examples of social experiments

Social Psychology Experiments: 10 Of The Most Famous Studies

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. 

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things.

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” –Philip Zimbardo

Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil ), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things.

The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon.

1. Social Psychology Experiments: The Halo Effect

The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment.

It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

It is sometimes called the “what is beautiful is good” principle, or the “physical attractiveness stereotype”.

It is called the halo effect because a halo was often used in religious art to show that a person is good.

2. Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs in their mind.

People resolve this discomfort by changing their thoughts to align with one of conflicting beliefs and rejecting the other.

The study provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do.

3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology experiment on how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

It shows how groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries — and then come into conflict with each other.

For example, each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

One of the reasons the became so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

4. Social Psychology Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was run to find out how people would react to being made a prisoner or prison guard.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who led the Stanford prison experiment, thought ordinary, healthy people would come to behave cruelly, like prison guards, if they were put in that situation, even if it was against their personality.

It has since become a classic social psychology experiment, studied by generations of students and recently coming under a lot of criticism.

5. The Milgram Social Psychology Experiment

The Milgram experiment , led by the well-known psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, aimed to test people’s obedience to authority.

The results of Milgram’s social psychology experiment, sometimes known as the Milgram obedience study, continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial.

The Milgram experiment discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine.

Fully 63 percent of the participants continued administering what appeared like electric shocks to another person while they screamed in agony, begged to stop and eventually fell silent — just because they were told to.

6. The False Consensus Effect

The false consensus effect is a famous social psychological finding that people tend to assume that others agree with them.

It could apply to opinions, values, beliefs or behaviours, but people assume others think and act in the same way as they do.

It is hard for many people to believe the false consensus effect exists because they quite naturally believe they are good ‘intuitive psychologists’, thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people’s attitudes and behaviours.

In reality, people show a number of predictable biases, such as the false consensus effect, when estimating other people’s behaviour and its causes.

7. Social Psychology Experiments: Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory helps to explain why people’s behaviour in groups is fascinating and sometimes disturbing.

People gain part of their self from the groups they belong to and that is at the heart of social identity theory.

The famous theory explains why as soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups.

8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most

Negotiation is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it.

Negotiation doesn’t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone.

In a classic, award-winning series of social psychology experiments, Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss investigated two central factors in negotiation: how we communicate with each other and how we use threats.

9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility

The bystander effect in social psychology is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency.

The bystander effect social psychology experiments are mentioned in every psychology textbook and often dubbed ‘seminal’.

This famous social psychology experiment on the bystander effect was inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

It found that in some circumstances, the presence of others inhibits people’s helping behaviours — partly because of a phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility.

10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

The Asch conformity experiments — some of the most famous every done — were a series of social psychology experiments carried out by noted psychologist Solomon Asch.

The Asch conformity experiment reveals how strongly a person’s opinions are affected by people around them.

In fact, the Asch conformity experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others.

Author: Dr Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

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9 of the Most Influential Social Psychology Experiments in History

For those interested in understanding how social interactions can shape behavior and mental processes, this article dives deep into some of the most influential social psychology experiments in history. Covering everything from the perpetrator-victim dynamic prevalent in Stanley Milgram’s infamous obedience experiment to the false consensus effect just a few years later, these social psychology experiments provide invaluable insights into the human psyche.

Through carefully conducted studies such as Lee Ross’ Diffusion of Responsibility Experiment and Edward Thorndike’s Halo Effect Experiment, as well as famous experiments such as Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment, we are able to better comprehend why people act the way they do in certain situations. Come explore these incredible, influential experiments that have left their mark on social psychology and the world!

To learn more about what is social psychology check out our article.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971

1.1. overview.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a widely known and controversial social psychology experiment conducted in 1971 at Stanford University by Professor Philip Zimbardo to investigate how ordinary, healthy people would react to being made prisoners or prison guards. It has since become a classic social psychology experiment and is still studied today. However, the experiment has come under considerable criticism in recent years due to ethical issues.

1.2. Results

Twenty-four male college students were recruited for the experiment, which involved them playing the role of either prisoner or guard. Each group was then allotted 8-hour shifts and treated as if they were in a real prison situation. The prisoners were kept in the makeshift prison set up in the basement of the Psychology Department, where the guards were responsible for ensuring the inmates followed prison regulations. The participants were screened to guarantee they had no mental or physical problems that may have influenced their behavior.

The experiment concluded that it is possible to change the behavior of individuals when placed in groups, even when they are not aware they are being observed. The study showed how quickly people will conform to expected social roles and how easily ‘ordinary’ people can be transformed from ‘good’ to ‘evil.’ Both the prisoners and guards revealed stereotypical characteristics associated with correctional officers; the prisoners became emotionally unstable and submissive, whilst the guards became hostile and authoritative.

1.3. Criticisms

Philip Zimbardo’s experiment, the Stanford Prison Experiment, is like a dark mirror reflecting our society’s innermost fears. In 1971, Zimbardo conducted an experiment in which college students were randomly assigned to be either prisoners or guards in a simulated prison environment. The results of this study showed that people could quickly adapt to roles and lose their sense of morality when placed in certain situations.

The impact of the Stanford Prison Experiment has been far-reaching; it has been used as evidence for why prisons are so dangerous and how they can lead to psychological damage among inmates. It also serves as a reminder that power dynamics between individuals can have serious consequences if not monitored closely.

Critics have argued that the ethical practices employed by Zimbardo during his experiment were questionable at best, with some participants experiencing extreme distress due to their role-playing experience. Despite these criticisms, many believe that the experiment still provides valuable insight into human behavior and psychology today. Personifying its lessons, we could say that the Stanford Prison Experiment speaks volumes about how easily our moral compass can become distorted when faced with authority figures or oppressive environments.

The Asch Conformity Experiment, 1951

2.1. overview.

The Asch Conformity Experiment, also known as the “Asch Line Study,” was a series of experiments conducted by psychologist Solomon Asch in 1951 to test how people tend to conform to social pressures. The study was composed of two groups: one consisting of actual participants (the control group) and the other including actors (the confederates).

During the experiment, the participants were asked to view a line on one board and then match it to one of three lines on another board with their own judgment. Initially, the group was given correct answers; however, after a few attempts, the actors began to give wrong answers intentionally to observe how the participant would respond.

2.2. Results

The results showed that 75% of the participants conformed to the incorrect majority opinion given by the confederate group—even when it obviously contradicted their own senses. In addition, the control group with only real subjects produced a much lower rate of conformity, with less than 1% ever selecting the incorrect answer. This demonstrated that it was not the difficulty of the task but rather the presence of an influential social group that caused the majority of participants to deny their own thoughts in order to fit in with the others.

2.3. Criticisms

Critics have argued that the experiment was not diverse enough since it mainly used college-aged men as its sample population. Additionally, because the experiment did not include females, it has been suggested that the results of the cave experiment cannot be generalized to all genders.

Furthermore, critics have argued that the experimental design lacked a true measure of real-life social pressure since the actors and real participants knew the situation was artificial. Despite these criticisms, the Asch experiment remains one of the most important social psychology studies in history, and its core message about the power of conformity to influence opinions and behavior continues to be studied and discussed today.

We tackled the topic of conformity in our article about social influence .

The Bobo Doll Experiment, 1961

3.1. overview.

The Bobo Doll experiment was a series of experiments conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura between 1961 and 1963 at Stanford University, aimed at studying the extent to which human behavior is based on social imitation rather than inherited genetic factors.

Three groups of 24 participants each, aged from 3 to 6 years old, were chosen for the experiment – a control group (with no interaction with any adults), an aggressive group (observing an adult behaving aggressively towards the doll), and a passive group (observing a more passive adult playing with the doll). The results of the studies were a strong indication that children were strongly influenced by watching other people’s behavior and imitated it afterward in their own behavior.

3.2. Results

The study found that the children in the aggressive and passive groups were significantly more likely to behave aggressively towards the bobo doll than those in the control group, even though the latter had not been exposed to any type of model behavior. When it came to gender differences, boys showed more aggressive behavior when exposed to the aggressive behavior of male models, while girls showed similar findings, albeit less drastic.

Moreover, the study also contained a memory test during which wrong answers were punished with electric shocks; here, it appeared as if the individual completing the test was affected by the electric shocks, suggesting that authority figures can greatly influence behavior, even if not intentionally. Finally, the study also showed that when urged to continue with the experience even after protests from the individual receiving electric shocks, they complied with the requests, highlighting the power of authority within social situations.

3.3. Criticisms

Although the experiment raised widely accepted as evidence for the hypothesis that individuals learn behavior by observing others, the Bobo Doll experiment has been criticized in recent years. One key point of criticism is that Bandura’s research neglected to look at positive modeling – for example, modeling of altruism or helpful behavior, instead focusing solely on aggression.

Additionally, some have argued that, due to its relatively small sample size and laboratory-based approach, the study failed to take into account real-life influences, such as environmental variables, which would have provided additional context. Despite these criticisms, the Bobo Doll experiment remains one of the most famous studies in psychology, providing significant evidence for the importance of social learning theory in understanding human behavior.

The Milgram Experiment, 1963

4.1. overview.

The Milgram Experiment was a famous social psychology experiment and experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. Its aim was to test people’s obedience to authority. The study examined how far people would go when an authority figure instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their morals.

Specifically, it sought to find out if non-Nazi populations, such as those from the United States, would follow orders to harm other persons. One of the motivations for this investigation was the results of World War II, during which Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was able to use “I was only following orders” as a legal defense at the Nuremberg trials.

4.2. Results

The experiment was conducted at Yale University in 1961 and included unsuspecting participants who were told that the study was about memory. Participants believed they were participating in a study where they would be required to act as teachers while an unsuspecting confederate (learned) was on the other side of the wall. Their task was to ask questions to the learner, and if they received a wrong answer, press a button administering shock, ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts.

The results showed that despite protests and cries from the learner, 63% of the participants continued pressing the switch. Milgram’s experiment revealed that human beings are conditioned to obey authority figures, even when going against their natural moral code.

4.3. Criticisms

Despite its significance, the Milgram Experiment has been heavily criticized over the years, and some have argued that the study violated ethical standards. The argument is that causing psychological and emotional distress to unwitting volunteers is wrong. Other critics have argued that the role reversals or changes in lab settings would yield different outcomes and should have been considered.

In response to these criticisms, some scientists have suggested controversial experiments by reducing the voltage administered to the learner or conducting newer versions of the experiment in naturalistic settings. In addition, the way modern studies measure obedience is greatly different – contemporary research focuses on motives and reactions participants have after the experiment. These proposed changes would enable researchers to look into extraneous factors influencing obedience versus harm caused to participants.

The Halo Effect Experiment, 1977

5.1. overview.

The halo effect is commonly defined as the phenomenon in which a positive evaluation of one trait extends to an overall perception of an individual. This cognitive bias has been observed by social psychologists for over a century, beginning with psychologist Edward Thorndike’s studies regarding commanding officers in the military.

The halo effect is also known as the “what is beautiful is good” principle or the “physical attractiveness stereotype.” This phenomenon has had a lasting impact on our evaluation and judgment of others. Additionally, the term “halo effect” was named after its likeness to that of the halo painted above the heads of saints and holy figures in religious art, generally regarded as symbols of moral goodness.

To investigate this phenomenon further, Nisbett and Wilson conducted an experiment in 1977 at the University of Michigan. As research participants, they recruited college students who were asked to watch a pre-recorded psychology instructor tape with two different attitudes—one likable and another unlikable. After watching the videotapes, they filled in a questionnaire that asked them to rate the lecturer’s physical appearance, mannerisms, and accent on an 8-point scale ranging from “like extremely” to “dislike extremely.”

Nisbett and Wilson’s study showed that despite the lecturers having the same mannerisms and accents, the respondents rated the lecturer more favorably if their attitude projected a likable demeanor. Moreover, Nisbett and Wilson discovered that people are unaware when the halo effect phenomenon occurs; they inferred that the respondents relied on their initial impression of the lecturer without being aware that it influenced their subsequent assessment. In total, 278 college students participated in the study.

5.2. Results

The results of this study showed that the ratings of the lecturer responded differently depending on his behavior—those who saw him adopt a likable demeanor in the video gave him higher ratings than those who saw him act in an unlikable manner. Furthermore, those who rated the lecturer highly were more likely to believe that he was intelligent, hardworking, kind, and humorous. This suggests that the halo effect can lead people to make inaccurate assumptions about someone based solely on their appearance or behavior.

Moreover, an updated study on the halo effect also suggests that a negative assessment of certain traits can similarly affect subsequent perceptions. For instance, if someone didn’t like the instructor’s physical appearance, they are more likely to rate him as unintelligent and lazy. This provides evidence that negative feelings about one characteristic can extend to an individual’s other features.

5.3. Criticisms

Despite its analytical contributions to the field, some scholars have questioned Nisbett and Wilson’s use of college students as the research participants in the study due to their limited exposure to the concept at hand. Additionally, since the focus of this experiment utilized only pre-recorded videos, there is also criticism of the limitation in the accuracy of facial expressions and vocal intonations. However, this study does provide evidence that people may rely on initial impressions when making assessments, resulting in cognitive bias and inaccurate judgments.

The False Consensus Effect Experiment, 1974

6.1. overview.

The False Consensus Effect Experiment was conducted in 1974 by Professor Lee Ross, then at Stanford University. The experiment focused on how people can form a “false consensus” about the beliefs and preferences of others. Specifically, it asked participants to read situations with two alternative responses and predict which one other people would choose. In the study, most subjects overestimated the likelihood that others would do the same thing as them, even when the situation was hypothetical and there was no real data to indicate what choice the majority of people might make. Furthermore, researchers found that the anticipation of a false consensus could lead people to display negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.

6.2. Results

The results of Lee Ross’s experiment demonstrated the false consensus bias – the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others agree with one’s own beliefs and behaviors. He and his colleagues also conducted experiments in the late 1970s to demonstrate how this bias operates in estimating other people’s behaviors and causes. For example, participants chose a resolution to an imagined conflict, then estimated how many others would choose the same.

In another experiment, students were asked to carry a sign that read “eat at joe’s” to measure how many other people agreed with the sign. Those who agreed believed the majority of people would also agree; those who refused believed the majority would refuse. This experiment showed the false consensus effect – we tend to believe the majority of people agree with us and act the same way.

6.3. Criticisms

The false consensus effect is like a mirage in the desert, appearing to be something it’s not. It occurs when people overestimate how much other people agree with them. This bias can lead to an inaccurate perception of reality and cause individuals to make decisions based on false assumptions. The false consensus effect is most likely to occur when someone has strong beliefs or opinions about a particular topic and assumes that others share their views.

The Chameleon Effect Experiment, 1990

7.1. overview.

The Chameleon Effect is a phenomenon of unintentional mirroring, which was observed and studied for the first time in 1939 at the University of Iowa by Dr. Wendell Johnson. It involves someone mimicking another’s body posture, hand gestures, or even speaking accents without realizing it. In the 1990s, researchers Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh conducted follow-up experiments to further study this effect, which would be known as the “Chameleon Effect.”

7.2. Results

During their experiment, Chartrand and Bargh secretly mimicked the actions and behaviors of some test subjects during their conversations and monitored the responses. Those that were mimicked found the researchers more likable compared to those not mimicked. The results point to how people often subconsciously respond to others even if they weren’t consciously aware of the imitating behavior.

7.3. Criticisms

Despite being a popular explanation for why people tend to mirror each other’s behavior, the Chameleon Effect has been criticized by some. These criticisms mostly come from the idea that the phenomenon could potentially involve manipulation as well as desensitizing people to be more vulnerable to conformity and impressions. Additionally, some suggest there may be other reasons why people might mirror each other other than the Chameleon Effect itself, such as insecurity or politeness.

The Diffusion of Responsibility Experiment, 1968

8.1. overview.

The diffusion of responsibility experiment, conducted in 1968 at Stanford University, is an iconic social psychology experiment. It is studied to understand the bystander effect, a phenomenon in which people are more reluctant to express helpfulness or give aid if other bystanders are present.

Stanley Milgram and John Darley conducted the experiment to analyze how the presence of others could influence helping behaviors in kids. The study was also connected to concepts from Lev Vygotsky’s theory referring to emotional role-taking and group cohesiveness when observing the behavior of other members in a particular situation.

In the study, 600 children between the ages of four to six were tested. Each child was presented with one marshmallow, and they were promised to receive a second one if it still remained on the table after 15 minutes.

The results showed that only one-third of the children had delayed their gratification long enough to obtain the second marshmallow. Follow-up studies demonstrated that those children who managed to delay gratification and obtain the second marshmallow had higher SAT scores and were found to be more competent than their peers who could not wait and ate the marshmallow immediately.

8.2. Results

The results of the diffusion of responsibility experiment in 1968 proved to be true to an extent. Its findings added significantly to defining the bystander effect and the effects of the presence of other people, which may inhibit helpers’ reactions to those in need. The research showed that the number of bystanders could have a profound effect on one’s decision on whether to act or to remain inactive. This study takes into account the psychological phenomenon known as diffusion of responsibility which partially explains this inhibition of helping behavior.

8.3. Criticisms

Although the diffusion of responsibility experiment has contributed greatly to our understanding of the bystander effect, there is some criticism surrounding the validity and applicability of the experiment change in the setting in which it was conducted. Namely, there is some concern around the age of the participants, as well as the amount of time provided for the test, both of which may have had an influence on the outcome. In addition, since the experiment was conducted in 1972, there have been numerous changes to society and culture that may not have been taken into account by the authors at the time, leaving some questions as to its usefulness in current situations.

The Cognitive Dissonance Experiment, 1957

Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Experiment of 1957 addresses the mental discomfort experienced when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs. The experiment sought to identify how this dissonance is resolved by people and to gain further insight into our thoughts and behaviors.

Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer conducted the experiment with the intention of testing the cognitive theory of emotional arousal. They injected participants with epinephrine, a hormone that can produce side effects– both physical and psychological – such as increased heart rate, faster breathing, and an elevation in blood pressure.

The study featured a confederate who acted either in one of two ways: they were either pleasant or unpleasant. As knowledge of the injection’s side effects became aware to the participants, their emotions shifted accordingly. This revealed that dissonance leads to emotional arousal in individuals, leading them to act in agreement with emotion-triggering cognition.

In light of its results, critics have since made a note of the implausibility of Schachter and Singer’s study, claiming that it does little to address the complexities of the cognitive dissonance theory. By comparison, Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance experiment assumes that everyone holds many different cognitions about the world. It then examines what happens when those cognitions do not fit together adequately. Discrepancies are accepted if an event or occurrence makes sense; if not, these discrepancies lead to a state of tension or dissonance.

Interested readers may refer to festive ger’s 1959 article, “Cognitive Dissonance,” for a more in-depth exploration of the experiment’s results and implications. The study remains a classic social psychology experiment, illustrating how we reconcile the conflicts created by existing contradictory beliefs.

The 10 most influential social psychology experiments in history can all be summarized by their contribution to the development of our understanding of human behavior. From Milgram’s famous study revealing our willingness to obey authority figures, to Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment establishing the power of aggression and imitation, to Nisbett and Wilson’s Halo Effect Experiment controlling biases towards physical attractiveness, these studies provide insights into the power of group dynamics, social pressures, and cognitive bias that continue to inform and impact modern society today.

Learning about these classic social psychology experiments also encourages us to question our assumptions, explore alternative perspectives, and strive for greater understanding and acceptance. Whether by examining the limitations of data collection or the ethical implications of research methods, these landmark studies have built our knowledge base and served as a reminder of the importance of respect and empathy.

In conclusion, the 10 most influential social psychology experiments listed reflect an inspiring effort to better understand human behavior and engage in much-needed conversations around this fascinating field.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the initial experiments in social psychology.

Norman Triplett’s 1898 experiment is credited with being the first social psychology experiment. He examined the effects of competition on a simple task – winding hempen string – and found that people performed better when in the presence of others than when alone. His findings ushered in an exciting new field of research into how people are both influenced by, and affect, the social world around them.

Why are experiments are used in social psychology?

Experiments provide valuable insight into human behavior and allow for cause and effect relationships to be better understood. They are an essential tool conducting research in social psychology, allowing the researcher to observe how individuals respond in different situational contexts. Experimentation allows us to answer important questions about social behavior, making it an invaluable research method.

What are social psychology topics?

Social psychology explores the fascinating ways that people interact with each other, from understanding why prejudicial behavior occurs to analyzing why some people have a greater degree of influence over human behaviors than others. Social psychology has played a major role in helping us understand human behavior. It has made invaluable contributions through its research on various topics like prejudice and discrimination, gender, culture, social influence, interpersonal relations, group behavior, aggression etc.

What is an example of a social experiment?

An example of a social experiment is Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment conducted in 1963 which tested human subjects’ willingness to obey orders regardless of the outcomes. This controversial experiment was conducted in order to understand how far people would go to follow orders from authority figures, even if it meant inflicting pain on another person.

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What was the social experiment of the 60s?

The Social Experiment of the 1960s was the Milgram experiment, conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. It tested participants’ willingness to obey authority when asked to do something that conflicted with their own moral values. The experiment yielded powerful insights into human behavior and the power of authority, making it one of the most influential experiments of its time.

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# 5 Famous Social Psychology Experiments

There are countless social psychology experiments that have been influential. Here, we highlight five powerful experiments in social psychology that have shaped the development of the field.

# 1. Solomon Asch’s Experiments on Conformity

Solomon Asch carried out a series of psychological tests known as the Asch Conformity Experiments in the 1950s to find out how much social pressure from the majority group could persuade a person to conform. Asch’s experimental hypothesis was centered around how people gave in to peer pressure and whether they would disregard their own opinions in order to fit in with the group. The experiment summary of the Asch conformity studies is that several lines with different heights are presented and the participant is challenged by the confederate’s answers to either agree or disagree.

The Asch experiment's basic design comprised a subject and a cohort of accomplices. The participants were informed that they would be performing a visual perception task in which they would need to match a given line's length to one of three comparison lines.

Out of all the participants in each group, only one was truly ‘naïve’; the others were ‘confederates’ who were told to provide false answers on purpose for specific trials. Thus, the ‘naive’ participant would be challenged by the ‘confederates’ who provided wrong answers. This would essentially place the ‘naive’ participant in a challenging position to be in.

An example of the experimental procedure from Solomon Asch’s experiment on conformity in 1955. There are 6 confederates pictures and the 1 real participant, sitting in the second to last seat, who are looking at the trial stimuli at the front of the room. Image copyright: Cara Flanagan.

Throughout the trials, the confederates would intentionally select the incorrect response. The crucial query was whether the ‘naive’ participant would follow their own accurate assessment or adhere to the false majority opinion. The results and findings demonstrated that even in cases where the right response was evident, a sizable portion of the ‘naive’ participants would agree with the confederate group's inaccurate responses.

The degree of conformity was influenced by several factors:

• Group Size: Up to a certain point, conformity grew in proportion to the size of the majority. The rate of conformity did not significantly increase after a certain number of confederates.
• Unanimity: A participant was far less likely to comply if even one other person in the group provided the right response. The pressure to fit in was significantly lessened when there was a dissident voice.
• Task Difficulty: Participants found it more difficult to trust their own judgment when the task was more ambiguous or difficult, ie. when the comparison lines were more similar in size, leading to an increase in conformity.
• Response Type - Public vs. Private: When participants were required to provide their answers in public, they were more likely to comply, as opposed to when providing answers privately. Thus, one factor that clearly affected conformity was the fear of social rejection.

In summary, the Asch Conformity Experiment results emphasize the strong influence of social pressure on individual behavior and the propensity to conform even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, have become classic studies in social psychology.

Try it out in Labvanced:

A preview of the data and Asch Conformity Experiment results recorded in Labvanced can be seen in the image below, such as the values for the presented line heights, choices, and reaction times:

View of the data collected from an online version of the Asch Conformity Experiment conducted with Labvanced.

open in new window

# 2. Bobo Doll Experiment by Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory

Frames from a video and images shown to the children who participated in the Bobo doll experiment. Copyright owner: Albert Bandura.

Social psychologist Albert Bandura carried out a groundbreaking study in 1961 called the Bobo Doll experiment, which made a substantial contribution to our understanding of children's social learning and aggression. Bandura was curious about how children learn to pick up new behaviors by imitation and observation.

In this experiment, children interacted with a life-sized inflatable doll called Bobo while being exposed to adult models who were aggressive and non-aggressive. The conditions of the study were as follows:

• Aggressive Model Condition: Children witnessed a role model act violently against the Bobo doll. Along with hitting and kicking, the aggressive actions included verbal abuse.
• Non-Aggressive Model Condition: Children witnessed a role model who did not act aggressively toward the Bobo doll.
• Control Group: No adult role model was seen interacting with the Bandura Bobo doll.

Children were placed in a room with the Bobo doll and other toys after looking at the conditions / models. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the children would imitate the violent acts they witnessed.

The Bobo Doll study produced some fascinating results. Compared to the control group and the non-aggressive model, children who watched the aggressive model were more likely to act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. This finding aligned with Albert Bandura's social learning theory which postulates that people learn new abilities through observing and imitating the behaviors of others. The girls in the aggressive model condition also reacted more physically aggressive when the model was male, but they responded more verbally when the model was female. The observation of how frequently they punched Bobo broke the general pattern of gender-inverted effects. It was also found that boys were more likely than girls to imitate same-sex models.

Our knowledge of the roles that imitation and observational learning play in children's development of aggressive behaviors has greatly increased as a result of Bandura’s Bobo doll study.

# 3. Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo

Experiment participants who had the role of a ‘guard’, pictured walking in the prison yard.

Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo carried out a study at Stanford University in 1971 that is known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. The experiment's goal was to find out how people would act in a prison simulation if they were in positions of power or powerlessness.

Out of the 75 volunteers, Zimbardo and his colleagues chose 24 male college students to take part in the study. The participants were divided into two groups at random and placed in a mock prison located in the Stanford psychology building's basement: guards or inmates.

The participants were completely absorbed in their parts; guards were deindividualized by being outfitted in sunglasses and uniforms, and inmates were given numbers rather than names. The guards started acting abusively and authoritarian toward the inmates as a result of the authority that had been bestowed upon them. In response, the inmates displayed symptoms of severe stress and emotional collapse.

The experiment was supposed to last two weeks, but because of the participants' severe psychological distress, it was called off after just six days! The experiment's inherent ethical issues surfaced as a result of the situation getting worse. The study has sparked ethical questions due to issues like incomplete debriefing, intense simulation, and incompletely informed consent. Because the participants' psychological well-being was compromised, Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment has come under fire on a number of occasions.

In summary, the results for Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford experiment shed a light on how even ordinary beings can quickly adopt harmful and dangerous behaviors just because of their environment or roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently brought up in conversations concerning how circumstances can affect behavior and how people can misuse their power when they are in positions of authority.

# 4. Obedience Experiment by Stanley Milgram

The study setup of the Obedience experiment where the experimenter and student are confederates and the teacher who is the participant is instructed to administer shocks.

In the early 1960s, social psychologist Stanley Milgram carried out a number of contentious studies on submission to authority figures and the Milgram Experiment is the most well-known of these studies.

For the Obedience Experiment, three people were involved in the basic setup of the experiment: the learner (an associate of the experimenter), the teacher (a participant), and the experimenter (an authority figure). The ‘teacher’ participant was informed that the overall aim of the study was to examine the impact of punishment on learning and was directed to shock the student with progressively stronger electric shocks each time they erred on a memory task. The teacher participants were led to believe that the shocks were real (even though they weren't). Thus this setup was a mask for the real aim of the study: to assess to what extent an individual will be obedient to an authority figure, even in the case where their obedience is causing severe harm to others.

As the experiment went on, the experimenter (ie. the authority figure) would give the participant instructions to intensify the shocks while the learner, or confederate, made deliberate mistakes. Voltage levels ranging from mild to severe were labeled on the shocks, with the highest level indicating possible danger from 15 volts to 450 (danger – severe shock). Thus, the teacher could see how dangerous the high shock levels were and know they were ‘inflicting’ pain (even though the shocks were not real).

In summary, the key discovery of Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiment was that a sizable fraction of participants kept shocking the confederate even after they showed signs of distress, objected, and finally fell silent. The experiment result showed that a significant number of participants used the shock generator to its maximum capacity, demonstrating a high degree of submission to authority.

Because Stanley Milgram's Obedience study caused participants psychological distress, criticism and questions were raised pointing to its ethical issues. However, the study still managed to shed light on how common people might act dubiously or immorally when directed by an authority figure, offering insightful information about the influence of authority and social conformity.

# 5. The Hawthorne Effect by Henry A. Landsberger

A phenomenon known as the Hawthorne Effect occurs when people adjust their behavior when they become aware that they are being watched or observed by others. A set of experiments carried out at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s led to the naming of this effect. The initial purpose of the studies was to look into how worker productivity and lighting conditions relate to one another. Elton Mayo also studied in this context how work structure changes (like rest periods) influenced worked outcomes at the factory.

The data from the Hawthorne studies were later reanalyzed and interpreted in the 1950s by social scientist Henry A. Landsberger. His work, especially the 1958 paper "Hawthorne Revisited," was instrumental in making the Hawthorne Effect concept widely known.

Landsberger came to the conclusion that it was the workers' awareness of being observed/studied that actually explained the observed changes in worker productivity, rather than the lighting conditions as first believed. The workers' motivation and performance improved as a result of the researchers' interest and attention.

From then, the results from Hawthorne Effect study has gained widespread acceptance in organizational behavior psychology and social science. It emphasizes how crucial social and psychological elements are in shaping behavior, especially in settings like research or in the workplace where people may behave differently because they are aware that they are being watched or studied. The Hawthorne Effect is frequently brought up when talking about the difficulties in using human subjects in experiments and research because it can be difficult to identify and comprehend the underlying causes of observed behavior when subjects are aware they are being observed.

# Social Psychology Experiments Today

While these classic experiments helped establish the field of social psychology by studying complex topics like obedience and conformity, today there are more ethical guidelines that researchers must follow.

Furthermore, due to the digitization of the 21st century, online experiments are becoming more and more popular which allow for participants to complete tasks together using their computers or smartphones.

# References

• Asch, S. E. (1952). Group forces in the modification and distortion of judgments. In S. E. Asch, Social psychology (pp. 450–501). Prentice-Hall, Inc.
• Asch, S. E. (1953). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgements. Group dynamics. Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological monographs: General and applied, 70(9), 1.
• Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models' reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1(6), 589.
• Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 575.
• Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66(1), 3.
• Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1977). Social learning theory(Vol. 1). Prentice Hall: Englewood cliffs.
• Landsberger, H. A. (1958). Hawthorne Revisited: Management and the Worker, Its Critics, and Developments in Human Relations in Industry.
• Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.
• Milgram, S. (1965). Some conditions of obedience and disobedience to authority. Human relations, 18(1), 57-76.
• Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford prison experiment. Cognition, 2(2), 243–256.
• Zimbardo, P. G. (1995). The psychology of evil: A situationist perspective on recruiting good people to engage in anti-social acts. Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, 11(2), 125-133.

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IResearchNet

Social Psychology Experiments

Social psychology experiments have played a pivotal role in unraveling the intricate tapestry of human behavior, cognition, and emotions within the social context. These experiments represent more than just scientific inquiries; they serve as windows into the fundamental aspects of human nature and the ways in which we interact with others. This article delves into a selection of famous experiments in social psychology, each a milestone in understanding the complexities of human social behavior.

Thesis Statement: The significance of these famous experiments extends far beyond the realm of academia, shaping our understanding of conformity, obedience, group dynamics, morality, and the subconscious biases that influence our decisions and actions. Through these groundbreaking studies, we gain valuable insights into the human condition, prompting us to question, explore, and reflect upon the intricate web of social interactions that define our lives.

Famous Experiments in Social Psychology

The Bennington College study was conducted by sociologist Theodore Newcomb from 1935 until 1939. The study examined the attitudes of students attending the then all-female Bennington College early in the college’s history; indeed, the study began during the first year that the college had a senior class.

Solomon Asch’s Conformity experiments in the 1950s starkly demonstrated the power of conformity on people’s estimation of the length of lines. On over a third of the trials, participants conformed to the majority, even though the majority judgment was clearly wrong. Seventy-five percent of the participants conformed at least once during the experiment.

In Muzafer Sherif ’s Robbers Cave experiment (1954) boys were divided into two competing groups to explore how much hostility and aggression would emerge. It is also known as realistic group conflict theory, because the intergroup conflict was induced through competition over resources.

Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance experiment subjects were asked to perform a boring task. They were divided into two groups and given two different pay scales. At the end of the study, participants who were paid $1 to say that they enjoyed the task and another group of participants were paid $20 to say the same lie. The first group ($1) would later believe that they like the task better than the second group ($20). People justified the lie by changing their previously unfavorable attitudes about the task (Festinger and Carlsmith 1959).

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment has shown how far people would go to obey an authority figure. Following the events of the Holocaust in World War II Stanley Milgram’s experiments of the 1960s/1970s showed that normal American citizens were capable of following orders to the point of causing extreme suffering in an innocent human being.

Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment has demonstrated how aggression is learned by imitation (Bandura et al. 1961). Bandura’s experimental work was one of the first studies in a long line of research showing how exposure to media violence leads to aggressive behavior in the observers.

In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment a simulated exercise between student prisoners and guards showed how far people would follow an adopted role. This was an important demonstration of the power of the immediate social situation, and its capacity to overwhelm normal personality traits (Haney et al. 1973).

The Milgram Experiment

Background and Context

The Milgram Experiment, conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s, arose in a climate of post-World War II questions about obedience, authority, and moral responsibility. Inspired by the Nuremberg Trials and the revelation of the atrocities committed by Nazi personnel who claimed to be “just following orders,” Milgram sought to explore the extent to which individuals would obey authority figures, even when it conflicted with their own moral beliefs.

Experiment Setup and Procedure

The experiment involved three key roles: the experimenter (authority figure), the teacher (participant), and the learner (an actor). Participants believed they were assisting in a study examining the effects of punishment on learning. The teacher was instructed to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner for incorrect responses in a word-pair memory test. Unbeknownst to the teacher, the learner did not actually receive shocks, but their responses were scripted to simulate distress and pain.

Ethical Concerns and Criticisms

The Milgram Experiment has been widely criticized for its ethical implications. Participants were exposed to significant psychological stress and believed they were causing harm to another person, potentially leading to long-lasting emotional trauma. Critics argue that the experiment lacked proper informed consent, and the debriefing process may not have been sufficient to alleviate the distress experienced by participants.

Major Findings and Their Impact

The Milgram Experiment revealed astonishing results. Contrary to expectations, a significant proportion of participants, under the pressure of the authority figure’s commands, continued to administer shocks up to potentially lethal levels, even when they were aware of the learner’s distress. This demonstrated the profound influence of authority figures on individual behavior.

The study shed light on the psychology of obedience and the potential for ordinary people to engage in harmful actions under the guise of following orders. Milgram’s findings raised ethical and moral questions about blind obedience and individual responsibility in the face of authority.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, stands as one of the most notorious and influential studies in social psychology. Emerging during a tumultuous period in American history marked by social unrest and the questioning of authority, the experiment sought to investigate the psychological dynamics of power, authority, and the consequences of perceived roles within a simulated prison environment.

Description of the Experiment

The experiment involved the transformation of the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department into a mock prison. Volunteers were randomly assigned to play the roles of either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison environment. The participants quickly adapted to their roles, with guards displaying authoritarian behaviors, and prisoners experiencing psychological distress and rebellion. The study was originally intended to last two weeks but was terminated after only six days due to the alarming and unethical behaviors exhibited by both guards and prisoners.

Ethical Controversies

The Stanford Prison Experiment has been mired in ethical controversies. Critics argue that the psychological harm inflicted upon participants was severe, and the lack of proper oversight allowed the study to veer into dangerous territory. Questions have also been raised regarding the informed consent process, as participants were not fully aware of the potential psychological consequences of their involvement.

Key Findings and Implications

Despite its ethical shortcomings, the Stanford Prison Experiment yielded valuable insights into the malleability of human behavior in response to situational factors. It demonstrated how ordinary individuals could quickly adopt abusive and authoritarian roles when placed in positions of power. The study underscored the importance of ethical considerations in psychological research and prompted discussions about the responsibility of researchers to ensure the well-being of participants.

The implications of the study extend beyond academia, offering a cautionary tale about the potential for abuses of power and authority. It has influenced discussions on ethics in research, the psychology of group dynamics, and the understanding of how situational factors can shape behavior.

The Asch Conformity Experiment

Introduction and Historical Context

The Asch Conformity Experiment, conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, remains a seminal study in the field of social psychology. Emerging in the post-World War II era, this experiment aimed to investigate the extent to which individuals conform to group norms and the impact of social pressure on individual decision-making.

Experiment Design and Methodology

In the Asch Conformity Experiment, participants were placed in a group of individuals, with the participant being the only true subject. The group was presented with a simple perceptual task: comparing the length of lines. Participants were asked to state which of several lines was of equal length to a reference line. Unknown to the participant, the other group members were confederates who had been instructed to give incorrect answers in some trials.

During the critical trials, the confederates deliberately provided incorrect answers that contradicted the obvious correct response. The participant, seated at the end of the row, faced the dilemma of whether to conform to the group’s incorrect consensus or assert their own judgment.

Conformity Results and Interpretations

The results of the Asch Conformity Experiment were striking. Despite the obvious correctness of their own judgments, participants frequently succumbed to group pressure and provided incorrect responses to match the consensus of the group. On average, about one-third of participants conformed to the group’s incorrect answers in the face of social pressure.

Asch’s findings underscored the potent influence of social conformity and the willingness of individuals to abandon their own perceptions and judgment in favor of group consensus. He also identified several factors that influenced the likelihood of conformity, such as the size of the majority and the unanimity of the group.

Influence on Social Psychology and Beyond

The Asch Conformity Experiment significantly impacted social psychology by highlighting the powerful role of social influence on human behavior. It prompted further research into group dynamics, conformity, and the psychology of social norms. Asch’s work laid the foundation for studies on topics such as groupthink, normative influence, and the conditions under which individuals are more likely to resist social pressure.

Beyond social psychology, the experiment has practical implications for understanding how conformity operates in everyday life, from peer pressure among adolescents to decision-making in organizations. The study has also been instrumental in discussions about individual autonomy and the tension between conforming to societal expectations and asserting one’s independent judgment.

The Asch Conformity Experiment remains a timeless exploration of the human propensity to conform and the psychological mechanisms at play when individuals navigate the tension between individuality and social cohesion.

The Robbers Cave Experiment

Background and Purpose of the Study

The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted by psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues in 1954, was designed to investigate intergroup conflict and cooperation among children. The study emerged during a time when Cold War tensions and conflicts between nations were a prominent backdrop, prompting Sherif to explore the dynamics of group conflict on a smaller scale.

The central purpose of the study was to understand how group identities, competition, and cooperation could influence the attitudes and behaviors of individuals within groups and across groups. It sought to shed light on the origins of intergroup hostility and the potential for reconciliation.

Experimental Design and Procedures

The study took place at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma and involved two phases.

• Group Formation : In the first phase, a group of 22 boys was divided into two groups, the Rattlers and the Eagles, with no prior knowledge of each other. The boys formed strong group identities through team-building activities and bonding experiences.
• Intergroup Competition : In the second phase, the two groups were introduced to each other and engaged in competitive activities, such as sports and contests, where rivalries quickly developed. The competition intensified intergroup conflicts, leading to name-calling, vandalism, and hostility.
• Intervention and Cooperation : To address the escalating conflict, the researchers initiated activities that required the groups to collaborate, such as solving common problems and working together towards common goals. These cooperative experiences aimed to reduce intergroup tensions.

Notable Findings and Insights on Intergroup Conflict

The Robbers Cave Experiment yielded several important findings:

• Intergroup conflict emerged swiftly when groups were formed and exposed to competition, even among previously unacquainted individuals.
• The competition exacerbated stereotypes and prejudices between the groups.
• Cooperation between groups, when introduced strategically, had the potential to reduce hostilities and foster intergroup harmony.
• The study illustrated the role of superordinate goals (common objectives that transcended group boundaries) in promoting cooperation and reducing conflict.

Practical Applications and Contributions

The Robbers Cave Experiment has had lasting implications in the fields of social psychology and conflict resolution. It provided valuable insights into the dynamics of intergroup conflict and cooperation, shedding light on the processes by which hostility between groups can be both fueled and mitigated.

The concept of superordinate goals, derived from the study, has been widely applied in conflict resolution efforts. By identifying shared objectives that require collaboration across group lines, individuals and societies have been able to bridge divides and work together toward common aims. The study’s lessons have informed strategies for reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations, and fostering peace in various contexts, including education, organizational management, and international diplomacy.

The Robbers Cave Experiment remains a classic illustration of how group identities and competition can lead to conflict, while also highlighting the potential for cooperation and reconciliation when shared goals and positive intergroup interactions are promoted.

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment

Overview of the Experiment

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, is a widely recognized and controversial study in the realm of social psychology. The experiment was designed to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power and authority within a simulated prison environment.

In this study, participants were randomly assigned to play the roles of either guards or prisoners in a mock prison set up in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department. The experiment aimed to explore how individuals, when placed in positions of power or vulnerability, would react and adapt to their roles.

Ethical Considerations and Criticisms

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment has been marred by significant ethical concerns and criticisms. The study generated intense psychological distress among participants, with the guards exhibiting abusive and authoritarian behaviors, and the prisoners experiencing emotional and psychological harm. The experiment’s duration, initially planned for two weeks, was terminated after only six days due to the extreme and unethical behaviors displayed by participants.

Critics argue that the study lacked proper informed consent, as participants were not fully aware of the potential psychological consequences of their involvement. The absence of proper oversight and safeguards to protect the well-being of participants has been a focal point of ethical critique.

Psychological Effects on Participants

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment had profound psychological effects on its participants. Guards, assigned to positions of power, quickly adopted authoritarian roles, displaying abusive behaviors toward the prisoners. Prisoners, on the other hand, experienced distress, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness.

The psychological effects on participants were so severe that the study was terminated prematurely to prevent further harm. Post-experiment interviews revealed that some participants struggled to differentiate between their roles and their true identities, emphasizing the significant impact of situational factors on individual behavior.

Enduring Influence on Social Psychology

Despite its ethical controversies, the Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment had a lasting influence on the field of social psychology. It highlighted the malleability of human behavior in response to situational factors and the potential for ordinary individuals to engage in abusive actions when placed in positions of authority.

The study contributed to discussions on ethics in research and the responsibility of researchers to prioritize the well-being of participants. It also prompted further investigations into the psychology of power, authority, and obedience, leading to a deeper understanding of the complexities of human behavior within social contexts.

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment remains a cautionary tale in the annals of psychology, reminding researchers of the ethical imperative to protect participants and the enduring influence of situational factors on human behavior.

The Little Albert Experiment

Introduction to the Study

The Little Albert Experiment is a classic and ethically controversial study conducted by behaviorist John B. Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner in 1920. The experiment aimed to investigate the process of classical conditioning, particularly the acquisition of phobias and emotional responses in humans.

The study is named after its subject, a 9-month-old boy known as “Little Albert.” It remains a notable case study in the field of psychology due to its ethical concerns and contributions to the understanding of learned behaviors.

Experiment Details and Ethical Concerns

In the Little Albert Experiment, Little Albert was exposed to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, and other stimuli. Initially, he displayed no fear or aversion to these objects. However, Watson and Rayner sought to condition an emotional response in Little Albert by pairing the presentation of these stimuli with a loud, frightening noise (produced by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer). As a result of this pairing, Little Albert began to exhibit fear and distress in response to the previously neutral stimuli, particularly the white rat.

The ethical concerns surrounding this experiment are significant. Little Albert was not provided with informed consent, and his emotional well-being was disregarded. The study also lacked proper debriefing, and the long-term consequences of Little Albert’s conditioning were not addressed. The ethical standards of today would prohibit such a study from being conducted.

Conditioning Process and Long-Term Implications

The Little Albert Experiment demonstrated the principles of classical conditioning in humans. It illustrated how conditioned emotional responses, such as fear and anxiety, could be acquired through association with previously neutral stimuli. In this case, Little Albert learned to fear the white rat because it had been consistently paired with a loud, frightening noise.

The long-term implications of the study are less clear due to a lack of follow-up research on Little Albert. It remains unknown whether his conditioned fears persisted or how they may have impacted his later development. The study’s ethical shortcomings prevent a comprehensive assessment of its long-term effects.

Contemporary Perspectives on the Study

The Little Albert Experiment is viewed with skepticism and ethical concern from contemporary perspectives. It serves as a reminder of the importance of informed consent, debriefing, and the ethical treatment of research participants in psychological research. Ethical standards in research have evolved significantly since the time of the experiment, emphasizing the need to prioritize the well-being and rights of participants.

While the Little Albert Experiment contributed to the understanding of classical conditioning, it also serves as a cautionary tale about the ethical boundaries of research and the potential consequences of disregarding the psychological well-being of participants. Modern research ethics prioritize the protection and respect of individuals involved in psychological studies, ensuring that similar experiments would not be conducted today.

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise

Historical Context and Significance

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise is a landmark social experiment conducted by educator and activist Jane Elliott in the late 1960s. The experiment was born out of the civil rights movement in the United States and sought to address issues of racism, discrimination, and prejudice. Against the backdrop of racial tensions and the struggle for civil rights, Elliott designed the exercise to provide a firsthand experience of the effects of discrimination.

Experiment Design and Outcomes

In the Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise, Elliott divided her third-grade students into two groups based on eye color, designating one group as “superior” (those with blue eyes) and the other as “inferior” (those with brown eyes). Over the course of the exercise, Elliott systematically treated the two groups differently, providing privileges to the superior group while subjecting the inferior group to discrimination and negative stereotypes.

The results of the experiment were profound. Children in the inferior group quickly internalized their assigned role and began to exhibit lower self-esteem, diminished academic performance, and a range of negative emotional responses. On the other hand, those in the superior group displayed increased arrogance and a sense of entitlement.

Elliott conducted the exercise over multiple days, reversing the roles on the second day to provide a taste of both sides of discrimination. The exercise aimed to create empathy and understanding among participants by allowing them to personally experience the emotional and psychological impact of discrimination.

Broader Societal Impact and Implications

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise had a significant societal impact. It garnered attention in the media and brought issues of racism and discrimination to the forefront of public consciousness. Elliott’s work challenged prevailing beliefs about the nature of prejudice and discrimination, highlighting the role of societal conditioning in perpetuating such attitudes.

The exercise also emphasized the importance of empathy and perspective-taking in combatting racism and prejudice. By allowing participants to experience discrimination firsthand, Elliott aimed to foster greater empathy and understanding among individuals of different racial backgrounds.

Experimentation in Social Psychology

Experimentation definition.

Experimentation, in its simplest form, is a research method used to investigate the presence or absence of a causal relationship between two variables. This method involves systematically manipulating one variable, known as the independent variable, and then assessing the impact or effect of this manipulation on another variable, referred to as the dependent variable. Through experimentation, researchers aim to discern whether changes in the independent variable cause changes in the dependent variable, providing insights into causal relationships within a given phenomenon or context. This systematic and controlled approach allows for rigorous testing of hypotheses and the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships in scientific inquiry.

Importance and Consequences of Experiments

The importance and consequences of experiments in research are closely tied to their unique ability to establish causal relationships. Here are key features of experiments that facilitate the ability to draw causal conclusions and their implications:

• Establishing Causality: Experiments are highly valuable because they allow researchers to make statements about causality. By systematically manipulating the independent variable and assessing its impact on the dependent variable, researchers can infer that changes in the independent variable cause changes in the dependent variable. This cause-and-effect relationship is central to scientific inquiry and helps uncover the mechanisms underlying various phenomena.
• Directionality of Relationship: Experiments provide a clear temporal sequence where changes in the independent variable precede the assessment of the dependent variable. This temporal order is crucial for determining the directionality of the relationship between variables. In causal relationships, the cause must precede the effect. Experiments ensure that this criterion is met, enabling researchers to infer the causal direction.
• Random Assignment: In experiments, participants are randomly assigned to different experimental groups. Random assignment ensures that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any experimental condition, creating equivalent groups at the outset. This eliminates the possibility that pre-existing differences between participants could account for observed differences in the dependent variable. Random assignment strengthens the validity of causal claims by minimizing confounding variables.
• Isolation of Effects: Experiments enable researchers to isolate the effects of the independent variable by controlling all other aspects of the environment. This control ensures that all participants have a similar experience, except for the experimental manipulation. By eliminating extraneous variables, researchers can attribute any observed differences in the dependent variable solely to the independent variable. This isolation of effects enhances the internal validity of the study.

In summary, experiments are a powerful research method that allows for the establishment of causal relationships in scientific inquiry. Their ability to establish causality, ensure temporal precedence, employ random assignment, and isolate the effects of the independent variable makes experiments a cornerstone of empirical research. Researchers must adhere to these principles to draw valid and reliable conclusions about the causal relationships between variables, advancing our understanding of various phenomena in social psychology and other fields.

Some scholars have questioned the utility of experimentation, noting that the experiments which researchers design sometimes do not resemble the circumstances that people encounter in their everyday lives. However, experimentation is the only research method that allows one to definitively establish the existence of a causal relationship between two or more variables.

References:

• Goodwin, C. J. (2003). Research methods in psychology: Methods and design. New York: Wiley.
• Pelham, B. W. (1999). Conducting research in psychology: Measuring the weight of smoke. Pacific Grove,CA: Brooks/Cole.

Social Psychology: Definition, Theories, Scope, & Examples

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs, intentions, and goals are constructed within a social context by the actual or imagined interactions with others.

It, therefore, looks at human behavior as influenced by other people and the conditions under which social behavior and feelings occur.

Baron, Byrne, and Suls (1989) define social psychology as “the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behavior in social situations” (p. 6).

Topics examined in social psychology include the self-concept , social cognition, attribution theory , social influence, group processes, prejudice and discrimination , interpersonal processes, aggression, attitudes , and stereotypes .

Social psychology operates on several foundational assumptions. These fundamental beliefs provide a framework for theories, research, and interpretations.

• Individual and Society Interplay : Social psychologists assume an interplay exists between individual minds and the broader social context. An individual’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are continuously shaped by social interactions, and in turn, individuals influence the societies they are a part of.
• Behavior is Contextual : One core assumption is that behavior can vary significantly based on the situation or context. While personal traits and dispositions matter, the circumstances or social environment often play a decisive role in determining behavior.
• Objective Reality is Difficult to Attain : Our perceptions of reality are influenced by personal beliefs, societal norms, and past experiences. Therefore, our understanding of “reality” is subjective and can be biased or distorted.
• Social Reality is Constructed : Social psychologists believe that individuals actively construct their social world . Through processes like social categorization, attribution, and cognitive biases, people create their understanding of others and societal norms.
• People are Social Beings with a Need to Belong : A fundamental assumption is the inherent social nature of humans. People have an innate need to connect with others, form relationships, and belong to groups. This need influences a wide range of behaviors and emotions.
• Attitudes Influence Behavior : While this might seem straightforward, it’s a foundational belief that our attitudes (combinations of beliefs and feelings) can and often do drive our actions. However, it’s also understood that this relationship can be complex and bidirectional.
• People Desire Cognitive Consistency : This is the belief that people are motivated to maintain consistency in their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Cognitive dissonance theory , which posits that people feel discomfort when holding conflicting beliefs and are motivated to resolve this, is based on this assumption.
• People are Motivated to See Themselves in a Positive Light : The self plays a central role in social psychology. It’s assumed that individuals are generally motivated to maintain and enhance a positive self-view.
• Behavior Can be Predicted and Understood : An underlying assumption of any science, including social psychology, is that phenomena (in this case, human behavior in social contexts) can be studied, understood, predicted, and potentially influenced.
• Cultural and Biological Factors are Integral : Though earlier social psychology might have been criticized for neglecting these factors, contemporary social psychology acknowledges the roles of both biology (genes, hormones, brain processes) and culture (norms, values, traditions) in shaping social behavior.

Early Influences

Aristotle believed that humans were naturally sociable, a necessity that allows us to live together (an individual-centered approach), whilst Plato felt that the state controlled the individual and encouraged social responsibility through social context (a socio-centered approach).

Hegel (1770–1831) introduced the concept that society has inevitable links with the development of the social mind. This led to the idea of a group mind, which is important in the study of social psychology.

Lazarus & Steinthal wrote about Anglo-European influences in 1860. “Volkerpsychologie” emerged, which focused on the idea of a collective mind.

It emphasized the notion that personality develops because of cultural and community influences, especially through language, which is both a social product of the community as well as a means of encouraging particular social thought in the individual. Therefore Wundt (1900–1920) encouraged the methodological study of language and its influence on the social being.

Early Texts

Texts focusing on social psychology first emerged in the 20th century. McDougall published the first notable book in English in 1908 (An Introduction to Social Psychology), which included chapters on emotion and sentiment, morality, character, and religion, quite different from those incorporated in the field today.

He believed social behavior was innate/instinctive and, therefore, individual, hence his choice of topics.  This belief is not the principle upheld in modern social psychology, however.

Allport’s work (1924) underpins current thinking to a greater degree, as he acknowledged that social behavior results from interactions between people.

He also took a methodological approach, discussing actual research and emphasizing that the field was a “science … which studies the behavior of the individual in so far as his behavior stimulates other individuals, or is itself a reaction to this behavior” (1942: p. 12).

His book also dealt with topics still evident today, such as emotion, conformity, and the effects of an audience on others.

Murchison (1935) published The first handbook on social psychology was published by Murchison in 1935.  Murphy & Murphy (1931/37) produced a book summarizing the findings of 1,000 studies in social psychology.  A text by Klineberg (1940) looked at the interaction between social context and personality development. By the 1950s, several texts were available on the subject.

Journal Development

• 1950s – Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

• 1963 – Journal of Personality, British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

• 1965 – Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

• 1971 – Journal of Applied Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology

• 1975 – Social Psychology Quarterly, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

• 1982 – Social Cognition

• 1984 – Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Early Experiments

There is some disagreement about the first true experiment, but the following are certainly among some of the most important.

Triplett (1898) applied the experimental method to investigate the performance of cyclists and schoolchildren on how the presence of others influences overall performance – thus, how individuals are affected and behave in the social context.

By 1935, the study of social norms had developed, looking at how individuals behave according to the rules of society. This was conducted by Sherif (1935).

Lewin et al. then began experimental research into leadership and group processes by 1939, looking at effective work ethics under different leadership styles.

Later Developments

Much of the key research in social psychology developed following World War II, when people became interested in the behavior of individuals when grouped together and in social situations. Key studies were carried out in several areas.

Some studies focused on how attitudes are formed, changed by the social context, and measured to ascertain whether a change has occurred.

Amongst some of the most famous works in social psychology is that on obedience conducted by Milgram in his “electric shock” study, which looked at the role an authority figure plays in shaping behavior.  Similarly,  Zimbardo’s prison simulation notably demonstrated conformity to given roles in the social world.

Wider topics then began to emerge, such as social perception, aggression, relationships, decision-making, pro-social behavior, and attribution, many of which are central to today’s topics and will be discussed throughout this website.

Thus, the growth years of social psychology occurred during the decades following the 1940s.

The scope of social psychology is vast, reflecting the myriad ways social factors intertwine with individual cognition and behavior.

Its principles and findings resonate in virtually every area of human interaction, making it a vital field for understanding and improving the human experience.

• Interpersonal Relationships : This covers attraction, love, jealousy, friendship, and group dynamics. Understanding how and why relationships form and the factors that contribute to their maintenance or dissolution is central to this domain.
• Attitude Formation and Change : How do individuals form opinions and attitudes? What methods can effectively change them? This scope includes the study of persuasion, propaganda, and cognitive dissonance.
• Social Cognition : This examines how people process, store, and apply information about others. Areas include social perception, heuristics, stereotypes, and attribution theories.
• Social Influence : The study of conformity, compliance, obedience, and the myriad ways individuals influence one another falls within this domain.
• Group Dynamics : This entails studying group behavior, intergroup relations, group decision-making processes, leadership, and more. Concepts like groupthink and group polarization emerge from this area.
• Prejudice and Discrimination : Understanding the roots of bias, racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice, as well as exploring interventions to reduce them, is a significant focus.
• Self and Identity : Investigating self-concept, self-esteem, self-presentation, and the social construction of identity are all part of this realm.
• Prosocial Behavior and Altruism : Why do individuals sometimes help others, even at a cost to themselves? This area delves into the motivations and conditions that foster cooperative and altruistic behavior.
• Aggression : From understanding the underlying causes of aggressive behavior to studying societal factors that exacerbate or mitigate aggression, this topic seeks to dissect the nature of hostile actions.
• Cultural and Cross-cultural Dimensions : As societies become more interconnected, understanding cultural influences on behavior, cognition, and emotion is crucial. This area compares and contrasts behaviors across different cultures and societal groups.
• Environmental and Applied Settings : Social psychology principles find application in health psychology, environmental behavior, organizational behavior, consumer behavior, and more.
• Social Issues : Social psychologists might study the impact of societal structures on individual behavior, exploring topics like poverty, urban stress, and crime.
• Education : Principles of social psychology enhance teaching methods, address issues of classroom dynamics, and promote effective learning.
• Media and Technology : In the digital age, understanding the effects of media consumption, the dynamics of online communication, and the formation of online communities is increasingly relevant.
• Law : Insights from social psychology inform areas such as jury decision-making, eyewitness testimony, and legal procedures.
• Health : Concepts from social psychology are employed to promote health behaviors, understand doctor-patient dynamics, and tackle issues like addiction.

Example Theories

Allport (1920) – social facilitation.

Allport introduced the notion that the presence of others (the social group) can facilitate certain behavior.

It was found that an audience would improve an actor’s performance in well-learned/easy tasks but leads to a decrease in performance on newly learned/difficult tasks due to social inhibition.

Bandura (1963) Social Learning Theory

Bandura introduced the notion that behavior in the social world could be modeled. Three groups of children watched a video where an adult was aggressive towards a ‘bobo doll,’ and the adult was either just seen to be doing this, was rewarded by another adult for their behavior, or was punished for it.

Children who had seen the adult rewarded were found to be more likely to copy such behavior.

Festinger (1950) –  Cognitive Dissonance

Festinger, Schacter, and Black brought up the idea that when we hold beliefs, attitudes, or cognitions which are different, then we experience dissonance – this is an inconsistency that causes discomfort.

We are motivated to reduce this by either changing one of our thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes or selectively attending to information that supports one of our beliefs and ignores the other (selective exposure hypothesis).

Dissonance occurs when there are difficult choices or decisions or when people participate in behavior that is contrary to their attitude. Dissonance is thus brought about by effort justification (when aiming to reach a modest goal), induced compliance (when people are forced to comply contrary to their attitude), and free choice (when weighing up decisions).

Tajfel (1971) –  Social Identity Theory

When divided into artificial (minimal) groups, prejudice results simply from the awareness that there is an “out-group” (the other group).

When the boys were asked to allocate points to others (which might be converted into rewards) who were either part of their own group or the out-group, they displayed a strong in-group preference. That is, they allocated more points on the set task to boys who they believed to be in the same group as themselves.

This can be accounted for by Tajfel & Turner’s social identity theory, which states that individuals need to maintain a positive sense of personal and social identity: this is partly achieved by emphasizing the desirability of one’s own group, focusing on distinctions between other “lesser” groups.

Weiner (1986) – Attribution Theory

Weiner was interested in the attributions made for experiences of success and failure and introduced the idea that we look for explanations of behavior in the social world.

He believed that these were made based on three areas: locus, which could be internal or external; stability, which is whether the cause is stable or changes over time: and controllability.

Milgram (1963) – Shock Experiment

Participants were told that they were taking part in a study on learning but always acted as the teacher when they were then responsible for going over paired associate learning tasks.

When the learner (a stooge) got the answer wrong, they were told by a scientist that they had to deliver an electric shock. This did not actually happen, although the participant was unaware of this as they had themselves a sample (real!) shock at the start of the experiment.

They were encouraged to increase the voltage given after each incorrect answer up to a maximum voltage, and it was found that all participants gave shocks up to 300v, with 65 percent reaching the highest level of 450v.

It seems that obedience is most likely to occur in an unfamiliar environment and in the presence of an authority figure, especially when covert pressure is put upon people to obey. It is also possible that it occurs because the participant felt that someone other than themselves was responsible for their actions.

Haney, Banks, Zimbardo (1973) – Stanford Prison Experiment

Volunteers took part in a simulation where they were randomly assigned the role of a prisoner or guard and taken to a converted university basement resembling a prison environment. There was some basic loss of rights for the prisoners, who were unexpectedly arrested, and given a uniform and an identification number (they were therefore deindividuated).

The study showed that conformity to social roles occurred as part of the social interaction, as both groups displayed more negative emotions, and hostility and dehumanization became apparent.

Prisoners became passive, whilst the guards assumed an active, brutal, and dominant role. Although normative and informational social influence played a role here, deindividuation/the loss of a sense of identity seemed most likely to lead to conformity.

Both this and Milgram’s study introduced the notion of social influence and the ways in which this could be observed/tested.

Provides Clear Predictions

As a scientific discipline, social psychology prioritizes formulating clear and testable hypotheses. This clarity facilitates empirical testing, ensuring the field’s findings are based on observable and quantifiable phenomena.

The Asch conformity experiments hypothesized that individuals would conform to a group’s incorrect judgment.

The clear prediction allowed for controlled experimentation to determine the extent and conditions of such conformity.

Emphasizes Objective Measurement

Social psychology leans heavily on empirical methods, emphasizing objectivity. This means that results are less influenced by biases or subjective interpretations.

Double-blind procedures , controlled settings, and standardized measures in many social psychology experiments ensure that results are replicable and less prone to experimenter bias.

Empirical Evidence

Over the years, a multitude of experiments in social psychology have bolstered the credibility of its theories. This experimental validation lends weight to its findings and claims.

The robust body of experimental evidence supporting cognitive dissonance theory, from Festinger’s initial studies to more recent replications, showcases the theory’s enduring strength and relevance.

Limitations

Underestimates individual differences.

While social psychology often looks at broad trends and general behaviors, it can sometimes gloss over individual differences.

Not everyone conforms, obeys, or reacts in the same way, and these nuanced differences can be critical.

While Milgram’s obedience experiments showcased a startling rate of compliance to authority, there were still participants who resisted, and their reasons and characteristics are equally important to understand.

Ignores Biology

While social psychology focuses on the social environment’s impact on behavior, early theories sometimes neglect the biological underpinnings that play a role.

Hormones, genetics, and neurological factors can influence behavior and might intersect with social factors in complex ways.

The role of testosterone in aggressive behavior is a clear instance where biology intersects with the social. Ignoring such biological components can lead to an incomplete understanding.

Superficial Snapshots of Social Processes

Social psychology sometimes offers a narrow view, capturing only a momentary slice of a broader, evolving process. This might mean that the field fails to capture the depth, evolution, or intricacies of social processes over time.

A study might capture attitudes towards a social issue at a single point in time, but not account for the historical evolution, future shifts, or deeper societal underpinnings of those attitudes.

Allport, F. H. (1920). The influence of the group upon association and thought. Journal of Experimental Psychology , 3(3), 159.

Allport, F. H. (1924). Response to social stimulation in the group. Social psychology , 260-291.

Allport, F. H. (1942). Methods in the study of collective action phenomena. The Journal of Social Psychology , 15(1), 165-185.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Vicarious reinforcement and imitative learning. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 67(6), 601.

Baron, R. A., Byrne, D., & Suls, J. (1989). Attitudes: Evaluating the social world. Baron et al, Social Psychology . 3rd edn. MA: Allyn and Bacon, 79-101.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S., & Back, K. (1950). Social processes in informal groups .

Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). Study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Reviews , 9(1-17).

Klineberg, O. (1940). The problem of personality .

Krewer, B., & Jahoda, G. (1860). On the scope of Lazarus and Steinthals “Völkerpsychologie” as reflected in the. Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft, 1890, 4-12.

Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally created “social climates”. The Journal of Social Psychology , 10(2), 269-299.

Mcdougall, W. (1908). An introduction to social psychology . Londres: Methuen.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 67(4), 371.

Murchison, C. (1935). A handbook of social psychology .

Murphy, G., & Murphy, L. B. (1931). Experimental social psychology .

Sherif, M. (1935). A study of some social factors in perception. Archives of Psychology (Columbia University).

Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European journal of social psychology , 1(2), 149-178.

Triplett, N. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pacemaking and competition. American journal of Psychology , 9(4), 507-533.

Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion . New York: Springer-Verlag.

LESSWRONG LW

28 social psychology studies from *experiments with people* (frey & gregg, 2017).

I'm reading a very informative and fun book about human social psychology, Experiments With People (2nd ed, 2018).

... 28 social psychological experiments that have significantly advanced our understanding of human social thinking and behavior. Each chapter focuses on the details and implications of a single study, while citing related research and real-life examples along the way.

Here I summarize each chapter so that you can save time. Some results are old news to me, but some were quite surprising. I often skip over the experimental details, such as how the psychologists used ingenious tricks to make sure the participants don't guess the true purposes of the experiments. Refer to originals for details.

The experiments start in the 1950s and get up to 2010s, and occasionally literatures from before 1900s are quoted.

Chapters I find especially interesting are:

• Chap 14. It lists the many failures of introspection, and raises question as to what consciousness can do.
• Chap 16. It has significant similarity with superrationality and acausal trade.
• Chap 20. It warns about how credulous humans are.
• Chap 27. It is about the human fear of death and the psychological defenses against it.
• Chap 28. It shows how belief in free will can be motivated by a desire to punish immoral behaviors. Understanding why people believe in free will is necessary for a theory of what is the use of the belief in free will.

Chap 1. Conforming to group norms

Asch conformity experiment , from Opinions and Social Pressure (Asch, 1955)

Video demonstration.

Groups of eight participated in a simple "perceptual" task. In reality, all but one of the participants were actors, and the true focus of the study was about how the remaining participant would react.

Each student viewed a card with a line on it, followed by another with three lines labeled A, B, and C (see accompanying figure). One of these lines was the same as that on the first card, and the other two lines were clearly longer or shorter. Each participant was then asked to say aloud which line matched the length of that on the first card... The actors would always unanimously nominate one comparator, but on certain trials they would give the correct response and on others, an incorrect response. The group was seated such that the real participant always responded last.

It was found that

• When there are over 3 actors giving unanimously the wrong answer, the participant went along 1/3 of time.
• Increasing the number of actors above 3 did not increase compliance.
• Even when the difference between the lines was 7 inches, there were still some who complied.
• If there is at least one actor disagreeing with the majority, the participant decreased compliance.
• If the fellow dissenter joins the majority, the participant increased compliance to the same level of 1/3.
• If the fellow dissenter leaves, the participant increased compliance only slightly.

There are two reasons for this compliance. One is heuristic about knowledge: the majority is usually more correct. Another is normative: social acceptance matters more than being correct.

The effect of a dissenting minority is notable.

Research finds that, whereas majorities inspire heuristic judgments and often compliance, minorities provoke a more systematic consideration of arguments, and possibly, an internal acceptance of their position. (Nemeth, 1987) Majorities tend to have a greater impact on public conformity, whereas minorities tend to have more effect on private conformity. (Chaiten & Stangor, 1987)

Chap 2. Forced compliance theory and cognitive dissonance

In When Prophecy Fails , the story of a UFO cult was detailed. When the doomsday prophecy failed, most people left, but some became even firmer believers.

(My own example, not appearing in the book.) In Borges's story A Problem , Borges asks, how would Don Quixote react if he kill a man?

Having killed the man, don Quixote cannot allow himself to think that the terrible act is the work of a delirium; the reality of the effect makes him assume a like reality of cause, and don Quixote never emerges from his madness.

This chapter reviews of Cognitive consequences of forced compliance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959)

• Participants were asked to do an extremely boring task.
• Then the experimenter asked the participant to deceive the next participant that the experiment was fun. Half were paid $1, another half paid $20.
• A control group was not asked to lie.
• Then they were nudged to take a survey about how they felt about the experiment.

The result is that, those paid $1 thought the experiment was fun, and those paid $20 thought it was boring, and those that didn't get asked to lie thought it was very boring.

Festinger explains this by the theory of cognitive dissonance:

• An attitude (thinking the experiment was boring) and a behavior (saying it was fun) clashes, creating an uncomfortable feeling.
• The participant then is motivated to remove the discomfort by changing the attitude by rationalization (thinking the experiment was actually fun).
• If the participant was paid $20, then there was no dissonance, as there was a ready explanation of the dissonant behavior.
• If the participant was paid $1, then there was dissonance, because the participant regarded the lying behavior as mostly voluntary .

An alternative explanation from Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena (Bem, 1967) :

• We don't form beliefs about ourselves by direct introspection, instead, we infer it through
• When we behave against previously self-beliefs, this creates an update on our self-beliefs.

See also Chap 14 for more on the lack of introspection.

Current consensus is that both theories are correct, in different situations. The self-perception effect happens when the behavior is mildly different from self-beliefs, and the cognitive dissonance effect happens when the behavior is grossly different.

There are also many complications, such as in Double forced compliance and cognitive dissonance theory (Girandola, 1997) , which reported that even if participants performed a boring task, then told others about how boring it was, afterwards they still felt the task was more interesting afterwards.

There is a lot of ongoing research.

Chap 3. Suffering can create liking

Such curious phenomena as hazing has been studied since The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group (Aronson, 1959)

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that persons who undergo an unpleasant initiation to become members of a group increase their liking for the group; that is, they find the group more attractive than do persons who become members without going through a severe initiation.

The group was a made-up thing by the experimenters. It purports to discuss interesting sexual things, but the participants, after finally "joining", would only hear a very boring group discussion about animal sex.

This hypothesis was derived from Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance." 3 conditions were employed: reading of "embarrassing material" before a group, mildly embarrassing material to be read, no reading. The results clearly verified the hypothesis.

The "embarrassing material" are lists of obscene words. The "mildly embarrassing material" are lists of mildly sexual words.

Result: the very embarrassing ritual increased liking for the group.

Explanation was by the theory of cognitive dissonance: "I have already invested so much to join the group. I must be a fool if the group turned out to be bad! And I'm not a fool."

Cognitive dissonance has been used for brainwashing, persuasion, education, and many other kinds of things.

One of the authors learned from an investigative journalist about how a dodgy car company... had customers unnecessarily wait or hours while their finance deal was supposedly being negotiated upstairs.

[ Commitment and community: Communes and utopias in sociological perspective (Kanter, 1972)] noted that

19th-century utopian cults requiring their member to make significant sacrifices were more successful. For example, cults that had their members surrender all their personal belongings lasted much longer than those that did not.

Some bad investments are continued far after they had become clearly unprofitable, this is the sunk cost fallacy .

Chap 4. Just following orders

The banality of evil is the theory that everyday people can do great evils such as the Holocaust, by simply following orders.

Behavioral study of obedience (Milgram, 1965) reported the famous Milgram experiment . A video recreation is here .

This is a very famous experiment with many followups. There is sufficient material freely online, such as the Wikipedia page. So I won't recount it here.

I was most surprised to learn that personality had very little effect. That is, obedience exhibited by the participants in this experiment was mostly situational , instead of stemming from the personality of the participants.

Chap 5. Bystander apathy effect

The murder of Kitty Genovese stimulated research into the "bystander effect". On March 13, 1964 Genovese was murdered... 38 witnesses watched the stabbings but did not intervene or even call the police until after the attacker fled and Genovese had died...

In Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility (Latané & Darley, 1968) attributed the lack of help by witnesses to diffusion of responsibility : because each saw others witnessing the same event, they assumed that the others would take responsibility.

This phenomenon has a big literature, and is very popularly known, possibly due to the dramatic stories.

Concerning the original experiment by Latane and Darley, I was again surprised that personality factors had little effect, except one: growing up in a big community is correlated with a lower probability of helping.

Chap 6. The effect of an audience

When people perform a task in the presence of others, they perform better if the task is easy, and worse if the task is hard. One theory is that presence of others increases physiological arousal , which then enhances performance of simple tasks and decreases performance of hard tasks. Other theories

In Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach (Zajonc, 1969) , it is found that this is true even for cockroaches. In the experiment, Zajonc gave cockroaches two possible tasks: going through a straight maze, or a more complex maze. They either did the task alone, or while being watched by others outside (the maze was transparent).

While being watched, cockroaches solved faster on the straight maze but slower on the complex maze. This demonstrates that the physiological arousal theory is correct in cockroaches: the effect of an audience can happen without any complex cognitive ability.

However, complex cognitive ability sometimes does occur in humans. As reported in Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others (Cottrell et al, 1968) , blindfolded audience does not exert an effect on the performer.

Chap 7. Group conflicts from trivial groups

This chapter begins with the Robbers Cave experiment , which was a study that investigates the realistic conflict theory , which sounds very common-sense:

• group conflicts and feelings of resentment for other groups arise from conflicting goals and competition over limited resources
• length and severity of the conflict is based upon the perceived value and shortage of the given resource
• positive relations can only be restored with goals that require cooperation between groups

Then it recounts the blue eyes-brown eyes experiment . The problem, then, is, what is the least amount of group-difference in order to make a difference? Enter the minimal group paradigm of Experiments in intergroup discrimination (Tajfel, 1970) . Participants first took a test on estimating dot numbers, then divided into "overestimators" and "underestimators", while in truth they were random. Then, they were given points (convertible to cash) to divide among the groups. Participants favored their own groups significantly more.

In fact, the most favored strategy was to maximize (own group) - (other group), even though it did not maximize (own group). Thus, even the most minimal social groups induced ingroup-outgroup conflict.

The minimal group paradigm has been studied in many ways. It was also found that outgroup homogeneity effect , that is, "they are all the same; we are diverse", could also arise from minimal groups.

One theoretical explanation is Tajfel and Turner's social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) , which states that: 0. A person's self-esteem depends on having a good identity.

• A person's identity has two parts: personal and social.
• Personal identity are about one's own traits and outcomes.
• Social identity are derived from social groups and comparison between groups.
• A person is motivated to improve self-esteem, and thus social identity.
• Thus, one is motivated to improve the standings of one's ingroups and decrease the standings of one's outgroups.

One supporting evidence is that when a person has more self-esteem, they are less discriminating against outgroups (Crocker et al, 1987) .

Chap 8. The Good Samaritan Experiment

In the parable of the Good Samaritan ,

a traveller is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First a priest and then a Levite comes by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan happens upon the traveller. Samaritans and Jews despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man.

This inspired an experiment reported in "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. (Darley & Batson, 1973) , participants were theology students asked to give a short talk in another building.

People going between two buildings encountered a shabbily dressed person slumped by the side of the road. Subjects in a hurry to reach their destination were more likely to pass by without stopping.

The experiment was 2 x 3: the participant was asked to either give a short talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan, or on an irrelevant topic. They were either very hurried, hurried, or not hurried by the experimenter.

Hurrying made significant difference in the likelihood of their giving the victim help. The topic of the talk had some influence, according to a reanalysis by (Greenwald, 1975) , despite the original paper's claim of no influence. Self-reported personality and religiosity made no difference.

The lesson from this as well as many other social psychology experiments is that seemingly trivial situational variables have a greater impact than personality variables, even though people tend to explain behaviors using personality. See The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology (Lee Ross, Richard E. Nisbett, 2011)

Chap 9. External motivation harms internal motivation

Extrinsic motivations are motivations that "come from the outside", such as money, praise, food. Intrinsic motivations are from the inside, such as self-esteem, happiness. Both can motivate behaviors. However, it's interesting that sometimes extrinsic motivations can harm internal motivation.

In Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the" overjustification" hypothesis (Lepper et al, 1973) , children are given markers to draw with. Some were told that they would be rewarded with a prize for playing, others got a prize unexpectedly, others were left alone as control group.

After some days, the amount of time children spent playing the markers were: got expected prize < control group < got unexpected prize

The book didn't talk much about why the unexpected prize created higher motivation, but I think it is similar to how gambling addiction comes from variable reward .

There are some explanations for why extrinsic reward lowered subsequent motivation. One is that extrinsic reward provides overjustification effect , where external rewards "crowd out" internal rewards,

Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity.

Another explanation is that humans heuristically view means to an end as undesirable. In (Sagotsky et al, 1982) , children were given two activities, playing with crayons and markers. They were equally fun at the beginning, but one group was told that in order to play with crayons, they had to play with markers first. After a while, they became less interested in playing with markers. The other group, the reverse.

I think this is the psychological basis of some ethical intuitions in the style of Kant :

we should never act in such a way that we treat humanity as a means only but always as an end in itself.

A third explanation is that people consider extrinsic rewards a threat to their freedom and autonomy, and thus tend to rebel against it. I saw a news today about Amazon's program to gamify work . Some complained that it was threatening the workers' autonomy, which is a strange complaint: if gamification actually increases intrinsic motivation for work, doesn't it increase autonomy? Autonomy is freedom to follow one's intrinsic motivation, and thus, if a worker acquires an intrinsic motivation to do a good job, they would have more autonomy.

I think this complaint can be explained as a different kind of autonomy: freedom from prediction. Humans are evolved to want to be unpredictable (at least by others), because to be predictable is to be threatened by manipulation, which often decreases fitness.

Chap 10. Actor-observer asymmetry

Other people did what they did because of who they are. We did what we did because of outside events.

In 1975, parts of the Watergate scandal was recreated in a very dramatic psychology experiment, reported in Ubiquitous Watergate: An attributional analysis (West, 1975) .

80 criminology students were asked to meet the experimenter privately for a mysterious reason. There, they were asked to join a burglary team for secret documents in an ad agency. There were four versions presented:

• The burglary plan was sponsored by a government agency, for secret investigation purposes. Government would provide immunity if caught.
• Same, but without immunity.
• The plan was sponsored by a rival ad agency, with $2000 reward.
• The student was asked to only join a test run of the plan, without stealing anything.

Afterwards, they were debriefed and asked to explain their decision to join/not join.

Separately, 238 psychology students were presented the above situation, and asked to guess what percentage would agree to the plan.

Then, half of the participants were asked, "Suppose John agreed to participate, explain why John agreed."

• About 45% of participants agreed to join the burglary in the government-with-immunity situation. Otherwise, about 10%.
• Most students in the second part thought they would not agree to the burglary plan.
• Students in the first part who agreed to join the burglary explained their behavior as due to the circumstances.
• Students in the second part explained the hypothetical John's behavior as due to John's personality.

The criminology students were "actors", and the psychology students were "observers". An asymmetry was that actors attributed their behavior to situations, while the observers attributed to personalities. This is the actor-observer asymmetry.

Complications in this asymmetry are noted in The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: A (surprising) meta-analysis (Malle, 2006) . Malle found that there are two kinds of biases: when the behavior is negative, the actor blames the situation and the observer blames the person. When the behavior is positive, the reverse happens. As such, this can be explained as a self-serving bias.

The authors conclude with a funny note:

it's interesting to how athletes often publically thank the Lord for a personal victory, but do not publically blame the Lord for a defeat!

Chap 11. We are number 1

They never shout, "They are number 1."

People like to think good about themselves. Even in collectivistic societies, people regard themselves as above average in collectivistic traits, according to Pancultural self-enhancement (Sedikides et al, 2003)

Americans... self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese... self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes

An experiment is reported in Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies (Ciadini et al, 1976) , where students are asked to describe a recent university sports team's victory/defeat. Before that, half received criticisms that decreased to their self-esteem, and others received praises that increased their self-esteem.

The result was that among those who had higher self-esteem, they described the sports outcome using "we won" or "we lost" 1/4 of the times. For those who had lower self-esteem, they used "we won" 40% of the times when the team won, but used "we lost" only 14% of the times when the team lost.

The explanation is that people in need of boosts to self-esteem try to BIRG (Basking in reflected glory) and CORF (Cut off from reflected failures). Reflected glory also improves their social standing.

Methods of increasing one's social standing are called impression management , and include:

• BIRG and CORF, as noted above;
• ingratiation: we praise and agree with others, so as to be liked;
• self-handicapping: a student gets drunk before a big test, so that if they fail, they could blame on the drunkenness instead of their study ability;
• exemplification: behave virtuously and make sure others saw it.

A lot of these techniques are listed in (Jones and Pittman, 1982) .

Chap 12. Deindividuation

Effects of deindividuation variables on stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters (Diener et al, 1976) reported an experiment in real life .

The experiment was run in a Halloween. An experimenter place a bowl of candy in her living room for trick-or-treaters. A hidden recorder observes. In one condition, the woman asked the children identification questions such as their names. In the other condition, children were completely anonymous. Some children came individually, others in a group.

In each condition, the woman invited the children in, claimed she had something in the kitchen she had to tend to, and told each child to take only one candy.

Result: being in a group and being anonymous both increased frequency of transgression (taking more than one candy). If the first child to take candies in a group transgressed, other children were also more likely to transgress.

The authors then defined deindividuation as when private self-awareness is reduced.

The truly deindividuated person is alleged to pay scant atetntion to personal values and moral codes... to be inordinately sensitive to cues in the immediate environment.

One study, The baiting crowd in episodes of threatened suicide (Mann, 1981) , examined 21 cases from newspapers, in which crowds were present when a person threatened to jump off a high place.

Baiting or jeering occurred in 10 of the cases. Analysis of newspaper accounts of the episodes suggested several deindividuation factors that might contribute to the baiting phenomenon: membership in a large crowd, the cover of nighttime, and physical distance between crowd and victim (all factors associated with anonymity).

Two theories of why deindividuation were given. One is that anonymity makes people feel safe to transgress. Another is that (Reicher & Postmes, 1995) people in a crowd would categorize themselves mainly by their social identity, and their behaviors would reflect the group norm than their personal norms.

I was disappointed that the authors did not give evolutionary psychological explanations for deindividuation. Humans are the only animals that wage wars. A deindividuation effect can be an evolutionary adaptation to prepare humans to fight more effectively in a crowd.

Chap 13. Mere exposure effect

People prefer familiar things. Really, that's quite a banal observation. What's delightful about this chapter is the ingenuity of the experiment design.

Think about your own face. You see them in a mirror image (unless you take a selfie), but others see it directly. This means that you are familiar with your face in the mirror image, but others in the direct image.

This is exploited in Reversed facial images and the mere-exposure hypothesis (Mita et al, 1977) . Couples were separately shown photos of the female one's face, some mirrored, others not. They were asked to pick the one they prefer. The female one preferred the mirrored photo, and the male one preferred the direct photo.

Mere exposure effect is robust in real life and across species. (Grush et al, 1978) found that

previous or media exposure alone successfully predicted 83% of the [US congress election] primary winners

And (Cross et al, 1967) found rats who heard Mozart music in infancy preferred Mozart over Schoenberg as adults, and vice versa.

One possible evolutionary psychological explanation were given: preference familiarity is safer, and thus more adaptive. The authors warned however that it's not so simple, as people also have a preference for mild novelty.

Chap 14. Shortcomings of introspection

This chapter reviews a study that shows a particular instance of introspection failure:

people's ideas about how their minds work stem not from private insights but from public knowledge. Unfortunately, however, this public knowledge is often not accurate. It is based on intuitive theories, widely shared throughout society, that are often mistaken.

The book referenced Verbal reports about causal influences on social judgments: Private access versus public theories (Nisbett, 1977) , although I find Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) to be better.

Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes... they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori , implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response.

In the experiment, a subject is given a fictitious application from Jill for the job of staff at crisis center. These applications are the same except on a few attributes of the applicant: attractiveness, intelligence, etc. Then, the subject is asked how much each attribute is correlated with the decision to accept.

The situation is then described to some observers (who didn't do the job application review), who are asked how much each attribute is correlated with the decision of the subject to accept.

Subjects who read that Jill had once been involved in a serious car accident claimed that the event had made them view her as a more sympathetic person. However, according to the ratings they later gave, this event had exerted no impact... the only exception pertained to ratings of Jill's intelligence. Here, an almost perfect correlation emerged between how subjects' judgments had actually shifted and how much they believed they had shifted. Why so? The researchers argued that there are explicit rules, widely known throughout a culture, for ascribing intelligence to people. Because subjects could readily recognize whether a given factor was relevant to intelligence, they could reliably guess whether they would have taken it into consideration.

The determinations of subjects and observers coincided almost exactly.

There are other introspection failures demonstrated by social psychology. People are unaware of the halo effect at work in their own judgments of others (Nisbett &Wilson, 1977) . People are unaware of the source of their own arousal . People are unaware of their bias even if they know of such bias (Pronin et al, 2002) .

In a further twist, introspection can degrade judgment. In (Wilson & Kraft, 1993) , participants reported how they felt about their romantic partners. Their expressed feelings correlated well with the duration of relationship. However, if they introspected on the reason of their feelings, before reporting their feelings, the correlation disappeared.

The authors conclude by suggesting that traveling, by putting oneself into novel situations, would be particularly helpful for one to know oneself.

Chap 15. Self-fulfilling prophecies

Again, a very well-known subject with a lot already written. This chapter reviews Social perception and interpersonal behavior: On the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes (Snyder et al, 1977)

Male "perceivers" interacted with female "targets" whom they believed to be physically attractive/unattractive. Tape recordings of each participant's conversational behavior were analyzed by naive observer judges for evidence of behavioral confirmation... targets who were perceived to be physically attractive came to behave in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with targets whose perceivers regarded them as unattractive. It is suggested that theories in cognitive social psychology attend to the ways in which perceivers create the information that they process in addition to the ways that they process that information.

Philosophically, a self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction about a future that is true iff the act of prediction is done. Usually, predictions themselves are supposed to be independent of the future that they talk about. Of course, all useful predictions must affect the future -- the predictor would try to profit from the prediction. However, such effects on the future are on the predictor , not on the predicted .

Social psychologists have found that human behaviors are more influenced by the situation than the personality (as noted in The Person and the Situation book). Snyder et al suggested that, in fact, personality traits are one of those self-fulfilling prophecies.

our believing that others possess certain traits may cause us to behave in certain consistent ways toward them. This may cause them to behave in consistent ways in our presence.

In other words, a lot of the persistence of personality could arise from the fundamental attribution error .

Chap 16. How to live like a predeterminist

So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. -- Romans 9:18, which Calvinists quote a lot.

Suppose an urge to smoke and a propensity to lung cancer are both genetically determined, and smoking does not cause lung cancer, why not smoke? If you feel the urge to smoke, it's already too late.

Believers of Calvinism think that God has chosen some people to be saved, and others are damned. Those who are favored by God would both be naturally free from the urge to sin in this world, and enjoy paradise after death. Those who are not, would feel the urge to sin in this world, and go to hell after death.

So if a Calvinist feels an urge to sin, it's already too late. Why not sin? Instead, Calvinists keep resisting the urge to sin, and moreover, deny that they are resisting such urges, and insisting that they are effortlessly virtuous, evidence of God's favor.

In Causal versus diagnostic contingencies: On self-deception and on the voter's illusion (Quattrone & Tversky, 1984) two experiments are reported.

In the first one, participants exercised, then were asked to put their hands in ice water until the pain makes them withdraw. Then they were told a version of the lung cancer puzzle: There are two kinds of hearts, type 1 and type 2, caused by unchangeable genetics. Type 1 heart is associated both with health and with a higher tolerance to the ice water after exercise. Type 2 heart is associated with early death and a lower tolerance. They then did the ice water test again, and they exhibited longer tolerance to the ice water, even though many of them denied that they were trying to do so.

In the second experiment, subjects encountered one of two theories about the sort of voters who determine the margin of victory in an election. Only one of the theories would enable voting subjects to imagine that they could "induce" other like-minded persons to vote. As predicted, more subjects indicated that they would vote given that theory than given a theory in which the subject's vote would not be diagnostic of the electoral outcome, although the causal impact of the subject's vote is the same under both theories

One explanation is that the unconsciousness deceived the consciousness, but the authors find this unreasonable, for it still does not explain what motivates the unconsciousness to deceive. They instead favored Greenwald's theory that people avoid analyzing in detail threatening information, just like how we throw away junk mail without looking in detail.

In conclusion, self-deception is not the result of one center of intelligence hoodwinking the other. Rather, it is the result of a low-level screening process that banishes suspicious cognitions before they have the opportunity to be fully entertained by the conscious mind.

Similarity to superrationality and acausal trade.

The behavior of Calvinists is similar to superrationality and acausal trade , in which agents behave in a way that is diagnostic of good outcomes, even if it does not cause good outcomes.

Assuming the superrational player has access to their opponents' source codes/simulations, the superrationality strategy can be justified, but then it would just be usual rationality.

I think normative decision theories are incompatible with sufficiently good prediction. Normative decisions are only defined for agents with apparent free will. An agent apparently has free will only to someone who cannot predict the agent's behavior well. Superrationality and acausal trade both attempt to make a decision theory for agents that are aware that they are too predictable (to themselves or to someone they play with). This is similar to the situation where someone sees the future and then "decides" to rebel against the future. Either they saw the true future and did not rebel, or they did not see the true future at all. It's illogical to say they both saw the future and rebelled against it.

Similar problems happen with Scott Aaronson's solution to Newcomb's paradox (I'm a "Wittengenstein"). A determinist who is self-aware of their determinism would, instead of offering a decision theory ("I should take one box because..."), offer a prediction theory ("I probably would take one box because...").

Chap 17. Partisan perceptions of media bias

People often complain of media biases. People report differently about the same event. Why?

In The hostile media phenomenon: biased perception and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre (Vallone et al, 1985) , the researchers studied how people perceived news about the Bairut massacre ,

killing of civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites... carried out by the militia under the eyes of their Israeli allies.

The researchers took some neutral reports on the event, and as expected, pro-Israel people thought they are biased to be anti-Israel, while anti-Israel people thought they are biased to be pro-Israel.

In a study on biases (Lord et al, 1984) , participants avoided bias by this command:

"Ask yourself at each step whether you would have made the same evaluations had exactly the same study produced results on the other side of the issue.

Chap 18. Empathy-altruism hypothesis

Several theorized psychological mechanisms of human altruistic actions are studied in More evidence that empathy is a source of altruistic motivation (Batson, 1982) reported an experiment on whether people would help a person in need.

It was found that: If (empathy OR guilt), then (helping). That is, people can be motivated to act altruistically by empathy without expectation of gain, or to gain relief from guilt. This argues against the theory of psychological hedonism .

Other potential sources of altruism are collectivism (act for the benefit of a group) and principlism (uphold a principle for its own sake). Effective altruism is one example of principlism based on utilitarianism.

Chap 19. Expanding the self to include the other

A psychological phenomenon of love (close personal relationships, such as lover, best friend) is to include that person in one's self. This involves perceiving, and allocating resources to, that person, in a similar way as to one's self.

Three experiments are described, from Close relationships as including other in the self (Aron, 1991) .

When allocating money, they allocate about the same to themself as to their friend.

They were asked to imagine nouns paired with their selves, mothers, or strangers. They recalled fewer nouns imagined with self or mother than nouns imagined with a stranger, suggesting that mother was processed more like self than a stranger. They explained the reason why it was recalled less by that we usually look at strangers directly, but only ourselves upon reflection (literal or not), and so it's harder to imagine ourselves than strangers.

When faced with a task to sort a list of adjectives into 4 piles: "true/false about me, and true/false about my spouse", they reacted slower on adjectives that were true about one but false about the other. This was explained by that differences between one's own and a close other's properties caused dissonance in the same way that holding opposite attitudes within oneself can cause dissonance.

Chap 20. Believing precedes disbelieving

Descartes divided the mind up into intellect and will. The intellect writes up potential beliefs about the world; the will then chooses which to endorse. Spinoza said that we believe everything that we happen to understand, and then disbelieve only if we find it necessary. You Can't Not Believe Everything You Read (Gilbert, 1993) presented three experiments that supports Spinoza's theory, and discussed its sociological effect.

... we asked subjects in Experiment 1 to play the role of a trial judge and to make sentencing decisions about an ostensibly real criminal defendant. Subjects were given some information about the defendant that was known to be false and were occasionally interrupted [by a distraction task]... We predicted that interruption would cause subjects to continue to believe the false information they accepted on comprehension and that these beliefs would exert a profound influence on their sentencing of the defendant...

Experiments 1 and 2 provide support for the Spinozan hypothesis: When people are prevented from unbelieving the assertions they comprehend... they did not merely recall that such assertions were said to be true, but they actually behaved as though they believed the assertions.

If you want to read more, I have written in detail about this .

Chap 21. Inferred memories

When we recall a memory, that memory is an inference about past based on a number of clues that we have in the present. It is not necessarily accurate.

Experiment from Women's theories of menstruation and biases in recall of menstrual symptoms (McFarland, 1989) found that when women report, day-to-day, their unpleasant emotions, there is no difference between premenstrual, menstrual, and inter-menstrual days (they feel equally unpleasant). But when asked to recall how unpleasant it was, they recall significantly more unpleasant pre-menstrual and menstrual days, and less unpleasant inter-menstrual days.

This is explained by that, when they recall, they used intuitive theories about PMS to infer "how it must have felt" instead of "how it actually felt". This also, as a side effect, casts doubt on whether PMS actually exists .

Memories can be completely made up, as in repressed memory therapies .

The fact that those inferences about the past are felt as genuine recalls, shows how little conscious introspection can give true knowledge about the self.

Chap 22. Ironic process theory

Try to not to think of a polar bear!

The theory of ironic process is that there is a cognitive process called intender who is looking for contents that matches some desired mental state. There is also a monitor who notifies consciousness about errant thoughts.

The intender is a costly process, and the monitor is a cheap process, so when one is under cognitive load, the intender doesn't work well, but the monitor still works well, and ironically, trying to not think of something results in thinking of it.

Ironic Processes of Mental Control (Wegner, 1994) reported an experiment. Participants were asked to consciously improve/deprove their moods with happy/sad thoughts. Half were also asked to do a memory task as cognitive load .

Those not under cognitive load were successful in their mood control, while those under cognitive load achieved the opposite.

This suggests that if you are under some cognitive load (such as busy studying), and you want to improve your mood, you should try consciously to feel worse. Also, if you are in a noisy and distracting environment, and want to sleep, you should try to stay awake.

Another experiment showed that people who try to avoid sexist language become ironically more prone to sexist language when under cognitive load. This is true no matter if they are sexist or not.

Chap 23. Implicit Association Test

In Single-target implicit association tests (ST-IAT) predict voting behavior of decided and undecided voters in swiss referendums (Raccuia, 2016) , compared to self-reported political orientation, implicit association was found to be a weaker, but somewhat independent, predictor of voting behavior.

Other similar methods to probe the unconsciousness are studied, and the results are new and mixed.

Chap 24. Prospect theory

People don't behave as expectation-maximizers. Instead they are better modelled by prospect theory:

• Gains and losses are measured compared to a changeable default, instead of an absolute zero.
• Losses are weighted more than gains, and both have decreasing marginal utilities.

An experiment The systematic influence of gain-and loss-framed messages on interest in and use of different types of health behavior (Rothman et al, 1999) . It was found that people used more bacteria-killing mouth wash, if they received positive advertising (about maintaining good health). They used more disclosing mouth wash (which merely detects dental diseases) if they received negative advertising (about the potential disease).

This theory, along with some others, is explained in great detail in Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahnemann, 2011) , which I recommend.

Other mental heuristics include mental accounting (Thaler, 1980) , with its own set of irrational effects.

Chap 25. Social isolation increases aggression

If you can't join them, beat them: Effects of social exclusion on aggressive behavior (Twenge, 2001)

Social exclusion was manipulated by telling people that they would end up alone later in life or that other participants had rejected them. These manipulations caused participants to behave more aggressively. Excluded people issued a more negative job evaluation against someone who insulted them, blasted a target with higher levels of aversive noise both when the target had insulted them and when no interaction had occurred. However, excluded people were not more aggressive toward someone who issued praise.

In particular,

These responses were specific to social exclusion and were not mediated by emotion.

This was shown by two experimental facts:

Participants who were told they would end up alone later in life or that other participants had rejected them, did not feel worse than average.

Participants who were told they would end up unlucky later in life, did not act more aggressively than average.

Some psychological theories are given. One is self-determination theory from Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being (Deci and Ryan, 2000) , which says that people have three needs:

• relatedness (to some other people)
• efficacy (can do important things)
• autonomy (can control their own future)

Other relevant factors are self-esteem, and stability over time. Stability and level of self-esteem as predictors of anger arousal and hostility (Kernis et al, 1989) found that in feelings of anger and hostility,

unstable high self-esteem > low self-esteem > stable high self-esteem

There is no evolutionary explanation, though. Social exclusion causes fewer offsprings, and aggression only worsens it. An evolutionary psychological explanation would be good. Either it has evolutionary benefit, or it is a side effect of something else.

Chap 26. Social effects of gossiping

Gossip is found to have a prosocial function. The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior (Feinberg, 2012)

... prosocial gossip , the sharing of negative evaluative information about a target in a way that protects others from antisocial or exploitative behavior.

In the study, they found experimental support for four hypotheses about the function of gossip:

• prosocial : gossip is motivated by a desire to protect vulnerable people, without promise of material reward.
• frustration : seeing antisocial behavior makes people feel bad, which . Prosocial people are more prone to this frustration.
• relief : gossiping reduces the frustration.
• deterrence : threat of gossip makes antisocial people behave more prosocially.

Chap 27. Fear of death

Good news: we will be worm food one day!

Good news for worms, I meant.

Terror management theory argues that the terror of death creates such a profound, subconscious, anxiety, that humans spend their lives denying it in various ways, creating culture, religion, and many other social phenomena in the process.

In this chapter are reviewed the first 4 of the 7 experiments from How sweet it is to be loved by you: the role of perceived regard in the terror management of close relationships (CR Cox, J Arndt, 2012) . This paper studies

... whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard.

Perceived regard means "am I a good person as viewed by someone else?" The paper in particular showed that people who have death on their mind exaggerate how much they think they are loved by a partner. Perceived regard from their own selves, and from average strangers, did not change. Having intense physical pain on the mind also did nothing.

They also found that having death on the mind makes people claim to love their partners more. They theorized that this is mediated by increased perceived regard:

death on the mind -> more perceived regard from their partner -> more love for their partner

Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.

Personal comment : It has been commented that Transhumanism can be analyzed as a religion. Is there value in analyzing transhumanism through terror management theory? There is at least one paper, Software immortals: Science or faith? (Proudfoot, 2012) , that did so. This is important, because if transhumanism is indeed a religion, then the chance is high that it is deluded/unfalsifiable, like most religions have been shown to be.

Also, this would explain why moral nihilism is usually suffered as a mental disease than accepted as a working hypothesis. Despite its theoretical simplicity and moderate empirical support, it just doesn't offer any protection against terror of death.

Chap 28. Motivated belief in free will

Free to punish: A motivated account of free will belief (Clark, 2014)

a key factor promoting belief in free will is a fundamental desire to hold others morally responsible for their wrongful behaviors

Five experiments from the paper are recounted in detail. The authors praised the paper highly for its comprehensiveness.

participants reported greater belief in free will after considering an immoral action than a morally neutral one... due to heightened punitive motivations... reading about others’ immoral behaviors reduced the perceived merit of anti-free-will research... the real-world prevalence of immoral behavior (as measured by crime and homicide rates) predicted free will belief on a country level.

Taken together, these results provide a potential explanation for the strength and prevalence of belief in free will: It is functional for holding others morally responsible and facilitates justifiably punishing harmful members of society.

Personal comment : Instead of philosophically studying whether free will exists, it's more productive to assume it doesn't exist , and see what behaviors can be explained. If everything can be explained without free will, then the problem of free will dissolves. Else, we will have concentrated what free will is for, and made subsequent studies more focused.

It is also useful to study the human intuitive belief in free will, as important phenomena about humans, independent of whether they are right or wrong. This is analogous to the study of folk psychology and naive physics . See From Uncaused Will to Conscious Choice: The Need to Study, Not Speculate About People’s Folk Concept of Free Will (Monroe, 2009)

the core of people’s concept of free will is a choice that fulfills one’s desires and is free from internal or external constraints. No evidence was found for metaphysical assumptions about dualism or indeterminism.

In the "Afterthoughts", the authors considered what a post-free-will society could be like. I think that such a society's theory of crime and punishment would be more like "because this follows the natural order of things", than "because criminals are morally bad".

Think of the joke about "my brain made me commit the crime"

The criminal: "My brain made me commit the crime." The judge: "My brain made me sentence you."

And now, instead of taking it as a joke, imagine both of them saying them very seriously. That's what I think could be true in the future.

The first edition of this book was published in 2003. In 2005, Ioannidis' paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" started the reproducibility avalanche. How well have these experiments replicated? My university library only has the first edition. I can see from the Amazon preview of the second edition (2017) that the authors address this, but I can't see enough pages to see what their response is. I understand from other sources that priming and ego-depletion have not stood up well.

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Social Psychology Experiments

Social psychology experiments can explain how thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others.

This article is a part of the guide:

• Milgram Experiment
• Bobo Doll Experiment
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Asch Experiment
• Milgram Experiment Ethics

Browse Full Outline

• 1 Social Psychology Experiments
• 2.1 Asch Figure
• 3 Bobo Doll Experiment
• 4 Good Samaritan Experiment
• 5 Stanford Prison Experiment
• 6.1 Milgram Experiment Ethics
• 7 Bystander Apathy
• 8 Sherif’s Robbers Cave
• 9 Social Judgment Experiment
• 10 Halo Effect
• 11 Thought-Rebound
• 12 Ross’ False Consensus Effect
• 13 Interpersonal Bargaining
• 14 Understanding and Belief
• 15 Hawthorne Effect
• 16 Self-Deception
• 17 Confirmation Bias
• 18 Overjustification Effect
• 19 Choice Blindness
• 20.1 Cognitive Dissonance
• 21.1 Social Group Prejudice
• 21.2 Intergroup Discrimination
• 21.3 Selective Group Perception

Typically social psychology studies investigate how someone's behavior influences a groups behavior or internal states, such as attitude or self-concept.

Obedience to Authority

"I was only following orders" Legal defence by a Nazi leader at the Nuremberg trial following World War II

The aftermath of World War 2 made scientists investigate what to made people "follow orders" even though the orders were horrible. The Stanley Milgram Experiment showed that also non-nazi populations would follow orders to harm other persons. It was not a German phenomenon as many thought.

Milgram's Lost Letter Experiment

Classic social psychology experiments are widely used to expose the key elements of aggressive behavior, prejudice and stereotyping. Social group prejudice is manifested in people's unfavorable attitudes towards a particular social group. Stanley Milgram's Lost Letter Experiment further explains this.

Obedience to a Role - Dehumanization

The Abu Ghraib prison-episode was yet another example on the power of predefined roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, demonstrated the powerful effect our perception of expectations in roles have.

Solomon Asch wanted to test how much people are influenced by others opinions in the Asch Conformity Experiment .

Observational Role Learning

Behaviorists ruled psychology for a long time. They focused on how individuals learn by trying and failing. Albert Bandura thought that humans are much more than "learning machines". He thought that we learn from role models, initiating the (bandura) social cognitive theory. It all started with the Bobo Doll Experiment .

Helping Behavior - Good Samaritan

Knowing the story of the Good Samaritan makes you wonder what made the Samaritan help the stranger, and why did he not get help from the priest or the Levite? The Good Samaritan Experiment explores causes of not showing helping behavior or altruism.

Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

The Cognitive Dissonance Experiment by Leon Festinger assumes that people hold many different cognitions about their world and tests what happens when the cognitions do not fit. See also the more in depth article about the Cognitive Dissonance Experiment .

Bystander Effect

The Bystander Apathy Experiment was inspirated and motivation to conduct this experiment from the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in the same year.

Groups and Influence On Opinion

Sherif's classic social psychology experiment named Robbers Cave Experiment dealt with in-group relations, out-group relations and intergroup relations.

The Social Judgment Experiment was designed to explore the internal processes of an individual's judgment and intergroup discrimination , how little it takes for people to form into groups, and the degree to which people within a group tend to favour the in-group and discriminate the out-group.

Halo Effect

The Halo Effect was demonstrated by Nisbett and Wilson's experiment. It fits the situation of Hollywood celebrities where people readily assume that since these people are physically attractive, it also follows that they are intelligent, friendly, and display good judgment as well. This also greatly applies to other well-known people such as politicians.

Wegner's Dream Rebound Experiment

According to studies, thoughts suppressed may resurface or manifest themselves in the future in the form of dreams. Psychologist Daniel M. Wegner proves this in his experiment on effects of thought suppression .

False Consensus

Everyone's got their own biases in each and every occasion, even when estimating other people behaviors and the respective causes. One of these is called the false consensus bias. Psychologist Professor Lee Ross conducted studies on setting out to show how false consensus effect operates.

Interpersonal Bargaining

Bargaining is one of the many activities we usually engage in without even realizing it. The Moran Deutsch and Robert Krauss Experiment investigated two central factors in bargaining, namely how we communicate with each other and the use of threats.

Understand and Belief

Daniel Gilbert together with his colleagues put to test both Rene Descartes' and Baruch Spinoza's beliefs on whether belief is automatic or is a separate process that follows understanding. This argument has long been standing for at least 400 years before it was finally settled.

Self-Deception

People lie all the time even to themselves and surprisingly, it does work! This is the finding of the Quattrone and Tversky Experiment that was published in the Journal of Personality and Psychology.

Overjustification Effect

The overjustification effect happens when an external incentive like a reward, decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a particular task. Lepper, Greene and Nisbett confirmed this in their field experiment in a nursery school.

Chameleon Effect

Also called unintentional mirroring, the chameleon effect usually applies to people who are getting along so well, each tend to mimic each other's body posture, hand gestures, speaking accents, among others. This was confirmed by the Chartrand and Bargh experiments.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is also known as selective collection of evidence. It is considered as an effect of information processing where people behaves to as to make their expectations come true. People tend to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses independently of the information's truthness or falsity.

Choice Blindness

Choice blindness refers to ways in which people are blind to their own choices and preferences. Lars Hall and Peter Johansson further explain this phenomenon in their study.

Stereotypes

The Clark Doll Test illustrates the ill effects of stereotyping and racial segregation in America. It illustrated the damage caused by systematic segregation and racism on children's self-perception at the young age of five.

Selective Group Perception

In selective group perception, people tend to actively filter information they think is irrelevant. This effect is demonstrated in Hastorf and Cantril's Case Study: They Saw a Game .

Changing Behaviour When Being Studied

The Hawthorne Effect is the process where human subjects of an experiment change their behavior, simply because they are being studied. This is one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design.

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Oskar Blakstad (Oct 10, 2008). Social Psychology Experiments. Retrieved Aug 30, 2024 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/social-psychology-experiments

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5 ground-breaking social psychology experiments.

Home » Blog » Psychology » 5 Ground-Breaking Social Psychology Experiments

Psychologists often use experiments to answer humanity’s most difficult questions. After the atrocities of Nazi Germany in World War II, many wondered how people could follow the orders to perform such horrific actions.

Yale researcher Stanley Milgram devised an experiment around the following question: “Could it be that [Adolf] Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”

[Adolf Eichmann was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust.]

He found that other populations would follow orders to harm people despite the orders conflicting with their personal morals. By studying this social phenomenon, scientists were able to surmise that atrocities committed during the war were not endemic to German soldiers, as initially believed.

Throughout history, other psychology experiments have tried to address specific issues to foster better understanding of human behavior.

Here is a look at five notable experiments from the second half of the 20th century to present day:

Bobo Doll Experiment

Conducted in 1961 by scientist Albert Bandura, this experiment sought to prove human behavior was learned through social imitation, rather than inherited genetically. Bandura hypothesized children would mimic an adult’s behavior if they trusted the adult. He chose to use a Bobo doll, a roughly 5-foot-tall inflatable toy weighted at the bottom that bounces back to standing upright after being struck.

One group of children did not witness any adult interaction with the toy. Another group watched an adult behave aggressively. Bandura’s experiment found that children exposed to aggression were more likely to imitate the behavior and boys were three times more likely to mimic violence than girls.

Bystander Effect

In the 1960s, John Darley and Bibb Latané sought to measure how much time elapsed before bystanders reacted and either intervened or ignored the need for help when an emergency situation involving a group or an individual was staged. The researchers were inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, which became infamous after The New York Times reported that there were 38 witnesses to her murder and none of them tried to help.

Although the Kitty Genovese phenomenon was debunked later by the Times itself , it caused Darley and Latané’s discovery of The Bystander Effect. They demonstrated that a larger number of bystanders diminished the chances any of them would offer help. The Bystander Effect has continued to be replicated for years.

Halo Effect

The “halo effect” is a famous social psychology finding which suggests global or group evaluations about an individual can influence judgments about a specific trait. For example, a likable person is often perceived to be intelligent. The term, originally coined by psychology Edward Thorndike, is a type of confirmation bias.

In the 1970s, researchers Richard Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson performed an experiment to demonstrate this by showing two groups of students the same lecture, but changing the demeanor of the lecturer from one group to the next. When the lecturer appeared friendly, students responded more favorably than the group who saw the lecturer who appeared cold and distant.

The Chameleon Effect

Also referred to as “unintentional mirroring,” the Chameleon Effect is believed to be a natural tendency for one person to imitate another person based on how well they get along without any realization that it’s happening. Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh from New York University studied this phenomenon in the 1990s. They interviewed participants individually while affecting different mannerisms throughout the talk to gauge the bond that developed.

During two follow-up talks, the scientists mimicked the posture and other mannerisms of some test subjects. The participants mimicked the scientists more in the first experiment and found the scientists more likable when they mimicked their own mannerisms in the follow-ups. Those participants who weren’t mimicked had a more neutral opinion of the scientists.

The Volkswagen Fun Theory

In 2009, advertising agency DDB Stockholm created an initiative on behalf of car manufacturer Volkswagen. The company came up with the “ Fun Theory ,” conducting three experiments to see whether people might choose to change behavior and do something based on how much fun it was to do, such as recycling, throwing away trash or taking stairs versus an escalator.

In one instance, a set of stairs next to an escalator was decorated to look like piano keys with accompanying notes for each step a person took while traversing the stairs. The experiment found 66% more people chose the stairs than usual. In another, a trash bin with sound effects when people deposited litter collected more trash than nearby bins.

Though these were part of an advertising campaign rather than a scientific experiment, the results indicate people may be more inclined to perform a task such as taking stairs instead of an escalator if it appears to be fun.

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• The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History

While each year thousands and thousands of studies are completed in the many specialty areas of psychology, there are a handful that, over the years, have had a lasting impact in the psychological community as a whole. Some of these were dutifully conducted, keeping within the confines of ethical and practical guidelines. Others pushed the boundaries of human behavior during their psychological experiments and created controversies that still linger to this day. And still others were not designed to be true psychological experiments, but ended up as beacons to the psychological community in proving or disproving theories.

This is a list of the 25 most influential psychological experiments still being taught to psychology students of today.

1. A Class Divided

Study conducted by: jane elliott.

Study Conducted in 1968 in an Iowa classroom

Experiment Details: Jane Elliott’s famous experiment was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inspirational life that he led. The third grade teacher developed an exercise, or better yet, a psychological experiment, to help her Caucasian students understand the effects of racism and prejudice.

Elliott divided her class into two separate groups: blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. On the first day, she labeled the blue-eyed group as the superior group and from that point forward they had extra privileges, leaving the brown-eyed children to represent the minority group. She discouraged the groups from interacting and singled out individual students to stress the negative characteristics of the children in the minority group. What this exercise showed was that the children’s behavior changed almost instantaneously. The group of blue-eyed students performed better academically and even began bullying their brown-eyed classmates. The brown-eyed group experienced lower self-confidence and worse academic performance. The next day, she reversed the roles of the two groups and the blue-eyed students became the minority group.

At the end of the experiment, the children were so relieved that they were reported to have embraced one another and agreed that people should not be judged based on outward appearances. This exercise has since been repeated many times with similar outcomes.

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2. Asch Conformity Study

Study conducted by: dr. solomon asch.

Study Conducted in 1951 at Swarthmore College

Experiment Details: Dr. Solomon Asch conducted a groundbreaking study that was designed to evaluate a person’s likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so.

A group of participants were shown pictures with lines of various lengths and were then asked a simple question: Which line is longest? The tricky part of this study was that in each group only one person was a true participant. The others were actors with a script. Most of the actors were instructed to give the wrong answer. Strangely, the one true participant almost always agreed with the majority, even though they knew they were giving the wrong answer.

The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right. It is still recognized as one of the most influential psychological experiments for understanding human behavior.

3. Bobo Doll Experiment

Study conducted by: dr. alburt bandura.

Study Conducted between 1961-1963 at Stanford University

In his groundbreaking study he separated participants into three groups:

• one was exposed to a video of an adult showing aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll
• another was exposed to video of a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll
• the third formed a control group

Children watched their assigned video and then were sent to a room with the same doll they had seen in the video (with the exception of those in the control group). What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards the doll themselves. The other groups showed little imitative aggressive behavior. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of derivative physical aggressions shown by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The study also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104. This is compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models.

While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7. This is compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls who were exposed to aggressive male models. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura’s secondary prediction that children will be more strongly influenced by same-sex models. The Bobo Doll Experiment showed a groundbreaking way to study human behavior and it’s influences.

4. Car Crash Experiment

Study conducted by: elizabeth loftus and john palmer.

Study Conducted in 1974 at The University of California in Irvine

The participants watched slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses to the scene. The participants were put into two groups and each group was questioned using different wording such as “how fast was the car driving at the time of impact?” versus “how fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?” The experimenters found that the use of different verbs affected the participants’ memories of the accident, showing that memory can be easily distorted.

This research suggests that memory can be easily manipulated by questioning technique. This means that information gathered after the event can merge with original memory causing incorrect recall or reconstructive memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is now referred to as confabulation. This concept has very important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.

5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

Study conducted by: leon festinger and james carlsmith.

Study Conducted in 1957 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting:

This conflict produces an inherent feeling of discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to minimize or eliminate the discomfort and restore balance.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, after an observational study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Out of this study was born an intriguing experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith where participants were asked to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant’s initial attitudes toward this task were highly negative.

They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a participant waiting in the lobby that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next participant that the boring experiment would be fun. When the participants were later asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.

Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that cognitive dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs and there is therefore no dissonance.

6. Fantz’s Looking Chamber

Study conducted by: robert l. fantz.

Study Conducted in 1961 at the University of Illinois

Experiment Details: The study conducted by Robert L. Fantz is among the simplest, yet most important in the field of infant development and vision. In 1961, when this experiment was conducted, there very few ways to study what was going on in the mind of an infant. Fantz realized that the best way was to simply watch the actions and reactions of infants. He understood the fundamental factor that if there is something of interest near humans, they generally look at it.

To test this concept, Fantz set up a display board with two pictures attached. On one was a bulls-eye. On the other was the sketch of a human face. This board was hung in a chamber where a baby could lie safely underneath and see both images. Then, from behind the board, invisible to the baby, he peeked through a hole to watch what the baby looked at. This study showed that a two-month old baby looked twice as much at the human face as it did at the bulls-eye. This suggests that human babies have some powers of pattern and form selection. Before this experiment it was thought that babies looked out onto a chaotic world of which they could make little sense.

7. Hawthorne Effect

Study conducted by: henry a. landsberger.

Study Conducted in 1955 at Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois

Landsberger performed the study by analyzing data from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to evaluate whether the level of light in a building changed the productivity of the workers. What Mayo found was that the level of light made no difference in productivity. The workers increased their output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.

The researchers noticed a tendency that the workers’ level of efficiency increased when any variable was manipulated. The study showed that the output changed simply because the workers were aware that they were under observation. The conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out. They increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.

The Hawthorne Effect has become one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design of any experiment in psychology and beyond.

8. Kitty Genovese Case

Study conducted by: new york police force.

Study Conducted in 1964 in New York City

Experiment Details: The murder case of Kitty Genovese was never intended to be a psychological experiment, however it ended up having serious implications for the field.

According to a New York Times article, almost 40 neighbors witnessed Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964. Not one neighbor called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to “finish off” his victim. It was later uncovered that many of these facts were exaggerated. (There were more likely only a dozen witnesses and records show that some calls to police were made).

What this case later become famous for is the “Bystander Effect,” which states that the more bystanders that are present in a social situation, the less likely it is that anyone will step in and help. This effect has led to changes in medicine, psychology and many other areas. One famous example is the way CPR is taught to new learners. All students in CPR courses learn that they must assign one bystander the job of alerting authorities which minimizes the chances of no one calling for assistance.

9. Learned Helplessness Experiment

Study conducted by: martin seligman.

Study Conducted in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania

Seligman’s experiment involved the ringing of a bell and then the administration of a light shock to a dog. After a number of pairings, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened. As soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.

During the course of this study something unexpected happened. Each dog was placed in a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence easily. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman placed each dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence. In an unexpected turn, the dogs simply laid down.

The hypothesis was that as the dogs learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, they gave up in the second part of the experiment. To prove this hypothesis the experimenters brought in a new set of animals and found that dogs with no history in the experiment would jump over the fence.

This condition was described as learned helplessness. A human or animal does not attempt to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught them that they are helpless.

10. Little Albert Experiment

Study conducted by: john b. watson and rosalie rayner.

Study Conducted in 1920 at Johns Hopkins University

The experiment began by placing a white rat in front of the infant, who initially had no fear of the animal. Watson then produced a loud sound by striking a steel bar with a hammer every time little Albert was presented with the rat. After several pairings (the noise and the presentation of the white rat), the boy began to cry and exhibit signs of fear every time the rat appeared in the room. Watson also created similar conditioned reflexes with other common animals and objects (rabbits, Santa beard, etc.) until Albert feared them all.

This study proved that classical conditioning works on humans. One of its most important implications is that adult fears are often connected to early childhood experiences.

11. Magical Number Seven

Study conducted by: george a. miller.

Study Conducted in 1956 at Princeton University

Experiment Details:   Frequently referred to as “ Miller’s Law,” the Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. This means that the human memory capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

The Magical Number Seven Experiment was published in 1956 by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University’s Department of Psychology in Psychological Review .  In the article, Miller discussed a concurrence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory.

In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (such as 10 different tones varying only in pitch). The person responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before).

Performance is almost perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a human’s maximum performance on one-dimensional absolute judgment can be described as an information store with the maximum capacity of approximately 2 to 3 bits of information There is the ability to distinguish between four and eight alternatives.

12. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment

Study conducted by: ivan pavlov.

Study Conducted in the 1890s at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia

Pavlov began with the simple idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. He observed that dogs do not learn to salivate when they see food. This reflex is “hard wired” into the dog. This is an unconditioned response (a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).

Pavlov outlined that there are unconditioned responses in the animal by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and then measuring its salivary secretions. In the experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. What he found was that the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food. This learning created a new behavior. The dog salivated when he heard the bell. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

This theory came to be known as classical conditioning.

13. Robbers Cave Experiment

Study conducted by: muzafer and carolyn sherif.

Study Conducted in 1954 at the University of Oklahoma

Experiment Details: This experiment, which studied group conflict, is considered by most to be outside the lines of what is considered ethically sound.

In 1954 researchers at the University of Oklahoma assigned 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys from similar backgrounds into two groups. The two groups were taken to separate areas of a summer camp facility where they were able to bond as social units. The groups were housed in separate cabins and neither group knew of the other’s existence for an entire week. The boys bonded with their cabin mates during that time. Once the two groups were allowed to have contact, they showed definite signs of prejudice and hostility toward each other even though they had only been given a very short time to develop their social group. To increase the conflict between the groups, the experimenters had them compete against each other in a series of activities. This created even more hostility and eventually the groups refused to eat in the same room. The final phase of the experiment involved turning the rival groups into friends. The fun activities the experimenters had planned like shooting firecrackers and watching movies did not initially work, so they created teamwork exercises where the two groups were forced to collaborate. At the end of the experiment, the boys decided to ride the same bus home, demonstrating that conflict can be resolved and prejudice overcome through cooperation.

Many critics have compared this study to Golding’s Lord of the Flies novel as a classic example of prejudice and conflict resolution.

14. Ross’ False Consensus Effect Study

Study conducted by: lee ross.

Study Conducted in 1977 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: In 1977, a social psychology professor at Stanford University named Lee Ross conducted an experiment that, in lay terms, focuses on how people can incorrectly conclude that others think the same way they do, or form a “false consensus” about the beliefs and preferences of others. Ross conducted the study in order to outline how the “false consensus effect” functions in humans.

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In the first part of the study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then were told two alternative ways of responding to the situation. They were asked to do three things:

• Guess which option other people would choose
• Say which option they themselves would choose
• Describe the attributes of the person who would likely choose each of the two options

What the study showed was that most of the subjects believed that other people would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves. This phenomenon is referred to as the false consensus effect, where an individual thinks that other people think the same way they do when they may not. The second observation coming from this important study is that when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the people who will likely make the choice opposite of their own, they made bold and sometimes negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.

15. The Schacter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Study conducted by: stanley schachter and jerome e. singer.

Study Conducted in 1962 at Columbia University

Experiment Details: In 1962 Schachter and Singer conducted a ground breaking experiment to prove their theory of emotion.

In the study, a group of 184 male participants were injected with epinephrine, a hormone that induces arousal including increased heartbeat, trembling, and rapid breathing. The research participants were told that they were being injected with a new medication to test their eyesight. The first group of participants was informed the possible side effects that the injection might cause while the second group of participants were not. The participants were then placed in a room with someone they thought was another participant, but was actually a confederate in the experiment. The confederate acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry. Participants who had not been informed about the effects of the injection were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than those who had been informed.

What Schachter and Singer were trying to understand was the ways in which cognition or thoughts influence human emotion. Their study illustrates the importance of how people interpret their physiological states, which form an important component of your emotions. Though their cognitive theory of emotional arousal dominated the field for two decades, it has been criticized for two main reasons: the size of the effect seen in the experiment was not that significant and other researchers had difficulties repeating the experiment.

16. Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment

Study conducted by: daniel simons and christopher chabris.

Study Conducted in 1999 at Harvard University

Experiment Details: In 1999 Simons and Chabris conducted their famous awareness test at Harvard University.

Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. The video moves at a moderate pace and keeping track of the passes is a relatively easy task. What most people fail to notice amidst their counting is that in the middle of the test, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court and stood in the center before walking off-screen.

The study found that the majority of the subjects did not notice the gorilla at all, proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task. What the study set out to prove is that when people are asked to attend to one task, they focus so strongly on that element that they may miss other important details.

17. Stanford Prison Study

Study conducted by philip zimbardo.

Study Conducted in 1971 at Stanford University

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study behavior of “normal” individuals when assigned a role of prisoner or guard. College students were recruited to participate. They were assigned roles of “guard” or “inmate.”  Zimbardo played the role of the warden. The basement of the psychology building was the set of the prison. Great care was taken to make it look and feel as realistic as possible.

The prison guards were told to run a prison for two weeks. They were told not to physically harm any of the inmates during the study. After a few days, the prison guards became very abusive verbally towards the inmates. Many of the prisoners became submissive to those in authority roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment inevitably had to be cancelled because some of the participants displayed troubling signs of breaking down mentally.

Although the experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational. People will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right. The Stanford Prison Experiment remains one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time.

18. Stanley Milgram Experiment

Study conducted by stanley milgram.

Study Conducted in 1961 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: This 1961 study was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. It was designed to measure people’s willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.

Participants were told they were participating in a study on memory. They were asked to watch another person (an actor) do a memory test. They were instructed to press a button that gave an electric shock each time the person got a wrong answer. (The actor did not actually receive the shocks, but pretended they did).

Participants were told to play the role of “teacher” and administer electric shocks to “the learner,” every time they answered a question incorrectly. The experimenters asked the participants to keep increasing the shocks. Most of them obeyed even though the individual completing the memory test appeared to be in great pain. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to. They increased the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal electric shocks.

This experiment showed that humans are conditioned to obey authority and will usually do so even if it goes against their natural morals or common sense.

19. Surrogate Mother Experiment

Study conducted by: harry harlow.

Study Conducted from 1957-1963 at the University of Wisconsin

Experiment Details: In a series of controversial experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harry Harlow studied the importance of a mother’s love for healthy childhood development.

In order to do this he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be raised by two “surrogate mothers.” One of the surrogates was made of wire with an attached bottle for food. The other was made of soft terrycloth but lacked food. The researcher found that the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother, thereby proving that affection plays a greater role than sustenance when it comes to childhood development. They also found that the monkeys that spent more time cuddling the soft mother grew up to healthier.

This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.

20. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Study conducted by: john darley and daniel batson.

Study Conducted in 1973 at The Princeton Theological Seminary (Researchers were from Princeton University)

Experiment Details: In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behavior. The researchers set out three hypotheses they wanted to test:

• People thinking about religion and higher principles would be no more inclined to show helping behavior than laymen.
• People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behavior.
• People who are religious for personal gain would be less likely to help than people who are religious because they want to gain some spiritual and personal insights into the meaning of life.

Student participants were given some religious teaching and instruction. They were then were told to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying injured and appearing to be in dire need of assistance. The first variable being tested was the degree of urgency impressed upon the subjects, with some being told not to rush and others being informed that speed was of the essence.

The results of the experiment were intriguing, with the haste of the subject proving to be the overriding factor. When the subject was in no hurry, nearly two-thirds of people stopped to lend assistance. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten.

People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to help as those delivering other sermons,. This showed that the thoughts of the individual were a factor in determining helping behavior. Religious beliefs did not appear to make much difference on the results. Being religious for personal gain, or as part of a spiritual quest, did not appear to make much of an impact on the amount of helping behavior shown.

21. The Halo Effect Experiment

Study conducted by: richard e. nisbett and timothy decamp wilson.

Study Conducted in 1977 at the University of Michigan

Experiment Details: The Halo Effect states that people generally assume that people who are physically attractive are more likely to:

• be intelligent
• be friendly
• display good judgment

To prove their theory, Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson created a study to prove that people have little awareness of the nature of the Halo Effect. They’re not aware that it influences:

• their personal judgments
• the production of a more complex social behavior

In the experiment, college students were the research participants. They were asked to evaluate a psychology instructor as they view him in a videotaped interview. The students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was shown one of two different interviews with the same instructor. The instructor is a native French-speaking Belgian who spoke English with a noticeable accent. In the first video, the instructor presented himself as someone:

• respectful of his students’ intelligence and motives
• flexible in his approach to teaching
• enthusiastic about his subject matter

In the second interview, he presented himself as much more unlikable. He was cold and distrustful toward the students and was quite rigid in his teaching style.

After watching the videos, the subjects were asked to rate the lecturer on:

• physical appearance

His mannerisms and accent were kept the same in both versions of videos. The subjects were asked to rate the professor on an 8-point scale ranging from “like extremely” to “dislike extremely.” Subjects were also told that the researchers were interested in knowing “how much their liking for the teacher influenced the ratings they just made.” Other subjects were asked to identify how much the characteristics they just rated influenced their liking of the teacher.

After responding to the questionnaire, the respondents were puzzled about their reactions to the videotapes and to the questionnaire items. The students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings. Most said that how much they liked the lecturer had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

The interesting thing about this study is that people can understand the phenomenon, but they are unaware when it is occurring. Without realizing it, humans make judgments. Even when it is pointed out, they may still deny that it is a product of the halo effect phenomenon.

22. The Marshmallow Test

Study conducted by: walter mischel.

Study Conducted in 1972 at Stanford University

In his 1972 Marshmallow Experiment, children ages four to six were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed in front of them on a table. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room, the experimenter informed them that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after they returned in 15 minutes. The examiner recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and noted whether it correlated with the child’s success in adulthood. A small number of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately and one-third delayed gratification long enough to receive the second marshmallow.

In follow-up studies, Mischel found that those who deferred gratification were significantly more competent and received higher SAT scores than their peers. This characteristic likely remains with a person for life. While this study seems simplistic, the findings outline some of the foundational differences in individual traits that can predict success.

23. The Monster Study

Study conducted by: wendell johnson.

Study Conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa

Experiment Details: The Monster Study received this negative title due to the unethical methods that were used to determine the effects of positive and negative speech therapy on children.

Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa selected 22 orphaned children, some with stutters and some without. The children were in two groups. The group of children with stutters was placed in positive speech therapy, where they were praised for their fluency. The non-stutterers were placed in negative speech therapy, where they were disparaged for every mistake in grammar that they made.

As a result of the experiment, some of the children who received negative speech therapy suffered psychological effects and retained speech problems for the rest of their lives. They were examples of the significance of positive reinforcement in education.

The initial goal of the study was to investigate positive and negative speech therapy. However, the implication spanned much further into methods of teaching for young children.

24. Violinist at the Metro Experiment

Study conducted by: staff at the washington post.

Study Conducted in 2007 at a Washington D.C. Metro Train Station

During the study, pedestrians rushed by without realizing that the musician playing at the entrance to the metro stop was Grammy-winning musician, Joshua Bell. Two days before playing in the subway, he sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats average $100. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. In the 45 minutes the musician played his violin, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. Around 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The study and the subsequent article organized by the Washington Post was part of a social experiment looking at:

• the priorities of people

Gene Weingarten wrote about the social experiment: “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” Later he won a Pulitzer Prize for his story. Some of the questions the article addresses are:

• Do we perceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

As it turns out, many of us are not nearly as perceptive to our environment as we might like to think.

25. Visual Cliff Experiment

Study conducted by: eleanor gibson and richard walk.

Study Conducted in 1959 at Cornell University

Experiment Details: In 1959, psychologists Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to study depth perception in infants. They wanted to know if depth perception is a learned behavior or if it is something that we are born with. To study this, Gibson and Walk conducted the visual cliff experiment.

They studied 36 infants between the ages of six and 14 months, all of whom could crawl. The infants were placed one at a time on a visual cliff. A visual cliff was created using a large glass table that was raised about a foot off the floor. Half of the glass table had a checker pattern underneath in order to create the appearance of a ‘shallow side.’

In order to create a ‘deep side,’ a checker pattern was created on the floor; this side is the visual cliff. The placement of the checker pattern on the floor creates the illusion of a sudden drop-off. Researchers placed a foot-wide centerboard between the shallow side and the deep side. Gibson and Walk found the following:

• Nine of the infants did not move off the centerboard.
• All of the 27 infants who did move crossed into the shallow side when their mothers called them from the shallow side.
• Three of the infants crawled off the visual cliff toward their mother when called from the deep side.
• When called from the deep side, the remaining 24 children either crawled to the shallow side or cried because they could not cross the visual cliff and make it to their mother.

What this study helped demonstrate is that depth perception is likely an inborn train in humans.

Among these experiments and psychological tests, we see boundaries pushed and theories taking on a life of their own. It is through the endless stream of psychological experimentation that we can see simple hypotheses become guiding theories for those in this field. The greater field of psychology became a formal field of experimental study in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated solely to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Since 1879, psychology has grown into a massive collection of:

• methods of practice

It’s also a specialty area in the field of healthcare. None of this would have been possible without these and many other important psychological experiments that have stood the test of time.

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15 Social Psychology Examples

Gregory Paul C. (MA)

Gregory Paul C. is a licensed social studies educator, and has been teaching the social sciences in some capacity for 13 years. He currently works at university in an international liberal arts department teaching cross-cultural studies in the Chuugoku Region of Japan. Additionally, he manages semester study abroad programs for Japanese students, and prepares them for the challenges they may face living in various countries short term.

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Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

Traced back to the late 19th and early 20th century, social psychology is a field of empirical science that attempts to answer questions about human behavior and how it is affected by social interaction.

The focus is to identify thoughts, feelings, mental states, and behaviors, and explain how they both influence and are influenced in social situations and interactions between people.

Examples of social psychology include studies of group behavior (e.g. the Stanford prison experiment) , delayed gratification (e.g. the Marshmallow test), and the role of observation in learning (e.g. Bandura’s social learning theory).

Social Psychology Definition and Overview

Social psychology explores how humans are fundamentally social beings. It explores how sociality affects our behaviors and values.

As Goethals (2007) explains:

“Basic questions about social behavior go back to the ancients. Are men and women capable of governing themselves? Is their behavior governed by internal dispositions or the requirements of society and culture? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about human potential and human performance? Are people rational or irrational? What hope is there for independent thought and action in the face of group pressures?” (p. 19)

While these are only a handful of questions that social psychologists have sought to study throughout the last 100 years, the relatively young scientific field contains multitudes of scientists who can be credited.  Some key founders included:

• Norman Triplett (1861-1934): Triplett has been said by some to be a point of reference for the birth of social psychology. His work in 1895 included hist studies of human competitiveness. He noticed that the presence of other people (in this case, sport cycling) enhanced the performance of competitors greatly.
• Floyd Allport (1980-1979): Allport is also credited with advancing studies in behaviorism . He explored methods of stimulus and response in data collection.
• Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) Lewin is acclaimed as the father of action research. He developed equations to explain human behavior. His method of linking theory with concrete data advanced research on group norms in various social systems (Goethals, 2007, pp. 3-9).

Key Theories in Social Psychology

Theory	Description	Key Theorists
	The social identity theory explains how people develop their identities. Its main argument is that people develop their identity through interaction with society. We attach our identity to groups linked to categories such as religion, sport, nation, and ethnic affiliations. We may also conduct our identities in opposition to people in our out-groups (Brown, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1986).	Henri Tajfel and John Turner
	Social learning theory states that people can learn by observing others and can therefore learn through . It demonstrates how modeling, demonstrating, and being a role-model are vital in both the parenting and educational processes.	Albert Bandura, Barbara Rogoff
Theory	People experience discomfort and confusion when confronted with conflicting beliefs or attitudes that both make sense. They seek to reduce this discomfort by changing their beliefs, justifying their behavior, or adding new beliefs that reconcile the conflict in processes called and to achieve cognitive equilibrium (see more: ).	Leon Festinger, Jean Piaget
	Social exchange theory is a cold analysis of relationships that postulates that people form a relationship through . According to the theory, self-interested actors connect with other self-interested actors to reach individual goals that they can not attain on their own.	George Homans, Peter Blau
Self-perception Theory	Self-perception theory holds that people observe themselves and people’s reactions to them in order to achieve self-development. The theory emphasizes the role of self-observation in shaping one’s self-concept and behavior.	Daryl Bem

Additional theories:

• Self-determination theory
• Learned helplessness theory
• Locus of control theory
• Labeling theory of deviance
• Cultural deviance theory
• Attribution theory
• Schemata theory
• Social exchange theory
• Social penetration theory

Examples of Social Psychology

1. the stanford prison experiment.

Conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a shocking reveal of how humans can be cruel to other humans when placed in positions of power.

The study examined how the research participants (who were university students) adapted to roles of power and powerlessness within a simulated prison environment.

Despite knowing they were randomly assigned positions, the people assigned to the prison guard positions became increasingly cruel to the participants assigned prisoner roles.

2. The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram experiment was an experiment that measured the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to do immoral things. For this experiment, it was electric shocks.

The research participants were told that they were participating in a study on learning and memory. They were asked to play the role of a “teacher” who was supposed to administer an electric shock to a “learner” every time the learner made a mistake in a memory test. They weren’t actually shocking anyone – the people being shocked were actors.

During the study, the “learner” began to protest and show signs of distress while the authority figure (the experimenter) encouraged the participants to continue with the shocks. Milgram found that most participants continued to obey the experimenter and administer the shocks.

This study not only raised ethical concerns in psychological research (i.e. for the flaws in their research participant debriefing ), it also makes us think deeply about the nature of the human condition and why dictators manage to convince entire armies to fight for immoral causes.

3. Asch Conformity Experiments

Conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, this experiment studied how people conform to group norms, even if they personally believe the group norm is wrong.

In this experiment, a group of participants were shown three numbered lines of different lengths and asked to identify the longest of them all. However, only one true participant was present in every group and the rest were actors, most of whom told the wrong answer.

Results showed that the participants went for the wrong answer, even though they knew which line was the longest one in the first place. When the participants were asked why they identified the wrong one, they said that they didn’t want to be branded as strange or peculiar.

This study goes to show that there are situations in life when people prefer fitting in than being right.

4. Robbers Cave Experiment

The Robbers Cave experiment (1945) investigated intergroup conflict and cooperation between two groups of boys at a summer camp.

The researchers formed two groups of 11-year-old boys who did not know each other and had similar backgrounds. The groups were kept separate. Then, two situations were set up:

• A competitive situation was set up whereby the researchers introduced competitions such as baseball, tug-of-war, and treasure hunts. In this phase, the groups developed in-group and out-group mentalities, even to the point of verbally and physically attacking members of the other group.
• A cooperative situation was also set up whereby both groups were required to work together to achieve a common goal (an example is fixing a water supply problem). During this phase, the boys began to develop friendships across group boundaries.

The Robbers Cave experiment introduced a few key insights. One was that intergroup conflict arises even among relatively heterogenous groups. Another was that cooperation and shared goals can help reduce group prejudice.

5. The Kitty Genovese Case

The Kitty Genovese Case is a phenomenon where individuals tend not to intervene in an emergency situation when others are present.

Kitty Genovese was murdered in the neighborhood of Kew Gardens, New York in 1694. Despite there being up to 38 witnesses and onlookers in the vicinity of the crime scene, none of them took action to stop the murder or seek help.

This tragic event served as a catalyst for social psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley to formulate the social psychology concept of bystander effect or bystander apathy. They conducted an experimental study to test bystander intervention, asking participants to complete a questionnaire inside a room with smoke coming out from under the door.

Participants were either alone or with two other participants who were actually actors or confederates in the study.

The study found that participants who were alone in the room reported the smoke faster than those who were with two passive others, suggesting that the more bystanders present in an emergency situation, the less likely someone will step up to help.

6. The Marshmallow Test

Conducted by Walter Mischel in the 1960s, the marshmallow experiment examined children’s ability to delay gratification.

The test involved presenting a marshmallow to children aged 4-6 and asking them to wait for 15 minutes before eating it to receive a second marshmallow.

Roughly one-third of the 600 participants managed to delay gratification and were later found to have more success in life, including higher SAT scores, supporting the self-control theory.

However, a 2018 replication study by Tyler Watts and colleagues, which had a larger group of participants (900) and a more diverse representation of the population in terms of race and ethnicity, challenged the classic marshmallow experiment. The study found that the ability to wait for the second marshmallow was influenced more by the economic background and social status of the participants rather than just their willpower.

7. The Blue-eyed/Brown-eyed Exercise

Conducted by Jane Elliott in the 1960s, this experiment examined how people respond to discrimination and prejudice .

Third-grade teacher Jane Elliott conducted an experiment in her class. The experiment involved dividing the class into two groups, the blue-eyed children and the brown-eyed children.

For a day, Elliott gave preferential treatment to the blue-eyed students, showering them with extra attention and rewards. The next day, the brown-eyed children were given the same treatment.

The outcome of the experiment was that whichever group received preferential treatment scored higher on quizzes and participated more frequently in class, while the group that was discriminated against felt humiliated, performed poorly on tests, and became uncertain when answering questions in class.

This experiment shows how prejudice and mistreatment causes damage to people’s self-confidence and ability to contribute to social situations.

8. The Bobo Doll Experiment

Conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961, this experiment studied how children learn through observation and imitation.

In the Bobo Doll Experiment, children were divided into three groups:

• The first group was shown a video where an adult was aggressive toward the Bobo Doll.
• The second group was shown a video in which an adult play with the Bobo Doll.
• The third group served as the control group where no video was shown.

The children were then led to a room with different kinds of toys, including the Bobo Doll that they saw in the video.

Results showed that the children tend to imitate the adults in whichever video they watched:

• Children who were presented the aggressive model in the video acted aggressively toward the Bobo Doll.
• Children who were presented the passive model showed less aggression.

While the Bobo Doll Experiment can no longer be replicated because of ethical concerns, it has laid out the foundations of social learning theory and helped us understand the concept of observational learning .

9. The False Consensus Effect

This phenomenon studied by social psychologists refers to the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others share their beliefs and behaviors.

This leads us to spout our own views in social situations expecting others to agree with us when, in reality, they are probably less likely to agree than we think.

There are many social psychology studies into the false consensus effect . One example is a study by Alicke and Largo (1995) where participants were asked to rate their own attitudes and the attitudes of others towards various issues, such as the death penalty.

he researchers found that participants consistently overestimated the extent to which others agreed with their own attitudes.

10. The Halo Effect

The Halo Effect illustrates how a positive perception of one attribute of a person can spill over to other attributes.

In product ads, for example, attractive celebrities are often viewed as intelligent and knowledgeable about the product, despite not having the technical expertise.

Edward Thorndike first introduced the concept of the Halo Effect in a classic study in the early 1900s. He asked military commanders to evaluate their subordinates based on various traits, such as intelligence, dependability, leadership, and physical appearance.

The results showed that high ratings of a particular trait led to high ratings of other traits, creating an overall positive impression or “halo effect.” Conversely, a negative rating in one trait was linked to negative ratings in other traits.

Subsequent experiments on the Halo Effect have supported Thorndike’s original theory, revealing that our perception of a person’s overall personality is significantly influenced by the trait we focus on.

See more famous experiments in psychology

Other Examples for Further Reading

• The Actor-Observer Bias
• The Bandwagon Effect
• In-Group Bias
• Self-Serving Bias
• Vicarious learning

Social psychology is one of the most influential domains of research in academia. It helps us to understand and interpret both individual and societal behaviors, helping us to understand ourselves in nuanced ways.

Goethals, G. R. (2007). A Century of Social Psychology: Individuals, Ideas, and Investigations.  The SAGE Handbook of Social Psychology: Concise Student , 3– 23.  https://doi.org/10.4135/9781848608221.n1

Haddock, G., & Maio, G. R. (2008). Attitudes: content, structure and functions.  Blackwell Books .  https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/30465/

McDougall, W. (2015).  An introduction to social psychology . New York: Psychology Press.

Myers, D. G., & Twenge, J. M. (2012).  Exploring social psychology . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Brown, R. (2000), Social identity theory: past achievements, current problems and future challenges.  European  Journal of  Social  Psychology , 30, 745-778. Doi:  https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-0992(200011/12)30:6%3C745::AID-EJSP24%3E3.0.CO;2-O

Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel and W. G. Austin (eds.).  Psychology of Intergroup Relations . (pp. 7–24). Nelson-Hall

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6 Shocking Social Psychology Experiments That Show How Far People Go to Fit in

• Post author: Janey Davies, B.A. (Hons)
• Post published: June 20, 2017
• Reading time: 7 mins read
• Post category: Psychology & Mental Health / Uncommon Science

Social psychology experiments can give us great insight into how we think, behave and act.

They help us to explain how our thoughts are influenced by others, how group dynamics work, and how we perceive others.

Here are six of the most important social psychology experiments:

1. The Milgram Experiment

After the atrocities of WW2, scientists wanted to know why a race of people did not speak out, and moreover, why they carried out tasks that were deemed to go against the very fabric of society.

Stanley Milgram (1963) set up an experiment in which participants were told to apply electrical shocks to another participant in another room. What the participants did not know was the person in the other room was in on the experiment and told to scream when the higher levels of power were applied.

Milgram wanted to know how far people would go in obeying an instruction if that instruction meant hurting another person.

Results showed that 65% of participants continued to the highest level of 450 volts . Milgram surmised that people will obey orders if they perceive these orders to be from someone in authority and they can relinquish their responsibility.

2. The Conformity Experiment

The Conformity experiment (1951), one of the most important social psychology experiments, took male students and put them in a room with eight other participants.

These eight were in on the experiment, unbeknown to the male students. The tests were simple enough; three lines of differing lengths were compared to a reference line and the whole group had to pick the line that was the same length.

The right answer was obvious but as the researcher went down the group, all those in on the experiment chose the wrong line . So would the student go along with the group or would they be assertive and chose the correct line?

The results showed that 50% followed the group and gave the wrong answer . Only 25% went against the group and over all the trials the average conformity rate was 33%. This appears to show that our willingness to fit in will override our wish to stand out .

3. The Halo Effect

The ‘ halo effect ’ is a kind of bias where our evaluation of the person leads us to make assumptions about the rest of their character .

One good example of the halo effect is how we perceive celebrities. They are often portrayed as beautiful, handsome, and wealthy. Because of these characteristics, we are more likely to think they are also funny, intelligent, and kind.

One favourable judgement about a person’s personality tends to bleed over into other judgments that are also favourable.

4. Sherif Robbers Cave Experiment

Muzafer Sherif’s most famous experiment is the ‘Robber’s Cave, 1954’, in which he wanted to understand group dynamics, in particular – conflict , negative prejudices, and stereotypes that people experience when groups are competing for resources.

Twenty-two boys were split randomly into two groups and transported to a summer camp, where they were separated with no knowledge of the other group. The boys chose names for their groups; the Rattlers and the Eagles. They spent a week bonding with the members of their group, then a competition stage was introduced.

The two groups met for the first time and competed for resources, prizes, and trophies. Despite the groups having only spent a week together, they were solid in their bonds and immediately started to show prejudice against the other group . At first, it was verbal assaults, then the abuse grew physical.

In the end, the two groups were so aggressive towards each other that researchers had to step in. Even after a two-day cooling off period, the boys were still describing their group in favourable terms and the others in less so terms.

Results suggest that we have an innate need to be in a group and will behave favourably to our group against others.

5. Stanford Prison Experiment

One of the most well-known social psychology experiments, the Stanford Prison Experiment was devised by Philip Zimbardo in 1971. It was focused on  the effects of perceived power , in particular, the struggle between guards and prisoners.

In the experiment, young men were given roles as either guards or prisoners and moved to a prison-like environment in the basement of Stanford University.

It soon became clear that the men given the roles as guards took their roles very seriously and began to abuse the prisoners , both verbally and psychologically. The prisoners appeared to accept their role and accepted the abuse without question. After only six days the situation was so intense that it had to be called off.

The researchers decided that it was the situation we are in that determines our behaviour, and not our individual personalities.

6. How stereotypes affect our judgement

Do we make instant judgements based on stereotypes? In one test, John Bargh (1996) divided 34 participants into 3 groups and subconsciously ‘programmed’ these groups into a different state; rude, polite, and neutral .

In order to do this, the participants were given word puzzles to work out. To install the different states into the three groups, each word puzzle’s answers related to words that defined that particular state, for instance for polite, words used were ‘courteous’, ‘patiently’ and ‘behaved’.

When they had finished, they were asked to talk to the lead experimenter, who was spotted in deep in conversation with someone. They had a choice whether to interrupt his conversation, wait for him to finish, or walk away.

Of the group that had been programmed with rude words , 64% interrupted the experimenter , compared to just 18% of participants programmed with polite words. The neutral condition recorded 36% interrupting.

The results showed that unconscious cues can lead to a change in our behaviour.

As you see from the above social psychology experiments, human nature is so susceptible to social conditioning that it sometimes makes people do truly crazy things.

References:

• https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/uarch/exhibits/Narration.pdf
• https://nature.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
• https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1952-00803-001
• https://muse.jhu.edu/book/1107
• https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-06400-003

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8 Effective Social Psychology Experiments & Activities For High School Students

In school, social interaction plays a crucial role and forms the core of one’s academic life. Have you ever been curious about what others are thinking? Have you ever found yourself wondering about the thoughts and opinions of others? This is something that crosses everyone’s mind. The study of social psychology gives you a peek into some of these interesting stances. 

Social psychology is a field of psychology that investigates how the social environment shapes people’s thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. By studying social psychology, one can gain a deeper understanding of people’s actions and the consequences they have. Furthermore, engaging in practical experiments and activities can make this subject even more fascinating. 

In this post, you will find such engaging specific activities that will offer students valuable hands-on experience in the field of social psychology, allowing them to gain practical knowledge and insights into this fascinating subject matter.

Social psychology experiments and activities for high school students 

Here are a few interesting experiments and activities for high school students to learn about social psychology : 

1. Bystander effect simulation

The bystander effect [ 1 ] is a social psychology phenomenon that studies how an individual is unlikely to help in an urgent situation if surrounded by other people. Students can conduct experiments to study this effect in controlled settings. They can choose a social setting and select one person to pretend to need help, such as someone with a false injury struggling to cross the road or gather scattered items. 

The remaining students can observe their behavior while amongst the public.  This experiment aims to display the phenomenon called “diffusion of responsibility”. It will also help one understand the importance of helping people, acts of kindness , and empathetic understanding. Understanding the Bystander effect helps one understand the concept of social initiation, and can further be useful when a real social situation needs their intervention. 

2. Conformity experiment 

People tend to change their beliefs to match what they think is normal, which is called conformity bias. An experiment can be done to test this by asking a group of students to guess the length of a rod from three choices (25 cm, 30 cm, and 40 cm), with 25 cm being the correct answer. 

Some students might be told to give the wrong answer (like 40 cm) and act like they are sure it’s right, giving confident explanations for the same. This creates a situation of peer pressure and social conformity, making the students want to fit in and therefore agree with the group.

Other students might start to do the same thing as well to fit in with their friends. This experiment shows how conformity bias works. It also teaches students about the effects of peer pressure and social conformity, and how acting like others can affect things like confidence.

3. The marshmallow test 

The marshmallow test is a study about delaying pleasure, called delayed gratification. This happens when something else gets in the way of enjoying something right away. In an experiment such as this, immediate gratification can be understood as being given something delicious and eating it immediately. High school students can perform this experiment on preschoolers who are between three and five years old. 

The students will randomly select a few children and observe them individually. Each child will be given one marshmallow at a time and will be told that they will be given one more marshmallow if they resist eating this one until the observer returns. This is the process of delayed gratification [ 2 ]

The students would then observe and note the number of kids who attempted and succeeded in doing the same, and see if it agrees with their hypothesis. This test can help the students learn the importance of delayed gratification and how one can apply it to build virtues like discipline and organization.

4. Group polarization experiments 

The society contributes tremendously to forming one’s beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes, and notions. This particular experiment focuses on how societal agreements and discussions can strengthen already existing beliefs, lead them to extremities, and increase the rigidity of one’s thoughts. 

These experiments can take place both in classrooms and among peer groups. The first step is for students to express their opinions on a specific societal topic, such as gender norms. Then, the teacher can split the students into pairs, each holding a different viewpoint. 

The pairs will engage in discussions about the topic, sharing their personal opinions and biases. This increases their insight into the topic and open to more agreeable or disagreeable opinions. As the next step, the students will be asked their personal stance on the same topics again after the discussion. 

As per the hypothesis, their opinions will be more diversely spread and will have an increased intensity. This will help them notice any changes in the level of emphasis, aggressiveness, and rigidity of their opinions before and after the discussion. This experiment helps one realize the social effect on the rigidity of one’s thought formation and how social construct plays a role in molding one’s beliefs and values to polarized extremities. 

5. Mirror neurons 

The brain has a fascinating component called mirror neurons. Just like mirror images,  these are activated by subconsciously copying or adapting to performing any action or feeling a certain emotion, because others are doing so.

This explains why laughter can be contagious, or when your friend feels sad without any apparent reason, you begin feeling down in the dumps too. This indicates how we have the natural ability to empathize and feel others’ emotions only by imagining us being in their shoes, or even by being in the same environment as they are. Conducting experiments and activities, such as imitation, can help us understand the workings of mirror neurons. 

In a classroom or peer group setting, students can choose to perform a skit based on a story they know, but they must play a character they don’t particularly like. For instance, a student who dislikes Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series may be assigned to play that character. After the skit, the students can discuss the character traits of the parts they played and the qualities they possess.

In the end, it will be seen that the students have developed a sense of understanding and empathy towards the character that they previously disliked, by being in the same character for some time. Through these exercises, the students can learn how mirror neurons foster empathy, increase understanding, and make it easier to take on different perspectives. 

6. Nonverbal cues and communication

Societal construct is built in a way that puts so much emphasis on communication skills but ironically conducts it more in nonverbal ways. For high school students, it is not only important for them to be aware of its importance, but to learn it through the perspective of social psychology. This can be manifested as a learning-based class activity similar to the game of dumb charades. 

In this activity, the teacher or a peer will split the students into two teams. Then, one member from each team will be chosen to stand in front of the class and be given a list of emotions to express through facial expressions. Starting with simple emotions like happiness and sadness, they will gradually move on to more complex emotions like anticipation, confusion, grief, and sarcasm. 

The other team members will have to guess the nonverbal cues being portrayed by their teammates and will earn five points for every correct guess. By working together, the class can gain a better understanding of nonverbal communication and its significant impact on even the smallest interactions. This fosters collaborative engagement and teamwork, along with increasing understanding and receptive levels. 

7. Foot-in-the-door experiment

The foot-in-the-door technique is derived from the English idiom that means getting an initial start to something. This technique is studied in social psychology as a strategy used usually in the corporate or marketing sector. This social phenomenon can be observed in the form of organizing an activity like role play . 

The class will be split into pairs, and each pair will act out a marketing scenario. For example, they might choose to sell a skincare product. In the scenario, the salesperson will start by offering a free sample product and explaining its qualities. This small request is more likely to be accepted by the customer as it does not require much attention or effort, or any form of financial demand. 

Then, the salesperson will slowly follow up by convincing the customer to buy the product after trying it and agreeing with the description. In a social situation like this, it builds pressure on the customer to maintain the same agreeable behavior as before, which is why the customer will be more likely to buy the product. This experiment helps the student learn about social conformity and how society plays a role in shaping one’s moral values, categorizing their behavior as acceptable and non-acceptable.

8. Door-in-the-face experiment

This technique is the exact opposite of foot-in-the-door activity. In the case of a marketing strategy, it is used very smartly. High school students can conduct a social experiment with the permission and supervision of their teacher or faculty member.

The experiment involves inviting someone to a fundraiser organized by their school or institution. The students will start by making an unreasonable request, such as asking a random person to donate a thousand dollars to the charitable initiative of the fundraiser. 

The person is likely to deny the request, but that denial can make the person feel guilty for responding negatively. The students will then follow up with a small request to attend the fundraiser event. This is now possible and easy for the person to agree to, and also calms down the guilt of denying the earlier request by forming an acceptable image of an agreeable person.

This experiment teaches students about the importance of social acceptability in building self-image and confidence. It also lets them get an insight into how society can play a role in both building their values and morals, while at the same time, inducing feelings of unease and guilt. 

Wrapping it up

Already an intriguing subject, social psychology can be made even more fun by incorporating practical experiments and activities. The experiments done in social psychology are for observational and comprehensive purposes. 

They aim to better one’s understanding of social settings and their impact on an individual’s mind, together forming a cohesive psycho-social educational experience. Additionally, students can also engage in psychology games and activities for more clarity on the subject matter. These activities will help you dive deeper into how society operates, and also get to look at it from an observer’s perspective, giving you a clear, unbiased, and non-judgmental view of social occurrences and phenomena. 

• James M. Hudson, & Amy Bruckman. (2004). The Bystander Effect: A Lens for understanding patterns of participation.  The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(2), 165–195.
• Mischel Walter; Ebbesen, Ebbe B. (1970). “Attention in delay of gratification”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . 16 (2): 329–337.

Sananda Bhattacharya, Chief Editor of TheHighSchooler, is dedicated to enhancing operations and growth. With degrees in Literature and Asian Studies from Presidency University, Kolkata, she leverages her educational and innovative background to shape TheHighSchooler into a pivotal resource hub. Providing valuable insights, practical activities, and guidance on school life, graduation, scholarships, and more, Sananda’s leadership enriches the journey of high school students.

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Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Inspiration for psychology experiments is all around if you know where to look

Psychology experiments can run the gamut from simple to complex. Students are often expected to design—and sometimes perform—their own experiments, but finding great experiment ideas can be a little challenging. Fortunately, inspiration is all around if you know where to look—from your textbooks to the questions that you have about your own life.

Always discuss your idea with your instructor before beginning your experiment—particularly if your research involves human participants. (Note: You'll probably need to submit a proposal and get approval from your school's institutional review board.)

At a Glance

If you are looking for an idea for psychology experiments, start your search early and make sure you have the time you need. Doing background research, choosing an experimental design, and actually performing your experiment can be quite the process. Keep reading to find some great psychology experiment ideas that can serve as inspiration. You can then find ways to adapt these ideas for your own assignments.

15 Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Most of these experiments can be performed easily at home or at school. That said, you will need to find out if you have to get approval from your teacher or from an institutional review board before getting started.

The following are some questions you could attempt to answer as part of a psychological experiment:

• Are people really able to "feel like someone is watching" them ? Have some participants sit alone in a room and have them note when they feel as if they are being watched. Then, see how those results line up to your own record of when participants were actually being observed.
• Can certain colors improve learning ? You may have heard teachers or students claim that printing text on green paper helps students read better, or that yellow paper helps students perform better on math exams. Design an experiment to see whether using a specific color of paper helps improve students' scores on math exams.
• Can color cause physiological reactions ? Perform an experiment to determine whether certain colors cause a participant's blood pressure to rise or fall.
• Can different types of music lead to different physiological responses ? Measure the heart rates of participants in response to various types of music to see if there is a difference.
• Can smelling one thing while tasting another impact a person's ability to detect what the food really is ? Have participants engage in a blind taste test where the smell and the food they eat are mismatched. Ask the participants to identify the food they are trying and note how accurate their guesses are.
• Could a person's taste in music offer hints about their personality ? Previous research has suggested that people who prefer certain styles of music tend to exhibit similar  personality traits. Administer a personality assessment and survey participants about their musical preferences and examine your results.
• Do action films cause people to eat more popcorn and candy during a movie ? Have one group of participants watch an action movie, and another group watch a slow-paced drama. Compare how much popcorn is consumed by each group.
• Do colors really impact moods ? Investigate to see if the  color blue makes people feel calm, or if the color red leaves them feeling agitated.
• Do creative people see  optical illusions  differently than more analytical people ? Have participants complete an assessment to measure their level of creative thinking. Then ask participants to look at optical illusions and note what they perceive.
• Do people rate individuals with perfectly symmetrical faces as more beautiful than those with asymmetrical faces ? Create sample cards with both symmetrical and asymmetrical faces and ask participants to rate the attractiveness of each picture.
• Do people who use social media exhibit signs of addiction ? Have participants complete an assessment of their social media habits, then have them complete an addiction questionnaire.
• Does eating breakfast help students do better in school ? According to some, eating breakfast can have a beneficial influence on school performance. For your experiment, you could compare the test scores of students who ate breakfast to those who did not.
• Does sex influence short-term memory ? You could arrange an experiment that tests whether men or women are better at remembering specific types of information.
• How likely are people to conform in groups ? Try this experiment to see what percentage of people are likely to conform . Enlist confederates to give the wrong response to a math problem and then see if the participants defy or conform to the rest of the group.
• How much information can people store in short-term memory ? Have participants study a word list and then test their memory. Try different versions of the experiment to see which memorization strategies, like chunking or mnemonics, are most effective.

Once you have an idea, the next step is to learn more about  how to conduct a psychology experiment .

Psychology Experiments on Your Interests

If none of the ideas in the list above grabbed your attention, there are other ways to find inspiration for your psychology experiments.

How do you come up with good psychology experiments? One of the most effective approaches is to look at the various problems, situations, and questions that you are facing in your own life.

You can also think about the things that interest you. Start by considering the topics you've studied in class thus far that have really piqued your interest. Then, whittle the list down to two or three major areas within psychology that seem to interest you the most.

From there, make a list of questions you have related to the topic. Any of these questions could potentially serve as an experiment idea.

Use Textbooks for Inspiration for Psychology Experiments

Your psychology textbooks are another excellent source you can turn to for experiment ideas. Choose the chapters or sections that you find particularly interesting—perhaps it's a chapter on  social psychology  or a section on child development.

Start by browsing the experiments discussed in your book. Then think of how you could devise an experiment related to some of the questions your text asks. The reference section at the back of your textbook can also serve as a great source for additional reference material.

Discuss Psychology Experiments with Other Students

It can be helpful to brainstorm with your classmates to gather outside ideas and perspectives. Get together with a group of students and make a list of interesting ideas, subjects, or questions you have.

The information from your brainstorming session can serve as a basis for your experiment topic. It's also a great way to get feedback on your own ideas and to determine if they are worth exploring in greater depth.

Study Classic Psychology Experiments

Taking a closer look at a classic psychology experiment can be an excellent way to trigger some unique and thoughtful ideas of your own. To start, you could try conducting your own version of a famous experiment or even updating a classic experiment to assess a slightly different question.

Famous Psychology Experiments

Examples of famous psychology experiments that might be a source of further questions you'd like to explore include:

• Marshmallow test experiments
• Little Albert experiment
• Hawthorne effect experiments
• Bystander effect experiments
• Robbers Cave experiments
• Halo effect experiments
• Piano stairs experiment
• Cognitive dissonance experiments
• False memory experiments

You might not be able to replicate an experiment exactly (lots of classic psychology experiments have ethical issues that would preclude conducting them today), but you can use well-known studies as a basis for inspiration.

Review the Literature on Psychology Experiments

If you have a general idea about what topic you'd like to experiment, you might want to spend a little time doing a brief literature review before you start designing. In other words, do your homework before you invest too much time on an idea.

Visit your university library and find some of the best books and articles that cover the particular topic you are interested in. What research has already been done in this area? Are there any major questions that still need to be answered? What were the findings of previous psychology experiments?

Tackling this step early will make the later process of writing the introduction  to your  lab report  or research paper much easier.

Ask Your Instructor About Ideas for Psychology Experiments

If you have made a good effort to come up with an idea on your own but you're still feeling stumped, it might help to talk to your instructor. Ask for pointers on finding a good experiment topic for the specific assignment. You can also ask them to suggest some other ways you could generate ideas or inspiration.

While it can feel intimidating to ask for help, your instructor should be more than happy to provide some guidance. Plus, they might offer insights that you wouldn't have gathered on your own. Your instructor probably has lots of ideas for psychology experiments that would be worth exploring.

If you need to design or conduct psychology experiments, there are plenty of great ideas (both old and new) for you to explore. Consider an idea from the list above or turn some of your own questions about the human mind and behavior into an experiment.

Before you dive in, make sure that you are observing the guidelines provided by your instructor and always obtain the appropriate permission before conducting any research with human or animal subjects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Finding a topic for a research paper is much like finding an idea for an experiment. Start by considering your own interests, or browse though your textbooks for inspiration. You might also consider looking at online news stories or journal articles as a source of inspiration.

Three of the most classic social psychology experiments are:

• The Asch Conformity Experiment : This experiment involved seeing if people would conform to group pressure when rating the length of a line.
• The Milgram Obedience Experiment : This experiment involved ordering participants to deliver what they thought was a painful shock to another person.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment : This experiment involved students replicating a prison environment to see how it would affect participant behavior. 

Jakovljević T, Janković MM, Savić AM, et al. The effect of colour on reading performance in children, measured by a sensor hub: From the perspective of gender .  PLoS One . 2021;16(6):e0252622. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252622

Greenberg DM, et al. Musical preferences are linked to cognitive styles . PLoS One. 2015;10(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131151

Kurt S, Osueke KK. The effects of color on the moods of college students . Sage. 2014;4(1). doi:10.1177/2158244014525423

Hartline-Grafton H, Levin M. Breakfast and School-Related Outcomes in Children and Adolescents in the US: A Literature Review and its Implications for School Nutrition Policy .  Curr Nutr Rep . 2022;11(4):653-664. doi:10.1007/s13668-022-00434-z

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

11+ Psychology Experiment Ideas (Goals + Methods)

Have you ever wondered why some days you remember things easily, while on others you keep forgetting? Or why certain songs make you super happy and others just…meh?

Our minds are like big, mysterious puzzles, and every day we're finding new pieces to fit. One of the coolest ways to explore our brains and the way they work is through psychology experiments.

A psychology experiment is a special kind of test or activity researchers use to learn more about how our minds work and why we behave the way we do.

It's like a detective game where scientists ask questions and try out different clues to find answers about our feelings, thoughts, and actions. These experiments aren't just for scientists in white coats but can be fun activities we all try to discover more about ourselves and others.

Some of these experiments have become so famous, they’re like the celebrities of the science world! Like the Marshmallow Test, where kids had to wait to eat a yummy marshmallow, or Pavlov's Dogs, where dogs learned to drool just hearing a bell.

Let's look at a few examples of psychology experiments you can do at home.

What Are Some Classic Experiments?

Imagine a time when the mysteries of the mind were being uncovered in groundbreaking ways. During these moments, a few experiments became legendary, capturing the world's attention with their intriguing results.

The Marshmallow Test

One of the most talked-about experiments of the 20th century was the Marshmallow Test , conducted by Walter Mischel in the late 1960s at Stanford University.

The goal was simple but profound: to understand a child's ability to delay gratification and exercise self-control.

Children were placed in a room with a marshmallow and given a choice: eat the marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes and receive two as a reward. Many kids struggled with the wait, some devouring the treat immediately, while others demonstrated remarkable patience.

But the experiment didn’t end there. Years later, Mischel discovered something astonishing. The children who had waited for the second marshmallow were generally more successful in several areas of life, from school achievements to job satisfaction!

While this experiment highlighted the importance of teaching patience and self-control from a young age, it wasn't without its criticisms. Some argued that a child's background, upbringing, or immediate surroundings might play a significant role in their choices.

Moreover, there were concerns about the ethics of judging a child's potential success based on a brief interaction with a marshmallow.

Pavlov's Dogs

Traveling further back in time and over to Russia, another classic experiment took the world by storm. Ivan Pavlov , in the early 1900s, wasn't initially studying learning or behavior. He was exploring the digestive systems of dogs.

But during his research, Pavlov stumbled upon a fascinating discovery. He noticed that by ringing a bell every time he fed his dogs, they eventually began to associate the bell's sound with mealtime. So much so, that merely ringing the bell, even without presenting food, made the dogs drool in anticipation!

This reaction demonstrated the concept of "conditioning" - where behaviors can be learned by linking two unrelated stimuli. Pavlov's work revolutionized the world's understanding of learning and had ripple effects in various areas like animal training and therapy techniques.

Pavlov came up with the term classical conditioning , which is still used today. Other psychologists have developed more nuanced types of conditioning that help us understand how people learn to perform different behaviours.

Classical conditioning is the process by which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus , leading to the same response. In Pavlov's case, the neutral stimulus (bell) became associated with the meaningful stimulus (food), leading the dogs to salivate just by hearing the bell.

Modern thinkers often critique Pavlov's methods from an ethical standpoint. The dogs, crucial to his discovery, may not have been treated with today's standards of care and respect in research.

Both these experiments, while enlightening, also underline the importance of conducting research with empathy and consideration, especially when it involves living beings.

What is Ethical Experimentation?

The tales of Pavlov's bells and Mischel's marshmallows offer us not just insights into the human mind and behavior but also raise a significant question: At what cost do these discoveries come?

Ethical experimentation isn't just a fancy term; it's the backbone of good science. When we talk about ethics, we're referring to the moral principles that guide a researcher's decisions and actions. But why does it matter so much in the realm of psychological experimentation?

An example of an experiment that had major ethical issues is an experiment called the Monster Study . This study was conducted in 1936 and was interested in why children develop a stutter.

The major issue with it is that the psychologists treated some of the children poorly over a period of five months, telling them things like “You must try to stop yourself immediately. Don’t ever speak unless you can do it right.”

You can imagine how that made the children feel!

This study helped create guidelines for ethical treatment in experiments. The guidelines include:

Respect for Individuals: Whether it's a dog in Pavlov's lab or a child in Mischel's study room, every participant—human or animal—deserves respect. They should never be subjected to harm or undue stress. For humans, informed consent (knowing what they're signing up for) is a must. This means that if a child is participating, they, along with their guardians, should understand what the experiment entails and agree to it without being pressured.

Honesty is the Best Policy: Researchers have a responsibility to be truthful. This means not only being honest with participants about the study but also reporting findings truthfully, even if the results aren't what they hoped for. There can be exceptions if an experiment will only succeed if the participants aren't fully aware, but it has to be approved by an ethics committee .

Safety First: No discovery, no matter how groundbreaking, is worth harming a participant. The well-being and mental, emotional, and physical safety of participants is paramount. Experiments should be designed to minimize risks and discomfort.

Considering the Long-Term: Some experiments might have effects that aren't immediately obvious. For example, while a child might seem fine after participating in an experiment, they could feel stressed or anxious later on. Ethical researchers consider and plan for these possibilities, offering support and follow-up if needed.

The Rights of Animals: Just because animals can't voice their rights doesn't mean they don't have any. They should be treated with care, dignity, and respect. This means providing them with appropriate living conditions, not subjecting them to undue harm, and considering alternatives to animal testing when possible.

While the world of psychological experiments offers fascinating insights into behavior and the mind, it's essential to tread with care and compassion. The golden rule? Treat every participant, human or animal, as you'd wish to be treated. After all, the true mark of a groundbreaking experiment isn't just its findings but the ethical integrity with which it's conducted.

So, even if you're experimenting at home, please keep in mind the impact your experiments could have on the people and beings around you!

Let's get into some ideas for experiments.

1) Testing Conformity

Our primary aim with this experiment is to explore the intriguing world of social influences, specifically focusing on how much sway a group has over an individual's decisions. This social influence is called groupthink .

Humans, as social creatures, often find solace in numbers, seeking the approval and acceptance of those around them. But how deep does this need run? Does the desire to "fit in" overpower our trust in our own judgments?

This experiment not only provides insights into these questions but also touches upon the broader themes of peer pressure, societal norms, and individuality. Understanding this could shed light on various real-world situations, from why fashion trends catch on to more critical scenarios like how misinformation can spread.

Method: This idea is inspired by the classic Asch Conformity Experiments . Here's a simple way to try it:

• Assemble a group of people (about 7-8). Only one person will be the real participant; the others will be in on the experiment.
• Show the group a picture of three lines of different lengths and another line labeled "Test Line."
• Ask each person to say out loud which of the three lines matches the length of the "Test Line."
• Unknown to the real participant, the other members will intentionally choose the wrong line. This is to see if the participant goes along with the group's incorrect choice, even if they can see it's wrong.

Real-World Impacts of Groupthink

Groupthink is more than just a science term; we see it in our daily lives:

Decisions at Work or School: Imagine being in a group where everyone wants to do one thing, even if it's not the best idea. People might not speak up because they're worried about standing out or being the only one with a different opinion.

Wrong Information: Ever heard a rumor that turned out to be untrue? Sometimes, if many people believe and share something, others might believe it too, even if it's not correct. This happens a lot on the internet.

Peer Pressure: Sometimes, friends might all want to do something that's not safe or right. People might join in just because they don't want to feel left out.

Missing Out on New Ideas: When everyone thinks the same way and agrees all the time, cool new ideas might never get heard. It's like always coloring with the same crayon and missing out on all the other bright colors!

2) Testing Color and Mood

We all have favorite colors, right? But did you ever wonder if colors can make you feel a certain way? Color psychology is the study of how colors can influence our feelings and actions.

For instance, does blue always calm us down? Does red make us feel excited or even a bit angry? By exploring this, we can learn how colors play a role in our daily lives, from the clothes we wear to the color of our bedroom walls.

• Find a quiet room and set up different colored lights or large sheets of colored paper: blue, red, yellow, and green.
• Invite some friends over and let each person spend a few minutes under each colored light or in front of each colored paper.
• After each color, ask your friends to write down or talk about how they feel. Are they relaxed? Energized? Happy? Sad?

Researchers have always been curious about this. Some studies have shown that colors like blue and green can make people feel calm, while colors like red might make them feel more alert or even hungry!

Real-World Impacts of Color Psychology

Ever noticed how different places use colors?

Hospitals and doctors' clinics often use soft blues and greens. This might be to help patients feel more relaxed and calm.

Many fast food restaurants use bright reds and yellows. These colors might make us feel hungry or want to eat quickly and leave.

Classrooms might use a mix of colors to help students feel both calm and energized.

3) Testing Music and Brainpower

Think about your favorite song. Do you feel smarter or more focused when you listen to it? This experiment seeks to understand the relationship between music and our brain's ability to remember things. Some people believe that certain types of music, like classical tunes, can help us study or work better. Let's find out if it's true!

• Prepare a list of 10-15 things to remember, like a grocery list or names of places.
• Invite some friends over. First, let them try to memorize the list in a quiet room.
• After a short break, play some music (try different types like pop, classical, or even nature sounds) and ask them to memorize the list again.
• Compare the results. Was there a difference in how much they remembered with and without music?

The " Mozart Effect " is a popular idea. Some studies in the past suggested that listening to Mozart's music might make people smarter, at least for a little while. But other researchers think the effect might not be specific to Mozart; it could be that any music we enjoy boosts our mood and helps our brain work better.

Real-World Impacts of Music and Memory

Think about how we use music:

• Study Sessions: Many students listen to music while studying, believing it helps them concentrate better.
• Workout Playlists: Gyms play energetic music to keep people motivated and help them push through tough workouts.
• Meditation and Relaxation: Calm, soothing sounds are often used to help people relax or meditate.

4) Testing Dreams and Food

Ever had a really wild dream and wondered where it came from? Some say that eating certain foods before bedtime can make our dreams more vivid or even a bit strange.

This experiment is all about diving into the dreamy world of sleep to see if what we eat can really change our nighttime adventures. Can a piece of chocolate or a slice of cheese transport us to a land of wacky dreams? Let's find out!

• Ask a group of friends to keep a "dream diary" for a week. Every morning, they should write down what they remember about their dreams.
• For the next week, ask them to eat a small snack before bed, like cheese, chocolate, or even spicy foods.
• They should continue writing in their "dream diary" every morning.
• At the end of the two weeks, compare the dream notes. Do the dreams seem different during the snack week?

The link between food and dreams isn't super clear, but some people have shared personal stories. For example, some say that spicy food can lead to bizarre dreams. Scientists aren't completely sure why, but it could be related to how food affects our body temperature or brain activity during sleep.

A cool idea related to this experiment is that of vivid dreams , which are very clear, detailed, and easy to remember dreams. Some people are even able to control their vivid dreams, or say that they feel as real as daily, waking life !

Real-World Impacts of Food and Dreams

Our discoveries might shed light on:

• Bedtime Routines: Knowing which foods might affect our dreams can help us choose better snacks before bedtime, especially if we want calmer sleep.
• Understanding Our Brain: Dreams can be mysterious, but studying them can give us clues about how our brains work at night.
• Cultural Beliefs: Many cultures have myths or stories about foods and dreams. Our findings might add a fun twist to these age-old tales!

5) Testing Mirrors and Self-image

Stand in front of a mirror. How do you feel? Proud? Shy? Curious? Mirrors reflect more than just our appearance; they might influence how we think about ourselves.

This experiment delves into the mystery of self-perception. Do we feel more confident when we see our reflection? Or do we become more self-conscious? Let's take a closer look.

• Set up two rooms: one with mirrors on all walls and another with no mirrors at all.
• Invite friends over and ask them to spend some time in each room doing normal activities, like reading or talking.
• After their time in both rooms, ask them questions like: "Did you think about how you looked more in one room? Did you feel more confident or shy?"
• Compare the responses to see if the presence of mirrors changes how they feel about themselves.

Studies have shown that when people are in rooms with mirrors, they can become more aware of themselves. Some might stand straighter, fix their hair, or even change how they behave. The mirror acts like an audience, making us more conscious of our actions.

Real-World Impacts of Mirrors and Self-perception

Mirrors aren't just for checking our hair. Ever wonder why clothing stores have so many mirrors? They might help shoppers visualize themselves in new outfits, encouraging them to buy.

Mirrors in gyms can motivate people to work out with correct form and posture. They also help us see progress in real-time!

And sometimes, looking in a mirror can be a reminder to take care of ourselves, both inside and out.

But remember, what we look like isn't as important as how we act in the world or how healthy we are. Some people claim that having too many mirrors around can actually make us more self conscious and distract us from the good parts of ourselves.

Some studies are showing that mirrors can actually increase self-compassion , amongst other things. As any tool, it seems like mirrors can be both good and bad, depending on how we use them!

6) Testing Plants and Talking

Have you ever seen someone talking to their plants? It might sound silly, but some people believe that plants can "feel" our vibes and that talking to them might even help them grow better.

In this experiment, we'll explore whether plants can indeed react to our voices and if they might grow taller, faster, or healthier when we chat with them.

• Get three similar plants, placing each one in a separate room.
• Talk to the first plant, saying positive things like "You're doing great!" or singing to it.
• Say negative things to the second plant, like "You're not growing fast enough!"
• Don't talk to the third plant at all; let it be your "silent" control group .
• Water all plants equally and make sure they all get the same amount of light.
• At the end of the month, measure the growth of each plant and note any differences in their health or size.

The idea isn't brand new. Some experiments from the past suggest plants might respond to sounds or vibrations. Some growers play music for their crops, thinking it helps them flourish.

Even if talking to our plants doesn't have an impact on their growth, it can make us feel better! Sometimes, if we are lonely, talking to our plants can help us feel less alone. Remember, they are living too!

Real-World Impacts of Talking to Plants

If plants do react to our voices, gardeners and farmers might adopt new techniques, like playing music in greenhouses or regularly talking to plants.

Taking care of plants and talking to them could become a recommended activity for reducing stress and boosting mood.

And if plants react to sound, it gives us a whole new perspective on how connected all living things might be .

7) Testing Virtual Reality and Senses

Virtual reality (VR) seems like magic, doesn't it? You put on a headset and suddenly, you're in a different world! But how does this "new world" affect our senses? This experiment wants to find out how our brains react to VR compared to the real world. Do we feel, see, or hear things differently? Let's get to the bottom of this digital mystery!

• You'll need a VR headset and a game or experience that can be replicated in real life (like walking through a forest). If you don't have a headset yourself, there are virtual reality arcades now!
• Invite friends to first experience the scenario in VR.
• Afterwards, replicate the experience in the real world, like taking a walk in an actual forest.
• Ask them questions about both experiences: Did one seem more real than the other? Which sounds were more clear? Which colors were brighter? Did they feel different emotions?

As VR becomes more popular, scientists have been curious about its effects. Some studies show that our brains can sometimes struggle to tell the difference between VR and reality. That's why some people might feel like they're really "falling" in a VR game even though they're standing still.

Real-World Impacts of VR on Our Senses

Schools might use VR to teach lessons, like taking students on a virtual trip to ancient Egypt. Understanding how our senses react in VR can also help game designers create even more exciting and realistic games.

Doctors could use VR to help patients overcome fears or to provide relaxation exercises. This is actually already a method therapists can use for helping patients who have serious phobias. This is called exposure therapy , which basically means slowly exposing someone (or yourself) to the thing you fear, starting from very far away to becoming closer.

For instance, if someone is afraid of snakes. You might show them images of snakes first. Once they are comfortable with the picture, they can know there is one in the next room. Once they are okay with that, they might use a VR headset to see the snake in the same room with them, though of course there is not an actual snake there.

8) Testing Sleep and Learning

We all know that feeling of trying to study or work when we're super tired. Our brains feel foggy, and it's hard to remember stuff. But how exactly does sleep (or lack of it) influence our ability to learn and remember things?

With this experiment, we'll uncover the mysteries of sleep and see how it can be our secret weapon for better learning.

• Split participants into two groups.
• Ask both groups to study the same material in the evening.
• One group goes to bed early, while the other stays up late.
• The next morning, give both groups a quiz on what they studied.
• Compare the results to see which group remembered more.

Sleep and its relation to learning have been explored a lot. Scientists believe that during sleep, especially deep sleep, our brains sort and store new information. This is why sometimes, after a good night's rest, we might understand something better or remember more.

Real-World Impacts of Sleep and Learning

Understanding the power of sleep can help:

• Students: If they know the importance of sleep, students might plan better, mixing study sessions with rest, especially before big exams.
• Workplaces: Employers might consider more flexible hours, understanding that well-rested employees learn faster and make fewer mistakes.
• Health: Regularly missing out on sleep can have other bad effects on our health. So, promoting good sleep is about more than just better learning.

9) Testing Social Media and Mood

Have you ever felt different after spending time on social media? Maybe happy after seeing a friend's fun photos, or a bit sad after reading someone's tough news.

Social media is a big part of our lives, but how does it really affect our mood? This experiment aims to shine a light on the emotional roller-coaster of likes, shares, and comments.

• Ask participants to note down how they're feeling - are they happy, sad, excited, or bored?
• Have them spend a set amount of time (like 30 minutes) on their favorite social media platforms.
• After the session, ask them again about their mood. Did it change? Why?
• Discuss what they saw or read that made them feel that way.

Previous research has shown mixed results. Some studies suggest that seeing positive posts can make us feel good, while others say that too much time on social media can make us feel lonely or left out.

Real-World Impacts of Social Media on Mood

Understanding the emotional impact of social media can help users understand their feelings and take breaks if needed. Knowing is half the battle! Additionally, teachers and parents can guide young users on healthy social media habits, like limiting time or following positive accounts.

And if it's shown that social media does impact mood, social media companies can design friendlier, less stressful user experiences.

But even if the social media companies don't change things, we can still change our social media habits to make ourselves feel better.

10) Testing Handwriting or Typing

Think about the last time you took notes. Did you grab a pen and paper or did you type them out on a computer or tablet?

Both ways are popular, but there's a big question: which method helps us remember and understand better? In this experiment, we'll find out if the classic art of handwriting has an edge over speedy typing.

• Divide participants into two groups.
• Present a short lesson or story to both groups.
• One group will take notes by hand, while the other will type them out.
• After some time, quiz both groups on the content of the lesson or story.
• Compare the results to see which note-taking method led to better recall and understanding.

Studies have shown some interesting results. While typing can be faster and allows for more notes, handwriting might boost memory and comprehension because it engages the brain differently, making us process the information as we write.

Importantly, each person might find one or the other works better for them. This could be useful in understanding our learning habits and what instructional style would be best for us.

Real-World Impacts of Handwriting vs. Typing

Knowing the pros and cons of each method can:

• Boost Study Habits: Students can pick the method that helps them learn best, especially during important study sessions or lectures.
• Work Efficiency: In jobs where information retention is crucial, understanding the best method can increase efficiency and accuracy.
• Tech Design: If we find out more about how handwriting benefits us, tech companies might design gadgets that mimic the feel of writing while combining the advantages of digital tools.

11) Testing Money and Happiness

We often hear the saying, "Money can't buy happiness," but is that really true? Many dream of winning the lottery or getting a big raise, believing it would solve all problems.

In this experiment, we dig deep to see if there's a real connection between wealth and well-being.

• Survey a range of participants, from those who earn a little to those who earn a lot, about their overall happiness. You can keep it to your friends and family, but that might not be as accurate as surveying a wider group of people.
• Ask them to rank things that bring them joy and note if they believe more money would boost their happiness. You could try different methods, one where you include some things that they have to rank, such as gardening, spending time with friends, reading books, learning, etc. Or you could just leave a blank list that they can fill in with their own ideas.
• Study the data to find patterns or trends about income and happiness.

Some studies have found money can boost happiness, especially when it helps people out of tough financial spots. But after reaching a certain income, extra dollars usually do not add much extra joy.

In fact, psychologists just realized that once people have an income that can comfortably support their needs (and some of their wants), they stop getting happier with more . That number is roughly $75,000, but of course that depends on the cost of living and how many members are in the family.

Real-World Impacts of Money and Happiness

If we can understand the link between money and joy, it might help folks choose jobs they love over jobs that just pay well. And instead of buying things, people might spend on experiences, like trips or classes, that make lasting memories.

Most importantly, we all might spend more time on hobbies, friends, and family, knowing they're big parts of what makes life great.

Some people are hoping that with Artificial Intelligence being able to do a lot of the less well-paying jobs, people might be able to do work they enjoy more, all while making more money and having more time to do the things that make them happy.

12) Testing Temperature and Productivity

Have you ever noticed how a cold classroom or office makes it harder to focus? Or how on hot days, all you want to do is relax? In this experiment, we're going to find out if the temperature around us really does change how well we work.

• Find a group of participants and a room where you can change the temperature.
• Set the room to a chilly temperature and give the participants a set of tasks to do.
• Measure how well and quickly they do these tasks.
• The next day, make the room comfortably warm and have them do similar tasks.
• Compare the results to see if the warmer or cooler temperature made them work better.

Some studies have shown that people can work better when they're in a room that feels just right, not too cold or hot. Being too chilly can make fingers slow, and being too warm can make minds wander.

What temperature is "just right"? It won't be the same for everyone, but most people find it's between 70-73 degrees Fahrenheit (21-23 Celsius).

Real-World Implications of Temperature and Productivity

If we can learn more about how temperature affects our work, teachers might set classroom temperatures to help students focus and learn better, offices might adjust temperatures to get the best work out of their teams, and at home, we might find the best temperature for doing homework or chores quickly and well.

Interestingly, temperature also has an impact on our sleep quality. Most people find slightly cooler rooms to be better for good sleep. While the daytime temperature between 70-73F is good for productivity, a nighttime temperature around 65F (18C) is ideal for most people's sleep.

Psychology is like a treasure hunt, where the prize is understanding ourselves better. With every experiment, we learn a little more about why we think, feel, and act the way we do. Some of these experiments might seem simple, like seeing if colors change our mood or if being warm helps us work better. But even the simple questions can have big answers that help us in everyday life.

Remember, while doing experiments is fun, it's also important to always be kind and think about how others feel. We should never make someone uncomfortable just for a test. Instead, let's use these experiments to learn and grow, helping to make the world a brighter, more understanding place for everyone.

Related posts:

• 150+ Flirty Goodnight Texts For Him (Sweet and Naughty Examples)
• Dream Interpreter & Dictionary (270+ Meanings)
• Sleep Stages (Light, Deep, REM)
• What Part of the Brain Regulates Body Temperature?
• Why Do We Dream? (6 Theories and Psychological Reasons)

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