Psychology Experiment

[Catchy Slogan]

We did something similar on my course. Someone in my goup asked people to remember a set of words i.e. sill, curtain, rail, wall, house, glass etc... all things to do with a window, but the word window wasn't in the list, and see how many people remember you saying window.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Escapists assemble, I need your help.

We are about to start our personal investigations in my psychology class. Basically we have the whole term to conduct our own experiment that is based on something psychological. I need some ideas for an experiment and I thought what better then the brilliant minds of the escapist forums.

In case your're wondereing, yes we can use test subjects but old lady ethics will be rearing her ugly head in.

Whoo, brainstorm.

Do a case study, we all know how valid they are *nerd wink*

 

[Exterminas]

Make five envelopes numbered 1-5 and hold them infront of passangers, ask them to pick one. Everybody will pick number 3.

 

[socialmenace42]

Yes, perhapse it's an experiment to measure peoples reactions after being manipulated.

Or indeed to gaugue how paranoid people are and how quickly they will believe they are the subject of an experiment

 

[Joe Deadman]

Maybe this is the real experiment, maybe it's not, maybe it is, maybe it's not.

Dance puppets, dance.

*Does a little jig* There, happy?!?!?

OT: weeeelll theres lots of things you could try really.
How 'bout doing a proper study into violence and video games?
Or even on how different types of music effect people?
Although I like that pointing in the sky suggestion by Penguins4Freedom personally.

 

[asmidir]

Make five envelopes numbered 1-5 and hold them infront of passangers, ask them to pick one. Everybody will pick number 3.

And you base this on?

 

[Exterminas]

Make five envelopes numbered 1-5 and hold them infront of passangers, ask them to pick one. Everybody will pick number 3.

And you base this on?

I once visited a seminar about psychology in economy. The person who held the seminar demonstrated that at the beginning. Of course not *everyone* will go for the middle, but most people will do. The majority of the rest will go for one of the outer sides, like 1 or 5. If I recall right it had something to do with a feeling of safety that gets evoked by going for the middle.

 

[Fusoiya]

I did a experiment once for class, I'd stand next to a cycling road against the street and stop girls when they passed by and ask them if what they would think if I told them they where cute. I gave em one of three answers;

A, I'm anoyed and you just wasted my time.
B, I'm flattered and happy I got such a nice compliment. (a.k.a. I was worth stopping for)
or C, I'm flattered but still anoyed by the fact of you stopping me in the midst of my way to school.

The outcome as far as I remember was about (Out of 50 test subjects)
A: 15
B: 25
C: 10

Proving (well proving is a strong word) that "most" girls(any typ of girl) do infact enjoy getting complimented no matter what the situation.

(Also it's been a while since I actually handed in the test results so the numbers might be off(also the options A to C sound much more appealing in my langauge)

 

[theonewhois3]

Pareidolia could be interesting but i don't know how over done it is. Link pareidolia to extreme beliefs like UFO's and conspiracy theories?

 

[Penguins4Freedom]

ANOTHER IDEA!

Me and a friend were both wearing hoodies and so we stood with our hoods up talking to one another on the pavement. Now the pavement was wide enough for 4 people to go astride so people could easily walk by. We decided to see how many people crossed the other side of the road. In ten minutes, 4 out of 5 people crossed the road. Shows how scared people are of hoodie wearing yoofs.

I'm not sure wether any of these things are psychological enough for you, but they did make me laugh.

 

[lovetropicana]

play scissors paper rock with strangers and record their first answers and facial expressions, along with other visible clues to their personality types, such as appearance, articulation and smell
great now i just want to do this myself

 

[JoshGod]

nick others research
for e.g. did you know that men or women will withstand more pain if its given out by a women.

i know, see how many people chase after you when you nick their belongings.

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

Stand around pointing at the sky and see how many people you can get to look up. I got 128 in 20 mins.... I WAS BORED!

What?! There is nothing interesting in the sky as far as I can see... oh wait, I saw what you did there!

play scissors paper rock with strangers and record their first answers and facial expressions, along with other visible clues to their personality types, such as appearance, articulation and smell
great now i just want to do this myself

You want to smell people?! That sounds odd.

OP: You could study people phobias.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

get some friends to make a line out side a building with you, see how many people join the line.

or when you see a police man walking towards you. look scared and run the other way, see if he chases you.

 

[mad825]

Lol, I had to do this as well, if you want to you can do a survey based on Kohlberg's stages of moral development but actually add females to the experiment.

you can do this to either prove or disprove his idea by seeing if there is a diffrence between the sexes and/or culture boundaries (of course if you going to actually include them)

 

[cartzo]

spend the entire day talking out loud to the sky in public, and see the reaction of religious types as they walk past.

 

[Gildae]

Depends on how much of a time/budget you have... You could always add a variable to the Milgram experiments and talk about that....

 

[Dungus]

A variant on Pavlov's dog perhaps? Just combine a sound or action with a subtle reward and see how long it takes for them to expect the reward when the sound is heard or action is done.

Like this one from the office (bad quality):

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

 

[Spacelord]

Build a mock prison, divide up your class into two groups: guards and prisoners. And get a camera.

 

[FightThePower]

Depends on how much of a time/budget you have... You could always add a variable to the Milgram experiments and talk about that....

You can't do that anymore, it's against Ethical guidelines.

In case your're wondereing, yes we can use test subjects but old lady ethics will be rearing her ugly head in.

You shouldn't use the word 'subjects' in Psychology. Makes it sound like you're a mad scientist operating on them. Say 'participants' instead...sounds pedantic and it is, but I get marked down if I don't do it.

Anyway, I can't think of any experiments besides the ones I want to do/have done. We did a couple on the effect of branding - we got people to taste different unlabeled makes of chocolate or cola and saw if there was actually any difference in ratings. People always say they prefer Pepsi or Coca-Cola, but actually, they're pretty much identifical; take away the labeling and people rate them equally highly.

I want to do an experiment on whether personsality has any effect on a person's music taste. I think that someone scoring highly on Openness will have more obscure/bizarre music tastes.