Many famous experiments studying human behavior have impacted our fundamental understanding of psychology. Though if done today would be considered unethical, it does not diminish the significance of their findings.
Listed below are some of the greatest works in the history of psychology that influence the present knowledge of psychology as a subject.
1. The Little Albert Experiment (Watson,1920)
Dr. John B. Watson of Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. student wished to investigate the effectiveness of the classical conditioning method of learning. Dr. Watson believed that CLASSICAL CONDITIONING, which entails learning instinctive or involuntary behaviors by association, was the foundation of human psychology.
Watson and doctoral student Rosalie Rayner let the 9-month-old infant, who they called “Albert B,” play with a white rat and other furry objects as part of the study. Later, Watson would make a loud noise from behind the infant’s head as Albert played with the white rat.
After several conditioning trials, Watson and Rayner reintroduced the animals and furry items without the scary noise. Through the conditioning, the animals and objects that were once a source of joy and curiosity had become a trigger of fear.
The study proved that humans could be conditioned to enjoy or fear something, which many psychologists believe could explain why people have irrational fears and how they may have developed early in life.
2. Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971)
Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford was interested in how people conformed to societal norms. He pondered, for instance, whether the hostile connection between imprisoned inmates and prison guards was more a function of the environment than either group’s personality. 24 male college students were given $15 per day to participate in Zimbardo’s EXPERIMENT as either a prisoner or a guard. The detainees were kept in a makeshift jail located in the psychology department’s basement at Stanford. They underwent the typical booking procedure intended to strip them of their uniqueness and make them feel nameless. Eight-hour shifts were assigned to the guards, and they were instructed to handle the detainees as they would in the real world.
Zimbardo found rather quickly that both the guards and prisoners fully adapted to their roles; in fact, he had to shut down the experiment after six days because it became too dangerous. Zimbardo even admitted he began thinking of himself as a police superintendent rather than a psychologist. The study confirmed that people will conform to the social roles they’re expected to play, especially overly stereotyped ones such as prison guards.
“We realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from the good Dr. Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde,” Zimbardo wrote.
3. The Bobo Doll Experiment ( Bandura,1961, 1963)
Albert Bandura, a professor at Stanford University, aimed to apply the SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY to everyday life. According to Social Learning Theory, learning new behaviors can occur “through direct experience or by witnessing the conduct of others.” Bandura and his team investigated whether children might imitate aggressive behavior by using a BOBO DOLL, a blow-up toy in the form of a giant bowling pin.
From the Stanford University nursery, Bandura and two colleagues chose 36 boys and 36 girls between the ages of 3 and 6 and divided them into three groups of 24 each. Adults acting aggressively toward the Bobo doll were seen by one group. In some instances, the adult subjects hurled or beat the doll with a hammer.
After each session, children were taken to a room with toys and studied to see how their play patterns changed. In a room with aggressive toys (a mallet, dart guns, and a Bobo doll) and non-aggressive toys (a tea set, crayons, and plastic farm animals), Bandura and his colleagues observed that children who watched the aggressive adults were more likely to imitate the aggressive responses.
Unexpectedly, Bandura found that female children acted more physically aggressive after watching a male subject and more verbally aggressive after watching a female subject. The results of the study highlight how children learn behaviors from observing others.
4. The Asch Conformity Study (Asch, 1951)
Solomon Asch was determined to see whether an individual would conform to a group’s decision, even if the individual knew it was incorrect.
Conformity is defined by the American Psychological Association as the adjustment of a person’s opinions or thoughts so that they fall closer in line with those of other people or the normative standards of a social group or situation.
Asch chose 50 male college students to participate in his Experiment and conducted a “vision test.” It was up to the participants to decide which line on a card was longer. The experiment’s subjects, on the other hand, were unaware that the other test-takers were actors reading lines from scripts, and occasionally purposefully chose the incorrect response
Asch found that, on average over 12 trials, nearly one-third of the naive participants conformed with the incorrect majority, and only 25 percent never conformed to the incorrect majority. In the control group that featured only the participants and no actors, less than one percent of participants ever chose the wrong answer.
Asch’s experiment showed that people will conform to groups to fit in (normative influence) because of the belief that the group was better informed than the individual.
This explains why some people change behaviors or beliefs when in a new group or social setting, even when it goes against past behaviors or beliefs.
5. Stanley Milgram Experiment (Milgram, 1961)
The goal of Stanley Milgram’s 1961 investigation at Yale University was to gauge how willingly subjects would comply with commands to commit unethical activities when given such orders. The study’s underlying assumption was that people naturally follow authority figures’ instructions from an early age. They were informed that they were taking part in a memory study. They were directed to hit a button that delivered an electric shock each time the person taking the memory test received an incorrect response while they watched another individual, who turned out to be an actress (the actor did not receive the shocks, but pretended as if they did). Participants were told to play the role of “teacher” and administer electric shocks to “the learner,” who was supposedly in a different room, every time they answered a question incorrectly.
Even though the person performing the memory test seemed to be in a lot of pain, the experimenters instructed the participants to keep increasing the shocks, and the majority of them complied. The authority figure persuaded numerous participants to continue the experiment despite these objections, increasing the voltage after each incorrect response until some of them finally gave out death electric shocks.
This experiment showed that humans are conditioned to obey authority and will usually do so even if it goes against their natural morals or common sense.
6. Robbers Cave Experiment (Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif,1954)
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-Eagles and Rattlers. 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 lodged in different cabins, and for a full week, neither group was aware of the existence of the other. At that time, the lads grew close to their cabin neighbors. Though they had only been given a very short time to form their social group, once the two groups were permitted to interact, they displayed bias and antagonism toward one another. As soon as the factions started insulting one another, violence erupted. Each squad raided the opposing group’s cabin and set fire to its team flag.
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.
The two groups were then asked to collaborate to accomplish what psychologists refer to as superordinate goals—goals that both groups cared about and had to be accomplished as a team. For instance, the Eagles and Rattlers collaborated to solve an issue when the camp’s water supply was shut off (an attempt by the researchers to compel an interaction between the two groups). By the time camp was through, some campers wanted both groups to ride the bus home together, and one group even bought drinks for the other group to enjoy on the trip.
The Robbers Cave study suggests it’s not always enough for groups in conflict to spend time together: instead, the key may be to find a way for the two groups to work together. Being part of a group has powerful effects on people’s identities and behaviors.
7. Rosenhan Experiment (1973)
In the years leading to 1973, professor of law and psychology at Stanford University, Mr. David L. Rosenhan, sought to investigate whether psychiatrists managed to tease normal and abnormal psychological states apart.
“If sanity and insanity exist,” Rosenhan opened the paper, “how shall we know them?”
For the study, eight “pseudo patients” – Rosenhan himself and seven volunteers – presented themselves at institutions across the country with the same symptoms: they reported hearing voices that said, “thud, empty, hollow.” Beyond a few biographical adjustments for privacy reasons, the pseudo patients used their own life stories. All eight were admitted and diagnosed with serious mental disorders. The question became, once you’ve been labeled with a psychiatric condition, how do you prove yourself “sane”?
The pseudo patients spent between seven and 52 days in psychiatric institutions; not one hospital staff member identified the participants as fake patients, even though many other real patients did express the belief that they were undercover agents. “You’re a journalist,” one reportedly said, according to the paper. The pseudo patients eventually left all hospitals against medical advice with their diagnoses “in remission.”
In a follow-up study at one hospital, Prof. Rosenhan asked staff to rate patients seeking admission on a 10-point scale, from “highly likely to be a (healthy) pseudo-patient” (1 or 2) to “least likely to be a pseudo-patient.” Staff were aware of the previous study, and told one or more pseudo-patients would be sent their way, unannounced. Forty-one (21.24%) of 193 patients received a 1 or 2 score. No pseudo-patients were sent.
These findings provided convincing evidence against the accuracy and validity of psychiatric diagnoses.
Blog By : Nishtha Nayyar
