'Cogito, ergo sum' may be the most profound statement of self-awareness ever declared. You might know that, from a biological and evolutionary perspective, self-awareness is a fundamental psychological issue. But a psychologist did not write that declaration.
Until the mid-1800s, philosophers undertook studies of the human condition. Wilhelm Wundt, himself a philosopher, was the first to declare himself a psychologist. He established the first laboratory for psychological studies a full 247 years after René Descartes penned that immortal phrase.
Descartes later modified his Cogito declaration, prefacing it with dubito, ergo sum. He contended that one cannot doubt one's existence whilst in the act of doubting. We've no doubt that the following social experiments will change your view of the human experience.
The Most Famous Experiments in Psychology
More than 230 years before the word psychology existed, philosophers conducted thought experiments to understand human psychology. After Dr. Wundt split psychological studies from philosophical contemplation, psychologists raced to make discoveries. What follows are some of the most famous psychology experiments in history.
The Bobo Doll Experiment
How do toddlers learn? Dr. Albert Bandura had an idea that they learned through imitation. To test his theory, he filled two playrooms with two identical sets of toys, including a Bobo doll. This version of a wobbly man was inflatable, roughly one metre tall with a weighted pack in its base.
Dr. Bandura then directed his test subjects, children three to six years old, into one or the other room. Each room had an adult research assistant who would play with one set of toys while the child played with the other. In one room, the assistant played meekly with various toys. In the other room, the assistant played well at first, but then violently attacked the Bobo doll.
Each child was then taken to a different room, this time with no adult companion, and invited to play with the toys. Children who had witnessed the aggressive behaviour duplicated it during the study's second phase. Children who hadn't continued to exhibit the same behaviour.
Dr. Bandura endured severe criticism for exposing impressionable children to violence. Controversy notwithstanding, Arthur Bandura became one of the world's most famous psychologists for his work in child development. He is also renowned for initiating the nature vs. nurture debate that rages still today.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Dr Philip Zimbardo set up an experiment to study role-play behaviour. In 1971, he recruited 24 university students and assigned each one the role of either prisoner or guard. The experiment took place in the basement of Stanford University's Psychology Faculty. A couple of empty rooms served as prison cells.
At first, all the participants thought it was quite the lark but then, Dr. Zimbardo encouraged the guards to be more sadistic. This is when the experiment went off the rails; 'prisoner' participants suffered actual mental trauma. Dr Zimbardo ended the experiment after six days, following criticism from a colleague. Today, the Stanford Prison Experiment is renowned for being one of the most unethical psychology studies in the discipline's history.
The Marshmallow Test
In 1972, Dr. Walter Mischel set out to discover whether delayed gratification traits in childhood predicted future success. He left each child in a room that had a table with a marshmallow on it. He told them that if they didn't eat the sweet until he got back (in 15 minutes), he would give them a second one.
He tested 600 children, aged four to six. One-third of the test participants resisted temptation. Follow-up studies proved that those who resisted eating the treat scored higher on their college entrance exams. They managed other areas of their lives better, too.
Famous Psychology Experiments That Proved Something Else
Some of humanity's greatest discoveries were accidental. Sir Alexander Fleming's penicillin discovery is one of the best-known cases of such. Like Dr Fleming's experiments that went so beneficially awry, these studies found far more than the psychologists were looking for.
The Good Samaritan Experiment
What underlies altruistic behaviour? Social psychologists Daniel Batson and John Darley set up an experiment to find out. In 1971, they recruited Princeton Seminary students who were tasked to run some errand in a neighbouring campus building. On the way, each participant found someone pleading for help.
The experiment proved that urgency, more than any factor, determined whether the supplicant would receive help. The student volunteers were told their task was either pressing or not. Neither the students' religious beliefs nor the theological lecture they were treated to beforehand seemed to matter.
The religious aspect put a dent in the doctors' theory. As they were religiously inclined, they believed that anyone with religion would render aid regardless of time constraints.
The Halo Effect Experiment
Does greater physical attractiveness give a person more credibility? This psychological experiment proved that attractive people are perceived as more intelligent and friendly. The fact that the test subjects had no idea why they responded the way they did proved a boon to the study's authors.
In 1977, social psychologists Richard Nesbitt and T.D. Wilson showed study participants two videotaped lectures. In the first, the lecturer appeared friendly, open and engaging. In the second, the same lecturer came across as brusque and somewhat cold.
They then asked the participants to rate the lecturer on physical appearance and mannerisms. Most respondents surprised themselves with their answers. They couldn't justify their responses but could assert that the lecture's content had nothing to do with how they rated the lecturer. This experiment led to more studies on implicit bias and how humans make character judgments.
The Monster Study
Dr. Wendell Johnson's 1939 study in speech and language pathology was despicable. He had begun stuttering at 10 years old and wanted to know why. So he designed a study to understand which social conditions make children stutter. His methods involved frightening and ridiculing orphan children until they grew too afraid to speak.
The experiment was called the Monster Study for its monstrous tactics. The study participants who were so demeaned suffered lifelong speech and psychological effects. Still today, even the most famous psychologists decry the cruelty this study inflicted. But Dr Johnson's work opened more lines of enquiry into how to interact with children.
Famous Psychology Experiments That Weren't Experiments
Any event can be a teachable moment but few rise to the level of scientific enquiry. These social experiments rank at the top of such teachable moments. We learned far more from them than they were intended to teach.
Brown Eyes and Green Eyes
Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination greatly impacted the United States. Even schoolchildren in rural Iowa wanted to know "Why'd they shoot that King?". Jane Elliot would be hard-pressed to teach her all-white students, who lived in an all-white community, what racism was. More specifically, how racism felt.
Ms Elliot might have been one of the world's greatest female psychologists. But by her own words, she was a born teacher and had never considered any other career. Titles and labels aside, her psychological discoveries were just as impactful as her academic teachings.
Violinist at the Metro Experiment
It's not every day that a Grammy-award-winning violinist serenades the public for free. But that's exactly what Joshua Bell did in 2007. In collaboration with the Washington Post, he dressed as a busker. He played complex pieces on his $3-million dollar violin in a Washington D.C. metro station for almost 45 minutes.
More than a thousand people passed by but only 27 stopped to listen to him play. Only one person recognised him. He collected $32.17 in donations. The newspaper never made their motivations for this social experiment clear.
Pavlov's Dog Experiment
Many interpret Dr Ivan Pavlov's experiment as a study in conditioning but he designed and conducted a biological experiment. Dr Pavlov was a physiologist researching salivary glands. He gave little care to the psychological implications of his dogs' reactions at first. He eventually explored how they learned to salivate on cue.
Famous Psychology Experiments That Were Controversial
You might conclude that all but the last segment's experiments were controversial; we'd not argue with you on that point. But some are yet more shocking, such as the Stanley Milgram Experiment. This 1961 study measured how people responded to authority.
Delivering electric shocks goes against almost everyone's moral code but that's what Dr Milgram ordered his test subjects to do. As bad as that was, the Surrogate Mother Experiment was even more shocking. It involved taking infant monkeys from their mothers to see if they preferred food or comfort.
Dr. Harlow conducted other abysmal experiments on baby monkeys. But even that torture doesn't compare to the Robber's Cave Experiment.
In 1954, a study team sought to understand group conflict. They recruited 22 pre-adolescent boys, split them into two groups, and allowed them to bond. And then, they pitted one group against the other.
This experiment's critics have drawn parallels between the Robber's Cave and The Lord of the Flies. The comparisons aren't far off. Sir William Golding's work explored the same human characteristics and behaviours in the same demographic. Doesn't that rather make his tale one of the best psychology books?
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
