The scene is a University of Wisconsin classroom. A carefully planned
incident is about to occur. Of the 75 students present, only 4, A, B, C,
and D (and the instructor), are "in" on the stunt. At a given signal the
following events occur: (1) While the instructor is collecting papers
from students in the front row, A suddenly hits B with his fist, and B
retaliates by striking A with a book, and the two fall to quarreling very
loudly; (2) at the same time C throws two silver dollars into the air,
permits them to fall to the floor, and scrambles after them as they roll
away from him, and picks them up; (3) the instructor now orders A, B, and
C from the room; (4) as he does so, D simply gets up and walks from the
room at a normal gait; (5) as A, B, and C are preparing to leave, the
instructor walks to the blackboard at the front of the room, glances at
his watch, writes "9:45" on the blackboard, erases it, and writes it
again; (6) A, B, and C leave the room, and the instructor turns to the
class and says, in effect: "You have all seen what has happened, and you
know that you may very well be called upon to give testimony. Let us now
take time to write out reports of what we have observed." And with the
instructor's assistance the class composes a series of questions to give
order to their reports. The following are some of those questions and
some of the answers to which these eyewitnesses were willing to testify.
QUESTION: Where was the instructor when the disturbance began?
ANSWER: Twenty-two of the students reported that he was near the front
of the room; 20 that he was abut in the middle; and 21 that he was in the
rear. A number of students scattered all over the room said they would
have testified under oath that the instructor was at his (the student's)
desk collecting his paper!
QUESTION; Where was the instructor and what was he doing when the boys
left the room?
ANSWER; Only 5 of the 75 reported the "9:45 business" with any
accuracy. The attention of the others was obviously fixed elsewhere.
However, only six said they did not know. The others gave very definite
testimony. Three said the instructor was holding the door open for the
students to pass through. One said he was standing in the middle of the
room muttering, "I'll break this up, or know the reason why." Three
remembered him sitting dejectedly at his desk with his face buried in his
hands. The consensus of the remaining students was that he was sitting at
his desk nervoulsy toying with, variously, the papers he had collected,
class cards, his watch chain, a piece of chalk, etc. He appeared "as if
not knowing what to do," and "his face wore an expression of embarrassment
and uneasiness."
QUESTION: What did C do?
ANSWER: You will recall that C had thrown two silver dollars into the
air. They fell to the floor, and he hurried to pick them up. Some
students reported that either A or B, in their fighting, had dropped some
money; that these coins had rolled to the front of the room; and C had
scrambled to pick them up. Other students said an adjustable desk arm
from one of the classroom seats had been broken off (and A, incidentlally,
had tried to poke B with it) during the fighting; the little ratchet-ball
inside had fallen out and had rolled to the front. It was this ball that
C had rushed to pick up. The student sitting next to C, ironically
enough, insisted he had seen a little steel ball come rolling out between
C's feet and that C grabbed it and put it in his pocket.
QUESTION: How did A, B, and C look as they left the room?
ANSWER: The reports corresponded directly with the observer's attitude
toward the instructor's action. If the student felt the instructor had
been fair and justified in sending the boys from the room, then they
tended to look "embarrassed" and "ashamed." If, however, the student
thought the instructor too severe, the boys looked "angry," and "injured,"
and "abused." C's neighbor, who had perceived C do nothing more heinous
that pocket a steel ball, reported that C had looked "very angry," while A
and B appeared "sheepish."
QUESTION: What did D do?
ANSWER: This question was quite accidental. While the class was
deciding the questions to be answered for their reports, one student
asked: "Are we to include the fact that D rushed from the room at the
beginning of the disturbance:" The instructor replied noncommittally:
"Please report what you saw as completely as you can, but report not
more."
It seems highly likely that, with a vociferous struggle having just
been waged in an opposite section of the room only a few at most would
even have noticed D's casual departure. Yet the suggestion of the
student's question plus the obvious fact that D was now absent was
apparently enough to convince over 85 percent of the students that they
had seen D leave, and most of them were quite confident about the specific
manner in which he left--saying varously, that he had "rushed," "hurried,"
"bolted," or "made a wild dash from the room."
M. C. Otto, "Testimony and Human Nature," Journal of Criminal Law and
Crominoloyg, Vol. IX (1919), pp. 98-104 - transcribed from the book
"Communication and Organizational Behaivor," by William V. Haney
