Famous experiments in psych Flashcards
Little Albert
Conducted by John Watson to test classical conditioning
Albert played with white furry objects, showing joy and affection first. Over time, as he played with the objects, Dr. Watson would make a loud noise behind the child’s head to frighten him. After numerous trials, Albert was conditioned to be afraid when he saw white furry objects.
Stanford Prison Experiment
Conducted by Zimbardo to test influence of social roles
24 year old males; assigned to be either a prisoner or a guard and asked to pretend as their role. Took to their roles so extremely that the experiment had to be shut down after 6 days.
Asch Conformity Study
Conducted by Solomon Asch to test whether an individual would conform to a group’s decision, even if the individual knew it was incorrect.
Selected 50 male college students to participate in a “vision test.” Individuals would have to determine which line on a card was longer. 1 participant, others were actors who purposely gave the wrong answer.
Over 12 trials, nearly 1/3rd of the naive participants conformed with the incorrect majority, and only 25 percent never conformed to the incorrect majority.
The Bobo Doll Experiment
Conducted by Albert Bandura to put the social learning theory into action.
36 boys and 36 girls between the ages of 3 and 6 split into three groups. One group watched adults behaving aggressively toward the Bobo doll. Another group was shown an adult playing with the Bobo doll in a non-aggressive manner, and the last group was not shown a model at all, just the Bobo doll.
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), children who watched the aggressive adults were more likely to imitate the aggressive responses.
The Learned Helplessness Experiment
Conducted by Martin Seligman
Involved the ringing of a bell and then the administration of a light shock to a dog. After a number of pairings, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened: as soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.
When placed in a situation to escape the shock, the dogs did not react to escape.
The Milgram Experiment
To test the levels of obedience to authority
The teacher and learner went over a list of word pairs that the learner was told to memorize. When the learner incorrectly paired a set of words together, the teacher would shock the learner. The teacher believed the shocks ranged from mild all the way to life-threatening. In reality, the learner, who intentionally made mistakes, was not being shocked.
Most obeyed to give extreme shocks, even though they showed overt signs of distress.
When given instructions over the phone, teachers did not always comply with authority instructions.
Kitty Genovese Case
Almost 40 neighbours witnessed the event of Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, in 1964, but no one called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to “finish off” his victim.
Situation of ‘bystander effect’.
Invisible Gorilla Experiment
Conducted by Simons & Chabris to study selective attention
Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. What most people fail to notice amidst their counting is that in the middle of the test, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court and stood in the center before walking off-screen.
Proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task
The Marshmallow Test
Conducted by Walter Mischel to study deferred gratification can be an indicator of future success.
Children ages 4-6 were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed on the table in front of them on a table. Told that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after adult returned in 15 minutes.
1/3rd of kids delayed gratification.
Those who deferred were significantly more competent and received higher SAT scores than their peers.
Little Hans
5-year-old boy with a phobia of horses.
Freud’s interpretation linked Hans’s fear to the Oedipus complex, the horses (with black harnesses and big penises) unconsciously representing his fear of his father.
Freud suggested Hans resolved this conflict as he fantasised himself with a big penis and married to his mother. This allowed Hans to overcome his castration anxiety and identify with his father.
Phineas Gage
Explosion causing iron shot into his face, through his brain, and out the top of his head.
Severed his limbic system from frontal cortex.
Survived, but total change in personality - aggressive, hostile, impulsive.
Patient HM
Surgery to cure epilepsy involved the removal of large parts of the hippocampus on both sides of his brain and the result was that he was almost entirely unable to store any new information in long-term memory.
Lesson on memory centers of the brain
Anna O.
One of the first ever patients to undergo psychoanalysis and her case inspired much of Freud’s thinking on mental illness.
Her other symptoms include hallucinations, personality changes and rambling speech, but doctors could find no physical cause.
