Jacobs, R. C., & Campbell, D. T. (1961). The perpetuation of an arbitrary tradition through several generations of a laboratory microculture. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62(3), 649–658. doi:10.1037/h0044182.
Not read: no lawful copy was reached on 2026-10-23 (see the status note). The summary is drawn from what the study is standardly cited for, and a reading should check it first, in particular the number of generations the norm survived and the rate of its decay.
Why this is here
The owner’s exchange “Framework Overview Request” (2026-10-23) asked for external results that satisfy the explanatory aims of the record’s proposed-study CASEs. As reported, this is the classic laboratory case of a collective whose members are all replaced while a norm is carried by transmission, with the original carriers gone. It bears on QUESTION-118 (what must stay causally continuous when a collective replaces all its members), on arm B of the proposed study CASE-101 (a population that transmits its norms to its replacements), and on CLAIM-329 (persistence through turnover is causal transmission, not resemblance). Its control groups, which reach the unseeded level of judgement, are a natural comparison for an organization of the same kind arising independently. Because it is unread, no CASE or THEORY is filed from it.