was 1898 a “great date” in the history of experimental social psychology?

Journal of the History of the Behauioral Sciences 15 (1979): 323-332.

WAS 1898 A “GREAT DATE” IN THE HISTORY O F EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY?

HILARY HAINES A N D G R A H A M M. V A U G H A N

It is customary for modern social psychology textbooks to claim that experimental social psychology began in 1898, the year in which Norman Triplett published the results of his investigation into the dynamogenic factors in pacemaking and competition. An historical enquiry shows this claim to be quite without foundation, and it is postulated that the Triplett experiment functions as an “origin myth” which is sustained by inductivist approaches to the history of psychology. Early experimental studies of suggestion are here examined in order to demonstrate the difficulties involved in tracing the origins of experimental social psychology.

In 1898 a paper appeared in the American Journal of Psychology entitled “The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition.” It contained the results of an investigation by Norman Triplett into the effects of competition on motor performance Triplett had been struck by the well-known fact that cyclists attain higher speeds when paced or when in a competitive situation than when racing alone. In studying the literature on athletic achievement, he found that various theories had been put forward to explain this phenomenon. Some authors favored physical explanations: one suggested that the vacuum left behind the front machine drew the following rider along with it, while another supposed that the front bicycle served as a shelter from the wind. Other theories were psychophysiological in nature. For example, a “brain worry” theory stated that because the cyclist following the leader need not concern himself with where his rival was, he would suffer from less exhaustion of the nervous system, and consequently less muscular exhaustion. It had also been conjectured that gazing at the revolving wheels of the leading bicycle might produce a kind of hypnotic trance, which would enable greater mobilization of the energy resources. The theory which Triplett himself favored was based on the concept of “dynamogenesis,” which had been made popular by the French psychologist Charles Ftr t . Ftrt held to a version of the then-popular ideomotor theory, which stated that ideas facilitated action; so in this case, the sight of others cycling rapidly implanted the idea of this action into the cyclist’s mind, thus increasing the energy available to him.

Triplett’s belief in this explanation, along with his conviction that “competitive instincts” had been aroused, is apparent in the following quotation:

. . . the bodily presence of another rider is a stimulus to the racer in aoossing the competitive instinct;. . . another can thus be the means of releasing or freeing ner- voo p3nergy for him that he cannot of himself release; and, further,. . . the sight of movement in that other by perhaps suggesting a higher rate of speed is also an in- spiration to greater effort.2

He designed an experiment to try to show that these two factors were sufficient to explain the phenomenon. The apparatus used consisted of two fishing reels arranged side by side,

H ~ L A K Y HAINES completed her M . A . in psychology at Auckland University in 1975. She is now working on a doctoral thesis which will examine the origins of experimental social psychology.

GKAHAM VACGHAN, Ph.D. . is Associate Professor of Psychology at Auckland University. His special interests are in the field of social psychology, and he has published more than thirty papers in the areas ofsmall group behavior. attitude research, and intergroup relations. He has maintained an active interest in the historical antecedents of social psychology.

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324 HILARY HAINES A N D GRAHAM M. VAUGHAN

such that the subject could always see how well his competitor was doing. Forty children were tested on this apparatus under two different conditions: performing alone and performing with a competitor. As expected, many of the subjects performed better in the competitive situation, although some were not affected. A point usually overlooked in later accounts of this work is that a significant minority were, in fact, adversely affected. Triplett attributed this result to overstimulation arising from a desire to win. In his view, the design which he had employed did not allow any of the previously described physical theories to operate. Similarly, the “brain worry” and hypnotic trance explanations could not account for his results, so that he felt justified in concluding that a dynamogenic hypothesis (in association with the arousal of competitive instincts) had been sustained.

Triplett’s experiment is of interest to the historian of social psychology because it is viewed by some as the first social psychological experiment. This idea was implied by Gordon Allport, who said, “The first experimental problem-and indeed the only problem for the first three decades of experimental research-was formulated as follows: What change in an individual’s normal solitary performance occurs when other people are present? The first laboratory answer to this question came from Triplett ( 1897).”3 Allport saw the Triplett experiment as the beginning of the extension of the laboratory method into social psychology, this method having become firmly entrenched in general psychology with the establishment of laboratories by William James and Wilhelm Wundt in the 1870s. He also viewed Triplett as the originator of the field of research now known as “social facilitation,” a field which was later more thoroughly explored by the Germans, A. Mayer and W. Moede, and also by Floyd Allport, Gordon Allport’s brother.

Because Allport’s brief survey of the history of social psychology has since become a primary source of reference, this particular claim has attained the status of a truth. (Allport’s incorrect dating of the experiment has caused some confusion, too.) A survey of undergraduate textbooks in social psychology demonstrates that the idea is becoming more and more entrenched. As far as we know, no textbooks which appeared before 1954 (the date of Allport’s article) made this claim about Triplett, although some did discuss his work as an example of an early experiment on social facilitation. Most of the popular texts of the late 1950s and 1960s avoided attributing the first experiment in social psychology to any one person.’ However, an examination of the latest crop of textbooks shows that Triplett is now enshrined in the position given to him by Gordon Allport. The 1976 textbooks demonstrate this most emphatically, with all the texts we examined ex- cept one taking this view.6 A few of these authors mention the Triplett experiment as reputedly the first social psychological experiment, but most assert in no uncertain terms that it has priority. For example, Nickolas Cottrell claimed that “the investigation of coaction began with Triplett’s ( 1898) experiment, which, incidentally, was the first experiment of any sort in social p~ychology.”~

Allport’s incorrect dating of the experiment evidently confused some authors, for a few gave the date as 1897,’ while one text dated it 1885.8 A couple of texts even elaborated the story found in Allport, asserting that Triplett was a cycling enthusiast.1° The only modern book-length history of social psychology also champions Allport’s view. Its author, William Sahakian, in his extremely brief discussion of the origins of experimental social psychology, does entertain an alternative hypothesis when he mentions that “. . .some social psychologists trace the origins of experimental social psychology to the experiments of Braid with hypnosis in 1842.”” However, he rejects this contention (which will later be examined in some detail) and concludes that “. . .experimental social

WAS 1898 A “GREAT DATE” 325

psychology seems to have been born in 1897 with the publication of Triplett’s investigation of competition and pacemaking.”12

The purpose of this article is to discuss the claim that Triplett was social psychology’s first experimenter. Three main points will be emphasized: 1) the wish to iden- tify a “first experiment” for social psychology stems from an outmoded approach to the history of science; 2) Triplett occupies no unique place in the history of social psychology, and the claim that he was the first experimenter in this area functions as an “origin myth”; and 3) the origins of experimental social psychology have not yet been subjected to a thorough historical exploration.

ORIGIN MYTHS AND THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY In a recent article Franz Samelson criticized Gordon Allport’s history of social psy-

chology for its “Whiggish” tone, which Samelson found particularly evident in Allport’s treatment of Auguste Comte, the French philosopher.1S The term “Whiggish” derives from Herbert Butterfield, a critic of the Whig historians of nineteenth-century England. These historians assessed past conflicts in terms of their outcome, praised revolutions provided they had been successful, and used the past as the “. . . ratification, if not the glorification of the present.”” Whiggish history consists in “being wise after the e- vent,”16 rather than in coming to terms with the full complexity of events as they appeared to their participants. In the history of science such an approach is found to de- pend on the historian’s views of the nature of scientific change. It is clear that Allport held to the prevailing inductivist belief that science is a progressive endeavor which gradually uncovers the laws of Nature in all their glory. For the inductivist, the progress of science may not always be free from “contamination” by human failings. Generally, however, it advances along a forward path. Thus, the history of science becomes a history of discovery, consisting of a chronology of “great men, great insights and great dates,” to quote Robert M. Young.lS The raison d’etre of such histories has been “. . . largely ritualistic, a kind of ancestor worship.”17 Instead of instilling an awareness of the dependency of human knowledge on time and circumstance, such histories serve to rein- force the vanity of their modern readers.

Samelson contends that Allport displayed this attitude when he described Comte as, more than any other single figure, the “founder of social psychology.” Allport selectively described Comtean theory, emphasizing those aspects of it which have a modern flavor, and ignoring the religious and metaphysical propositions which were an integral part of Comte’s thought. In Samelson’s view, Allport has given social psychologists an origin myth: “Psychology’s origin myths celebrated the heroes who slew the dragon of metaphysics and rescued the fair maiden of empirical science, the lawgivers who proclaimed the end of ideology.”l8 Thus, Allport presented Comte as a suitable father of social psychology, one who envisioned a scientific social psychology untainted by metaphysical speculation.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS BEFORE 1898 It is with these considerations in mind that we turn to an examination of the origins

of experimental social psychology. Much of the remainder of this article documents social psychological experiments prior to 1898. The aim is to scotch the notion that Triplett’s experiment was the first in this field. Social psychological experiments on a variety of topics are described, and the early experimental study of suggestion is in- vestigated. The latter’s history shows how the content of a particular topic can come


more and more to emphasize social psychological factors, with the result that it is difficult to determine exactly when any given topic has become part of social psychology. In this context it is interesting to note that Triplett’s experiment was not considered social psychological when it was performed. The phrase “social psychology” was mentioned nowhere in it; and in James Mark Baldwin’s dictionary of psychology, it is classified under the title “Will” rather than the title “Individual and Social.””

Miscellaneous Topics: In Triplett’s article he claimed that the effect of the presence of others on motor

abilities had previously been studied: “Manouvrier, in his dynamometric studies found that his subject increased the energy of his movement when spectators were present.”20 So although Triplett may have been the first to study competition experimentally, he was not the first to study the problem mentioned in the Allport article: “What change in an individual’s normal solitary performance occurs when other people are present?” (in other words, the topic now known as “social facilitation”).21 It is difficult to understand how Allport could have overlooked this reference in Triplett’s own work to Manouvrier, obscure as this early experiment may have been.22

Leaving “social facilitation” as a topic quite aside, a glance through the early psychological journals reveals two experiments which could be considered social psychological. Joseph Jastrow, in 1894, produced an article entitled “Community and Association of Ideas: A Statistical This was a report of a word association experiment, by means of which Jastrow argued that there exists a “community of ideas” among people, in that first associations to simple objects are fairly standard; however, as the number of associations increases, responses become more original. The phrase “community of ideas” has social psychological implications, for example, for the discussion of the nature of the social mind, a topic then fashionable. In common with Triplett, however, Jastrow did not relate his experimental findings to any contemporary social psychological discussions. Nor did his work stimulate any great body of research, although his assertions about sex differences in association were taken up and shown to be incorrect by Cordelia Nevers in 1895.24

A more explicitly social psychological experiment was conducted by Josiah Royce, who presented the results in his “Preliminary Report on Imitation,” published in 1895.25 This experiment differed from Jastrow’s and Triplett’s in that it was intended to be relevant to social psychology. At that time imitation was regarded by many as the basis of all social behavior; thus Royce preceded his description of the experiment with a long discussion of Baldwin’s and Tarde’s theories of imitation. Royce’s experiment, which was supervised by Hugo Miinsterberg, sounds peculiar to the modern psychologist, for it was carried out in the classical tradition of introspective experiments. Trained introspec- tionists were asked to imitate various series of rhythmical taps and then to report on their experiences. Royce found the results rather disappointing, for a wide variety of experiences occurred: some subjects had predominantly visual images, others had motor sensations, and so on. He had also recorded some objective data, but he made no use of this in his discussion. Presumably the lack of consistent findings discouraged Royce from experimenting further in this vein, as none of his subsequent publications dealt with imitation. So, despite this experiment’s lack of success in its own terms, it was clearly an attempt to bring a social process (in this case, imitation) into the laboratory and there to explore its workings.

Francis Galton, perhaps psychology’s greatest innovator, made some preliminary

327 WAS 1898 A “GREAT DATE”

experiments on a social psychological topic in 1886. The following description is related in Galton’s own words:

. . . when two persons have an “inclination” to one another, they visibly incline or slope together when sitting side by side or at a dinner table, and they throw the stress of their weights on the near legs of their chairs. It does not require much ingenuity to arrange a pressure gauge with an index and dial to indicate changes in stress, but it is difficult to devise an arrangement that shall fulfill the threefold condition of being effective, not attracting notice and being applicable to ordinary furniture. I made some rude experiments, but being busy with other matters, have not carried them on as I had hoped.26

No one, however, followed up Galton’s bold suggestion.

Experimental Studies of Suggestion The historical development of experimental studies of suggestion illustrates two of

the themes of this article: that experiments with some social psychological content were being made before Triplett’s, and, more important, that it can be difficult to decide whether or not a certain experiment constitutes a part of social psychology. This difficulty stems from the fact that the investigation of a particular topic may increase in social psychological content from a state of being part of individual psychology to being a recognized part of social psychology. As Gardner and Lois Murphy said of early studies: “. . . many students of suggestion, competition, and even social co-operation seem to have conceived of their work as an aspect of some research in individual psy- c h o l ~ g y . ” ~ ~

Before commencing a description of early studies of suggestion, it should be pointed out that the following evidence not only contradicts Allport’s implication that Triplett performed the first social psychological experiment, but also his claim that what is now known as “social facilitation” was this discipline’s first and only experimental problem for the first thirty years of research (that is, from the late 1890s to the late 1920s). The miscellaneous experiments dealt with above do not really represent an “experimental problem” in social psychology. Suggestion, however, certainly was such an experimental problem. Allport did devote space to a discussion of the history of suggestion as a social psychological topic, but he emphasized theoretical applications of this concept to social phenomena. He mentioned Alfred Binet, whose work, as we shall see, was of great importance, but he did not refer to him in his section on the beginnings of objective studies.

However, not all social psychologists have ignored the important role these early studies played in the development of experimental social psychology. Murphy and Murphy asserted that suggestion was social psychology’s first experimental problem and that it was first put on a scientific basis by the British medical practitioner James Braid between 1841 and 1860.28 This assertion provides an alternative date of origin for experimental social psychology. An historical analysis, however, shows that there are no good grounds for according Braid the honor of scientifically formulating social psychology’s first experimental problem. Although it is true that Braid was largely responsi- ble for making the study of hypnosis respectable, because he offered a quasi- physiological theory of this state, his conceptualization of the process of suggestion was not particularly original; nor was it social psychological in tone.zB The meaning of the term “suggestion” has changed over the years. In the time of Braid, “suggestion” carried no connotations of interpersonal influence, as it does today. During that period in the history of psychology, “suggestion” referred to the process by which one idea suggests,


or leads on to another; this usage derived from the Scottish philosopher, Thomas Brown, who had formulated various laws of suggestion, which were often also referred to as laws of association. So when Braid used this word in attempting to explain hypnotic phenomena, he was not producing a social psychological explanation; rather, he was asserting that in the hypnotic state, ideas suggested to the mind of the subject (whether by the hypnotist or arising spontaneously) were difficult to resist, because of the narrow state of consciousness characteristic of hypnosis. Braid came to believe, in his later theories, that hypnosis could be induced by verbal suggestions rather than passes and even self-induced; thus he maintained that hypnosis was a psychophysiological state.” Braid’s work actually introduced a period in the history of hypnotic theory in which interpersonal processes were disregarded, as Leon Chertok has demon~t ra t ed .~~ Mesmer’s “odylic force” which was held to flow between operator and patient was certainly a mystical conception, but it did have the merit of presenting hypnosis as being a two- person process, rather than a peculiar psychological state which could be just as readily induced by a trained subject as by a hypnotist.

The term “suggestion” only took on its modern meaning with the work of the French physician Bernheim, who is well known for his famous disputes with Charcot on the nature of hypnosis. Bernheim asserted that hypnosis was nothing but suggestion, and that nearly everyone could be hypnotized because nearly everyone was suggestible (that is, open to interpersonal influences); whereas Charcot believed that hypnosis was a neurological state which could only be produced in hysterics. Although interpersonal processes played an implicit role in Bernheim’s concept of suggestion, he failed to come to grips with these processes, preferring to expend his energies combatting Charcot and his disciples. Thus he was criticized as follows: “In Bernheim’s hands the word ‘suggestion’ has acquired an entirely new signification, and differs only in name from the ‘odylic’ force of the rne~meris ts .”~~ This criticism was not without justification, but, as so often happens in the history of science, the temporary increase in the vagueness of a concept allows it later to be redefined in a more fruitful manner. The result of Bernheim’s treating hypnosis as nothing other than heightened suggestibility was that the attention of many theorists was drawn to the processes of suggestion as they occurred in everyday life. Those interested in the behavior of crowds in particular, found Bernheim a provocative source. Gustave Le Bon, in his popular work, The Crowd (first published in 1895), fre- quently mentioned the excessive suggestibility of crowds, and other social theorists used the concept of suggestion to explain much of man’s irrational behavior.s3 So it was in the last decade of the nineteenth century that “suggestion” acquired the meaning which it still has for psychologists today. By 1901 Baldwin was able to say, in his Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, that the use of “suggestion” as an approximate synonym for “association” was now ~utdated.~‘

A concomitant of the increased use of suggestion as an explanation of social behavior was the increase in experimental studies of suggestion in normal subjects without recourse to hypnosis. Alfred Binet in his book La suggestibilite, published in 1900, reviewed the brief history of such By 1900 quite a number had been carried out, but most studied “suggestion by a directing idea,” in Binet’s view. A typical experiment in this format was C . E. Seashore’s in 1895. He found that a group of students holding onto a wire would feel warmth when they thought that the wire had been connected to a battery, although in fact it had not. Although these experiments were an exciting display of the power of suggestion in the waking state, Binet felt that they did not throw new light on the mechanism of suggestion. The latter, he argued, contained as yet unexplored elements of social influence.

329 WAS 1898 A “GREAT DATE”

Binet himself, in collaboration with Victor Henri, performed one of the earliest experimental studies of suggestibility outside the hypnotic s i t ~ a t i o n . ~ ~ In this experiment, an awareness of social forces at work was demonstrated. With children as their subjects, they made use of a procedure which was to become a standardized method in the study of suggestibility. The children were shown a card on which were drawn lines of varying lengths; next they were shown another card which had but one line on it, and they were asked to say which line on the original card matched this new line in length. After a few dummy runs, when the children were shown lines which always corresponded to one on the original card, they were given a line to compare which was clearly not the same as any of the group on the card. I t was found that many of the children would nevertheless match this line with one of those on the original card. The dummy run was held to con- stitute the suggestion. With this format, Binet and Henri were able to study suggestion in various conditions. Most germane to our particular interest was their study of suggestion in a group situation. They assembled groups of four children, put them through the standard procedure, and instead of getting them to write down their answers, they asked the children to call them out. In this manner, they could see whether the first child to answer would influence the others in the group. This proved to be the case. If the first child fell for the suggestion, the other children usually did, too; if, however, the first child claimed that the line was different from any on the comparison card, the other children would usually go along with this. Binet and Henri found that the “contagion” effect was less marked with older pupils. They also noted that the personality of the experimenter must have an incalculable effect on the results of this kind of e~periment.~’

Another early experiment discussed by Binet was that performed in 1896 by an Italian, Vitali. Vitali attempted to replicate and extend the original experiment of Binet and Henri, using a different experimental situation, which involved measurement of the two-point threshold for touch. He stimulated the children at two points close together on their skin, asked them how many points they could feel, and when they replied “two,” queried them. Suggestibility was measured by recording changes of opinion following this query. Vitali, as had Binet and Henri, noticed the influence of the personality of the experimenter, obtaining different results with different experimenters.

Henri and G. Tawney also studied suggestibility by means of the tactile sense. In 1896 they carried out an experiment with the following procedure. They would stimulate one point on the skin, and when their subjects claimed that they had felt one point, they would show them the two-pointed compass which had purportedly been used for stimula- tion. The subjects’ changes of opinion were then recorded. Binet regarded this experiment as a study of suggestion caused by a directing idea. However, he thought that the reason behind the subject’s acceptance of this idea was that they had confidence in the honesty of the experimenter: “In fact, since in psychological laboratories one seldom per- forms experiments on suggestion, pupils are not used to being deceived, and they do not dream of distrusting what is said to them. Therefore there is suggestion in the sense of confidence rather than in the sense of obedience.’’a8 Modern social psychologists would envy these investigators the credulity of their subjects!

The above experiments dealing with suggestion were all completed before 1898. In the earliest experiments there appears to have been little awareness of social psychological variables. So when could it be said that the experimental study of suggestion became part of social psychology? Because the process was gradual, we cannot answer with a date. It is possible, however, to recognize the beginnings of an interest in social variables within particular experiments (Binet and Henri, Vitali, Henri and Tawney). In the years that followed, social variables thought to be integral to the suggestion process

3 30 HILARY HAINES A N D G R A H A M M. V A U G H A N

were explored in much greater detail. Some of the most notable early investigators in this field were Boris Sidis and Binet, whose works are of great importance in the history of social psychology.s8 We exclude them from our survey, however, since the focus is on experiments conducted prior to the magical date, 1898.

CONCLUSIONS Triplett did not exactly slay the dragon of metaphysics, to use Samelson’s colorful

phrase. So why is it that his work serves as a convenient origin myth for social psychologists? First, and most important, is the wish of those who hold an inductive view of science to make the progress of social psychology seem cumulative. Triplett’s experiment concerned a problem, social facilitation, which has been regarded throughout the present century as an integral part,of social psychology. It was a field of research which was certainly still lively when Allport came to write his history. And, for the inductivist historian, this field of research had the merit of demonstrating gains in knowledge which had been acquired in a roughly linear fashion. The problem could be shown as having been first explored by Triplett in a crude sort of way, and then having been subjected to more thorough investigation by Mayer, Moede, and Floyd Allport. Allport, who had carefully distinguished between face-to-face groups and interacting groups, and also conceptually separated competition effects from mere social facilitation effects, could be seen as paving the way for the multitude of experimental studies on groups in future years. Therefore, to show that the first social psychological experiment concerned social facilitation conveys a sense of historical continuity and gives to the reader a feeling that social psychology has been making consistent progress since its inception.

The early experimental studies of suggestion could not have been formed into an equally satisfying origin myth, because the topic of suggestion has at times been un- fashionable. Even though the early studies of suggestion exerted far more influence on the social psychology of the first two decades of the twentieth century (in both the experimental and theoretical sense) than did Triplett’s study, its relative exclusion nowadays from the domain of interests of social psychologists means that it is not such a good candidate for the honor of being the first experimental problem.

The second reason for the ascendancy of “Triplett, 1898” is straightforward, and easily remedied. It is, to put it simply, ignorance. There have been no detailed studies of the origins of experimental social psychology. The lack of historical studies in this area, as in all fields of psychology, plays into the hands of the inductivists, enabling them to ex- hibit an unchallenged selectivity in their choice of forefathers, a choice which may often be parochial, as is the case with the Triplett experiment.

To sum up, this article has concentrated on experiments relevant to social psychology which were performed prior to 1898, and the aim has been to show that this is not a “great date” in social psychology’s history. A truly historical investigation into the origins of experimental social psychology remains to be done. Such a task would involve a detailed examination of the period from the late nineteenth century until around 1930, by which time social psychology was well established as an experimental discipline. Interesting questions remain to be answered. Did experimental social psychology have its origin in the systematic treatments of the subject which began in the late nineteenth century? Alternatively, did it arise independently as a natural extension of general experimental psychology, the boundaries of which were enlarged by the increasing pop- ularity of functionalist and behaviorist philosophies? What contributions to the forma- tion of this new discipline were made by comparative psychology, abnormal psychology,

WAS 1898 A “GREAT DATE” 33 1

child study, and applied psychology? The answers to these questions are not to be found in currently available treatments of the origins of this discipline, and await further research.

NOTES

1. Norman Triplett, “The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition,” American Journal of

2. Ibid., p. 516. 3. Gordon W. Allport, “The Historical Background of Modern Social Psychology,” in The Handbook of

Social Psychology, ed. Gardner Lindzey, 2 vols. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1954). 1:46. 4. Triplett’s paper was published in volume nine of the American Journal of Psychology, which included

the years 1897 and 1898. It should also be mentioned that Allport made another error in his discussion of the Triplett experiment, with his assertion that Triplett failed to distinguish between competition and simple dynamogenic effects. Triplett did in fact make this distinction conceptually, although it was not incorporated into his experimental design. This error has the effect of exaggerating the progressiveness of the later experimental work mentioned by Allport. (We gratefully acknowledge Franz Samelson’s help on this point [per- sonal communication].)

One exception was the text by David Krech, Richard S . Crutchfield, and Egerton L. Ballachey, In- dividual in Society (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), which did refer to the Triplett experiment as social psychology’s first.

Recent texts which refer to Triplett in this way are: Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1972), p. xii; Albert A. Harrison, Individuals and Groups: Understanding Social Behaviour (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks-Cole, 1976), p. 27; Henry Clay Lindgren, An Introduction to Social Psychology, 2d ed. (New York: Wiley, 1973), p. 14; Charles G. McClintock, ed., Experimental Social Psychology (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1972), in the section “Social Facilitation” by Nickolas B. Cottrell, p. 188; Patricia Niles Middlebrook, Social Psychology and Modern Life (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 42; Bertram H. Ravin and Jeffrey Z . Rubin, Social Psychology: People in Groups (New York: Wiley, 1976), p. 183; Ber- nard Seidenberg and Alvin Snadowsky, eds., Social Psychology: An Introduction (New York: Free Press, 1976), in the section “Interpersonal Influence and Conformity” by Richard H. Willis and John M. Levine, p. 313; Lawrence J . Severy, John C. Brigham, and Barry R. Schlenker, A Contemporary Introduction to Social Psychology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), p. 35 1; Stephen Worchel and Joel Cooper, Understanding Social Psychology (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1976), p. 443.

Psychology 9 (1898): 507-533.

5.

6.

7. 8.

Cottrell, “Social Facilitation,” in McClintock, Experimental Social Psychology, p. 188. Aronson, Social Animal, p. xii; Harrison, Individuals and Groups, p. 27; Severy, Brigham, and

Schlenker, Contemporary Introduction, p. 351. It is a matter of conjecture as to whether Gordon Allport’s error was based on a similar misdating in his brother Floyd’s text (Floyd H . Allport, Social Psychology (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924). 9.

10. Influence,” in Seidenberg and Snadowsky, Social Psychology, p. 31 3. 1 I . 12. Ibid., p. 72. 13. Auguste Comte,” Journal of fhe Theory of Social Eehaviour 4 (1974): 217-231. 14. 15. 16. (1966): 1-51, p. 36. 17. Agassi, Historiography, p. vii. 18. 19. 1901). 2: 619. 20. 2 I .

Willis and Levine, “Interpersonal Influence,” in Seidenberg and Snadowsky, Social Psychology, p. 313. Severy, Brigham, and Schlenker, Confemporary Introduction, p. 35 I ; Willis and Levine, “Interpersonal

William S . Sahakian, Systematic Social Psychology (New York: Chandler, 1974), p. 3.

Franz Samelson, “History, Origin Myth and Ideology: The ‘Discovery’ of Social Psychology by

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London: G . Bell & Sons, 1931), p. V .

Joseph Agassi, Towards an Historiography of Science (The Hague: Mouton, 1963), p. viii. Robert M. Young, “Scholarship and the History of the Behavioural Sciences,” History ofScience 5

Samelson, “History, Origin Myth and Ideology,” p. 228. James Mark Baldwin, ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, 3 vols. (New York: Macmillan,

Triplett, “Dynamogenic Factors,” p. 530. Allport, “Historical Background,” p. 46.


22. We have not been able to trace the original account of Manouvrier’s work, but reference was made to it in Charles F6r6, Sensation et mouvement (Paris: Alcan, 1900). a book which Triplett drew heavily upon for his theoretical account of dynamogenesis. F6rt reported that Manouvrier also found that the presence of a member of the opposite sex heightened even further his subject’s dynamogenic responses. 23. Joseph Jastrow, “Community and Association of Ideas: A Statistical Study,” Psychological Review 2

24. Cordelia C. Nevers, “Dr. Jastrow on Community of Ideas of Men and Women,” Psychological Review

25. Josiah Royce, “Preliminary Report on Imitation,” Psychological Review 2 (1895): 363-367. 26. Karl Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours ofFrancis Galton, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1924), 2: 270. It is interesting that so much time elapsed before psychologists once again became interested in “body language.” 27. Gardner and Lois B. Murphy, Experimental Social Psychology (New York: Harper, 1931), p. 36. 28. Murphy and Murphy, Experimental Social Psychology, p. 5 . 29. James Braid, Neurypnology (London: J. Churchill, 1843), p. 19. 30. J. Milne Bramwell, Hypnotism: Its History, Practice and Theory (1903; reprint ed., New York: Yoseloff, 1956). 31. Leon Chertok, “Theory of Hypnosis Since the First International Congress,” American Journal of Psychotherapy 21 (1967): 62-73. 32. Bramwell, Hypnotism, p. 33. 33. Gustave Le Bon, 34. Baldwin, Dictionary, vol. 3B, p. 1188. 35. Alfred Binet, La suggestibilitk (Paris: Schleicher, 1900). 36. Alfred Binet and Victor Henri, “De la suggestibilitt naturelle chez les enfants,” Revuephilosophique 38

37. One wonders whether this experiment in any way inspired Solomon Asch’s famous studies of conformity. 38. Binet, La suggestibilitt, p. 24. 39. Boris Sidis, Psychology of Suggestion: Research into the Subconscious Nature of Man and Society (New York: Appleton, 1898); Binet, La suggestibilitt.

(1894): 152-158.

2 (1895): 363-367.

The Crowd (1895; reprint ed., New York: Viking, 1960).

(1894): 337-347.

was 1898 a “great date” in the history of experimental social psychology?

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