More Psychological Experiments by Laurel Ferguson
I really enjoyed studying the psychological and social experiments in English these past few weeks, so I decided to find some more and compile them here for anyone else who was interested.
A Class Divided
This study, conducted by Jane Elliot, was designed to mimic racism and prejudice. Elliot divided a classroom of children based on eye color. She gave the blue-eyed group special privileges and told them they were the superior group. Individuals from the brown-eyed group were criticized by Elliot and treated poorly. Throughout the experiment, the blue-eyed group showed an improvement in academic performance and even mirrored Elliot's poor treatment of the brown-eyed group, while the brown-eyed group experienced deteriorating self-confidence and worsened academic performance.
Little Albert Experiment
This study was conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 1920 to determine whether they could condition a 9-month old baby to have an irrational fear of rats. The researchers placed a white rat in front of the baby, and made a loud sound with a hammer and a steel bar at the same time. This process was repeated several times until the baby reacted to the appearance of the rat by crying and exhibiting fear, even before the loud noise was made. The experiment concluded that adult fears are rooted in childhood traumas. This experiment was considered extremely unethical, especially to perform on a baby, and also calls into question whether research like this is justifiable.
Robbers Cave Experiment
The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted at the University of Oklahoma, is another study found to be ethically questionable. Twenty two young boys were sorted into two groups and sent to live in separate cabins for a week. Over this week, boys bonded with their group. When the groups were introduced to each other, they exhibited hostility toward each other. Researchers had the groups compete in activities, which increased tension, then tried to bring the groups together with fun activities such as fireworks and watching movies. When this didn't work, the researchers gave the boys teamwork exercises, and the groups agreed to ride the same bus home, proving that conflict resolution is possible through cooperation. I thought this study was appropriate to include as it has been compared to Lord of the Flies.
Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment
I found this last experiment pretty funny. The study was conducted at Harvard University. Participants were asked to watch a video of a basketball game and count the number of passes between players on the white team. In the middle of the video, a person in a gorilla suit walks onto the middle of the field before exiting. While most participants successfully counted the number of passes, they were so focused on their task that the vast majority failed to notice the gorilla. The results of this study point to implications about humans' ability to multitask.
I found summaries of all of these experiments at this website. The article actually includes a list of 25 psychological experiments from history, so if you found these interesting, go check out the full article!
A Class Divided
This study, conducted by Jane Elliot, was designed to mimic racism and prejudice. Elliot divided a classroom of children based on eye color. She gave the blue-eyed group special privileges and told them they were the superior group. Individuals from the brown-eyed group were criticized by Elliot and treated poorly. Throughout the experiment, the blue-eyed group showed an improvement in academic performance and even mirrored Elliot's poor treatment of the brown-eyed group, while the brown-eyed group experienced deteriorating self-confidence and worsened academic performance.
Little Albert Experiment
This study was conducted at Johns Hopkins University in 1920 to determine whether they could condition a 9-month old baby to have an irrational fear of rats. The researchers placed a white rat in front of the baby, and made a loud sound with a hammer and a steel bar at the same time. This process was repeated several times until the baby reacted to the appearance of the rat by crying and exhibiting fear, even before the loud noise was made. The experiment concluded that adult fears are rooted in childhood traumas. This experiment was considered extremely unethical, especially to perform on a baby, and also calls into question whether research like this is justifiable.
Robbers Cave Experiment
The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted at the University of Oklahoma, is another study found to be ethically questionable. Twenty two young boys were sorted into two groups and sent to live in separate cabins for a week. Over this week, boys bonded with their group. When the groups were introduced to each other, they exhibited hostility toward each other. Researchers had the groups compete in activities, which increased tension, then tried to bring the groups together with fun activities such as fireworks and watching movies. When this didn't work, the researchers gave the boys teamwork exercises, and the groups agreed to ride the same bus home, proving that conflict resolution is possible through cooperation. I thought this study was appropriate to include as it has been compared to Lord of the Flies.
Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment
I found this last experiment pretty funny. The study was conducted at Harvard University. Participants were asked to watch a video of a basketball game and count the number of passes between players on the white team. In the middle of the video, a person in a gorilla suit walks onto the middle of the field before exiting. While most participants successfully counted the number of passes, they were so focused on their task that the vast majority failed to notice the gorilla. The results of this study point to implications about humans' ability to multitask.
I found summaries of all of these experiments at this website. The article actually includes a list of 25 psychological experiments from history, so if you found these interesting, go check out the full article!
These are definitely pretty interesting. I also enjoyed watching many of these experiments in class, so it was great to see some more here.
ReplyDeleteThese are very interesting experiments! Some of these are pretty crazy though, like the baby one seems extreme if you ask me. The ones we learned about in class were also really interesting.
ReplyDeleteThere experiments all sound so interesting! I wonder what happened to Little Albert...
ReplyDelete*These
DeleteGreat post, but I've always wondered how they could "abuse" children (so to speak) in order to get this type of research? I guess the same could be said about the Stanford Prison experiment. I'm glad you were interested in this topic- it's one of my favorites and I'm sad we couldn't do it in school together.
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