ABSTRACT
As practiced in the social sciences empiricist experimentation has independent variables and control conditions and dependent variables which are either behavioral results occurring during the experiment or the results of paper and pencil tests administrated at the conclusion of the experiment. Aronson and Mills began the report of their experimental study by asserting that, “It is a frequent observation that persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more”. The studies of coercion by Tedeschi and others of his group to be briefly discussed are not a single experiment but a series of related experiments sharing a common experimental paradigm. There were a variety of artificial conditions present in the experiments, including the long sequence of trials and the TPA board through which subjects received and passed on information. The experiment by Stolte and Emerson discussed in the chapter is an application of Emerson’s power-dependence theory to three exchange structures.
