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Try the Myth of Multitasking Exercise! | Updated Version of Multitask Test

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Understanding the 'Cocktail Party Effect'

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In groups of 5

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Here's your mental workout for the day: The Stroop Test

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Psychology Today: Health, Help, Happiness + Find a Therapist

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View the latest from the world of psychology: from behavioral research to practical guidance on relationships, mental health and addiction. Find help from our directory of therapists, psychologists and counselors.

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Watch a video and explain it to your group

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Watch a video and explain it to your group

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Schizophrenia

www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-psychology/lecture/KEDAX/schizophrenia

Mood disorders

https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-psychology/lecture/b1HFl/mood-disorders

Anxiety disorders

https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-psychology/lecture/NtlPY/anxiety-disorders

Disassociation disorders

https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-psychology/lecture/Azq1b/dissassociation-disorders

Personality disorders

https://www.coursera.org/learn/introduction-psychology/lecture/eXWTI/personality-disorders

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Twenty-first century psychology

Before finishing this consideration of the major perspectives and methods

within the study of psychology, it might be useful to consider some of

the current interdisciplinary approaches to studying human behaviour.

As stated, increasingly psychologists are taking a multi-dimensional

approach to studying psychology and this is reflected in some of the

developing areas within the study of twenty-first century psychology.

Before completing this chapter we will consider some of these major

developments. Three current areas are considered here briefly; cognitive

neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology.

Cognitive neuroscience refers to the study of cognitive processes

from a neuroscience perspective (that area of biology that deals with the

brain and nervous system). This means studying cognitive processes

(e.g., memory) using the methods and findings from neuroscience.

Essentially, the aim of cognitive neuroscience is to explain how our

mental processes operate, or are executed, within the brain. Cognitive

psychology may provide the hypotheses (e.g., how do we remember

names) and neuroscience provides the methods and findings about

how these processes are organised and executed within the brain (e.g.,

what brain mechanisms and/or networks are involved in this process).

Cognitive neuroscience is distinctive because one can use its methods

to focus on the intact brains of “normal” participants (as opposed to

studying brain-damaged patients). Thus, using modern brain-imaging

techniques, such as PET or CAT, we can study the different mechanisms

involved in short- and long-term memory systems. (See e.g., Gazzaniga,

Ivry, & Mangun, 2013.)

Evolutionary psychology is basically the study of the biological

origins of psychological mechanisms. This approach involves the

interrelationship between biology, psychology, anthropology, and psychiatry.

The principle idea behind evolutionary psychology is that, just

like biological mechanisms, psychological mechanisms have evolved

over time and are subject to the process of natural selection. Thus, the

psychological mechanisms we possess today have been selected on a

genetic basis and on the premise that they are beneficial to the survival

of our species. Topics studied within evolutionary psychology include

how we select our mates and what attracts us to specific others, how

we behave when reacting to particular emotions, human aggression,

work, and even certain types of criminal activity. As well as providing

a flourishing framework for future research, evolutionary psychology

(like its founding Darwinian framework) has generated much critical

debate as to the nature of humans and their psychological functioning.

Many people believe that human behaviour is strongly influenced by

factors other than biological ones, such as cultural norms and a range of

environmental factors (Carlson, 2013). Other contentious areas include

the ”uniqueness” of humans, and the origins of human processes such

as language are hotly debated within this field. (See. e.g., Swami, 2011.)

Positive psychology has, at least in part, developed in response to

the study of abnormal psychological functioning. Seligman (2002)

suggested that to balance what we know about mental illness (which

constitutes quite a sizeable literature) we need to develop our knowledge

of what and how humans “flourish” – what makes people “happy”

or facilitates a sense of well-being. This is essentially what is meant by

positive psychology. The study of positive psychology shares common

ground with the humanistic approach outlined earlier, but the former

relies more heavily on empirical methods to study the traits and mechanisms

associated with its content. Thus, subjective experiences – such as

happiness and optimism, potential “positive personality traits” – such

as wisdom and courage, and the study of “positive institutions” – the

social structures that might promote feelings such as happiness, can all

be scientifically studied within this branch of psychology. The study of

positive psychology leads one to conclude that positive emotions are

worth cultivating in order to achieve states of happiness and well-being,

but can also point the way to further personal growth. This has led to a

range of focuses on internal and external factors that affect happiness,

how organisational and work systems that affect our sense of well-being

as well as a range of psychotherapeutic interventions. (See e.g., Casad,

2012, Seligman, 2002.)

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Personality Theories

Personality theories in psychology aim to define and explain the consistent patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that characterizes individuals.

Researchers in this field strive to elucidate how personality develops and how it influences behavior. Generally, they focus on identifying traits, behaviors, and motivations which distinguish individuals from one another and predict how individuals will behave in certain situations.

Regardless of their different views, all personality theories contribute to understanding the complexity of humans, seeking to explain why we are uniquely ourselves.

Major Personality Theories in Psychology

Trait Theory of Personality: This theory posits that personalities are composed of a set of stable characteristics or traits that influence an individual’s behavior across various situations.

Five Factor Model of Personality: This model identifies five core personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, which are believed to describe the broad dimensions of human personality.

Freud’s Personality Theory: Freud proposed that personality is shaped by the dynamic interactions among the id (primitive desires), ego (reality-oriented mediator), and superego (moral conscience).

Adler’s Individual Psychology: Adler believed that individuals are driven by a sense of inferiority to strive for superiority or success, and that social connections and community play a crucial role in shaping personality.

Humanist Theory of Personality: Rooted in the works of figures like Maslow and Rogers, this theory emphasizes individual potential, self-actualization, and the intrinsic nature of humans to grow towards their personal ideals in a supportive environment.

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Psych experiments

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Groups of 5

Create a mindmap each that you will explain to students who have read about a different psychological perspective.

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Wilhelm Wundt founds the first experimental psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany, marking the moment psychology becomes its own field of study.
1886
Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, begins treating patients in Vienna, Austria.
1900
Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams.
1901
The British Psychological Society is formed.
1903
Ivan Pavlov trains a dog to salivate on hearing the sound of a bell. Pavlov's dog becomes the first example of classical conditioning.
1907
Carl Jung publishes The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. Jung begins to break away from Freud's ideas to develop his own theories of analytical psychology.
1912
Max Wertheimer publishes his research on the phi phenomenon, which contributed to the development of the Gestalt school of psychology.
1920
John Watson becomes a founder of the school of behaviourism, believing that all thoughts, feelings and actions are developed through conditioning.
1932
Jean Piaget publishes The Moral Judgment of the Child.
1938
Electroconvulsive therapy is used for the first time on a person.

It becomes a popular method of treatment throughout the 40s and 50s (and remains in use today).
1942
Carl Rogers publishes Counselling and Psychotherapy, encouraging therapists to adopt a client-centred approach. This method becomes widely practised.
1943
Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, publishes his theory of the hierarchy of needs.
1962
Albert Ellis publishes Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, leading to the development of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT).
1967
Aaron Beck publishes a model of depression that suggests thoughts play a significant role. He is seen as the founder of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).
1982
Carol Gilligan publishes the feminist tract In a Different Voice.
1994
Stephen Pinker's The Language Instinct is published.
1998
Martin Seligman chooses positive psychology as the theme for his speech to the American Psychological Association, as its incoming president.
2003
Simon Baron-Cohen's 'The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain' proposes that autism may be an "extreme form of maleness".

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Wilhelm Wundt founds the first experimental psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany, marking the moment psychology becomes its own field of study. 1886 Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, begins treating patients in Vienna, Austria. 1900 Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams. 1901 The British Psychological Society is formed.

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Psychology is the social science that studies the mind. However, there is a broad range of ways to conduct this analysis, which has led to a proliferation of psychological theories.
These theories can be separated into a few key categories, including:

Psychoanalytic Theories

Behavioral Theories

Cognitive Theories

Developmental Theories

Social Psychology Theories

Motivation and Humanist Theories

Personality Theories

In each category, we have a range of contributing theories that have fundamentally shaped the field of psychology. Each is outlined below.

Psychology Theories Examples

1. Psychoanalytic Theories
Psychoanalysis centers on uncovering unconscious thoughts and emotions that contribute to an individual's mental afflictions. This can involves the interpretation of dreams and free association techniques.
The practice of psychoanalysis involves facilitating a patient's self-insight by providing interpretations of the patient's words and behavior in therapy.

Freud pioneered the notion of unconscious mental processes, highlighting the repressed conflicts that, under the surface, influence human behavior. He also introduced the concept of a structured mind consisting of the id, ego, and superego.

Building on Freud's work, later psychoanalysts, such as Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, branched out to explore collective unconscious and individual psychology, respectively.
Major Psychoanalytic Theories

1. Ego Psychology (Freud): This theory emphasizes the role of the ego in mediating between the demands of the id, the superego, and reality, focusing on defense mechanisms and adaptive functions.

2. Psychosexual Development Theory (Freud): Freud proposed that individuals progress through five stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital) where pleasure is centered on different erogenous zones, and conflicts at each stage can impact personality and behavior.

3. The Collective Unconscious (Jung): Jung believed in a shared, deep layer of the unconscious that houses universal memories and ideas inherited from our ancestors, distinct from an individual's personal unconscious.

4. Psychological Archetypes (Jung): Jung also proposed that we all have universally recognized symbols and themes, such as the Hero or the Mother, present in myths, stories, and dreams, stemming from the collective unconscious.

5. Individual Psychology (Adler): Adler's theory emphasizes the importance of feelings of inferiority, the striving for superiority or success, and the role of social connections in shaping personality.

6. Psychosocial Development Theory (Erikson): Erikson proposed that individuals navigate eight stages of life, each marked by a specific conflict that influences personality development and social relationships.

7. Object Relations Theory (Klein): This theory focuses on the importance of early relationships, especially with primary caregivers, in shaping how individuals relate to others and their understanding of social bonds throughout life.

Go Deeper: Psychoanalytic Theories in Psychology
2. Behavioral Theories
Behavioral theories in psychology posit that human behavior is learned and shaped by environmental stimuli.
Breaking from the introspective nature of psychoanalysis, behaviorism asserts that all behavior can be explained without considering internal mental states. Instead, it maintains that behavior is a response to stimuli in our environment.

In fact, behaviorists argue that, in order for psychology to be considered a true science, unconscious and unobservable mental states should be rejected as unexaminable. (Behaviorists went as far as labelling psychoanalysis to be mere pseudoscience).

Behaviorism surfaced around the early 20th century with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov as leading figures. B.F. Skinner later further developed the theory, emphasizing operant learning, the idea that a behavior's consequence affects its likelihood of reoccurrence.

3. Cognitive Theories
Cognitive theories focus on understanding how mental processes such as thinking, memory, perception, and problem-solving influence behavior.
Operating under the assumption that humans are rational and systemic in the way that they organize and interpret information, cognitive theories emphasize the active role of individuals in shaping their understanding of reality.

This perspective emerged as a reaction to the limitations of behaviorism, which disregarded the influence of cognitive processes on behavior. Cognitive psychologists argued that complex mental processes, such as problem-solving, could not be fully understood through observable behavior alone.

But don't mistake it with the highly theoretical psychoanalysis - cognitive psychology has a strong empirical emphasis, relying on experimental research (see: experimental psychology) to reach its conclusions.

A leading figure in this field is Jean Piaget, known for his theory on children's cognitive development. The concepts central to cognitive theory, such as schema and cognitive biases, have been highly influential in numerous subfields, including educational psychology, clinical psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
Go Deeper: The Major Cognitive Psychology Theories
4. Developmental Theories
Psychological development theories are concerned with changes in cognitive, physical, and social abilities over the course of life.
These theories provide frameworks for understanding how humans grow, change, and learn across their lifespan. They aim to explain the processes of development and growth, outlining stages or phases that a person typically passes through from infancy to adulthood.

Editorial Note: Most sub-fields in psychology have their own way to explain development. So, you'll notice some of these theories are overlaps with other categories. E.g.: Piaget's theory fits into both developmental psychology and cognitive psychology. Similarly, Freud's theory fits into both developmental psychology and psychoanalysis.

Notable theorists include Jean Piaget, who proposed four stages of cognitive development and emphasized the role of active learning; Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, who outlined theories of psychosexual and psychosocial development respectively; Lawrence Kohlberg, who created a theory of moral development; and Urie Bronfenbrenner, who framed human development within an ecological systems context.

Broadly speaking, the theories explore how individuals' abilities, behavior, and identities are shaped over time, in connection with genetic and environmental factors. They stress the importance of stages, critical periods, and the influence of early experiences on later behavior.

5. Social Psychology Theories
Social psychology theories aim to understand how individuals' behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
A key debate that led to the rise of social psychology was the disagreement between Piaget, of cognitive psychology, and Vygotsky. While Piaget held that children tend to develop at a relatively similar rate, Vygotsky disagreed, holding that social contexts (such as books in the house and parental support) can heavily impact rates of development.

Later, Barbara Rogoff demonstrated that cultural contexts also strongly affect development (e.g. children in different cultures develop along different paths).

Social psychology theories explore a wide spectrum of social phenomena that affect individuals, including, but not limited to, social psychology concepts like social perception, social interaction, group behavior, and social influence. These theories provide the foundation for understanding how social context shapes individual behavior and how the interplay between the two impacts a variety of outcomes - from attitudes and stereotypes to interpersonal relationships and collective action.

Ultimately, social psychology theories underscore the significant impact that our social environment has on our attitudes and behaviors, reminding us that our perception of reality is as much a social construction as it is an objective fact.

6. Motivation and Humanist Theories
Motivation and humanist theories tend to overlap to the extent that I've decided to group them here.
Here is how they overlap:

Humanist psychology focuses on individual free will, personal growth, and the concept of self-actualization.

Motivation theories aim to comprehend the 'why' behind human actions, which presupposes free will and (usually) the fact we desire personal growth, given the right conditions.

Humanist psychologists assert that individuals have an inherent drive towards self-fulfillment and are inherently good. The subjective experiences and perceptions of the individual are given prime importance in these theories.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are among the leading figures in humanistic psychology. They strived to understand human psychology, not through mental illness symptoms, but by recognizing the potential for creativity, love, and self-actualization in all individuals.

Next, multiple motivation theories explore different angles and potential explanations for human drive. For instance, Drive Theory postulates that human behavior is propelled by a series of physiological needs, whereas Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs classifies the needs into a sequence of relative significance.

Combined, motivation and humanistic theories provide a holistic view of human behavior, integrating elements of inner drive, environmental influences, and the aspiration for self-improvement.
Major Motivational and Humanistic Theories

1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow proposed a pyramid of human needs, starting from basic physiological needs to self-actualization, suggesting that lower-level needs must be satisfied before higher-level needs become motivating.

2. Attachment Theory (Bowlby & Ainsworth): This theory posits that early relationships with caregivers form the basis for later social attachments and influence an individual's emotional and social development.

3. Rogers' Person-Centered Theory: Rogers emphasized the importance of self-actualization, positive regard, and an authentic relationship between therapist and client for therapeutic change.

4. Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan): Deci and Ryan proposed that optimal human functioning and well-being are achieved when individuals satisfy their innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

5. Expectancy Theory (Vroom): Vroom suggested that motivation is determined by the expectation that a certain behavior will lead to a desired outcome, multiplied by the value of that outcome to the individual.

6. Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory: Herzberg proposed that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from two separate sets of factors: motivation factors (which lead to satisfaction) and hygiene factors (whose absence can lead to dissatisfaction).

Read More: Examples of Humanistic Psychology
7. Personality Theories
Personality theories in psychology aim to define and explain the consistent patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that characterizes individuals.
Researchers in this field strive to elucidate how personality develops and how it influences behavior. Generally, they focus on identifying traits, behaviors, and motivations which distinguish individuals from one another and predict how individuals will behave in certain situations.

Regardless of their different views, all personality theories contribute to understanding the complexity of humans, seeking to explain why we are uniquely ourselves.

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38 Famous Psychology Theories: Examples and Overview

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Psychology is the social science that studies the mind. However, there is a broad range of ways to conduct this analysis, which has led to a proliferation of

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Psychological theories are frameworks that help explain various aspects of human thought and behavior. Such theories are created as a way to explain, predict, and modify human behaviors. By using these theories, psychologists can create interventions and treatments to help people live and function more effectively.

Some of these theories are more historical in nature and not supported by current research. In other cases, these theories still play an essential role in our understanding of different aspects of psychology.

In either case, learning more about these theories can help you better understand psychological history and current perspectives on psychology.

What Is a Psychology Theory?

A psychological theory acts as a framework to help understand and explain different aspects of the human mind and behavior. Such theories also serve an important role in that they can help researchers and mental health professionals make predictions about how people might respond in certain situations or under specific conditions.

Using these theories, experts might be able to make guesses about:

How people will respond in certain situations

How people will be affected by changes

Treatments that might be effective

What factors might play a role in causing a certain problem

Types of Psychological Theories

There are some main types of psychological theories: grand, mini, developmental, and emergent.

Grand Theories

This type of psychological theory strives to present an overarching framework that explains virtually all aspects of human behavior. Examples of grand theories include:

Behaviorism

Psychoanalysis

Humanistic theory

Cognitive theory

Biopsychological theory

Mini-Theories

This type of psychological theory is much more focused and seeks to explain a much more specific aspect of human behavior.

For example, mini-theories may focus on areas such as motivation, emotion, or personality. Examples of mini-theories include:

Cognitive dissonance theory

Information processing theory

Social learning theory

Attachment theory

Self-efficacy theory

Developmental Theories

Developmental theories focus on describing how people change and grow as they age. Such theories may focus on a specific aspect of development or a particular time period, such as early childhood. Some examples of developmental theories include:

Emergent Theories

Emergent theories are those that incorporate new ideas and concepts, often drawing on disparate information from other disciplines. Such theories often don't yet have a cohesive theory or explanation. Examples of emergent theories include:

Intersectionality theory

Social identity theory

Evolutionary psychology

Positive psychology

Cross-cultural psychology

Major Theoretical Perspectives

Psycholgical theories are often rooted in one of the following perspectives:

Psychoanalytic Theories

Psychoanalysis was the school of thought founded by Sigmund Freud. This approach suggested that the human mind comprises the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. The conscious mind consists of everything we are aware of, while the unconscious mind is all the thoughts, feelings, memories, and urges that are kept out of awareness.

Behavioral Theories

Behaviorism is a theory of learning that suggests that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner were among the prominent psychologists who advocated this approach.

For the first half of the 20th century, behaviorism became the dominant school of thought. While other theories eventually took precedence, techniques rooted in behavioral therapy are still used today to treat mental health conditions such as substance use, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Cognitive Theories

Cognitive theories of psychology focus on explaining mental processes that influence behavior. These theories often center on topics such as memory, language, problem-solving, motivation, decision-making, thinking, and attention.

Humanist Theories

During the 1950s, another approach called humanistic psychology emerged and became known as the "third force" in psychology. While psychoanalysis and behaviorism focused primarily on problems, humanism took a more positive approach to explaining and understanding human behavior.

Humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow focused on individual strengths and the innate goodness of people. Many psychology theories that emerged from the humanist perspective continue to have an impact today, particularly in the field of positive psychology.

Biopsychological Theories

Theories that take a biopsychological perspective focus on understanding how biological processes influence human thought and behavior. This perspective often focuses on how things like genetics, brain structure, brain chemistry, and other biological factors affect the mind and body.

Personality Theories

Personality theories focus on understanding the patterns of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that make each person unique. Such theories try to explain how personality develops and how it may change over life.

Examples of Psychological Theories

It can be helpful to look at some specific examples of psychology theories to better see how such frameworks can help researchers better understand a specific phenomena.

Some popular theories in psychology include:

Piaget's theory of cognitive development: This theory focuses on explaining intellectual develop in kids starting at birth up through adolescense.

Social learning theory: This theory focuses on how social influences contribute to learning processes.

Classical conditioning: This theory explains how people learn through conditioned associations.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs: This theory explains human motivation by identifying different human needs, starting at the most basic and moving up to the more complex.

Importance of Psychological Theories

Psychological theories serve an important role. They can help guide research so that psychologists can better answer important questions about human thought and behavior.

Such theories can also:

Help researchers determine which approaches are most successful for dealing with specific problems

Help psychologists better understand the long-term effects of human behavior

Provide answers about why people do the things they do

Discover factors that play an important role in mental health and well-being

Key Points to Remember

Psychological research has inspired many theories to explain how and why people think, act, and feel the way they do.

Some significant psychological theories include psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism, cognitive theory, and biopsychological theories.

Understanding these theories can help provide insight into how the field of psychology came to be where it is today.

It can also help professionals better understand some of the factors that affect mental health.

Sources:

Rawat, T., & Jain, S. (2022). Depression detection: Approaches, challenges and future directions. In Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Mental Health in Pandemics (pp. 209-234). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91196-2.00002-8

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What Are Psychological Theories? - Explore Psychology

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Psychological theories focus on different topics such as learning, personality, and development. They seek to explain aspects of thought and behavior.

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Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait like Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time.

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Simply Psychology | Self-Care, Theories, Famous Studies & More

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We're committed to being your expert and trustworthy source for psychology theories, relationship advice, and mental health information. Whether you want to learn about theories or studies, understand a mental health disorder, or how to improve your relationships, get the guidance you need to be healthy and happy.

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Many famous experiments studying human behavior have impacted our fundamental understanding of psychology. Though some could not be repeated today due to breaches in ethical boundaries, that does not diminish the significance of those psychological studies. Some of these important findings include a greater awareness of depression and its symptoms, how people learn behaviors through the process of association and how individuals conform to a group.

Below, we take a look at seven famous psychological experiments that greatly influenced the field of psychology and our understanding of human behavior.

The Little Albert Experiment, 1920

A John's Hopkins University professor, Dr. John B. Watson, and a graduate student wanted to test a learning process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves learning involuntary or automatic behaviors by association, and Dr. Watson thought it formed the bedrock of human psychology.

A nine-month-old toddler, dubbed "Albert B," was volunteered for Dr. Watson and Rosalie Rayner 's experiment. Albert played with white furry objects, and at first, the toddler displayed joy and affection. 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.

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. This is a great example of experimental study psychology.

Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971

Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo wanted to learn how individuals conformed to societal roles. He wondered, for example, whether the tense relationship between prison guards and inmates in jails had more to do with the personalities of each or the environment.

During Zimbardo's experiment, 24 male college students were assigned to be either a prisoner or a guard. The prisoners were held in a makeshift prison inside the basement of Stanford's psychology department. They went through a standard booking process designed to take away their individuality and make them feel anonymous. Guards were given eight-hour shifts and tasked to treat the prisoners just like they would in real life.

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.

The Asch Conformity Study, 1951

Solomon Asch, a Polish-American social psychologist, 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.

In his experiment, Asch selected 50 male college students to participate in a "vision test." Individuals would have to determine which line on a card was longer. However, the individuals at the center of the experiment did not know that the other people taking the test were actors following scripts, and at times selected the wrong answer on purpose. 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.

The Bobo Doll Experiment, 1961, 1963

Stanford University professor Albert Bandura wanted to put the social learning theory into action. Social learning theory suggests that people can acquire new behaviors "through direct experience or by observing the behavior of others." Using a Bobo doll, which is a blow-up toy in the shape of a life-size bowling pin, Bandura and his team tested whether children witnessing acts of aggression would copy them.

Bandura and two colleagues selected 36 boys and 36 girls between the ages of 3 and 6 from the Stanford University nursery and split them into three groups of 24. One group watched adults behaving aggressively toward the Bobo doll. In some cases, the adult subjects hit the doll with a hammer or threw it in the air. 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.

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.

The Learned Helplessness Experiment, 1965

Martin Seligman wanted to research a different angle related to Dr. Watson's study of classical conditioning. In studying conditioning with dogs, Seligman made an astute observation: the subjects, which had already been conditioned to expect a light electric shock if they heard a bell, would sometimes give up after another negative outcome, rather than searching for the positive outcome.

Under normal circumstances, animals will always try to get away from negative outcomes. When Seligman tested his experiment on animals who hadn't been previously conditioned, the animals attempted to find a positive outcome. Oppositely, the dogs who had been already conditioned to expect a negative response assumed there would be another negative response waiting for them, even in a different situation.

The conditioned dogs' behavior became known as learned helplessness, the idea that some subjects won't try to get out of a negative situation because past experiences have forced them to believe they are helpless. The study's findings shed light on depression and its symptoms in humans.

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The Milgram Experiment, 1963

In the wake of the horrific atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II, Stanley Milgram wanted to test the levels of obedience to authority. The Yale University professor wanted to study if people would obey commands, even when it conflicted with the person's conscience.

Participants of the condensed study, 40 males between the ages of 20 and 50, were split into learners and teachers. Though it seemed random, actors were always chosen as the learners, and unsuspecting participants were always the teachers. A learner was strapped to a chair with electrodes in one room while the experimenter äóñ another actor äóñ and a teacher went into another.

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.

As the voltage of the shocks increased and the teachers became aware of the believed pain caused by them, some refused to continue the experiment. After prodding by the experimenter, 65 percent resumed. From the study, Milgram devised the agency theory, which suggests that people allow others to direct their actions because they believe the authority figure is qualified and will accept responsibility for the outcomes. Milgram's findings help explain how people can make decisions against their own conscience, such as when participating in a war or genocide.

The Halo Effect Experiment, 1977

University of Michigan professors Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson were interested in following up a study from 50 years earlier on a concept known as the halo effect. In the 1920s, American psychologist Edward Thorndike researched a phenomenon in the U.S. military that showed cognitive bias. This is an error in how we think that affects how we perceive people and make judgements and decisions based on those perceptions.

In 1977, Nisbett and Wilson tested the halo effect using 118 college students (62 males, 56 females). Students were divided into two groups and were asked to evaluate a male Belgian teacher who spoke English with a heavy accent. Participants were shown one of two videotaped interviews with the teacher on a television monitor. The first interview showed the teacher interacting cordially with students, and the second interview showed the teacher behaving inhospitably. The subjects were then asked to rate the teacher's physical appearance, mannerisms, and accent on an eight-point scale from appealing to irritating.

Nisbett and Wilson found that on physical appearance alone, 70 percent of the subjects rated the teacher as appealing when he was being respectful and irritating when he was cold. When the teacher was rude, 80 percent of the subjects rated his accent as irritating, as compared to nearly 50 percent when he was being kind.

The updated study on the halo effect shows that cognitive bias isn't exclusive to a military environment. Cognitive bias can get in the way of making the correct decision, whether it's during a job interview or deciding whether to buy a product that's been endorsed by a celebrity we admire.

How Experiments Have Impacted Psychology Today

Contemporary psychologists have built on the findings of these studies to better understand human behaviors, mental illnesses, and the link between the mind and body. For their contributions to psychology, Watson, Bandura, Nisbett and Zimbardo were all awarded Gold Medals for Life Achievement from the American Psychological Foundation. Become part of the next generation of influential psychologists with King University's online bachelor's in psychology. Take advantage of King University's flexible online schedule and complete the major coursework of your degree in as little as 16 months. Plus, as a psychology major, King University will prepare you for graduate school with original research on student projects as you pursue your goal of being a psychologist.

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7 Famous Psychology Experiments | King University Online

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Many famous psychology experiments studying human behavior have impacted our fundamental understanding of the mind, mental illnesses, and more.

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The field of psychology is a very broad field comprised of many smaller specialty areas. Each of these specialty areas has been strengthened over the years by research studies designed to prove or disprove theories and hypotheses that pique the interests of psychologists throughout the world.

While each year thousands and thousands of studies are completed in the many specialty areas of psychology, there are a handful that, over the years, have had a lasting impact in the psychological community as a whole. Some of these were dutifully conducted, keeping within the confines of ethical and practical guidelines. Others pushed the boundaries of the field and created controversies that still linger to this day. And still others were not designed to be true psychological experiments, but ended up as beacons to the psychological community in proving or disproving theories.

This is a list of the 25 most influential psychological experiments still being taught to psychology students of today.

1. A Class Divided

Study Conducted By: Jane Elliott
Study Conducted in 1968 in an Iowa classroom
Experiment Details: Jane Elliott's famous experiment was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inspirational life that he led. The third grade teacher developed an exercise to help her Caucasian students understand the effects of racism and prejudice.

Elliott divided her class into two separate groups: blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. On the first day, she labeled the blue-eyed group as the superior group and from that point forward they had extra privileges, leaving the brown-eyed children to represent the minority group. She discouraged the groups from interacting and singled out individual students to stress the negative characteristics of the children in the minority group. What this exercise showed was that the children's behavior changed almost instantaneously. The group of blue-eyed students performed better academically and even began bullying their brown-eyed classmates. The brown-eyed group experienced lower self-confidence and worse academic performance. The next day, she reversed the roles of the two groups and the blue-eyed students became the minority group.

At the end of the experiment, the children were so relieved that they were reported to have embraced one another and agreed that people should not be judged based on outward appearances. This exercise has since been repeated many times with similar outcomes.
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2. Asch Conformity Study

Study Conducted by: Dr. Solomon Asch
Study Conducted in 1951 at Swarthmore College

Experiment Details: Dr. Solomon Asch conducted a groundbreaking study that was designed to evaluate a person's likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so.

A group of participants were shown pictures with lines of various lengths and were then asked a simple question: Which line is longest? The tricky part of this study was that in each group only one person was a true participant. The others were actors with a script. Most of the actors were instructed to give the wrong answer. Strangely, the one true participant almost always agreed with the majority, even though they knew they were giving the wrong answer.

The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right.
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3. Bobo Doll Experiment

Study Conducted by: Dr. Alburt Bandura
Study Conducted between 1961-1963 at Stanford University
In his groundbreaking study he separated participants into three groups: one was exposed to a video of an adult showing aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll; another was exposed to video of a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll; and the third formed a control group. Children watched their assigned video and then were sent to a room with the same doll they had seen in the video (with the exception of those in the control group). What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards the doll themselves, while the other groups showed little imitative aggressive behavior. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of derivative physical aggressions shown by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The study also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104 compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models. While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7 compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls who were exposed to aggressive male models. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura's secondary prediction that children will be more strongly influenced by same-sex models.
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4. Car Crash Experiment

Study Conducted by: Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer
Study Conducted in 1974 at The University of California in Irvine
The participants watched slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses to the scene. The participants were put into two groups and each group was questioned using different wording such as "how fast was the car driving at the time of impact?" versus "how fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?" The experimenters found that the use of different verbs affected the participants' memories of the accident, showing that memory can be easily distorted.

This research suggests that memory can be easily manipulated by questioning technique, meaning that information gathered after the event can merge with original memory causing incorrect recall or reconstructive memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is now referred to as confabulation. This concept has very important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.
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5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

Study Conducted by: Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith
Study Conducted in 1957 at Stanford University
Experiment Details: The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This conflict produces an inherent feeling of discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to minimize or eliminate the discomfort and restore balance.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, after an observational study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Out of this study was born an intriguing experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith where participants were asked to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant's initial attitudes toward this task were highly negative. They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a participant waiting in the lobby that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next participant that the boring experiment would be fun. When the participants were later asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie. Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs and there is therefore no dissonance.
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6. Fantz's Looking Chamber

Study Conducted by: Robert L. Fantz
Study Conducted in 1961 at the University of Illinois
Experiment Details: The study conducted by Robert L. Fantz is among the simplest, yet most important in the field of infant development and vision. In 1961, when this experiment was conducted, there very few ways to study what was going on in the mind of an infant. Fantz realized that the best way to figure out this puzzle was to simply watch the actions and reactions of infants. He understood the fundamental factor that if there is something of interest near humans, they generally look at it.

To test this concept, Fantz set up a display board with two pictures attached. On one was a bulls-eye and on the other was the sketch of a human face. This board was hung in a chamber where a baby could lie safely underneath and see both images. Then, from behind the board, invisible to the baby, he peeked through a hole to watch what the baby looked at. This study showed that a two-month old baby looked twice as much at the human face as it did at the bulls-eye. This suggests that human babies have some powers of pattern and form selection. Before this experiment it was thought that babies looked out onto a chaotic world of which they could make little sense.
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7. Hawthorne Effect

Study Conducted by: Henry A. Landsberger
Study Conducted in 1955 at Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois
Landsberger performed the study by analyzing data from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to evaluate whether the level of light within a building changed the productivity of the workers. What Mayo found was that the level of light made no difference in productivity, as the workers increased their output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa. The researchers noticed a tendency that the workers' level of efficiency increased when any variable was manipulated. The study showed that the output changed simply because the workers were aware that they were under observation. The conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out, and increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon. The Hawthorne Effect has become one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design of any experiment in psychology and beyond.
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8. Kitty Genovese Case

Study Conducted by: New York Police Force
Study Conducted in 1964 in New York City
Experiment Details: The murder case of Kitty Genovese was never intended to be a psychological experiment, however it ended up having serious implications for the field.

According to a New York Times article, almost forty neighbors witnessed the event of Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964, but not one neighbor called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to "finish off" his victim. It was later uncovered that many of these facts were exaggerated (there were more likely only a dozen witnesses and records show that some calls to police were made).

What this case later become famous for is the "Bystander Effect," which states that the more bystanders that are present in a social situation, the less likely it is that anyone will step in and help. This effect has led to changes in medicine, psychology and many other areas. One famous example is the way CPR is taught to new learners. All students in CPR courses learn that they must assign one bystander the job of alerting authorities which minimizes the chances of no one calling for assistance.
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9. Learned Helplessness Experiment

Study Conducted by: Martin Seligman
Study Conducted in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania
Seligman's experiment 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. During the course of this study something unexpected happened. Each dog was placed in a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence and the dog could see and jump over the fence easily. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman placed each dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence. In an unexpected turn, the dogs simply laid down. The hypothesis was that as the dogs learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, they gave up in the second part of the experiment. To prove this hypothesis the experimenters brought in a new set of animals and found that dogs with no history in the experiment would jump over the fence.

This condition was described as learned helplessness, where a human or animal does not attempt to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught them that they are helpless.
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10. Little Albert Experiment

Study Conducted by: John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner
Study Conducted in 1920 at Johns Hopkins University
The experiment began by placing a white rat in front of the infant, who initially had no fear of the animal. Watson then produced a loud sound by striking a steel bar with a hammer every time little Albert was presented with the rat. After several pairings (the noise and the presentation of the white rat), the boy began to cry and exhibit signs of fear every time the rat appeared in the room. Watson also created similar conditioned reflexes with other common animals and objects (rabbits, Santa beard, etc.) until Albert feared them all.

This study proved that classical conditioning works on humans. One of the most important implications this finding has is that adult fears are often connected to early childhood experiences.
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11. Magical Number Seven

Study Conducted by: George A. Miller
Study Conducted in 1956 at Princeton University
Experiment Details: Frequently referred to as " Miller's Law," the Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. What this means is that the human memory capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

The Magical Number Seven Experiment was published in 1956 by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University's Department of Psychology in Psychological Review. In the article, Miller discussed a concurrence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory. In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (such as 10 different tones varying only in pitch) and responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before). Performance is almost perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a human's maximum performance on one-dimensional absolute judgment can be described as an information store with the maximum capacity of approximately 2 to 3 bits of information, with the ability to distinguish between four and eight alternatives.
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12. Pavlov's Dog Experiment

Study Conducted by: Ivan Pavlov
Study Conducted in the 1890s at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia
Pavlov began with the simple idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. Specific to his study he observed that dogs do not learn to salivate when they see food. This reflex is "hard wired" into the dog. In what became "behaviorist terms," this is an unconditioned response (a stimulus-response connection that required no learning). Pavlov outlined that there are unconditioned responses in the animal by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and then measuring its salivary secretions. In the experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus (meaning it does not elicit any innate response). Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. What he found was that the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food and this learning created a new behavior, the dog salivated when he heard the bell. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

This theory came to be known as classical conditioning (further developed by experimenter and psychologist John Watson) and involves learning to associate an unconditioned stimulus that already brings about a particular response (i.e., a reflex) with a new (conditioned) stimulus, so that the new stimulus brings about the same response.
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13. Robbers Cave Experiment

Study Conducted by: Muzafer and Carolyn Sherif
Study Conducted in 1954 at the University of Oklahoma
Experiment Details: 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. 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 housed in separate cabins and neither group knew of the other's existence for an entire week. The boys bonded with their cabin mates during that time. Once the two groups were allowed to have contact, they showed definite signs of prejudice and hostility toward each other even though they had only been given a very short time to develop their social group. 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. At the end of the experiment, the boys decided to ride the same bus home, demonstrating that conflict can be resolved and prejudice overcome through cooperation.

Many critics have compared this study to Golding's Lord of the Flies novel as a classic example of prejudice and conflict resolution.
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14. Ross' False Consensus Effect Study

Study Conducted by: Lee Ross
Study Conducted in 1977 at Stanford University
Experiment Details: In 1977, a social psychology professor at Stanford University named Lee Ross conducted an experiment that, in lay terms, focuses on how people can incorrectly conclude that others think the same way they do, or form a "false consensus" about the beliefs and preferences of others. Ross conducted the study in order to outline how the "false consensus effect" functions in humans.

In the first part of the study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then were told two alternative ways of responding to the situation. They were asked to do three things:

Guess which option other people would choose

Say which option they themselves would choose

Describe the attributes of the person who would likely choose each of the two options

What the study showed was that most of the subjects believed that other people would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves. This phenomenon is referred to as the false consensus effect, where an individual thinks that other people think the same way they do when they may not. The second observation coming from this important study is that when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the people who will likely make the choice opposite of their own, they made bold and sometimes negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.
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15. The Schacter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Study Conducted by: Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer
Study Conducted in 1962 at Columbia University
Experiment Details: In 1962 Schachter and Singer conducted a ground breaking experiment to prove their theory of emotion.

In the study, a group of 184 male participants were injected with epinephrine, a hormone that induces arousal including increased heartbeat, trembling, and rapid breathing. The research participants were told that they were being injected with a new medication to test their eyesight. The first group of participants was informed the possible side effects that the injection might cause while the second group of participants were not. The participants were then placed in a room with someone they thought was another participant, but was actually a confederate in the experiment. The confederate acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry. Participants who had not been informed about the effects of the injection were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than those who had been informed.

What Schachter and Singer were trying to understand was the ways in which cognition or thoughts influence human emotion. Their study illustrates the importance of how people interpret their physiological states, which form an important component of your emotions. Though their cognitive theory of emotional arousal dominated the field for two decades, it has been criticized for two main reasons: the size of the effect seen in the experiment was not that significant and other researchers had difficulties repeating the experiment.
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16. Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment

Study Conducted by: Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris
Study Conducted in 1999 at Harvard University
Experiment Details: In 1999 Simons and Chabris conducted their famous awareness test at Harvard University.

Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. The video moves at a moderate pace and keeping track of the passes is a relatively easy task. 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.

The study found that the majority of the subjects did not notice the gorilla at all, proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task. What the study set out to prove is that when people are asked to attend to one task, they focus so strongly on that element that they may miss other important details.
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17. Stanford Prison Study

Study Conducted By Philip Zimbardo
Study Conducted in 1971 at Stanford University
The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study behavior of "normal" individuals when assigned a role of prisoner or guard. College students were recruited to participate and were assigned roles of "guard" or "inmate" and Zimbardo played the role of the warden. The basement of the psychology building was the set of the prison and great care was taken to make it look and feel as realistic as possible. The prison guards were told to run a prison for two weeks. They were told not to physically harm any of the inmates during the study. After a few days, the prison guards became very abusive verbally towards the inmates and many of the prisoners became submissive to those in authority roles. The experiment inevitably had to be cancelled because some of the participants displayed troubling signs of breaking down mentally.

Although the experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational and that people will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right.
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18. Stanley Milgram Experiment

Study Conducted By Stanley Milgram
Study Conducted in 1961 at Stanford University
Experiment Details: The 1961 study conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram was designed to measure people's willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.

Participants were told they were participating in a study on memory. They were asked to watch another person (who was actually an actor) do a memory test and were instructed to press a button that gave an electric shock each time the person got a wrong answer (the actor did not actually 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. The experimenters asked the participants to keep increasing the shocks and most of them obeyed even though the individual completing the memory test appeared to be in great pain. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to, increasing the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal 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.
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19. Surrogate Mother Experiment

Study Conducted by: Harry Harlow
Study Conducted from 1957-1963 at the University of Wisconsin
Experiment Details: In a series of controversial experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harry Harlow studied the importance of a mother's love for healthy childhood development.

In order to do this he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be raised by two "surrogate mothers." One of the surrogates was made of wire with an attached bottle for food; the other was made of soft terrycloth but lacked food. What the researcher found was that the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother, thereby proving that affection plays a greater role than sustenance when it comes to childhood development. They also found that the monkeys that spent more time cuddling the soft mother grew up to be more healthy.

This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.
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20. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Study Conducted by: John Darley and Daniel Batson
Study Conducted in 1973 at The Princeton Theological Seminary (Researchers were from Princeton University)
Experiment Details: In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behavior. The experiment researchers set out three hypotheses they wanted to test:

People thinking about religion and higher principles would be no more inclined to show helping behavior than laymen.

People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behavior.

People who are religious for personal gain would be less likely to help than people who are religious because they want to gain some spiritual and personal insights into the meaning of life.

Student participants were given some religious teaching and instruction and then were told to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying injured and appearing to be in dire need of assistance. The first variable being tested was the degree of urgency impressed upon the subjects, with some being told not to rush and others being informed that speed was of the essence.

The results of the experiment were intriguing, with the haste of the subject proving to be the overriding factor. When the subject was in no hurry, nearly two-thirds of people stopped to lend assistance. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten. People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to help as those delivering other sermons, showing that the thoughts of the individual were a factor in determining helping behavior. Religious beliefs did not appear to make much difference on the results; being religious for personal gain, or as part of a spiritual quest, did not appear to make much of a noticeable impact on the amount of helping behavior shown.
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21. The Halo Effect Experiment

Study Conducted by: Richard E. Nisbett and Timothy DeCamp Wilson
Study Conducted in 1977 at the University of Michigan
Experiment Details: The Halo Effect states that people generally assume that people who are physically attractive are more likely to be intelligent, friendly, and display good judgment. In order to prove their theory Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson created a study to prove that people have little awareness of the nature of the Halo Effect, and that it influences their personal judgments, inferences and the production of a more complex social behavior.

In the experiment, college students were the research participants and were asked to evaluate a psychology instructor as they view him in a videotaped interview. The students were randomly assigned to one of two groups, and each group was shown one of two different interviews with the same instructor who is a native French-speaking Belgian who spoke English with a fairly noticeable accent. In the first video, the instructor presented himself as someone likable, respectful of his students' intelligence and motives, flexible in his approach to teaching and enthusiastic about his subject matter. In the second interview, he presented himself as much more unlikable. He was cold and distrustful toward the students and was quite rigid in his teaching style.

After watching the videos, the subjects were asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and his accent, even though his mannerisms and accent were kept the same in both versions of videos. The subjects were asked to rate the professor on an 8-point scale ranging from "like extremely" to "dislike extremely." Subjects were also told that the researchers were interested in knowing "how much their liking for the teacher influenced the ratings they just made." Other subjects were asked to identify how much the characteristics they just rated influenced their liking of the teacher.

After responding to the questionnaire, the respondents were puzzled about their reactions to the videotapes and to the questionnaire items. The students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings. Most said that how much they liked the lecturer from what he said had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all. The interesting thing about this study is that people can understand the phenomenon, but they are unaware when it is occurring. Without realizing it, humans make judgments and even when it is pointed out, they may still deny that it is a product of the halo effect phenomenon.
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22. The Marshmallow Test

Study Conducted by: Walter Mischel
Study Conducted in 1972 at Stanford University
In his 1972 Marshmallow Experiment children ages four to six were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed on the table in front of them on a table. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room, the experimenter informed them that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after they returned in 15 minutes. The examiner recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and noted whether it correlated with the child's success in adulthood. A small number of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately and one-third delayed gratification long enough to receive the second marshmallow.

In follow-up studies, Mischel found that those who deferred gratification were significantly more competent and received higher SAT scores than their peers, meaning that this characteristic likely remains with a person for life. While this study seems simplistic, the findings outline some of the foundational differences in individual traits that can predict success.
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23. The Monster Study

Study Conducted by: Wendell Johnson
Study Conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa
Experiment Details: The Monster Study received this negative title due to the unethical methods that were used to determine the effects of positive and negative speech therapy on children.

Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa selected twenty-two orphaned children, some with stutters and some without. The children were in two groups and the group of children with stutters was placed in positive speech therapy, where they were praised for their fluency. The non-stutterers were placed in negative speech therapy, where they were disparaged for every mistake in grammar that they made. As a result of the experiment, some of the children who received negative speech therapy suffered psychological effects and retained speech problems for the rest of their lives, making them examples of the significance of positive reinforcement in education.

While the initial goal of the study was to investigate positive and negative speech therapy, the implication spanned much further into methods of teaching for young children.
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24. Violinist at the Metro Experiment

Study Conducted by: Staff at the Washington Post
Study Conducted in 2007 at a Washington D.C. Metro Train Station
During the study, pedestrians rushed by without realizing that the musician playing at the entrance to the metro stop was Grammy-winning musician, Joshua Bell, who, two days before his playing in the subway, sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats average $100. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. In the 45 minutes the musician played his violin, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. Around 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The study and the subsequent article organized by the Washington Post was part of a social experiment looking at perception, taste and the priorities of people. Gene Weingarten wrote about the Washington Post social experiment ("In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?") and later won a Pulitzer Prize for his story. Some of the questions the article addresses are: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? As it turns out, many of us are not nearly as perceptive to our environment as we might like to think.
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25. Visual Cliff Experiment

Study Conducted by: Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk
Study Conducted in 1959 at Cornell University
Experiment Details: In 1959, psychologists Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to study depth perception in infants. They wanted to know if depth perception is a learned behavior or if it is something that we are born with. In order to study this, Gibson and Walk conducted the visual cliff experiment.

Gibson and Walk studied 36 infants between the ages of six and 14 months, all of whom could crawl. The infants were placed one at a time on a visual cliff, which is this device seen above. A visual cliff was created using a large glass table that was raised about a foot off the floor. Half of the glass table had a checker pattern underneath in order to create the appearance of a 'shallow side.' In order to create a 'deep side,' a checker pattern was created on the floor; this side is the visual cliff. Even though the glass table extends all the way across, the placement of the checker pattern on the floor creates the illusion of a sudden drop-off. Researchers placed a foot-wide centerboard between the shallow side and the deep side. Gibson and Walk found the following:

Nine of the infants did not move off the centerboard.

All of the 27 infants who did move crossed into the shallow side when their mothers called them from the shallow side.

Three of the infants crawled off the visual cliff toward their mother when called from the deep side.

When called from the deep side, the remaining 24 children either crawled to the shallow side or cried because they could not cross the visual cliff and make it to their mother.

What this study helped demonstrate is that depth perception is likely an inborn train in humans.
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Among these experiments and psychological tests, we see boundaries pushed and theories taking on a life of their own. It is through the endless stream of psychological experimentation that we can see simple hypotheses become guiding theories for those in this field. The greater field of psychology became a formal field of experimental study in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated solely to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Since 1879, psychology has grown into a massive collection of theories, concept, hypotheses, methods of practice and study and a specialty area within the field of healthcare. None of this would have been possible without these and many other important psychological experiments that have stood the test of time.
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After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University and then a Master of Science in Clinical and Forensic Psychology from Drexel University, Kristen began a career as a therapist at two prisons in Philadelphia. At the same time she volunteered as a rape crisis counselor, also in Philadelphia. After a few years in the field she accepted a teaching position at a local college where she currently teaches online psychology courses. Kristen began writing in college and still enjoys her work as a writer, editor, professor and mother.

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