 We humans, being social creatures, are always trying to understand each other, how we behave or why we behave the way we do. This makes sense. Being able to get along with each other is beneficial, helping make life easier and more sustainable. One of the ways we've tried to acquire this understanding is through research. Due to our complexities, many different experiments have been held to see if things we think or assume are correct. I hope we generally try to be good people. Most of these experiments were ethically conducted and within accepted official guidelines. Alas, to err is human and occasionally the verb for science has resulted in experiments that pushed ethical limits and created controversy. Even so, these moral missteps still opened researchers to new knowledge. As per usual, it's the unusual that fascinates us. Here are some of the standout, maybe notorious psychological experiments that occurred for real. 1. The Beneficial Brainwashing Experiment Already, you're likely thinking, brainwashing? That's not good. How could it be beneficial? We can understand the confusion with the seemingly oxymoronic label, but it was real and Dr. Donald E. Cameron decided to execute it sometime in the 1950s to 60s era. With the goal in mind of rewiring us to think healthy. The subjects were forced to listen to looped audio messages for long stretches. The theory being that this would enable the psyche to receive the message directly and create new thinking patterns. This was called psychic driving. If you've seen those old-timey ads to learn while you sleep, this experiment is likely where they stemmed from. So why would they think this would work? The accepted belief at the time was that the brain was programmable, like a computer. So could thus be recoded to think healthier? As ridiculous as it might sound now, conditioning is a confirmed psychological phenomenon, leaving open the possibility that the mind can be guided to think a certain way, even if it can't be totally reprogrammed. 2. The Stanford Prison Study Ever have a friend surprise you with uncharacteristically poor treatment? What could have happened? Surely only the diarist of circumstances could make your friend or any of us change our principles, ethics, or fundamental behaviors, right? Philip Zimbardo challenged this with his 1971 study at Stanford Prison. He questioned if specific roles were assigned would that affect our treatment of people. He set the scene with roles of prisoners and guards due to the complex interaction required. The subjects who weren't actually prisoners or guards were assigned the role of one or the other to play act and run a realistic prison scenario for two weeks. Think of it like very intense method training. Surely you think it would take a long period of indoctrination to lose yourself enough for behavior to change, right? 6 days. Yeah, it took all of 6 days for the pseudo guards to start verbally abusing the pseudo prisoners, who in turn started to submit to the pseudo authority. Participants reported the feeling of being psychologically tortured. The situation became so bad the whole thing had to be abandoned. So what did it all mean? It meant that if the conditions were contrived just right, people tend to conform to whatever role is given. This implies our behavior is somewhat situational, instead of deeply irrevocably ingrained, as was previously thought. 3, the blue-eyed, brown-eyed experiment. Ever been discriminated against? Wonder how deep it goes? Well, looks like teacher Jane Elliott was also curious about discrimination and tested it out on her students. In this 1968 experiment, she divvied up the children into two groups, the blue-eyed and the brown-eyed. And this is starting off sounding disturbingly like something a toothbrush mustachioed man did in the 40s, although I'm sure it's just because the two most common eye colors are blue and brown. The first day was to create a division between the groups by assigning a status of superiority to the blue group, and basically playing favorites while treating the brown group the opposite way. The blue group in response started behaving superior in attitude and doing better schoolwork while the brown group started behaving inferior, becoming more timid with increased difficulty with schoolwork. The second day, one week later, the roles were reversed, playing favorites to the brown group. Although the resulting behavior did change, the effect was not nearly as intense as the first time, demonstrating the presence of residual damage. Consider this, the entire experiment only took a few hours and involved a single classroom of children. The better treatment was fairly minor, like five extra minutes at recess or access to the new jungle gym. Imagine the exponential impact when you lengthen that time to decades, the population to several million, and the issues being things like wages or healthcare. The fact that the role reversal didn't result in an equal but opposite result means no simple quick switch was going to undo the initial damage. Not only can discrimination be instilled at an early age, but also gives notice to how long lasting and entrenched the effects can be. Four, the monster study. If you heard someone was experimenting on orphans, what would you call them? A monster? Well, you're in good company, because that's exactly what Wendell Johnson was called by his peers for his 1939 experiment. Yes, he did use orphans, some of whom were stutterers. He used 22 in fact. His hypothesis was that he might be able to train out stuttering and wanted to see what effects positive or negative reinforcement gave. He proceeded to divide them up into groups with half of them being treated well, given praise for fluency and hopeful assurance. The other half were belittled for every imperfection, and if they didn't have a stutter before, they were told they were getting one, then criticized. To note, this made no difference to the status of stuttering. It can't just be trained out. The biggest impact was what happened to the negative feedback group. Results ranged from loss of self-esteem to becoming a recluse, among other psychological issues. These psychological scars persisted and affected them for their entire lives. Five, the Milgram experiment. When was the last time you stood up to someone? Okay, now how about the last time you stood up to someone in a position of authority, like a professor or your manager? A little scarier, right? Stanley Milgram decided to see how far that could be pushed in his 1961 experiment. The general setup was that the subject, who was being assured payment, even if they stopped part way through, would be told by an authority figure, called the experimenter, to give electric shock punishment to a student when a wrong answer is given. The subject is aware that each wrong answer would have a progressively increased voltage. Personally, this already sounds bad, but I suppose things were different in 1961. What the subject doesn't know is that there is no electric shock. The student is an actor and the administrator is following a script. It was found that despite the voltage getting to fatal levels with some simple prodding from the administrator, around two-thirds of the subjects continued pressing that button, even when the student would scream and beg for mercy. So if you look at those around you, this means there's a possibility that many of them have the capacity to become party to monstrous acts. With the imperative of obeying authority, overriding a personal sense of ethic. Six, the ash conformity test. Fitting in is important to many of us, whether that be at school, at work, or even just being able to fit in with a small group you hang out with frequently. It means you're not alone, giving a sense of safety. How far would you go for that comfort of fitting in? How far would you conform? The ash conformity test conducted in 1951 showed that we might go as far as to deny our own minds for this token of safety. To see how the need to fit in is manifested, a group of people are shown a set of lines and ask to answer a simple and obvious question. Something like, which line is the longest? This being an experiment, it's rigged, so only one of them in the group is the subject while the rest of them are actors. The actors all pick the same wrong answer. Essentially putting unspoken pressure on the subject. Although the results were somewhat varied depending on circumstance, it was overall demonstrated that picking the wrong answer, meaning conforming or fitting in, significantly increased when in a group. This means that many people place higher value on fitting in than standing their ground, even if they're right. This doesn't apply to the overwhelming majority. However, the percentage it does apply to is still significant. Seven, the Marshmallow experiment. Who doesn't want to be a success? Even more, who doesn't want to be able to predict that they'll be successful? The Marshmallow experiment by Michelle tried to prove a predictor. It posits that good things come to those who wait, more officially known as delayed gratification. The test subjects were children, which raised some eyebrows. The children were presented with a marshmallow and given the choices to eat it immediately or to wait and be rewarded for their patients with a double marshmallow reward. The initial results showed that the ones who waited for the double reward did better in school relative to the immediate eaters. This appeared to support the hypothesis that delaying gratification is associated with success. The study was referred to as proof of the benefits of delayed gratification for years. However, recent follow-up studies and investigations found that other factors that were previously ignored played very important rules in the choice of delayed or immediate gratification, such as socioeconomic conditions, which could also affect behavior and neurocognition. So the initial findings are now questionable, and this needs further evaluating and study. Eight, the Carlsberg social experiment. Beer, being social, they popularly go together. So why not have a little fun with it? The Carlsberg group thought so and ran an ad campaign that ended up being analyzed as a social experiment. The scenario is sweet and simple. A couple are on a movie night date, and the movie theater is filled with some very tough, rough, stereotypical-looking bikers. There are only, however, two seats available, and they're right next to each other. They're also situated smack dab in the middle of the sea of leather, beards, and gruffness. The unspoken challenge is thusly given to the unsuspecting couple. Do you forgo your discomfort of what you see, throw your prejudice aside, sit down and enjoy that movie, or do you take one look, then quietly but quickly turn around in the name of self-preservation? This experiment, aside from being very entertaining, drew interest into investigating how and why we react to stereotypes or prejudices. Although back in the hunter-gatherer days, it was pretty much always the right choice to run from the unfamiliar. In today's society, different no longer automatically means danger. How able or willing are we to overcome these base impulses? If this experiment's results were to speak, the answer would be that we're improving, but have a long way to go, with approximately 64% of the couples running for the hills. The remaining few bucked their primitive instincts, took a seat, and were promptly rewarded with a free beer and applause. Here's to progress. 9. The Robbers Cave Experiment If someone is your enemy, are they always going to be so, or does it depend on context? Social psychologists, Muzaffar and Carolyn Shariff wanted to prove that competition for limited resources would result in conflict, hostility, and negative behavior between the competing groups. This gave rise to the follow-up question. What would happen if resources had to be gained, not by competition, but by cooperation? Would the previous conflict override their ability to get the prize, or can conflict be overcome by the simple change in context? Thus ensued a Lord of the Flies Ask Experiment. But Lord of the Flies hadn't even been published yet at this time. A summer camp at Robbers Cave Park in Oklahoma, USA, was set up in 1954, where in 22 boys were split into two groups and set up in different areas. Each group thinking they were the only group at the camp. The two groups were then introduced, and the stage set, wherein the resources were limited and had to be won through competition, like tug-of-war. The next phase then had the boys move to a new location, and the context changed to the resources being won only through cooperation, towards a common goal, like fixing a water supply they all depended on. The result was that even though there was previous conflict, hostility, prejudice, and shunning in competition, which was expected, this could be overcome. Even surpassing to bonding and friendship should the situation call for it. And 10. The Experiment of the Ape and the Child. The planet of the apes and all its iterations has maintained its popularity through the decades, partly because of our fascination with our closest animal relatives, the apes. How close are chimpanzees to us, really? Could they be close enough to us that if raised in a human environment, they could act and believe that they were human? Looks like this idea isn't a new one, as Winthrop Kellogg decided in 1931 to raise a female chimpanzee named Gua as a sibling to his baby son Donald. He was interested in the opposite effects too, where human children had been raised by wild animals. Since he figured abandoning his baby to be raised by wild animals would be wrong, he decided that bringing one wild animal into his home would be perfectly a-okay. What was observed was that the one-year-old Gua showed a higher intelligence but did not adopt human speech. Unfortunately, it seemed to work the other way around, with little Donald's speech cognition being disrupted, because he was copying Gua's chimpanzee vocals instead. Gua was moved out shortly thereafter. Looks like Kellogg had his answer. No matter how close we may be, nor how diligently the environment was tailored, there are fundamental differences in development between apes and humans that simply cannot be overwritten by nurture alone. Regardless of why these experiments became so well known, whether through ethical questionability or unexpected results, they're all still valuable. They furthered the understanding of human behavior and thought, helping the study of psychology and in turn, the rest of us. What do you think of these studies? What would you do to change or adjust the experiments to figure out something similar? If you're interested in more psychology content, feel free to visit us at psych2go.net. Please like, share, and subscribe. See you in the next video.