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Journal for Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis www.jasnh.com
Vol. 2, No. 1. Copyright 2003 by Reysen Group. 1539-8714
Questioning the Generality of Behavioral
Confirmation to Gender Role Stereotypes:
Does Social Status Produce Self-Verification?
Theodore W. McDonald
Boise State University
Loren L. Toussaint
Idaho State University
Many studies have been conducted to determine the degree to which people (targets) may be induced to behave
in ways which are consistent with a perceiver’s expectations (behavioral confirmation), and the degree to which
people may resist behaving in ways which are inconsistent with their self-concepts (self-verification). These seemingly
opposing tendencies, and the effects of social status on their occurrence, were systematically investigated in a
replication and extension of an influential behavioral confirmation study. Seventy-two college students participated in
a division-of-labor task. Crossing actual and perceived sex of the target, we explored the gender-stereotyped nature of
participant preferences for masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral tasks. The results failed to replicate the behavioral
confirmation effect in women, and found no evidence for such an effect in men; regardless of their perceived sex,
both groups showed self-verification of their gender self-concept. Social status was found to have a negligible effect
on when self-verification occurs. The generality of behavioral confirmation phenomena and explanatory ability of
self-verification theory are discussed.

Social psychologists have long sought to find answers to the basic question: “What causes people to act as they do?” The social
psychological literature is abundant with both theoretical and empirical articles speculating on the causes of behavior and offering
evidence for both situational and dispositional determinants of behavior, yet some questions remain not fully answered. One of these
questions concerns how the expectations of others about our attributes, abilities, or inclusion in certain social categories may actually
lead us to act in ways consistent with their expectations, even when our dominant pattern of behavior is inconsistent with these actions.
Another question involves how the expectations of others, so effective at shaping behavior in some situations, may cause us to engage
in behaviors that deliberately contradict these expectations, in an assertion of self-control and attitude-behavior consistency. These two
phenomena are known in social psychology as behavioral confirmation and self-verification, respectively (Swann & Ely, 1984). They
represent two seemingly antithetical explanations for behavior in social situations, and the relative explanatory strength of each remains
in question. The present study systematically evaluated the explanatory ability of both perspectives while replicating and re-examining
a celebrated social psychology study.
Background History

The power of expectancies held by perceivers to control the behavior of others has been documented for nearly a half-century
in the social scientific literature. Merton (1948, 1957) first coined the term “self-fulfilling prophecy” to describe situations in which the
expectancies held by a person actually cause their expectancies to be fulfilled. The most often cited example of this phenomenon comes
from the seminal work of Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968). In their field experiment, the researchers informed elementary school teachers
that randomly chosen students in their classes had been identified as “late bloomers”, intellectually gifted children who would outpace
their peers in academic performance over the course of the school year. A later examination found this expectation to be confirmed.
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) concluded that on the basis of their observations, these performance differences were caused not by
any real differences in the ability of the children, but rather more effective instructional strategies on the part of the teachers, and less
willingness to accept poor quality work from the children randomly identified as “late bloomers”.

Certainly, the findings of Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) study have strong implications regarding the lack of academic
achievement in certain populations of children (e.g., racial and ethnic minorities) who may not be expected to perform well due to
ignorance or subtle racist beliefs held by teachers or administrators. But powerful demonstrations of the self-fulfilling prophecy have
been found in other important areas as well; other researchers have found evidence of the self-fulfilling prophecy occurring in many
other situations, including job interviewing (Langer & Imber, 1980), classroom cleanliness (Miller, Brickman, & Bolen, 1975) leadership
in organizations (Eden, 1992) and even seasickness (Eden & Zuk, 1995). The ability to find evidence for self-fulfilling prophecies in such
diverse settings seems to provide some support for the generality of these phenomena.

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A special type of self-fulfilling prophecy that has engendered particular interest among
social psychologists is behavioral confirmation, in which the expectations of others induce
people to act in ways that are consistent with these expectations (Snyder, Tanke, & Bersheid,
1977). Snyder and his colleagues (e.g., Skrypnek & Snyder, 1982; Snyder, 1981; Snyder, 1992;
Snyder & Swann, 1978; Snyder, Tanke, & Bersheid, 1977), who conducted some of the earliest
and most-cited studies on behavioral confirmation, offer some excellent examples of how a
target’s behavior provides behavioral confirmation to a perceiver’s initial (and often erroneous)
belief. An excellent example comes from their study of the physical attractiveness stereotype. In
this study, Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid (1977) induced a number of college men to believe that
they were conversing via tape recorder with an attractive potential female date, and other college
men to believe that they were conversing with an unattractive potential female date. By coding
and analyzing portions of the interaction, Snyder and his colleagues (1977) concluded that
“those (female targets) who were thought to be physically attractive by their perceivers appeared
to the observer judges to manifest greater confidence, greater animation, greater enjoyment of
the conversation, and greater liking of their partners” (p. 662) than those women believed by
their perceivers to be unattractive. Clearly, the women acted in ways that were consistent with
the attractiveness stereotype activated in their dyadic partner. These findings suggest that we
as human beings, who are the targets of many perceivers in everyday life, may routinely act in
ways which are consistent not with our own attitudes, beliefs, or feelings, but rather with the
perceptions and stereotypes which others hold of us and our attributes. These results, and others
similar to them (e.g., Andersen & Bem, 1981), seem to suggest that the power of others’ beliefs
over our behaviors—even when those behaviors appear freely chosen—is extremely strong.

Although few, if any, social psychologists doubt that behavioral confirmation occurs,
many doubt that it occurs with the frequency that might be assumed given the large literature
on the topic. Even when evidence for self-fulfilling prophecies and behavioral confirmation are
found, the effects of perceiver expectancies on target behavior tend to be relatively small in
magnitude, with average effect sizes ranging from .1 to .3 (Jussim, 1991; Jussim & Eccles, 1995;
Madon, Jussim, & Eccles, 1997). Further, the changes in target behavior as a result of perceiver
expectancies are not particularly robust, according to Smith, Jussim, and Eccles (1999). These
researchers reported, after a longitudinal study of the effects of early teacher expectancy effects
on the academic achievement of children and adolescents, that although evidence for initial self-
fulfilling prophecies were present, target behavioral confirmation of early teacher expectancies
generally dissipated over time. Results such as these cast doubt over the robustness and generality
of self-fulfilling prophecies and behavioral confirmation, which Smith and her colleagues (1999)
characterize as being “neither powerful nor pervasive” (p. 548).

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Indeed, a simple observation of interpersonal dynamics in everyday life reveals that
often people do not confirm the perceptions and stereotypes held of them. For example, a
woman may resist the sexist stereotype that she knows nothing about the mechanical operation
of her automobile, or an African-American man may work harder in college to disconfirm the
racist notion that men such as he are intellectually inferior to others. In fact, there is a wealth of
research that supports the notion that people in many social situations will resist or attempt to
dispel stereotypes that are inconsistent with their self-concepts (Lecky, 1945), or how people view
themselves. Several researchers have found that people resist others’ beliefs and social feedback
about themselves when the beliefs and feedback included negative evaluations or included negative
social labels (e.g., Farina, Alan, & Saul, 1968; Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001; McNulty &
Swann, 1994; Steele, 1975), and other research suggests that people who hold a self-concept that
is negative will actually resist or attempt to disconfirm positive feedback, evaluations, and social
labels (Swann, 1997; Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989; Swann, Stein-Seroussi, & Giesler, 1992).
Such findings are particularly well documented in the study of individuals suffering from clinical
depression, who overwhelmingly tend to seek out and receive negative evaluations (Giesler, Josephs,
& Swann, 1996; Giesler & Swann, 1999), but similar findings have emerged in other areas, such as
regarding academic self-concept in children (Hay, Ashman, van Kraayenoord, & Stewart, 1999).
Central Question

Behavioral confirmation and self-verification seem to be opposing social psychological
processes, in that behavioral confirmation involves change in a target’s thoughts, feelings, or
behavior as a function of the perceiver’s beliefs, and self-verification involves cognitive, affective, or
behavioral resistance by the target against perceiver beliefs which are contradictory to the target’s
self-concept. If these processes are indeed opposing, it is important to consider which is stronger,
or at least which factors may dictate when a target’s behavior confirms or contradicts a perceiver’s
expectations. One study that successfully pitted behavioral confirmation versus self-verification was
conducted by Swann and Ely (1984), who studied the competing processes in a sample of university
women who participated in a dyadic interviewing task. Crossing the certainty level (high or low)
of perceivers about their targets (which could be either correct or incorrect) and the certainty level
(high or low) of the targets concerning their own self-concepts, Swann and Ely (1984) found results
which suggested that tendencies toward self-verification are stronger than those toward behavioral
confirmation, at least in their experimental setting; self-verification alwaysoccurred when targets
were highly certain of their self-concepts, regardless of the certainty of the perceiver’s expectations.
Self-verification also occurred reliably when neither the perceiver nor the target were highly
certain of their beliefs. The only time in which the target’s behavior reliably showed behavioral
confirmation was when perceivers were highly certain of their beliefs, and targets were uncertain
of their self-concepts.

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Swann and Ely’s (1984) experiment provides evidence for at least two conclusions. First,
it seems that motivation to provide verification of our self-concept may override the tendency to
behave in ways that are consistent with what others expect of us. Second, measurable factors, such
as certainty, may act to influence whether we engage in self-verification or behavioral confirmation.
Later studies suggest that both conclusions are valid. For example, in one of the few related studies
which evaluated behavioral confirmation and self-verification as opposing processes, Testa and
Major (1988; see also Swann, Milton, & Polzer, 2000) also found that university women tended
to respond in ways which were consistent with their own, rather than a perceiver’s, beliefs in an
interactive setting. So clearly, self-verification has been demonstrated as a process which can deter
people from behaviorally confirming the expectations held by others, and research continues on
other factors which may influence how and why we self-verify.

In addition to certainty level, some of the other tested factors believed to influence
self-verification have included a desire to remain consistent with one’s self-concept (Swann,
Stein-Seroussi, & Giesler, 1992), a desire to maintain positive evaluations (Jones, 1973), self-
esteem (Giesler, Josephs, & Swann, 1996; Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989), and self-liking and
self-confidence (Bosson & Swann, 1999). One potential influence which as yet has not been
directly studied, and which may in part dictate whether self-verification rather than behavioral
confirmation occurs, is the social status of the target. Social status is a construct that is well
established in the social scientific literature, and is known to have an influence on how people
think, feel, and act in myriad social situations. Each person carries into an interaction with
others external status characteristics, which are markers of the status ascribed to them by society.
Examples of external status characteristics include race, gender, age, and level of education; each
of these conveys important information about value, competence, and worth which is culturally
determined, and which has been shown to affect subordination and superordination in dyadic and
group settings (McDonald, Toussaint, & Schweiger, 2003; Webster & Driskell, 1985).

Ample evidence abounds which suggests that when people possess status characteristics
which are highly valued by society at large, they tend to perform better in group settings (Yoder,
Schleicher, & McDonald, 1998), and have more positive expectations about their worth and ability
to succeed in experimental tasks (McDonald et al., 2003). Thus, it seems reasonable to assume
that social status may affect the degree to which a target successfully acts in a manner consistent
with his or her self-concept; targets with high status may resist being induced to act in a manner
consistent with that typically exhibited by low status actors, while targets with low social status may
be more easily induced to act in a manner consistent with that typically exhibited with high status
actors. As mentioned previously, social status has not been directly studied in any known study of
either self-verification or behavioral confirmation, although Copeland (1994) studied the effects
of the related construct of social power. Therefore, a major impetus for the present study was the
desire to incorporate an analysis of the impact of social status on behavioral confirmation and
self-verification processes in a typical experimental paradigm.

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Study to be Replicated

A rich opportunity for examining the role of social status in behavioral confirmation
and self-verification processes can be found by extending the work of Skrypnek and Snyder
(1982), who developed an elegant experiment which is cited often in the field of behavioral
confirmation. Expanding upon previous work on stereotyping and behavioral confirmation
(e.g., Snyder, 1981), Skrypnek and Snyder (1982) were particularly interested in determining
the degree to which gender-based stereotypes may guide and influence behaviors which seem
to confirm them. In a clever study, they randomly assigned women targets, who had been
previously classified as masculine, feminine, or non-sex-typed by their scores on the Bem Sex
Role Inventory (Bem, 1974, 1977), to conditions in which their male partner (the perceiver)
either was given no information about them (no sex label), or believed them to be a man or a
woman (male label and female label). The perceiver and target, who were never introduced
and who communicated only through activating light switches to indicate their choices,
completed a division-of-labor task which featured masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral
tasks. The experiment featured two sets of exchanges. The first exchange was one which
allowed the perceiver to select his preference first and leave the alternative to be chosen or
rejected by his female partner. This exchange measured behavioral confirmation or the degree
to which the female target chose or rejected tasks consistent with the male perceiver’s gender-
based stereotype of her. For example, a male perceiver believed that the person with whom he
was working was a male. He had a choice between two tasks (a feminine one or a masculine
one) and chose the masculine task. The target was then given the choice of accepting the
remaining feminine task or rejecting the decision. Women targets that were labeled male
were more likely to reject the feminine task, thereby evidencing behavioral confirmation. The
second exchange allowed the target to select her preference first and leave the alternative to
be chosen or rejected by her male partner. This exchange measured behavioral This exchange
measured behavioral perseveration or the degree to which the female target would continue
to select, given the choice, the task consistent with the gender-based stereotype held of her
by the perceiver. The results were fascinating, revealing a main effect for label. Targets that
were labeled female chose significantly more feminine tasks than targets labeled male or not
labeled. Targets that were labeled male chose more masculine tasks than those labeled female
or not labeled. These results are particularly intriguing for two reasons. First, perceiver’s
beliefs seemed to guide the interaction and especially the behavior of the target. Second,
behavioral confirmation occurred not only when the perceiver had greater control over task
appropriation (during the first set of exchanges), but also during the second set of exchanges,
when the targets often “came to initiate behaviors ‘appropriate’ to the sex to which they had
been experimentally assigned” (Skrypnek & Snyder, 1982, p. 288).

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As researchers, we were particularly inspired by a footnote in Skrypnek and Snyder’s
(1982) article, in which the authors justified their use of only male perceivers and female
targets by stating that although using both men and women in their roles of perceiver and
target would have been more desirable, it was unfeasible, and that “we would have expected
the same results, had the roles of male and female participants been reversed” (Skrypnek &
Snyder, 1982, p. 281). Because gender is well established as an important status characteristic
(Ridgeway, Johnson, & Diekema, 1994; Snodgrass, 1985, 1992; McDonald et al., 2003),
with society traditionally ascribing more status to men than to women, and also ascribing
more status to “men’s work” than to “women’s work” (Reskin, 1988), we postulated that men
might be less likely to exhibit behavioral confirmation, by choosing stereotypically feminine
tasks, when a perceiver believed them to be women, than women would provide behavioral
confirmation by choosing stereotypically masculine tasks when a perceiver believed them
to be men. In other words, we felt that men would be more likely to self-verify, by resisting
behavioral confirmation to gender-discrepant tasks, because these tasks are ascribed less status
because they are associated with the socially-devalued role of women (Reskin, 1988). On
the other hand, we expected that women, as in Skrypnek and Snyder’s (1982) original study,
would be more likely to behaviorally confirm the expectations of a perceiver who believed her
to be a man, because the stereotypically masculine tasks are associated with the socially-valued
role of men.

In the present experiment, we attempted to create a laboratory situation similar in
most aspects to that of Skrypnek and Snyder (1982). We recruited men and women for an
experiment that was purported to be an examination of how people work together in pairs,
and which featured a division-of-labor task. Similarly to Skrypnek and Snyder (1982), we
assigned men only to the role of perceiver, but unlike in their study, we assigned both women
and men to the role of the target. By manipulating the actual and perceived sex of the target,
we created a design which would show how target men would act when they were perceived
to be a man or a woman, as well as how women would act when they were perceived to be a
man or a woman. Unlike Skrypnek and Snyder (1982), we also chose not to measure gender
identity through the use of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974, 1977), as the key results
in their study had been found regardless of the target’s gender identity. We hypothesized that,
consistent with the findings of Skrypnek and Snyder (1982), women targets who were believed
by their perceiver to be men would choose to perform more stereotypically masculine tasks,
both when this was the only task left for them by the perceiver and when they could freely
choose either task. In other words, these women would engage in behavioral confirmation
and perseveration. We also hypothesized, in contrast to the predictions made by Skrypnek
and Snyder (1982), that target men believed by their perceivers to be women would attempt to
self-verify by resisting selecting stereotypically feminine tasks, both when this task was the only
one left for them by the perceiver and when they could freely choose either task.

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Method
Participants
The participants were 72 college students from a large, midwestern university, who participated
for supplementary course credit or a five-dollar payment.1 Each of the 36 participants assigned to
the perceiver role were men, while 18 women and 18 men participants were assigned to the target
role, depending on the experimental condition. Although no other demographic information was
collected from the participants, they were recruited from a population which was 85% Caucasian,
with an average age of 26 years.
Materials
When recruited, each participant was issued an information sheet that described what was
purportedly a division of labor task, in which two students would work together to divide a
number of tasks between them. The information sheet also doubled as a sign-up sheet, and asked
the participant for their names, telephone numbers, and a brief description of themselves.

The experimental materials consisted of two lists of task-pairs to be divided between the
participants during the two phases of the experiment.2 List A and list B were each created to
offer all possible combinations of stereotypically masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral tasks
(see Appendix). The presentation of lists A and B was counterbalanced. Small slips of paper
(trial-slips) were used for participants to write down their task preference by marking an “X” or
a “check” mark next to the task that they would prefer from the following task-pair (e.g., “Wash
windows” or “Play with a yo-yo”).

1 Because women greatly outnumbered men in the population from which most of the sample was recruited
(psychology courses), men from other courses (e.g., business) were recruited. Many of these courses did not allow for
supplemental courses credit, so a $5 payment was deemed necessary for recruitment from them.

2 A list of 85 tasks were presented to the college student raters; the students were asked to rate whether
the tasks were stereotypically masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral on 7-point scales (1 = most masculine;
7 = most feminine). The 16 tasks rated closest to each end-point, with the lowest standard deviations, were selected
for masculine and feminine tasks. The 16 tasks rated closest to the scale’s midpoint were selected for gender-neutral
tasks. Ratings for each of the 16 feminine, masculine, and neutral tasks ranged from 5.95 – 6.42, 1.29 – 2.26, and 3.32
– 4.66, respectively. Some of the tasks used were drawn directly from those used by Skrypnek and Snyder (1982). No
students who were employed as raters participated in the actual experiment.

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Procedure
Each potential participant listed his or her name, telephone number, and some brief, self-
descriptive information (adjectives that they would use to describe themselves to others; this
information was never read by other participants) on the sign-up sheet at the time of recruitment.
The experimenters used this information to contact potential participants, and to arrange for a
time for their participation. Participant men were randomly assigned to either the perceiver or
target role, while women participants were assigned only to the target role. The arrangement of
assigning only men to the perceiver condition, while not ideal (as studying dyadic interactions
when a woman served as a perceiver could conceivably have altered the outcomes), was selected
for two reasons. First, it was not feasible to double the size of the design by creating a sex of
perceiver factor. Second, and more importantly, because a major purpose of the study was to
conceptually replicate and extend Skrypnek and Snyder’s (1982) work, using only men in this
role allowed us to remain consistent. Perceivers were members of dyads who were given some
general information (first name, a self-description including bogus descriptive adjectives) about
their partners, which was used to activate gender-based stereotypes. Targets were members of
the same dyads who were provided with no information regarding the gender or attributes of
their partner. Participants were assigned to groups such that four experimental conditions were
created: 1) the perceiver believed the target to be a man, when the target was in actuality a man
(MM); 2) the perceiver believed the target to be a man, when the target was in actuality a woman
(MW); 3) the perceiver believed the target to be a woman, when the target was in actuality a man
(WM); 4) and the perceiver believed the target to be a woman, when the target was in actuality a
woman (WW). Thus, 2 x 2 design was created crossing targets’ perceived sex with targets’ actual
sex.

One undergraduate research assistant met each participant when he or she arrived for the
experiment; with very few exceptions, the research assistant was the same sex as the participant
(i.e., a male research assistant met a male participant, and a female research assistant met a
female participant). The participant assigned to the perceiver role and the participant assigned
to the target role arrived at separate meeting areas on different floors of the psychology building,
where they completed informed consent forms. Then, they were ushered separately, without
having visual access to one another, to adjacent rooms in a social behavior laboratory. Once
seated in a room, the participants in each dyad were issued verbal instructions. All participants
were informed that the experimenters were conducting a study on how two people work
together on a division-of-labor task. They were informed that they were assigned to a “minimal
interaction” condition, which would require them and their co-worker to attempt to divide up a
series of work without actually verbally interacting with one another. The participants were then
presented with the task-pair sheets, and were told that they and their co-worker would attempt to
divide up the tasks between them, and that success means, for each pair of tasks, that one person
agrees to complete one task, while the other person agrees to complete the other task.

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To ensure that the participants chose tasks that they would truly be willing to
perform, each participant was informed that “in order to make the negotiating process more
personally relevant,” each of them would complete, at the end of the experiment, five of the
tasks that they had selected for themselves. They were also informed that a photograph of
them completing the tasks would also be taken. To substantiate this claim, each participant
was presented with three photographs depicting an individual (supposedly from an earlier
experimental session) engaged in a stereotypically masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral
task.3

Differential information about their partners was provided to those participants who
had been assigned to the perceiver and target roles. Perceivers were informed that “because
we usually know something about those with whom we work”, they would be allowed to view
the personal profile completed by their co-worker. They were then showed one of two bogus
profiles, to activate either a male or female stereotype. In the two conditions in which the target
was to be perceived as a man, a bogus participant named John was described. This stimulus
person purportedly described himself in a manner that was identical to the male target profile
used by Skrypnek and Snyder (1982); he was described as independent, athletic, assertive,
masculine, competitive, and ambitious. In the two conditions in which the target was to be
perceived as a woman, a bogus participant named Karen was described. Also consistent with
the descriptions used by Skrypnek and Snyder (1982), this woman was purportedly described
herself as being shy, feminine, soft-spoken, gullible, gentle, and conventional. During the time
in which purported target information was being shared with the perceiver, no information
about the perceiver was shared with the target.

3 Each participant saw a same sex actor arranging flowers in a vase, fixing a light fixture, and scoring test results.

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The method of negotiating the division of labor was identical in many respects to that
developed and used by Skrypnek and Snyder (1982) in their earlier experiment. An experimenter
informed each participant that there would be two phases of the experiment, each involving the
division of 12 task-pairs. The participants were also informed that during each phase, there were
to be up to three exchanges of preferences for them and their co-worker to attempt to divide each
task pair. On the first exchange of the first phase (Behavioral Confirmation), both members of
the dyad indicated their task preference by marking an “X” or “check”. mark next to the task
they preferred on a trial-slip. This first exchange was simultaneous, in that both perceiver and
target made their choices at the same time. This method ensured that each participant could
show their preference without this preference being affected by the choice of the co-worker. When
each participant completed their choice, the trial-slips were collected by the experimenters, who
compared them both in an adjacent lobby. If the participants had selected different tasks, the trial
was completed. If the participants had selected the same task, the second exchange was initiated.
During this exchange, the perceiver selected one of the tasks first by marking his preference on a
trial-slip; this trial-slip was then presented by an experimenter to the target, who could either select
the same task as the perceiver, or the unchosen task. If the target chose the task left unchosen by the
perceiver, the trial was successfully concluded after exchange two. If the target selected the same
task as the perceiver, exchange three was initiated. In this exchange, the trial-slip was then presented
by an experimenter to the perceiver, who could either choose the same task or the unchosen task.
If the perceiver chose the task left unchosen by the target, the trial was successfully concluded. If
the perceiver chose the task chosen by the target, the trial was concluded unsuccessfully.

The method was virtually the same during the second phase (Perseveration), with two
noteworthy differences. First, the second phase involved the use of 12 new task-pairs that had not
been featured in the first phase. Second, the order of selected choices was reversed on the second
and third exchange. That is, although the first exchange continued to feature a simultaneous
choice format, during the second phase, the target, rather than the perceiver (as in phase one)
made the first selection of a choice when the first exchange failed to produce a successful division
of the task pair. If the task chosen by the target during phase two was also chosen by the perceiver
during this same exchange, exchange three was initiated. In phase three, the perceiver selected a
task, followed by the target. If the target selected the task unchosen by the perceiver, the trial was
concluded successfully. If the target chose the task chosen by the perceiver, the trial concluded
unsuccessfully.

After the 24 trials were completed, the participants were debriefed as to the actual nature of
the study. No photographs of the participants were taken, and the experimenter explained the ruse
regarding the pictures as a precaution against participants selecting tasks during the experiment
which they would be unwilling to perform in “real life”.The participants then were issued a
supplemental course slip to provide to their instructor, or a $5 payment, and left the laboratory.

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