IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGY

EXPERIMENTS - PART 1

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE - is when we experience conflicting thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes. Leon Festinger's 1957 cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we act to reduce the disharmony, or dissonance, of our conflicting feelings. In 1959, Festinger, along with James Carlsmith, tested this theory (Cognitive Dissonance). In this experiment, 71 male participants were given a series of nonsensical and boring tasks. They were instructed to put spools onto and off the try with only one hand for half an hour, and then turn 48 square pegs clockwise for the next half hour. A fraction of the participants (the control group) was thanked and let go after an interview. The other fraction was given the option to take the place of the experimenter, which required them to give an interesting explanation to the next group. Half of them were offered $1 to do it, and half of them were offered $20. The participants were interviewed afterwards and were asked to rate the experiment in four areas (Cognitive Dissonance). When the participants were 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. The participants were experiencing cognitive dissonance because they were being asked to tell other people that the tasks were fun and interesting when, in reality, they were tedious and boring. The people who were paid $1 rated the task as more enjoyable because they had no ample justification for lying, so they convinced themselves that the task was fun and rated it as fun. They changed their attitudes to relieve the dissonance and fully believed that the activities were interesting. On the other hand, the people who were paid $20 had the monetary reason to lie. They did not have to change their attitudes to lie because the money served as ample justification (Cognitive Dissonance).

FANTZ’S LOOKING CHAMBER - 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.

HALO EFFECT EXPERIMENT - Study Conducted by: Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson

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

• inferences

• the production of a more complex social behaviour

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:

• likable

• 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

• mannerisms

• his accent

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.

KITTY GENOVESE CASE – 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 neighbours witnessed Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964. Not one neighbour 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.

LEARNED HELPLESSNESS - In 1965, Martin Seligman and his colleagues were conducting research on classical conditioning. This is the process by which an animal or human associates one thing with another. 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.

MILLER’S LAW - 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.

PAVLOV’S DOGS - Pavlov’s experiment with dogs turned out to be one of the most pivotal experiments in all of psychology. His findings on conditioning led to a whole new branch of psychological study. 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 behaviour. 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.

ROBBERS CAVE EXPERIMENT - Study Conducted by: Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif 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.

STILL FACE EXPERIMENT - still face experiment is a procedure developed by Edward Tronick in 1978, where a mother faces her baby, and is asked to hold a ‘still face’, in which she does not react to the baby’s behaviours. The reactions of the baby are then observed. In general, the baby will become agitated by failed attempts to evoke a reaction in the mother. Babies of depressed mothers have been shown to exhibit a lesser reaction, and baby boys have been found to have more difficulty than girls in maintaining affective regulation during the procedure.

THE BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT – Refers to a study conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 to investigate the effects of observational learning on aggressive behaviour in children. The study aimed to demonstrate how children learn and imitate aggressive behaviours through observation and modelling. In the experiment, children between the ages of three and six were divided into three groups: a control group, one group that observed a model being physically aggressive toward a Bobo doll, and one group that observed a model being verbally aggressive toward the doll. The children were then placed in a playroom with a Bobo doll and aggressive toys, and their behaviour was observed.

The results of the study showed that the children who observed the aggressive adults were more likely to imitate the same behaviours than those who did not. Furthermore, the children who observed the verbally aggressive model were also more likely to use aggressive language toward the doll. A landmark child development study, the Bobo doll experiment, demonstrated that children can learn new behaviours through observation and modelling, even if those behaviours are aggressive or violent.

THE FINLAND BASIC INCOME EXPERIMENT – Increased well-being and employment. Universal Basic Income is the idea of giving everyone a fixed income regardless of whether they work. The idea is often considered a part of economics or government. Still, psychologists have questioned how people would behave in a society where they were not required to work. Supporters believe that universal basic income would improve society by allowing individuals to do what they love rather than chase money. Thinkers going back to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates have said that when individuals pursue their interests and natural skills, society is better off. Critics believe it would damage society and lead to group conflict because no one would pursue higher-order jobs if they didn't work to live. They often point out necessary, non-automated, undesirable, and low-paying jobs that may not be filled if people were less incentivized by money because of a base income. The first attempt to settle this argument occurred in Finland between 2017 and 2018. The study signed on 2000 participants who had been unemployed during the previous year and gave them an amount equivalent to the unemployment they had received. The study found that those receiving a basic income had similar work habits to the control group that didn't. However, the group that received basic income had better health, drew less from other social programs, reported better well-being, and performed better in their jobs. It has long been known that having a job increases an individual's sense of value and well-being, and this was still the case when an individual was not required to work to survive.

There is little room for critics to come up with ethical concerns. The influence of the study was positive, and the experiment's size and ambition serve as a model for other countries attempting similar experiments.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN EXPERIMENT - Study Conducted by: John Darley and Daniel Batson

In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behaviour. 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 behaviour than laymen.

• People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behaviour.

• 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 behaviour. 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 behaviour shown.

THE HAWTHORNE EFFECT - The Hawthorne Effect came from a 1955 study conducted by Henry Landsberger. This effect is a simple premise that human subjects in an experiment change their behaviour simply because they are being studied. Landsberger performed the study by analysing 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.