Brains studying brains. That's basically what psychology boils down to. It's a subject that attempts to answer some of the most fundamental questions in regards to how we think and why we behave the way we do. Throughout the years, numerous experiments have opened our eyes to how we act. The results are usually informative, but sometimes absolutely shocking. Here are a couple of psychology experiments that I consider the most shocking in what they tell us about ourselves.
5. You Probably Can't Multitask
Have you ever tried to do classwork while listening to music, only to have your teachers complain that you can't possibly multitask like that? Well...they may be onto something. An experiment by two psychologists involved showing a group of subjects a video that tested multitasking. Here, why don't you try it yourself?
How did you do? If you successfully noticed everything, congrats - you're a superhuman. But if not, don't worry about it. Studies like this have shown that no matter what people say, they probably cannot truly multitask efficiently.
4. Conformity Experiment
How It Worked: Subjects arrive at a fake test center and are seated in a room with other "subjects" (they're actually actors, but the subject thinks they are all just like him). The teacher in the room would show everyone (at the same time) a card with a line on it in one hand, with another card with three different lines in his other hand (labeled A,B, and C). The teacher asks everyone to then guess which of the three lines matched the single line the best (the answer was purposefully made obvious). The other students would then raise their hands for the wrong answer on purpose.
Results: It was found that about one third of the test subjects went along with the crowd every single time and raised their hand for the clearly wrong answer. There were several tests and overall, 75% of subjects went with the crowd and gave the wrong answer at least once.
What It Means: The experiment shows how likely we are to just "go with the flow" even when that flow is obviously wrong. Humans tend to conform because it is harder to stand out and stick to your beliefs and opinions when every other person is against you. We all want to be unique, but conformity experiments show just how much we actually want to be like the rest of the crowd.
3. Person Swap Experiment
I find this one hilarious, yet eye opening. In the experiment (shown in the video below), psychologist Derren Brown is testing to see just how much we really pay attention to our surroundings. The results are amazing! Have a look:
At 2:13, he even switches with a women - AND THEY STILL DIDN"T NOTICE!
What It Means: Similar to the multitasking experiments above, it shows that humans like to really focus in one thing. We'd all like to think that we would we be able to recognize whether or not the person we were just talking to changed gender, but this experiment tells us that perhaps we are a bit more oblivious to our surroundings than we thought!
2. Stanford Prison Experiment
What Happened: Philip Zimbrado made a fake jail in the basement of a university to hold volunteer university students as test subjects (for $15/day). Some volunteers would become prisoners while the others would act as prison guards. Zimbrado then told them what they were to do and then completely left the experiment alone.
Results: Zimbrado quickly realized that the students were taking their roles very seriously. The jail guard, who were given full authority to do whatever they wanted, started to harass and abuse their prisoners. Even the prisoners were really growing into their roles - they started to tattle on each other and tell "old prison tales" to their cellmates. Some prisoners had to be pulled out of the experiment because they were going crazy - screaming at random times in the night. It got so badthat Zimbrado had to cut the experiment after just 5 days (it was supposed to be 2 weeks).
What It Means: Zimbrado designed this experiment to show that people tend to conform to the social roles they are given/forced into. In other words, power can change you, even if you don't think so. Remember, these are perfectly normal 20 year olds who turned into monsters in a few days.
So the question is: If you were put into their position, would you act differently? And more importantly: would you be a prisoner for $15 a day!?
1. Milgram Experiment
In my opinion, this is one of the most eye opening and shocking experiments of all time - it still gives me chills thinking about it! Stanley Milgram designed a series of experiments starting in 1961 that tested obedience and just how far people are wiling to go if they are told to.
What Happened: Adults were brought in to a fake test center and were told that they were going to be "teachers" in a memory study. Basically, they were put on one side of a glass with fake students on the other side. The students were presented with questions and if they answered them wrong (which they did purposefully), the teachers were instructed to press a button that would give the student an electric shock. The voltage would increase by small amounts with each wrong answer up to a 450 volt shock labeled LETHAL.
Results: The results...are shocking. A whopping 65% of subjects delivered the maximum 450 volt shock (remember, this was the "lethal" shock). As the shocks got worse over the course of the experiment, the students were told to start screaming and crying. The adults, who would then be told by a doctor standing next to them "don't worry, you won't be held accountable for this - you must do it", carried on and were willing to kill the students because someone told them to!
What It Means: This, my friends, is the dark side of humanity. This experiment reveals our tendency to obey authority (in this case, a doctor with a white coat), even when what we are doing is clearly awful. These were normal people who were willing to kill a student because they were told they wouldn't get in trouble for it. When the results were made public, World War II had just recently ended. People were always wondering how the Nazis could do such horrible things, but if you think about it, they weren't any different from the subjects in this experiment. They were normal people who obeyed their authority figure, Hitler, even when what they did was terrible.
It's scary to think that maybe - just maybe - we could have been just like the Nazis had Hitler been in North America.
References:
Haney, C., Banks, W. C., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1973) A study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. Naval Research Review, 30, 4-17.
McLeod, S. A. (2007). The Milgram Experiment. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
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