Passion Blog

This is not another blog post on a psychology experiment devoid of morals and ethics, rather it is a genuinely interesting one that explores wether or not social behaviors can be acquired through observation and imitation. This experiment specifically focused on aggression, and how seeing an adult interact with toys would impact the children’s interactions in a controlled environment. In 1961, three psychologists selected 36 boys and 36 girls aged 3-6 to participate in this study. The children were individually placed in a nursery and given various toys to play with while the three men conducting the experiment observed them and judged their aggressive behavior on a 1-5 scale. To insure their judging was correct, researchers independent of the experiment also judged the children on a 1-5 scale and the mean of the two scores was taken. The men then split the 72 children into 3 different categories. 24 children would be shown an aggressive role model, 24 would be shown a non-aggressive role model and the final 24 would serve as a control.

To begin the experiment, the first group of 24 kids watched either a male or female adult exhibit aggressive behavior towards a Bodo doll. The adults yelled at, punched and threw the doll while the children observed through a one way mirror. The second group of kids watched either a male or female adult exhibit non-aggressive behavior. These adults played in a calm and quiet manner, ignoring the Bodo doll in the room and instead choosing to fiddle with a tinker toy set. The third group of kids, as mentioned previously watched no adults and served as the control. After viewing either the aggressive or non-aggressive adults, the children were taken individually to the same room to play with a multitude of toys. After 1o minutes of playing, the men conducting the experiment entered the room and stated that they were saving the best toys for other children. This was meant to induce mild aggression arousal, and the children were taken to another room with aggressive toys, such as a Bodo Doll and a dart gun, as well as non-aggressive toys such as crayons and plastic farm animals.

After observing the children’s actions, the researchers found that the first group, who had witnessed the aggressive adults, engaged in much more aggressive behavior than the second and third group. They also found that the boys were more likely to express aggression physically, while the girls expressed aggression verbally. These results confirmed the psychologists’ hypothesis, and supported the notion of Social Learning Theory. Social Learning Theory states that children learn social behaviors, such as aggression, through observation of another person’s behavior. This experiment is commonly cited in debates on the effects that violent video games have on children. Supporters will say this experiment proves violent video games make children more violent, while those against this would say that effects vary on a case by case basis, and many other factors need to be taken into account before definitively stating violent video games make children more violent.

After writing multiple blog posts about famous psychology experiments, I have noticed an interesting trend. It seems that only unethical and  damaging experiments become famous and noteworthy due to their bizarreness and cruelty. The Little Albert experiment is no exception. Created by John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, this experiment was meant to examine classical conditioning, meaning  wether or not the repeated effects of 2 different stimuli could trigger a conditioned response from humans similar to how they do with dogs. Oddly, they decided to use a 9 month old child, referred to as Albert, to test these effects. If the term classical conditioning or conditioned response sounds confusing, it essentially means that by repeatedly combining two different stimuli together, the brain will begin to no longer discern between the two stimuli, rather it will interpret them together even if experienced interchangeably.

The premise of the experiment was rather simple, the test subject, Albert, would be exposed to a variety of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, scary masks and burning news papers. His initial reactions were recorded as, “Having no fear towards any of the objects.” The next time Albert was exposed to the white rat, and it is unclear why the men conducting the experiment specifically chose this object over others, Watson made a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe with a hammer. After hearing such a loud noise, Albert began to cry in the presence of the rat. After repeating this process many times, Albert started to cry as soon as he saw the white rat. Even if there was no loud sound from the hammer, Albert would cry whenever the rat was in his sight. This was because Albert associated the white rat and the loud noise interchangeably. Him crying was a conditioned response based on a neutral stimulus being altered by an unconditioned stimulus.

This experiment concluded that similar to the way we train dogs, humans can be classically conditioned to associate one thing with another so much so, that a response can achieved from multiple similar stimuli. For example, Albert was terrified of the white rat because he associated it with a loud noise, but he was also scared of furry white objects in general. Watson wearing a Santa Clause beard and wearing a white furry coat reaped the same reaction from Albert as the white rat did. This experiment was criticized for its lack of ethics and lasting damage it inflicted upon the test subject Albert, although it present new research on how humans react to stimuli that is still be used by workers in various fields today.

I am well aware that COVID-19 is probably the last topic people want to either hear or read about, but I think it is important to put the national panic we are currently facing into perspective. Obviously, it is reasonable to be scared about a highly infectious disease that we currently have no cure for, but the hysteria surrounding COVID-19 has been out of proportion for what it is actually is. I am not talking about people practicing social distancing and events such as sporting events and concerts being cancelled, these are reasonable measures being taken to lower the potential of infection. Instead, I am specifically talking about overbuying, the stock market crashing and the alleged racism Chinese people are facing as a result of this virus starting in Wuhan. Social distancing is rational and productive, overbuying and racism is not.

In an editorial for the New York Times, Psychologist David DeSteno attributes the extreme response to COVID-19 as an example of availability bias. Essentially, people are so scared over this virus because it is all they see. Virtually every news outlet discusses COVID-19 nearly every time they are on air and because of this, people are interpreting this virus to be way more catastrophic to society than it really is. Constantly seeing a threat to ourselves makes us want to protect ourselves, but this is being taken to extremes and creating a positive feedback loop aiding the paranoia of COVID-19. Examples of this have been seen online, as pictures were posted of shoppers buying an exorbitant amount of food, toilet paper and supplies such as Purell and face masks. It is not bad to be prepared, but buying so many products essential for people to survive deprives others of said essentials. This overbuying has forced people to travel other places to get food and toilet paper and led to a shortage of face masks for medical professionals, which can both lead to the spread of the virus people are trying to protect themselves against.

Finally, the racism component Chinese people are facing. In the middle of a global problem, the last thing countries need to do is pointing fingers. The natural psychological response for a collective hardship is to search for a reason or entity to blame. However instead of this, we should be promoting cooperation via supplies and research sharing rather than focusing on how to punish China at the moment. To be transparent, I do not think the President calling COVID-19 the Chinese Virus is contributing to this unrest. It has been proven that the virus originated in China due to the lack of regulation on Wet Markets by their government. Furthermore, there is already another pandemic named about a nationality, the Spanish Flu. So personally, I do not think calling it the Chinese Virus is causing racist sentiment towards Chinese people. Regardless, China has permanently banned the use of Wet Markets, and as a result we should be fighting our natural response of blaming them and demanding they see consequences and should instead be focusing on fighting the virus which is ravaging our society.

Disclaimer: We know very few concrete aspects about dreams and dreaming, the information present in this blog is primarily theories placed forward by a combination of psychiatrists and scientists.

Despite popular belief, all babies and adults alike dream multiple times on average for 2 hours a night. A person claiming that they do not dream is not true, rather they simply do not remember their dreams when they wake up in the morning. Scientists theorize that this is due to the rapid shift the brain undergoes from transitioning from dreaming to waking up. Specifically, the portion of the brain responsible for memory is believed to be largely inactive during sleep, explaining why 95% of dreams are forgotten. But why do we dream in the first place? Theories range from claims that dreams are an essential cognitive function that help people work through stress and emotions, while others state that dreams are a meaningless phenomena that occurs during sleep just because it does. Below are 3 of the most popular theories by psychoanalysts, scientists and sleep experts.

Sigmund Freud championed the theory that dreams are a result of an individual’s personality. He stated that dreams are a result of one’s emotional, aggressive and sexual desires not being expressed in reality. As a result, these unexpressed feelings are presented in dreams because they have nowhere else to go.

Another theory popular among experts is that dreams are the brain’s way of processing information experienced in everyday life. The logic is that our brains are wholly stimulated during waking hours, and thus our brains are unable to react and process all of the information that it takes in during this time. Because of this, our brain uses dreams to further process thoughts.

The final theory I want to present is the one that I personally think is the most probable. The theory states that dreams essentially “clean up” stray thoughts from the brain, and serve to refresh the mind for when it wakes up. I believe in this theory due to the often random scenarios that dreams present. I think that dreams are reactionary thoughts to stimuli faced during waking hours that are not thought about in the moment. I think that dreams are thoughts that we did not necessarily think in the moment, and are released during sleep to clear these thoughts out and reset the brian for the next morning. Comment which of the three theories presented you believe in, and if you have your own theory on why we dream, let me know!

In physcology, there are a multitude of forms of bias that occur on a daily basis, far too many to discuss in this blog post alone. Because of this, I want to focus on the 2 main forms of biases that can occur during job interviews. We will all be faced with a job interview at some point in our lives, and it is important to know about some factors that can either help or hurt your chances of impressing an interviewer.

Firstly, the affinity bias. The definition of affinity bias is a simple concept to grasp, job interviewers look more favorably upon interviewees who they have an affinity for. This can include being from the same hometown, being in the same fraternity or sorority, or having a mutual friend. Interviewees who obtain the affinity of an interviewer are more likely to set themselves apart from other applicants and as a result, have a higher probability of being hired. While people cannot control what hometown they are from, they can control the kinds of organizations they are involved in. Organizations such as business fraternities often advertise the networking opportunities that come with membership, and there is truth to this as this can increase the chances of activating the affinity bias in a job interview.

Secondly, the Halo and Horns effect. These two forms of bias are inverses of each other, and pertain to how an interviewer views a interviewee based on their demor or resume. The Halo Effect is when an interviewer’s judgement of a person is clouded by a particular positive achievement or attribute. For example, if an interviewee’s resume states that they went to Harvard, the interviewer assumes that the candidate is smarter and better qualified than others, even if this is not the case. As a result, the Halo Effect makes interviewers become blind to other important factors such as experience or temperament. Conversely, the Horns Effect is when an interviewee displays one bad trait or attribute that interviewers are unable to overlook. An example being if an interviewee has a bad credit score, an interviewer will assume the person is not trustworthy, regardless of the context. Because of this, it is important to make sure there is nothing in your resume that could activate the Horns Effect, otherwise your chances of being hired are much lower.

In conclusion, the best way to decrease the negative form of bias that can occur during a job interview is to ensure that there are as many qualifications as possible to trigger the affinity bias and no actions that could trigger the Horns Effect. Joining networking organizations and taking internships could all increase the probability of an interviewer forming an affinity for a candidate. While having a criminal record could cause the interviewer to trigger the Horns Effect rather than the Halo Effect. Job interviews are more complicated than they seem, and having a strong, qualified resume is the best way to reduce any form of negative bias.

 

Sigmund Freud is famous for being the founder of psychoanalysis and introducing multiple new psychology theories, the most enduring of which was the notion that the human psyche is composed of 3 parts. This theory is commonly depicted as a devil and angel on someone’s shoulder, signifying a bad side and a good side, with the person in the middle to manage the two. This is the premise of Freud’s theory, every person’s psyche consists of an id, ego and superego, and each one contributes to decisions made by the said person.

Firstly, the id is the primitive and impulsive part of our psyche, and responds directly to needs and desires. When humans are first born, they only possess and id, later on they develop an ego and a superego. The id is not in touch with reality or logic, it simply compels a person to do what they want, regardless of consequences or repercussions. In the example of a devil and angel on someone’s shoulder, the id is represented by the devil due to its reckless and disregarding nature.

Secondly, the superego is the inherent good in a person that has been instilled or molded by figures such as parents, teachers and society. The superego is a direct counter to the id, for example if someone decides to give into the id and do something wrong, the superego will respond through guilt or shame. The superego is responsible for compelling people to make the morally right decision based on society’s and other’s expectations. In the example of the devil and angel, the superego is represented by the angel, due to the “ideal self” that it promotes.

Finally, the ego, or the self. The ego is the middle ground between the id and the superego, and is represented by the person who’s shoulders the angel and devil are standing on. The ego is responsible for compromising between the reckless id and the over idealistic superego. Like the id, the ego prioritizes obtaining the pleasure it desires. Unlike the id, and like the superego, the ego takes into account societal norms and morality. Unlike the superego, the ego is logical and realistic when processing a course of action. Essentially, without the ego and superego, we are all children. without the id and ego, we are all unrealistic. Without the id and superego, we have no desire or morals. All 3 components are critical, and without them, humans would not be the way are they.

Life is obviously full of sad events, angering situations, and times of stress. Sometimes, these bad components blur together and it becomes too much for people to keep their stability without implementing subconscious mental defense mechanism to cope. There are too many mental defense mechanism to talk about in this blog alone, so instead I will focus on the 3 that I deem most common, interesting and used by myself.

First, and the most common, is denial. Most people have heard the phrase, “You’re in denial”, and that is because most people use this mechanism to cope with troubling times. The premise of denial is simple, don’t think about what is troubling you. For example, if a family members passes away, instead of thinking about memories spent with them, people will attempt to remove them from memory as this may be less painful than thinking about them only to realize they are gone. This is the reason some people may choose to skip a funeral of a family member, as this tradition may legitimize the fact that the person is no longer living, thus amplifying the pain of the grieving.

Second, and to me the most interesting is displacement. Displacement is when someone redirects their sadness, anger or stress towards another person. I find this defense mechanism strange because it provides no relief to the person. For example, if a student is angry about getting a poor grade on their exam, they may go back to their dorm and take out this anger on their roomate. Small things that are usually not an issue may result in an argument. My roommate did this to me once as he came back from Pollock testing center to find a few of my notebooks on his desk. Normally, this would be no big deal but the result of his exam caused him to shift his anger from his to grade towards me. However, unlike denial, displacement did not provide emotional protection from his grade, nor did it help him restore a sense of calmness like the next mechanism, sublimation.

Sublimation is the mental defense mechanism I find myself subconsciously implementing most often. Sublimation is redirecting emotions into an activity that is comfortable and safe. I find that this usually helps restore confidence and allows me to clear my head before I determine how I want to proceed with the problem. For an example, if someone has gone through a break up, a person using denial would attempt to erase them from memory, a person using displacement would become resentful towards their friends, a person using sublimation would engage in activities they enjoy to help stabilize themselves adjust to the change happening in their life. I personally think this is best method as it is a positive mechanic, using consistent activities to cope with a changing life unlike negative mechanics such as denial and displacement. So, next time you are feeling sad, angry or stressed, think about doing things you enjoy to clear your head before you decide how to proceed with handling a situation as opposed to going into denial or taking out your emotions on others, your friends, family and mind will thank you for it.

 

 

During the Nuremberg Trials, the primary defense of Nazi war criminals were that they were following orders from their superiors. Their reasoning to judges was that they knew what they were doing was wrong, but they exercised obedience to their commanding officers for fear of retaliation. Years after the a Trials in 1963, Yale phycologist Stanley Milgram decided that he wanted to test the Nazis’ court defense and determine where humans draw the line between morality and obedience. In order to do this, Milgram took out an ad in a newspaper asking for calling for males only, to replicate the mindset of Nazi soldiers, to participate in a study of learning. Participants were not told the parameters of the study, and were paid $4.50 to show up. Participants were paired with another person who was not actually another participant, they were actors hired by Milgram but the real participant was not aware of this. Then, the participant and actor would draw straws to see who would be the teacher and who would be the learner. The draw was rigged to make the participant the teacher, and the actor the learner. Next, the learner was strapped to a chair with electrodes ranging from a slight shock to a severe shock. The shocks were actually fake but the participants did not know this. The teacher was given a list of words to read to the learner, and the learner would have to select the matching word from a 4 different options. If the learner got the question wrong, which the actors often did on purpose, the teacher was instructed to give them an electric shock, with shocks increasing in velocity for each wrong answer. Once the fake shocks started to get to a dangerous level, a few participants refused to continue increasing the voltage for fear of “harming” their “partner”. If a teacher refused, they were met with one, or all four of these prods spoken by Milgram:

Prod 1: Please continue.

Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.

After receiving these prods, 65% of participants continued to the highest shock voltage available. In Milgram’s mind, this proved his theory that the Nazi soldiers were being truthful when they said they knew what they were doing was wrong, but decided to be obedient to their superior officers. The experiment was replicated 18 times, and each time yielded similar results that supported the conclusion that obedience is more powerful than morality.

Works Consulted :

Mcleod, Saul. “The Milgram Experiment.” Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology, Simply Psychology, 5 Feb. 2017, www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html.

Most social phycology experiments are hardly news. They are rarely reported on in mainstream news and the majority of the population does not know when, or how they are conducted. So what went wrong in the Stanford Prison experiment to warrant the study having a movie made about it? After a report from American prison guards talked about abuse towards inmates, Professor Zimbardo, a phycology professor at Stanford, wanted to uncover wether the brutality from guards were due to sadistic personalities or rather a result of the prison environment. In order to test this, he transformed a Stanford campus basement into a mock prison, and put out an application for students to participate. 75 applicants applied and were eliminated if they had phycological problems, a criminal record or just did not seem mature enough. Of the 75, 24 men were selected to be a part of the study. They were paid $15 a day and were randomly assigned to be either an inmate or a guard in the mock prison. The parameters of the study was to simply treat the mock inmates like real inmates. The guards stripped inmates naked, confiscated their personal possessions, and assigned each inmate a uniform and a number. Guards and inmates were not allowed to refer to each other by name because Professor Zimbardo reckoned that personal relationships between inmates would ruin the results. The guards worked 8 hour shifts and were instructed to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain order among inmates short of physical violence. Professor Zimbardo served as the prison warden so he observe the students. Soon after the inmates were booked, they began to adopt the behavior of real life inmates. They did things such as talking about prison, telling on each other to the guards and accepting orders without question. Similarly, the guards to also began to change their behavior towards the inmates. By the second day of the experiment, guards became overly aggressive and started to attempt to dehumanize the prisoners by making them do pushups, giving them meaningless tasks and withholding food and bathing privileges. Inmates eventually had enough of this treatment and attempted to rebel by escaping the prison, only to be stopped by guards and punished with solitary confinement. A few of the inmates broke down in solitary confinement and began to cry, screw and demanded to be let out of the experiment, but were told by their fellow inmates after being let out of solitary that they couldn’t quit, otherwise they would be a bad prisoner. After more and more inmates began to have mental episodes, Professor Zimbardo decided to put an end to it. The experiment was meant to last 2 weeks, but it was shut down after 6 days. The Stanford Prison experiment has been condemned by a plethora of researchers in the field of phycology for breaching ethical codes, and to this day remains the poster child of experiments that went to far. A movie was made about this experiment in 2015, and that movie is the reason I know about the Stanford Prison experiment at all. In conclusion, the experiment serves as a lesson to those looking to create phycological studies to follow ethical codes, protect participants and know when an experiment has gone too far. If all of those steps are followed, an experiment will produce meaningful findings instead of a movie.

 

Have you ever been standing on a high place and thought, “I could jump right now.”, or have been driving and thought, “What would happen if I swerved into the other lane?” It may sound contradictory, but this feeling is  not necessarily a suicidal thought, but rather a phycological phenomenon that roughly 50% of people feel throughout their life simply reaffirming their will to live. The French have a name for this phenomenon, L’appel du vide, or The Call of the Void, and it describes having a strong sudden urge to do something incredibly self destructive, but then quickly dismissing it. People often interpret the feeling as a suicidal one, and some will think that experiencing The Call of the Void is a message to hurt oneself from their self conscious, but in actuality, experiencing this is your brain reminding you that you want to live. April Smith, a phycology professor at the University of Miami, explained the Call of the Void as a “miscommunication in the brain” because the brain thinking about the ways one could hurt themself is its way of assessing danger, although this seeming paradoxical. Using me as an example, when I was 16 I went to New York with my family and as most tourists do, we decided to visit the Empire State Building. When we were at the top of the building, I was overlooking the New York skyline and suddenly wanted to go overtop the metal bars and just fall. Obviously since I’m telling this story, I did not go through with it and that was my brain’s weird way of reminding me of danger and reaffirming my desire to live. Thinking of falling off of the Empire State Building was my brain recognizing danger, and having the urge to jump was my brain testing me. Since I did not jump, I confirmed back to my brain that I still want to live. The Call of Void can be an uncomfortable feeling at times, and for the other 50% of people who haven’t experienced the phenomenon, this blog probably sounds crazy, but it’s reassuring to be reminded how valuable life is regardless how bizarre your brain’s methods.