The Festinger case is a striking reminder of how easily the boundary between observation and participation can blur and how this can fundamentally alter our understanding of human behavior. When half of a group might be infiltrators the results cannot be taken as a pure reflection of the group’s genuine dynamics. This is not just a historical curiosity because modern replication failures show that even our best known theories are not immune to reassessment or collapse under scrutiny...
The Festinger case is a striking reminder of how easily the boundary between observation and participation can blur and how this can fundamentally alter our understanding of human behavior. When half of a group might be infiltrators the results cannot be taken as a pure reflection of the group’s genuine dynamics. This is not just a historical curiosity because modern replication failures show that even our best known theories are not immune to reassessment or collapse under scrutiny...