Study Analysis
Select one of the experiments that you
think is interesting from the link found at the end of this post. Click on the link in the summary to start your
research about that experiment. Read through the information and seek
out other information online. You need a minimum of five references (listed at the end of your comment using proper MLA format). There may be good YouTube videos or other sources
you should investigate. You can also look up some of the experiments or the
experimenters in your textbook.
In your comment to THIS BLOG POST please do the following to
complete the assignment:
1. Summarize the experiment. Include who did
it, when they did it,where they did it, and what they
did.
2. Explain the importance of the experiment to
our understanding of human behavior. Make a claim about why you think the experiment
is considered to have provided a valuable insight into the way people think
and/or act?
3. Give one example of how the experiment can be applied
to everyday life. You can use yourself or someone you know in the example,
or make up an example that you think the experiment might apply to in normal
life.
4. At the end of your post include all sources (full
URLs, please) and sign the post with your first name and just the
initial letter of your last name for all members of the group (for example:
Phillip D.)
5. Post your analysis as a comment to this post.
I strongly suggest that you write your comment in Word or other
program first so you can check your spelling etc. and then just paste it into
the body of the email. This will also allow you to save your work in
case the blog does something strange.
Posting may only happen on September 25-27. I will moderate and publish your posts on the 28th.
Studies can be found at
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today
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When posting comments, if you need to add a picture or video, please use the following code in your text on a separate line - add the URL of your picture or video replacing the capitalized words below.
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Asch Conformity Experiment
ReplyDeleteSolomon Asch did this conformity experiment at Swarthmore College in 1951. This experiments consisted of a group of people are put in a room with one participant who is unaware of the others being actors and deception. Sitting in the room the group was given an obvious answer to easy questions, the group and the participant gives the correct answers the first couple of times. As the group answers the wrong question the participant begins to question their decision in his head but does not say much. As the obvious wrong answers were giving by the group the participant just went along with the wrong answer knowing it was wrong but did not say anything. Solomon wanted to observe if the participants would conform or start giving the wrong answers.
The information from this experiment shows how humans can just do what they see everyone else doing. This can happen anywhere and can be compared to the “Bystander Effect” in which Kitty Genovese was murdered while many watch and did nothing because they thought someone else would call for help or has already done so. This can be applied to someone in a building with a fire and seeing a group of people going one way, I would go that way also.
One-third of the participants who were placed in this situation went along and conformed to the clearly incorrect majority on the critical trials. He experimented with 50 participants.
When this experiment was taken Solomon did not receive an informed consent from his fifty participants in the study, due to that this experiment cannot be replicated today.
Nirvan. R.
Dean S.
ReplyDeleteTrevor A.
Cedrick R.
Summarize the experiment:
Jane Elliott, in 1968 conducts an exercise on her 3rd grade class in Riceville Iowa on discrimination. Elliott introduced the idea of being prejudice by telling her students that their eye color makes them superior then others, depending on if they were brown or blue. She observed them over the week, starting on Monday, and ending on Wednesday when she summed up the exercise to her students.
Explain the importance of the experiment:
In this experiment, the students will listen to their mentor. They believe the ideas that she tells them. IN this case, the idea is prejudice based on eye color, brown eyes vs blue eyes. The way the students fully believed Elliott caused them to interact differently and their success in academics changed. This proves that there isn’t any true reasoning behind being prejudice or discriminating.
Give on example of how the experiment can be applied to everyday life:
One example of using this experiment in real life could be the introduction of it into a middle school or high school English class. The experiment done by Jane Elliott could be shown and discussed in class and worked into a project to help increase the awareness of bullying and help decrease teen suicide.
Sources:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today Item number 9, BLUE EYED VERSUS BROWN EYED STUDENTS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeK759FF84s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWXB1S1jHKo
The psychologist that studied this experiment was, Phillip Zimbardo. The experiment was studied in August of 1971 and took place in the basement of the Stanford Psychology department. It consisted of 24 male college students that were physically and psychologically healthy. The volunteers were paid $15.00 a day for an experiment meant to last two full weeks. The 24 male students were randomly divided between prisoners and prison guards and were observed to see how quickly they played their roles in the mock prison. In no time, prisoners were immediately arrested without warning, given numbers to replace their names, and a chain to one foot. Meanwhile, the guards had their uniforms, handcuffs, sunglasses for anonymity, and were told no violence was allowed.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of the experiment to our understanding of human behavior is shown through the way the prison guards took advantage of their power. However, in the beginning, guards were challenged by the prisoners and rebelled against them. The prisoners barricaded themselves as a result of mistreatment. The guards saw them becoming dangerous and took it upon themselves to use the fire extinguishers against them, take the doors down, drag the prisoners out and strip them naked. Furthermore, nobody was stopping the guards from how they handled the prisoners, which led to higher lengths of abuse because they could. In just the fourth day, they dehumanize prisoners through strange, humiliating demands such as, cleaning toilets with their hands, doing an extreme amount of exercising, and doing sexual behavior to their cell mates. The guards singled out certain prisoners making the others chant hurtful things about how their cellmates were bad prisoners. “Because of what prisoner 819 did, my cell is a mess” chants would result in driving those particular prisoners to a boiling point. In fact, two prisoners dropped out after a few days because of the torture. Many had mental breakdowns because they felt powerless and psychologically abused. Then, the experiment proved to be too much when Dr. Zimbardo’s girlfriend even felt disgusted because his behavior was changing from the experiment, leading the experiment to be shut down after six days. Therefore, this experiment had an insight on the way people act because people were transformed into someone willing to do cruel things that they would never normally do when given full control and authority.
An example of having power going to our heads when there are no rules or anyone to stop us in everyday life is being a manager of a restaurant. As a manager, we would be getting paid more, left in charge, and have dominion over the rest of the employees. We could easily make the employees do most of the dirty work you wouldn’t want to do while you socialize with customers or hang around in the back during a rush. Additionally, you could punish employees for a mistake you know was yours or put the blame on them to make yourself look good in front on customers or the owner. However, if the owner of the restaurant comes in, you immediately get to work as if you did it regularly because now you know there would be consequences given if you continued to do as you please. Of course, not all managers, like not all prison guards in the experiment abuse that power. But, there’s still that sensation of being able to get away with whatever you want at the extent of your power that makes it hard to resist to avoid doing things you wouldn’t believe you were capable of doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwfNs1pqG0
http://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html
http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prison-experiment.htm
Chelse W. & Melissa R.
Post Analysis
ReplyDeleteSummary
n 1971, Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University conducted his famous prison experiment, which aimed to examine group behavior and the importance of roles. Zimbardo and his team picked a group of 24 male college students who were considered “healthy,” both physically and psychologically. The men had signed up to participate in a “psychological study of prison life,” which would pay them $15 per day. Half were randomly assigned to be prisoners and the other half were assigned to be prison guards. The experiment played out in the basement of the Stanford psychology department where Zimbardo’s team had created a makeshift prison. The experimenters went to great lengths to create a realistic experience for the prisoners, including fake arrests at the participants’ homes.
The prisoners were given a fairly standard introduction to prison life, which included being deloused and assigned an embarrassing uniform. The guards were given vague instructions that they should never be violent with the prisoners, but needed to stay in control. The first day passed without incident, but the prisoners rebelled on the second day by barricading themselves in their cells and ignoring the guards. This behavior shocked the guards and presumably led to the psychological abuse that followed. The guards started separating “good” and “bad” prisoners, and doled out punishments including push ups, solitary confinement, and public humiliation to rebellious prisoners.
The Importance of the Stanford Prison Experiment
Psychologists from Stanford University performed the experiment in order to study effects of dehumanization and deindividuation of humans in an unequal power situation.
The Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior. Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations. The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control, became passive and depressed.
It fails to meet the standards established by numerous ethical codes, including the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association.
In a controlled and scientific manner, just how great an effect the environment has on our individual behavior, capable of trumping what we would otherwise consider our steadfast moral and behavioral guidelines. Individuality so easily melts away as the social environment begins to define the individual.
this study is relevant to a variety of facets of everyday life, from schools to prisons to personal relationships–whenever there is a power difference between two people–this study is still most poignant, to me at least, in how it showed that lurking beneath us all is a dark side that can easily be released under the right conditions.
The Prison Experiment clearly demonstrates, however, that it isn’t something unique to the abusive guard that makes him so. Rather, the blame lies on the environment: partially on the intrinsic power differences existing in a prison or similar situation and partially on the higher ups who have perpetuated and enabled such an environment to persist.
It is a dramatic illustrations of how good people can be transformed into perpetrators of evil, and healthy people can begin to experience pathological reactions - traceable to situational forces.
By appeasing ourselves each time with a few scapegoats, rather learning from our mistakes–and the results of the Prison Experiment–we ignore the fundamental causes of such behavior, allowing this abuse to continue in a variety of situations.
Even when acknowledged to be artificial and temporary -- can still come to exert a profoundly realistic impact on the actors.
It also obvious from this experiment that human beings tend to crave power and control and will do almost anything to get it. And humans also tend to feel they are ENTITLED to power. It also show when they don't have the power they get angry and displeased.
Christerline Nyamkimah-Fondong, Jaclyn Polis, Cedric
The Bystander Effect
ReplyDelete1. The experiment was done by John Darley and Bibb Latane in the year 1968. The study was done at the University of Columbia. They conducted a study on how one person and a group of people react to the same situation differently.
2. John Darley and Bibb Latane were trying to describe a murder scene that happen while 36 people saw it happening and no one went to help the innocent women. Kitty Genovese was walking down the street where a man approached her and stabbed her many times she screamed in pain for help. People turned their apartment lights on and looked down to see what’s happening but no one came down. Some people actually opened their windows and said what’s going on down there but still no one helped her. While still running away from the murderer she ended up in a building complex where one of the people living there actually opened his door to see why he is hearing noises. He saw the women getting stabbed and didn’t do nothing just closed his door pretended like nothing ever happened. Then later someone finally called the police but by the time they could get there Genovese had already bleed to her death. Darley and Latane wanted to show how single person makes decisions faster than a person who are in a group. To show this behavior they setup a survey for people to take in a room. There were two groups one was a single person and second group had 3 people in it. While the groups were taking the survey Darley and Lantane let some harmless smoke inside. This showed how the single responded to the smoke faster and went to tell someone that there is some odd smoke coming in the room. Where the three people sitting in a group just ignored the smoke and kept taking the survey. Thinking someone else should make the move first. Second experiment was that a person was given pair of head phones and told them they will hear if anyone is in danger. In reality they played an actor’s script from a movie who was having a seizer. Once again there were 2 groups one was a single girl listening to the recording and the other one had four people listening to the recording. The single girl listen to the recording and was trying to make sure if the people in the hallway was actually in danger so she ran out and asked where are you and was trying to find the person who was in danger. But the other group was listening to the same recording and they just looked at each other but no one actually got up to go find that person in danger.
3. It been so many years since that experiment has taken place but people today still act the same way. If people see some crime happening now days they usually call the police if they fell like it but they will never do anything to stop it. It is very rare when someone will step in to help out if someone is in danger simply because they don’t want to be a part of that crime. Even knowing if you saw something that was crime and not telling the proper authority about it. That itself is a crime.
Kuldeep S
10 Famous Psychological Experiments That Could Never Happen Today (Mental Floss)
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today
The Bystander Effect (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldi__cohMcI
Bystander Effect (Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist)
http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/bystander-effect
What Is the Bystander Effect? (About)
http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/bystandereffect.htm
The Bystander Effect:The Death of Kitty Genovese (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpdUbW8vbw
Jane Elliot, an elementary school teacher in Riceville, Iowa, conducted an experiment in 1968 in her class room based on discrimination of people based on their difference in physicality. The purpose of this experiment was to give her students an insight on the unfair treatment the African Americans endured based on the color of their skin.
ReplyDeleteOn the first day of the experiment Elliot divided the class up into two groups of blue and brown eyes. On that day, she told the students the blue eyed people were superior to the brown eyed because they were smarter, faster and can do anything better for the simple fact that they had blue eyes. She even made the brown eyed students wear button on collars so they can tell from a distance what color their eyes are. Elliot didn’t allow the blue eyed children to play with brown eyed children because they were better. It didn’t take long for the superior group to act cruel toward the inferior group because they began to believe that they were better. On the second day, she reversed the rolls and made the brown eyed children superior and the blue eyed children inferior. The same effect took place as the brown eyed children became just as mean as the blue eyed children the day before. On the third day of the experiment, Jane Elliot then got the feedback of both groups on how felt and if they liked the treatment. All the children did not like the treatment they received and agreed not to discriminate others based on differences in physicality.
The significance of this experiment for understanding human behavior was she proved that people can unlearn a behavior just as quickly as they learned that behavior. This behavior of discrimination by the children was something that was learned and subconsciously infused into their mind. Through this experiment, she did not tell the children to treat one another differently because they were different, but the students were still prejudice and acted cruelty toward the other group.
An example of this experiment applied in real life would be when the actress Gwyneth Paltrow wore a fat suit for one day to prepare for an upcoming comedy called Shallow Hal. She stepped out of her own perspective of being thin and step into the shoes of someone who was overweight. On her first day of wearing the suit, the treatment she received was the complete opposite of what she was used to. People would look at her dismissively and wouldn’t make eye content as if she didn’t deserve the same corsetry. She had trouble finding clothes that was not an outdated and would flatter her frame, but was not successful in the endeavor. She felt humiliated by the experience and it has made her realize how different the treatment you can receive because of your appearance
Talia S.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A1132480
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today
http://abcnews.go.com/entertainment/story?=102868
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment on conformity in 1951. He conducted this experiment at Swarthmore College with 50 male students. He divided the students into groups with only one student being an actual participant and the rest being actors. They were asked to say aloud which out of three lines was closet to the length of the line in reference. The actors were told to give the correct answer twice then afterwards give the incorrect answer. The importance of this experiment was to investigate the extent of an individual conforming to social pressure among a large group of people. I believe that this experiment has provided much insight about how people behave in social situations and how their behaviors can be influenced by peer pressure of others. An example of how the experiment can be applied to everyday life is a school group. Lets say that I was in a close group of friends including four students and myself. One day while with my close group of friends, my friends notice this girl walking by. They start to tease her and say rude things aloud to her. This obviously upsets the girl very much. I personally know that what my friends are doing is completely wrong. My friends ask me to start teasing the girl aloud as well. Even though I know that I shouldn't tease this girl I decide to anyways due to fear of rejection by my friends.
ReplyDeletewww.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
Brianne P.
Asch Conformity Experiment
ReplyDeleteIn 1951, at Swarthmore College, Solomon Asch conducted a conformity experiment. An experimenter gathered seven people together for the experiment, six of whom were actors, while the seventh was a genuine participant. The six actors and the experimenter had rehearsed a plan to get the one real participant to conform because of social pressure. All seven were put in a room where they all sat in a straight line facing a board with a stack of cards on it. On the cards are four vertical lines, one is labeled X and the rest are labeled A, B, and C. What they are supposed to do is say aloud which of the lines labeled A, B, and C is the same length as line X. The experimenter first asks all of the actors and then the real participant. For the first few cards, the actors give the correct answers and so does the real participant. Then, the actors begin to say the wrong answer. 32% of the real participants conformed to what the actors were saying because they either did not want to feel the awkwardness of disagreeing with the other six people or they legitimately thought that the actors were correct.
From this experiment we can gather that a lot of people dislike being different. We think that if we go against the flow, we will not be as likeable. As human-beings, we crave social interaction and acceptance. Sometimes, even though we know we are right, we will conform to what other people think just to be more liked.
An example of the experiment that happened to me was for the longest time I didn’t have a Twitter. I honestly didn’t think that it was worth my time or that it would be entertaining. A few of my friends had urged me to get a Twitter, and eventually, their urging began to wear down at my stubbornness and I caved and created a Twitter account. I think a reason why I eventually caved was because I felt like I was “that one girl who doesn’t have a Twitter.” All of my friends had accounts and they all talked about what they had read on them and I kind of started to feel left out. I conformed to social pressure.
Kess A.
Sources
http://mentalfloss.com/article/52787/10-famous-psychological-experiments-could-never-happen-today
http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
Textbook - Psychology: Core Concepts (7th edition) pages 465 and 466
The Milgram experiment is about a physiologist who did a experiment on human obedience where they told the participants to ask questions to the learners who were actors and pretended to get shocked when they got an answer wrong. It was done in 1974. the whereabouts is unknown. The experiment was done by Stanley Milgram. The experiment tells us that a person who follows orders from an authority figurehead is more likely to follow orders with the rest of the group. There is an exception to the rule, if a rebellious figure present in the midst of followers, the group is more likely to not follow orders.
ReplyDeleteExample: when your in school and a teacher gives you a surprise test and you have to follow all the directions of the test ant the first question will say write your name the second will say flip over your test and you will always have that one student who answers the whole test.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm
Brittany D, Tyler H, Alexis W
HARLOWS MONKEY EXPERIMENT
ReplyDelete1. In the 1950’s Harry Harlow of the University of Wisconsin, also where the experiment took place, was testing for infant dependency using baby monkeys. He took the monkeys away from their mothers 6-12 hours after birth and raised them with substitute mothers. The experiment consisted of two substitute mothers- one being a cloth replica and the other being a wire replica which also held a bottle of food for the entire experiment whereas the cloth mother did not.
2. This experiment demonstrated the importance of the primary caregiver in human and non-human development. This experiment gives outstanding insight to many problems children in society face today. The monkeys who were involved in the experiment faced problems or died shortly after they were released. This shows what can and does happen to children and infants who do not have a primary caregiver or a mother who show them love and affection after they are born. They will face severe problems. It is crucial for a caregiver to be there for at least the first couple of years or the child, as an adult, can face problems such as trouble forming important relationships needed to live on a day to day basis.
3. This experiment can be applied to everyday life and to new mothers showing them the importance of love and nurture on their new born child. It can also be applied to young teens whose mothers were not there for them in the early stages of life, including adoption and orphanages, and have now developed social and behavioral problems. It can be used for those who are dealing with a child who did not have a primary caregiver and help them better understand the reasons behind their behavior.
4. Sources-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow
http://users.rcn.com/napier.interport/cwm/experim.html
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm
Jaclyn Beck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O60TYAIgC4 Youtube video
Blue eyed versus brown eyed students
ReplyDeleteIn 1968, Jane Elliott, who was an American elementary teacher, taught at a small old American town in Riceville, Iowa. It was a town where all-white people lived. She used Martin Luther King Jr as an example to show her students the idea of racial equality. She did this experiment by dividing the blue eyed students and the brown eyes students into two groups. She wanted them to experience how it felt to be treated differently.She made one group was superior to the others. She could not believe how fast her students changed. It had a huge impact on the children behavior in two groups. Her students who were verynice, thoughtful, and wonderful turned into a nasty, mean and discriminated.
The important of the experiment to our understanding of human behavior is how people be treated in different ways just because they are not the same as the others. To understand what was wrong to be racism, and how discrimination affects human behavior. People can also absorb discriminatory behavior from their parents and/or other adults. People change very quickly when they know that they are superior. Some of them might not agree that racism is a big issue in our sociality
Ellie is a student at Junior High School where is full of white people. She was born and raised in an Asian family. People in her school don’t treat her the way she wants to be treated. All she can do is act quietly, and she has to deal with this issue all day and every school day. They make a joke directly to her by calling names or accent; don’t want to work with her as a team; not respect her at all; and even tell her that she is not belong in this school. They judge her by the color of her skin. Ellie doesn’t have a choice to pick the color of her skin; however, she can’t lose it.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/jane-elliot-and-the-blue-eyed-children-experiment/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYHBrJIIFU
Anh H