Bickman (1974): Obedience and the Power of a Uniform

Why might a uniform make people obey?

Obedience means following an instruction from someone perceived to have authority. That authority need not come from knowing the person: clothing can suggest their role and status before they speak. A guard’s uniform, for example, may signal that the wearer has the right to direct other people.

Joseph and Alex (1972) argued that uniforms identify status, group membership and legitimacy. Legitimacy is the perceived right to exercise authority. Earlier research on uniforms had mainly examined their effects on the wearer. Leonard Bickman’s 1974 study, The Social Power of a Uniform, investigated their effects on other people instead.

Bickman wanted to measure the social power of uniforms: their ability to influence behaviour. In Experiment 1, he tested whether a uniformed person would be obeyed even when acting out of role, meaning making requests outside the normal duties of that role. He predicted that a guard would have more influence than a milkman or someone in ordinary civilian clothes.

Experiment 1: changing the outfit and the request

This was a field experiment on a street in Brooklyn, New York, USA. The researchers manipulated conditions in an everyday setting rather than a laboratory. It was intended to use an independent measures design, with different pedestrians in each condition, although they could not be certain that nobody participated more than once.

There were two independent variables:

• Outfit: civilian, milkman or guard.
• Request: pick up a paper bag, give someone a dime for a parking meter, or move at a bus stop.

The dependent variable was whether the pedestrian obeyed, allowing obedience levels to be compared across outfits and situations.

Four male experimenters of similar build and size delivered the requests. Each wore all three outfits at different times and was briefed to behave consistently. The civilian wore a sports jacket and tie. The milkman wore a white uniform and carried a basket containing empty milk bottles. The guard wore a police-style uniform with a badge and insignia, but no gun.

The milkman condition was important: it allowed Bickman to investigate whether wearing any uniform increased obedience, or whether a uniform associated with greater authority mattered more.

Who took part, and what happened?

Experiment 1 used an opportunity sample of 153 adult pedestrians, whose average estimated age was 39 years. They were 43% male and 57% female. Most were white (86%), 11% were black, and the ethnicity of the remainder could not be determined. Researchers judged 85% to be middle class from their clothing. These characteristics matter when considering how representative the sample was.

Researchers selected the first suitable pedestrian who came along alone and could not have seen the interaction with the previous participant. This reduced the possibility that pedestrians would copy an earlier response or realise that requests were being repeated.

The experimenter approached the pedestrian and delivered one of three instructions:

• Pick up a paper bag from the ground.
• Give another person a dime, a ten-cent coin, for a parking meter.
• Move to the other side of a bus-stop pole, being told that standing there was against the law.

Obedience was recorded when the pedestrian followed the instruction. The requests tested whether the apparent authority of the outfit extended beyond the wearer’s usual responsibilities.

Experiment 1: what the results showed

The percentages obeying were:

Read down each column to compare the outfits for the same request. The guard received the highest obedience in every situation, despite acting out of role. For example, 89% obeyed the guard in the dime-and-meter situation, compared with 33% obeying the civilian.

There was no significant difference between obedience to the milkman and the civilian overall, even though some percentages differed numerically. The findings therefore support the importance of an authority-signalling uniform, rather than the claim that every uniform has the same effect.

The request also mattered: bus-stop obedience was lower than obedience to the other requests for every outfit. Nevertheless, the guard’s advantage appeared across all three situations.

Experiment 2: did people obey because they were watched?

Experiment 2 was another Brooklyn field experiment, using 48 adult pedestrians with an average estimated age of 46 years. It compared guard and civilian clothing using the dime-and-meter request.

Bickman also manipulated surveillance. After giving the instruction, the experimenter either remained nearby or walked around a corner out of sight. This tested whether obedience depended on being watched by the person giving the order.

The guard was obeyed more than the civilian, but surveillance had no significant effect. People still obeyed when the experimenter was no longer watching. This suggests that the uniform’s influence was not simply a response to direct supervision.

Experiments 3A and 3B: beliefs versus behaviour

These studies used questionnaires with students from Smith College, a private women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, rather than observing pedestrians’ actions.

In Experiment 3A, 141 students rated the legitimacy of requests across 29 scenarios, including the three used in Experiment 1. The question was whether the person had the right to make the request. Students did not judge the guard’s requests as more legitimate than those of the milkman or civilian.

In Experiment 3B, a separate sample of 189 students predicted how people would behave in the obedience situations. Their predictions did not accurately reflect the guard’s greater influence in the field study. Overall, participants said obedience would be more likely for the paper-bag request than for the dime-and-meter or bus-stop requests.

Together, these questionnaires show a distinction between what people say about authority and how people actually respond to it. However, the questionnaire students and street pedestrians were different groups, so this was not a direct test of the same individuals’ predictions against their own behaviour.

What can we conclude about situational influence?

The study supports a situational explanation of obedience: changing the authority signalled by clothing changed how readily people followed instructions. The guard’s uniform carried social power even when the wearer acted outside the role’s normal duties. The type of request also influenced obedience, but the guard’s advantage remained across situations.

Bickman linked this power to the authority and legitimacy signalled by the uniform. However, the questionnaires did not show that students consciously regarded the guard’s requests as more legitimate. The observed effect is therefore clearer than the explanation of exactly why it occurred.

The findings show influence, not inevitability. Even in the guard condition, some pedestrians refused. This supports the importance of the situation without establishing that uniforms determine everyone’s behaviour or remove all choice.

Evaluating the quality of the evidence

Realistic behaviour is a strength. The field experiments involved ordinary pedestrians responding to requests on a real street, giving them high ecological validity. Pedestrians did not know they were in an experiment, reducing demand characteristics: they were less likely to act as they thought a researcher expected.

Standardisation strengthened the comparisons. The experimenters used set requests, behaved consistently and wore each outfit. This reduced the chance that differences were simply caused by one experimenter being more persuasive. Selecting pedestrians who had not seen earlier trials also reduced copying.

Control was still limited. Weather, traffic, time pressure and individual differences between pedestrians could affect obedience. Independent measures avoided deliberately exposing each pedestrian to repeated requests, but different people in different conditions may have differed in willingness to help. These factors make it harder to isolate the uniform’s effect completely.

Generalisability is limited. The field sample came from one American city in the 1970s and was predominantly white and judged middle class. Responses to uniforms may differ across cultures, social groups and historical periods. The questionnaire samples came from a women’s college, while all the experimenters were male, further limiting the range of people represented.

There were ethical problems. Pedestrians were deceived about the experimenters’ roles and did not give informed consent. They were not debriefed, limiting their opportunity to understand the research and withdraw their data. Some may have felt pressured or embarrassed. Concealing the study helped obtain natural behaviour, but that methodological benefit does not remove the ethical concerns.

Overall, Bickman provides useful evidence that an authority-signalling uniform can increase everyday obedience. The realistic setting and repeated pattern strengthen this conclusion, but limited control and restricted samples mean it should not be treated as a universal rule.

Background and aim

• Bickman (1974): The Social Power of a Uniform.
• Uniforms can signal status, group membership and legitimacy.
• Aim: test whether uniformed people have greater influence even when acting out of role.
• Prediction: guard > milkman or civilian in obedience.

Experiment 1

• Method: Brooklyn field experiment; intended independent measures design, though repeat participation could not be ruled out.
• Sample: 153 lone adult pedestrians; opportunity sample; estimated mean age 39.
• IVs: outfit and request. DV: whether the pedestrian obeyed.
• Outfits: civilian sports jacket and tie; white milkman’s uniform with basket of empty bottles; police-style guard’s uniform with badge and insignia, no gun.
• Requests: pick up paper bag; give a dime for parking; move at bus stop.

Guard highest in every situation; no significant milkman–civilian difference overall.

Follow-up experiments

• 2: 48 Brooklyn pedestrians, estimated mean age 46; guard versus civilian; dime-and-meter request; experimenter stayed or walked out of sight. Surveillance had no significant effect.
• 3A: 141 Smith College students rated request legitimacy across 29 scenarios. Guard’s requests were not rated more legitimate.
• 3B: 189 different Smith College students predicted obedience. Predictions did not match actual behaviour; paper-bag obedience was predicted most often.

Conclusions

• An authority-signalling uniform increases obedience, even outside the wearer’s role.
• Not every uniform has the same effect.
• Request type matters; direct surveillance was not necessary.
• Stated beliefs and predictions may differ from behaviour.
• Situations influence behaviour without making obedience inevitable.

Evaluation

Strengths: realistic street setting; reduced demand characteristics; standardised requests and experimenter behaviour; participants selected to avoid seeing earlier trials.

Limitations: uncontrolled street conditions and participant differences; restricted American samples; male experimenters; deception, no informed consent or debriefing.

Judgement: useful evidence for situational influence, but not a universal explanation of obedience.