psychology experiments you can do

11+ Psychology Experiment Ideas (Goals + Methods)

Have you ever wondered why some days you remember things easily, while on others you keep forgetting? Or why certain songs make you super happy and others just…meh?

Our minds are like big, mysterious puzzles, and every day we're finding new pieces to fit. One of the coolest ways to explore our brains and the way they work is through psychology experiments.

A psychology experiment is a special kind of test or activity researchers use to learn more about how our minds work and why we behave the way we do.

It's like a detective game where scientists ask questions and try out different clues to find answers about our feelings, thoughts, and actions. These experiments aren't just for scientists in white coats but can be fun activities we all try to discover more about ourselves and others.

Some of these experiments have become so famous, they’re like the celebrities of the science world! Like the Marshmallow Test, where kids had to wait to eat a yummy marshmallow, or Pavlov's Dogs, where dogs learned to drool just hearing a bell.

Let's look at a few examples of psychology experiments you can do at home.

What Are Some Classic Experiments?

Imagine a time when the mysteries of the mind were being uncovered in groundbreaking ways. During these moments, a few experiments became legendary, capturing the world's attention with their intriguing results.

The Marshmallow Test

One of the most talked-about experiments of the 20th century was the Marshmallow Test , conducted by Walter Mischel in the late 1960s at Stanford University.

The goal was simple but profound: to understand a child's ability to delay gratification and exercise self-control.

Children were placed in a room with a marshmallow and given a choice: eat the marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes and receive two as a reward. Many kids struggled with the wait, some devouring the treat immediately, while others demonstrated remarkable patience.

But the experiment didn’t end there. Years later, Mischel discovered something astonishing. The children who had waited for the second marshmallow were generally more successful in several areas of life, from school achievements to job satisfaction!

While this experiment highlighted the importance of teaching patience and self-control from a young age, it wasn't without its criticisms. Some argued that a child's background, upbringing, or immediate surroundings might play a significant role in their choices.

Moreover, there were concerns about the ethics of judging a child's potential success based on a brief interaction with a marshmallow.

Pavlov's Dogs

Traveling further back in time and over to Russia, another classic experiment took the world by storm. Ivan Pavlov , in the early 1900s, wasn't initially studying learning or behavior. He was exploring the digestive systems of dogs.

But during his research, Pavlov stumbled upon a fascinating discovery. He noticed that by ringing a bell every time he fed his dogs, they eventually began to associate the bell's sound with mealtime. So much so, that merely ringing the bell, even without presenting food, made the dogs drool in anticipation!

This reaction demonstrated the concept of "conditioning" - where behaviors can be learned by linking two unrelated stimuli. Pavlov's work revolutionized the world's understanding of learning and had ripple effects in various areas like animal training and therapy techniques.

Pavlov came up with the term classical conditioning , which is still used today. Other psychologists have developed more nuanced types of conditioning that help us understand how people learn to perform different behaviours.

Classical conditioning is the process by which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus , leading to the same response. In Pavlov's case, the neutral stimulus (bell) became associated with the meaningful stimulus (food), leading the dogs to salivate just by hearing the bell.

Modern thinkers often critique Pavlov's methods from an ethical standpoint. The dogs, crucial to his discovery, may not have been treated with today's standards of care and respect in research.

Both these experiments, while enlightening, also underline the importance of conducting research with empathy and consideration, especially when it involves living beings.

What is Ethical Experimentation?

The tales of Pavlov's bells and Mischel's marshmallows offer us not just insights into the human mind and behavior but also raise a significant question: At what cost do these discoveries come?

Ethical experimentation isn't just a fancy term; it's the backbone of good science. When we talk about ethics, we're referring to the moral principles that guide a researcher's decisions and actions. But why does it matter so much in the realm of psychological experimentation?

An example of an experiment that had major ethical issues is an experiment called the Monster Study . This study was conducted in 1936 and was interested in why children develop a stutter.

The major issue with it is that the psychologists treated some of the children poorly over a period of five months, telling them things like “You must try to stop yourself immediately. Don’t ever speak unless you can do it right.”

You can imagine how that made the children feel!

This study helped create guidelines for ethical treatment in experiments. The guidelines include:

Respect for Individuals: Whether it's a dog in Pavlov's lab or a child in Mischel's study room, every participant—human or animal—deserves respect. They should never be subjected to harm or undue stress. For humans, informed consent (knowing what they're signing up for) is a must. This means that if a child is participating, they, along with their guardians, should understand what the experiment entails and agree to it without being pressured.

Honesty is the Best Policy: Researchers have a responsibility to be truthful. This means not only being honest with participants about the study but also reporting findings truthfully, even if the results aren't what they hoped for. There can be exceptions if an experiment will only succeed if the participants aren't fully aware, but it has to be approved by an ethics committee .

Safety First: No discovery, no matter how groundbreaking, is worth harming a participant. The well-being and mental, emotional, and physical safety of participants is paramount. Experiments should be designed to minimize risks and discomfort.

Considering the Long-Term: Some experiments might have effects that aren't immediately obvious. For example, while a child might seem fine after participating in an experiment, they could feel stressed or anxious later on. Ethical researchers consider and plan for these possibilities, offering support and follow-up if needed.

The Rights of Animals: Just because animals can't voice their rights doesn't mean they don't have any. They should be treated with care, dignity, and respect. This means providing them with appropriate living conditions, not subjecting them to undue harm, and considering alternatives to animal testing when possible.

While the world of psychological experiments offers fascinating insights into behavior and the mind, it's essential to tread with care and compassion. The golden rule? Treat every participant, human or animal, as you'd wish to be treated. After all, the true mark of a groundbreaking experiment isn't just its findings but the ethical integrity with which it's conducted.

So, even if you're experimenting at home, please keep in mind the impact your experiments could have on the people and beings around you!

Let's get into some ideas for experiments.

1) Testing Conformity

Our primary aim with this experiment is to explore the intriguing world of social influences, specifically focusing on how much sway a group has over an individual's decisions. This social influence is called groupthink .

Humans, as social creatures, often find solace in numbers, seeking the approval and acceptance of those around them. But how deep does this need run? Does the desire to "fit in" overpower our trust in our own judgments?

This experiment not only provides insights into these questions but also touches upon the broader themes of peer pressure, societal norms, and individuality. Understanding this could shed light on various real-world situations, from why fashion trends catch on to more critical scenarios like how misinformation can spread.

Method: This idea is inspired by the classic Asch Conformity Experiments . Here's a simple way to try it:

• Assemble a group of people (about 7-8). Only one person will be the real participant; the others will be in on the experiment.
• Show the group a picture of three lines of different lengths and another line labeled "Test Line."
• Ask each person to say out loud which of the three lines matches the length of the "Test Line."
• Unknown to the real participant, the other members will intentionally choose the wrong line. This is to see if the participant goes along with the group's incorrect choice, even if they can see it's wrong.

Real-World Impacts of Groupthink

Groupthink is more than just a science term; we see it in our daily lives:

Decisions at Work or School: Imagine being in a group where everyone wants to do one thing, even if it's not the best idea. People might not speak up because they're worried about standing out or being the only one with a different opinion.

Wrong Information: Ever heard a rumor that turned out to be untrue? Sometimes, if many people believe and share something, others might believe it too, even if it's not correct. This happens a lot on the internet.

Peer Pressure: Sometimes, friends might all want to do something that's not safe or right. People might join in just because they don't want to feel left out.

Missing Out on New Ideas: When everyone thinks the same way and agrees all the time, cool new ideas might never get heard. It's like always coloring with the same crayon and missing out on all the other bright colors!

2) Testing Color and Mood

We all have favorite colors, right? But did you ever wonder if colors can make you feel a certain way? Color psychology is the study of how colors can influence our feelings and actions.

For instance, does blue always calm us down? Does red make us feel excited or even a bit angry? By exploring this, we can learn how colors play a role in our daily lives, from the clothes we wear to the color of our bedroom walls.

• Find a quiet room and set up different colored lights or large sheets of colored paper: blue, red, yellow, and green.
• Invite some friends over and let each person spend a few minutes under each colored light or in front of each colored paper.
• After each color, ask your friends to write down or talk about how they feel. Are they relaxed? Energized? Happy? Sad?

Researchers have always been curious about this. Some studies have shown that colors like blue and green can make people feel calm, while colors like red might make them feel more alert or even hungry!

Real-World Impacts of Color Psychology

Ever noticed how different places use colors?

Hospitals and doctors' clinics often use soft blues and greens. This might be to help patients feel more relaxed and calm.

Many fast food restaurants use bright reds and yellows. These colors might make us feel hungry or want to eat quickly and leave.

Classrooms might use a mix of colors to help students feel both calm and energized.

3) Testing Music and Brainpower

Think about your favorite song. Do you feel smarter or more focused when you listen to it? This experiment seeks to understand the relationship between music and our brain's ability to remember things. Some people believe that certain types of music, like classical tunes, can help us study or work better. Let's find out if it's true!

• Prepare a list of 10-15 things to remember, like a grocery list or names of places.
• Invite some friends over. First, let them try to memorize the list in a quiet room.
• After a short break, play some music (try different types like pop, classical, or even nature sounds) and ask them to memorize the list again.
• Compare the results. Was there a difference in how much they remembered with and without music?

The " Mozart Effect " is a popular idea. Some studies in the past suggested that listening to Mozart's music might make people smarter, at least for a little while. But other researchers think the effect might not be specific to Mozart; it could be that any music we enjoy boosts our mood and helps our brain work better.

Real-World Impacts of Music and Memory

Think about how we use music:

• Study Sessions: Many students listen to music while studying, believing it helps them concentrate better.
• Workout Playlists: Gyms play energetic music to keep people motivated and help them push through tough workouts.
• Meditation and Relaxation: Calm, soothing sounds are often used to help people relax or meditate.

4) Testing Dreams and Food

Ever had a really wild dream and wondered where it came from? Some say that eating certain foods before bedtime can make our dreams more vivid or even a bit strange.

This experiment is all about diving into the dreamy world of sleep to see if what we eat can really change our nighttime adventures. Can a piece of chocolate or a slice of cheese transport us to a land of wacky dreams? Let's find out!

• Ask a group of friends to keep a "dream diary" for a week. Every morning, they should write down what they remember about their dreams.
• For the next week, ask them to eat a small snack before bed, like cheese, chocolate, or even spicy foods.
• They should continue writing in their "dream diary" every morning.
• At the end of the two weeks, compare the dream notes. Do the dreams seem different during the snack week?

The link between food and dreams isn't super clear, but some people have shared personal stories. For example, some say that spicy food can lead to bizarre dreams. Scientists aren't completely sure why, but it could be related to how food affects our body temperature or brain activity during sleep.

A cool idea related to this experiment is that of vivid dreams , which are very clear, detailed, and easy to remember dreams. Some people are even able to control their vivid dreams, or say that they feel as real as daily, waking life !

Real-World Impacts of Food and Dreams

Our discoveries might shed light on:

• Bedtime Routines: Knowing which foods might affect our dreams can help us choose better snacks before bedtime, especially if we want calmer sleep.
• Understanding Our Brain: Dreams can be mysterious, but studying them can give us clues about how our brains work at night.
• Cultural Beliefs: Many cultures have myths or stories about foods and dreams. Our findings might add a fun twist to these age-old tales!

5) Testing Mirrors and Self-image

Stand in front of a mirror. How do you feel? Proud? Shy? Curious? Mirrors reflect more than just our appearance; they might influence how we think about ourselves.

This experiment delves into the mystery of self-perception. Do we feel more confident when we see our reflection? Or do we become more self-conscious? Let's take a closer look.

• Set up two rooms: one with mirrors on all walls and another with no mirrors at all.
• Invite friends over and ask them to spend some time in each room doing normal activities, like reading or talking.
• After their time in both rooms, ask them questions like: "Did you think about how you looked more in one room? Did you feel more confident or shy?"
• Compare the responses to see if the presence of mirrors changes how they feel about themselves.

Studies have shown that when people are in rooms with mirrors, they can become more aware of themselves. Some might stand straighter, fix their hair, or even change how they behave. The mirror acts like an audience, making us more conscious of our actions.

Real-World Impacts of Mirrors and Self-perception

Mirrors aren't just for checking our hair. Ever wonder why clothing stores have so many mirrors? They might help shoppers visualize themselves in new outfits, encouraging them to buy.

Mirrors in gyms can motivate people to work out with correct form and posture. They also help us see progress in real-time!

And sometimes, looking in a mirror can be a reminder to take care of ourselves, both inside and out.

But remember, what we look like isn't as important as how we act in the world or how healthy we are. Some people claim that having too many mirrors around can actually make us more self conscious and distract us from the good parts of ourselves.

Some studies are showing that mirrors can actually increase self-compassion , amongst other things. As any tool, it seems like mirrors can be both good and bad, depending on how we use them!

6) Testing Plants and Talking

Have you ever seen someone talking to their plants? It might sound silly, but some people believe that plants can "feel" our vibes and that talking to them might even help them grow better.

In this experiment, we'll explore whether plants can indeed react to our voices and if they might grow taller, faster, or healthier when we chat with them.

• Get three similar plants, placing each one in a separate room.
• Talk to the first plant, saying positive things like "You're doing great!" or singing to it.
• Say negative things to the second plant, like "You're not growing fast enough!"
• Don't talk to the third plant at all; let it be your "silent" control group .
• Water all plants equally and make sure they all get the same amount of light.
• At the end of the month, measure the growth of each plant and note any differences in their health or size.

The idea isn't brand new. Some experiments from the past suggest plants might respond to sounds or vibrations. Some growers play music for their crops, thinking it helps them flourish.

Even if talking to our plants doesn't have an impact on their growth, it can make us feel better! Sometimes, if we are lonely, talking to our plants can help us feel less alone. Remember, they are living too!

Real-World Impacts of Talking to Plants

If plants do react to our voices, gardeners and farmers might adopt new techniques, like playing music in greenhouses or regularly talking to plants.

Taking care of plants and talking to them could become a recommended activity for reducing stress and boosting mood.

And if plants react to sound, it gives us a whole new perspective on how connected all living things might be .

7) Testing Virtual Reality and Senses

Virtual reality (VR) seems like magic, doesn't it? You put on a headset and suddenly, you're in a different world! But how does this "new world" affect our senses? This experiment wants to find out how our brains react to VR compared to the real world. Do we feel, see, or hear things differently? Let's get to the bottom of this digital mystery!

• You'll need a VR headset and a game or experience that can be replicated in real life (like walking through a forest). If you don't have a headset yourself, there are virtual reality arcades now!
• Invite friends to first experience the scenario in VR.
• Afterwards, replicate the experience in the real world, like taking a walk in an actual forest.
• Ask them questions about both experiences: Did one seem more real than the other? Which sounds were more clear? Which colors were brighter? Did they feel different emotions?

As VR becomes more popular, scientists have been curious about its effects. Some studies show that our brains can sometimes struggle to tell the difference between VR and reality. That's why some people might feel like they're really "falling" in a VR game even though they're standing still.

Real-World Impacts of VR on Our Senses

Schools might use VR to teach lessons, like taking students on a virtual trip to ancient Egypt. Understanding how our senses react in VR can also help game designers create even more exciting and realistic games.

Doctors could use VR to help patients overcome fears or to provide relaxation exercises. This is actually already a method therapists can use for helping patients who have serious phobias. This is called exposure therapy , which basically means slowly exposing someone (or yourself) to the thing you fear, starting from very far away to becoming closer.

For instance, if someone is afraid of snakes. You might show them images of snakes first. Once they are comfortable with the picture, they can know there is one in the next room. Once they are okay with that, they might use a VR headset to see the snake in the same room with them, though of course there is not an actual snake there.

8) Testing Sleep and Learning

We all know that feeling of trying to study or work when we're super tired. Our brains feel foggy, and it's hard to remember stuff. But how exactly does sleep (or lack of it) influence our ability to learn and remember things?

With this experiment, we'll uncover the mysteries of sleep and see how it can be our secret weapon for better learning.

• Split participants into two groups.
• Ask both groups to study the same material in the evening.
• One group goes to bed early, while the other stays up late.
• The next morning, give both groups a quiz on what they studied.
• Compare the results to see which group remembered more.

Sleep and its relation to learning have been explored a lot. Scientists believe that during sleep, especially deep sleep, our brains sort and store new information. This is why sometimes, after a good night's rest, we might understand something better or remember more.

Real-World Impacts of Sleep and Learning

Understanding the power of sleep can help:

• Students: If they know the importance of sleep, students might plan better, mixing study sessions with rest, especially before big exams.
• Workplaces: Employers might consider more flexible hours, understanding that well-rested employees learn faster and make fewer mistakes.
• Health: Regularly missing out on sleep can have other bad effects on our health. So, promoting good sleep is about more than just better learning.

9) Testing Social Media and Mood

Have you ever felt different after spending time on social media? Maybe happy after seeing a friend's fun photos, or a bit sad after reading someone's tough news.

Social media is a big part of our lives, but how does it really affect our mood? This experiment aims to shine a light on the emotional roller-coaster of likes, shares, and comments.

• Ask participants to note down how they're feeling - are they happy, sad, excited, or bored?
• Have them spend a set amount of time (like 30 minutes) on their favorite social media platforms.
• After the session, ask them again about their mood. Did it change? Why?
• Discuss what they saw or read that made them feel that way.

Previous research has shown mixed results. Some studies suggest that seeing positive posts can make us feel good, while others say that too much time on social media can make us feel lonely or left out.

Real-World Impacts of Social Media on Mood

Understanding the emotional impact of social media can help users understand their feelings and take breaks if needed. Knowing is half the battle! Additionally, teachers and parents can guide young users on healthy social media habits, like limiting time or following positive accounts.

And if it's shown that social media does impact mood, social media companies can design friendlier, less stressful user experiences.

But even if the social media companies don't change things, we can still change our social media habits to make ourselves feel better.

10) Testing Handwriting or Typing

Think about the last time you took notes. Did you grab a pen and paper or did you type them out on a computer or tablet?

Both ways are popular, but there's a big question: which method helps us remember and understand better? In this experiment, we'll find out if the classic art of handwriting has an edge over speedy typing.

• Divide participants into two groups.
• Present a short lesson or story to both groups.
• One group will take notes by hand, while the other will type them out.
• After some time, quiz both groups on the content of the lesson or story.
• Compare the results to see which note-taking method led to better recall and understanding.

Studies have shown some interesting results. While typing can be faster and allows for more notes, handwriting might boost memory and comprehension because it engages the brain differently, making us process the information as we write.

Importantly, each person might find one or the other works better for them. This could be useful in understanding our learning habits and what instructional style would be best for us.

Real-World Impacts of Handwriting vs. Typing

Knowing the pros and cons of each method can:

• Boost Study Habits: Students can pick the method that helps them learn best, especially during important study sessions or lectures.
• Work Efficiency: In jobs where information retention is crucial, understanding the best method can increase efficiency and accuracy.
• Tech Design: If we find out more about how handwriting benefits us, tech companies might design gadgets that mimic the feel of writing while combining the advantages of digital tools.

11) Testing Money and Happiness

We often hear the saying, "Money can't buy happiness," but is that really true? Many dream of winning the lottery or getting a big raise, believing it would solve all problems.

In this experiment, we dig deep to see if there's a real connection between wealth and well-being.

• Survey a range of participants, from those who earn a little to those who earn a lot, about their overall happiness. You can keep it to your friends and family, but that might not be as accurate as surveying a wider group of people.
• Ask them to rank things that bring them joy and note if they believe more money would boost their happiness. You could try different methods, one where you include some things that they have to rank, such as gardening, spending time with friends, reading books, learning, etc. Or you could just leave a blank list that they can fill in with their own ideas.
• Study the data to find patterns or trends about income and happiness.

Some studies have found money can boost happiness, especially when it helps people out of tough financial spots. But after reaching a certain income, extra dollars usually do not add much extra joy.

In fact, psychologists just realized that once people have an income that can comfortably support their needs (and some of their wants), they stop getting happier with more . That number is roughly $75,000, but of course that depends on the cost of living and how many members are in the family.

Real-World Impacts of Money and Happiness

If we can understand the link between money and joy, it might help folks choose jobs they love over jobs that just pay well. And instead of buying things, people might spend on experiences, like trips or classes, that make lasting memories.

Most importantly, we all might spend more time on hobbies, friends, and family, knowing they're big parts of what makes life great.

Some people are hoping that with Artificial Intelligence being able to do a lot of the less well-paying jobs, people might be able to do work they enjoy more, all while making more money and having more time to do the things that make them happy.

12) Testing Temperature and Productivity

Have you ever noticed how a cold classroom or office makes it harder to focus? Or how on hot days, all you want to do is relax? In this experiment, we're going to find out if the temperature around us really does change how well we work.

• Find a group of participants and a room where you can change the temperature.
• Set the room to a chilly temperature and give the participants a set of tasks to do.
• Measure how well and quickly they do these tasks.
• The next day, make the room comfortably warm and have them do similar tasks.
• Compare the results to see if the warmer or cooler temperature made them work better.

Some studies have shown that people can work better when they're in a room that feels just right, not too cold or hot. Being too chilly can make fingers slow, and being too warm can make minds wander.

What temperature is "just right"? It won't be the same for everyone, but most people find it's between 70-73 degrees Fahrenheit (21-23 Celsius).

Real-World Implications of Temperature and Productivity

If we can learn more about how temperature affects our work, teachers might set classroom temperatures to help students focus and learn better, offices might adjust temperatures to get the best work out of their teams, and at home, we might find the best temperature for doing homework or chores quickly and well.

Interestingly, temperature also has an impact on our sleep quality. Most people find slightly cooler rooms to be better for good sleep. While the daytime temperature between 70-73F is good for productivity, a nighttime temperature around 65F (18C) is ideal for most people's sleep.

Psychology is like a treasure hunt, where the prize is understanding ourselves better. With every experiment, we learn a little more about why we think, feel, and act the way we do. Some of these experiments might seem simple, like seeing if colors change our mood or if being warm helps us work better. But even the simple questions can have big answers that help us in everyday life.

Remember, while doing experiments is fun, it's also important to always be kind and think about how others feel. We should never make someone uncomfortable just for a test. Instead, let's use these experiments to learn and grow, helping to make the world a brighter, more understanding place for everyone.

Related posts:

• 150+ Flirty Goodnight Texts For Him (Sweet and Naughty Examples)
• Dream Interpreter & Dictionary (270+ Meanings)
• Sleep Stages (Light, Deep, REM)
• What Part of the Brain Regulates Body Temperature?
• Why Do We Dream? (6 Theories and Psychological Reasons)

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Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Inspiration for psychology experiments is all around if you know where to look

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Psychology experiments can run the gamut from simple to complex. Students are often expected to design—and sometimes perform—their own experiments, but finding great experiment ideas can be a little challenging. Fortunately, inspiration is all around if you know where to look—from your textbooks to the questions that you have about your own life.

Always discuss your idea with your instructor before beginning your experiment—particularly if your research involves human participants. (Note: You'll probably need to submit a proposal and get approval from your school's institutional review board.)

At a Glance

If you are looking for an idea for psychology experiments, start your search early and make sure you have the time you need. Doing background research, choosing an experimental design, and actually performing your experiment can be quite the process. Keep reading to find some great psychology experiment ideas that can serve as inspiration. You can then find ways to adapt these ideas for your own assignments.

15 Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Most of these experiments can be performed easily at home or at school. That said, you will need to find out if you have to get approval from your teacher or from an institutional review board before getting started.

The following are some questions you could attempt to answer as part of a psychological experiment:

• Are people really able to "feel like someone is watching" them ? Have some participants sit alone in a room and have them note when they feel as if they are being watched. Then, see how those results line up to your own record of when participants were actually being observed.
• Can certain colors improve learning ? You may have heard teachers or students claim that printing text on green paper helps students read better, or that yellow paper helps students perform better on math exams. Design an experiment to see whether using a specific color of paper helps improve students' scores on math exams.
• Can color cause physiological reactions ? Perform an experiment to determine whether certain colors cause a participant's blood pressure to rise or fall.
• Can different types of music lead to different physiological responses ? Measure the heart rates of participants in response to various types of music to see if there is a difference.
• Can smelling one thing while tasting another impact a person's ability to detect what the food really is ? Have participants engage in a blind taste test where the smell and the food they eat are mismatched. Ask the participants to identify the food they are trying and note how accurate their guesses are.
• Could a person's taste in music offer hints about their personality ? Previous research has suggested that people who prefer certain styles of music tend to exhibit similar  personality traits. Administer a personality assessment and survey participants about their musical preferences and examine your results.
• Do action films cause people to eat more popcorn and candy during a movie ? Have one group of participants watch an action movie, and another group watch a slow-paced drama. Compare how much popcorn is consumed by each group.
• Do colors really impact moods ? Investigate to see if the  color blue makes people feel calm, or if the color red leaves them feeling agitated.
• Do creative people see  optical illusions  differently than more analytical people ? Have participants complete an assessment to measure their level of creative thinking. Then ask participants to look at optical illusions and note what they perceive.
• Do people rate individuals with perfectly symmetrical faces as more beautiful than those with asymmetrical faces ? Create sample cards with both symmetrical and asymmetrical faces and ask participants to rate the attractiveness of each picture.
• Do people who use social media exhibit signs of addiction ? Have participants complete an assessment of their social media habits, then have them complete an addiction questionnaire.
• Does eating breakfast help students do better in school ? According to some, eating breakfast can have a beneficial influence on school performance. For your experiment, you could compare the test scores of students who ate breakfast to those who did not.
• Does sex influence short-term memory ? You could arrange an experiment that tests whether men or women are better at remembering specific types of information.
• How likely are people to conform in groups ? Try this experiment to see what percentage of people are likely to conform . Enlist confederates to give the wrong response to a math problem and then see if the participants defy or conform to the rest of the group.
• How much information can people store in short-term memory ? Have participants study a word list and then test their memory. Try different versions of the experiment to see which memorization strategies, like chunking or mnemonics, are most effective.

Once you have an idea, the next step is to learn more about  how to conduct a psychology experiment .

Psychology Experiments on Your Interests

If none of the ideas in the list above grabbed your attention, there are other ways to find inspiration for your psychology experiments.

How do you come up with good psychology experiments? One of the most effective approaches is to look at the various problems, situations, and questions that you are facing in your own life.

You can also think about the things that interest you. Start by considering the topics you've studied in class thus far that have really piqued your interest. Then, whittle the list down to two or three major areas within psychology that seem to interest you the most.

From there, make a list of questions you have related to the topic. Any of these questions could potentially serve as an experiment idea.

Use Textbooks for Inspiration for Psychology Experiments

Your psychology textbooks are another excellent source you can turn to for experiment ideas. Choose the chapters or sections that you find particularly interesting—perhaps it's a chapter on  social psychology  or a section on child development.

Start by browsing the experiments discussed in your book. Then think of how you could devise an experiment related to some of the questions your text asks. The reference section at the back of your textbook can also serve as a great source for additional reference material.

Discuss Psychology Experiments with Other Students

It can be helpful to brainstorm with your classmates to gather outside ideas and perspectives. Get together with a group of students and make a list of interesting ideas, subjects, or questions you have.

The information from your brainstorming session can serve as a basis for your experiment topic. It's also a great way to get feedback on your own ideas and to determine if they are worth exploring in greater depth.

Study Classic Psychology Experiments

Taking a closer look at a classic psychology experiment can be an excellent way to trigger some unique and thoughtful ideas of your own. To start, you could try conducting your own version of a famous experiment or even updating a classic experiment to assess a slightly different question.

Famous Psychology Experiments

Examples of famous psychology experiments that might be a source of further questions you'd like to explore include:

• Marshmallow test experiments
• Little Albert experiment
• Hawthorne effect experiments
• Bystander effect experiments
• Robbers Cave experiments
• Halo effect experiments
• Piano stairs experiment
• Cognitive dissonance experiments
• False memory experiments

You might not be able to replicate an experiment exactly (lots of classic psychology experiments have ethical issues that would preclude conducting them today), but you can use well-known studies as a basis for inspiration.

Review the Literature on Psychology Experiments

If you have a general idea about what topic you'd like to experiment, you might want to spend a little time doing a brief literature review before you start designing. In other words, do your homework before you invest too much time on an idea.

Visit your university library and find some of the best books and articles that cover the particular topic you are interested in. What research has already been done in this area? Are there any major questions that still need to be answered? What were the findings of previous psychology experiments?

Tackling this step early will make the later process of writing the introduction  to your  lab report  or research paper much easier.

Ask Your Instructor About Ideas for Psychology Experiments

If you have made a good effort to come up with an idea on your own but you're still feeling stumped, it might help to talk to your instructor. Ask for pointers on finding a good experiment topic for the specific assignment. You can also ask them to suggest some other ways you could generate ideas or inspiration.

While it can feel intimidating to ask for help, your instructor should be more than happy to provide some guidance. Plus, they might offer insights that you wouldn't have gathered on your own. Your instructor probably has lots of ideas for psychology experiments that would be worth exploring.

If you need to design or conduct psychology experiments, there are plenty of great ideas (both old and new) for you to explore. Consider an idea from the list above or turn some of your own questions about the human mind and behavior into an experiment.

Before you dive in, make sure that you are observing the guidelines provided by your instructor and always obtain the appropriate permission before conducting any research with human or animal subjects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Finding a topic for a research paper is much like finding an idea for an experiment. Start by considering your own interests, or browse though your textbooks for inspiration. You might also consider looking at online news stories or journal articles as a source of inspiration.

Three of the most classic social psychology experiments are:

• The Asch Conformity Experiment : This experiment involved seeing if people would conform to group pressure when rating the length of a line.
• The Milgram Obedience Experiment : This experiment involved ordering participants to deliver what they thought was a painful shock to another person.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment : This experiment involved students replicating a prison environment to see how it would affect participant behavior. 

Jakovljević T, Janković MM, Savić AM, et al. The effect of colour on reading performance in children, measured by a sensor hub: From the perspective of gender .  PLoS One . 2021;16(6):e0252622. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252622

Greenberg DM, et al. Musical preferences are linked to cognitive styles . PLoS One. 2015;10(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131151

Kurt S, Osueke KK. The effects of color on the moods of college students . Sage. 2014;4(1). doi:10.1177/2158244014525423

Hartline-Grafton H, Levin M. Breakfast and School-Related Outcomes in Children and Adolescents in the US: A Literature Review and its Implications for School Nutrition Policy .  Curr Nutr Rep . 2022;11(4):653-664. doi:10.1007/s13668-022-00434-z

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Explore Psychology

Psychology Articles, Study Guides, and Resources

60 Psychology Experiment Ideas

Here are a number of great psychology experiment ideas. If you need an idea for an experiment, this is a great place to start.

In this article

If you’re taking a psychology class, you’re likely tasked with designing an experiment or study at some point. Choosing the right psychology experiment idea is crucial and often depends on several factors, including the number of participants you can gather, the time constraints of your project, and the materials available to you. Before you settle on an experiment, consider these aspects carefully.

In this article, we will explore a variety of psychology experiment ideas that can inspire your project and guide you through the research process.

A Quick List of Psychology Experiment Ideas

If you are looking for a quick experiment idea that would be easy to tackle, the following might be some research questions you want to explore:

• How many items can people hold in short-term memory ?
• Are people with a Type A personality more stressed than those with a Type B personality?
• Does listening to upbeat music increase heart rate?
• Are men or women better at detecting emotions ?
• Are women or men more likely to experience imposter syndrome ?
• Will students conform if others in the group all share an opinion that is different from their own?
• Do people’s heartbeat or breathing rates change in response to certain colors?
• How much do people rely on nonverbal communication to convey information in a conversation?
• Do people who score higher on measures of emotional intelligence also score higher on measures of overall well-being?
• Do more successful people share certain personality traits ?

More Experiment Topics to Explore

Most of the following ideas are easily conducted with a small group of participants, who may likely be your classmates. Some of the psychology experiment or study ideas you might want to explore:

Sleep and Short-Term Memory

Does sleep deprivation have an impact on short-term memory ?

Ask participants how much sleep they got the night before and then conduct a task to test short-term memory for items on a list.

Social Media and Mental Health

Is social media usage linked to anxiety or depression?

Ask participants about how many hours a week they use social media sites and then have them complete a depression and anxiety assessment.

Procrastination and Stress

How does procrastination impact student stress levels?

Ask participants about how frequently they procrastinate on their homework and then have them complete an assessment looking at their current stress levels.

Caffeine and Cognition

How does caffeine impact performance on a Stroop test?

In the Stroop test , participants are asked to tell the color of a word, rather than just reading the word. Have a control group consume no caffeine and then complete a Stroop test, and then have an experimental group consume caffeine before completing the same test. Compare results.

Color and Memory

Does the color of text have any impact on memory?

Randomly assign participants to two groups. Have one group memorize words written in black ink for two minutes. Have the second group memorize the same words for the same amount of time, but instead written in red ink. Compare the results.

Weight Bias

How does weight bias influence how people are judged by others?

Find pictures of models in a magazine who look similar, including similar hair and clothing, but who differ in terms of weight. Have participants look at the two models and then ask them to identify which one they think is smarter, wealthier, kinder, and healthier.

Assess how each model was rated and how weight bias may have influenced how they were described by participants.

Music and Exercise

Does music have an effect on how hard people work out?

Have people listen to different styles of music while jogging on a treadmill and measure their walking speed, heart rate, and workout length.

The Halo Effect

How does the Halo Effect influence how people see others?

Show participants pictures of people and ask them to rate the photos in terms of how attractive, kind, intelligent, helpful, and successful the people in the images are.

How does the attractiveness of the person in the photo correlate to how participants rate other qualities? Are attractive people more likely to be perceived as kind, funny, and intelligent?

Eyewitness Testimony

How reliable is eyewitness testimony?

Have participants view video footage of a car crash. Ask some participants to describe how fast the cars were going when they “hit into” each other. Ask other participants to describe how fast the cars were going when they “smashed into” each other.

Give the participants a memory test a few days later and ask them to recall if they saw any broken glass at the accident scene. Compare to see if those in the “smashed into” condition were more likely to report seeing broken glass than those in the “hit into” group.

The experiment is a good illustration of how easily false memories can be triggered.

Simple Psychology Experiment Ideas

If you are looking for a relatively simple psychology experiment idea, here are a few options you might consider.

The Stroop Effect

This classic experiment involves presenting participants with words printed in different colors and asking them to name the color of the ink rather than read the word. Students can manipulate the congruency of the word and the color to test the Stroop effect.

Memory Recall

Students can design a simple experiment to test memory recall by presenting participants with a list of items to remember and then asking them to recall the items after a delay. Students can manipulate the length of the delay or the type of encoding strategy used to see the effect on recall.

Social Conformity

Students can test social conformity by presenting participants with a simple task and manipulating the responses of confederates to see if the participant conforms to the group response.

Selective Attention

Students can design an experiment to test selective attention by presenting participants with a video or audio stimulus and manipulating the presence or absence of a distracting stimulus to see the effect on attention.

Implicit Bias

Students can test implicit bias by presenting participants with a series of words or images and measuring their response time to categorize the stimuli into different categories.

The Primacy/Recency Effect

Students can test the primacy /recency effect by presenting participants with a list of items to remember and manipulating the order of the items to see the effect on recall.

Sleep Deprivation

Students can test the effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance by comparing the performance of participants who have had a full night’s sleep to those who have been deprived of sleep.

These are just a few examples of simple psychology experiment ideas for students. The specific experiment will depend on the research question and resources available.

10 Cognitive Psychology Experiment Ideas

If you want to explore a topic in cognitive psychology , here are 10 ideas to get you started:

• Memory recall and emotion: Investigate how emotional content influences memory recall by comparing participants’ ability to remember neutral versus emotional stories presented to them.
• Effects of multitasking on cognitive performance: Study how performing multiple tasks simultaneously affects performance on cognitive tasks, measuring reaction times and accuracy in completing a primary task.
• Priming and decision-making: Examine how exposure to specific words or images can influence participants’ subsequent choices in decision-making tasks, assessing the impact of priming on their selections.
• Impact of cognitive load on problem-solving: Investigate how varying levels of cognitive load (e.g., working memory demands) affect participants’ ability to solve complex problems or puzzles.
• Visual perception and illusions: Study how different types of visual illusions affect participants’ perception and interpretation of images, analyzing how context influences their understanding.
• Language processing speed: Examine how bilingualism impacts language processing speed by testing participants on language tasks in their native and second languages.
• The role of sleep on memory consolidation: Investigate the relationship between sleep quality and memory retention by testing participants on a memory task before and after different sleep durations.
• Spatial awareness and navigation: Explore how different types of navigation strategies (e.g., map-based vs. landmark-based) influence participants’ ability to navigate through virtual environments.
• Attention and selective perception: Study how distractions affect participants’ ability to focus on a primary task, measuring how external stimuli impact their performance and attention span.
• The role of context in memory retrieval: Investigate how context influences memory retrieval by presenting participants with a list of words in a specific setting (e.g., a quiet room versus a noisy environment) and then testing their recall of the words in different contexts.

10 Social Psychology Experiment Ideas

Some ideas that might inspire your research in social psychology include:

• Peer pressure: Examine how group dynamics influence personal choices by surveying participants on risky versus safe options.
• Conformity: Test how group size affects conformity by having participants answer questions in varying group sizes and comparing their responses.
• Social media impact: Analyze the effect of limiting social media use on self-esteem by having participants complete self-assessments before and after the experiment.
• Behavioral labels: Explore how labeling individuals as “leaders” or “followers” influences their interactions in group tasks.
• Authority influence: Investigate how perceived authority affects decision-making by creating scenarios where participants must choose to obey or defy directives.
• Humor in persuasion: Examine whether humorous messages are more effective than serious ones in persuading participants about a product or topic.
• First impressions: Assess how initial interactions shape long-term perceptions of individuals in social situations.
• Groupthink: Analyze how group cohesion leads to poor decision-making by observing discussions around controversial topics.
• Online vs. in-person communication: Compare the effectiveness of communication styles in digital versus face-to-face interactions.
• Emotional contagion: Investigate how emotions are spread within a group by measuring mood changes before and after group interactions.

10 Developmental Psychology Experiment Ideas

Development is one interesting topic area you might want to explore in your research. Some ideas you might consider include:

• Attachment styles and emotional regulation : Investigate how different attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) in children influence their ability to regulate emotions in stressful situations through observational studies.
• Effects of parenting styles on child development : Study the impact of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles on children’s self-esteem and social skills by surveying parents and assessing children’s behaviors in structured settings.
• Language acquisition and social interaction : Examine how the frequency and quality of social interactions influence language acquisition in toddlers by comparing language development in children with different levels of verbal interaction.
• Impact of screen time on attention span : Investigate how varying amounts of screen time affect attention span in preschoolers by conducting attention-focused tasks before and after screen exposure.
• Moral development and peer influence : Study how peer interactions influence moral reasoning in adolescents by presenting them with moral dilemmas and analyzing their responses in group discussions versus individual settings.
• Role of play in cognitive development : Explore how different types of play (free play versus structured play) affect cognitive skills like problem-solving and creativity in early childhood by observing children during playtime.
• Socialization and gender roles : Investigate how exposure to gendered toys and activities influences children’s understanding of gender roles by comparing children’s preferences and behaviors in mixed-gender and single-gender playgroups.
• Resilience in childhood : Examine factors that contribute to resilience in children facing adversity by conducting interviews with children and parents to identify coping strategies and support systems.
• Impact of early education on academic achievement : Study the long-term effects of early childhood education programs on academic performance in later years by analyzing test scores and classroom behaviors of students who attended different types of early education.
• The influence of culture on identity development : Investigate how cultural background shapes identity development in adolescents by conducting surveys and interviews that explore the intersection of cultural values and personal identity.

5 Forensic Psychology Experiment Ideas

Interested in forensic psychology? Here are some experiment ideas that might inspire you:

• Witness memory accuracy: Investigate how the time elapsed since witnessing an event affects memory recall accuracy by presenting participants with a video and later testing their memory of details.
• The effect of stress on decision-making: Study how different stress levels impact decision-making in simulated police interrogation scenarios by varying stress-inducing factors and analyzing participant choices.
• Facial recognition and emotion: Examine how different emotional expressions on faces influence participants’ ability to accurately recognize faces in a lineup setting.
• Influence of media on perception of crime: Analyze how exposure to crime-related media influences participants’ perceptions of safety and risk in their own communities through surveys before and after media exposure.
• Role of empathy in jury decision-making: Explore how jurors’ levels of empathy affect their verdicts by presenting them with case studies and measuring their emotional responses.

Elements of a Good Psychology Experiment

Finding psychology experiment ideas is not necessarily difficult, but finding a good experimental or study topic that is right for your needs can be a little tough. You need to find something that meets the guidelines and, perhaps most importantly, is approved by your instructor.

Requirements may vary, but you need to ensure that your experiment, study, or survey is:

• Easy to set up and carry out
• Easy to find participants willing to take part
• Free of any ethical concerns

In some cases, you may need to present your idea to your school’s institutional review board before you begin to obtain permission to work with human participants.

Tips for Finding a Good Experimental Idea

Consider your own interests.

At some point in your life, you have likely pondered why people behave in certain ways. Or wondered why certain things seem to always happen. Your own interests can be a rich source of ideas for your psychology experiments.

As you are trying to come up with a topic or hypothesis, try focusing on the subjects that fascinate you the most. If you have a particular interest in a topic, look for ideas that answer questions about the topic that you and others may have. Examples of topics you might choose to explore include:

• Development
• Personality
• Social behavior

This can be a fun opportunity to investigate something that appeals to your interests.

Read About Classic Psychology Experiments

Sometimes, reviewing classic psychological experiments that have been done in the past can give you great ideas for your own psychology experiments. For example, the false memory experiment above is inspired by the classic memory study conducted by Elizabeth Loftus.

Textbooks can be a great place to start looking for topics, but you might want to expand your search to research journals. When you find a study that sparks your interest, read through the discussion section. Researchers will often indicate ideas for future directions that research could take.

Ask Your Instructor

Your professor or instructor is often the best person to consult for advice right from the start.

In most cases, you will probably receive fairly detailed instructions about your assignment. This may include information about the sort of topic you can choose or perhaps the type of experiment or study on which you should focus.

If your instructor does not assign a specific subject area to explore, it is still a great idea to talk about your ideas and get feedback before you get too invested in your topic idea. You will need your teacher’s permission to proceed with your experiment anyway, so now is a great time to open a dialogue and get some good critical feedback.

Experiments vs. Other Types of Research

One thing to note, many of the ideas found here are actually examples of surveys or correlational studies .

For something to qualify as a tru e experiment, there must be manipulation of an independent variable .

For many students, conducting an actual experiment may be outside the scope of their project or may not be permitted by their instructor, school, or institutional review board.

If your assignment or project requires you to conduct a true experiment that involves controlling and manipulating an independent variable, you will need to take care to choose a topic that will work within the guidelines of your assignment.

Types of Psychology Experiments

There are many different types of psychology experiments that students could perform. Examples of psychological research methods you might use include:

Correlational Study

This type of study examines the relationship between two variables. Students could collect data on two variables of interest, such as stress and academic performance, and see if there is a correlation between the two.

Experimental Study

In an experimental study, students manipulate one variable and observe the effect on another variable. For example, students could manipulate the type of music participants listen to and observe its effect on their mood.

Observational Study

Observational studies involve observing behavior in a natural setting . Students could observe how people interact in a public space and analyze the patterns they see.

Survey Study

Students could design a survey to collect data on a specific topic, such as attitudes toward social media, and analyze the results.

A case study involves in-depth analysis of a single individual or group. Students could conduct a case study of a person with a particular disorder, such as anxiety or depression, and examine their experiences and treatment options.

Quasi-Experimental Study

Quasi-experimental studies are similar to experimental studies, but participants are not randomly assigned to groups. Students could investigate the effects of a treatment or intervention on a particular group, such as a classroom of students who receive a new teaching method.

Longitudinal Study

Longitudinal studies involve following participants over an extended period of time. Students could conduct a longitudinal study on the development of language skills in children or the effects of aging on cognitive abilities.

These are just a few examples of the many different types of psychology experiments that students could perform. The specific type of experiment will depend on the research question and the resources available.

Steps for Doing a Psychology Experiment

When conducting a psychology experiment, students should follow several important steps. Here is a general outline of the process:

Define the Research Question

Before conducting an experiment, students should define the research question they are trying to answer. This will help them to focus their study and determine the variables they need to manipulate and measure.

Develop a Hypothesis

Based on the research question, students should develop a hypothesis that predicts the experiment’s outcome. The hypothesis should be testable and measurable.

Select Participants

Students should select participants who meet the criteria for the study. Participants should be informed about the study and give informed consent to participate.

Design the Experiment

Students should design the experiment to test their hypothesis. This includes selecting the appropriate variables, creating a plan for manipulating and measuring them, and determining the appropriate control conditions.

Collect Data

Once the experiment is designed, students should collect data by following the procedures they have developed. They should record all data accurately and completely.

Analyze the Data

After collecting the data, students should analyze it to determine if their hypothesis was supported or not. They can use statistical analyses to determine if there are significant differences between groups or if there are correlations between variables.

Interpret the Results

Based on the analysis, students should interpret the results and draw conclusions about their hypothesis. They should consider the study’s limitations and their findings’ implications.

Report the Results

Finally, students should report the results of their study. This may include writing a research paper or presenting their findings in a poster or oral presentation.

Britt MA. Psych Experiments . Avon, MA: Adams Media; 2007.

Martin DW. Doing Psychology Experiments. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning; 2008.

Editor-in-Chief

Kendra Cherry, MS.Ed., is a writer, editor, psychosocial therapist, and founder of Explore Psychology, an online psychology resource. She is a Senior Writer for Verywell Mind and is the author of the Everything Psychology Book (Adams Media).

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20+ Psychology Research Project Ideas for High Schoolers

By Jordan Ellington

Project Support Manager at Polygence

11 minute read

Do you ever find yourself pondering why certain individuals act the way that they do? Why is it that sudden behaviors are triggered in one person but have no effect on the next? If this sounds like you, it’s time to explore the field of psychology! Whether you’re eager to learn more about mental health, functions of the brain, human behavior and motivations, or child development, this could be the sign you’ve been needing to further inspect the world of psychology.

There are many types of psychology research and fields. Here’s a list of project ideas and areas of focus to help inspire you as you get started doing psychology research . Be sure to also check out our Ideas Generator to come up with your own projects!

5 Psychology Experiment Research and Passion Project Ideas

Experiments allow psychologists to determine causation (i.e., that something caused another thing to happen). These research projects study how one group of participants (those in the “control” condition) compares to another group of participants (those in the “experimental” condition). Importantly, participants are randomly assigned to conditions - they don’t get to choose which one they are in. 

Here are some psychology experiments that you can do, along with a few things to consider for each one:  

1. Does meditation improve the mental health of people who feel lonely?

Make sure to standardize the way that participants meditate each day (e.g., duration, any apps that they use). What would be a good control condition for this experiment?

Idea by psychology research mentor Kristen

Do your own research through Polygence!

Polygence pairs you with an expert mentor in your area of passion. Together, you work to create a high quality research project that is uniquely your own.

2. How can psychologists improve mental health?

This is a broad research question - you should narrow it down to a specific area of focus, such as anxiety, depression, and self-esteem. Design an activity for participants to do in order to improve their mental health in this area. Both project #1 and #2 are types of experiments called “interventions”.

Idea by psychology research mentor Tanya

3. Is stress contagious?

This is another broad research question. You can be creative about how you decide to study this idea. Perhaps you will have two “participants” sit side-by-side as they complete a math test. In the experimental condition, one “participant” will actually be a fake participant who’s a member of the research team and acts very nervous while taking the test. In one control condition, both participants will be real. In another control condition, one participant will be “fake,” but they won’t act nervous. How will you measure stress in this experiment? You can use self-report questionnaires, but maybe there is a better way. You should also study how the average score on the test compares between conditions.

Idea by psychology research mentor Stephen

4. What’s more effective for studying: digital study tools or traditional textbook review?

Think about which subjects students typically use digital study tools for (e.g., flashcards). Math is probably not the best subject in this case. Doing the experiment on students in a real classroom on a real test would probably be best, but how can you ensure that students stick to their assigned study method? How can you recreate a classroom in a laboratory setting?

Idea by psychology research mentor Noel

5. Does color impact memory?

In this experiment, you could give participants a list of words in different colors and see how well they remember them based on the color.

Idea by psychology research mentor Aya

Exploring the Mind just Light You Up?

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4 Survey-based Psychology Research and Passion Project Ideas

Survey-based research involves analyzing word-based information, such as what participants express in interviews and open-ended response questions, or numerical information (e.g.,when participants answer questions on a scale from 1 to 5). Researchers usually conduct survey-based research when it would be unethical or impossible to do an experiment about the topic. 

When you are asking survey questions, especially about sensitive topics, there are important aspects to consider. Try your best to make participants feel comfortable answering the questions. You can do this by emphasizing that responses will be confidential. Avoid asking leading questions and questions that can be answered with a simple “yes or no.” Doing survey-based research online allows you to have more participants. However, during an in-person interview, you can ask follow-up questions about anything interesting that the participant says. 

Here are ideas of survey-based psychology research projects: 

1. Who uses apps and websites that offer virtual counseling?

How do these digital tools compare to in-person counseling? In this survey, you can ask participants who use virtual tools versus in-person therapy why they use their respective mediums. Ideally, it would be great to find someone who has tried both virtual and in-person therapy.

2. How does the relationship between mountain biking on physical and mental health compare to other types of physical exercise?

This project is interesting because you can’t ethically conduct an experiment and tell participants to do a dangerous activity like mountain biking. Thus, a survey is a better approach. Get participants who do a variety of physical activities and ask them why they chose the activity. Be creative with your questions!

Idea by psychology research mentor Haille  

3. How do members of your family, community, peers, or a specific population think about mental health counseling?

What do they think of people who utilize therapy? After understanding these perceptions of therapy, you can come up with interventions that can challenge stigma around going to therapy. Reducing stigma can encourage people to go to therapy and thus improve mental health outcomes!

Idea by mentor psychology research mentor Nat

4. Think about your high school and ask yourself the question: “Do/Would students from different backgrounds feel welcomed here?”

In this project, you will interview students and teachers to document how your school can better champion diversity and inclusion efforts. You will use primary and secondary sources to uncover themes and gaps in your school’s equity policies and practices.

Idea by psychology research mentor Lydia

5 Psychology Literature Review Research and Passion Project Ideas 

A literature review (sometimes shortened to “lit review”) is a written summary of key work that has been conducted about a psychological topic over several years. It’s a type of secondary research that describes how different studies relate to each other and how the field has developed over time. To write a lit review, the first step is to use an academic journal database (e.g., Google Scholar ) to find and skim academic articles . 

Keep notes about the key findings from each study and how it built off of previous research. What open questions did the researchers hope to resolve by conducting their study? How were the results the same between similar studies and how were the results different? What methods did different researchers use? How has researchers’ understanding of the field changed in light of new and potentially conflicting evidence? 

It can be overwhelming to decide what to include in your literature review because there are tons of psychological articles on a given topic. I like to start with a promising paper in Google Scholar and then look at sources that the paper references. You can also read other literature reviews that other researchers have conducted and note which papers they discuss. In both cases, make sure to go to the original sources and read the actual papers they referenced. Also, use the search filters to ensure that your literature review covers a wide span of years. 

Examples of literature review psychology research project ideas you could do: 

1. How do only-children compare to children who have siblings?

There are many different questions you could focus on: Are only-children more independent? Are children with siblings better at cooperating with others? How does birth order (e.g., being the oldest or youngest sibling) play a role in development?

2. How might family socioeconomic circumstances impact child development?

Consider styles, home (in)stability, local school quality, and more to understand the consequences that different environments could have on children.

Idea by psychology research mentor Katrina

3. Why do certain exercises in specific environments promote different benefits?

You can consider indoor versus outdoor workouts, as well as whether the participants did the exercise alone or with others.

Idea by psychology research mentor Daphne

4. How has our understanding of a particular psychological disorder advanced over the years?

Pick a psychological disorder and write a review paper on recent advances in neuroscience that have improved our understanding of the disorder’s development and treatment.

Idea by psychology research mentor Phil

5. How can existing evidenced-based psychological interventions, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat anxiety, be adapted to be more culturally sensitive?

Cultural sensitivity involves “recognizing and respecting the beliefs, perspectives, and values of clients from a particular race, ethnicity, or region” and also addresses other important factors, such as age, gender, and sexual orientation. For this literature review, it will probably be best to focus on a particular culture since there are so many different cultures that you could choose from.

Idea by psychology research mentor Kaley

Start exploring your favorite aspects of Psychology now!

Register to get paired with one of our expert mentors and to get started on exploring your passion for psychology today!

2+ Psychology Research and Passion Project Ideas Using Scientific Communication

Another type of project focuses on communicating scientific ideas to a lay audience. This project is similar to a literature review because it involves reading and synthesizing scientific articles. However, literature reviews are generally written for an academic audience. The fun thing about a scientific communication project is that you get to be creative! You want to keep your audience engaged. There are many different ways to communicate science, including: 

1. Science blog

You can pick a psychological disorder, and write a blog describing recent advances in neuroscience that have improved our understanding of the disorder’s causes and treatment. Consider the broad impact of the work you review (i.e., why should people care?). 

2. Science podcast

Decide on a subfield of psychology that interests you, such as how researchers use psychology to improve learning and teaching. You could then interview people you know about their experiences with the psychological topic. For example, what learning and teaching strategies work best for them?

Idea by psychology research mentor Yinuo

For any type of scientific communication project, you’ll need to identify your target audience and think about the language that you’ll use to communicate your ideas. For example, I (Logan) generally write psychology-related blogs for high school students, and if I was writing for a younger audience I would explain topics using simpler language. Another thing to consider is the format of your project. A podcast is a more natural format if you want to include interviews. You should also think about where you will publish your work. You’ll have to do some research on the best place to publish a blog! It is fairly easy to publish your podcast on Spotify. 

I’m also going to add that a YouTube channel and a website are two more fun ways to communicate science! I actually have a YouTube channel about juggling , and I’ve really enjoyed posting videos there for over two years.

2 Data-Based Psychology Research and Passion Project Ideas

Other psychology projects involve analyzing large amounts of data. These projects yield interesting results because they allow you to study something “big” that would be difficult to do by hand. To do this type of project, you’ll need some comfort with Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets and statistical analysis. Potentially, you’ll also need to know computer science. Here are a few ideas: 

1. Use publicly available datasets to analyze the availability of mental health services in a U.S. state over time.

How does the availability of services for children compare to that of adults and older adults? What proportion of facilities accept Medicaid/Medicare/public funds (making services accessible to low income populations)?

Example data source: National Mental Health Services Survey

Idea by psychology research mentor Juliana

2. Identifying gender and race/ethnicity biases in sentiment analysis.

Sentiment analysis is a popular form of text analysis that uses artificial intelligence to predict the specific emotion that the writer of the text was feeling. However, we know from prior research in linguistics that there are differences between gender and racial subgroups on how language is used. Thus, these popular sentiment analysis tools, which do not differentiate between gender and race, might lead to biased scores that have important future consequences. This project investigates the degree to which popular sentiment analysis models exhibit gender and racial-ethnic biases. You could ask your friends of different races and genders to write a paragraph using happy, sad, angry, and neutral language, and see how accurately the sentiment analysis predicts their emotions.

Idea by psychology research mentor Steven

2 Other Psychology Research and Passion Project Ideas

1. observational research.

People may behave differently when they know that someone is monitoring their behavior, such as in experiments and surveys. Thus, the goal of observational research is to study how people behave when they don’t know that they are in a research study. Observe how children of different age groups play. First, conduct a literature review to better understand the different levels of social and emotional development throughout childhood. Go to any area where children are playing in order to evaluate how children within different age groups are interacting with one another. How do your observations compare to academic research?

Idea by psychology research mentor Ellyn

2. Media analysis

When portrayed in the media, mental illness is typically exaggerated. Because it is shown to be unpredictable and dangerous, many individuals do not have a good understanding of what mental illness even is. Do a deep analysis of how movies and/or TV shows portray mental illness. Consider the best way to disseminate your findings and discuss what the media gets right and wrong about mental illness. 

Idea by psychology research mentor Urveesha

Psychology Research and Passion Project Resources

The ideas on this list are just a handful of the many types of psychology research projects that you can do!  Here is another list of creative ways you can explore your passions . For even more inspiration, check out the database of projects completed by Polygence students . 

Did you know that doing a research project can really give you an edge on your college application ? 

Read this article about collecting data in psychology to learn more about experimental, survey-based, and observational research.

Before conducting any research project with real participants, make sure to get IRB approval .

After you complete your psychology research or passion project, you may want to write a research paper .

Do Your Own Research Through Polygence

Your passion can be your college admissions edge! Polygence provides high schoolers a personalized, flexible research experience proven to boost your admission odds. Get matched to a mentor now!"

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10 great psychology experiments

by Chris Woodford . Last updated: December 31, 2021.

S tare in the mirror and you'll find a strong sense of self staring back. Every one of us thinks we have a good idea who we are and what we're about—how we laugh and live and love, and all the complicated rest. But if you're a student of psychology —the fascinating science of human behaviour—you may well stare at your reflection with a wary eye. Because you'll know already that the ideas you have about yourself and other people can be very wide of the mark.

You might think you can learn a lot about human behaviour simply by observing yourself, but psychologists know that isn't really true. "Introspection" (thinking about yourself) has long been considered a suspect source of psychological research, even though one of the founding fathers of the science, William James, gained many important insights with its help. [1] Fortunately, there are thousands of rigorous experiments you can study that will do the job much more objectively and scientifically. And here's a quick selection of 10 of my favourites.

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1: are you really paying attention (simons & chabris, 1999).

“ ...our findings suggest that unexpected events are often overlooked... ” Simons & Chabris, 1999

You can read a book or you can listen to the radio, but can you do both at once? Maybe you can listen to a soft-rock album you've heard hundreds of times before and simultaneously plod your way through an undemanding crime novel, but how about listening to a complex political debate while trying to revise for a politics exam? What about listening to a German radio station while reading a French novel? What about mixing things up a bit more. You can iron your clothes while listening to the radio, no problem. But how about trying to follow (and visualize) the radio commentary on a football game while driving a highway you've never been along before? That's much more challenging because both things call on your brain's ability to process spatial information and one tends to interfere with the other. (There are very good reasons why it's unwise to use a cellphone while you're driving—and in some countries it's illegal.)

Generally speaking, we can do—and pay attention—to only so many things at once. That's no big surprise. However human attention works (and there are many theories about that), it's obviously not unlimited. What is surprising is how we pay attention to some things, in some situations, but not others. Psychologists have long studied something they call the cocktail-party effect . If you're at a noisy party, you can selectively switch your attention to any of the voices around you, just like tuning in a radio, while ignoring all the rest. Even more striking, if you're listening to one person and someone else happens to say your name, your ears will prick up and your attention will instantly switch to the other person instead. So your brain must be aware of much more than you think, even if it's not giving everything its full attention, all the time. [2]

Photo: Would you spot a gorilla if it were in plain sight? Picture by Richard Ruggiero courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service National Digital Library .

Sometimes, when we're really paying attention, we aren't easily distracted, even by drastic changes we ought to notice. A particularly striking demonstration of this comes from the work of Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris (1999), who built on earlier work by the esteemed cognitive psychologist Ulric Neisser and colleagues. [3] Simons and Chabris made a video of people in black or white shirts throwing a basketball back and forth and asked viewers to count the number of passes made by the white-shirted players. You can watch it here .

Half the viewers failed to notice something else that happens at the same time (the gorilla-suited person wandering across the set)—an extraordinary example of something psychologists call inattentional blindness (in plain English: failure to see something you really should have spotted). A related phenomenon called change blindness explains why we generally fail to notice things like glaring continuity errors in movies: we don't expect to see them—and so we don't. Whether experiments like "the invisible gorilla" allow us to conclude broader things about human nature is a moot point, but it's certainly fair to say (as Simons and Chabris argue) that they reveal "critically important limitations of our cognitive abilities." None of us are as smart as we like to think, but just because we fail and fall short that doesn't make us bad people; we'd do a lot better if we understood and recognized our shortcomings. [4]

2: Are you trying too hard? (Aronson, 1966)

No-one likes a smart-aleck, so the saying goes, but just how true is that? Even if you really hate someone who has everything—the good looks, the great house, the well-paid job—it tuns out that there are certain circumstances in which you'll like them a whole lot more: if they suddenly make a stupid mistake. This not-entirely-surprising bit of psychology mirrors everyday experience: we like our fellow humans slightly flawed, down-to-earth, and somewhat relatable. Known as the pratfall effect , it was famously demonstrated back in 1966 by social psychologist Elliot Aronson. [5]

“ ...a superior person may be viewed as superhuman and, therefore, distant; a blunder tends to humanize him and, consequently, increases his attractiveness. ” Aronson et al, 1966

Aronson made taped audio recordings of two very different people talking about themselves and answering 50 difficult questions, which were supposedly part of an interview for a college quiz team. One person was very superior, got almost all the questions right, and revealed (in passing) that they were generally excellent at what they did (an honors student, yearbook editor, and member of the college track team). The other person was much more mediocre, got many questions wrong, and revealed (in passing) that they were much more of a plodder (average grades in high school, proofreader of the yearbook, and failed to make the track team). In the experiment, "subjects" (that's what psychologists call the people who take part in their trials) had to listen to the recordings of the two people and rate them on various things, including their likeability. But there was a twist. In some of the taped interviews, an extra bit (the "pratfall") was added at the end where either the superior person or the mediocrity suddenly shouted "Oh my goodness I've spilled coffee all over my new suit", accompanied by the sounds of a clattering chair and general chaos (noises that were identically spliced onto both tapes).

Artwork: Mistakes make you more likeable—if you're considered competent to begin with.

What Aronson found was that the superior person was rated more attractive with the pratfall at the end of their interview; the inferior person, less so. In other words, a pratfall can really work in your favor, but only if you're considered halfway competent to begin with; if not, it works against you. Knowingly or otherwise, smart celebrities and politicians often appear to take advantage of this to improve their popularity.

3: Is the past a foreign country? (Loftus and Palmer, 1974)

Attention isn't the only thing that lets us down; memory is hugely infallible too—and it's one of the strangest and most complex things psychologists study. Can you remember where you were when the Twin Towers fell in 2001 or (if you're much older and willing to go back further) when JFK was shot in Dallas in 1963? You might remember a girl you were in kindergarten with 20 years ago, but perhaps you can't remember the guy you met last week, last night, or even 10 minutes ago. What about the so-called tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon where you're certain you know a word or fact or name, and you can even describe what it's like ("It's a really short word, maybe beginning with 'F'..."), but you can't bring it instantly to mind? [6] How about the madeleine effect, where the taste or smell or something suddenly sets off an incredibly powerful involuntary memory ? What about déjà-vu : a jarring true-false memory—the strong sense something is very familiar when it can't possibly be? [7] How about the curious split between short- and long-term memories or between "procedural memory" (knowing how to do things or follow instructions) and "declarative memory" (knowing facts), which breaks down further into "semantic memory" (general knowledge about things) and "episodic memory" (specific things that have happened to you). What about the many flavors of selective memory failure, such as seniors who can remember the name of a high-school sweetheart but can't recall their own name? Or sudden episodes of amnesia? Human memory is a massive—and massively complex—subject. And any comprehensive theory of it needs to be able to explain a lot.

“ ...the questions asked subsequent to an event can cause a reconstruction in one's memory of that event.. ” Loftus & Palmer, 1974

Much of the time, poor memory is just a nuisance and we all have tricks for working around it—from slapping Post-It notes on the mirror to setting reminders on our phones. But there's one situation where poor memories can be a matter of life or death: in criminal investigation and court testimony. Suppose you give evidence in a trial based on events you think you remember that happened years ago—and suppose your evidence helps to convict a "murderer" who's subsequently sentenced to death. But what if your memory was quite wrong and the person was innocent?

One of the most famous studies of just how flawed our memories can be was made by psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer in 1974. [8] After showing their subjects footage of a car accident, they tested their memories some time later by asking "About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" or using "collided," "bumped," "contacted," or "hit" in place of smashed. Those asked the first—leading—question reported higher speeds. Later, the subjects were asked if they'd seen any broken glass and those asked the leading question ("smashed") were much more likely to say "yes" even though there was no broken glass in the film. So our memories are much more fluid, far less fixed, than we suppose.

Artwork: The words we use to probe our memories can affect the memories we think we have.

This classic experiment very powerfully illustrates the potential unreliability of eyewitness testimony in criminal investigations, but the work of Elizabeth Loftus on so-called "false memory syndrome" has had far-reaching impacts in provocative areas, such as people's alleged recollections of alien abduction , multiple personality disorder , and memories of childhood abuse . Ultimately, what it demonstrates is that memory is fallible and remembering is sometimes less of a mechanical activity (pulling a dusty book from long-neglected library shelf) than a creative and recreative one (rewriting the book partly or completely to compensate for the fact that the print has faded with time). [9]

4. Do you cave in to peer pressure? (Milgram, 1963)

Experiments like the three we've considered so far might cast an uncomfortable shadow, yet most of us are still convinced we're rational, reasonable people, most of the time. Asked to predict how we'd behave in any given situation, we'd be able to give a pretty good account of ourselves—or so you might think. Consider the question of whether you'd ever, under any circumstances, torture another human being and you'd probably be appalled at the prospect. "Of course not!" And yet, as Yale University's Stanley Milgram famously demonstrated in the 1960s and 1970s, you'd probably be mistaken. [10]

Artwork: The Milgram experiment: a shocking turn of events.

Milgram's experiments on obedience to authority have been widely discussed and offered as explanations for all kinds of things, from minor everyday cruelty to the appalling catalogue of repugnant human behavior witnessed during the Nazi Holocaust. Today, they're generally considered unethical because they're deceptive and could, potentially, damage the mental health of people taking part in them (a claim Milgram himself investigated and refuted). [26]

“ ...the conflict stems from the opposition of two deeply ingrained behavior dispositions: first, the disposition not to harm other people, and second, the tendency to obey those whom we perceive to be legitimate authorities. ” Milgram, 1963

Though Milgram's studies have not been repeated, related experiments have sought to shed more light on why people find themselves participating in quite disturbing forms of behavior. One explanation is that, like willing actors, we simply assume the roles we're given and play our parts well. In 1972, Stanford University's Philip Zimbardo set up an entire "pretend prison" and assigned his subjects roles as prisoners or guards. Quite quickly, the guards went beyond simple play acting and actually took on the roles of sadistic bullies, exposing the prisoners to all kinds of rough and degrading treatment, while the prisoners resigned themselves to their fate or took on the roles of rebels. [11] More recently, Zimbardo has argued that his work sheds light on atrocities such as the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2004, when US army guards were found to have tortured and degraded Iraqi prisoners under their guard in truly shocking ways.

5. Are you a slave to pleasure? (Olds and Milner, 1954)

Why do we do the things we do? Why do we eat or drink, play football, watch TV... or do the legions of other things we feel compelled to do each day? How, when we take these sorts of behaviors to extremes, do we become addicted to things like drink and drugs, gambling or sex? Are they ordinary pleasures taken to extremes or something altogether different? Obsessions, compulsions, and addictive behaviors are complex and very difficult to treat, but what causes them... and how do we treat them?

Artwork: A rat will happily stimulate the "pleasure centre" in its brain.

“ It appears that motivation, like sensation, has local centers in the brain. ” James Olds, Scientific American, 1956.

The Olds and Milner ICSS (intracranial self-stimulation) experiment was widely interpreted as the discovery of a "pleasure center" in the brain, but we have to take that suggestion with quite a pinch of salt. It's fascinating, but also quite reductively depressing, to imagine that a lot of the things humans feel compelled to do each day—from work and eating to sport and sex—are motivated by nothing more than the need to scratch a deep neural itch: to repeatedly stimulate a "hungry" part of our brain. While it offers important insights into addictive behavior, the idea that all of our complex human pleasure-seeking stems from something so crudely behavioral—stimulus and reward—seems absurdly over-simple. It's fascinating to search for references to Olds and Milner's work and see it quoted in books with such titles as Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich . But it's quite a stretch from a rat pushing on a pedal to making arguments of that kind. [14]

6: Are you asleep at the wheel? (Libet, 1983)

Being a conscious, active human being is a bit like driving a car: looking out through your eyes is like staring through a windshield, seeing (perceiving) things and responding to them, as they see and respond to you. Consciousness, in other words, feels like a "top-down" thing; like the driver of a car, we're always in control, willing the world to bend to our way, making things happen according to ideas our brains we devise beforehand. But how true is that really? If you are a driver, you'll know that much of what you do depends on a kind of mental "auto-pilot" or cruise control. As a practiced driver, you barely have to think about what you're doing at all—it's completely automatic. We're only really aware of just how effort-full and attentive drivers need to be when we first start learning. We soon learn to do most of the things involved in driving without being consciously aware of them at all—and that's true of other things too, not just driving a car. Seen this way, driving seems impressive—but if you think again about the Simons and Chabris gorilla experiment, and consider its implications for sitting behind the wheel, you might want to take the bus in future.

Still, you might think, you're always, ultimately, in charge and in control: you're the driver , not the passenger, even if you are sometimes dozy at the wheel. And yet, a remarkable series of experiments by Benjamin Libet, in the 1980s, appeared to demonstrate something entirely different: far from consciously making things happen, sometimes we become conscious of what we've done after the fact. In Libet's experiments, he made people watch a clock and move their wrist when it reached a certain time. But their brain activity (which he was also monitoring) showed a peak a fraction of a second before their conscious decision to move, suggesting, at least in this case, that consciousness is the effect, not the cause. [15]

“ Many of our mental functions are carried out unconsciously , without conscious awareness. ” Benjamin Libet, Mind Time, 2004, p.2.

On the face of it, Libet's work seems to have extraordinary implications for the study of consciousness. It's almost like we're zombies sitting at the wheel of a self-driving car. Is the whole idea of conscious free will just an illusion, an accidental artefact of knee-jerk behavior that happens much more automatically? You can certainly try to argue it that way, as many people have. On the other hand, it's important to remember that this is a highly constrained laboratory experiment and you can't automatically extrapolate from that to more general human behavior. (Apart from anything else, the methodology of Libet's experiments has been questioned. [16] ) While you could try to argue that a complex decision (to buy a house or quit your job) is made unconsciously or subconsciously in whatever manner and we rationalize or become conscious of it after the fact, experiments like Libet's aren't offering evidence for that. Sometimes, it's too much of a stretch to argue from simple, highly contrived, very abstract laboratory experiments to bigger, bolder, and more general everyday behavior.

On the other hand, it's quite likely that some behavior that we believe to be consciously pre-determined is anything but, as William James (and, independently, Carl Lange) reasoned way back in the late 19th century. In a famous example James offered, we assume we run from a scary bear because we see the bear and feel afraid. But James believed the reasoning here is back to front: we see the bear, run, and only feel afraid because we find ourselves running from a bear! (How we arrive at emotions is a whole huge topic of its own. The James-Lange theory eventually spawned more developed theories by Walter Cannon and Philip Bard, who believed emotions and their causes happen simultaneously, and Stanley Shachter and Jerome Singer, who believe emotions stem both from our bodily reactions and how we think about them.) [17]

7: Why are you so attached? (Harlow et al, 1971)

“ Love is a wondrous state, deep, tender, and rewarding. Because of its intimate and personal nature it is regarded by some as an improper topic for experimental research. ” Harry Harlow, 1958.

Artwork: Animals crave proper comfort, not just the simple "reduction" of "drives" like hunger. Photo courtesy of NASA and Wikimedia Commons .

There's an obvious evolutionary reason why we get attached to other people: one way or another, it improves our chances of surviving, mating, and passing on our genes to future generations. Attachment begins at birth, but our attachment to our mothers isn't motivated purely by a simple need for nourishment (through breastfeeding or whatever it might be). One of the most famous psychological experiments of all time demonstrated this back in the early 1970s. The University of Wisconsin's Harry Harlow and his wife Margaret tested what happened when newborn baby monkeys were separated from their mothers and "raised," instead by crude, mechanical surrogates. In particular, Harlow looked at how the monkeys behaved toward two rival "mothers", one with a wooden head and a wire body that had a feeding bottle attached, and one made from soft, warm, comforting cloth. Perhaps surprisingly, the babies preferred the cloth mother. Even when they ventured over to the wire mother for food, they soon returned to the cloth mother for comfort and reassurance. [18]

The fascinating thing about this study is that it suggests the need for comfort is at least as important as the (more obviously fundamental) need for nourishment, so busting the cold, harsh claims of hard-wired behaviorists, who believed our attachment to our mothers was all about mechanistic "drive reduction," or knee-jerk stimulus and response. Ultimately, we love the loving—Harlow's "contact comfort"—and perhaps things like habits, routines, and traditions can all be interpreted in this light.

8: Are you as rational as you think? (Wason, 1966)

“ ... I have concentrated mainly on the mistakes, assumptions, and stereotyped behavior which occur when people have to reason about abstract material. But... we seldom do reason about abstract material. ” Peter Wason, 1966.

Like everyone else, you probably have your moments of wild, reckless abandon, but faced with the task of making a calm, rational judgment about something, how well do you think you'd do? It's not a question of what you know or how clever you are, but how well you can make a judgment or a decision. Suppose, for example, you had to hire the best applicant for a job based on a pile of résumés. Or what if you had to find a new apartment by the end of the month and you had a limited selection to pick among. What if you were on the jury of a trial and had to sit through weeks or evidence to reach a verdict? How well do you think you'd do? Probably, given all the information, you feel you'd make a fair job of it: you have faith in your judgment. And yet, decades of research into human decision-making suggests you'll massively overestimate your own ability. Overconfident and under-informed, you'll jump to hasty conclusions, swayed by glaring biases you don't even notice. In the words of Daniel Kahneman, probably the world's leading expert on human rationality, your brain opts to think "fast" (reaches a quick and dirty decision) when sometimes it'd be better off thinking "slow" (reaching a more considered verdict). [25]

A classic demonstration of how poorly we think was devised by British psychologist Peter Wason in 1966. The experimenter puts a set of four white cards in front of you, each of which has a letter on one side and a number on the other. Then they tell you that if a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even number on the other side. Finally, they ask you which cards you need to turn over to verify if that statement is true. Suppose the cards show A, D, 4, and 7. The obvious answer, offered by most people, is A and 4 or just A. But the correct answer is actually A and 7. Once you've turned over A, it serves no purpose to turn over D or 4: turning over D tells us nothing, because it's not a vowel, while turning over 4 doesn't provide extra proof or disprove the statement. By turning over 7, however, you can potentially disprove the theory if you reveal a vowel on the other side of it. Wason's four-card test demonstrates what's known as "confirmation bias"—our failure to seek out evidence that contradicts things we believe. [19]

Artwork: Peter Wason's four-card selection test. If a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even number on the other. Which cards do you need to turn over to confirm this?

As with the other experiments here, you could extrapolate and argue that Wason's abstract reasoning test is echoed by bigger and wider failings we see in ourselves. Perhaps it goes some way to explaining things like online "echo chambers" and "filter bubbles", where we tend to watch, read, and listen to things that reinforce things we already believe—intellectual cloth mothers, you might call them—rather than challenging those comfortable beliefs or putting them to the test. But, again, a simple laboratory test is exactly what it is: a simple, laboratory test. And other, broader personal or social conclusions don't automatically follow on from it. (Indeed, you might recognize the tendency to argue that way as a confirmation bias all of its own.)

9: How do you learn things? (Pavlov, 1890s)

Learning might seem a very conscious and deliberate thing, especially if you hate the subject you're studying or merely sitting in school. What could be worse than "rote" learning your times table, practising French vocabulary, or revising for an exam? We also learn a lot of things less consciously—sometimes without any conscious effort at all. Animals (other than humans) don't sit in classrooms all day but they learn plenty of things. Even one of the simplest (a sea-slug called Aplysia californica ) will learn to withdraw its syphon and gill if you give it an electric shock, as Eric Kandel and James Schwartz famously discovered. [20]

“ The animal must respond to changes in the environment in such a manner that its responsive activity is directed toward the preservation of its existence. ” Ivan Pavlov, 1926.

So how does learning come about? At its most basic, it involves making connections or "associations" between things, something that was probed by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov in perhaps the most famous psychology experiment of all time. Pavlov looked at how dogs behave when he gave them food. Normally, he found dogs would salivate (a response) when he brought them a plate of food (a stimulus). We call this an unconditioned response (meaning default, normal, or just untrained): it's what the dogs do naturally. Now, with the food a distant doggy memory, Pavlov rang a bell (a neutral stimulus) and found it produced no response at all (the dogs didn't salivate). In the next phase of the experiment, he brought the dogs plates of food and rang a bell at the same time and found, again, that they salivated. So again, we have an unconditioned response, but this time to a pair of stimuli. Finally, after a period of this training, he tested what happened when he just rang the bell and, to his surprise, found that they salivated once again. In the jargon of psychology, we say the dogs had become "conditioned" to respond to the bell alone: they associated the bell with food and so responded by salivating. We call this a conditioned (trained or learned) response: the dogs have learned that the sound of the bell is generally linked to the appearance of food. [21]

Pavlov's work on conditioning was hugely influential—indeed, it was a key inspiration for the theory of behaviorism . Advanced by such luminaries as B.F. Skinner and J.B. Watson, this was the idea that animal behavior is largely a matter of stimulus and response and mental states—thinking, feeling, emoting, and reasoning—is irrelevant. But, as with all the other experiments here, it's a stretch to argue that we're all quasi-automated zombies raised in a kind of collective cloud of mind-control conditioning. It's true that we learn some things by simple, behavioural association, and animals like Aplysia may learn everything they know that way, but it doesn't follow that all animals learn everything by making endless daisy-chains of stimulus and response. [22]

10: You're happier than you realize (Seligman, 1975)

Money makes the world go round—or so goes the lyric of a famous song. But if you're American Martin Seligman, you'd probably think "happiness" was a better candidate for what powers the planet, or should. When I was studying psychology at college back in the mid-1980s, Professor Seligman came along to give a guest lecture—and it proved to be one of the most thought-provoking talks I would ever attend.

“ The time has finally arrived for a science that seeks to understand positive emotion, build strength and virtue, and provide guideposts for... 'the good life'. ” Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness, 2003.

Though now widely and popularly known for his work in a field he calls positive psychology , Seligman originally made his name researching mental illness and how people came to be depressed. Taking a leaf from Pavlov's book, his subjects were dogs. Rather than feeding them and ringing bells, he studied what happened when he gave dogs electric shocks and either offered them an opportunity to escape or restrained them in a harness so they couldn't. What he discovered was that dogs that couldn't avoid the shocks became demoralised and depressed—they "learned helpnessness"—and eventually didn't even try to avoid punishment, even when (once again) they were allowed to. [23]

You can easily construct a whole (behavioural) theory of mental illness on the basis of Seligman's learned helplessness experiments but, once again, there's much more to it than that. People don't become depressed purely because they're in impossible situations where problems seem (to use the terminology) "internal" (their own fault), "global" (affecting all aspects of their life), and "stable" (impossible to change). Many different factors—neurochemical, behavioral, cognitive, and social—feed into depression and, as a result, there are just as many forms of treatment.

What's really interesting about Seligman's work is what he did next. In the 1990s, he realized psychologists were obsessed with mental illness and negativity when, in his view, they should probably spend more time figuring out what makes people happy. So began his more recent quest to understand "positive psychology" and the things we can all do to make our lives feel more fulfilled. The key, in his view, is working out and playing to what he calls our "signature strengths" (things we're good at that we enjoy doing). His ideas, which trace back to those early experiments on learned helpless in hapless dogs, have proved hugely influential, prompting many psychologists to switch their attention to developing a useful, practical "science of happiness." [24]

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For older readers, for younger readers, references ↑    see for example the classic discussion of consciousness in chapter 9: the stream of thought in principles of psychology (volume 1) by william james, henry holt, 1890. ↑    donald broadbent carried out notable early work on "selective attention" as this is called. see, for example, the role of auditory localization in attention and memory span by d.e. broadbent, j exp psychol, 1954, volume 47 number 3, pp.191–6. ↑     [pdf] gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events by daniel j simons, christopher f chabris, perception, 1999, volume 28, pp.1059–1074. ↑     the invisible gorilla and other ways our intuition deceives us by christopher chabris and daniel j. simons. harpercollins, 2010. ↑     [pdf] the effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness by elliot aronson, ben willerman, and joanne floyd, psychon. sci., 1966, volume 4 number 6,pp.227–228. ↑     the 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon by roger brown and david mcneill, journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, volume 5, issue 4, august 1966, pp.325–337. ↑     the cognitive neuropsychology of déjà vu by chris moulin, psychology press, 2017. ↑     reconstruction of automobile destruction: an example of the interaction between language and memory by elizabeth loftus and john palmer, journal of verbal learning & verbal behavior, volume 13 issue 5, pp.585–589. ↑     "that doesn't mean it really happened": an interview with elizabeth loftus by carrie poppy, the sceptical inquirer, september 8, 2016. ↑     behavioral study of obedience by stanley milgram, journal of abnormal and social psychology, 1963, volume 67, pp.371–378. ↑     a study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison by craig haney, curtis banks, and philip zimbardo, naval research review, 1973, volume 30, pp.4–17. ↑     dr. robert g. heath: a controversial figure in the history of deep brain stimulation by christen m. o'neal et al, neurosurg focus 43 (3):e12, 2017. serendipity and the cerebral localization of pleasure by alan a. baumeister, journal of the history of the neurosciences, basic and clinical perspectives, volume 15, 2006. issue 2. the 'gay cure' experiments that were written out of scientific history by robert colvile, mosaic science, 4 july 2016. ↑     positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain by j. olds and p. millner, j comp physiol psychol, 1954 dec;47(6):419–27. ↑     the pleasure areas by h.j. campbell, methuen, 1973. ↑     mind time: the temporal factor in consciousness by benjamin libet, harvard university press, 2004. ↑     exposing some holes in libet's classic free will study by christian jarrett, bps research digest, 2008. ↑    for a decent overview, see the section "theories of emotion" in 58: emotion in psychology by openstaxcollege. ↑     the nature of love by harry f. harlow, american psychologist, 13, pp.673–685. for a more general account, see love at goon park: harry harlow and the science of affection by by deborah blum, basic books, 2002. ↑     reasoning by p.c. wason, in foss, brian (ed.). new horizons in psychology. penguin, 1966, p.145. ↑     eric kandel and aplysia californica: their role in the elucidation of mechanisms of memory and the study of psychotherapy by michael robertson and garry walter, acta neuropsychiatrica, volume 22, issue 4, august 2010, pp.195–196. ↑     conditioned reflexes; an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex by i.p pavlov. dover, 1960. ↑     pavlov's dogs by tim tully, current biology, 2003, volume 13, issue 4, 18 february 2003, pp.r117–r119. ↑     learned helplessness: theory and evidence by steven maier and martin seligman, journal of experimental psychology: general, 1976, volume 105, number 1, pp3.–46. ↑     authentic happiness by martin seligman, nicholas brealey, 2003. ↑     thinking fast and slow by daniel kahneman, penguin, 2011. ↑     subject reaction: the neglected factor in the ethics of experimentation by stanley milgram, the hastings center report, vol. 7, no. 5 (oct., 1977), pp. 19–23. please do not copy our articles onto blogs and other websites articles from this website are registered at the us copyright office. copying or otherwise using registered works without permission, removing this or other copyright notices, and/or infringing related rights could make you liable to severe civil or criminal penalties. text copyright © chris woodford 2021. all rights reserved. full copyright notice and terms of use . follow us, rate this page, tell your friends, cite this page, more to explore on our website....

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• The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History

While each year thousands and thousands of studies are completed in the many specialty areas of psychology, there are a handful that, over the years, have had a lasting impact in the psychological community as a whole. Some of these were dutifully conducted, keeping within the confines of ethical and practical guidelines. Others pushed the boundaries of human behavior during their psychological experiments and created controversies that still linger to this day. And still others were not designed to be true psychological experiments, but ended up as beacons to the psychological community in proving or disproving theories.

This is a list of the 25 most influential psychological experiments still being taught to psychology students of today.

1. A Class Divided

Study conducted by: jane elliott.

Study Conducted in 1968 in an Iowa classroom

Experiment Details: Jane Elliott’s famous experiment was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inspirational life that he led. The third grade teacher developed an exercise, or better yet, a psychological experiment, to help her Caucasian students understand the effects of racism and prejudice.

Elliott divided her class into two separate groups: blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. On the first day, she labeled the blue-eyed group as the superior group and from that point forward they had extra privileges, leaving the brown-eyed children to represent the minority group. She discouraged the groups from interacting and singled out individual students to stress the negative characteristics of the children in the minority group. What this exercise showed was that the children’s behavior changed almost instantaneously. The group of blue-eyed students performed better academically and even began bullying their brown-eyed classmates. The brown-eyed group experienced lower self-confidence and worse academic performance. The next day, she reversed the roles of the two groups and the blue-eyed students became the minority group.

At the end of the experiment, the children were so relieved that they were reported to have embraced one another and agreed that people should not be judged based on outward appearances. This exercise has since been repeated many times with similar outcomes.

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2. Asch Conformity Study

Study conducted by: dr. solomon asch.

Study Conducted in 1951 at Swarthmore College

Experiment Details: Dr. Solomon Asch conducted a groundbreaking study that was designed to evaluate a person’s likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so.

A group of participants were shown pictures with lines of various lengths and were then asked a simple question: Which line is longest? The tricky part of this study was that in each group only one person was a true participant. The others were actors with a script. Most of the actors were instructed to give the wrong answer. Strangely, the one true participant almost always agreed with the majority, even though they knew they were giving the wrong answer.

The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right. It is still recognized as one of the most influential psychological experiments for understanding human behavior.

3. Bobo Doll Experiment

Study conducted by: dr. alburt bandura.

Study Conducted between 1961-1963 at Stanford University

In his groundbreaking study he separated participants into three groups:

• one was exposed to a video of an adult showing aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll
• another was exposed to video of a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll
• the third formed a control group

Children watched their assigned video and then were sent to a room with the same doll they had seen in the video (with the exception of those in the control group). What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards the doll themselves. The other groups showed little imitative aggressive behavior. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of derivative physical aggressions shown by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The study also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104. This is compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models.

While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7. This is compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls who were exposed to aggressive male models. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura’s secondary prediction that children will be more strongly influenced by same-sex models. The Bobo Doll Experiment showed a groundbreaking way to study human behavior and it’s influences.

4. Car Crash Experiment

Study conducted by: elizabeth loftus and john palmer.

Study Conducted in 1974 at The University of California in Irvine

The participants watched slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses to the scene. The participants were put into two groups and each group was questioned using different wording such as “how fast was the car driving at the time of impact?” versus “how fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?” The experimenters found that the use of different verbs affected the participants’ memories of the accident, showing that memory can be easily distorted.

This research suggests that memory can be easily manipulated by questioning technique. This means that information gathered after the event can merge with original memory causing incorrect recall or reconstructive memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is now referred to as confabulation. This concept has very important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.

5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

Study conducted by: leon festinger and james carlsmith.

Study Conducted in 1957 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting:

This conflict produces an inherent feeling of discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to minimize or eliminate the discomfort and restore balance.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, after an observational study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Out of this study was born an intriguing experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith where participants were asked to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant’s initial attitudes toward this task were highly negative.

They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a participant waiting in the lobby that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next participant that the boring experiment would be fun. When the participants were later asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.

Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that cognitive dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs and there is therefore no dissonance.

6. Fantz’s Looking Chamber

Study conducted by: robert l. fantz.

Study Conducted in 1961 at the University of Illinois

Experiment Details: The study conducted by Robert L. Fantz is among the simplest, yet most important in the field of infant development and vision. In 1961, when this experiment was conducted, there very few ways to study what was going on in the mind of an infant. Fantz realized that the best way was to simply watch the actions and reactions of infants. He understood the fundamental factor that if there is something of interest near humans, they generally look at it.

To test this concept, Fantz set up a display board with two pictures attached. On one was a bulls-eye. On the other was the sketch of a human face. This board was hung in a chamber where a baby could lie safely underneath and see both images. Then, from behind the board, invisible to the baby, he peeked through a hole to watch what the baby looked at. This study showed that a two-month old baby looked twice as much at the human face as it did at the bulls-eye. This suggests that human babies have some powers of pattern and form selection. Before this experiment it was thought that babies looked out onto a chaotic world of which they could make little sense.

7. Hawthorne Effect

Study conducted by: henry a. landsberger.

Study Conducted in 1955 at Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois

Landsberger performed the study by analyzing data from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to evaluate whether the level of light in a building changed the productivity of the workers. What Mayo found was that the level of light made no difference in productivity. The workers increased their output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.

The researchers noticed a tendency that the workers’ level of efficiency increased when any variable was manipulated. The study showed that the output changed simply because the workers were aware that they were under observation. The conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out. They increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.

The Hawthorne Effect has become one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design of any experiment in psychology and beyond.

8. Kitty Genovese Case

Study conducted by: new york police force.

Study Conducted in 1964 in New York City

Experiment Details: The murder case of Kitty Genovese was never intended to be a psychological experiment, however it ended up having serious implications for the field.

According to a New York Times article, almost 40 neighbors witnessed Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964. Not one neighbor called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to “finish off” his victim. It was later uncovered that many of these facts were exaggerated. (There were more likely only a dozen witnesses and records show that some calls to police were made).

What this case later become famous for is the “Bystander Effect,” which states that the more bystanders that are present in a social situation, the less likely it is that anyone will step in and help. This effect has led to changes in medicine, psychology and many other areas. One famous example is the way CPR is taught to new learners. All students in CPR courses learn that they must assign one bystander the job of alerting authorities which minimizes the chances of no one calling for assistance.

9. Learned Helplessness Experiment

Study conducted by: martin seligman.

Study Conducted in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania

Seligman’s experiment involved the ringing of a bell and then the administration of a light shock to a dog. After a number of pairings, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened. As soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.

During the course of this study something unexpected happened. Each dog was placed in a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence easily. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman placed each dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence. In an unexpected turn, the dogs simply laid down.

The hypothesis was that as the dogs learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, they gave up in the second part of the experiment. To prove this hypothesis the experimenters brought in a new set of animals and found that dogs with no history in the experiment would jump over the fence.

This condition was described as learned helplessness. A human or animal does not attempt to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught them that they are helpless.

10. Little Albert Experiment

Study conducted by: john b. watson and rosalie rayner.

Study Conducted in 1920 at Johns Hopkins University

The experiment began by placing a white rat in front of the infant, who initially had no fear of the animal. Watson then produced a loud sound by striking a steel bar with a hammer every time little Albert was presented with the rat. After several pairings (the noise and the presentation of the white rat), the boy began to cry and exhibit signs of fear every time the rat appeared in the room. Watson also created similar conditioned reflexes with other common animals and objects (rabbits, Santa beard, etc.) until Albert feared them all.

This study proved that classical conditioning works on humans. One of its most important implications is that adult fears are often connected to early childhood experiences.

11. Magical Number Seven

Study conducted by: george a. miller.

Study Conducted in 1956 at Princeton University

Experiment Details:   Frequently referred to as “ Miller’s Law,” the Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. This means that the human memory capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

The Magical Number Seven Experiment was published in 1956 by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University’s Department of Psychology in Psychological Review .  In the article, Miller discussed a concurrence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory.

In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (such as 10 different tones varying only in pitch). The person responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before).

Performance is almost perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a human’s maximum performance on one-dimensional absolute judgment can be described as an information store with the maximum capacity of approximately 2 to 3 bits of information There is the ability to distinguish between four and eight alternatives.

12. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment

Study conducted by: ivan pavlov.

Study Conducted in the 1890s at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia

Pavlov began with the simple idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. He observed that dogs do not learn to salivate when they see food. This reflex is “hard wired” into the dog. This is an unconditioned response (a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).

Pavlov outlined that there are unconditioned responses in the animal by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and then measuring its salivary secretions. In the experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. What he found was that the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food. This learning created a new behavior. The dog salivated when he heard the bell. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

This theory came to be known as classical conditioning.

13. Robbers Cave Experiment

Study conducted by: muzafer and carolyn sherif.

Study Conducted in 1954 at the University of Oklahoma

Experiment Details: This experiment, which studied group conflict, is considered by most to be outside the lines of what is considered ethically sound.

In 1954 researchers at the University of Oklahoma assigned 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys from similar backgrounds into two groups. The two groups were taken to separate areas of a summer camp facility where they were able to bond as social units. The groups were housed in separate cabins and neither group knew of the other’s existence for an entire week. The boys bonded with their cabin mates during that time. Once the two groups were allowed to have contact, they showed definite signs of prejudice and hostility toward each other even though they had only been given a very short time to develop their social group. To increase the conflict between the groups, the experimenters had them compete against each other in a series of activities. This created even more hostility and eventually the groups refused to eat in the same room. The final phase of the experiment involved turning the rival groups into friends. The fun activities the experimenters had planned like shooting firecrackers and watching movies did not initially work, so they created teamwork exercises where the two groups were forced to collaborate. At the end of the experiment, the boys decided to ride the same bus home, demonstrating that conflict can be resolved and prejudice overcome through cooperation.

Many critics have compared this study to Golding’s Lord of the Flies novel as a classic example of prejudice and conflict resolution.

14. Ross’ False Consensus Effect Study

Study conducted by: lee ross.

Study Conducted in 1977 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: In 1977, a social psychology professor at Stanford University named Lee Ross conducted an experiment that, in lay terms, focuses on how people can incorrectly conclude that others think the same way they do, or form a “false consensus” about the beliefs and preferences of others. Ross conducted the study in order to outline how the “false consensus effect” functions in humans.

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In the first part of the study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then were told two alternative ways of responding to the situation. They were asked to do three things:

• Guess which option other people would choose
• Say which option they themselves would choose
• Describe the attributes of the person who would likely choose each of the two options

What the study showed was that most of the subjects believed that other people would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves. This phenomenon is referred to as the false consensus effect, where an individual thinks that other people think the same way they do when they may not. The second observation coming from this important study is that when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the people who will likely make the choice opposite of their own, they made bold and sometimes negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.

15. The Schachter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Study conducted by: stanley schachter and jerome e. singer.

Study Conducted in 1962 at Columbia University

Experiment Details: In 1962 Schachter and Singer conducted a ground breaking experiment to prove their theory of emotion.

In the study, a group of 184 male participants were injected with epinephrine, a hormone that induces arousal including increased heartbeat, trembling, and rapid breathing. The research participants were told that they were being injected with a new medication to test their eyesight. The first group of participants was informed the possible side effects that the injection might cause while the second group of participants were not. The participants were then placed in a room with someone they thought was another participant, but was actually a confederate in the experiment. The confederate acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry. Participants who had not been informed about the effects of the injection were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than those who had been informed.

What Schachter and Singer were trying to understand was the ways in which cognition or thoughts influence human emotion. Their study illustrates the importance of how people interpret their physiological states, which form an important component of your emotions. Though their cognitive theory of emotional arousal dominated the field for two decades, it has been criticized for two main reasons: the size of the effect seen in the experiment was not that significant and other researchers had difficulties repeating the experiment.

16. Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment

Study conducted by: daniel simons and christopher chabris.

Study Conducted in 1999 at Harvard University

Experiment Details: In 1999 Simons and Chabris conducted their famous awareness test at Harvard University.

Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. The video moves at a moderate pace and keeping track of the passes is a relatively easy task. What most people fail to notice amidst their counting is that in the middle of the test, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court and stood in the center before walking off-screen.

The study found that the majority of the subjects did not notice the gorilla at all, proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task. What the study set out to prove is that when people are asked to attend to one task, they focus so strongly on that element that they may miss other important details.

17. Stanford Prison Study

Study conducted by philip zimbardo.

Study Conducted in 1971 at Stanford University

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study behavior of “normal” individuals when assigned a role of prisoner or guard. College students were recruited to participate. They were assigned roles of “guard” or “inmate.”  Zimbardo played the role of the warden. The basement of the psychology building was the set of the prison. Great care was taken to make it look and feel as realistic as possible.

The prison guards were told to run a prison for two weeks. They were told not to physically harm any of the inmates during the study. After a few days, the prison guards became very abusive verbally towards the inmates. Many of the prisoners became submissive to those in authority roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment inevitably had to be cancelled because some of the participants displayed troubling signs of breaking down mentally.

Although the experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational. People will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right. The Stanford Prison Experiment remains one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time.

18. Stanley Milgram Experiment

Study conducted by stanley milgram.

Study Conducted in 1961 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: This 1961 study was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. It was designed to measure people’s willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.

Participants were told they were participating in a study on memory. They were asked to watch another person (an actor) do a memory test. They were instructed to press a button that gave an electric shock each time the person got a wrong answer. (The actor did not actually receive the shocks, but pretended they did).

Participants were told to play the role of “teacher” and administer electric shocks to “the learner,” every time they answered a question incorrectly. The experimenters asked the participants to keep increasing the shocks. Most of them obeyed even though the individual completing the memory test appeared to be in great pain. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to. They increased the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal electric shocks.

This experiment showed that humans are conditioned to obey authority and will usually do so even if it goes against their natural morals or common sense.

19. Surrogate Mother Experiment

Study conducted by: harry harlow.

Study Conducted from 1957-1963 at the University of Wisconsin

Experiment Details: In a series of controversial experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harry Harlow studied the importance of a mother’s love for healthy childhood development.

In order to do this he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be raised by two “surrogate mothers.” One of the surrogates was made of wire with an attached bottle for food. The other was made of soft terrycloth but lacked food. The researcher found that the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother, thereby proving that affection plays a greater role than sustenance when it comes to childhood development. They also found that the monkeys that spent more time cuddling the soft mother grew up to healthier.

This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.

20. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Study conducted by: john darley and daniel batson.

Study Conducted in 1973 at The Princeton Theological Seminary (Researchers were from Princeton University)

Experiment Details: In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behavior. The researchers set out three hypotheses they wanted to test:

• People thinking about religion and higher principles would be no more inclined to show helping behavior than laymen.
• People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behavior.
• People who are religious for personal gain would be less likely to help than people who are religious because they want to gain some spiritual and personal insights into the meaning of life.

Student participants were given some religious teaching and instruction. They were then were told to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying injured and appearing to be in dire need of assistance. The first variable being tested was the degree of urgency impressed upon the subjects, with some being told not to rush and others being informed that speed was of the essence.

The results of the experiment were intriguing, with the haste of the subject proving to be the overriding factor. When the subject was in no hurry, nearly two-thirds of people stopped to lend assistance. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten.

People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to help as those delivering other sermons,. This showed that the thoughts of the individual were a factor in determining helping behavior. Religious beliefs did not appear to make much difference on the results. Being religious for personal gain, or as part of a spiritual quest, did not appear to make much of an impact on the amount of helping behavior shown.

21. The Halo Effect Experiment

Study conducted by: richard e. nisbett and timothy decamp wilson.

Study Conducted in 1977 at the University of Michigan

Experiment Details: The Halo Effect states that people generally assume that people who are physically attractive are more likely to:

• be intelligent
• be friendly
• display good judgment

To prove their theory, Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson created a study to prove that people have little awareness of the nature of the Halo Effect. They’re not aware that it influences:

• their personal judgments
• the production of a more complex social behavior

In the experiment, college students were the research participants. They were asked to evaluate a psychology instructor as they view him in a videotaped interview. The students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was shown one of two different interviews with the same instructor. The instructor is a native French-speaking Belgian who spoke English with a noticeable accent. In the first video, the instructor presented himself as someone:

• respectful of his students’ intelligence and motives
• flexible in his approach to teaching
• enthusiastic about his subject matter

In the second interview, he presented himself as much more unlikable. He was cold and distrustful toward the students and was quite rigid in his teaching style.

After watching the videos, the subjects were asked to rate the lecturer on:

• physical appearance

His mannerisms and accent were kept the same in both versions of videos. The subjects were asked to rate the professor on an 8-point scale ranging from “like extremely” to “dislike extremely.” Subjects were also told that the researchers were interested in knowing “how much their liking for the teacher influenced the ratings they just made.” Other subjects were asked to identify how much the characteristics they just rated influenced their liking of the teacher.

After responding to the questionnaire, the respondents were puzzled about their reactions to the videotapes and to the questionnaire items. The students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings. Most said that how much they liked the lecturer had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

The interesting thing about this study is that people can understand the phenomenon, but they are unaware when it is occurring. Without realizing it, humans make judgments. Even when it is pointed out, they may still deny that it is a product of the halo effect phenomenon.

22. The Marshmallow Test

Study conducted by: walter mischel.

Study Conducted in 1972 at Stanford University

In his 1972 Marshmallow Experiment, children ages four to six were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed in front of them on a table. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room, the experimenter informed them that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after they returned in 15 minutes. The examiner recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and noted whether it correlated with the child’s success in adulthood. A small number of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately and one-third delayed 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. This characteristic likely remains with a person for life. While this study seems simplistic, the findings outline some of the foundational differences in individual traits that can predict success.

23. The Monster Study

Study conducted by: wendell johnson.

Study Conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa

Experiment Details: The Monster Study received this negative title due to the unethical methods that were used to determine the effects of positive and negative speech therapy on children.

Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa selected 22 orphaned children, some with stutters and some without. The children were in two groups. The group of children with stutters was placed in positive speech therapy, where they were praised for their fluency. The non-stutterers were placed in negative speech therapy, where they were disparaged for every mistake in grammar that they made.

As a result of the experiment, some of the children who received negative speech therapy suffered psychological effects and retained speech problems for the rest of their lives. They were examples of the significance of positive reinforcement in education.

The initial goal of the study was to investigate positive and negative speech therapy. However, the implication spanned much further into methods of teaching for young children.

24. Violinist at the Metro Experiment

Study conducted by: staff at the washington post.

Study Conducted in 2007 at a Washington D.C. Metro Train Station

During the study, pedestrians rushed by without realizing that the musician playing at the entrance to the metro stop was Grammy-winning musician, Joshua Bell. Two days before playing in the subway, he sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats average $100. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. In the 45 minutes the musician played his violin, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. Around 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The study and the subsequent article organized by the Washington Post was part of a social experiment looking at:

• the priorities of people

Gene Weingarten wrote about the social experiment: “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” Later he won a Pulitzer Prize for his story. Some of the questions the article addresses are:

• Do we perceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

As it turns out, many of us are not nearly as perceptive to our environment as we might like to think.

25. Visual Cliff Experiment

Study conducted by: eleanor gibson and richard walk.

Study Conducted in 1959 at Cornell University

Experiment Details: In 1959, psychologists Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to study depth perception in infants. They wanted to know if depth perception is a learned behavior or if it is something that we are born with. To study this, Gibson and Walk conducted the visual cliff experiment.

They studied 36 infants between the ages of six and 14 months, all of whom could crawl. The infants were placed one at a time on a visual cliff. A visual cliff was created using a large glass table that was raised about a foot off the floor. Half of the glass table had a checker pattern underneath in order to create the appearance of a ‘shallow side.’

In order to create a ‘deep side,’ a checker pattern was created on the floor; this side is the visual cliff. The placement of the checker pattern on the floor creates the illusion of a sudden drop-off. Researchers placed a foot-wide centerboard between the shallow side and the deep side. Gibson and Walk found the following:

• Nine of the infants did not move off the centerboard.
• All of the 27 infants who did move crossed into the shallow side when their mothers called them from the shallow side.
• Three of the infants crawled off the visual cliff toward their mother when called from the deep side.
• When called from the deep side, the remaining 24 children either crawled to the shallow side or cried because they could not cross the visual cliff and make it to their mother.

What this study helped demonstrate is that depth perception is likely an inborn train in humans.

Among these experiments and psychological tests, we see boundaries pushed and theories taking on a life of their own. It is through the endless stream of psychological experimentation that we can see simple hypotheses become guiding theories for those in this field. The greater field of psychology became a formal field of experimental study in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated solely to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Since 1879, psychology has grown into a massive collection of:

• methods of practice

It’s also a specialty area in the field of healthcare. None of this would have been possible without these and many other important psychological experiments that have stood the test of time.

• 20 Most Unethical Experiments in Psychology
• What Careers are in Experimental Psychology?
• 10 Things to Know About the Psychology of Psychotherapy

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After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University and then a Master of Science in Clinical and Forensic Psychology from Drexel University, Kristen began a career as a therapist at two prisons in Philadelphia. At the same time she volunteered as a rape crisis counselor, also in Philadelphia. After a few years in the field she accepted a teaching position at a local college where she currently teaches online psychology courses. Kristen began writing in college and still enjoys her work as a writer, editor, professor and mother.

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Intelligence

50 ideas for five day self-experiments, get energized by trying new behaviors, five days at a time..

Posted November 9, 2018 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

I've long been a fan of time-limited self-experiments, but I've typically done 21 or 30-day experiments. Recently I stumbled across a YouTube series featuring a woman, Lucie Fink, who does five-day self-experiments as part of her job as a video producer at Refinery29. Shorter self-experiments have the advantage of being particularly non-threatening and give you the opportunity to try a wider variety of new behaviors.

I thought I'd give you a list of ideas to kickstart your thinking about experiments you could try. You make the rules, so tweak any of my suggestions to suit you, or come up with your own ideas.

As you read my list, try noting the item number of anything you're at least moderately interested in. Or, print this list and highlight. Where I've given multiple examples, I mean trying a different new thing each day within the category listed. At the end of the post, I'll give tips for planning and implementing your experiments.

Try 5 days of:

• Reading a chapter of a fiction book each day.
• Not pushing yourself (for workaholics—try letting yourself cruise. This is one I tried recently).
• Rediscovering a childhood passion (can be a variation on what you liked as a child).
• Meditation .
• Seeing a different friend for lunch or after work.
• Wearing something different—five days of different clothing styles or five days of different makeup.
• Foods you've never tried.
• Something you’ve wanted to try for a year or more, e.g., you've wanted to try the rock climbing wall at your gym but never done it.
• Playing a game each day, e.g., a card or board game, or sporty. Could include teaching your child a new game, like four square or hopscotch.
• Using your voice assistant (Google Home, Alexa) in a new way.
• Recontacting important people you've lost touch with, e.g., sending an email to your college mentor.
• Work-related social risk-taking , e.g., cold emailing a potential collaborator or getting to know a colleague you rarely talk you.
• Random acts of kindness (one per day).
• Doing something different on your way home from work instead of going straight home, e.g., calling into your local library one day, sitting in a coffee shop to read, taking an exercise class on another.
• Alternatives to driving e.g., ride your bike or walk somewhere, scooter to the corner store, take public transport to work. Doesn't need to be the same thing each day.
• No plastic bags.
• No ready-made or restaurant food (you decide the exact rules).
• Cooking something from scratch (could be making pizza bases one day, cookies the next).
• Not using the microwave.
• Making a new recipe from one particular recipe book.
• Listening to a new podcast.
• Taking a different lunch to work.
• Vegan food.
• Taking a bath instead of a shower.
• Going to bed early.
• DIY—trying something yourself that you'd usually pay someone to do.
• Self-care that gets perpetually pushed to the side, very broadly defined (e.g., buying new pillows when your old ones are so old they're making you sneeze).
• Decluttering—throwing away 5 or 10 items in your house each day.
• Creating better organizational systems—one new system per day.
• Tracking your time use in 10-15 min increments.
• Finding out something you don't already about someone in your life (having conversations you haven't had before, perhaps about goals , interests, mistakes, politics , childhood).
• Investing in an important relationship, e.g., calling your mom, talking to your neighbors, or complimenting your spouse.
• Political or civic activism, e.g., calling your representative's office to give your opinion on an issue, calling your city about a hazard that's never fixed, donating food or a small amount of money.
• Someone else's productivity method, e.g., Jeff Bezos' 3 good decisions per day.
• Spending quality time with your children, e.g., reading a book together or playing a game.
• Reaching out to someone who has impacted you, e.g., emailing the writer of a book you've enjoyed or the creator of a podcast you love, or posting a photo for a food vlogger whose recipe you use and love.
• Giving a compliment to someone new each day (beyond appearance and other very superficial compliments).
• No social media .
• Adding some meaningful art or decoration to your home (for people who tend to under-decorate). For example, displaying a family photo, or putting some of your child's artwork on the wall. It's fine to go a little more commercial with this too if you think it would be meaningful to you, such as buying a nice bottle for your olive oil.
• Switching up your work routine in some way (try a new switch-up each day, or the same one for all five days).
• Learning a new skill e.g., a new spreadsheet or other technical skill, or a simple DIY skill.
• Not overthinking small decisions (see #5 here ).
• Restorative yoga.
• Trying something you want to do but that intimidates you (one new thing per day, or a variation on the same thing for all five days).
• Reducing your expenses (e.g., canceling a subscription you don't use, calling to reduce your cable bill, reprogramming your thermostat a few degrees to save energy).
• Buying a small item from a thrift/charity store each day.
• Making only positive/affirming comments.
• Making something you'd usually buy e.g., your morning coffee.

Implementation tips

• A reasonable schedule for five-day experiments might be alternating a planning week with an experiment week. You might do a five-week cycle that's: planning week, experiment week, planning week, experiment week, week off. This gives you two experiments every five weeks.
• Pick experiments with varying themes. You'll notice several themes running through the ideas for experiments. These include food, fun/games, self-care, environment, learning/technology, money, and social/relationships. It's fine to gravitate towards one or two categories, but try to sometimes go outside those and try experiments from other categories.
• Try alternating more/less intensive experiments. Some experiments won't' really require a planning week, but it's better to be itching to try another experiment than feeling lukewarm or unenthused. Note that some experiments only require one short action per day, whereas others require an all-day shift in mindset (e.g., not overthinking small decisions). During your planning weeks, try to plan every aspect short of actually doing the new behavior. Plan what you'll do for each day of the experiment as well as how, when, and where . This increases your likelihood of following through.
• There's not an expectation you'll stick to anything you try after the experiment ends. You might, but part of being someone who tries lots of self-experiments is that the more you try, the less room you have in your life for new daily routines. The beauty of behavioral experiments is that it makes it easier to try those behaviors again in the future, as the urge or need strikes you. For example, if you try making pizza dough for the first time as part of an experiment, it might be months or years before you do that again, but nevertheless, trying anything once makes it easier to try again sometime in the future. It's also fine to keep up a habit for a while but then let it slide e.g., if the taking a bath experiment inspires you to keep doing that, but only for a few months. You didn't fail if you do this. People's life and willpower priorities are constantly shifting. Do what works for you, and have fun switching up your routines.

I'm going to write a separate post on the psychological benefits of self-experiments and will link that here once it's posted. Coming soon!

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Experimental Design: Types, Examples & Methods

Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Experimental design refers to how participants are allocated to different groups in an experiment. Types of design include repeated measures, independent groups, and matched pairs designs.

Probably the most common way to design an experiment in psychology is to divide the participants into two groups, the experimental group and the control group, and then introduce a change to the experimental group, not the control group.

The researcher must decide how he/she will allocate their sample to the different experimental groups.  For example, if there are 10 participants, will all 10 participants participate in both groups (e.g., repeated measures), or will the participants be split in half and take part in only one group each?

Three types of experimental designs are commonly used:

1. Independent Measures

Independent measures design, also known as between-groups , is an experimental design where different participants are used in each condition of the independent variable.  This means that each condition of the experiment includes a different group of participants.

This should be done by random allocation, ensuring that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to one group.

Independent measures involve using two separate groups of participants, one in each condition. For example:

• Con : More people are needed than with the repeated measures design (i.e., more time-consuming).
• Pro : Avoids order effects (such as practice or fatigue) as people participate in one condition only.  If a person is involved in several conditions, they may become bored, tired, and fed up by the time they come to the second condition or become wise to the requirements of the experiment!
• Con : Differences between participants in the groups may affect results, for example, variations in age, gender, or social background.  These differences are known as participant variables (i.e., a type of extraneous variable ).
• Control : After the participants have been recruited, they should be randomly assigned to their groups. This should ensure the groups are similar, on average (reducing participant variables).

2. Repeated Measures Design

Repeated Measures design is an experimental design where the same participants participate in each independent variable condition.  This means that each experiment condition includes the same group of participants.

Repeated Measures design is also known as within-groups or within-subjects design .

• Pro : As the same participants are used in each condition, participant variables (i.e., individual differences) are reduced.
• Con : There may be order effects. Order effects refer to the order of the conditions affecting the participants’ behavior.  Performance in the second condition may be better because the participants know what to do (i.e., practice effect).  Or their performance might be worse in the second condition because they are tired (i.e., fatigue effect). This limitation can be controlled using counterbalancing.
• Pro : Fewer people are needed as they participate in all conditions (i.e., saves time).
• Control : To combat order effects, the researcher counter-balances the order of the conditions for the participants.  Alternating the order in which participants perform in different conditions of an experiment.

Counterbalancing

Suppose we used a repeated measures design in which all of the participants first learned words in “loud noise” and then learned them in “no noise.”

We expect the participants to learn better in “no noise” because of order effects, such as practice. However, a researcher can control for order effects using counterbalancing.

The sample would be split into two groups: experimental (A) and control (B).  For example, group 1 does ‘A’ then ‘B,’ and group 2 does ‘B’ then ‘A.’ This is to eliminate order effects.

Although order effects occur for each participant, they balance each other out in the results because they occur equally in both groups.

3. Matched Pairs Design

A matched pairs design is an experimental design where pairs of participants are matched in terms of key variables, such as age or socioeconomic status. One member of each pair is then placed into the experimental group and the other member into the control group .

One member of each matched pair must be randomly assigned to the experimental group and the other to the control group.

• Con : If one participant drops out, you lose 2 PPs’ data.
• Pro : Reduces participant variables because the researcher has tried to pair up the participants so that each condition has people with similar abilities and characteristics.
• Con : Very time-consuming trying to find closely matched pairs.
• Pro : It avoids order effects, so counterbalancing is not necessary.
• Con : Impossible to match people exactly unless they are identical twins!
• Control : Members of each pair should be randomly assigned to conditions. However, this does not solve all these problems.

Experimental design refers to how participants are allocated to an experiment’s different conditions (or IV levels). There are three types:

1. Independent measures / between-groups : Different participants are used in each condition of the independent variable.

2. Repeated measures /within groups : The same participants take part in each condition of the independent variable.

3. Matched pairs : Each condition uses different participants, but they are matched in terms of important characteristics, e.g., gender, age, intelligence, etc.

Learning Check

Read about each of the experiments below. For each experiment, identify (1) which experimental design was used; and (2) why the researcher might have used that design.

1 . To compare the effectiveness of two different types of therapy for depression, depressed patients were assigned to receive either cognitive therapy or behavior therapy for a 12-week period.

The researchers attempted to ensure that the patients in the two groups had similar severity of depressed symptoms by administering a standardized test of depression to each participant, then pairing them according to the severity of their symptoms.

2 . To assess the difference in reading comprehension between 7 and 9-year-olds, a researcher recruited each group from a local primary school. They were given the same passage of text to read and then asked a series of questions to assess their understanding.

3 . To assess the effectiveness of two different ways of teaching reading, a group of 5-year-olds was recruited from a primary school. Their level of reading ability was assessed, and then they were taught using scheme one for 20 weeks.

At the end of this period, their reading was reassessed, and a reading improvement score was calculated. They were then taught using scheme two for a further 20 weeks, and another reading improvement score for this period was calculated. The reading improvement scores for each child were then compared.

4 . To assess the effect of the organization on recall, a researcher randomly assigned student volunteers to two conditions.

Condition one attempted to recall a list of words that were organized into meaningful categories; condition two attempted to recall the same words, randomly grouped on the page.

Experiment Terminology

Ecological validity.

The degree to which an investigation represents real-life experiences.

Experimenter effects

These are the ways that the experimenter can accidentally influence the participant through their appearance or behavior.

Demand characteristics

The clues in an experiment lead the participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for (e.g., the experimenter’s body language).

Independent variable (IV)

The variable the experimenter manipulates (i.e., changes) is assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable (DV)

Variable the experimenter measures. This is the outcome (i.e., the result) of a study.

Extraneous variables (EV)

All variables which are not independent variables but could affect the results (DV) of the experiment. Extraneous variables should be controlled where possible.

Confounding variables

Variable(s) that have affected the results (DV), apart from the IV. A confounding variable could be an extraneous variable that has not been controlled.

Random Allocation

Randomly allocating participants to independent variable conditions means that all participants should have an equal chance of taking part in each condition.

The principle of random allocation is to avoid bias in how the experiment is carried out and limit the effects of participant variables.

Order effects

Changes in participants’ performance due to their repeating the same or similar test more than once. Examples of order effects include:

(i) practice effect: an improvement in performance on a task due to repetition, for example, because of familiarity with the task;

(ii) fatigue effect: a decrease in performance of a task due to repetition, for example, because of boredom or tiredness.