ABSTRACT
This chapter reports an outgrowth of various inquiries into the validity of the use of stooges in small-group experiments. It focuses on aspects of a stooge's behavior, irrelevant to the experimental purpose, which nevertheless may affect the naive subjects' impressions of the stooge and hence their evaluation of his behavior and the likelihood of their considering him likeable or a source of good ideas in the discussion. Since the competence scale is designed to measure essentially what this experimental variation was intended to produce, some evidence of experimental success is indicated by this one-sided relationship. Similar to earlier data, the neat-sloppy variation has virtually no relationship to experimental treatment When attractiveness of the stooge is examined with respect to treatment, further evidence of the success of the experimental variations is apparent. The chapter indicates that aspects of the stooge which were not related to the content of his behavior were nevertheless operative in his relationships with naive subjects.
