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Forty studies that changed psychology 1.

ONE BRAIN OR TWO: took epileptic patients and separated corpus callosum, which connects the two halves of the brain. Sperry discovered the corpus. Gazanica split the corpus, he found that seizures stopped for epileptics. They are still fully functional. They were able to fully asses what each side of the brain is capable of. More like two brains instead of one united brain. Almost like holes in thought sometimes. 2. MORE EXPERIENCE= BIGGER BRAIN: PURPOSE if and how brains are affected by living conditions. They took rats and but them in separate cages. One was like a utopia for rats with other rats, the other one was really small, isolated, minimal resources. After several weeks, autopsies were done. RESULTS the rats in the utopia had more brain matter than the other. Led to the conclusion that life experiences do affect mental capacity. 3. ARE YOU A NATURAL : nature or nurture? METHOD identical twins, who were separated at birth. They were raised in completely different environments. Tested psychological, intelligence, personality, occupation goals, etc. found that nature dominated 70% of their identities. Nurture was not a big factor. 4. WATCH OUT FOR THE VISUAL CLIFF: purpose: at which age do infants start perceiving depth? So they constructed a fucked up table and they had mothers of infants call their infants, encouraging them to cross the threshold past the glass towards their mothers. 27 of 36 didnt even notice the false cliff and crossed to their mothers. 9 balled their eyes out. They tested baby animals as well. Results were that infants dont have depth perception. Most animals didnt feel comfortable crossing the cliff if they relied on depth perception for survival. 5. TAKE A LONG LOOK: purpose: to see if infants perceived form, like differentiating between patterns and faces. He tested 1 to 15 week old babies, showed them patterns, one simple, one complex. Realized that babies paid more attention to the complex ones. They were shown three face like patterns, one with no face, one with a normal face and one that looked like a face with smudged makeup. Infants liked the one with the normal face. Concluded that babies favored the normal face because they innately understand that this is the face that will provide them with nourishment. He concluded that babies can perceive form. The method was really groundbreaking, because he was able to get into the head of a baby. 6. TO SLEEP, NO DOUBT TO DREAM: found a way to disrupt REM sleep. He was trying to see what the purpose of REM sleep is. What would happen to people without REM? He measured peoples eye movements and woke people up right as someone would enter REM sleep. People who were woken up before the REM started, couldnt recall dreams. Building on this, a second psychologist performed an experiment where he would deny them of REM continuously throughout the night. The next day they were completely exhausted, tired. He let them sleep normally after that, and their REM increased significantly, he coined the term REM rebound. Concluded that REM is so necessary that without it the body will naturally over-REM. During REM memories were being stored. 7. UNROMANCING THE DREAM: basically to disprove freuds theory that every dream had a meaning. Monitored brain and physiological activity in the cats when they sleep. They found out that the brain stem has neural static. When you sleep your brain does not shut off, random

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bits of information firing away in your head that your brain tries to make sense of. Neurons firing off in your brain. This was freuds many disproved theories. ACTING AS IF YOUR HYPTONIZED: he wanted to prove that hypnosis was nothing but placebo effect (if you believe you are, you will act like you are). Pretended to hypnotize people, found that the best way to hypnotize. Subtly influenced the brain to follow orders. The more details that was added the more people followed orders. Outsmarting the brain in a sense ITS NOT JUST ABOUT SALVITATING DOGS: physiologist noticed that his dog salivated right before he was going to bring him his food, even if the bowl was empty. So he started ringing a bell every time he fed his dog. Started the idea that people can be trained and influenced BEHAVIORAL. LITTLE EMOTION ALBERT: he wanted to test that if an emotion like fear was associated with something like normal like a rat, would it become a phobia. Orphan named albert was introduced to a rat to see if they were afraid of it. So everytime he touched the rat, they would make a loud noise which would scare him. This was done over and over again until he was conditioned to be terrified of rats. It went beyond just a rat, it became anything that reminded him of a rat or was associated with it. Once again proving that people could be conditioned. He found that phobias could be conditioned (nature vs. nurture). KNOCK WOOD: conditioned pigeons, he wanted to see if pigeons are superstitious. He got pigeons really hungry. Every 15 minutes a pellet would appear. They started to match their actions before pellets came. Some ended up doing a dance around the time of the pellets were starting to come. Their superstitions continued. Point??????? SEE AGRESSIONDO AGRESSION: if you have children who are exposed to aggression, they are more likely to repeat it. They were even more likely to repeat if they were being influenced by someone of the same gender. All together even more so in males. He tested 3-6 year old males and females. No matter how much aggression was shown to the kids it was still the males who show more. WHAT YOU EXPECT IS WHAT YOU GET: wanted to determine whether or not teachers had bias towards people who they perceived to be more intelligent. Method: they gave teachers false test scores and as the year progressed they gave them and actual test and those who were more preferred ended up getting higher test scores on the real test. They werent more intelligent, it was the nurture that they received. Significant because it pointed out a flaw in the education system. JUST HOW ARE YOU INTELLEGENT: challenged the idea of simple IQ. Created eight different kinds of intelligence: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intra/intro personal, naturalist and existential. Normal people will have a little bit of each. There are exemptions., like prodigies and special needs who excel in one area of intelligence but nowhere else. Results were???????????????????????????????????????????// MAPS IN YOUR MIND: exploring the cognitive mapping in rats. How stimuli could lead to positive out comes in the short term, but negatie in the long term. Rats were put in mazes and learned them really quickly. They were rewarded at the end. When those rats were placed in a new maze they could not find their way through it. Stimuli effected them negatively. This was

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the first step of really developing the cognitive. He was able to tap into the thought process of the rats. EXPLAIN ONE MORE TIME..?????????????????/ THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: first to explore memories. When you recall memories you reconstruct them. All memories are skewed in one way or another. They wanted to see how much a memory could be manipulated. He took a bunch of people and showed a video of a car running a stop sign and getting into an accident. He split them into groups. Asked how fast the car going when it ran it, and how fast it was going when it went right. The people who were asked how fast if they were going straight all said it was faster than when it was turning right. They recalled it differently. Showed how easy it was to tamper with memories. Confusing questions are more effective in messing with memories. Which subject of pysch though??? DISCOVERING LOVE: what was attractive about mothers to babies? Was it the nourishment they provide or the way they look. He created two monkey moms. One was out of wire but had a milk bottle, the other was really soft. They were placed in a cage with monkeys. Monkey minimally visited wire monkey, but routinely went to the soft monkey. Shows that its the softness and comfort that causes the love between babies and their mothers. Its because of this that non related people can still have the same bond. OUT OF SIGHT BUT NOT OUT OF MIND: he had three kids and he developed the stages of cognitive development. He studied each of his children separately and came up with four stages. Zero to two years- sensory moter, at this age they all learn by touching and their thinking the same speed as their phsycial movement. The faster they can move, the faster their thinking procrss is also. Object permeanance develops during this age. The ability to understand that something exists even though you cant see it. Two to seven years is preoperational. At this age, your brain is increasing in exponential speed, your thinking is greatly inproving at this point. It seperaeates from your movement. And imagination occurs at this age. Everything has a thought and a feeling. This couch loves me. Ego centric thinking. Theyo are elfish. From seven to eleven years its concrete operations. This iswhen logical thinking develops. They start inferring that other people have feelings as well. Formal operations is eleven and up when they are able to understand abstract concepts. They can make connections now and explore values, beloiefs, etc. HOW MORAL ARE YOU: he wanted to see if all people develp their morals through stages. He gave children ten or more moral delliemas and asked what they would do in that situation. Based on their age he correlated it to his stages and they turned out to be accurate. IN CONTROL AND GLAD OF IT: wanted to see how much control on ones own life, effects ones happiness. They went to a retirement home and allowed the first floor to choose many options on their schedules. They got to choose as much as want to, they got as much freedom as they wanted. Second floor had to follow the schedule. They couldnt pick anything. All patients were given plants. Gave the first floor the option to have it but made second floor patients take it. The group that had more control was more inclined to go and do more things. People with control were WAY happier than the others. A SEXUAL MOTIVATION: wanted to figure out if sexual activity is a psych process; sexual attraction, arousal, and desire, etc. Purpose: to understand human sexuality. Breakthrough b/c sex was looked at a scientific level for the first time, wanted to help people overcome sexual

problems. Method: brought in many prostitutes, but decided they werent a good sample b/c their sexual lives were much different than the average person; in the end, college kids were recruited. They wanted to study physiological responses of body during sex; at arousal, measured pulse, blood pressure, etc. some were observed during intercourse; others observed through masturbation. Coined the human sexual response cycle; used NOW for many studies that relate to sex. Four stages: excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution. Dispelled many sexual myths. Result though??????? 22. I CAN SEE IT ALL OVER YOUR FACE: purpose: to see if facial expressions of emotion are universal. Wanted to test out if areas that had no contact with American media expressed the same facial expressions as we did. Took different races and found there was almost no difference. Went to some remote place that had never seen white people, some like little dinky place. They read stories to the people, and then had them attempt to point at the picture that displayed the proper emotion (ex. Happiness, anger, sadness, fear etc). what they found, facial expressions are basically UNIVERSAL with the exception of fear and surprised expressions. Children appeared to perform better than adults, but this idea may be slightly skewed because the stories and choices were simpler. Concluded that facial expressions must have been innate. (think evolutionary perspective) 23. LIFE CHANGE AND STRESS: purpose: attempting to determine link between stress and physical health. Method: Listed the most stressful things that would happen in their life (ex: marriage, big changes ) and attempted to measure the level of stress associated with each one listed to figure out a life stress score (LCU Score) and figure it into overall health and possible effects. Result: stress indeed does have a significant effect on health (levels of stress were compared with medical records). This experiment is one of the most cited studies in the book. More info 24. THOUGHTS OUT OF TUNE: Purpose: testing cognitive dissonance (belief that when your behavior is contrary to your attitude, your attitude will bring it into alignment with your behavior). The discomfort the dissonance brings you motivates you to change something and lesson that dissonance. Method: had a sample group get bored out of their mind, and trying to get them to be bored and frustrated and tired, and then had a small portion of that group pulled to the side and informed them to tell the rest of the sample group that they were having the absolute best time of their life (they were also paid $20 to do this, so some motivation), and then the other group was pulled and informed to do the same thing, but they were only paid $1. Afterwards, everyone was rated on how much they enjoyed this experience and whether want to do it again, etc etc etc. (quizzed). They found that when they were only paid $1 to have fun, they rated it more positively because they were having more cognitive dissonance than those who were paid $20; because they were paid a larger amount, they cared less to lie about their experience and rated it lower. Cognitive dissonance was just a BIG idea that was scientifically proven for once; cleverrrr. Confusing ^^^^^^

25. ARE YOU THE MASTER OF YOUR FATE: Purpose: prove that he could develop a test to measure the extent to which individuals have an external locus(location) of control. Wanted to compare the behavior of the internal locus of control v. the external locus of control and how it affects their lives. Method: created a test to be taken. Internal locus would say that peoples misfortunes were because of the mistakes they make; external locus would say that misfortunes were bad luck. Results: Internals, when it came to gambling, they only bet on sure things. Externals would take more risks with bets. Internals were hard to be persuaded, but good at persuading others, vice versa for externals. Smokers tended to be mostly external (interesting). Internals were more achievement motivated, and less likely to conform. Significance: breakthrough b/c new characteristic; had effects on how people lived their lives. 26. MASCULINE OR FEMININEOR BOTH? : Before, women= feminine, man=masculine. But they started to question the line b/c this is not always the case. This study coined the term androgynous. Bem-sex-role-inventory (BSRI)= a quiz which would rate how feminine/masculine one was one to result in your androgynous score. Really big chunks were actually androgynous, so this study kind of disproved that a woman is only a woman, a man is only a man. Changed how people looked at gender 27. RACING AGAINST YOUR HEART: All about personality; Type A and Type B people idea was coined via this experiment. Type A: intense, have drive to achieve goals, competitive, desire for recognition, subject to deadlines, structured, mental and physical alertness. Type B: opposite of A (absence of ambition, take their time, not stressed, etc.). Participants were given tests and then grouped via their answers to the test; interviews were conducted to assess their history of heart disease in relation to their personality type (wanted to see if a certain kind of person was more likely to get heart disease). Results: Type A are MUCH more susceptible to heart disease. Signigicant cuz its cray yo. 28. THE ONE THE MANY: Purpose: individualism v. Collectivism, wanted to see how individualism or collectivism affected their behavior. Compared culture of US to culture of Japan and Puerto Rico and focused on relationships in the in groups in the two differnet cultures (cultures being collectivist or individualist.) wanted to test the idea that individualistic cultures find themselves more lonesome than collectivist cultures. They gave assesments to try and estimate the level of indivualness or collectiveness of the three groups. The Japanese were more collectivist than the other two. They also found that collectivism correlated positively with social support. The study modified the definitions of collectivism and individualism. 29. WHOS CRAZIER ANYWAYS: Purpose: wanted to see if in mental hospitals could distinguish normal behavior from unnormal behavior. Method: placed many normal people into psych ward; had them apply as skitzo, and wanted to see how nurses responded to them and treated them. Results: the nurses were completely unaware, and took no notice. They treated them like they were crazy, even though they were actually completely normal. Conclusion: trained profs. Cant distinguish the normal from the mentally ill in a hospital setting. Every action the patients did the professionals blamed the diagnosis that was placed on the patient. Warning the dangers of diagnostic labels and led to many changes in psychiatric hospitals. 30. YOURE GETTING DEFENSIVE: *done by freuds daughter. All about id, ego, and superego. Idea of ego defense mechanisms; Id= present at birth, most basic needs and urges, based upon

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pleasure principle. Ego= conscious, job to satisfy ids urges but using rational and safe methods. Superego= requires that the ego find a solution to the ids demands that are moral and ethical. Ego defense mechanisms (repression, regression, projection, reaction formation, and sublimation) prevent the surfacing of our ids desires. a. Repression: forcing thoughts out of consciousness b. Regression: in order to guard against anxiety, you will retreat to the behaviors of an earlier stage (ex mid life crises) c. Projection: to eliminate anxiety, youre going to force your unconscious urges into someone else (no shes the slut, not me.) d. Reaction formation: when you avoid anxiety by engaging in behaviors that are opposite from what your id desires e. Sublimation: finding socially acceptable ways of discharging anxious energy LEARNING TO BE DEPRESSED: If you believe you have no control over your life, if you were more likely to give up. Split into two groups; one was absolutely helpless over a shock, another had a choice. Then, a second time, a shock was deliviered, but those who originally had no control never even tried to see if they could control it when in reality they did. Tied the study in with post traumatic growth. CROWDINGINTO THE BEHAVIORAL SINK: wanted to find what the effects of overcrowding are on human behavior. Method: used rats and developed a room with four chambers in it. You can connect from the first to second, second to third, etc. but not from fourth to first. Termed density as individuals in a given amount of space wheras crowding was referred to as what the subjects experienced from the high level s of density. When male rats reached maturity, they began to fight each other for social status and these large godfather rats would guard the doors of the first and the fourth chambers so that other rats couldnt come in and one rat was in charge of those two areas nad they termed behavioral sink as the outcome of any behavioral process that collects animals together in big numbers. They experienced aggression, submissiveness, sexual deviance and reproductive abnormalities. The top ranking male rats fought a lot more. Ur computer is fucking ratchet Natalie. There were also many rats who ignored battles of dominance all together (social misfits) and became completely uninterested in everything even sex. Some rats turned into cannibals (damn.) and rats began ignoring sexual rats that normally happened. Women rats started losing a lot of their babies. Overcrowding was concluded to be a serious problem with detrimental effects. CHOOSING YOUR PSYCHOTHERAPIST: wanted to see how effective different therapies were. Results: psychotherapy works. Universally, therapy helps. RELAXING UR FEARS AWAY: wanted to see if he could uncondition people from fearing their phobias. Concept called reciprocal inhibition and replacing the fear with positive feelings. Method: teach people to relax their bodies first. Then, made his patients write out a list of things they stressed about from the least to the worst, and then desensitized them (so he made them envision situations with their fear and then if they felt fear theyd raise hteir index finger, and he kept doing it over and over and over until they no longer felt fearful of it). 90% found it partially to completely successful.

35. PROJECTION OF WHO YOU ARE. All about the ink blots (thematic apperception test (TAT)). Most see animals or insects, and found that the most creative or unique responses were given by skitzos, but the guy who did this didnt say that this should be used as a clinical diagnosis but people can use it as an aid; LOTS so criticism over the validity over this test. 36. PICTURE DIS. This guy created a test like the ink blot test but instead of ink these were actual pictures. The patients were supposed to give a story to match the picture. Results: not so useful, a lot of stories given were influenced by stories they heard and they didnt even differ much person to person. This study is only in here cuz it was one of thoe first tools of psychology. Even though its been considered incredibly unreliable, its still often used today. 37. A PRISON BY ANY OTHER NAME: wanted to see if prison changed people, or if they were already changed going in. testing his belief that the environment around u determines how u behave. Got a group of people to participate and paid them but didnt tell them what they were going to do. He contructed a mini prison in a college and blindfolded them so they werent aware of where they were and it was so believable that they completely believed they were inprisons. He assigned several peope as guards and some as prisoners, and he himself stayed at the prison as a parole officer so that he could observe the effects. The prisoners were each arrested and the experience was so realistic to stimulate things like humiliation, entrapment, etc (things that were experienced routinely in prisons) and the officers got to act like actual officers and the results: the participants (especially prisoners) forgot that they were merely college students, with free will and everything; very much likely for the prisoners to break down and stress reactions that they became depressed and stopped eating and so on, and the guards got so into their roles that they ended up doing a lot of unnecessary things for their role (aggression, harsh actions, etc) prisoners even started plotting rebellions, etc. the experimenter himself ended up being drunk with power and the experiment was supposed to go on for two weeks, but he called it off after a mere 6 days because of how extreme the results were. 38. THE POWER OF CONFORMITY: took a group, one unaware person, stuck him in a group and asked them all if the lines were even in length (even though they werent) and everyone in the group said yes and because everyone else said yes the guy said yes too. Results: people naturally afraid of being outsiders, and more likely to conform. However, the chances of conforming in relation to group size was found to be a bell curve. 39. TO HELP OR NOT TO HELP: wanted to see in the cause of an emergency, how responsible people feel for emergencies depending on group size. They found that the larger the group, the more likely youll assume that someone else will call the cops or something. They started this because of this crazy story that a girl was getting mugged and was stabbed to death near this apartment building, and so many people were watching, people were on their decks watching and not a single one called the cops, she was stabbed to death. Method: they took a group of people and split them. one person was told that he was on the phone with one person, and then another person was told they were on the phone with four people, etc. and at one point, the person on the other line of the phone would have a seizure and they recorded how long it took before they reported the incident to the experimenters. Results: the two person group, 80% reported the incident. But in group with 6 people, only 30% reported the incident.

40. OBEY AT ANY COST: wanted to see the effect of power; how willing are u to obey to power even if u dont agree with it. Had a group of people and each person was given a machine that provides shocks and had other people in the shock chair. The administrator was put in the room with them and told them to increase the voltage each time, and the person being shocked was ACTUALLY being shocked but was an actor. At first, it was slight shocks, then it went to moderate, and then danger/severe shock. The highest was 450 V. if the participants started resisting, the administrators kept saying KEEP GOING. But the entire time, they WERE ALLOWED to put down the machine and say no and leave. But if they hesitated, they were instructed to keep going on, that it was necessary. The results: incredibly surprising, the number of people who kept obeying regardless. It wasnt until the level of intense shock that few people started saying no (5), and at XXX level only did 26 people begin to refuse out of 40.

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