This Week's Citation Classic

" To systematically study man's behavior, it is necessary to carefully control the circumstances, which is often possible only in a psychological experiment. Yet it seemed to me that the experiment itself changes the circumstances of observation. I felt it would be necessary to examine the effects of being in an experiment in order to make inference from those circumstances to a larger life situation. It seemed naive to assume that human subjects respond only to those aspects of the experiment that we define as stimuli. Rather, they, as well as the experimenter, realized that there was a larger purpose in an experiment and that their perception of this larger purpose would affect how they perceived what was happening in the microcosm of the experiment and could dramatically alter their response. In a number of demonstrations it was possible to show how powerful the experimental setting is and how different some observations obtained in that setting would be from those obtained in another setting. " This paper reported work done at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston. It appeared at a time when there was an increasing dissatisfaction with the naive behavioral approach. The observations affected all research with human subjects, and I proposed procedures for assessing the extent to which being in an experiment is likely to affect a subject's behavior. This explains why the paper became widely cited. It also helped focus attention on the subject as an active, thinking individual rather than as a passive responder. To the extent that this and other An effort was made to analyze the An effort was made to analyze the An effort was made to analyze the An effort was made to analyze the An effort was made to analyze the psychological experiment as a unique social psychological experiment as a unique social psychological experiment as a unique social psychological experiment as a unique social psychological experiment as a unique social form of interaction, emphasizing that the form of interaction, emphasizing that the form of interaction, emphasizing that the form of interaction, emphasizing that the form of interaction, emphasizing that the subject is not merely a passive responder to subject is not merely a passive responder to subject is not merely a passive responder to subject is not merely a passive responder to subject is not merely a passive responder to stimuli but an active participant whose stimuli but an …