AP Psych List of Experiments
Chimpanzee Studies Conducted by Wolfgang Kohler [Applicable to Insight Learning]
A chimpanzee is placed in an environment where there is a large amount of treats hanging from the ceiling. Scattered about the room are various boxes that can be constructed into a set of stairs in order to reach the bananas. Kohler found that the chimpanzees would wander aimlessly around the room until they, seemingly out of nowhere, discovered the answer to the puzzle.
Shock Experiment Conducted by Stanley Milgram [Applicable to Ethics and Obedience]
A confederate is in a room where they are faking being shocked by an electric chair. The participant is in another room, where they are asking the confederate a series of questions. When the confederate gets a question wrong, the participant is directed to administer increasing amounts of electric shock.
Conformity with Lines Conducted by Solomon Asch [Applicable to Conformity]
A participant sits fifth in a row of six people, five of whom are confederates. They all are instructed to vocalize their answer to a very simple question (which line on the left matches the line on the right), going down the row. The first trials go normally, but in the later ones (called the "critical trials"), the confederates will all give the wrong answer.
Case Study of Kitty Genovese Conducted by no particular person [Applicable to Bystander Effect]
A woman is left in an alleyway for an hour, during which she is screaming for help, due to being stabbed repeatedly. During the time, however, no calls were made to the police due to the diffusion of responsibility.
Little Albert Conducted by John Watson [Applicable to Fear and Conditioning and Generalization]
Albert is a little boy who is exposed to several stimuli that lots of people are afraid of (e.g., fire, a howler monkey, an angry dog, etc.), but shows no response to these things. When a loud noise is administered with the presence of a rat, however, Albert develops a fear of all furry things, even if the noise is not present.
Fox Domestication Conducted by Belyaev and Trut [Applicable to Evolutionary Psychology]
By using the process of selective breeding, Belyaev and Trut were able to domesticate a pack of wild foxes. Notably, while they were able to be loving to humans, they still displayed various natural behaviors (e.g., constant digging).
Zimbardo Prison Experiment Conducted by Philip Zimbardo [Applicable to Attitudes]
Students at Stanford are assigned roles of guard or prisoner, and they adopt, internalize, and fulfill these roles (or what they think to be the roles) very rapidly. The guards display super violent behavior to the prisoners, while the prisoners display very unionized behavior.
Kinsey Papers Conducted by Alfred Kinsey [Applicable to Psychology of Sex]
In a time where sex was never talked about, Alfred Kinsey conducted a ton of interviews and surveys across the country, through which he found numerous "sexually-deviant" behaviors that would never have been thought of. From these, he also developed the Kinsey Scale, which is a measure of one's sexual orientation in regards to homo vs. hetero.
Lost in the Mall Conducted by Elizabeth Loftus [Applicable to Misremembering]
Loftus told a group of people about an entirely made up time when they got lost in the mall when they were little. A fourth of the respondents were able to "remember" this event and give new information, despite the event never taking place.
Taste Aversion with Mice Conducted by Garcia and Koelling [Applicable to Classical Conditioning and Taste Aversion]
Mice are inclined to drink this sweetened water that is tainted with radiation (as opposed to a pool of normal water that only administers a shock). When they drink it, they develop sickness from the radiation that mimics water that has gone bad, so they opt to drink the shock water instead, as no natural equivalent exists.
Split-Brain Research Conducted by Sperry and Gazzaniga [Applicable to Corpus Callosum]
Nothing much to say about this one, sorry. Just know it happened and who did it. Watch a video on YouTube if you need; there's not much to say.
Pavlov's Dog Conducted by Ivan Pavlov [Applicable to Classical Conditioning]
Pavlov shows his dog a treat, then it salivates. He rings a bell and gives the dog the treat. He continues this for awhile until he is sure the dog has formed an association. Eventually, he rings the bell without presenting the treat, and the dog salivates anyway.
1953 Institution Experiment Conducted by David Rosenhan [Applicable to the Labeling of Mental Disorders]
Phase 1: 12 confederates feign auditory hallucinations in order to gain admittance into a mental hospital, and after they gain admittance, they act normally. Despite numerous pleas to be released, the staff does not allow it because they are totally convinced that the confederates have schizophrenia. Even upon release, they are labeled with "schizophrenia in remission," which implies that it may easily show up again. Phase 2: A hospital, after finding out what Rosenhan did, challenges Rosenhan to send more confederates throughout the year, as the hospital claims that they can easily find the fakers. At the end of the year, they give a long list of possible fakers, despite Rosenhan not sending any confederates over the year.
Minnesota Twin Studies Conducted by Thomas Bouchard [Applicable to Genetics and Twins]
Same thing as the Split-Brain Research. Know who did it and what it means about genetics.
Dog Shock Experiment Conducted by Martin Seligman [Applicable to Learned Helplessness]
Seligman puts a dog on a platform that is half-covered with electricity and half safe. In the first group, the dog is free to learn that if they jump to the free side, they may escape the shock. In the second, the dog is chained to a pole for several shocks, but even when released, it makes no motion to escape the shock.
Pigeon Studies Conducted by B.F. Skinner [Applicable to Operant Conditioning]
Skinner put a bunch of pigeons at three-fourths their normal weight into a box that would release treats if (a) the word "peck" was showing and the bird pecked a button or (b) the word "turn" was showing and the bird turned around. With this, he taught pigeons how to "read."
Ball Experiment Conducted by Wilhelm Wundt [Applicable to Introspection and the Beginning of Modern Psychology]
The first psychological experiment done. The participant hears a ball drop and must click a telegraph key either (a) when they hear the ball or (b) when they are consciously aware of the sound of the ball. The latter group took longer because they needed to think about when they heard it.
Mice-Maze Experiments Conducted by Edward Tolman [Applicable to Latent Learning]
Tolman set up three groups of mice that would go through a maze. For the first group, they would receive a treat after every trial; the second never received treats. The third group was given no treat for the first half and treats for the second half. Because they were given an incentive to recall the knowledge, they performed much better than the other groups.
Train Experiment Conducted by Kipling Williams [Applicable to Ostracism]
Two confederates and a participant sit on a train bench and begin to chat. Slowly, the confederates block the participant from the conversation, effectively ostracizing them. Even though the participant had never met these people before, they developed intense feelings of sadness due to this ostracism.
Bobo Doll Experiment Conducted by Albert Bandura [Applicable to Observational Learning and Social Learning]
Two groups of children watch a video displaying a room with a bobo doll, various toys, and an adult in the room. The first would see a video of the adult being mildly aggressive with the bobo doll; the second would see a video of the adult being mildly nice to the bobo doll. The kids in the first exhibited extremely aggressive behavior with the doll, while the second was extremely nice to it.
Visual Cliff Conducted by no particular person [Applicable to Depth Perception and Fear]
Babies are called across an environment that has a very high drop but is covered with glass. When they got to the "open zone," they would notice that the floor was much deeper but continued on anyway. While they noticed the depth change, they did not have an innate fear of heights.
Puzzle Box Experiment Conducted by Edward Thorndike [Applicable to Operant Conditioning]
Cats were put in a line of boxes that could only be opened by pulling a lever or pressing a button, either of which would be found inside the box. He places them through this runway over and over, and eventually they make it through the line quickly.
Schachter Two-Factor Experiment Conducted by Singer and Schachter [Applicable to the Singer-Schachter Two-Factor Theory of Emotion]
Participants are injected with adrenaline (which induces certain physiological effects) and put into a room with a goofy confederate or an aggravated confederate. Despite having the same physiological happenings, the group with the goofy confederate rated a good time, while the group with the aggravated confederate rated a bad time.
Wage Experiment Conducted by Leon Festinger [Applicable to Cognitive Dissonance and Attitudes]
Participants are instructed to do a very boring task for an hour, after which they are either paid one dollar or twenty dollars. Another set of participants is selected from these groups, who are asked to tell the next participant they had a good time. After they get paid (or after they tell the next person, should it apply), they fill out a survey that asks how much they enjoyed the experience. Those that were paid less rated much higher, and those who were paid less and asked to tell rated the highest.
Automobile Destruction Conducted by Elizabeth Loftus [Applicable to Misremembering and Framing]
Participants see a video of a car crash and fill out a form after about the video. Among five groups, a question dealing with speed has one word changed (e.g., crashed, touched, collided, etc.), and the participants who had more violent words rated higher speeds.
Neodissociation Conducted by Ernest Hilgard [Applicable to Dissociation Theory and Hypnosis]
Participants under hypnosis enter an ice bath. They sit there for awhile, and none of the subjects note any sort of pain or discomfort. When the hypnotist asks them to raise their finger if they feel pain, 70% respond with the gesture.
