Blog Post 1- Part 1 of the Summer Assignment - Due July 20

Welcome to AP Psychology at North-Grand!

Be sure to sign up for our Remind 101 text alerts using the code I gave you the last week of school.

Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments!

Read all these instructions carefully before beginning!

Go to this link about the Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments and read through the summaries of all ten of them. 

***** If the above link is broken (or even if it's not) you can use this as an alternative set of experiments to get you started : 10 Famous Psychology Experiments that Could Never Happen Today  This link is really about the ethics of doing these experiments on humans and animals, but you can use it as a starting point, then use Google to find other sources about the experiments themselves. 

Select one of the experiments that you think is interesting. Click on the link in the summary to start your research about that experiment. 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. 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 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 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 comments at the end of this post. This will also allow you to save your work in case the blog does something strange. 

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. Please don't keep re-sending it over and over. If your comment is too long, it may not let you post it and show an error message. If this happens, try breaking your comment up into 2 or 3 parts and label them appropriately. 

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

Keep working on the rest of your summer assignment from the Bernstein Textbook and the Phineas Gage book. 

Social Psychology Videos

If you're looking for review resources scroll down to the previous blog posts from March 24 and April 22.

THE FOLLOWING LINKS FEATURE VERY IMPORTANT CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. REVIEW ASCH'S, MILGRAM'S AND ZIMBARDO'S CLASSIC STUDIES AND READ UP ON THE "BYSTANDER EFFECT." 

The Bystander Effect... what would you do?

This happened last year in NYC it looks like a 31 year-old Guatemalan man named Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed on the street in New York City and many pedestrians walked right past him as he died. You can read the story and see a surveillance video here.

Read more about the bystander effect here. 

The Bystander Effect/Diffusion of Responsibility video we saw in class is below or here. 

Asch's Conformity

Solomon Asch's conformity study showed how easily people will give an obviously wrong answer when other people are giving that same answer. Watch the video at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw

Milgram's Obedience

Stanley Milgram's obedience study was recently partly replicated by ABC's Prime Time show. Watch how easily people follow orders even when they know the orders are wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwqNP9HRy7Y

Zimbardo's Prison Roles

Philip Zimbardo's experiment about how roles affect behavior is known as the "Stanford Prison Experiment." Those playing inmates became passive while those playing guards became aggressive. Subjects' real identities seemed to pale in comparison to the roles they played so much that the experiment had to be stopped after a few days. Who knows what would have happened if the experiment had gone on for two full weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwSC5fS40w

Part 1 of the Summer Assignment - Due July 20

Welcome to AP Psychology at North-Grand!

Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments!

Read all these instructions carefully before beginning!

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. Please don't keep re-sending it over and over. 

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

Keep working on the rest of your summer assignment from the Bernstein Textbook and the Phineas Gage book. 

Social Psychology Videos you MUST watch...

The following links feature very important concepts in social psychology. Review Asch's, Milgram's and Zimbardo's classic studies and read up on the "bystander effect." 

The Bystander Effect... what would you do?


This just happened, so all the facts aren't in yet but it looks like a 31 year-old Guatemalan man named Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax was stabbed on the street in New York City and many pedestrians walked right past him as he died. You can read the story and see a surveillance video here.


Read more about the bystander effect here. 

Asch's Conformity

Solomon Asch's conformity study showed how easily people will give an obviously wrong answer when other people are giving that same answer. Watch the video at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nNw

Milgram's Obedience

Stanley Milgram's obedience study was recently partly replicated by ABC's Prime Time show. Watch how easily people follow orders even when they know the orders are wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwqNP9HRy7Y

Zimbardo's Prison Roles

Philip Zimbardo's experiment about how roles affect behavior is known as the "Stanford Prison Experiment." Those playing inmates became passive while those playing guards became aggressive. Subjects' real identities seemed to pale in comparison to the roles they played so much that the experiment had to be stopped after a few days. Who knows what would have happened if the experiment had gone on for two full weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwSC5fS40w