Citation

Sorokin PA, Boldyreff JW. Am. J. Sociol. 1932; 37(5): 720-737.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1932, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/215854

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article summarizes an experimental study of the influence of two kinds of suggestions-a false dogmatic and a "persuasive"-on the discrimination and the valuation of people. In all, 1,484 persons were experimented upon, taken individually and in groups of various size. Contrary to the signalization of the reality of the sound-stimuli, about 96 per cent of all subjects followed the false dogmatic suggestion; only about 4 per cent of the subject were able to hold their sense of discrimination against the impact of the false dogmatic suggestion. The "persuasive" suggestion explicitly solicited the critical judgment of the subjects; 58.9 percent followed it, 20.8 per cent "suspended their judgment," and 15.9 per cent disagreed with it. The following relationship between the success of the suggestions and the size of the group was observed: the group of about twenty-four persons happened to have the highest percentage of agreement with the second suggestion, the percentage of acceptance of the first suggestion tended to decrease with the increase in the size of the group, while that of acceptance of the second suggestion tended to increase in the size of the group. The popular opinion, that the larger the group the more suggestive it is, appears to be considerably contradicted by these data. The study further discloses a conspicuous and curious tendency toward a "logical rationalization of blunders" in the way of building a "tower of reasons" for the justification of an error made. Several other details are touched upon in the course of the paper.