[Trending] 28 Psychological Experiments That Forever Changed The Way We See The World

Although as humans we have always been fascinated with the workings of the mind and the reasons behind our behavior, it wasn’t until the beg...

Although as humans we have always been fascinated with the workings of the mind and the reasons behind our behavior, it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that Experimental psychology really took off.

Encompassing a range of areas, from behavioural studies to social dynamics and the complex biological processes occurring in the brain, the carefully controlled studies carried out in the name of experimental psychology have taught us so much about the human condition and given us a deeper understanding of why we act the way that we do.

Bored Panda has compiled a list of some of the most famous and thought-provoking psychology experiments that have been carried out in the last century. From simple social experiments to complex behavioural patterns that expose the workings of the subconscious and push the boundaries of ethics, these weird and wonderful experiments are sure to make you think twice about what you really know about yourself as a human being. Maybe we are all just a little less in control of ourselves than we really think… Check out the list below and don’t forget to vote for your favourite!

The Piano Stairs Experiment

A Volkswagen initiative called The Fun Theory set out to prove that people’s behavior can be changed for the better by making mundane activities fun. In this experiment, they set up musical piano steps on the staircase of a Stockholm, Sweden subway station to see if more people would be more willing to choose the healthier option and take the stairs instead of the escalator. The results revealed that 66 percent more people took the stairs than usual that day, proving that fun is the best way to get people to change their ways.

Image credits: thefuntheory

Robbers Cave Experiment

Image credits: Sherif

Smoke filled room experiment

In this experiment, researchers had participants sit in a room to fill out questionnaires. Suddenly, the room began to fill with smoke. In some cases the participants were alone, in others there were three unsuspecting participants with them. In the final iteration there was one participant and two actors who ignored the smoke and went on filling out their questionnaires.

When the participants were alone, about three-quarters of the participants left the room calmly to report the smoke to the researchers. In the condition with three real participants, a little under 40 percent reported the smoke. In the final condition where the two colleagues ignored the smoke, a mere 10 percent of participants left to report the smoke.

The experiment is a great example of how much people rely on the responses of others to guide their actions. When something is happening, but no one seems to be responding, people tend to take their cues from the group and assume that a response is not required.

Image credits: Bibb Latane and John M. Darley

False Consensus Experiment

In this study, the researchers asked students on a college campus to walk around carrying a large advertisement that read “Eat at Joe’s.” The researchers then asked the students to estimate how many other people would agree to wear the advertisement. They found that those who agreed to carry the sign believed that the majority of people would also agree to carry the sign. Those who refused felt that the majority of people would refuse as well.

The results of these experiments demonstrate what is known in psychology as the false consensus effect. No matter what our beliefs, options, or behaviors, we tend to believe that the majority of other people also agree with us and act the same way we do.

Image credits: Lee Ross

The Asch Conformity Experiment

The Asch Experiment is another famous example of the temptation to conform during group situations. This series of experiments conducted in the 1950s placed one subject in a room full of actors. The person conducting the experiment held up an image with three numbered lines and asked each person in the room to identify the longest line. The actors purposely chose the incorrect line in order to determine whether the subject would answer honestly or simply go along with the group answer. The results showed that people tend to conform in group situations.

Image credits: Solomon Asch

The Milgram Experiment

This experiment, conducted in 1961 by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram measured the willingness to obey authority figures by instructing people to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. Participants were told to play the role of teacher and administer electric shocks to the learner, who was supposedly in a different room, every time they answered a question incorrectly. In reality, no one was actually being shocked. Instead, Milgram played recordings to make it sound like the learner was in a great deal of pain and wanted to end the experiment. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to, increasing the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal electric shocks.


Image credits: Stanley Milgram

The “Violinist in the Metro” Experiment

In 2007, acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell posed as a street musician at a busy Washington, D.C. subway station. Bell had just sold out a concert with an average ticket price of $100 each. He is one of the most renowned musicians in the world and was playing on a handcrafted violin worth more than $3.5 million. Yet most people scurried on their way without stopping to listen to the music.

When children would occasionally stop to listen, their parents would grab them and quickly usher them on their way. The experiment raised some interested questions about how we not only value beauty but whether we truly stop to appreciate the remarkable works of beauty that are around us.

Image credits: Joshua Bell

The Marshmallow Test Experiment

In these experiments conducted by Walter Mischel in the late 1960s and early 1970s, children between the ages of four and six were placed in a room with a treat (often a marshmallow or cookie). Before leaving the room, the experimenter told each child that they would receive a second treat if the first treat was still on the table after 15 minutes.

Follow-up studies conducted years later found that the children who were able to delay gratification did better in a variety of areas including academically. Those who had been able to wait the 15 minutes for the second treat tended to have higher SAT scores and higher educational levels. The results suggest that this ability to wait for gratification is not only an essential skill for success but also something that forms early on and lasts throughout life.

Image credits: IgniterMedia

Carlsberg Social Experiment

In this social experiment, which actually started out as an advertisement, unsuspecting couples walked into a crowded movie theater. All but two of the 150 seats were already full. The twist is that the 148 already-filled seats were taken by a bunch of rather rugged and scary-looking male bikers.

In the informal experiment, not all of the couples ended up taking a seat, but those who eventually did were rewarded with cheers from the crowd and a round of free Carlsberg beers. The exercise served as a great example of why people shouldn’t always judge a book by its cover.

Image credits: Carlsberg

Halo Effect Experiment

In this experiment, published in 1920, psychologist Edward Thorndike asked commanding officers in the military to give ratings of various characteristics of their subordinates. Thorndike was interested in learning how impressions of one quality, such as intelligence, bled over onto perceptions of other personal characteristics, such as leadership, loyalty, and honesty.

Thorndike discovered that when people hold a good impression of one characteristic, those good feelings tend to affect perceptions of other qualities. For example, thinking someone is attractive can create a halo effect that leads people also to believe that person is kind, smart, and funny. The opposite effect is also true. Negative feelings about one characteristic lead to negative impressions of an individual’s other features.

Image credits: wiki

Stanford prison experiment

Zimbardo (1973) was interested in finding out whether the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was due to the sadistic personalities of the guards (i.e., dispositional) or had more to do with the prison environment (i.e., situational). Participants were randomly assigned to either the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison environment. Prisoners were treated like every other criminal. They were blindfolded and driven to the psychology department of Stanford University, where Zimbardo had had the basement set out as a prison, with barred doors and windows, bare walls and small cells. When the prisoners arrived at the prison they were stripped naked, deloused, had all their personal possessions removed and locked away, and were given prison clothes and bedding. They were issued a uniform, and referred to by their number only. The use of ID numbers was a way to make prisoners feel anonymous.

Within hours of beginning the experiment some guards began to harass prisoners. The prisoners soon adopted prisoner-like behavior too. The prisoners were taunted with insults and petty orders, they were given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish, and they were generally dehumanized. In less than a week the prisoners broke down emotionally and physically, while some guards became sadistic as they were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was “off.”

Zimbardo concluded that people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards. The “prison” environment was an important factor in creating the guards’ brutal behavior (none of the participants who acted as guards showed sadistic tendencies before the study).

Image credits: Zimbardo

A Class Divided experiment


Image credits: Jane Elliott

Bobo Doll Experiment


Image credits: Albert Bandura

Car Crash Experiment


Image credits: Loftus and Palmer

Cognitive Dissonance Experiment



Image credits: Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M.

Fantz’s Looking Chamber


Image credits: Robert L. Fantz

Hawthorne Effect experiment


Image credits: Henry A. Landsberger

Kitty Genovese Case


Image credits: wiki

Learned Helplessness Experiment


Image credits: Martin Seligman

Little Albert experiment


Image credits: John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner

Pavlov’s Dog Experiment


Image credits: Ivan Pavlov

The Invisible Gorilla Experiment


Image credits: Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris

Surrogate Mother Experiment


Image credits: Harry Harlow

The Good Samaritan Experiment


Image credits: John Darley and Daniel Batson

The “Monster” Study


Image credits: Wendell Johnson

The Third Wave experiment

When Ron Jones, a teacher at Palo Alto’s Cubberley High School, was struggling to answer “How was the Holocaust allowed to happen?” for his sophomore students in 1967, he resolved to show them instead. On the first day of his experiment, Jones created an authoritarian atmosphere in his class, positioning himself as a sort of supreme leader. But as the week progressed, Jones’ one-man brand of fascism turned into a school-wide club. Students came up with their own insignia and adopted a Nazi-style salute. They were taught to firmly obey Jones’ commands and become anti-democratic to the core, even “informing” on one another. Jones’ new ideology – dubbed “The Third Wave” – spread like wildfire. By the fourth day, the teacher was concerned that the Nazi-like movement he’d unleashed was getting out of hand, and he brought the experiment to a halt. On the fifth day, he told the students that they had invoked a similar feeling of supremacy to that of the German people under the Nazi regime.

Image credits: Ron Jones

Landis’ Facial Expressions Experiment

Psychology graduate student Carney Landis conducted an experiment at the University of Minnesota in 1924 to see whether all people have common facial expressions when feeling various emotions. The participants were made to smell ammonia, put their hands into a bucket of frogs, and watch pornography. The study took a turn for the worse when students were forced to decapitate a live rat. The study showed that humans do not have a common set of facial expressions tied to each emotion.

Image credits: Carney Landis

Source: BoredPanda


Viral 8804800177616892657

Post a Comment