Fully scanned copies of the following five books are openly accessible here for free downloading. Simply click "Images and Files" tab (above), scroll down and click on the title.
(1) Paradigms in Transition: The Methodology of Social Inquiry (Rosnow, 1981)
(2) People Studying People: Artifacts and Ethics in Behavioral Research (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 1997)
(3) Essentials of Behavioral Research: Methods and Data Analysis (3rd edition) (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 2008)
(4) Rumor and Gossip: The Social Psychology of Hearsay (Rosnow & Fine, 1976)
(5) Writing Papers in Psychology: Proposals, Research Papers, Literature Reviews, Poster Presentations and Concise Reports" (9th edition) (Rosnow & Rosnow, 2012)

How people make sense of things and justify their conclusions have long been of interest to me. Research methods, analyses of research data, and related issues (such as conflicts between ethical and methodological principles) all are of interest to me. I am also interested in contexts of discovery (qualitative and quantitative) and justification. As contexts need contents, among those in social psychology that my students and I explored and wrote about are persuasion and opinion change, impression formation and stereotyping, rumor and gossip, and interpersonal acumen.

From 1960-62, I was a Ph.D. student in psychology at The American University in Washington, D.C. I had the good fortune to work with Robert E. Lana, then an associate professor of psychology and statistics. In his experimental studies, he was using a method of analysis described by experimental psychologist Richard Solomon in his exploratory work on pretest sensitization. Lana's application of Solomon's design when the pretest involved opinions or attitudes whetted my interest. Thinking about a topic for my doctoral study, I recalled an idea of R. L. Thorndike's in the 1930s. Thorndike theorized that the bolstering effects of a reward (or "satisfying state of affairs") could spread forward and backward. For my study, I simulated the notion of the "spread of effect" of coincidentally induced affect on opinion change responses to communications temporally contiguous with the source of affect. Results were consistent with theory, and in subsequent research I would pursue variations of this notion.

With Ph.D. in hand, I remained in Washington for several months more, while I figured out what to do next. I was a Lieutenant in the Army Reserves, and the comradery and experience were teaching me much. I found challenging little tasks in applied social psychology in D.C. One involved an apparatus and procedure for recording responses. The popular existing apparatus consisted of two push-button-response devices, one for each hand (e.g., yes-no, good-bad). As a way of widening the response range from dichotomous to continuous, I sketched a box open at one end with a levered device inside. In one room, the respondents and stimulus exist, each respondent with his or her own levered box. For unobtrusive observers in another room, there would be a panel of meters, one for each respondent, and paper records could also be made. The idea was accepted, and once it was developed, I tried it out and it worked. Several years later, I thought it might be of interest to others interested in sources of artifacts. If so, the paper is titled Bias in Evaluating the Presidential Debates: A "Splinter" Effect, and it's in the Journal of Social Psychology, 1965, 67, 211-219.

It was easy for me to figure out what to do next: propose to Mimi (Marion Quin). She said yes. I had a job lined up in Boston as an assistant professor of communication research at Boston University. Mimi had graduated from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She had been editor of her college newspaper, and she was eager to edit my writing. We were married in August 1963, and for our honeymoon, we drove to Norwood, Massachusetts, where a small garden apartment was awaiting us. At BU, the chairman of the program in which I would be teaching research methods, statistics, and social psychology (from 1936-67) was Edward J. Robinson. He was enthusiastic, amiable, and had a clear vision for the new graduate-level program. Teaching at BU greatly expanded my own sphere of experience, and Ed and I collaborated on "Experiments in Persuasion," my first published book.

The early 1960s was also when Bob Rosenthal began his Boston teaching and research career. We met, became friends, and I invited him to join me in some exploratory research on volunteer subject bias. He had written a conceptual paper on the subject. I had completed an exploratory study of volunteer bias (inspired by Martin Orne's "good subject" concept in his work on demand characteristics), but I had not yet submitted the results to a journal. It would be our first published work together. For over 50 years, our friendship grew. We collaborated on many books (see Publications), research studies, journal papers, and invited chapters. When Bob Rosenthal was scheduled to be on sabbatical leave at Harvard, I was invited to teach his research methods course and my own open seminar course in social psychology. In 1999, Bob and MaryLu Rosenthal moved from Lexington, Massachusetts to Riverside, California. Bob had a teaching appointment as Distinguished Professor (then as University Professor) at University of California, Riverside. (Our long collaboration was uninterrupted by distance.)

Mimi and I would probably have settled in Boston except for the cold winter weather. In 1967, Bob Lana, who had moved to Philadelphia and Temple University, invited me to join him in developing a new doctoral program in social psychology. Temple University offered me an enticing appointment as an associate professor. Mimi and I liked Philly, and Bob Lana and I were good friends. Philly was not that far from Surf City on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, where we all would always spend summer weeks together. Philly was a relatively short driving distance to New York (where Mimi had family), and to Baltimore (where my parents and relatives lived, and where I was born and had great fun growing up). I accepted the Temple offer. In 1970, I was promoted to professor (and later, named Thaddeus Lincoln Bolton Professor of Psychology). Incidentally, Thaddeus Bolton

In 1986, Mimi and I coauthored the first edition of Writing Papers in Psychology. , and the The Psychology Department is one of the oldest in this country. Bolton, born in 1865, got his Ph.D. at Clark University, where G. Stanley Hall was president. Hall considered psychology to be a science on a par with biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In 1924, Bolton started the department of psychology at Temple University.

When I was a kid, growing up in East Baltimore, I accidentally slipped backwards into a pickle barrel in a Lombard Street deli when I was mesmerized by the lightning speed of the man behind the cash register, who seemed to be doing tricks with numbers. Being wet with pickle juice did not diminish my curiosity for numbers.

In August, 2006, Bob Lana died, and he is missed by those of us who remain. After Bob Rosenthal's wife, Mary Lu, died in 2010, Bob and I filled the loneliness by making a habit of chatting every Saturday, enjoying one another's company, and reminiscing about the old days and projects we never got around to completing. We always concluded with upbeat thoughts and expectations (the "Rosenthal effect" for lifting spirits). Bob Rosenthal died in January 2024.