Judson Mills

Who they are

Judson Mills is the second author of Aronson and Mills (1959), published in The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. The study told 63 women at college that they were joining a group discussion about sex. A severe version of an embarrassment test had them read obscene words and vivid passages aloud, and a mild version used sex-related words that were not obscene. All of them then listened to a recorded and deliberately dull discussion of a book they had not read. Those who passed the severe test rated the group members as more likeable. These design details come from a magazine summary, The Psychologist, and not from the paper's full text.

This page is thin on purpose. The sources consulted give the paper's bibliographic record and a summary of its method, and nothing verified about Mills's career, affiliation or other work. Nothing has been added to fill the space.

Key papers

Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). 'The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group.' The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59(2), 177-181. doi:10.1037/h0047195.

Key ideas

The paper is cited for the claim that a harder route into a group raises liking for it, explained through cognitive dissonance. It was followed by a replication using electric shocks in 1966, a field test in real Dutch groups in 1997 that supported only a companionship account, and a 2013 replication attempt that did not find the original result. The record on Effort Justification is mixed.

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