FACULTY

Contact Info

blass@umbc.edu

BlassVita2011
Office:
Math/Psychology 308 p.410-455-2428
f.410-455-1055

Status:

Accepting new students for Fall 2013

Website

Thomas Blass, Ph.D.

Professor

Education

Area of Study

Social Psychology

Research Interests

Tactics of social influence; attributional processes; the interaction of personality and situational factors in social behavior; scale development of personality, attitudinal, and other self-report measures relevant to social behavior; psychological perspectives on the Holocaust.

Most recently my research interests have centered on the life and work of Stanley Milgram. This focus has three components: An experimental one, based on an attributional paradigm I developed using edited versions of the documentary film Obedience; analytic and integrative, in the form of review articles of research based on Milgram's work; and biographical/historical.

Selected Publications and Papers

Blass, T. (2004). The Man Who Shocked the World: The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram. (Basic Books)

Blass, T. (Ed.), (2000). Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Blass, T. (1977). (Ed.) Personality Variables in Social Behavior. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (Distributed by John Wiley & Sons.)

Blass, T. (1977). (Ed.) Personality Variables in Social Behavior. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (Distributed by John Wiley & Sons.)

Blass, T. (2002). Perpetrator behavior as destructive obedience: An evaluation of Stanley Milgram's perspective, the most influential social-psychological approach to the Holocaust. In L. Newman & R. Erber (Eds.). Understanding Genocide: The Social Psychology of the Holocaust: Oxford University Press (Invited chapter).

Blass, T. (2001). Social psychological perspectives on obedience. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Invited article).

Blass, T. (2000). Stanley Milgram (1933-1984). Encyclopedia of Psychology. American Psychological Association. (Invited article)

Blass, T. (1999). Stanley Milgram. In J. A. Garraty (Ed.), American National Biography. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press and American Council of Learned Societies. (Invited article)

Blass, T. (1996). Stanley Milgram: A Life of Inventiveness and Controversy. In G. Kimble, A. Boneau, & M. Wertheimer (Eds.), Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, Vol. 2. Washington, D.C., and Hillsdale, NJ: American Psychological Association and Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (Invited chapter)

Blass, T. (1992). The Social Psychology of Stanley Milgram. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 25, (pp. 277-329). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Blass, T. (1984). Interactionism. In R. Corsini (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Wiley.

Blass, T. (2002, March/April). The man who shocked the world. Psychology Today, pp. 68-74.

Blass, T., & Schmitt, C. (2001). The nature of perceived authority in the Milgram paradigm: Two replications. Current Psychology, 20, 115-121. (Invited submission)

Blass, T. (2000). Conspiracy theories and the need for cognitive consistency. Clio's Psyche, 7, 111-112.

Blass, T. (1999). The Milgram paradigm after 35 years: Some things we now know about obedience to authority. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 955-978.

Blass, T. (1998). The roots of Milgram's obedience experiments and their relevance to the Holocaust. Analyse & Kritik, 20,46-53. (Invited article).

Hahn, J., & Blass, T. (1997). Dating partner preferences: A function of similarity of love styles. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 12, 595-610.

Blass, T. (1996). The Milgram obedience experiment: Support for a cognitive view of defensive attribution. Journal of Social Psychology, 136, 407-410.

Blass, T. (1996). Attribution of responsibility and trust in the Milgram obedience experiment. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26, 1529-1535.

Krackow, A., & Blass, T. (1995). When nurses obey or defy inappropriate physician orders: Attributional differences. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 10, 585-594.

Blass, T. (1995). Right-Wing Authoritarianism and role as predictors of attributions about obedience to authority. Personality and IndividualDifferences, 19, 99-100

Papers

Blass, T., Lynch, L. & Sim, T. (2003). Getting more by asking for less: Coining a new use for a monetary influence technique. Presented at the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Baltimore, MD, April.

Blass, T. & Johnson, M. (2001, April 20) Self-disclosure as obedience to authority: A Japanese-American comparison. Presented at the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

Blass, T. (2001, February 2) Impersonal authority: Does the judged quality of a written work improve when it becomes a book? Presented at the annual convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, San Antonio, TX.

Dimmig, H., & Blass, T. (2000, March 24). Is there a middle-child syndrome? An empirical inquiry. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Baltimore, MD.

Blass, T. & Moeller, D. (1999, August 22). Danish and American norms: Comparisons regarding self-disclosure, verbal affection and self-promotion. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.

Schmitt, C. & Blass, T. (1999, April 16) Scared smart: Using a videotaped fear appeal to improve academic performance. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Providence, RI.

Blass, T. (1998, August). Cross-cultural comparisons of obedience using the Milgram paradigm. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA.

Blass, T., & Schmitt, C. (1998, February 27). Testing the effects of a unique anti-smoking film: Hugh McCabe's final lesson. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, MA.

Blass, T., Schmitt, C., Jones, E., & O'Connell, M. (1997, August 16). The own-birthday effect: From Japan to the United States. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Blass, T. (1997, August 15). Stanley Milgram and research ethics: A life-long encounter. Paper presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

Awards and Honors

G. Stanley Hall Invited Address, Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 2001.

Winner of the J. R. Kantor Fellowship Award, Archives of the History of American Psychology, 1998-1999.

Keynote Speaker, Inaugural Alumni Day, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, May, 2002.

Invited address, Stanley Milgram: Pioneer of psychology, presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 20, 1993.

Summer Faculty Research Associate, U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Alexandria, VA, 1992, 1993.

Current and Recent Student Mentees

Melissa O'Connell
Lara Frumkin
Mindy Shuman

Carol Schmitt
Heather Dimmig
Annamarie Krackow

Westleigh Quattrone
Elizabeth Foks
Melanie Duncan
Dawn Walls
Chad Richman
Kristy Tomlin