it, and still none of the leaders. Contrast this with what happened in a
second troop where wheat was introduced first to the leader: Wheat
eating—to this point unknown to these monkeys—spread through the
whole colony within four hours.
- The experiment was performed by Wilson (1968).
- The study on children’s judgments of coins was done by Bruner
and Goodman (1947). The study on college students’ judgments was
done by Dukes and Bevan (1952). In addition to the relationship between
importance (status) and perceived size that both of these experiments
show, there is even some evidence that the importance we assign to
our identity is reflected in the size of a frequent symbol of that identity:
our signature. The psychologist Richard Zweigenhaft (1970) has collec-
ted data suggesting that as a man’s sense of his own status grows, so
does the size of his signature. This finding may give us a secret way of
discovering how the people around us view their own status and im-
portance: Simply compare the size of their signature to that of their
other handwriting. - Subhumans are not alone in this regard, even in modern times. For
example, since 1900 the U.S. presidency has been won by the taller of
the major-party candidates in twenty-one of the twenty-four elections. - From Hofling et al. (1966).
- Additional data collected in the same study suggest that nurses
may not be conscious of the extent to which the title Doctor sways their
judgments and actions. A separate group of thirty-three nurses and
student nurses were asked what they would have done in the experi-
mental situation. Contrary to the actual findings, only two predicted
that they would have given the medication as ordered. - See Bickman (1974) for a complete account of this research. Similar
results have been obtained when the requester was female (Bushman,
1988). - This experiment was conducted by Lefkowitz, Blake, and Mouton
(1955). - The horn-honking study was published in 1968 by Anthony Doob
and Alan Gross. - For evidence, see Choo (1964), and McGuinnies and Ward (1980).
- See Settle and Gorden (1974), Smith and Hunt (1978), and Hunt,
Domzal, and Kernan (1981).
CHAPTER 7 (PAGES 237–272)
- The home-insulation study was done by Gonzales, Costanzo, and
Aronson (1988) in northern California; the breast-examination work
was conducted by Meyerwitz and Chaiken (1987) in New York City.
Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 221