GEORGETTE ANN GUEVARA

BS-PSYCHOLOGY
EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
1. THE LITTLE ALBERT EXPERIMENT
At Johns Hopkins University in 1920, John B. Watson conducted a study of classical
conditioning, a phenomenon that pairs a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned
stimulus until they produce the same result. This type of conditioning can create a response
in a person or animal towards an object or sound that was previously neutral. Classical
conditioning is commonly associated with Ivan Pavlov, who rang a bell every time he fed his
dog until the mere sound of the bell caused his dog to salivate.
Watson tested classical conditioning on a 9-month-old baby he called Albert B. The young
boy started the experiment loving animals, particularly a white rat. Watson started pairing
the presence of the rat with the loud sound of a hammer hitting metal. Albert began to
develop a fear of the white rat as well as most animals and furry objects. The experiment is
considered particularly unethical today because Albert was never desensitized to the
phobias that Watson produced in him. (The child died of an unrelated illness at age 6, so
doctors were unable to determine if his phobias would have lasted into adulthood.)

2. ASCH CONFORMITY EXPERIMENTS

Solomon Asch tested conformity at Swarthmore College in 1951 by putting a participant in a
group of people whose task was to match line lengths. Each individual was expected to
announce which of three lines was the closest in length to a reference line. But the
participant was placed in a group of actors, who were all told to give the correct answer
twice then switch to each saying the same incorrect answer. Asch wanted to see whether
the participant would conform and start to give the wrong answer as well, knowing that he
would otherwise be a single outlier.
Thirty-seven of the 50 participants agreed with the incorrect group despite physical
evidence to the contrary. Asch used deception in his experiment without getting informed
consent from his participants, so his study could not be replicated today.

3. THE BYSTANDER EFFECT

Some psychological experiments that were designed to test the bystander effect are
considered unethical by todays standards. In 1968, John Darley and Bibb Latan
developed an interest in crime witnesses who did not take action. They were particularly
intrigued by themurder of Kitty Genovese, a young woman whose murder was
witnessed by many, but still not prevented.

The pair conducted a study at Columbia University in which they would give a participant a
survey and leave him alone in a room to fill out the paper. Harmless smoke would start to
seep into the room after a short amount of time. The study showed that the solo participant
was much faster to report the smoke than participants who had the exact same experience,
but were in a group.
The studies became progressively unethical by putting participants at risk of psychological
harm. Darley and Latan played a recording of an actor pretending to have a seizure in the
headphones of a person, who believed he or she was listening to an actual medical
emergency that was taking place down the hall. Again, participants were much quicker to
react when they thought they were the sole person who could hear the seizure.

4. THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT

Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram hoped to further understand how so many people came
to participate in the cruel acts of the Holocaust. He theorized that people are generally
inclined to obey authority figures, posing the question, Could it be that Eichmann and his
million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all
accomplices? In 1961, he began to conduct experiments of obedience.
Participants were under the impression that they were part of a study of memory. Each
trial had a pair divided into teacher and learner, but one person was an actor, so only one
was a true participant. The drawing was rigged so that the participant always took the role
of teacher. The two were moved into separate rooms and the teacher was given
instructions. He or she pressed a button to shock the learner each time an incorrect
answer was provided. These shocks would increase in voltage each time. Eventually, the
actor would start to complain followed by more and more desperate screaming. Milgram
learned that themajority of participants followed orders to continue delivering shocks
despite the clear discomfort of the learner.
Had the shocks existed and been at the voltage they were labeled, the majority would have
actually killed the learner in the next room. Having this fact revealed to the participant after
the study concluded would be a clear example of psychological harm.

5. HARLOWS MONKEY EXPERIMENTS

In the 1950s, Harry Harlow of the University of Wisconsin tested infant dependency using
rhesus monkeys in his experiments rather than human babies. The monkey was removed
from its actual mother which was replaced with two mothers, one made of cloth and one
made of wire. The cloth mother served no purpose other than its comforting feel whereas
the wire mother fed the monkey through a bottle. The monkey spent the majority of his day
next to the cloth mother and only around one hour a day next to the wire mother, despite
the association between the wire model and food.

Harlow also used intimidation to prove that the monkey found the cloth mother to be
superior. He would scare the infants and watch as the monkey ran towards the cloth model.
Harlow also conducted experiments which isolated monkeys from other monkeys in order to
show that those who did not learn to be part of the group at a young age were unable to
assimilate and mate when they got older. Harlows experiments ceased in 1985 due to
APArules against the mistreatment of animals as well as humans. However,
Department of Psychiatry Chair Ned H. Kalin, M.D. of the University of Wisconsin School of
Medicine and Public Health has recently begun similar experiments that involve isolating
infant monkeys and exposing them to frightening stimuli. He hopes to discover data on
human anxiety, but ismeeting with resistance from animal welfare organizations and the
general public.

6. LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
The ethics of Martin Seligmans experiments on learned helplessness would also be called
into question today due to his mistreatment of animals. In 1965, Seligman and his team
used dogs as subjects to test how one might perceive control. The group would place a dog
on one side of a box that was divided in half by a low barrier. Then they would administer a
shock, which was avoidable if the dog jumped over the barrier to the other half. Dogs
quickly learned how to prevent themselves from being shocked.
Seligmans group then harnessed a group of dogs and randomly administered shocks,
which were completely unavoidable. The next day, these dogs were placed in the box with
the barrier. Despite new circumstances that would have allowed them to escape the painful
shocks, these dogs did not even try to jump over the barrier; they only cried and did not
jump at all, demonstrating learned helplessness.

The Marshmallow Test

Can deferred gratification be an indicator of future success? This is
what Walter Mischel of Stanford University sought to determine 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. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room,
the examiner told them they would receive a second marshmallow if
the first was still on the table after 15 minutes. The examiner
recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and
later noted whether it correlated with the childs success in
adulthood. A minority of the 600 children ate the marshmallow
immediately and one-third deferred 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.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Considered to be one of the most unethical psychological experiments of all time, the Stanford
Prison experiment studied the psychological effects a prison setting could have on behavior. In
1971, a mock prison was constructed in the basement of the psychology building of Stanford
University and 24 male students were randomly selected to play the role of either a prisoner or
prison guard for two weeks. The students adapted to their roles a little too well, becoming
aggressive to the point of inflicting psychological torture. Even psychology professor Philip
Zimbardo, who acted as superintendent of the experiment, proved susceptible to its effects by
allowing the abuse to continue. The study was called off after only six days due to its intensity,
but it proved that situations could provoke certain behaviors, in spite of an individuals natural
tendencies.

Missing Child Experiment

People often fail to notice their surroundings, an idea that was put to the test during a missing
child experiment. A flier with information and a picture about a missing child was posted on the
doors of a busy store. Some people stopped to study the flier while others merely glanced at it
or didnt look at all. What all of these people had in common that they were completely oblivious
of the fact that the boy on the flier was standing right in front of the store. This experiment
demonstrates that humans tend to overlook a lot of the things around them.