Assignment 3
Week 7
We have been studying numerous classic studies in the field of social
psychology. Students are often surprised, and sometimes dismayed, at the
types of methods used in these studies. In particular, the use of deception
is often viewed as morally questionable.
For this assignment, please choose THREE of the following classic studies to
review and then answer each of the following questions for each experiment.
IMPORTANT: Please be sure to copy and paste this document into a new Word
Document and then insert your responses for each question directly below the
question. Do not write a paper in narrative format; this is not a formal
“term paper.” However, your responses must be written in full sentences with
a subject and verb (no sentence fragments or bulleted/numbered lists).
Please select on the following and peruse the ten classic studies discussed.
In case of any difficulty accessing the link, brief descriptions of each of
the ten studies follow below:
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1. Little Albert: John B. Watson studied classical conditioning by taking an
infant who had no previous fear of animals and essentially inducing a phobia
of a white rat. He did so using the principles of classical conditioning
(pairing a loud noise with the introduction of the rat to the baby). The
child then became fearful of the rat even without the loud noise being
present.
2. Asch Conformity: Subjects were placed in a group alongside actors. All
were asked to access the series of lines and say which line was the longest.
The actors gave correct responses, but then began to give incorrect
responses. The majority of the subjects conformed and began to give an
incorrect response as well.
3. Darley & Latané Bystander Effect: Following the brutal murder of Kitty
Genovese in NYC in which there were many witnesses, but no one called
police, these experimenters decided to test the bystander effect. They
simulated several situations, but particularly one in which the subject
overheard a person in the next room (actually a recording) having a seizure
and measured whether subjects who were alone were quicker to act and assist
than those who believed others could overhear the medical emergency as well.
4. Milgram Obedience: In an attempt to understand how Nazi soldiers could
possibly have complied with commands to kill Jews (and other victims of the
Holocaust), Milgram studied obedience. In a rigged situation, participants
drew straws and the subject was assigned the role of teacher. The “student”
(actually a recording) was placed in another room. Whenever the “student”
got an answer wrong, the teacher pressed a button to “shock” the student,
and the shocks got progressively stronger. Milgram was interested to see
what percentage of subjects would “shock” the student to the top of the
board. The majority of subjects did so, although they were visibly
uncomfortable.
5. Harlow’s Monkeys: Although these were animal subjects instead of humans,
there are ethical concerns. Harlow used baby rhesus monkeys and removed the
babies from their mothers, replacing the mother with either a wire “mother”
or a cloth “mother.” The wire mother fed the babies through a bottle, while
the cloth “mother” provided nothing but comfort. Harlow was interested to
see whether the association with food would cause the babies to seek comfort
from the wire mother, but they did not.
6. Seligman’s Learned Helplessness: Seligman used dogs and placed them in a
box with a barrier in the middle. He randomly shocked the dogs through the
floor. Dogs first tried to escape the shocks by jumping over the barrier,
but eventually quit trying to jump and just “took” the shocks because they
were unable to permanently escape the shocks.
7. Sherif’s Robbers’ Cave: Sherif conducted this experiment to test how
groups problem solve and deal with conflict. Boys at a summer camp were
split into two groups, which were kept apart from one another. The
experimenters manipulated competitions between the groups to keep the
conflict/tension between the groups high. Then, Sherif manipulated the
environment so that the camp as a whole faced a problem, such as a water
shortage. After the groups were forced to work together to solve the
problem, they integrated and functioned harmoniously together.
8. Johnson’s Monster Study: This was an early study conducted to test the
causes of stuttering in children. Johnson used a group of orphans and told
half of the group that they had stutters. Although none of the children
actually developed a stutter, they did develop problems with self-esteem
often associated with children who stutter.
9. Elliott’s Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes: In an attempt to demonstrate the effects
of prejudice/discrimination, a teacher (Jane Elliott) divided her class into
blue-eyed and brown-eyed students. She cited phony research that indicated
that one group was superior to the other and then treated that group with
favor throughout the day. It took only one day for the children to begin
acting in accordance with what they had been told. The groups were then
switched, and the same observations were made.
10. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study: Zimbardo recruited college-aged males
to participate in a two-week experiment related to how people behave in
prison. He randomly assigned participants to the roles of “guards” or
“prisoners.” He found that, within a shockingly quick amount of time, guards
became sadistic and prisoners became despondent and helpless. He ultimately
wound up discontinuing the experiment after only six days because of the
potential psychological damage the experiment was having on the subjects.
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Now choose three (3) studies for which you will answer the questions below.
You are free to do outside research on any of them as you please. Then,
select the link below titled “Ethics of Social Psychology Experiments,” save
it onto your hard drive, and enter your responses directly within the saved
document.