Bickman Study

• a study into the social power of a uniform
• Background

  obedience to authority is based on a number of different factors- the clothing people wear often highlights them as someone in a position of authority, like a police officer in uniform.
• Aim


  To investigate the degree of social power the uniform has on other people.
• Method

  field experiment (a street in New York), Independent measures design (participants only saw one of three levels of authority, civilian, milkman, and guard). 
• Materials

  the tree uniforms. 153 adult’s pedestrians aged between 18-61 years (age was an estimate as this was an opportunistic sample).
• Procedure

  4 white experimenters aged 18-20 years of a similar build and so all fitted the same size suit. They were not told the purpose of the experiment and told to act in exactly the same way regardless of the uniform they were wearing. Conducted on a weekday afternoon.
• Three different uniforms:

  1.    Civilian – lowest authority, sports jacket and a tie

  2.    Milkman – slightly higher authority, dressed in white, carrying milkman’s basket with empty milk bottles.

  3.    Guard – highest authority, similar to policeman, but with a different badge and insignia no gun was carried.
• Results

  there was no significant difference in obedience between the civilian and the milkman uniforms across all three scenarios. The guard was obeyed significantly more than the civilian.