For example, he wrote, if hundreds of people were hypothetically asked whether they would give up their seat on a streetcar to a woman from an ostracized ethnic group, many might say no. The problem, LaPiere noted, is that the theoretical woman is different from a “woman of flesh and blood” and the respondent’s “verbal reaction . . . does not involve rising from the seat or stolidly avoiding the hurt eyes of the hypothetical woman and the derogatory stares of other street car occupants.” Presented with a real, live person, he hypothesized, most would probably behave differently than they told
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