Interesting psychological experiments
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- Lorenzo West I
Psychologists have tried for a long time to penetrate our way of perceiving the world, of understanding what motivates our behavior. They have made great progress to raise that veil of mystery. In addition to providing us with material for stimulating conversations at parties, some of the most famous psychological experiments of the last century reveal universal and surprising truths about human nature.
In this Psychology-online article, we discover you 11 interesting psychological experiments Famous historical and current that could change the way we perceive the world. We will see social psychology experiments, with animals and people.
You may also be interested: Asch's experiment: majority influence and index conformity- Kohler and the chimpanzees experiment
- Harlow's experiment on attachment with macaque
- The Strang Site of Mary Ainsworth
- Stanford's prison experiment
- Jane Elliot's blue eye experiment
- THE BBANDURA BOBO DOLL
- Milgram's experiment
- Little Albert
- Pavlov's dog
- Asch's experiment
- Rosenhan's experiment
Kohler and the chimpanzees experiment
Wolfgang Kohler He studied the insight process by observing the behavior of chimpanzees in a problematic situation.
In the experimental situation, animals were placed in a cage out of which food was stored, for example, a banana. There were other objects in the cage, such as sticks or boxes. The animals that participated in the experiment were hungry, so they needed to reach food. At first, chimpanzee used canes mainly for recreational activities; But suddenly, in the mind of the hungry chimpanzee a relationship between cane and food was developed. The cane, of the object with which to play, became a instrument through which it was possible to reach banana Cage set. There has been a Restructuring of the perceptual field: Kohler stressed that the appearance of the new behavior was not the result of random attempts according to a process for evidence and errors. It is one of the first experiments about the intelligence of the chimpanzees.
Harlow's experiment on attachment with macaque
In a scientific article (1959), Harry f. Harlow He described that he had separated at the birth of the small rhesus monkeys of their mothers, and that he had raised them with the help of "puppets mothers": in a series of experiments the behavior of monkeys in two situations was compared:
- Small monkeys with a mother's mother without a bottle, but covered with a soft, spongy and hairy fabric.
- Small monkeys with a "puppet" mother who supplied food, but wire covered.
The little monkeys showed a clear preference for the "hairy" mother, passing to an average of fifteen hours a day together with her, although they were fed exclusively by the mother "breastfeeder". Harlow experiment conclusions: all experiments showed that The pleasure of contact caused attachment behaviors, But no food.
The Strang Site of Mary Ainsworth
On the basis of the attachment theory of Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth and colleagues (1978) have developed an experimental method called Strange Sition, to evaluate individual differences in attachment safety. The Strange Sition includes a series of brief laboratory episodes in a comfortable environment and the child's behaviors are observed. Ainsworth and colleagues have paid special attention to the child's behavior at the time of the meeting with the caregiver after a brief separation, thus identifying three different patterns or attachment styles, so called from that moment. Types of attachment according to Mary Ainsworth:
- Safe attachment (63% of the diads examined)
- Anxious-resistant or ambivalent (16%)
- Avitative (21%)
In this article you will find more information about the explanation and attachment theories.
Stanford's prison experiment
In a famous 1971 experiment, known as Stanford prison, Zimbardo and a team of collaborators reproduced in the garages of Stanford University a prison to study the behavior of the subjects in a context of very particular and complex dynamics. Let's see how it was and the reflections on the Stanford prison experiment. The participants (24 students) were randomly divided into two groups:
- "Prisoners". The latter were locked in three basement cells of a university building for six days; They were asked to carry a white robe with a paper on top and a chain in the right ankle.
- "Guards". Students who had the role of prison guards had to monitor the basement, choosing the most appropriate methods to maintain order, and make the "prisoners" play various tasks; They were asked to wear dark and uniform glasses, and never be violent with the opposite paper participants. However, the situation deteriorated dramatically: The false police officers began very soon to mistreat and humiliate the "detainees" seriously, And that's why it was decided to interrupt the experiment.
Jane Elliot's blue eye experiment
On April 5, 1968, at a small school in Riceville (Iowa), the teacher Jane Elliot He decided to give one Practical lesson about racism 28 children about eight years through Blue Eyes Brown Eyes Experint.
"Brown eyes are the best," began the teacher. "They are more beautiful and intelligent". He wrote the word "Melanina" on the board and explained that it was a substance that made intelligent people. Children with dark eyes have more, so they are smarter, while children with blue eyes "keep their hands in their hands".
In a very short time Brown eyes began to treat their blue -eyed companions with superiority, that in turn lost their self -confidence. A very good girl began to make mistakes during arithmetic classes, and in recess three friends with brown eyes "have to apologize because you get in their way and because we are the best," said a. The girl hastened to apologize. This is one of the psychosocial experiments that demonstrate how beliefs and prejudices influence.
THE BBANDURA BOBO DOLL
Albert Bandura He obtained great fame for the experiment of El Muñeco Bobo on child aggression by imitation, where:
- A group of children took as an example, by visual capacity, adults who in a room, without their behavior being commented, hit the doll.
- Other contemporaries, on the other hand, saw seated adults, always at all silence, next to Bobo.
Finally, all these children were taken to a room full of toys, including a doll like fool. Of the 10 children who hit the doll, 8 were the ones who had seen him do before an adult. This explains as if a model that we follow performs a certain action, we are tempted to imitate it and this happens especially in children who still do not have the experience to understand for themselves if that behavior is correct or not.
Milgram's experiment
Milgram's experiment was carried out for the first time in 1961 by the psychologist Stanley Milgram, as research on the degree of our deference towards authority. A subject is invited to give an electric shock to an individual who has the student's role, placed behind a screen, when he does not answer a question correctly. Then, an authorized person tells the subject to gradually increase the intensity of the discharge until the student shouts for pain and begs him to stop. No justification is given, except the fact that the authorized person tells the subject to obey. Actually, it was a staging: there was absolutely no electric shock, but in the experiment Two thirds of the subjects influenced what they thought was a discharge of 450 volts, simply because a person with authority told them that they would not be responsible for anything.
Little Albert
We see the experiment of little Albert on the unconditioned stimulus, which must be the most famous psychological study. John Watson and Rosalie Raynor They showed a white laboratory rat to a nine -month -old boy, little Albert. At first, the boy was not afraid, but then Watson jumped behind and made him shiver with a sudden noise by hitting a metal bar with a hammer. Of course, the noise scared little Albert, who began to cry. Every time they took out the rat, Watson and Raynor rang the bar with the hammer To scare the poor child. Soon, the only view of the rat was enough to reduce little Albert to a trembling nerves: I had learned to fear a rat, And shortly after he began to be afraid of a series of similar objects that were shown.
Pavlov's dog
The pastor dog of Ivan Pavlov He became famous for his experiments that led him to discover what we call "classical conditioning" or "Pavlovian reflex" and remained a very famous psychological experiment today. Almost no other psychological experiment is cited so often and with such pleasure as Pavlov's theory exhibited in 1905: the Russian physiologist had been impressed by the fact that their dogs did not begin to drool in sight of the food, but when they heard to laboratory employees who took it. He investigated it and ordered that a bell sounds every time it was the time of the food. Coming soon, The ringing of the bell was enough for dogs to start babar: They had connected the signal to the arrival of food.
In this article you will find more information about the psychological experiment of Pávlov's dog.
Asch's experiment
This is a social psychology experiment made in 1951 by the Polish psychologist Solomon Asch on the influence of the majority and social conformity.
The experiment is based on the idea that being part of a group is sufficient condition to change the actions, judgments and visual perceptions of a person. The experiment, very simple, was to ask the subjects involved to associate a line 1 drawn on a white sheet to the corresponding one, choosing between three different lines to, B and C present on another sheet. Only one was identical to the other, while the other two were obviously longer or shorter. The experiment was developed in three phases. As soon as one of the subjects, Asch's accomplice, gave an erroneous response associating line 1 to incorrect, The other group members also made the same mistake, Although the correct answer was more than evident. The participants, interrogated about the reason for this election, replied that aware of the correct answer, they had decided to settle for the group, adapting to those who had preceded them.
Rosenhan's experiment
Among the most interesting investigations in this field, an experiment conducted by David Rosenhan (1923) to document the scarce validity of psychiatric diagnoses. Rosenhan entered eight attendees in several psychiatric hospitals claiming psychotic symptoms, but once they entered the hospital they behaved regularly. Despite this, they were held on average for 19 days, and everyone, except one, were attributed the diagnosis of "psychotic". One of the reasons why the personnel do not realize the "normality" of the subjects, is, according to Rosenhan, the very scarce contact between staff and patients.
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