Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1970-00589-001?doi=1

This won an Ig Nobel prize this year. The really important Milgram experiment.

PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA]
Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward
REFERENCE: “Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size,” Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 13, no. 2, 1969, pp. 79-82. psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0028070
WHO TOOK PART IN THE CEREMONY: Len Bickman

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Moderating:

@Tatterdemalion, please don’t use links as thread titles. Thanks.

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I’ve wondered how long a line would be if $1.00 bills were given away free. Then how long would a line be for $5.00 bills, $10.00 bills, etc.

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So what conclusion did they find?

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From the abstract,

Abstract

Reports on the relationship between the size of a stimulus crowd, standing on a busy city street looking up at a building, and the response of passersby. As the size of the stimulus crowd was increased a greater proportion of passersby adopted the behavior of the crowd. Ss were 1424 pedestrians. The results suggest a modification of the J. S. Coleman and J. James (see 36:1) model of the size of free-forming groups to include a contagion assumption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

It’s about what you’d expect I guess. I just thought it was funny that Milgram was involved with it.

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Bickman actually uploaded the paper to Research Gate.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leonard-Bickman/publication/232493453_Note_on_the_Drawing_Power_of_Crowds_of_Different_Size/links/0deec52cf116b0afd3000000/Note-on-the-Drawing-Power-of-Crowds-of-Different-Size.pdf?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uIiwicGFnZSI6InB1YmxpY2F0aW9uRG93bmxvYWQifX0

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Hm, the number who look up seems to be fairly stable once the crowd size reaches 5, but the number of stoppers appears to still be growing fairly steadily. Obviously that curve must also eventually level off, if for no other reason than that the percentage can’t exceed 100, but where? Clearly, more research is needed.

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Let’s do an update study!

I’m also going to argue that the percentage stopping won’t be asymptotic to the percentage looking up, it will exceed it, because with enough people, pedestrian traffic will grind to a stop, and many will be too impatient to look up.

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They needed to to do the obvious followup. That is, have random people in the crowd of up-lookers cry out lines like:

“look up in the sky!”
“it’s a bird!”
“it’s a plane!”

and see if the number of passers-by who stop increase.

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Gee, ain’t it wonderful to see what professors can spend their time on?
We played this game in my college dorm 50 years ago.

On a warm sunny day, one person (the instigator) crawls on the grass outside the door to the cafeteria, looking for her “lost” contact lens. A bunch of other passers-by join her to help, all crawling around on the grass.

Then the instigator stands up quietly, slinks away unnoticed.-And goes into the cafeteria to eat, enjoying quick service because the line is now much shorter.

We analyzed the results precisely and scientifically.—And determined that the number of passers-by who offered to stop and help was directly proportional to the instigator’s bra size. :slight_smile:

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There are certain bits of research where you really don’t need to gather data to know the conclusion. This is one of those times.