his performance, even to the point of underestimating it. If these results are valid, it should prove possible to predict leaders and followers in informal groups through judgmental variations exhibited in over- and underestimations of performance.
The summer of 1953 marked our first attempt at a large-scale experiment starting with the experimental formation of ingroups themselves and embodying, as an integral part of the design, the assessment of psychological effects of various group products.8 This assessment involved laboratory-type tasks to be used in conjunction with observational and sociometric data. The overall plan of this experiment was essentially like that of the 1949 study summarized earlier. However, it required carrying through a stage of ingroup formation, to a stage of experimentally produced intergroup tension, and finally to integration of ingroups. The scope of this experiment, embodying laboratory-type procedures at crucial points in each stage, proved too great for a single attempt. During the period of intergroup relations, the study was terminated as an experiment owing to various difficulties and unfavorable conditions, including errors of judgment in the direction of the experiment.
The work completed covered the first two stages and will be summarized here very briefly. The plan and general hypotheses for these stages are similar, on the whole, to those of the 1949 study summarized earlier.
Prior to the experiment, subjects were interviewed and given selected tests administered by a clinical psychologist. The results of these assessments were to be related to ratings along several behavioral dimensions made by the experiment staff during the experiment proper when ingroup interaction had continued for some time.
At the end of the stage of group formation, two ingroups had formed as a consequence of the experimental conditions, although the rate of group formation and the degree of structure in the two groups were somewhat different.
Our hypothesis concerning experimental formation of ingroups, substantiated in the 1949 study, was supported. As a by-product of ingroup delineation, we again found shifts and reversals of friendship choices away from the spontaneous choices made prior to the division into groups and toward other members of the ingroup.
At the end of this phase of ingroup formation, just before the first scheduled event in a tournament between the two groups, psychological assessment of group members within each status structure was made through judgments obtained in a laboratory-type situation. In line with methodological concerns mentioned earlier in the chapter, a member of the staff introduced the experimental situation to each group with the proposal that they might like to get a little practice for the softball game scheduled later that day. When this proposal was accepted, the experimenter took each group, separately and at different times, to a large recreation hall where he suggested turning the practice into a game in which everyone took turns and made estimates