Go to this link about the Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments and read through the summaries of all ten of them.
Select one of the experiments that you think is interesting. Click on the link in the summary to start your research about that experiment. (the link to #3 is broken, but you can use this link to get started.) Read through the information and seek out other information online. 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. Why do you think the experiment is considered 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 example: Phillip D.)
5. To send your comment please click the "Name/URL" option and put your first name and last initial in the "Name" box. Don't fill in the URL box.
I 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 comments at the end of this post.
Your post should be 3 to 5 paragraphs long and should demonstrate some original thinking on your part. Do not cut-and-paste or copy any text directly.
Your comment will not show up on the blog until close to the due-date, as I want everyone to approach the project without being biased by seeing the posted work of others in the class. If you aren't sure if your comment went through you may e-mail me and I'll let you know.
If you have any questions please e-mail me. I usually reply to e-mails within a day or two. Before sending me an e-mail, please read my "How to email a teacher" post from my biology blog ... really. http://cantorsbiologyblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-send-e-mail-to-teacher-really.html
23 comments:
Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to authority.
This experiment included people to be tested based on how far will they go to follow the orders that they would be given by the instructors. In this experiment their were two people who participated one of them was an actor and the other one was just doing the actual experiment believing that it was real.The people who participated in this experiment got payed just to follow the experiments procedure. I am not sure when exactly this happen, but i can say that people were suppose to shock the opponent if they answered a wrong question. based on the number of questions wrong the teacher who wasn't the actor was suppose to increase the volts of the shock. If i am not mistaken this experiment took place in University of California.
This experiment proofs that people would go so far towards following instructions no matter if they may be harsh. I think that this experiment is a valuable insight into the way people think and/or act because they can literally kill some one by following directions. For example based on this experiment the people who participated(not including the actors) would increase the voltage and shock the actor just because they were answering the wrong answers. Although the shocks weren't really given to the actor that's why they were actors. 65% of the people gave high voltage shocks and 45% of the other people just couldn't go so far. peoples behavior can be very different.
This experiment can be applied to peoples every day life. People may most of the time do what they are told to do. they follow orders. Just like in this experiment pole follow the orders of the instructors and they were shocking the student who was the actor. In my opinion a good example would be a little boy, they always follow orders because they are small and they don't know what they should do. Little kids can be told to hit some one and they would still do it. But their has to be something behind all this because kid always do things to receive other things that they want and this is just like in the experiment. people were getting payed to follow all the instructions in the experiment. Their objective was the money in this case.
-Marlene V
Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority was most shocking due the unexpected results. The experiment began on July of 1961. The purpose of Milgram’s experiment was to find out whether “there was any mutual sense of morality among those involved in the Holocaust”. In other words, Milgram is trying to show that “all the accomplices were merely following orders, despite violating their deepest moral beliefs.” Milgram’s procedures were simple: To find out whether the subjects (teachers) being tested were capable of punishing the actor (student) by shocking the actor with an increasing number of volts for every answer he responded incorrectly. The experiment is considered valuable insight into the way people think or act because it shows that the behavior of human beings can be altered by a higher authority. This proves that not all people are morally bad. One good example of where this concept is taking place is with the police officers from Arizona. These officers are instructed to ask for legal documentation from illegal immigrants, if the immigrants refuse to show or do not have legal documentation they are simply arrested and processed for deportation. Even if the officers feel any kind of sympathy for the immigrant he is only merely following orders. Different situation, similar concept to Milgram’s experiment.
References:
-http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Sergio A.
In 1963, Stanley Milgram, a Social Psychologist, conducted an experiment to research the relationship between authority and obedience. The participants in the experiment were told that the task was set up so that a teacher would send a shock to a student every-time a questions was answered wrong or not answered. The experiment required that the teacher up the shock voltage every-time a question was answered wrong or in silence. What the teachers didn’t know was that they were the experiment, that all participants were set up to be a teacher and that the student was a paid actor told to pretend as if they were in pain starting off as a simple “ouch”, to a plea to stop, then to dead silence as the voltage rose. So no harm was physically done to anyone.
The experiment helped to better understand the value or the connection between authority and obedience. It now can be proven that under the pressure of authority, majority of people tend to put aside their morals to obey their authority figures command.
The results of this experiment can be used as an advantage to justify the actions after having committed an act under the burden of someone they consider to be an authority figure that they must obey when commanded. Putting into light the sang “if someone tells you to jump off a bridge would you do it?” There are several examples that show the relationship between authority and obedience. For instance the case where a father told his son to pretend to be lost and wander with the women who helped him till the father had the right opportunity to catch them. The father would kidnap them lock them in his house and test them to see if they would be a fit mother for his son if not he’d kill them. Now the son despite the pity he felt for the women did as his father said because that was his authority figure. The son could use this experiment as an advantage to protect him from being charged with accessory because he was under the command of his father.
Sources
http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
Letty B
Memory Manipulation
In 1974, Loftus and Palmer were trying to study if a difference in words would influence a change in recalling information. In the experiment, 45 students from University of Washington in Settle, were asked to watch seven clips on car accidents. After that, the students were asked various critacial questions. The questions tested if varties words could cause an impact to change students answers. The students were ask to estimate on how fast the cars were going. The more sensational the word, the higher speed range the students selected.
Understanding human behavior is important because the more you can communicate with people in your surrounds; the more you will achieve. Behavior is based on a reaction to a circumstance. Comprenhding the attitude a person returns to a situation can change the outcome. This experiment has showed that based on the vibe the students got from a word, students answers varied. Overall, humans counteract on personal opinions leading to false memories or feelings.
In court rooms, evdience could shows one idea but the story of the subject or object can not be certain. The situation could be molded to show an opnion based on emotional feeling. The victim could picture their attacker with tattoos and hairy fingers when in in fact it is a woman without either. Knowing people can not operate on bias beliefs and impressions, the general public can conclude that it is better to rely on visual evidence then memory. False memory leads to false conclusions.
http://www.holah.co.uk/study-summary.php?slug=loftus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_behavior
http://www.mightystudents.com/essay/Why.is.understanding.125611
In 1963 a psychologist named Stanley Milgram made an experiment focused on the Obedience to Authority: Human Capacity for Cruelty. Stanley Milgram was testing this experiment to know and get a better understanding if humans would learn better if they were been physically abused. By meaning physically abused Stanley Milgram made an experiment with following procedures. First, he would get some students who would be able to volunteer to try Stanley Milgram’s experiment. Then, two individuals show up for a study. The volunteers were taken to a room where one is strapped in a chair to prevent movement and they placed an electrode on his harm. Finally the teacher would provide a list of words for the student (learner). If the learner answers the question given by the teacher right they move on to the next question. But if the learner answers the given question wrong the teacher is supposed to shock the learner starting at 15 volts and going up to 450 volts, in 15 volt increments. This experiment was well put and thought out because to figure something out that looks that difficult to actually test it on humans. Stanley Milgram successfully went with the experiment and found the answers to some of his questions.
The importance of the experiment that Stanley Milgram made was based on figuring out how humans can learn not just by teaching them but by physically abusing them. In the way that Stanley Milgram did his experiments it shows how people can make other people do other things that they don’t want to do not only by brain washing but by physically abusing them so they can do what they are supposed to do. For example one of Stanley Milgram’s theories was based on the My Lai massacre. The My Lai massacre was a small village in Vietnam where American soldiers killed more than 350 people like men, women, and kids. Stanley thought that this incident dint just happened because American soldiers were going crazy. Stanley had a feeling that all of dose American soldiers were been forced by someone for them to do all the bad things they were doing with all of dose people. The experiment that Stanley Milgram did is in a way considered a valuable insight into the way people think or act. I think this because for example parents they sometimes physically abuse their kids in other for their kids to listen and follow rules. In that way kids know that if they do the wrong thing again they know what will happen to them so they will at list think before doing the wrong thing.
An example of how the experiment can be applied to everyday life is using it for actual bad people for example in jail. There is a lot of bad people in this world that even do they been in jail they won’t listen and they will be doing the wrong choices over and over again. So the government should apply real physical abuse to all of the prisoners. This would be helpful so they could listen and won’t do the wrong choices again in live. Another example that I have is kids their parents can physically abuse them but not over doing it. Kids is better if they are teach sins they are young because they would know that if they do the wrong thing again they are going to be hit and they will know not to do it again. This are some examples of how this experiment can be applied to everyday life and how can people use it to control other people.
-http://www.experiment-resources.com/stanley-milgram-experiment.html
-http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
Cintia C.
This experiment according to Solomon Asch was about how people seem to be followers, this was confirmed throughout the 1950s with research that was made upon to test peer pressure. The research was about how he tested with questions undergrads, and when one person said an answer others will go along with it even if they knew the answer wasn’t right. This research has proven that there will always be a big percentage of people that will go along with the crowd just because they are afraid of saying the answer even if the know there the ones right.
This has affected our environment due to the fact people don’t follow their mind and go along with what others do or say. As an example from everyday life we can say people always go by the easier things. For example if am doing my homework with my friend and she stops because she ran out of ideas, and I still have ideas to keep on working on my homework I seem to stop just because she took a brake and now I want one too. Even though before she had even stopped I didn’t think about stopping and taking a break.
Most people tend to go along with what other people do or say because they want to fit in the crowd. They don’t want to feel left out from the others. Or sometimes people are afraid to speak their mind and go along with the flow because there not so confident of themselves. For example, when a new phone comes out to the market and one person has it now all of a sudden everyone wants to have it. Even when there’s people that can’t effort it, they ass well want to have it, they want to upgrade themselves to another level that there not. Not caring if the economy is bad.
In this experiment it was proven that even though a person may know something is wrong they will still do it because they want to comfort along with the others.
Sources:
http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
http://www.experiment-resources.com/asch-experiment.html
Nancy M.
The experiment that I choose to write about is the eight one, “Anatomy of Mass Panic: War of the Worlds”. This experiment was done on 1938 with the release of the episode The War of the Worlds. The experiment done was by Princeton psychologist, what he did was interview 135 residents regarding their reactions towards the broadcast, in New Jersey. The video was based on the existence of aliens. Some residents to afraid to watch the video didn’t even bother to take a look at it but simply assumed the information was correct.
Moreover others didn’t take a look at the video and assumed the video was giving real information because it was being announced in radio stations. The proven point here was how media has great influence into what people may think. Media has the power to manipulate people into thinking something because of the popularity of the topic. It is common for humans to believe the information put out in the media because it is so popular and there is so many comments regarding it, that people just start to believe things they here out on the radio or other devices of media. This is a very valuable experiment because it proves that we humans believe anything out on the media. Although no one has ever found actual prove of the existence of aliens, many do believe in them because of all that is said in the media about them.
This experiment can be applied to our everyday life because if we hear something on the radio or see it on TV, we are most likely to believe it although we haven’t seen facts for the simple fact its out on the media and everyone’s attention is on this topic. If today we hear on the radio that a celebrity died, there will probably be millions of people crying because they think the artist actually died simply because it was said in the media. People now a day’s don’t search for prove, just because they hear or see things in the media they automatically believe them.
This shows how much influence the media has on humans. How the media is able to manipulate people into thinking things that aren’t true.
SOURCES:
http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)
Marilyn A. R.
The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment was introduced to us by psychologist, Philip Zimbardo. This Experiment was about a group of 24 healthy, very smart, male college students who were about to have a crazy, chilling ride into becoming “Prisoners” and “Guards”. This experiment took place in 1971, under a psychology department of Stanford University in California. There were a total of 24 male participants. They were split up into two groups. 12 of them being guards and 12 being prisoners. This happened in a fake prison that looked, felt and eventually smell like one. Guards had to play an important role here. They had to act like real guards, meaning not showing their emotions, being extremely tough on them without harming them physically and show whose boss. The guards had shaved their head, chained them up together, make them do pushups, emotionally hurt and sleep deprived. This was to be a 14 day experiment, but unfortunately because of the disturbance the guards had with the prisoners, it was later called off after only 6 days into it.
The importance of this experiment was to see how one can change in a matter of hours into becoming a prisoner and also a guard. Meanings if you put a good person into a horrible place where it’s just an evil atmosphere, that person is most likely to become rebel. Also it’s important to know that people tend to listen more when they’re abused in a very tragic way because they feel helpless and have no power to do anything about it. And last but not least this shows how people can change in different atmospheres because we aren’t use to it and how are faced with a new environment and not really feel welcome.
A good example for this experiment would be when parents or regular adults hit youngsters in order for them to obey. When minors are mistreated due to them misbehaving they probably won’t do the wrong act again because they know the consequences that they will have to face. Nobody likes to be abused so this is why people tend to listen when they’re mistreated. So to wrap this up if you harm someone for doing something wrong, chances are they won’t do it again. And by this it doesn’t mean to go right ahead and beat someone up because they won’t listen, but to let us know what was going on in this 6 day experiment.
Daniel A
Sources
http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prison-experiment.htm
http://www.prisonexp.org/
http://www.experiment-resources.com/stanford-prison-experiment.html
I chose experiment 4 on conformity; this experiment is about how knowing the truth we allow peer pressure to agree with the obvious lie. The experiment asked the person to match a line to one of three lines of very different lengths. It’s really easy to see which line is the match. First they would be asked individually, and they would answer correctly. But, when asked in a group 32% on the people would agree with the ones that spoke out the wrong answer. This experiment was done by Solomon Asch in 1951.
We hear about the power of peer pressure all around, but it is real? This experiment is an example of peer pressure and how powerful it can be. It’s very important for us to learn about the way our minds work. The knowledge can help us prevent the exposure of our minds to this venerability. I chose this experiment because I feel that this is something that happens very often. This experiment targets a weakness of the mind. It’s very important that we understand how our minds are weak, in order to be able to make it stronger. We have to first strengthen the weak points in order to improve, and changing our minds because of the crowd that we are around happens often. Many of us will do anything to fit in and we don’t realize how dangerous just fitting in can really be. Where do we draw the line of what is ok to change? More important than fitting in is not loosing who we are. And this experiment in its own way reminds us of that.
I tried Asch’s experiment on my 12 year old brother claiming that the wrong answer was right and he corrected me. When I explained to him the purpose of the experiment he was thoughtful. Then, I asked that if the situation had been different would his answer have been different, too. And he admitted to me that if the scenario had been different he would have reacted differently. This was the picture I painted for him; if you had been at school and the teacher asked you, but most of your friends said this answer, would you correct them? He said no, that he would have been too shy to correct them and would have just agreed with them. My personal conclusion was that we should talk about these things with young children and keep bringing it up as they grow up. And I don’t mean tell them to be individuals and then make them upset because they are different. I mean honestly encourage who they are and make them stand up for what they believe, lets create more leaders and not so many bystanders. I think the younger the children the more vulnerable. But, that doesn’t mean we are not, because we are also vulnerable. Just look back at all the things we have just let happen. Most of all that is why I feel that this experiment is so important, it connects to the possible reasoning to things that have happened through history.
http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html
Loftus and Palmer experiment on language and memory conducted in 1974
This experiment tested the interaction between language, or diction, and memory. Forty five students from the University of Washington watched a series of traffic accidents followed by specific questions. Students were asked how fast were the cars going when they "hit" and when they "smashed". Surprisedly students reported that the cars were going 40 mph when they "smashed" but 34 mph when they "hit" each other.
This experiment is very important in understanding human behavior because it shows how our memory is manipulated by factors like language. The investigation is valuable because it can make us think more deeply into our brain and what has a major effect on it.
This analysis can be applied to daily life by asking questions that people are already familiar with but changing the wording. For example, asking how was your weekend? and later asking how was the wonderful long weekend? There is a possibility that the responses will be slighly different depending on the structure of the sentence.
Sources
http://www.holah.co.uk/study-summary.php?slug=loftus
http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
Judith D.
Milgram's Experiment on Obedience and Authority
Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist had researched the effect of authority and obedience. In Milgram's experiment he experimented with people. The participants were offered cash to participate and were convinced that they had a 50/50 chance of playing the role as the teacher or the student, even though they all were going to end up playing the role as the teacher. The participants had to increasingly electric shock the student whenever questions were answered incorrectly.The teacher was given a 45 volt shock sample to show them how the electric shock would start off. When the teacher would hesitate to shock the student, Milgram would pressure them to proceed, stating that the experiment required them to continue.
The importance of the experiment to our understanding of human behavior is that humans can do about mostly anything when it comes to being pressured. As well as when having authorization to do something they believe they can overuse that power. I think the experiment is considered a valuable insight into the way people think or react by even though humans refuse to proceed with something they don't want to go along with,even under dangerous circumstances and knowing what the right thing to do is, the pressure from others will get to them, causing them to do the total opposite of what they actually consider in doing. Same when they are allowed to do something, they feel they can automatically take control and just go crazy, while not caring of the circumstances.
For example, a story about Andre McCollins. A boy that attended Judge Rotenberg Center, a center that provides services for children and adults with mental disabilities and behavior disorders. He was strapped face down and shocked 31 times by his teachers for seven hours while they laughed, because he would not take his coat off. The center says that the electro shock is treatment to help fix the kids who are disruptive and causes positive change in their behavior. He was left in comma for three days. Now I think this was just very abusive of the teachers, they knew that they could shocked any student that didn't obey but they really went overboard when shocking him for that long.
Sources:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f6LLV3fkXg
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2128671/Tortured-terrorised-abused-New-shocking-video-shows-disabled-boy-strapped-shocked-laughing-teachers-SEVEN-hours.html
-Yeremi A.
Milgram’s Experiment on Obedience and Authority took place in 1961 at Yale University and its purpose was to determine why people obey when they feel pressured even if it’s against every thing they believe in. This experiment also relates to WWII on how the Nazis were able to obey Hitter’s commands and kill innocent people. Stanley Milgram believed that people obey either out of fear or to seem cooperative. To prove it Milgram recruited subject for his experiment. The subjects were told that the experiment was how punishment affected learning ability. They were also going to receive a cash award for participating. The subject would then choose to play the role of the “teacher” or the “learner”, out of a hat. The papers were arranged so that the subject would always be the teacher. The learner was another scientist that acted as if he was a subject as well. The teacher’s job was to ask the learner a question and every time the learner got it wrong the teacher would shock him. The shock got stronger after each wrong answer. The shock levels were labeled how strong the shocks were so the teacher would b aware of the different strengths. The learner was never really shocked during the experiment but he would act like it by grunting or screaming and at one point go completely silent. If the teacher hesitates to continue the director would pressure them into continuing. The results were shocking! 65% of the subject continued with the experiment all the way to the end. Only 35% of people refused to continue early in the experiment.
Understanding human behavior is important because it gives us that solid ground to understanding why we do certain things or act a certain way. I believe people are afraid of uncertainty and need answers to nourish their faith. Some people choose religion and others choose science. Of course there are many more beliefs but these two are the main one and are very controversial. This experiment is a very valuable insight because it shows how a person can fall so deep into pressure that it can turn them against their own beliefs.
I think teenagers and peer pressure is a perfect example of an every day thing for this experiment. Although each person has their own way of thinking, the temptation of “fitting in” can cause some one to act like some they are not. Another example can be an employee following their boss’ commands due to the fear of becoming unemployed. The employee can hate their boss’ guts but the next morning greets him with his coffee and bagel in their hands. That’s exactly what the Milgram experiment was trying to prove. People do what they are told to make themselves look good or because they are afraid of the consequences or simply afraid of standing up for what they believe.
http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
Shelly A.
Part 1
The Stanford Prison Experiment: Power Corrupts
Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo took lead in an experiment to discover the causes of conflict between prisoners and guards that was mostly an interest of the US Navy and Marine Corps. The beginning of the experiment began with an ad in the newspaper in which the applicant decided to see how prisoner life is like. Out of 75 male students, 24 were chosen for this experiment. The experiment took place in the Stanford University basement psychology building situated in Palo Alto, California. After the students were approved for the experiment, on a Sunday morning of August 14 1971, Palo Alto Police were sent out to retrieve the test subjects as a mass arrest for violation of legal rights. The students were searched and handcuffed as neighbors observed. They were all taken as if they were real criminals. Upon their arrival to the police station, normal procedure was done to the students, warned of their Miranda rights, finger printed and a complete identification. They were then blindfolded and left in their holding cell. The 24 students were split into 2 teams, the guards and the prisoners. Selection was random.
The students were taken to the Stanford County Jail for further processing and were spoken to by the warden who conveyed the seriousness of their offense. The treatment of the new prisoners was far too harsh. They went through humiliation as they were searched, stripped naked in the belief that they could have germs or lice. They were degraded in all possible ways. The prisoner’s uniform consisted of a dress like shirt with no underwear, making them feel humiliated. Some of the ways they walked and sat down were changed and seemed to be more of a woman than a man. They also had a chain bolted on their right ankle. This was to always remind them that there was no way of escape. All of this was done to produce similar effects quick enough for them to feel the prison life. As the prisoners, like the guards began to quickly fall into their role, things began to change. Guards became more and more aggressive against the inmates and conducted different types of punishments for disobeying orders. They first began with push-ups, which was noted to be a bit juvenile for prison, but began to ascend as it was also noted a guard stepped on the back of an inmate while he was doing his push-ups or made other prisoners step or sit on each other’s backs.
Sources:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Carlos S.
Part 2
No incidents occurred the first day, opposing the second day, things changed. A rebellion began as inmates taunted and cursed guards. Guards became frustrated and angered and dealt force with force. The guards fought back by getting a fire extinguisher and using it to keep inmates away from the cell door. They also broke into each cell and stripped each prisoner naked. They were harassed and intimidated. Soon after they broke the rebellion a little, the guards used psychology to get inmates to distrust each other by making it seem like one group were informants. Once visiting hours came, guards and leaders of the experiment thought to make the prison seem that it offered better living conditions for their sons since they didn’t want them to be taking their test subjects away as the experiment wasn’t yet complete. Most of the simulated prison was re-arranged, washed and the prisoners received a good meal. Parents didn’t really see what the prisoners had gone through but were puzzled why their sons developed different behaviors. Soon after, some of the prisoners broke down as they couldn’t take it any longer. As they saw that a few relationships between guards and prisoners were made, although not all, also a few guards did surpass the limit of punishments; many prisoners thought it was a nightmare. The experiment was canceled on the 6th day of the 2 week imprisonment they would go through due to unexpected unnecessary punishments the prisoners went through at mid nights since the guards thought they were not being watched by the cameras at that time. The experiment was also ceased because of the surprise Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. strongly objected once she had noticed the prisoners being marched on a toilet run, with bags over their heads, legs chained together and with their hands on each other’s shoulders. She thought it was an outrage to have boys doing that. She had questioned the experiments morality and from then Zimbardo decided to terminate the experiment.
In this experiment it is evident that once a person is put in a position where they have authority and power, human nature would lead the person into a state in which they abuse the power they are given and they use it for unnecessary things. In the experiment it is important to note that they mentioned these students were good students. Since they were good students, they didn’t really experience the cruelty that could come out of them until they have the power to do so. This experiment is a valuable insight into the way people think and or act because it is dangerous to give one too much power that he or she is not used to since they could end up abusing their power and sometimes not realizing what they do. This applies too much in this case, since the prisoners had no power and the guards had all. Also depending on the nature of the situation, most of the time humans will react in a cruel way, as some say it is in our nature.
An example different from the imprisonment these people had gone through could also relate to what a person with a step parent who mistreats them may go through. Sometimes children have step parents that can mistreat them and they wouldn’t really do anything about it since they feel powerless and scared. As it happened with the prisoners, they became broken since they felt powerless in anything they did. With the child being mistreated by a parent or step parent, they also feel powerless since they are always living with the parent and have a feeling of being powerless and scared. If the parent or step parent mistreats a child, it is prone to happen again and many other times since they have the power the child doesn’t have and in most cases it does happen. The parent or step parent also may not have a limit to the mistreatments or punishments they give toward the child and may not even care as it happened with the prisoners. Perhaps it is in our nature to mistreat the powerless.
Carlos S.
The experiment cognitive dissonance was created by Festinger and Carlsmith. Dissonance usually occurs when a person’s attitudes contradict others. People try avoiding this by changes of cognitive. These both scientists conducted an experiment in 1957 to prove what they figured was correct. They believed the people were going to react differently according to how much they got paid. The experiment was extremely boring but people gave different answers according to how much they got paid. Some people got paid $1 for the experiment and another group got paid $20.
They proved that your mind can get bribed just like our actions. In our everyday life we try to play different tricks on our mind without us even knowing it. For example some people try losing weight so they trick their mind so they are not hungry also people try covering up their feelings. Other experiments were conducted to prove that there theory was right. In our everyday life we experience this without us even knowing it. An example would be lying, lying changes your attitude because you are lying and not saying the truth. Cognitive dissonance can basically be called manipulation.
It is good to the mind that we understand the importance of this. It can lead us to lying and not accepting reality as is. Many of us do it without realizing it. Our mind works a lot more different then what we expect but it is up to us to control what we do. It is proven that Cognitive dissonance is real. Do you have this habit?
URL:- http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance_theory
-http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
Stephanie F.
Gladys S.
Milgram's Experiment
This experiment was carried out by Stanley Milgram a psychologist at Yale University. The experiment consisted in focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority. This experiment began on July 1961. The experiment needed two people one was the teacher and the other person the learner which pretended to be a real participant. The one that did is as teacher was getting paid for this experiment without knowing that the leaner was not a real participant. The one who was the learner was taken to a room and had electrodes attached on his arms and the other person (the teacher) went to another side of the room and had control of the electric switches that were marked by volts from slight to severe. The teacher asked the learner questions and every time the learner had a wrong answer the teacher had to shock him with a certain volt number.
For this experiment to succeed the learner had to give most of the time the wrong answers to see how far the teacher was going to shock the learner. Most of the teachers didn’t want to increase the amount the volts of the shock because the learner screamed every time he would get shocked. But the teacher was forced to continue with the question and shock’s because he was getting payed as well. 65% of the participants continued to the highest level of volts but some didn’t due to the reaction of the learners because they were “getting hurt”, some treachers refused to keep on going (even though they were getting payed) with the experiment but some didn’t stop because they were just obeying what the instructors said to do. This experiment was proving how far people were to follow instructions no matter if the other person was getting hurt or was just too painful. Even though the shocks were not real because the learner was just an actor, 65% of the teachers gave high voltage shocks to the lerners and only 45% of the teachers refused to keep on going with the experiment. This experiment shows how far a person will keep following orders knowing that the others person is getting hurt.
Many people tend to do everything they are told to do because they don’t want others to think that they are scared to do things or be called names or cowards. They follow orders because they wouldn’t like to feel left out from the group. A good example for this experiment would be small children. When a parent of older person tells a kid to do something they do it because they might be afraid of the person or afraid that the older person might do something against the children for no following orders.
Sources:
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm
http://www.experiment-resources.com/stanley-milgram-experiment.html
Carlos Ponce
The Stanford Prison experiment
The Stanford Prison experiment was executed by psychologist Phillip G. Zimbardo. The experiment took place on mid august in 1971 on a simulated prison environment constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford's Psychology Department building. The outcome of the experiment was to see psychological effects of prison life and what the psychological effects were of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. 24 college students sign up to get paid 15 dollars an hour by being the test subjects, randomly half of the students where picked to be the guards and the other half to be prisoners. The prisoners where humiliated by making them where dresses, stripped down to be harassed and where only told to direct to each other by there prison number. The experiment was starting to go wrong when the psychologist realized that he him self was thinking like a prison superintendent rather than a research psychologist so where the prison guards and the prisoners. The prisoners where made to where a chain lock on their foot so when the toss and turn from sleeping they will wake up realizing that not even in their dreams they can’t escape. After 6 brutal prison life day the psychologist decided to call of the experiment due to the cruelty level. Phillips understood how prisons dehumanize people, turning them into objects and instilling in them feelings of hopelessness. And as for guards, they realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from a good person to a evil person.
The importance of the experiment to our human behavior is that we can learn that being incarcerated could lead prisoners to have so much negative energy to the point that even if they know that their just test subjects they distance them self from that and realize there is no escape from the nightmare they got them self in to. As for the guards they had to much power for them to control that they will abuse their power and when they taught that they where not being filmed they will torture the prisoners out of boredom.
The experiment could be applied to everyday normal life in the aspect that this simulated experiment is similar to every day normal prison life on how the real criminals get treated and how they pay for their reason being incarcerated. It shows how the inmates go through the psychology events in which they get treated and how much they can handle before they just go crazy. Although in real prison, the variables used on the experiment differ from it like the chain on the foot or wearing dresses but in my opinion I think that the effects still have the same results.
Sources:
http://www.prisonexp.org/
Lying To Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance
An experiment by two men named Leon Festinger and J. Merrill Carlsmith took place in 1959 at the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. This experiment, about cognitive dissonance, was meant to prove that our minds can be bribed to act a certain way. Festinger and Carlsmith had a group of 71 male students participate in a boring activity for about an hour. When the participants finished, experimenters asked some to fill in for other experimenters by lying about how exciting the experiment was to others for either one dollar or twenty dollars. Although a control group was asked to tell the truth about their experience. The amount of money given to the groups caused dissonance because one group changed their mind about the excitement of the experiment based on how much money they received.
It’s important to understand our cognitive dissonance. In our present generation we are very easy to convince about everything. Occasionally our dissonance may be useful when we want to change something negative to positive, for example eating habits. Although many don’t understand how to control the way we percept certain things such as what society wants us to believe. Instead, we let society convince us change is always right.
This is very similar to the way people think today. For example how young students react to a test given randomly. Obviously no one will want to take the test. But when the teacher says if the students get a certain score they’d get pizza, students would immediately change their mind and aim for a high score on the test. This proves our minds are easy to bribe.
Sources:
http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance_theory
http://www.experiment-resources.com/cognitive-dissonance.html
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/social/festinger_carlsmith_cognitive_dissonance.html
Diana B.
Loftus and Palmer eyewitness testimony.
In 1974, Loftus and Palmer created an experiment which showed memory isn't a factual recording and can be changed by information after the event. In this experiment 45 students from the University of Washington participated. They all witnessed seven car accident film clips , these film clips varied from 5 to 30 seconds. They where then followed with five questions on the cars' speed which varied its wording. The students answers varied when the verb used seem more intense.
This experiment shows how our understanding of an event can change by simple verb usage. Understanding a human behavior is important because we interact with people every single day of our lives. This experiment contributes to understanding human behavior because it showed how the human mind thinks and comprehends certain events.
This experiment can be applied in cop interrogations. Throughout a interrogation a cop continuously asks the same questions to find the truth or to have you admit to the crime. Doing what the experiment used, simple usage of different verbs might make these interrogations go faster and have more people in jail.
-Anibal G
http://www.holah.co.uk/study-detail.php?slug=loftus
Loftus and Palmer eyewitness testimony.
In 1974, Loftus and Palmer created an experiment which showed memory isn't a factual recording and can be changed by information after the event. In this experiment 45 students from the University of Washington participated. They all witnessed seven car accident film clips , these film clips varied from 5 to 30 seconds. They where then followed with five questions on the cars' speed which varied its wording. The students answers varied when the verb used seem more intense.
This experiment shows how our understanding of an event can change by simple verb usage. Understanding a human behavior is important because we interact with people every single day of our lives. This experiment contributes to understanding human behavior because it showed how the human mind thinks and comprehends certain events.
This experiment can be applied in cop interrogations. Throughout a interrogation a cop continuously asks the same questions to find the truth or to have you admit to the crime. Doing what the experiment used, simple usage of different verbs might make these interrogations go faster and have more people in jail.
-Anibal G
http://www.holah.co.uk/study-detail.php?slug=loftus
This experiment was quite unsual but yet intresting in many ways.
Two people were tested on how they would act to intrustions. One was an actor and the other someone who was actually doing the work. This people got payed to to this experiment, they got instruction on what to do. This experiment took place in the University of California.
The two oppents were supposed to shock the other by answering the wrong answer. The more wrong the more shock.
People didn't seemed to see it hard, but it was amazing how the human brain can work. Due that what are we capable of with our mind just to hurt the one near us. In my opinion this experiment was intresting because you had to pretty much work with the mind and common sense. For the actors it wasn't a real shock but for other 45% could only handle certaini amount of pain. People's behavior were different from others, because some we're all different.
This experiment anyone can do it, I believe we do it on a daily basis. We all test other people's way of thinking and common sense.
This experiment should be done in animals or children. See which domestic animals obey orders and which don't and what it takes to do so. As in kids what makes them obey, what it takes for them because their is some kids that don't always obey. As well in jobs, what kind of poeple tend to obey and follow rules the proper way and exactly how they were ordered.
Noa.Z
Milgram's Experiment on Obedience to Authority.
This experiment is based on the control that humans have on higher authorities. A "teacher" was made to give electro shots to the "learner" if he answered a question incorrectly. The clever experiment was made by Stanley Milgram in 1963 on Jerusalem.
Human behavior varies depending on the teachings and experiences each has, but this experiment proves a big point: Several times us humans are exposed to pressure. It could be peer pressure or simply higher authority pressure that leads us into doing things that would go against our morals or teachings.
This experiment can be related to everyday pressure that some students go through daily. At times, teenagers obey instructions from older kids leaving aside their morals. For example, if there is a group of guys bothering a girl and the group talks the youngest go them into hitting the girl. The youngest of them would be facing a similar dilemma from the experiment.
(http://www.cnr.berkerly.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article35.htm)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/milgram_experiment)
Andrea M
The experiment I chose was Memory Manipulation: Do you really Know What You Saw? The people that conducted this experiment were Loftus and Palmer in 1974. They did it in the University of Washington. In the experiment they showed the student seven different clips. After the clip they had to summarize what they saw from the clips and answer question about specifically the speed of the car. This experiment is about testing the reliability of memory after seeing an incident. So they can know if the information given by an eye witness is the same as the incident.
It is important that we understand human behavior so that we can know how it effects the brain and how it benefits the brain. Also how it can manipulted memory in certain situations.I think an example is when they ask eye witness's in court to testify what they saw. It is used in court cases because they rely on eye witness's to know what really happen. If a person gives the wrong information it can messup the case.
Sources:
* http://www.holah.co.uk/study-summary.php?slug=loftus
* http://brainz.org/ten-most-revealing-psych-experiments/
Mariana G.
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