LaMa - 13 October 2009 01:02 AM

Rennet - 10 October 2009 11:51 AM

I see.  So I will just accept that this study was carried out even though nobody can say they have actually read it.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend everybody.

Just go to a University library with a psychology department and look it up. That’s what libraries are for, you know?!

People are so lazy nowadays. If it ain’t on-line, it “doesn’t exist” nowadays, in this lazy student’s era.

There is still a lot that has not been digitized yet, especially this kind of proceedings, and many monographs. If you only look for literature on-line, you are severely restricting yourself, and if you think something “doesn’t exist"because it isn’t on-line, you are fooling yourself. Lazy!

I should ad here that a quick on-line catalogue check of the University library here in Leiden reveals that the relevant proceedings series does exist and is present in the Leiden University library. I therefore see no reason to doubt that the paper quoted exists. Just look up the series in a library, as you should have done anyway. As it is an existing Proceedings series, I see, unlike you, no reason to feel the citation is “dubious”.

I checked for this article in our ridiculously huge library here at University of Chicago (seriously, just take a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenstein_Library), but we don’t have this article. How to you have it in your library? Now I’m really curious and want to read the article.

Razela - 13 October 2009 06:07 AM

I checked for this article in our ridiculously huge library here at University of Chicago (seriously, just take a look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenstein_Library), but we don’t have this article. How to you have it in your library? Now I’m really curious and want to read the article.

It’s not just size that matters, but how it’s used. 

It could be that the Chicago University library tends to concentrate more on other fields of study.  It’s more economical to stock up on works that are most often used in a particular library, and to just use some sort of inter-library loan system to get the stuff that you don’t use often.  The library building is of limited size, after all.

Maybe your university doesn’t do much with psychology, or with that particular branch of psychology.

And I’m sure that a big Brutalist-style building fits in well with all the Gothic Revival buildings there on campus. . .

Thanks for all of the help with tracking down this study and I will ignore the lazy comment about myself being lazy.  I have asked at two University libraries in the UK for the paper and so far have not been able to locate it.

As a psychology teacher and writer I have known about the study for many years as it is cited in most introductory psychology books usually as supporting evidence for Milgram’s work on obedience. 

It is interesting though that I have never met a professor or reader who has actually read the study and the reference books and many social psychological studies make more than a passing reference to the study but never contain more than a few sentences describing the study. 

Most of the classic studies in psychology (and this is one of them) are in fact available in some type of digital form (e.g. pdf) as there are a number of companies that can make profits from selling these.  One would expect that this study would be of value.

Even if the study does exist, I find it interesting that it is cited by some many psychologists on courses, in text books, in studies and so on without the authors actually reading it.  I am also guilty of this.

Rennet - 14 October 2009 01:28 PM

It is interesting though that I have never met a professor or reader who has actually read the study. . .

Most studies are only read by a handful of people.  I’d be willing to bet a fair amount that if I were to go around thirty years from now, I wouldn’t meet many people at all who read any of the studies that I published.  I wouldn’t even expect that now.

Even if the study does exist, I find it interesting that it is cited by some many psychologists on courses, in text books, in studies and so on without the authors actually reading it.  I am also guilty of this.

You’ve established that you haven’t read it.  How have you established that most other authors who include it in their writings haven’t read it?

I know. It’s funny that a study that is cited in so many papers is this difficult to track down.

Although I am happy to be wrong my guess is that if the study does exist it was given as a talk at the 1972 Annual Convention of the APA.

The earliest printed reference I can find of the study is in Milgram’s 1974 book ‘Obedience to authority: an experimental view’ where he reviews his own and others work into obedience.  On page 206 he notes that “Recently, I have learned that other experimenters (Sheridan and King 1972) have replicated the obedience experiments but with this difference: in place of a human victim, they used a genuine victim, a puppy” 

Again I still find it strange that so many texts cite the Sheridan and King study directly when I still can’t find a psychologist who has actually read it.  I have been asking around.  It is standard practice in psychology to not cite the original unless this has been accessed directly.  You would expect authors to state where the study was accessed e.g. cited in Milgram (1974) etc.

I am still awaiting a reply from the inter-library loans regarding a copy of the study.

As I suggested earlier, have you contacted Alex?  He can probably tell you if and where he saw and read the study that he cited in his book.

Thanks – I have just sent Alex an email and appreciate that he will be busy so may not receive a reply straight away. 

However, may I make it clear that when I originally posted this thread on the forum I did not know that Alex had mentioned the study in Elephants on Acid.  Therefore the thread was not in anyway a criticism of his book – which I should have read before and out of guilt have just ordered.

I am more interested to discover if the Sheridan and King study has become a type of urban myth whereby it is being repeated by academics without any check of the original source. 

I can’t speak about other academic disciplines but psychology does pride itself on checking the details of sources.  And this study seems to have escaped any rigorous checks.  As I said before it is one of the most cited studies of obedience (certainly in the UK) in text books and the best I can go with is the eminent social psychologist Stanley Milgram telling me that “Recently, I have learned that other experimenters (Sheridan and King 1972) have replicated the obedience experiments but with this difference: in place of a human victim, they used a genuine victim, a puppy” …”

I think I am right to questions this.  And of course I will be happy to disappear with my tail between my legs when I am proved wrong.

Rennet - 15 October 2009 04:31 PM

However, may I make it clear that when I originally posted this thread on the forum I did not know that Alex had mentioned the study in Elephants on Acid.  Therefore the thread was not in anyway a criticism of his book…

I never took it that way.

...which I should have read before and out of guilt have just ordered.

And Alex will be happy to hear that.

I think I am right to questions this.

Certainly.  Why wouldn’t you have a right to question it?  Especially if you’re having difficulty tracking down a copy of the study.

And of course I will be happy to disappear with my tail between my legs when I am proved wrong.

Well that would be a little exteme.  There’s plenty of forum here to enjoy and participate in, you know.  It’s not like none of us have ever been wrong. (Maybe.)

British libraries nil Alex Boese 1

Alex kindly send me a copy and it is here http://www.holah.co.uk/files/sheridan_king_1972.pdf   if you want to have a look.  It is interesting that Alex’s version (I am guessing a bit because I am still waiting for my amazon delivery) of the study in Elephants on Acid gives a more faithful account of the study than the British textbooks.  Thanks Alex.