Hadley Cantril

Hadley Cantril

Hadley Cantril was a psychologist at Princeton who co-authored the 1954 study They saw a game with Albert Hastorf of Dartmouth.

Who they are

Cantril worked at Princeton when the football study was published. With Hastorf, who was at Dartmouth, he compared how students at the two universities described and counted infractions in a 1951 game between their teams.

Key papers

Hastorf, A. H., & Cantril, H. (1954). They saw a game: A case study. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49(1), 129-134. doi:10.1037/h0057880

The paper compared students' responses at the two universities and then used a film of the game, shown to each group, to ask students to count rule infractions. Each side counted more infractions by the opposing team.

Key ideas

The paper's central proposal is that the two groups of students had in effect seen different games, and that each version felt real to the person holding it. The study is cited in discussions of confirmation bias as an early illustration of how loyalty shapes perception.

Sources

  1. Hastorf, A. H., & Cantril, H. (1954). They saw a game: A case study. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49(1), 129-134. doi:10.1037/h0057880