Types of Psychology AIM: What are some Important Psychological Experiments? What is Experimental Psychology?  Experimental Psychology is the use of the scientific method to understand behavior and the processes that cause a behavior.  The Scientific Method involves creating a hypothesis (explanation for why things happen), testing the hypothesis by performing an experiment and analyzing the data from the hypothesis to draw a conclusion  Psychological Experiments are important because they help psychologists understand the functions of the mind. What makes an Experiment ethical?  Ethics are defined as a series of moral principles and rules of conduct.  In modern psychology; subjects must be asked if they want to participate,  subjects cannot be deceived,  experiments must be confidential,  and they must be free to leave the experiment at any time. What is Social Psychology? • Social psychology is an attempt to understand how individuals behavior in social situations. • Social psychologists deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others, • They look at the conditions under which certain behavior/actions and feelings occur. • Some of the areas they examine are emotion, morality, character and religion. • • • • • • • • • • Social Psychology Experiments Shopping while black http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkDHuimJRc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhM7Gzlt3sU Interracial parents/children http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-2F6FmzhY Anti-Muslim http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hHUQ0Lp6v4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm8952m9Dk8 Anti-Semitism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRX31HOikws Early Experiments • "The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act." –Stanley Milgram, 1974 • One of the most famous experiments in social psychology is that on obedience. • It was conducted by Milgram in his “electric shock” study, which looked at the role an authority figure plays in shaping behavior. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7YFtiE5EA • ABC can you obey authority • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAs6TNebRfY Why did Milgram conduct his experiment? • Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial of the World War II criminal Adolph Eichmann had begun. • Eichmann’s defense that he was simply following instructions when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused Milgram’s interest. • Method Used in the Milgram Experiment • 40 men were recruited through newspaper ads, and were paid $4.50 to be teachers. • They were told they had to give a series of shocks to people for every incorrect answer they received. • The shock levels started at 30 volts and increasing in 15-volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. • The switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock," "moderate shock" and "danger: severe shock." The final two switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX.“ • As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart condition. • Once the 300-volt level had been reached, the learner banged on the wall and demanded to be released. • Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and refused to answer any more questions. • The men recruited were told if they didn’t respond treat it as a wrong answer and shock them. • Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels. • Many of the recruits became extremely angry at the experimenter. Yet they continued to follow orders all the way to the end. • Why did so many of the participants in this experiment perform a seemingly sadistic act on the instruction of an authority figure? • The presence of an authority figure increased compliance. • The fact that the study was sponsored by Yale led many participants to believe that the experiment must be safe. • The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random. • Participants assumed that the scientist was an expert. • The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous. • "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority" (Milgram, 1974). • http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgr am.htm • The stanford prison experiment • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=760lwYmpXbc • What was the Purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment? • how would the participants react when placed in a simulated prison environment. • If kids who were healthy both psychologically and physically and were placed into a prison-like environment. Would those good people, put in that bad, evil place, would their goodness triumph? • Experiment • The researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of Standford University's psychology building, and then selected 24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners and guards. • The volunteers agreed to participate for a one- to two-week period in exchange for $15 a day. • The simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison cells. Each cell held three prisoners and included three cots. • Other rooms across from the cells were used for the prison guards and warden. • One very small space was designated as the solitary confinement room, and yet another small room served as the prison yard. • The 24 volunteers were then randomly assigned to either the prisoner group or the guard group. • Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison 24-hours a day for the duration of the study. • Guards, on the other hand, were assigned to work in threeman teams for eight-hour shifts. After each shift, guards were allowed to return to their homes until their next shift • What were the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment? • The Stanford Prison Experiment was originally going to last 14 days, it had to be stopped after just six days due to what was happening to the student participants. • The guards became abusive and the prisoners began to show signs of extreme stress and anxiety. • The guards began to behave in ways that were aggressive and abusive toward the prisoners, while the prisoners became passive and depressed. • Five of the prisoners began to experience such severe negative emotions, including crying and acute anxiety, that they had to be released from the study early. • Philip Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the prison guards until one of the graduate students objected to the conditions • "Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class," Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect. • Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their everyday lives or in other situations. • The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real control, became passive and depressed. • The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently cited as an example of unethical research. • The experiment could not be replicated by researchers today because it fails to meet the standards established by numerous ethical codes, including the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association. • Zimbardo acknowledges the ethical problems with the study, suggesting that "although we ended the study a week earlier than planned, we did not end it soon enough.“ • "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." –John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1930 • Behavioral Psychology • Conducted the famous “Little Albert” experiment to prove you could Condition (teach) an infant PHOBIA”S • By todays standards it is considered HIGHLY unethical, and could never be conducted today!!!!!!!!! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI • What is Behavioral Psychology? • It is a branch of psychology based on the belief that behaviors can be measured, trained, and changed. • It is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning. • There are two major types of conditioning: • 1.Classical conditioning and 2. Operant conditioning • Classical Conditioning is a form of learning in which a naturally occurring stimulus is paired with a response • For example dogs salivate when they see food, the food is an unconditioned stimulus • Salivating in an unconditioned response • Pavlov conducted a famous experiment using Classical Conditioning • Pavlov trained the dogs in his lab to start to salivate when he rang a bell. • He conditioned them to respond to a new stimulus, as he brought in the food he rang a bell. • Eventually the dogs salivated without the food and responded to only the bell. • Conditioned stimulus the bell • Conditioned response Salivating. • 2. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLoNYvOf90 • Components of Operant Conditioning / BF Skinner • 1.Positive reinforcers behavior is strengthened by the addition of something, such as praise or a direct reward. • 2.Negative reinforcers In these situations, a response is strengthened by the removal of something considered unpleasant. • We can find examples of operant conditioning at work all around us. Children completing homework to earn a reward from a parent or teacher, or employees finishing projects to receive praise or promotions. Psychoanalytic Theories • These theories emphasize the motives that are hidden deep in the unconscious. • Unconscious- the part of the mind that contains material we are aware of, but that strongly influence our conscious process. Freud • http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1 66290&src_vid=R0w0db2zR7Q&feature=iv&v=Nm7XGiFhKeE • Dreams • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lig53eW2ptg&feature=rela ted • Facts about dreams • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQpfdbpQyg&feature=re lated ID Id- the “container” of instinctual urges. • What the person wants to do. • Ex- food and water Superego Inhibits the socially undesirable impulses of the id. • Concerned with what the person should do. • Ex- like a strict parent Ego The personality process that is mostly conscious. • The ego would recognize that you need food and would search for it. Bomb Shelter • The year is 2080. A nuclear war has occurred. There are 13 people living in a bomb shelter and there is only enough oxygen left for nine people to survive. The class must decide as a majority who gets to stay and which four people must leave. The remaining nine people in the bomb shelter will go on to create an entire new society. The 13 people              35 yr. old black poet Young doctor who is HIV + 16yr. high school dropout , highly intelligent and possibly pregnant Female electrical engineer who graduated from college 2 yrs. Ago Famous male singer who is a recovered alcoholic Reformed prostitute who is now college professor & mother of two Armed policeman who will not relinquish his gun 50 yr. female scientist who specializes in biology and plant life Husband of the scientist who is addicted to cocaine Male computer programmer Professional athlete 12 yr. old boy Catholic priest