Behavior and attitudes
Knowing that people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves, social psychologists have longed for a "pipeline to the heart" Edward jones and harold Sigall (1971) therefore devised a bogus pipeline method that fools people into expressing their real attitudes.
In one experiment, conducted with richard page, gigall (1971) had students hold a locked wheel that, if unlocked, could turn a pointer to the left, indicating disagreement, or to the right, indicating disagreement.
when electrodes were attatched to their arms, the fake machine supposedly measured tiny muscular responses said to gauge their tendancy to turn the wheel left (disagree) or right (agree).
to demonstrate this amazing new machine, the researcher asked some students some questions. after a few moments of impressive flashing lights and whirring sounds, a meter on the machine announced the students attitude-which was nothing more than an attitude the student had earlier expressed as part of a now forgotten survey. the procedure convinced everyone.
Once the students were convinced, the attitude meter was hidden and they were asked questions conerning their attitudes toward blacks and requested to guess what the meter revealed. How do you suppose those white university students responded? compared to other students who responded through a typical questionaire, those responding by the bogus pipeline admitted more negative belief. Unlike those responding to the paper-and-pencil scale-who rated blacks as being more sesitive than other people-those responding through the bogus pipeline reversed these judgements. it was as if they were thinking, "Id better tell the truth or the experimenter will think I'm out of touch with myself"
Such findings suggest a reason why subjects who are first persuaded that lie detectors work may then admit the truth (in which case, the lie detector has worked!) they also suggest one reason for a weak attitude behaviour link: Under everyday conditions, such as those faced by tobacco executives and politicians, people sometimes express attitudes they don't privately hold.
In one experiment, conducted with richard page, gigall (1971) had students hold a locked wheel that, if unlocked, could turn a pointer to the left, indicating disagreement, or to the right, indicating disagreement.
when electrodes were attatched to their arms, the fake machine supposedly measured tiny muscular responses said to gauge their tendancy to turn the wheel left (disagree) or right (agree).
to demonstrate this amazing new machine, the researcher asked some students some questions. after a few moments of impressive flashing lights and whirring sounds, a meter on the machine announced the students attitude-which was nothing more than an attitude the student had earlier expressed as part of a now forgotten survey. the procedure convinced everyone.
Once the students were convinced, the attitude meter was hidden and they were asked questions conerning their attitudes toward blacks and requested to guess what the meter revealed. How do you suppose those white university students responded? compared to other students who responded through a typical questionaire, those responding by the bogus pipeline admitted more negative belief. Unlike those responding to the paper-and-pencil scale-who rated blacks as being more sesitive than other people-those responding through the bogus pipeline reversed these judgements. it was as if they were thinking, "Id better tell the truth or the experimenter will think I'm out of touch with myself"
Such findings suggest a reason why subjects who are first persuaded that lie detectors work may then admit the truth (in which case, the lie detector has worked!) they also suggest one reason for a weak attitude behaviour link: Under everyday conditions, such as those faced by tobacco executives and politicians, people sometimes express attitudes they don't privately hold.