Man and the characteristics of his personality have been the object of interest and study of the great minds of mankind for centuries. And from the very beginning of the development of psychological science to the present day, people have been able to develop and significantly improve their skills in this difficult but exciting matter. Therefore, now, in order to obtain reliable data in the study of the characteristics of the human psyche and his personality, people use a large number of different methods and methods of research in psychology. And one of the methods that has gained the greatest popularity and has proven itself from the most practical side is a psychological experiment.
We decided to consider individual examples of the most famous, interesting and even inhumane and shocking socio-psychological experiments that were carried out on people, regardless of the general material, due to their importance and significance. But at the beginning of this part of our course, we will once again remember what a psychological experiment is and what its features are, and we will also briefly touch on the types and characteristics of the experiment.
What is an experiment?
An experiment in psychology is a certain experiment that is carried out under special conditions in order to obtain psychological data through the intervention of a researcher in the process of the subject’s activity. Both a specialist scientist and a simple layman can act as a researcher during an experiment.
The main characteristics and features of the experiment are:
- The ability to change any variable and create new conditions to identify new patterns;
- Possibility to choose a starting point;
- Possibility of repeated implementation;
- The ability to include other methods of psychological research in the experiment: test, survey, observation and others.
The experiment itself can be of several types: laboratory, natural, pilot, explicit, hidden, etc.
If you have not studied the first lessons of our course, then you will probably be interested to know that you can learn more about experiments and other research methods in psychology in our lesson “Methods of Psychology.” Now we move on to consider the most famous psychological experiments.
The most famous psychological experiments
- Hawthorne experiment
- Milgram experiment
- Stanford prison experiment
- Ringelmann experiment
- Experiment “Me and Others”
- "Monstrous" experiment
- Project "Aversia"
- Landis experiments
- Little Albert
- Acquired (learned) helplessness
- Boy raised like a girl
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Hawthorne experiment
The name Hawthorne experiment refers to a series of socio-psychological experiments that were carried out from 1924 to 1932 in the American city of Hawthorne at the Western Electrics factory by a group of researchers led by psychologist Elton Mayo. The prerequisite for the experiment was a decrease in labor productivity among factory workers. Studies that have been conducted on this issue have not been able to explain the reasons for this decline. Because The factory management was interested in increasing productivity; the scientists were given complete freedom of action. Their goal was to identify the relationship between physical working conditions and worker performance.
After much research, scientists came to the conclusion that labor productivity is influenced by social conditions and, mainly, by the emergence of workers’ interest in the work process, as a consequence of their awareness of their participation in the experiment. The mere fact that workers are allocated to a separate group and special attention from scientists and managers is shown to them already affects the effectiveness of workers. By the way, during the Hawthorne experiment, the Hawthorne effect was discovered, and the experiment itself increased the authority of psychological research as scientific methods.
Knowing about the results of the Hawthorne experiment, as well as the effect, we can apply this knowledge in practice, namely, have a positive impact on our activities and the activities of other people. Parents can improve their children's development, teachers can improve student achievement, and employers can improve their employees' performance and productivity. To do this, you can try to announce that some kind of experiment will be taking place, and the people to whom you are announcing this are an important component of it. For the same purpose, you can apply the introduction of any innovations. But you can learn more about this here.
You can find out more about the Hawthorne Experiment here.
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The most interesting studies in the history of psychology
So let's begin
