Richard LaPiere

Richard LaPiere was a social psychologist best known for his research in the 1930s that challenged assumptions about people's attitudes versus their behaviors. He conducted a study where he traveled with a Chinese couple across the U.S., visiting hotels and restaurants that publicly declared they would refuse service to Chinese people. Surprisingly, most establishments accepted them. Later, LaPiere surveyed the same businesses about their attitudes, and many claimed they would refuse service to Chinese individuals. This discrepancy highlighted that people's expressed beliefs do not always predict their actual behaviors, emphasizing the complexity of attitude-behavior relationships in social psychology.