To test compliance with authority, a classical experiment insocial psychology
requires subjects to administer increasingly painful electricshocks to seemingly
helpless victims who agonize in an adjacent room.* Each subjectearns a score
between 0 and 30, depending on the point at which the subjectrefuses to comply
with authority—an investigator, dressed in a white lab coat, whoorders the
administration of increasingly intense shocks. A score of 0signifies the subject’s
unwillingness to comply at the very outset, and a score of 30signifies the subject’s
willingness to comply completely with the experimenter’sorders.
Ignore the very real ethical issues raised by this type ofexperiment, and assume
that you want to study the effect of a “committee atmosphere” oncompliance with
authority. In one condition, shocks are administered only after anaffirmative decision
by the committee, consisting of one real subject and two associatesof the investigator,
who act as subjects but, in fact, merely go along with the decisionof the real
subject. In the other condition, shocks are administered only afteran affirmative
decision by a solitary real subject.
A total of 12 subjects are randomly assigned, in equal numbers,to the committee
condition (X1) and to the solitary condition (X2). A compliancescore is obtained for
each subject. Use t to test the null hypothesis at the .05 level ofsignificance.
COMPLIANCE SCORES
COMMITTEE SOLITARY
2 3
5 8
20 7
15 10
4 14
10 0
