1st semester reading
As we cover each of the following experiments, each student will be responsible for submitting a one to two page analysis and summary. You may use the following questions to steer your paper, but know you are encouraged to incorporate some of your own thoughts and views into your response. Again, this is a college level course, so academic/scholarly writing is expected and graded accordingly.
Exp. 1 - "Opening Skinner's Box: B. F. Skinner's Rat Race"
B. F. Skinner Conditioning a Pigeon to Turn and Peck (Original Footage)
An Example of a Skinner Box (Original Footage)
What was the connection Skinner made with behavior and reward (reinforcement)?
What did Skinner try to prove about human behavior by using rats and pigeons? What did Skinner think
about the concept of “free will” for the human race?
What do you think is the relationship between a "pleasing" thing and a "reinforcing" thing?
Exp. 2 - "Obscura: Stanley Milgram and Obedience"
Milgram's Obedience Study (Original Footage)
ABC Milgram Re-Make (August 2013)
Are there certain qualities that differentiate authority figures? Would certain qualities lead you to follow one
instead of another?
How was deception used in his method of experimentation?
Even though no one actually was shocked, what might be considered unethical in this experiment?
Based on the results of the Milgram experiment, do you think that individuals who "compromise their own
ethics in order to obey authority" are responsible for the treatment for the treatment of another, if the
authority figure was giving instructions to harm the other individual? Why?
Exp. 3 - "On Being Sane in Insance Places: Experimenting with Psychiatric Diagnosis"
Rosenhan's Experiment (Context and Methodology)
What was Rosenhan’s purpose of his deception? Was it necessary?
Why do you think the patients were able to tell the fakers better than the trained psychologists?
If Rosenhan's study had been ethical, what effects would this have on the conclusive results?
After reading the text and viewing the films, what were features of hospital life that resulted in the
pseudopatients experiencing negative feelings such as powerlessness and depersonalisation.
Exp. 4 - "In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing: Darley and Latane's Training
Manual - A Five-Stage Approach"
Smoked Filled Room Study (Original Footage - No audio)
Stranger Danger: Would Anyone Help Your Child? (NBC Today)
How was the Kitty Genovese case an example of the “bystander effect” (also known as “diffusion of
responsibility?”)
In each of the previous experiments (the fake seizure and the smoke-filled room), they used actors, which
are called confederates, to pretend that they were in the experiment, just like the subject. Why did they
need actors instead of just other subjects?
Exp. 5 - "Quieting the Mind: The Experiments of Leon Festinger"
A Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance
According to Festinger and Carlsmith, subjects who were paid $1 to lie felt cognitive dissonance between
their actual experience and the lie they told, and they resolved this dissonance by changing their
perception of their experience. Why did they resolve dissonance in this way? Are there other ways they
could have reduced the dissonance?
Try to explain how each example in the book relates to cognitive dissonance:
(1) The Sanada cult when the "Great Event" didn’t actually occur.
(2) When Audrey’s mom Linda gets cancer, but is not cured by Audrey.
Consider an example in everyday life where people face cognitive dissonance; how do they tend to resolve
the dissonance?
Exp. 6 - "Monkey Love: Harry Harlow's Primates"
Harlow's Studies on Dependency in Monkeys (Original Footage)
Food or Security? Harlow's Study on Attachment (Original Footage)
What does Harlow prove, using monkeys, about raising a child?
Why would Harlow’s methods be considered unethical?
After viewing the film, do you agree or not with the notion that monkeys were ideal subjects for Harlow's
experiment? If not, then what would have been a more acceptable subject? If so, why?
Exp. 7 - "Rat Park: The Radical Addiction Experiment"
Nature vs. Nurture: The Debate on Psychological Development
Addiction: What is It?
Throughout the course, we will discuss the difference between NATURE and NURTURE; while watching the
film, write down the arguments for each as it pertains to drug addiction.
What role did the "rat park" have on the rats opposed to the rats in the "cramped and isolated" cages?
Did Alexander's Rat Park Experiment results differ from the experts in the video? What conclusions do you
draw after reading and then viewing the clip?
Exp. 8 - "Lost in the Mall: The False Memory Experiment"
Elizabeth Loftus: The Fiction of Memory (TED Talks)
Why is Elizabeth Loftus’s research important for crime investigations?
Why is Elizabeth Loftus's research controversial?
Memories play a very important part of our life; list and explain the three most important conclusions from
Loftus on our memory.