psychology research study examples

• The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History

While each year thousands and thousands of studies are completed in the many specialty areas of psychology, there are a handful that, over the years, have had a lasting impact in the psychological community as a whole. Some of these were dutifully conducted, keeping within the confines of ethical and practical guidelines. Others pushed the boundaries of human behavior during their psychological experiments and created controversies that still linger to this day. And still others were not designed to be true psychological experiments, but ended up as beacons to the psychological community in proving or disproving theories.

This is a list of the 25 most influential psychological experiments still being taught to psychology students of today.

1. A Class Divided

Study conducted by: jane elliott.

Study Conducted in 1968 in an Iowa classroom

Experiment Details: Jane Elliott’s famous experiment was inspired by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the inspirational life that he led. The third grade teacher developed an exercise, or better yet, a psychological experiment, to help her Caucasian students understand the effects of racism and prejudice.

Elliott divided her class into two separate groups: blue-eyed students and brown-eyed students. On the first day, she labeled the blue-eyed group as the superior group and from that point forward they had extra privileges, leaving the brown-eyed children to represent the minority group. She discouraged the groups from interacting and singled out individual students to stress the negative characteristics of the children in the minority group. What this exercise showed was that the children’s behavior changed almost instantaneously. The group of blue-eyed students performed better academically and even began bullying their brown-eyed classmates. The brown-eyed group experienced lower self-confidence and worse academic performance. The next day, she reversed the roles of the two groups and the blue-eyed students became the minority group.

At the end of the experiment, the children were so relieved that they were reported to have embraced one another and agreed that people should not be judged based on outward appearances. This exercise has since been repeated many times with similar outcomes.

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2. Asch Conformity Study

Study conducted by: dr. solomon asch.

Study Conducted in 1951 at Swarthmore College

Experiment Details: Dr. Solomon Asch conducted a groundbreaking study that was designed to evaluate a person’s likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so.

A group of participants were shown pictures with lines of various lengths and were then asked a simple question: Which line is longest? The tricky part of this study was that in each group only one person was a true participant. The others were actors with a script. Most of the actors were instructed to give the wrong answer. Strangely, the one true participant almost always agreed with the majority, even though they knew they were giving the wrong answer.

The results of this study are important when we study social interactions among individuals in groups. This study is a famous example of the temptation many of us experience to conform to a standard during group situations and it showed that people often care more about being the same as others than they do about being right. It is still recognized as one of the most influential psychological experiments for understanding human behavior.

3. Bobo Doll Experiment

Study conducted by: dr. alburt bandura.

Study Conducted between 1961-1963 at Stanford University

In his groundbreaking study he separated participants into three groups:

• one was exposed to a video of an adult showing aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll
• another was exposed to video of a passive adult playing with the Bobo doll
• the third formed a control group

Children watched their assigned video and then were sent to a room with the same doll they had seen in the video (with the exception of those in the control group). What the researcher found was that children exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior towards the doll themselves. The other groups showed little imitative aggressive behavior. For those children exposed to the aggressive model, the number of derivative physical aggressions shown by the boys was 38.2 and 12.7 for the girls.

The study also showed that boys exhibited more aggression when exposed to aggressive male models than boys exposed to aggressive female models. When exposed to aggressive male models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by boys averaged 104. This is compared to 48.4 aggressive instances exhibited by boys who were exposed to aggressive female models.

While the results for the girls show similar findings, the results were less drastic. When exposed to aggressive female models, the number of aggressive instances exhibited by girls averaged 57.7. This is compared to 36.3 aggressive instances exhibited by girls who were exposed to aggressive male models. The results concerning gender differences strongly supported Bandura’s secondary prediction that children will be more strongly influenced by same-sex models. The Bobo Doll Experiment showed a groundbreaking way to study human behavior and it’s influences.

4. Car Crash Experiment

Study conducted by: elizabeth loftus and john palmer.

Study Conducted in 1974 at The University of California in Irvine

The participants watched slides of a car accident and were asked to describe what had happened as if they were eyewitnesses to the scene. The participants were put into two groups and each group was questioned using different wording such as “how fast was the car driving at the time of impact?” versus “how fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?” The experimenters found that the use of different verbs affected the participants’ memories of the accident, showing that memory can be easily distorted.

This research suggests that memory can be easily manipulated by questioning technique. This means that information gathered after the event can merge with original memory causing incorrect recall or reconstructive memory. The addition of false details to a memory of an event is now referred to as confabulation. This concept has very important implications for the questions used in police interviews of eyewitnesses.

5. Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

Study conducted by: leon festinger and james carlsmith.

Study Conducted in 1957 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting:

This conflict produces an inherent feeling of discomfort leading to a change in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to minimize or eliminate the discomfort and restore balance.

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, after an observational study of a cult that believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood. Out of this study was born an intriguing experiment conducted by Festinger and Carlsmith where participants were asked to perform a series of dull tasks (such as turning pegs in a peg board for an hour). Participant’s initial attitudes toward this task were highly negative.

They were then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a participant waiting in the lobby that the tasks were really interesting. Almost all of the participants agreed to walk into the waiting room and persuade the next participant that the boring experiment would be fun. When the participants were later asked to evaluate the experiment, the participants who were paid only $1 rated the tedious task as more fun and enjoyable than the participants who were paid $20 to lie.

Being paid only $1 is not sufficient incentive for lying and so those who were paid $1 experienced dissonance. They could only overcome that cognitive dissonance by coming to believe that the tasks really were interesting and enjoyable. Being paid $20 provides a reason for turning pegs and there is therefore no dissonance.

6. Fantz’s Looking Chamber

Study conducted by: robert l. fantz.

Study Conducted in 1961 at the University of Illinois

Experiment Details: The study conducted by Robert L. Fantz is among the simplest, yet most important in the field of infant development and vision. In 1961, when this experiment was conducted, there very few ways to study what was going on in the mind of an infant. Fantz realized that the best way was to simply watch the actions and reactions of infants. He understood the fundamental factor that if there is something of interest near humans, they generally look at it.

To test this concept, Fantz set up a display board with two pictures attached. On one was a bulls-eye. On the other was the sketch of a human face. This board was hung in a chamber where a baby could lie safely underneath and see both images. Then, from behind the board, invisible to the baby, he peeked through a hole to watch what the baby looked at. This study showed that a two-month old baby looked twice as much at the human face as it did at the bulls-eye. This suggests that human babies have some powers of pattern and form selection. Before this experiment it was thought that babies looked out onto a chaotic world of which they could make little sense.

7. Hawthorne Effect

Study conducted by: henry a. landsberger.

Study Conducted in 1955 at Hawthorne Works in Chicago, Illinois

Landsberger performed the study by analyzing data from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to evaluate whether the level of light in a building changed the productivity of the workers. What Mayo found was that the level of light made no difference in productivity. The workers increased their output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.

The researchers noticed a tendency that the workers’ level of efficiency increased when any variable was manipulated. The study showed that the output changed simply because the workers were aware that they were under observation. The conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out. They increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.

The Hawthorne Effect has become one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design of any experiment in psychology and beyond.

8. Kitty Genovese Case

Study conducted by: new york police force.

Study Conducted in 1964 in New York City

Experiment Details: The murder case of Kitty Genovese was never intended to be a psychological experiment, however it ended up having serious implications for the field.

According to a New York Times article, almost 40 neighbors witnessed Kitty Genovese being savagely attacked and murdered in Queens, New York in 1964. Not one neighbor called the police for help. Some reports state that the attacker briefly left the scene and later returned to “finish off” his victim. It was later uncovered that many of these facts were exaggerated. (There were more likely only a dozen witnesses and records show that some calls to police were made).

What this case later become famous for is the “Bystander Effect,” which states that the more bystanders that are present in a social situation, the less likely it is that anyone will step in and help. This effect has led to changes in medicine, psychology and many other areas. One famous example is the way CPR is taught to new learners. All students in CPR courses learn that they must assign one bystander the job of alerting authorities which minimizes the chances of no one calling for assistance.

9. Learned Helplessness Experiment

Study conducted by: martin seligman.

Study Conducted in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania

Seligman’s experiment involved the ringing of a bell and then the administration of a light shock to a dog. After a number of pairings, the dog reacted to the shock even before it happened. As soon as the dog heard the bell, he reacted as though he’d already been shocked.

During the course of this study something unexpected happened. Each dog was placed in a large crate that was divided down the middle with a low fence. The dog could see and jump over the fence easily. The floor on one side of the fence was electrified, but not on the other side of the fence. Seligman placed each dog on the electrified side and administered a light shock. He expected the dog to jump to the non-shocking side of the fence. In an unexpected turn, the dogs simply laid down.

The hypothesis was that as the dogs learned from the first part of the experiment that there was nothing they could do to avoid the shocks, they gave up in the second part of the experiment. To prove this hypothesis the experimenters brought in a new set of animals and found that dogs with no history in the experiment would jump over the fence.

This condition was described as learned helplessness. A human or animal does not attempt to get out of a negative situation because the past has taught them that they are helpless.

10. Little Albert Experiment

Study conducted by: john b. watson and rosalie rayner.

Study Conducted in 1920 at Johns Hopkins University

The experiment began by placing a white rat in front of the infant, who initially had no fear of the animal. Watson then produced a loud sound by striking a steel bar with a hammer every time little Albert was presented with the rat. After several pairings (the noise and the presentation of the white rat), the boy began to cry and exhibit signs of fear every time the rat appeared in the room. Watson also created similar conditioned reflexes with other common animals and objects (rabbits, Santa beard, etc.) until Albert feared them all.

This study proved that classical conditioning works on humans. One of its most important implications is that adult fears are often connected to early childhood experiences.

11. Magical Number Seven

Study conducted by: george a. miller.

Study Conducted in 1956 at Princeton University

Experiment Details:   Frequently referred to as “ Miller’s Law,” the Magical Number Seven experiment purports that the number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2. This means that the human memory capacity typically includes strings of words or concepts ranging from 5-9. This information on the limits to the capacity for processing information became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

The Magical Number Seven Experiment was published in 1956 by cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University’s Department of Psychology in Psychological Review .  In the article, Miller discussed a concurrence between the limits of one-dimensional absolute judgment and the limits of short-term memory.

In a one-dimensional absolute-judgment task, a person is presented with a number of stimuli that vary on one dimension (such as 10 different tones varying only in pitch). The person responds to each stimulus with a corresponding response (learned before).

Performance is almost perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a human’s maximum performance on one-dimensional absolute judgment can be described as an information store with the maximum capacity of approximately 2 to 3 bits of information There is the ability to distinguish between four and eight alternatives.

12. Pavlov’s Dog Experiment

Study conducted by: ivan pavlov.

Study Conducted in the 1890s at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia

Pavlov began with the simple idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. He observed that dogs do not learn to salivate when they see food. This reflex is “hard wired” into the dog. This is an unconditioned response (a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).

Pavlov outlined that there are unconditioned responses in the animal by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and then measuring its salivary secretions. In the experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. What he found was that the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food. This learning created a new behavior. The dog salivated when he heard the bell. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.

This theory came to be known as classical conditioning.

13. Robbers Cave Experiment

Study conducted by: muzafer and carolyn sherif.

Study Conducted in 1954 at the University of Oklahoma

Experiment Details: This experiment, which studied group conflict, is considered by most to be outside the lines of what is considered ethically sound.

In 1954 researchers at the University of Oklahoma assigned 22 eleven- and twelve-year-old boys from similar backgrounds into two groups. The two groups were taken to separate areas of a summer camp facility where they were able to bond as social units. The groups were housed in separate cabins and neither group knew of the other’s existence for an entire week. The boys bonded with their cabin mates during that time. Once the two groups were allowed to have contact, they showed definite signs of prejudice and hostility toward each other even though they had only been given a very short time to develop their social group. To increase the conflict between the groups, the experimenters had them compete against each other in a series of activities. This created even more hostility and eventually the groups refused to eat in the same room. The final phase of the experiment involved turning the rival groups into friends. The fun activities the experimenters had planned like shooting firecrackers and watching movies did not initially work, so they created teamwork exercises where the two groups were forced to collaborate. At the end of the experiment, the boys decided to ride the same bus home, demonstrating that conflict can be resolved and prejudice overcome through cooperation.

Many critics have compared this study to Golding’s Lord of the Flies novel as a classic example of prejudice and conflict resolution.

14. Ross’ False Consensus Effect Study

Study conducted by: lee ross.

Study Conducted in 1977 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: In 1977, a social psychology professor at Stanford University named Lee Ross conducted an experiment that, in lay terms, focuses on how people can incorrectly conclude that others think the same way they do, or form a “false consensus” about the beliefs and preferences of others. Ross conducted the study in order to outline how the “false consensus effect” functions in humans.

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In the first part of the study, participants were asked to read about situations in which a conflict occurred and then were told two alternative ways of responding to the situation. They were asked to do three things:

• Guess which option other people would choose
• Say which option they themselves would choose
• Describe the attributes of the person who would likely choose each of the two options

What the study showed was that most of the subjects believed that other people would do the same as them, regardless of which of the two responses they actually chose themselves. This phenomenon is referred to as the false consensus effect, where an individual thinks that other people think the same way they do when they may not. The second observation coming from this important study is that when participants were asked to describe the attributes of the people who will likely make the choice opposite of their own, they made bold and sometimes negative predictions about the personalities of those who did not share their choice.

15. The Schacter and Singer Experiment on Emotion

Study conducted by: stanley schachter and jerome e. singer.

Study Conducted in 1962 at Columbia University

Experiment Details: In 1962 Schachter and Singer conducted a ground breaking experiment to prove their theory of emotion.

In the study, a group of 184 male participants were injected with epinephrine, a hormone that induces arousal including increased heartbeat, trembling, and rapid breathing. The research participants were told that they were being injected with a new medication to test their eyesight. The first group of participants was informed the possible side effects that the injection might cause while the second group of participants were not. The participants were then placed in a room with someone they thought was another participant, but was actually a confederate in the experiment. The confederate acted in one of two ways: euphoric or angry. Participants who had not been informed about the effects of the injection were more likely to feel either happier or angrier than those who had been informed.

What Schachter and Singer were trying to understand was the ways in which cognition or thoughts influence human emotion. Their study illustrates the importance of how people interpret their physiological states, which form an important component of your emotions. Though their cognitive theory of emotional arousal dominated the field for two decades, it has been criticized for two main reasons: the size of the effect seen in the experiment was not that significant and other researchers had difficulties repeating the experiment.

16. Selective Attention / Invisible Gorilla Experiment

Study conducted by: daniel simons and christopher chabris.

Study Conducted in 1999 at Harvard University

Experiment Details: In 1999 Simons and Chabris conducted their famous awareness test at Harvard University.

Participants in the study were asked to watch a video and count how many passes occurred between basketball players on the white team. The video moves at a moderate pace and keeping track of the passes is a relatively easy task. What most people fail to notice amidst their counting is that in the middle of the test, a man in a gorilla suit walked onto the court and stood in the center before walking off-screen.

The study found that the majority of the subjects did not notice the gorilla at all, proving that humans often overestimate their ability to effectively multi-task. What the study set out to prove is that when people are asked to attend to one task, they focus so strongly on that element that they may miss other important details.

17. Stanford Prison Study

Study conducted by philip zimbardo.

Study Conducted in 1971 at Stanford University

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to study behavior of “normal” individuals when assigned a role of prisoner or guard. College students were recruited to participate. They were assigned roles of “guard” or “inmate.”  Zimbardo played the role of the warden. The basement of the psychology building was the set of the prison. Great care was taken to make it look and feel as realistic as possible.

The prison guards were told to run a prison for two weeks. They were told not to physically harm any of the inmates during the study. After a few days, the prison guards became very abusive verbally towards the inmates. Many of the prisoners became submissive to those in authority roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment inevitably had to be cancelled because some of the participants displayed troubling signs of breaking down mentally.

Although the experiment was conducted very unethically, many psychologists believe that the findings showed how much human behavior is situational. People will conform to certain roles if the conditions are right. The Stanford Prison Experiment remains one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time.

18. Stanley Milgram Experiment

Study conducted by stanley milgram.

Study Conducted in 1961 at Stanford University

Experiment Details: This 1961 study was conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. It was designed to measure people’s willingness to obey authority figures when instructed to perform acts that conflicted with their morals. The study was based on the premise that humans will inherently take direction from authority figures from very early in life.

Participants were told they were participating in a study on memory. They were asked to watch another person (an actor) do a memory test. They were instructed to press a button that gave an electric shock each time the person got a wrong answer. (The actor did not actually receive the shocks, but pretended they did).

Participants were told to play the role of “teacher” and administer electric shocks to “the learner,” every time they answered a question incorrectly. The experimenters asked the participants to keep increasing the shocks. Most of them obeyed even though the individual completing the memory test appeared to be in great pain. Despite these protests, many participants continued the experiment when the authority figure urged them to. They increased the voltage after each wrong answer until some eventually administered what would be lethal electric shocks.

This experiment showed that humans are conditioned to obey authority and will usually do so even if it goes against their natural morals or common sense.

19. Surrogate Mother Experiment

Study conducted by: harry harlow.

Study Conducted from 1957-1963 at the University of Wisconsin

Experiment Details: In a series of controversial experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Harry Harlow studied the importance of a mother’s love for healthy childhood development.

In order to do this he separated infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be raised by two “surrogate mothers.” One of the surrogates was made of wire with an attached bottle for food. The other was made of soft terrycloth but lacked food. The researcher found that the baby monkeys spent much more time with the cloth mother than the wire mother, thereby proving that affection plays a greater role than sustenance when it comes to childhood development. They also found that the monkeys that spent more time cuddling the soft mother grew up to healthier.

This experiment showed that love, as demonstrated by physical body contact, is a more important aspect of the parent-child bond than the provision of basic needs. These findings also had implications in the attachment between fathers and their infants when the mother is the source of nourishment.

20. The Good Samaritan Experiment

Study conducted by: john darley and daniel batson.

Study Conducted in 1973 at The Princeton Theological Seminary (Researchers were from Princeton University)

Experiment Details: In 1973, an experiment was created by John Darley and Daniel Batson, to investigate the potential causes that underlie altruistic behavior. The researchers set out three hypotheses they wanted to test:

• People thinking about religion and higher principles would be no more inclined to show helping behavior than laymen.
• People in a rush would be much less likely to show helping behavior.
• People who are religious for personal gain would be less likely to help than people who are religious because they want to gain some spiritual and personal insights into the meaning of life.

Student participants were given some religious teaching and instruction. They were then were told to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying injured and appearing to be in dire need of assistance. The first variable being tested was the degree of urgency impressed upon the subjects, with some being told not to rush and others being informed that speed was of the essence.

The results of the experiment were intriguing, with the haste of the subject proving to be the overriding factor. When the subject was in no hurry, nearly two-thirds of people stopped to lend assistance. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten.

People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to help as those delivering other sermons,. This showed that the thoughts of the individual were a factor in determining helping behavior. Religious beliefs did not appear to make much difference on the results. Being religious for personal gain, or as part of a spiritual quest, did not appear to make much of an impact on the amount of helping behavior shown.

21. The Halo Effect Experiment

Study conducted by: richard e. nisbett and timothy decamp wilson.

Study Conducted in 1977 at the University of Michigan

Experiment Details: The Halo Effect states that people generally assume that people who are physically attractive are more likely to:

• be intelligent
• be friendly
• display good judgment

To prove their theory, Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson created a study to prove that people have little awareness of the nature of the Halo Effect. They’re not aware that it influences:

• their personal judgments
• the production of a more complex social behavior

In the experiment, college students were the research participants. They were asked to evaluate a psychology instructor as they view him in a videotaped interview. The students were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was shown one of two different interviews with the same instructor. The instructor is a native French-speaking Belgian who spoke English with a noticeable accent. In the first video, the instructor presented himself as someone:

• respectful of his students’ intelligence and motives
• flexible in his approach to teaching
• enthusiastic about his subject matter

In the second interview, he presented himself as much more unlikable. He was cold and distrustful toward the students and was quite rigid in his teaching style.

After watching the videos, the subjects were asked to rate the lecturer on:

• physical appearance

His mannerisms and accent were kept the same in both versions of videos. The subjects were asked to rate the professor on an 8-point scale ranging from “like extremely” to “dislike extremely.” Subjects were also told that the researchers were interested in knowing “how much their liking for the teacher influenced the ratings they just made.” Other subjects were asked to identify how much the characteristics they just rated influenced their liking of the teacher.

After responding to the questionnaire, the respondents were puzzled about their reactions to the videotapes and to the questionnaire items. The students had no idea why they gave one lecturer higher ratings. Most said that how much they liked the lecturer had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

The interesting thing about this study is that people can understand the phenomenon, but they are unaware when it is occurring. Without realizing it, humans make judgments. Even when it is pointed out, they may still deny that it is a product of the halo effect phenomenon.

22. The Marshmallow Test

Study conducted by: walter mischel.

Study Conducted in 1972 at Stanford University

In his 1972 Marshmallow Experiment, children ages four to six were taken into a room where a marshmallow was placed in front of them on a table. Before leaving each of the children alone in the room, the experimenter informed them that they would receive a second marshmallow if the first one was still on the table after they returned in 15 minutes. The examiner recorded how long each child resisted eating the marshmallow and noted whether it correlated with the child’s success in adulthood. A small number of the 600 children ate the marshmallow immediately and one-third delayed gratification long enough to receive the second marshmallow.

In follow-up studies, Mischel found that those who deferred gratification were significantly more competent and received higher SAT scores than their peers. This characteristic likely remains with a person for life. While this study seems simplistic, the findings outline some of the foundational differences in individual traits that can predict success.

23. The Monster Study

Study conducted by: wendell johnson.

Study Conducted in 1939 at the University of Iowa

Experiment Details: The Monster Study received this negative title due to the unethical methods that were used to determine the effects of positive and negative speech therapy on children.

Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa selected 22 orphaned children, some with stutters and some without. The children were in two groups. The group of children with stutters was placed in positive speech therapy, where they were praised for their fluency. The non-stutterers were placed in negative speech therapy, where they were disparaged for every mistake in grammar that they made.

As a result of the experiment, some of the children who received negative speech therapy suffered psychological effects and retained speech problems for the rest of their lives. They were examples of the significance of positive reinforcement in education.

The initial goal of the study was to investigate positive and negative speech therapy. However, the implication spanned much further into methods of teaching for young children.

24. Violinist at the Metro Experiment

Study conducted by: staff at the washington post.

Study Conducted in 2007 at a Washington D.C. Metro Train Station

During the study, pedestrians rushed by without realizing that the musician playing at the entrance to the metro stop was Grammy-winning musician, Joshua Bell. Two days before playing in the subway, he sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats average $100. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. In the 45 minutes the musician played his violin, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. Around 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

The study and the subsequent article organized by the Washington Post was part of a social experiment looking at:

• the priorities of people

Gene Weingarten wrote about the social experiment: “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” Later he won a Pulitzer Prize for his story. Some of the questions the article addresses are:

• Do we perceive beauty?
• Do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

As it turns out, many of us are not nearly as perceptive to our environment as we might like to think.

25. Visual Cliff Experiment

Study conducted by: eleanor gibson and richard walk.

Study Conducted in 1959 at Cornell University

Experiment Details: In 1959, psychologists Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk set out to study depth perception in infants. They wanted to know if depth perception is a learned behavior or if it is something that we are born with. To study this, Gibson and Walk conducted the visual cliff experiment.

They studied 36 infants between the ages of six and 14 months, all of whom could crawl. The infants were placed one at a time on a visual cliff. A visual cliff was created using a large glass table that was raised about a foot off the floor. Half of the glass table had a checker pattern underneath in order to create the appearance of a ‘shallow side.’

In order to create a ‘deep side,’ a checker pattern was created on the floor; this side is the visual cliff. The placement of the checker pattern on the floor creates the illusion of a sudden drop-off. Researchers placed a foot-wide centerboard between the shallow side and the deep side. Gibson and Walk found the following:

• Nine of the infants did not move off the centerboard.
• All of the 27 infants who did move crossed into the shallow side when their mothers called them from the shallow side.
• Three of the infants crawled off the visual cliff toward their mother when called from the deep side.
• When called from the deep side, the remaining 24 children either crawled to the shallow side or cried because they could not cross the visual cliff and make it to their mother.

What this study helped demonstrate is that depth perception is likely an inborn train in humans.

Among these experiments and psychological tests, we see boundaries pushed and theories taking on a life of their own. It is through the endless stream of psychological experimentation that we can see simple hypotheses become guiding theories for those in this field. The greater field of psychology became a formal field of experimental study in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated solely to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany. Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist. Since 1879, psychology has grown into a massive collection of:

• methods of practice

It’s also a specialty area in the field of healthcare. None of this would have been possible without these and many other important psychological experiments that have stood the test of time.

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About the Author

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University and then a Master of Science in Clinical and Forensic Psychology from Drexel University, Kristen began a career as a therapist at two prisons in Philadelphia. At the same time she volunteered as a rape crisis counselor, also in Philadelphia. After a few years in the field she accepted a teaching position at a local college where she currently teaches online psychology courses. Kristen began writing in college and still enjoys her work as a writer, editor, professor and mother.

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Social Psychology Experiments: 10 Of The Most Famous Studies

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. 

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things.

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” –Philip Zimbardo

Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil ), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things.

The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon.

1. Social Psychology Experiments: The Halo Effect

The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment.

It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

It is sometimes called the “what is beautiful is good” principle, or the “physical attractiveness stereotype”.

It is called the halo effect because a halo was often used in religious art to show that a person is good.

2. Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs in their mind.

People resolve this discomfort by changing their thoughts to align with one of conflicting beliefs and rejecting the other.

The study provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do.

3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology experiment on how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

It shows how groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries — and then come into conflict with each other.

For example, each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

One of the reasons the became so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

4. Social Psychology Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was run to find out how people would react to being made a prisoner or prison guard.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who led the Stanford prison experiment, thought ordinary, healthy people would come to behave cruelly, like prison guards, if they were put in that situation, even if it was against their personality.

It has since become a classic social psychology experiment, studied by generations of students and recently coming under a lot of criticism.

5. The Milgram Social Psychology Experiment

The Milgram experiment , led by the well-known psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, aimed to test people’s obedience to authority.

The results of Milgram’s social psychology experiment, sometimes known as the Milgram obedience study, continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial.

The Milgram experiment discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine.

Fully 63 percent of the participants continued administering what appeared like electric shocks to another person while they screamed in agony, begged to stop and eventually fell silent — just because they were told to.

6. The False Consensus Effect

The false consensus effect is a famous social psychological finding that people tend to assume that others agree with them.

It could apply to opinions, values, beliefs or behaviours, but people assume others think and act in the same way as they do.

It is hard for many people to believe the false consensus effect exists because they quite naturally believe they are good ‘intuitive psychologists’, thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people’s attitudes and behaviours.

In reality, people show a number of predictable biases, such as the false consensus effect, when estimating other people’s behaviour and its causes.

7. Social Psychology Experiments: Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory helps to explain why people’s behaviour in groups is fascinating and sometimes disturbing.

People gain part of their self from the groups they belong to and that is at the heart of social identity theory.

The famous theory explains why as soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups.

8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most

Negotiation is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it.

Negotiation doesn’t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone.

In a classic, award-winning series of social psychology experiments, Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss investigated two central factors in negotiation: how we communicate with each other and how we use threats.

9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility

The bystander effect in social psychology is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency.

The bystander effect social psychology experiments are mentioned in every psychology textbook and often dubbed ‘seminal’.

This famous social psychology experiment on the bystander effect was inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

It found that in some circumstances, the presence of others inhibits people’s helping behaviours — partly because of a phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility.

10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

The Asch conformity experiments — some of the most famous every done — were a series of social psychology experiments carried out by noted psychologist Solomon Asch.

The Asch conformity experiment reveals how strongly a person’s opinions are affected by people around them.

In fact, the Asch conformity experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others.

Author: Dr Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

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7 Famous Psychology Experiments

Many famous experiments studying human behavior have impacted our fundamental understanding of psychology. Though some could not be repeated today due to breaches in ethical boundaries, that does not diminish the significance of those psychological studies. Some of these important findings include a greater awareness of depression and its symptoms, how people learn behaviors through the process of association and how individuals conform to a group.

Below, we take a look at seven famous psychological experiments that greatly influenced the field of psychology and our understanding of human behavior.

The Little Albert Experiment, 1920

A John’s Hopkins University professor, Dr. John B. Watson, and a graduate student wanted to test a learning process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves learning involuntary or automatic behaviors by association, and Dr. Watson thought it formed the bedrock of human psychology.

A nine-month-old toddler, dubbed “Albert B,” was volunteered for Dr. Watson and Rosalie Rayner ‘s experiment. Albert played with white furry objects, and at first, the toddler displayed joy and affection. Over time, as he played with the objects, Dr. Watson would make a loud noise behind the child’s head to frighten him. After numerous trials, Albert was conditioned to be afraid when he saw white furry objects.

The study proved that humans could be conditioned to enjoy or fear something, which many psychologists believe could explain why people have irrational fears and how they may have developed early in life. This is a great example of experimental study psychology.

Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971

Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo wanted to learn how individuals conformed to societal roles. He wondered, for example, whether the tense relationship between prison guards and inmates in jails had more to do with the personalities of each or the environment.

During Zimbardo’s experiment , 24 male college students were assigned to be either a prisoner or a guard. The prisoners were held in a makeshift prison inside the basement of Stanford’s psychology department. They went through a standard booking process designed to take away their individuality and make them feel anonymous. Guards were given eight-hour shifts and tasked to treat the prisoners just like they would in real life.

Zimbardo found rather quickly that both the guards and prisoners fully adapted to their roles; in fact, he had to shut down the experiment after six days because it became too dangerous. Zimbardo even admitted he began thinking of himself as a police superintendent rather than a psychologist. The study confirmed that people will conform to the social roles they’re expected to play, especially overly stereotyped ones such as prison guards.

“We realized how ordinary people could be readily transformed from the good Dr. Jekyll to the evil Mr. Hyde,” Zimbardo wrote.

The Asch Conformity Study, 1951

Solomon Asch, a Polish-American social psychologist, was determined to see whether an individual would conform to a group’s decision, even if the individual knew it was incorrect. Conformity is defined by the American Psychological Association as the adjustment of a person’s opinions or thoughts so that they fall closer in line with those of other people or the normative standards of a social group or situation.

In his experiment , Asch selected 50 male college students to participate in a “vision test.” Individuals would have to determine which line on a card was longer. However, the individuals at the center of the experiment did not know that the other people taking the test were actors following scripts, and at times selected the wrong answer on purpose. Asch found that, on average over 12 trials, nearly one-third of the naive participants conformed with the incorrect majority, and only 25 percent never conformed to the incorrect majority. In the control group that featured only the participants and no actors, less than one percent of participants ever chose the wrong answer.

Asch’s experiment showed that people will conform to groups to fit in (normative influence) because of the belief that the group was better informed than the individual. This explains why some people change behaviors or beliefs when in a new group or social setting, even when it goes against past behaviors or beliefs.

The Bobo Doll Experiment, 1961, 1963

Stanford University professor Albert Bandura wanted to put the social learning theory into action. Social learning theory suggests that people can acquire new behaviors “through direct experience or by observing the behavior of others.” Using a Bobo doll , which is a blow-up toy in the shape of a life-size bowling pin, Bandura and his team tested whether children witnessing acts of aggression would copy them.

Bandura and two colleagues selected 36 boys and 36 girls between the ages of 3 and 6 from the Stanford University nursery and split them into three groups of 24. One group watched adults behaving aggressively toward the Bobo doll. In some cases, the adult subjects hit the doll with a hammer or threw it in the air. Another group was shown an adult playing with the Bobo doll in a non-aggressive manner, and the last group was not shown a model at all, just the Bobo doll.

After each session, children were taken to a room with toys and studied to see how their play patterns changed. In a room with aggressive toys (a mallet, dart guns, and a Bobo doll) and non-aggressive toys (a tea set, crayons, and plastic farm animals), Bandura and his colleagues observed that children who watched the aggressive adults were more likely to imitate the aggressive responses.

Unexpectedly, Bandura found that female children acted more physically aggressive after watching a male subject and more verbally aggressive after watching a female subject. The results of the study highlight how children learn behaviors from observing others.

The Learned Helplessness Experiment, 1965

Martin Seligman wanted to research a different angle related to Dr. Watson’s study of classical conditioning. In studying conditioning with dogs, Seligman made an astute observation : the subjects, which had already been conditioned to expect a light electric shock if they heard a bell, would sometimes give up after another negative outcome, rather than searching for the positive outcome.

Under normal circumstances, animals will always try to get away from negative outcomes. When Seligman tested his experiment on animals who hadn’t been previously conditioned, the animals attempted to find a positive outcome. Oppositely, the dogs who had been already conditioned to expect a negative response assumed there would be another negative response waiting for them, even in a different situation.

The conditioned dogs’ behavior became known as learned helplessness, the idea that some subjects won’t try to get out of a negative situation because past experiences have forced them to believe they are helpless. The study’s findings shed light on depression and its symptoms in humans.

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The Milgram Experiment, 1963

In the wake of the horrific atrocities carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II, Stanley Milgram wanted to test the levels of obedience to authority. The Yale University professor wanted to study if people would obey commands, even when it conflicted with the person’s conscience.

Participants of the condensed study , 40 males between the ages of 20 and 50, were split into learners and teachers. Though it seemed random, actors were always chosen as the learners, and unsuspecting participants were always the teachers. A learner was strapped to a chair with electrodes in one room while the experimenter äóñ another actor äóñ and a teacher went into another.

The teacher and learner went over a list of word pairs that the learner was told to memorize. When the learner incorrectly paired a set of words together, the teacher would shock the learner. The teacher believed the shocks ranged from mild all the way to life-threatening. In reality, the learner, who intentionally made mistakes, was not being shocked.

As the voltage of the shocks increased and the teachers became aware of the believed pain caused by them, some refused to continue the experiment. After prodding by the experimenter, 65 percent resumed. From the study, Milgram devised the agency theory , which suggests that people allow others to direct their actions because they believe the authority figure is qualified and will accept responsibility for the outcomes. Milgram’s findings help explain how people can make decisions against their own conscience, such as when participating in a war or genocide.

The Halo Effect Experiment, 1977

University of Michigan professors Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson were interested in following up a study from 50 years earlier on a concept known as the halo effect . In the 1920s, American psychologist Edward Thorndike researched a phenomenon in the U.S. military that showed cognitive bias. This is an error in how we think that affects how we perceive people and make judgements and decisions based on those perceptions.

In 1977, Nisbett and Wilson tested the halo effect using 118 college students (62 males, 56 females). Students were divided into two groups and were asked to evaluate a male Belgian teacher who spoke English with a heavy accent. Participants were shown one of two videotaped interviews with the teacher on a television monitor. The first interview showed the teacher interacting cordially with students, and the second interview showed the teacher behaving inhospitably. The subjects were then asked to rate the teacher’s physical appearance, mannerisms, and accent on an eight-point scale from appealing to irritating.

Nisbett and Wilson found that on physical appearance alone, 70 percent of the subjects rated the teacher as appealing when he was being respectful and irritating when he was cold. When the teacher was rude, 80 percent of the subjects rated his accent as irritating, as compared to nearly 50 percent when he was being kind.

The updated study on the halo effect shows that cognitive bias isn’t exclusive to a military environment. Cognitive bias can get in the way of making the correct decision, whether it’s during a job interview or deciding whether to buy a product that’s been endorsed by a celebrity we admire.

How Experiments Have Impacted Psychology Today

Contemporary psychologists have built on the findings of these studies to better understand human behaviors, mental illnesses, and the link between the mind and body. For their contributions to psychology, Watson, Bandura, Nisbett and Zimbardo were all awarded Gold Medals for Life Achievement from the American Psychological Foundation. Become part of the next generation of influential psychologists with King University’s online bachelor’s in psychology . Take advantage of King University’s flexible online schedule and complete the major coursework of your degree in as little as 16 months. Plus, as a psychology major, King University will prepare you for graduate school with original research on student projects as you pursue your goal of being a psychologist.

Psychology’s 10 Greatest Case Studies – Digested

These ten characters have all had a huge influence on psychology and their stories continue to intrigue each new generation of students.

27 November 2015

By Christian Jarrett

These ten characters have all had a huge influence on psychology and their stories continue to intrigue each new generation of students. What's particularly fascinating is that many of their stories continue to evolve – new evidence comes to light, or new technologies are brought to bear, changing how the cases are interpreted and understood. What many of these 10 also have in common is that they speak to some of the perennial debates in psychology, about personality and identity, nature and nurture, and the links between mind and body.

Phineas Gage

One day in 1848 in Central Vermont, Phineas Gage was tamping explosives into the ground to prepare the way for a new railway line when he had a terrible accident. The detonation went off prematurely, and his tamping iron shot into his face, through his brain, and out the top of his head. Remarkably Gage survived, although his friends and family reportedly felt he was changed so profoundly (becoming listless and aggressive) that "he was no longer Gage."

There the story used to rest – a classic example of frontal brain damage affecting personality. However, recent years have seen  a drastic reevaluation  of Gage's story in light of new evidence. It's now believed that he underwent significant rehabilitation and in fact began work as a horse carriage driver in Chile. A  simulation of his injuries  suggested much of his right frontal cortex was likely spared, and  photographic evidence  has been unearthed showing a post-accident dapper Gage. Not that you'll find this revised account in many psychology textbooks:  a recent analysis  showed that few of them have kept up to date with the new evidence.

See also Jim Horne's ' Blasts from the past ', looking back at similar accounts from the era.

Henry Gustav Molaison (known for years as H.M. in the literature to protect his privacy), who died in 2008, developed severe amnesia at age 27 after undergoing brain surgery as a form of treatment for the epilepsy he'd suffered since childhood. He was subsequently the focus of study by over 100 psychologists and neuroscientists and he's been mentioned in over 12,000 journal articles! Molaison's surgery involved the removal of large parts of the hippocampus on both sides of his brain and the result was that he was almost entirely unable to store any new information in long-term memory (there were some exceptions – for example, after 1963 he was aware that a US president had been assassinated in Dallas). The extremity of Molaison's deficits was a surprise to experts of the day because many of them believed that memory was distributed throughout the cerebral cortex.

Today, Molaison's legacy lives on: his brain was carefully sliced and preserved and turned into a 3D digital atlas and his life story is reportedly due to be turned into a feature film based on the book researcher Suzanne Corkin wrote about him:  Permanent Present Tense, The Man With No Memory and What He Taught The World .

See also 'Understanding amnesia - Is it time to forget H.M.?'

Victor Leborgne (nickname "Tan")

The fact that, in most people, language function is served predominantly by the left frontal cortex has today almost become common knowledge, at least among psych students. However, back in the early 19th century, the consensus view was that language function (like memory, see entry for H.M.) was distributed through the brain. An 19th century patient who helped change that was Victor Leborgne, a Frenchman who was nicknamed "Tan" because that was the only sound he could utter (besides the expletive phrase "sacre nom de Dieu").

In 1861, aged 51, Leborgne was referred to the renowned neurologist Paul Broca, but died soon after. Broca examined Leborgne's brain and noticed a lesion in his left frontal lobe – a segment of tissue now known as Broca's area. Given Leborgne's impaired speech but intact comprehension, Broca concluded that this area of the brain was responsible for speech production and he set about persuading his peers of this fact – now recognised as a key moment in psychology's history.

For decades little was known about Leborgne, besides his important contribution to science. However, in a paper published in 2013, Cezary Domanski at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Poland uncovered new biographical details, including the possibility that Leborgne muttered the word "Tan" because his birthplace of Moret, home to several tanneries.

See also ' Glimpsed at last ', and ' Using brain imaging to re-evaluate psychology's three most famous cases '.

Wild Boy of Aveyron

The "Wild boy of Aveyron" – named Victor by the physician Jean-Marc Itard – was found emerging from Aveyron forest in South West France in 1800, aged 11 or 12, where's it's thought he had been living in the wild for several years. For psychologists and philosophers, Victor became a kind of "natural experiment" into the question of nature and nurture. How would he be affected by the lack of human input early in his life?

Those who hoped Victor would support the notion of the "noble savage" uncorrupted by modern civilisation were largely disappointed: the boy was dirty and dishevelled, defecated where he stood and apparently motivated largely by hunger. Victor acquired celebrity status after he was transported to Paris and Itard began a mission to teach and socialise the "feral child". This programme met with mixed success: Victor never learned to speak fluently, but he dressed, learned civil toilet habits, could write a few letters and acquired some very basic language comprehension. Autism expert Uta Frith believes Victor may have been abandoned because he was autistic, but she acknowledges we will never know the truth of his background.

Victor's story inspired the 2004 novel  The Wild Boy  and was dramatised in the 1970 French film  The Wild Child .

Listen to an episode of 'The Mind Changers'.

Nicknamed 'Kim-puter' by his friends, Peek who died in 2010 aged 58, was the inspiration for Dustin Hoffman's autistic savant character in the multi-Oscar-winning film  Rain Man . Before that movie, which was released in 1988, few people had heard of autism, so Peek via the film can be credited with helping to raise the profile of the condition.

Arguably though, the film also helped spread the popular misconception that giftedness is a hallmark of autism (in one notable scene, Hoffman's character deduces in an instant the precise number of cocktail sticks – 246 – that a waitress drops on the floor). Peek himself was actually a non-autistic savant, born with brain abnormalities including a malformed cerebellum and an absent corpus callosum (the massive bundle of tissue that usually connects the two hemispheres). His savant skills were astonishing and included calendar calculation, as well as an encyclopaedic knowledge of history, literature, classical music, US zip codes and travel routes. It was estimated that he read more than 12,000 books in his life time, all of them committed to flawless memory. Although outgoing and sociable, Peek had coordination problems and struggled with abstract or conceptual thinking.

"Anna O." is the pseudonym for Bertha Pappenheim, a pioneering German Jewish feminist and social worker who died in 1936 aged 77. As Anna O. she is known as one of the first ever patients to undergo psychoanalysis and her case inspired much of Freud's thinking on mental illness. Pappenheim first came to the attention of another psychoanalyst, Joseph Breuer, in 1880 when he was called to her house in Vienna where she was lying in bed, almost entirely paralysed. Her other symptoms include hallucinations, personality changes and rambling speech, but doctors could find no physical cause.

For 18 months, Breuer visited her almost daily and talked to her about her thoughts and feelings, including her grief for her father, and the more she talked, the more her symptoms seemed to fade – this was apparently one of the first ever instances of psychoanalysis or "the talking cure", although the degree of Breuer's success has been disputed and some historians allege that Pappenheim did have an organic illness, such as epilepsy.

Although Freud never met Pappenheim, he wrote about her case, including the notion that she had a hysterical pregnancy, although this too is disputed. The latter part of Pappenheim's life in Germany post 1888 is as remarkable as her time as Anna O. She became a prolific writer and social pioneer, including authoring stories, plays, and translating seminal texts, and she founded social clubs for Jewish women, worked in orphanages and founded the German Federation of Jewish Women.

Kitty Genovese

Sadly, it is not really Kitty Genovese the person who has become one of psychology's classic case studies, but rather the terrible fate that befell her. In 1964 in New York, Genovese was returning home from her job as a bar maid when she was attacked and eventually murdered by Winston Mosely. What made this tragedy so influential to psychology was that it inspired research into what became known as the Bystander Phenomenon – the now well-established finding that our sense of individual responsibility is diluted by the presence of other people. According to folklore, 38 people watched Genovese's demise yet not one of them did anything to help, apparently a terrible real life instance of the Bystander Effect.

However, the story doesn't end there because historians have since established  the reality was much more complicated  – at least two people did try to summon help, and actually there was only one witness the second and fatal attack. While the main principle of the Bystander Effect has stood the test of time, modern psychology's understanding of the way it works has become a lot more nuanced. For example, there's evidence that in some situations people are more likely to act when they're part of a larger group, such as when they and the other group members all belong to the same social category (such as all being women) as the victim.

See also another angle , on false confessions.

Little Albert

"Little Albert" was the nickname that the pioneering behaviourist psychologist John Watson gave to an 11-month-old baby, in whom, with his colleague and future wife Rosalind Rayner, he deliberately attempted to instill certain fears through a process of conditioning. The research, which was of dubious scientific quality, was conducted in 1920 and has become notorious for being so unethical (such a procedure would never be given approval in modern university settings).

Interest in Little Albert has reignited in recent years as an academic quarrel has erupted over his true identity. A group led by Hall Beck at Appalachian University announced in 2011 that they thought Little Albert was actually Douglas Merritte, the son of a wet nurse at John Hopkins University where Watson and Rayner were based. According to this sad account, Little Albert was neurologically impaired, compounding the unethical nature of the Watson/Rayner research, and he died aged six of  hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain).

However, this account was challenged by a different group of scholars led by Russell Powell at MacEwan University in 2014. They established that Little Albert was more likely William A Barger (recorded in his medical file as Albert Barger), the son of a different wet nurse. Earlier this year, textbook writer Richard Griggs weighed up all the evidence and concluded that the Barger story is the more credible, which would mean that Little Albert in fact died 2007 aged 87.

Chris Sizemore

Chris Costner Sizemore is one of the most famous patients to be given the controversial diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, known today as dissociative identity disorder. Sizemore's alter egos apparently included Eve White, Eve Black, Jane and many others. By some accounts, Sizemore expressed these personalities as a coping mechanism in the face of traumas she experienced in childhood, including seeing her mother badly injured and a man sawn in half at a lumber mill.

In recent years, Sizemore has described how her alter egos have been combined into one united personality for many decades, but she still sees different aspects of her past as belonging to her different personalities. For example, she has stated that her husband was married to Eve White (not her), and that Eve White is the mother of her first daughter. Her story was turned into a movie in 1957 called  The Three Faces of Eve  (based on a book of the same name written by her psychiatrists). Joanne Woodward won the best actress Oscar for portraying Sizemore and her various personalities in this film. Sizemore published her autobiography in 1977 called  I'm Eve . In 2009, she appeared on the BBC's  Hard Talk  interview show.

David Reimer

One of the most famous patients in psychology, Reimer lost his penis in a botched circumcision operation when he was just 8 months old. His parents were subsequently advised by psychologist John Money to raise Reimer as a girl, "Brenda", and for him to undergo further surgery and hormone treatment to assist his gender reassignment. Money initially described the experiment (no one had tried anything like this before) as a huge success that appeared to support his belief in the important role of socialisation, rather than innate factors, in children's gender identity.

In fact, the reassignment was seriously problematic and Reimer's boyishness was never far beneath the surface. When he was aged 14, Reimer was told the truth about his past and set about reversing the gender reassignment process to become male again. He later campaigned against other children with genital injuries being gender reassigned in the way that he had been. His story was turned into the book  As Nature Made Him, The Boy Who Was Raised As A Girl  by John Colapinto, and he is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries. Tragically, Reimer took his own life in 2004, aged just 38.

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Psychology Experiment Ideas

Categories Psychology Education

Quick Ideas | Experiment Ideas | Designing Your Experiment | Types of Research

If you are taking a psychology class, you might at some point be asked to design an imaginary experiment or perform an experiment or study. The idea you ultimately choose to use for your psychology experiment may depend upon the number of participants you can find, the time constraints of your project, and limitations in the materials available to you.

Consider these factors before deciding which psychology experiment idea might work for your project.

This article discusses some ideas you might try if you need to perform a psychology experiment or study.

Table of Contents

A Quick List of Experiment Ideas

If you are looking for a quick experiment idea that would be easy to tackle, the following might be some research questions you want to explore:

• How many items can people hold in short-term memory ?
• Are people with a Type A personality more stressed than those with a Type B personality?
• Does listening to upbeat music increase heart rate?
• Are men or women better at detecting emotions ?
• Are women or men more likely to experience imposter syndrome ?
• Will students conform if others in the group all share an opinion that is different from their own?
• Do people’s heartbeat or breathing rates change in response to certain colors?
• How much do people rely on nonverbal communication to convey information in a conversation?
• Do people who score higher on measures of emotional intelligence also score higher on measures of overall well-being?
• Do more successful people share certain personality traits ?

Most of the following ideas are easily conducted with a small group of participants, who may likely be your classmates. Some of the psychology experiment or study ideas you might want to explore:

Sleep and Short-Term Memory

Does sleep deprivation have an impact on short-term memory ?

Ask participants how much sleep they got the night before and then conduct a task to test short-term memory for items on a list.

Social Media and Mental Health

Is social media usage linked to anxiety or depression?

Ask participants about how many hours a week they use social media sites and then have them complete a depression and anxiety assessment.

Procrastination and Stress

How does procrastination impact student stress levels?

Ask participants about how frequently they procrastinate on their homework and then have them complete an assessment looking at their current stress levels.

Caffeine and Cognition

How does caffeine impact performance on a Stroop test?

In the Stroop test , participants are asked to tell the color of a word, rather than just reading the word. Have a control group consume no caffeine and then complete a Stroop test, and then have an experimental group consume caffeine before completing the same test. Compare results.

Color and Memory

Does the color of text have any impact on memory?

Randomly assign participants to two groups. Have one group memorize words written in black ink for two minutes. Have the second group memorize the same words for the same amount of time, but instead written in red ink. Compare the results.

Weight Bias

How does weight bias influence how people are judged by others?

Find pictures of models in a magazine who look similar, including similar hair and clothing, but who differ in terms of weight. Have participants look at the two models and then ask them to identify which one they think is smarter, wealthier, kinder, and healthier.

Assess how each model was rated and how weight bias may have influenced how they were described by participants.

Music and Exercise

Does music have an effect on how hard people work out?

Have people listen to different styles of music while jogging on a treadmill and measure their walking speed, heart rate, and workout length.

The Halo Effect

How does the Halo Effect influence how people see others?

Show participants pictures of people and ask them to rate the photos in terms of how attractive, kind, intelligent, helpful, and successful the people in the images are.

How does the attractiveness of the person in the photo correlate to how participants rate other qualities? Are attractive people more likely to be perceived as kind, funny, and intelligent?

Eyewitness Testimony

How reliable is eyewitness testimony?

Have participants view video footage of a car crash. Ask some participants to describe how fast the cars were going when they “hit into” each other. Ask other participants to describe how fast the cars were going when they “smashed into” each other.

Give the participants a memory test a few days later and ask them to recall if they saw any broken glass at the accident scene. Compare to see if those in the “smashed into” condition were more likely to report seeing broken glass than those in the “hit into” group.

The experiment is a good illustration of how easily false memories can be triggered.

Simple Psychology Experiment Ideas

If you are looking for a relatively simple psychology experiment idea, here are a few options you might consider.

The Stroop Effect

This classic experiment involves presenting participants with words printed in different colors and asking them to name the color of the ink rather than read the word. Students can manipulate the congruency of the word and the color to test the Stroop effect.

Memory Recall

Students can design a simple experiment to test memory recall by presenting participants with a list of items to remember and then asking them to recall the items after a delay. Students can manipulate the length of the delay or the type of encoding strategy used to see the effect on recall.

Social Conformity

Students can test social conformity by presenting participants with a simple task and manipulating the responses of confederates to see if the participant conforms to the group response.

Selective Attention

Students can design an experiment to test selective attention by presenting participants with a video or audio stimulus and manipulating the presence or absence of a distracting stimulus to see the effect on attention.

Implicit Bias

Students can test implicit bias by presenting participants with a series of words or images and measuring their response time to categorize the stimuli into different categories.

The Primacy/Recency Effect

Students can test the primacy /recency effect by presenting participants with a list of items to remember and manipulating the order of the items to see the effect on recall.

Sleep Deprivation

Students can test the effect of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance by comparing the performance of participants who have had a full night’s sleep to those who have been deprived of sleep.

These are just a few examples of simple psychology experiment ideas for students. The specific experiment will depend on the research question and resources available.

Elements of a Good Psychology Experiment

Finding psychology experiment ideas is not necessarily difficult, but finding a good experimental or study topic that is right for your needs can be a little tough. You need to find something that meets the guidelines and, perhaps most importantly, is approved by your instructor.

Requirements may vary, but you need to ensure that your experiment, study, or survey is:

• Easy to set up and carry out
• Easy to find participants willing to take part
• Free of any ethical concerns

In some cases, you may need to present your idea to your school’s institutional review board before you begin to obtain permission to work with human participants.

Consider Your Own Interests

At some point in your life, you have likely pondered why people behave in certain ways. Or wondered why certain things seem to always happen. Your own interests can be a rich source of ideas for your psychology experiments.

As you are trying to come up with a topic or hypothesis, try focusing on the subjects that fascinate you the most. If you have a particular interest in a topic, look for ideas that answer questions about the topic that you and others may have. Examples of topics you might choose to explore include:

• Development
• Personality
• Social behavior

This can be a fun opportunity to investigate something that appeals to your interests.

Read About Classic Experiments

Sometimes reviewing classic psychological experiments that have been done in the past can give you great ideas for your own psychology experiments. For example, the false memory experiment above is inspired by the classic memory study conducted by Elizabeth Loftus.

Textbooks can be a great place to start looking for topics, but you might want to expand your search to research journals. When you find a study that sparks your interest, read through the discussion section. Researchers will often indicate ideas for future directions that research could take.

Ask Your Instructor

Your professor or instructor is often the best person to consult for advice right from the start.

In most cases, you will probably receive fairly detailed instructions about your assignment. This may include information about the sort of topic you can choose or perhaps the type of experiment or study on which you should focus.

If your instructor does not assign a specific subject area to explore, it is still a great idea to talk about your ideas and get feedback before you get too invested in your topic idea. You will need your teacher’s permission to proceed with your experiment anyway, so now is a great time to open a dialogue and get some good critical feedback.

Experiments vs. Other Types of Research

One thing to note, many of the ideas found here are actually examples of surveys or correlational studies .

For something to qualify as a tru e experiment, there must be manipulation of an independent variable .

For many students, conducting an actual experiment may be outside the scope of their project or may not be permitted by their instructor, school, or institutional review board.

If your assignment or project requires you to conduct a true experiment that involves controlling and manipulating an independent variable, you will need to take care to choose a topic that will work within the guidelines of your assignment.

Types of Psychology Experiments

There are many different types of psychology experiments that students could perform. Examples of psychological research methods you might use include:

Correlational Study

This type of study examines the relationship between two variables. Students could collect data on two variables of interest, such as stress and academic performance, and see if there is a correlation between the two.

Experimental Study

In an experimental study, students manipulate one variable and observe the effect on another variable. For example, students could manipulate the type of music participants listen to and observe its effect on their mood.

Observational Study

Observational studies involve observing behavior in a natural setting . Students could observe how people interact in a public space and analyze the patterns they see.

Survey Study

Students could design a survey to collect data on a specific topic, such as attitudes toward social media, and analyze the results.

A case study involves in-depth analysis of a single individual or group. Students could conduct a case study of a person with a particular disorder, such as anxiety or depression, and examine their experiences and treatment options.

Quasi-Experimental Study

Quasi-experimental studies are similar to experimental studies, but participants are not randomly assigned to groups. Students could investigate the effects of a treatment or intervention on a particular group, such as a classroom of students who receive a new teaching method.

Longitudinal Study

Longitudinal studies involve following participants over an extended period of time. Students could conduct a longitudinal study on the development of language skills in children or the effects of aging on cognitive abilities.

These are just a few examples of the many different types of psychology experiments that students could perform. The specific type of experiment will depend on the research question and the resources available.

Steps for Doing a Psychology Experiment

When conducting a psychology experiment, students should follow several important steps. Here is a general outline of the process:

Define the Research Question

Before conducting an experiment, students should define the research question they are trying to answer. This will help them to focus their study and determine the variables they need to manipulate and measure.

Develop a Hypothesis

Based on the research question, students should develop a hypothesis that predicts the experiment’s outcome. The hypothesis should be testable and measurable.

Select Participants

Students should select participants who meet the criteria for the study. Participants should be informed about the study and give informed consent to participate.

Design the Experiment

Students should design the experiment to test their hypothesis. This includes selecting the appropriate variables, creating a plan for manipulating and measuring them, and determining the appropriate control conditions.

Collect Data

Once the experiment is designed, students should collect data by following the procedures they have developed. They should record all data accurately and completely.

Analyze the Data

After collecting the data, students should analyze it to determine if their hypothesis was supported or not. They can use statistical analyses to determine if there are significant differences between groups or if there are correlations between variables.

Interpret the Results

Based on the analysis, students should interpret the results and draw conclusions about their hypothesis. They should consider the study’s limitations and their findings’ implications.

Report the Results

Finally, students should report the results of their study. This may include writing a research paper or presenting their findings in a poster or oral presentation.

Britt MA. Psych Experiments . Avon, MA: Adams Media; 2007.

Martin DW. Doing Psychology Experiments. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning; 2008.

10 Cognitive Psychology Examples (Most Famous Experiments)

Dave Cornell (PhD)

Dr. Cornell has worked in education for more than 20 years. His work has involved designing teacher certification for Trinity College in London and in-service training for state governments in the United States. He has trained kindergarten teachers in 8 countries and helped businessmen and women open baby centers and kindergartens in 3 countries.

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Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes. This includes trying to understand how people perceive the world around them, store and recall memories, acquire and use language, and engage in problem-solving.

Although not the first to study mental processes, Ulric Neisser helped cement the term in the field of psychology in his 1967 book Cognitive Psychology .

He offered an elaborate definition of cognitive psychology, with key points quoted below:

“ The term cognition refers to all processes by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, recovered, and used…Giving such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do” (p. 4).

In the mid-20 th century, there was significant divide in psychology between behaviorism and cognitive psychologists.

The behaviorists, such as Skinner, argued that only observable phenomena should be studied. Since mental processes could not be observed, they could not be studied scientifically.

Neisser countered, stating that:

“Cognitive processes surely exist, so it can hardly be unscientific to study them” (p. 5).  

Cognitive Psychology Examples (Famous Studies)

1. the forgetting curve and the serial position effect.

The contributions of Hermann Ebbinghaus to cognitive psychology were so significant that his individual studies could consume all 10 examples in this article.

Some believe that his book Über das Gedächtnis (1902) “…records one of the most remarkable research achievements in the history of psychology” (Roediger, 1985, p. 519).

Two of his most influential discoveries on memory include: the forgetting curve and the serial position effect .

To make his research on memory scientific, he created a list of over 2,000 nonsense syllables (e.g., BOK, YAT). Using commonly used vocabulary words would be too heavily associated with meaning, but nonsense syllables had no prior associations.

By conducting testing on himself, he was able to eliminate numerous other variables that would result from using people with varied backgrounds, experiences, and mental acuities.

So, he would present himself with lists of nonsense syllables and then test his memory at various intervals afterward.

This led to the discovery of the forgetting curve : forgetting begins right after the initial presentation of information and continues to degrade from then on.

The serial-position effect is the tendency to remember the first and last items in a list more so than the items in the middle.

2. The Magical Number 7 

One of the most often cited papers in psychology was written by cognitive psychologist George Miller of Harvard University in 1956.

The paper did not describe a series of experiments conducted by Miller himself. Instead, Miller outlines the work of several researchers that point to the magical number 7 as the capacity of short-term memory.

He made the case that this capacity is the same no matter what form the stimuli takes; whether talking about tones or words.

He also suggested that information is organized in “chunks,” not individual bits. A word is just one chunk for a native speaker, but for someone learning the language, the word consists of several bits of information in the form of individual letters.

Therefore, the capacity of the native speaker is 7 words, but for the beginner, it may only be two, or just 7 letters.

Miller concludes the paper by making a point about the number 7 itself:

“And finally, what about the magical number seven? What about the seven wonders of the world, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven daughters of Atlas in the Pleiades, the seven ages of man, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, the seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven days of the week?” (p. 96).

See Also: Short-Term Memory Examples

3. The Framing Bias 

Tversky and Kahneman (1981) discovered the framing bias , which occurs when a person’s decision is influenced by the way information is presented. 

A typical study involved presenting information to participants, but varying one or two words in how the information was described.

For example:

“Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. If Program C is adopted 400 people will die. [22 percent] If Program D is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die. [78 percent] Which of the two programs would you favor?” (p. 453).

Although both programs lead to the same mortality rate, most research participants preferred Program D.

As the researchers explain, “the certain death of 400 people is less acceptable than the two-in-three chance that 600 will die” (p. 453).

Moreover, the effects were far from trivial:

“They occur when the outcomes concern the loss of human lives as well as in choices about money; they are not restricted to hypothetical questions and are not eliminated by monetary incentives” (p.  457).

4. Schema: Assimilation and Accommodation 

Jean Piaget’s research in the 1950’s and 60’s on cognitive development had a profound impact on our understanding of children. He detailed the way in which children perceive and make sense of the world and identified the stages of that developmental sequence which we still follow today.  

According to Piaget, children develop a schema , usually defined as a mental framework that organizes information about a concept.

As the child grows and experiences the world, everything they encounter will be processed within that schema. This is called assimilation . When the schema is altered or a new schema is developed, it is called accommodation .

He conducted a great deal of his research by observing his own three children and taking excruciatingly detailed notes on their behavior.

During the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years old), Piaget highlights a milestone that demonstrates the infant is now exploring their environment with intent.

“…the definitive conquest of the mechanisms of grasping marks the beginning of the complex behavior patterns which we shall call “assimilations through secondary schemata” and which characterize the first forms of deliberate action” (Piaget, 1956, p. 88).

Although this milestone takes place in the sensorimotor stage, it is much more than a sensory experience. It is driven by intent, a purely cognitive construct.

Priming occurs when exposure to a stimulus has an effect on our behavior or how we respond to information presented subsequently. It can occur outside of conscious awareness.  

Priming affects how we process all kinds of information and is a widely used concept in marketing.

Meyer and Schvaneveldt (1971) were among the first to study priming.

They presented research participants with various pairs of associated words (Bread/Butter), unassociated words (Bread/Doctor), or nonwords.

The participants were instructed to indicate “yes” if both words were real words or “no” if one was not a real word.

The results revealed that participants were able to make this decision much faster when the pair of words were associated than when they were unassociated.

Although not conclusive and in need of further research, this pattern indicated that words that have strong connections in memory are activated more easily than words that are less connected.

Research since has identified numerous types of priming, including: perceptual, semantic, associative, affective, and cultural.

6. Semantic Memory Network and Spreading Activation

Further research on priming was conducted by Collins and Loftus (1975). Their studies led to more conclusive evidence that information is stored in a memory network of linked concepts.

When one concept is activated, that activation spreads throughout the network and activates other concepts.

The stronger the connection between concepts, the more likely one will activate the other. Eventually, the activation loses energy and dissipates.

Collins and Loftus provide a thorough explanation of the semantic memory network :

“The more properties two concepts have in common, the more links there are between the two nodes via these properties and the more closely related are the concepts…When a concept is processed (or stimulated), activation spreads out along the paths of the network in a decreasing gradient” (p. 411).

This research led to a more complete understanding of how information is stored and organized in memory. This has helped us understand a wide range of psychological phenomena such as how we form impressions of others and make decisions.

7. The ELM Model of Persuasion

Understanding how people form an attitude has been an area of study in cognitive psychology for more than 50 years.

Researchers Petty and Cacioppo (1986) formulated the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion to explain how message factors and personality characteristics affect attitude formation.

The ELM identifies two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral.

The central route to persuasion is activated when the message recipient engages in a critical analysis of the message content. This occurs when the message is about an issue considered important by the recipient.

In this scenario, a person will be persuaded by the quality of arguments in the message.

The central route results

“…from a person’s careful and thoughtful consideration of the true merits of the information presented…” (1986, p. 125).

The peripheral route to persuasion involves very little cognitive processing of the message content. This occurs when the issue is unimportant to the recipient.

In this scenario, a person will be persuaded by the status of the person expressing their opinion.

The peripheral route results from:

“…some simple cue in the persuasion context (e.g., an attractive source) that induces change without necessitating scrutiny of the true merits of the information presented” (p. 125).

Findings from ELM research apply to everything from product advertising, to public health campaigns, to political debate.

Go Deeper: The Six Types of Persuasion

8. The Bobo Doll Study

The Bobo Doll study by Albert Bandura in 1963 may be one of the most famous studies in psychology and a founding study for the social cognitive theory . It had a tremendous impact on society as well.

It took place at a time in the U. S. in which there was great concern and debate over the growing prevalence of violence depicted on television.

In the study, children watched a video of an adult either playing violently or not violently with a Bobo doll.

Afterwards, each child was placed in a room with a Bobo doll. Their behavior was carefully observed by trained raters.

Children that watched the violent video were more aggressive towards the doll than those that watched the non-violent video.

This type of study was among the first demonstrate the powerful effect of television on children’s behavior. It led to decades of research and intense debate throughout society.

9. Bystander Intervention: The First Study

In 1964 in New York City, late at night, a young woman was murdered just steps away from her apartment.

The newspapers reported that nearly 40 residents heard her pleas for help, but that no one actually did anything. That reporting has now been found to have many inaccuracies.

However, the story created a national debate about crime and helping those in need.

This was the impetus for a study conducted by Latané and Darley (1968) on “ the bystander effect .”

The methodology was simple. Over 60 college students at New York University were taken to individual rooms to discuss an issue via an intercom system.

The students knew that several people would be participating in the discussion simultaneously.

One “participant” spoke about their difficulties adjusting to college life and their medical condition which sometimes led to seizures. This was a pre-recorded script and included a part where the “participant” acted as if they were feeling physical distress. They eventually stopped communicating with the other participants.

The results revealed that:

“The number of bystanders that the subject perceived to be present had a major effect on the likelihood with which she would report the emergency. Eighty-five percent of the subjects who thought they alone knew of the victim’s plight reported the seizure before the victim was cut off, only 31% of those who thought four other bystanders were present did so” (p. 379).

This was the beginning of a long program of research that identified the decision-making steps that determine the likelihood of a bystander intervening in an emergency situation.

10. The Car Crash Experiment: Leading Questions

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and her undergraduate student John Palmer designed a study in 1974 that shook our confidence in eyewitness testimony.

Research participants watched videos that depicted accidents between two cars. Afterward, participants were asked to estimate how fast the two cars were traveling upon impact.  

“How fast were the two cars going when they ______ into each other?”

However, the word in the blank varied. For some participants the word in the blank was “smashed” and for other participants the word was “contacted.”

The results showed that estimates varied depending on the word.

When the word “smashed” was used, estimates were much higher than when the “contacted” was used. 

This was the first in a long line of research conducted on how phrasing can result in leading questions that affect the memory of eyewitnesses.

It has had a tremendous impact on law enforcement interrogation practices, line-up procedures, and the credibility of eyewitness testimony .

Today’s article was about 10 famous studies in cognitive psychology. Ten is actually a low number given how many studies have had substantial impact on the field.

The studies described above include the famous work of Ebbinghaus, who used himself as a test subject. This entire article could have consisted of his work.

Also included above was just one study by Tversky and Kahneman. The two researchers have identified so many heuristics and cognitive biases that only choosing one was just unfair.

Two studies by Loftus were included because they were both groundbreaking: one in memory and the other in eyewitness testimony.

Of course, Bandura’s Bobo Doll study was included because of its fame and impact on public discourse.

The ELM model and the earliest study on bystander intervention were also included. Both have had profound impacts in not just our understanding about the given subjects, but have also had substantial practical applications in various professions and matters in real-life.

Bandura, A. (1977).  Social Learning Theory . Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 (1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0048687

Ebbinghaus, H. (1902). Grundz Üge der Psychologic. Leipzig, Germany: von Veit.

Ebbinghaus, H. (1964). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology (H. A. Ruger, C. E. Bussenius translators). New York: Dover.

Ebbinghaus, H. (1913). On memory: A contribution to experimental psychology . New York: Teachers College.

Kitchen, P., Kerr, G., Schultz, D., Mccoll, R., & Pals, H. (2014). The elaboration likelihood model: Review, critique and research agenda. European Journal of Marketing, 48 (11/12), 2033-2050. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-12-2011-0776

Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13 (5), 585–589.

Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review , 63 (2), 81–97.

Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive psychology . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Roediger, H. (1985). Remembering Ebbinghaus. PsycCRITIQUES, 30(7), 519-523.

Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T. (1986). The Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19 , 123-205. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2

Piaget, J. (1956; 1965). The origins of intelligence in children . International Universities Press Inc. New York.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice .  Science ,  211 (4481), 453-458.

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Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior, exploring how individuals think, feel, and act. One key aspect of psychology involves understanding how people interpret events, with a focus on both positive and negative interpretations . Additionally, psychology examines various behavioral principles such as negative reinforcement , where a behavior is strengthened by removing an unpleasant stimulus, and negative punishment , where a Narcissistic Behavior is weakened by taking away a desired stimulus. These concepts help in analyzing and modifying behaviors to improve mental health and well-being.

What is Psychology?

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior, encompassing various aspects of human experience. It seeks to understand how individuals think, feel, and act through research and practical applications.

Examples of Psychology

• Cognitive Psychology : Studying how people perceive, think, and solve problems, such as how memory works or how decision-making processes are formed.
• Behavioral Psychology : Analyzing how external stimuli influence behavior, as seen in experiments like Pavlov’s dogs, where dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell.
• Developmental Psychology : Investigating how people grow and change throughout their lives, such as examining how children’s language skills develop over time.
• Clinical Psychology : Diagnosing and treating mental health disorders, like using cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to help individuals overcome depression.
• Social Psychology : Exploring how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others, such as studying the impact of peer pressure on decision-making.
• Educational Psychology : Applying psychological principles to enhance learning and teaching, like developing strategies to improve student motivation and academic performance.
• Forensic Psychology : Applying psychological knowledge to legal matters, such as assessing a defendant’s mental state during a trial.
• Industrial-Organizational Psychology : Using psychological principles to improve workplace productivity and employee well-being, like implementing stress management programs.
• Health Psychology : Studying how psychological factors affect physical health, such as examining the impact of stress on immune function.
• Sports Psychology : Helping athletes improve performance and cope with the pressures of competition, like teaching visualization techniques to enhance focus.
• Neuropsychology : Exploring the relationship between brain function and behavior, such as studying the effects of brain injuries on cognitive abilities.
• Environmental Psychology : Examining how physical environments influence behavior and well-being, like researching the effects of urban green spaces on mental health.
• Personality Psychology : Investigating individual differences in behavior and personality traits , such as studying the Big Five personality traits.
• Positive Psychology : Focusing on strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive, like researching the benefits of gratitude and mindfulness practices.
• Counseling Psychology : Providing guidance and support to individuals dealing with personal challenges, such as helping clients manage anxiety and stress.
• Experimental Psychology : Conducting research to understand fundamental psychological processes, such as studying how people perceive time.
• Cross-Cultural Psychology : Comparing psychological phenomena across different cultures, like investigating how cultural norms influence parenting styles.
• Psychometrics : Developing and validating psychological tests and measurements, such as creating assessments to measure intelligence or personality .
• Community Psychology : Working to improve the well-being of communities and their members, like implementing programs to reduce substance abuse in a neighborhood.
• Evolutionary Psychology : Studying how evolutionary processes influence behavior and mental processes, such as examining the adaptive functions of emotions.

Real-Life Examples of Psychology

• Social Influence : Conforming to peer pressure to fit in with a group.
• Classical Conditioning : Associating the sound of a bell with the arrival of food, as demonstrated in Pavlov’s dogs.
• Operant Conditioning : Rewarding a child with candy for good behavior, reinforcing that behavior.
• Observational Learning : Learning to tie shoes by watching someone else do it.
• Memory Recall : Remembering your childhood home when prompted by a specific smell.
• Selective Attention : Focusing on a single conversation in a noisy room (the cocktail party effect).
• Motivation : Studying hard to achieve a high grade because you value academic success.
• Intrinsic Motivation : Playing a musical instrument for the sheer joy of it, not for any external reward.
• Extrinsic Motivation : Working extra hours to earn a bonus.
• Social Loafing : Putting in less effort in a group project when individual contributions are not easily identified.

Educational Psychology Examples

• Learning Theories : Applying Piaget’s stages of cognitive development to create age-appropriate learning activities.
• Classroom Management : Implementing positive reinforcement strategies to encourage good behavior and create a productive learning environment.
• Instructional Design : Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to design lesson plans that target various levels of cognitive skills, from basic recall to higher-order thinking.
• Motivation : Employing intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, such as praise and rewards, to increase student engagement and motivation.
• Assessment and Evaluation : Designing formative assessments like quizzes and peer reviews to monitor student progress and guide instructional adjustments.

Psychological Examples of Behavior

• Classical Conditioning : A dog salivates at the sound of a bell after being conditioned to associate the bell with food.
• Operant Conditioning : A student studies regularly to receive praise and good grades from their teacher.
• Observational Learning : A child learns to tie their shoes by watching their older sibling do it.
• Social Influence : Conforming to peer pressure to smoke because friends are doing it.
• Bystander Effect : Failing to help someone in need because others are present, assuming someone else will intervene.

Experimental Psychology Examples

• Social Facilitation Experiments : Zajonc’s research showing that people perform better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when others are watching.
• Interference in Memory : The Stroop Effect experiments, where participants name the color of the ink used to print words that denote different colors, demonstrating interference in reaction time.
• Bystander Effect Experiments : Darley and Latané’s research on bystander intervention, showing that individuals are less likely to help a person in distress when other people are present.
• Priming Experiments : Bargh’s studies on the effects of subliminal priming, where exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus.
• Facial Feedback Hypothesis : Strack, Martin, and Stepper’s experiment on facial expressions, where participants who held a pen in their teeth (forcing a smile) reported higher amusement levels.

Psychology Studies Examples

• Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) : Conducted by Philip Zimbardo, this study investigated the psychological effects of perceived power by assigning college students to the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison environment.
• Milgram Obedience Experiment (1961) : Stanley Milgram studied obedience to authority by instructing participants to administer electric shocks to a learner.
• Asch Conformity Experiments (1950s) : Solomon Asch demonstrated the power of social influence by showing how individuals would conform to group pressure even when the group’s answer was obviously incorrect.
• Pavlov’s Dogs (1890s) : Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments involved conditioning dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, demonstrating the process of associative learning.
• Harlow’s Monkeys (1950s) : Harry Harlow studied attachment by observing baby monkeys raised with surrogate mothers made of wire and cloth.

Counseling Psychology Examples

• Grief Counseling : Helping a client cope with the loss of a loved one by exploring feelings of sadness, anger, and confusion, and finding ways to honor the deceased.
• Stress Management : Teaching clients relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing and mindfulness, to manage work-related stress.
• Career Counseling : Assisting individuals in identifying their interests, skills, and values to make informed career decisions and navigate career transitions.
• Family Therapy : Working with families to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and strengthen relationships.
• Couples Counseling : Facilitating open communication between partners to resolve conflicts, improve intimacy, and strengthen the relationship.

Personal Psychology Examples

• Self-Esteem : Building confidence by setting and achieving small goals, which gradually boosts overall self-worth and self-perception.
• Self-Reflection : Regularly journaling about daily experiences and emotions to gain insight into personal thoughts and behaviors.
• Motivation : Using intrinsic motivators, such as personal passion and interest, to drive engagement in hobbies or career pursuits.
• Self-Regulation : Practicing mindfulness and meditation to manage stress and maintain emotional balance in challenging situations.
• Goal Setting : Applying the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to set and accomplish personal and professional objectives.

Types of Psychology

Clinical Psychology : Focuses on diagnosing and treating mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, involving therapy, counseling, and research on mental health issues.

Developmental Psychology : Examines psychological growth and changes across the lifespan, focusing on childhood development as well as adolescence, adulthood, and aging.

Educational Psychology : Investigates how people learn and the best practices for teaching, working on improving educational systems and learning methods.

Experimental Psychology : Conducts experiments to understand basic psychological processes, studying behavior, emotions, and cognition in controlled settings.

Forensic Psychology : Applies psychological principles within the legal and criminal justice systems, involving profiling criminals, assessing competency, and providing expert testimony.

Health Psychology : Explores how psychological factors affect physical health and illness, working on promoting healthy behaviors and improving healthcare systems.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology : Studies workplace behavior to improve productivity and work life, focusing on employee selection, training, and organizational development.

Neuropsychology : Examines the relationship between brain function and behavior, dealing with brain injuries, neurological diseases, and cognitive functioning.

Social Psychology : Investigates how people interact with and are influenced by others, studying social behaviors, attitudes, group dynamics, and interpersonal relationships.

Abnormal Psychology : Focuses on unusual patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought, studying mental disorders and maladaptive behaviors.

How does Psychology Effect our Lives?

Understanding ourselves and others.

• Self-Awareness : Psychology helps us understand our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, leading to greater self-awareness and personal growth.
• Empathy : By studying psychology, we can better understand others’ perspectives and emotions, enhancing our empathy and improving our relationships.

Mental Health

• Therapy and Counseling : Psychological principles are the foundation of various therapeutic techniques used to treat mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
• Coping Strategies : Psychology provides tools and strategies for managing stress, overcoming adversity, and maintaining mental well-being.
• Learning Theories : Educational psychology applies theories of learning to develop effective teaching methods and enhance student learning.
• Motivation : Understanding what drives motivation can help educators and students achieve better academic outcomes.

Work and Productivity

• Workplace Dynamics : Industrial-organizational psychology studies workplace behavior to improve productivity, job satisfaction, and employee well-being.
• Leadership : Psychological insights into leadership styles and team dynamics can lead to more effective management and collaborative work environments.

Personal Relationships

• Communication Skills : Psychology teaches us effective communication techniques, which are crucial for building and maintaining healthy relationships.
• Conflict Resolution : Psychological principles help us understand and resolve conflicts in personal and professional relationships.

Decision Making

• Cognitive Biases : Awareness of cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias and availability heuristic, helps us make more rational and informed decisions.
• Problem-Solving : Psychology offers strategies for critical thinking and problem-solving, enhancing our ability to navigate complex situations.

Health and Well-Being

• Behavioral Change : Health psychology studies how psychological factors influence behaviors like diet, exercise, and smoking, leading to interventions that promote healthier lifestyles.
• Stress Management : Techniques such as mindfulness and relaxation exercises are rooted in psychology and are effective for managing stress and improving overall health.

Development Across the Lifespan

• Child Development : Developmental psychology helps us understand how children grow and develop, informing parenting practices and educational approaches.
• Aging : Psychology also studies the aging process, providing insights into how to maintain cognitive and emotional health in later life.

Society and Culture

• Social Behavior : Social psychology examines how societal norms, group dynamics, and cultural influences shape our behavior and attitudes.
• Prejudice and Discrimination : Understanding psychological mechanisms behind prejudice and discrimination can lead to more inclusive and equitable societies.

Enhancing Everyday Life

• Personal Growth : Concepts such as self-actualization and positive psychology promote personal development and fulfillment.
• Happiness : Psychology explores what contributes to happiness and well-being, helping us lead more satisfying lives.

Basic Psychology Facts

How does classical conditioning work?

Classical conditioning pairs a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that naturally produces a response, eventually causing the neutral stimulus to elicit the response.

What is operant conditioning?

Operant conditioning involves shaping behavior through rewards or punishments, increasing or decreasing the likelihood of the behavior recurring.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort experienced when holding two or more conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

What is attachment theory?

Attachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships, focusing on the bonds formed between children and their caregivers.

What are the main branches of psychology?

Clinical, cognitive, developmental, social, and biological psychology.

How does psychology help in daily life?

It improves understanding of behavior, relationships, and mental health.

How do psychologists conduct research?

Through experiments, observations, surveys, and case studies.

What is the difference between psychology and psychiatry?

Psychiatrists are medical doctors; psychologists typically hold PhDs.

What is the significance of Freud’s theories?

Freud’s work on unconscious processes and psychosexual development shaped psychoanalysis.

What is the importance of social psychology?

It examines how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.

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Exploring the role of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts in the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress in Australian University students

• Open access
• Published: 28 June 2024

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• Ronan J. Galloghly 1 ,
• Pragalathan Apputhurai 2 &
• Simon R. Knowles   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8000-1000 1  

The impact of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thinking upon clients presenting with personality-related psychological distress is an important clinical area of investigation as it informs psychological interventions. Despite this, there is limited research in this area. Thus, this study had two main aims: (1) examine the interrelationships between maladaptive personality traits, dysfunctional attitudes, unhelpful thinking, and psychological distress; and (2) explore the potential mediating roles of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thinking on the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and psychological distress. A convenience sample of 728 undergraduate psychology students (mean age: 31.57 years; 76% female) completed an online questionnaire for course credit. The results supported the first hypothesis that after controlling for gender and age, there would be significant positive correlations among maladaptive personality traits, dysfunctional attitudes, and psychological distress. A structural equation model with an excellent fit (CMIN/df = 2.23, p  = .063, TLI = 0.98, CFI = 0.99, SRMR, = 0.01, and RMSEA = 0.04) provided partial support for the second hypothesis in that dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts mediated the relationship between maladaptive personality traits and psychological distress. Specifically, negative affectivity and detachment’s relationship with psychological distress were partially mediated via dysfunction attitudes and unhelpful thoughts, and dysfunctional attitudes respectively. These findings suggest that while dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thinking contribute to the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress, identification of other factors are required to improve theoretical understanding and subsequently psychological interventions.

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Introduction

Psychological distress is transdiagnostic, in that it features in all psychiatric disorders, and is defined as a combination of stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms in response to daily or chronic stressors (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995 ; Barry et al., 2020 ). Gender and age represent the main biological predictors of psychological distress, with literature suggesting females experience significantly more psychological distress than males (Bracken & Reintjes, 2010 ; Mirowsky & Ross, 2017 ; Watkins & Johnson, 2018 ). Further, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW; 2018 ) found that - irrespective of gender - psychological distress increased throughout adulthood peaking at middle age (~ 50 years), before gradually decreasing. In addition to the biological contributors, two important psychological factors found to influence psychological distress are dysfunctional attitudes and personality (Buschmann et al., 2018 ; Jourdy & Petot, 2017 ).

Dysfunctional attitudes/beliefs reflect the attention, encoding, and interpreting of information in a negatively based format (Beck, 1976 ). Examples of these include rigid ‘must’ statements (e.g., “Everyone must love me’) and extreme “if-then” rules such as “If I do not pass this exam, then this confirms I am stupid”. A meta-analysis by Vîslă et al. ( 2016 ) found that across 83 primary studies including both clinical and community samples, dysfunctional attitudes predicted 20% of psychological distress variance independent of age, gender, income, educational, occupational, and marital status. Dysfunctional attitudes have also been identified to precede and perpetuate unhelpful thoughts (also known as thinking errors, negative automatic thoughts, or cognitive distortions) such as filtering, polarized thinking, overgeneralizing, and catastrophising (McKay et al., 2011 ). Understandably, like dysfunctional attitudes, unhelpful thoughts have been found to be related to, or associated with, changes in depression and anxiety (DeRubeis et al., 2008 ; Ross et al., 1986 ). Due to their significant role in underpinning and perpetuating psychological distress, dysfunctional attitudes and/or unhelpful thoughts are often primary targets for clinicians using psychological interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy (Beck & Clark, 1997 ; Bowler et al., 2012 ; DeRubeis et al., 2008 ).

Along with dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thinking patterns, another primary contributor linked to psychological distress is personality traits (i.e., enduring patterns of perception, relation and thinking of the environment and oneself that are expressed in a wide variety of social and personal contexts; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013 ). Although the current approach for classifying personality disorders is based on the much-criticised categorial approach (e.g., Bach & Sellbom, 2016 ; Widiger & Gore, 2014 ), the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5; APA, 2013 ) took tentative steps to move towards a dimensional approach to personality-based psychopathology (referred to as the alternative model of personality disorders; AMPD). According to the AMPD, personality disorders are dichotomous, and thus evaluated by both the level of personality dysfunction, and the specific personality traits (i.e., negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism) which mirror the dysfunction. Recent literature supports the AMPD’s validity and usability across multiple mental health disorders including psychological distress (Chauhan et al., 2023 ; Clark & Watson, 2022 ; Nysaeter et al., 2023 ; Uliaszek et al., 2023 ; Vittengl et al., 2023 ).

Research to date provides evidence that personality traits, such as those based on the Big Five personality model (i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) account for approximately one third of variance in depression symptoms, with the trait neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative emotions) being the most frequent and strongest contributor (Strickhouser et al., 2017 ; Kotov et al., 2010 ). More broadly, neuroticism has been identified to both predict and perpetuate psychological distress (Pollak et al., 2020 ; Widiger & Oltmanns, 2017 ).

Given personality traits, unhelpful thoughts, and dysfunctional attitudes independently predict psychological distress, it may be unsurprising the three variables are strongly interrelated. Research indicates that neuroticism is particularly correlated with dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts (Blau et al., 2006 ; Hopwood et al., 2013 ; Samar et al., 2013 ). However, less is known about the role dysfunction attitudes and unhelpful thoughts play in the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress. Specifically, there is a lack of research examining whether dysfunctional attitudes and/or unhelpful thoughts mediate the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress.

Using a sample comprised of undergraduate psychology students, McDermut et al. ( 2019 ) found dysfunctional attitudes significantly and partially mediated the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress, and concluded that personality traits predicted psychological distress via the mechanism of dysfunctional attitudes. However, findings from McDermut et al. ( 2019 ) were limited by a relatively small sample size ( n  = 167), using just one personality trait (neuroticism) in the mediation model, and not investigating potential mediating role of unhelpful thoughts in personality-related psychological distress.

Given the limited research to date, this study aimed to examine the role of dysfunctional attitudes and/or unhelpful thoughts in personality traits and psychological distress. The study will also seek to address the limited research using Personality Inventory for DSM-5 brief form (PID-5-BF) which assesses the five personality traits (i.e., negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism) underpinning the AMPD. It was hypothesised that after controlling for gender and age, there would be significant positive correlations among personality traits, unhelpful thoughts, dysfunctional attitudes, and psychological distress. It was also hypothesised that dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts would mediate the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress.

Participants and design

This study was based on an observational cross-design design using a convenience sampling method. Seven hundred and twenty-eight first year undergraduate psychology students enrolled at a medium-sized Australian university completed an online survey. The sample was predominantly female (76%), married/defacto (48.8%), and aged ranged between 18 and 74 years ( M  = 31.57, SD  = 20.84).

Depression anxiety and stress scale (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995 )

The DASS-21 is a 21-item self-report questionnaire which assesses psychological distress via three subscales each containing seven items: depression, anxiety, and stress. Participants were requested to report the degree to which each item (e.g., ‘I felt I had nothing to look forward to’) applied to them during the preceding week. Each item is measured on a four-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (‘never’) to 3 (‘almost always’). As the DASS-21 is a short-form version of the original 42-item DASS, the final score was multiplied by two. Thus, total scores range from 0 to 126, with higher scores reflecting higher levels of psychological distress. The DASS-21 is reliable and valid amongst undergraduate student populations (Lemma et al., 2012 ; Osman et al., 2012 ), whilst demonstrating excellent internal consistency in this sample (Cronbach’s α = 0.94).

Dysfunctional attitude scale-short-form 1 (DAS-SF1: Beevers et al., 2007 )

The DAS-SF1 assesses dysfunctional attitudes across multiple domains including the need for approval from others (e.g., “My value as a person depends greatly on what others think of me”). Each item is scored on a four-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (‘totally disagree’) to 4 (‘totally agree). Total scores range from 9–36 with higher scores indicating more severe dysfunctional attitudes. In this study, the short-form version of the DAS (i.e., DAS-SF1) was used to decrease participant burden. The DAS-SF1 has displayed sound psychometrics amongst undergraduate student populations (McDermut et al., 2019 ) and good internal consistency in this sample (Cronbach’s α = 0.87).

The brief unhelpful thinking scale (BUTS; Knowles et al., 2017 )

The BUTS is an 11-item questionnaire examines unhelpful thoughts across several domains such as polarised thinking (e.g., “Things are either black or white, good or bad”). Each item is scored on a six-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (‘strongly disagree’) to 5 (‘strongly agree). Total scores range from 0–55 with higher scores indicating greater tendency toward unhelpful thinking. The BUTS demonstrated good internal consistency in this sample (Cronbach’s α = 0.82).

The PID-5 – Brief Form (PID-5-BF; Krueger et al., 2013 )

The PID-5-BF comprises 25 items with five items for five personality traits: Negative affectivity, Detachment, Disinhibition, Antagonism, and Psychoticism. Each item asked respondents whether they felt a statement accurately described them (e.g., ‘I often have to deal with people who are less important than me’). Items were measured on a Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (‘Very False or Often False’) to 3 (‘Very True or Often True’). Each trait domain score ranged from 0 to 15, with higher scores indicating greater personality trait dysfunction. The PID-5-BF is a reliable and valid instrument among university students which its brevity was designed to reduce participant burden (Anderson et al., 2018 ). The PID-5-BF demonstrated excellent internal consistency in this study (Cronbach’s α = 0.90).

Participants were provided a link to the study via course research experience program. Prior to commencing, students were informed that their survey was intended for respondents aged 18 years old and above, their participation was voluntary, they had a right to withdraw any time without reasons, and their responses were anonymous. Agreeing to begin the survey implied informed consent. Following completion of the questionnaire, information was provided explaining the study’s purpose, and contact information for support was provided in the unlikely event that completing the survey caused psychological distress. Course credit was given in compensation for completing the study survey. Ethical approval for the study was obtained by the university human research ethics committee. Pre-testing of the online (Qualtrics) questionnaire was tested by the members of the research team. The questionnaire took approximately 30 min to complete with all questions requiring a response to minimise missing data.

Data analysis strategy

All analyses were performed with SPSS (version 27) and AMOS (version 27) Data were screened, and all assumptions were tested prior to analyses. Bivariate correlations and Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) were performed to examine the relationships of the demographic variables age and gender with study variables, evaluating the first hypothesis. The mediation model employing structural equation modeling was developed to evaluate the second hypothesis and the model fit being evaluated using the following criteria recommended by Hu and Bentler ( 1999 ): CMIN/Chi-square goodness of fit test [χ²] p  > .05; Normed Chi-square [χ2/df] = 1–3, Tucker–Lewis index [TLI] > 0.95, Steiger-Lind Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < 0.08, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual [SRMR] < 0.06. The final model was derived by a stepwise approach of adding or removing paths based on theoretical and AMOS reported modification indices.

There were significant positive correlations among psychological distress, dysfunctional attitudes, unhelpful thoughts, and all five PID-5 personality traits (See Table 1 ). Psychological distress, dysfunctional attitudes, and the PID-5 personality traits were negatively correlated with unhelpful thinking. Negative affectivity produced the strongest correlations with psychological distress ( r  = .59), unhelpful thinking ( r  = .59), and dysfunctional attitudes ( r  = .54). Detachment produced moderate correlations with psychological distress ( r  = .45), unhelpful thinking ( r  = .42), and dysfunctional attitudes ( r  = .43). Unhelpful thoughts were also strongly correlated with dysfunctional attitudes ( r  = .59) and psychological distress ( r  = .52). Age was found to be a significantly related to negative affectivity ( r  = −.29, p  < .001), detachment ( r  = − .10, p  = .01), disinhibition ( r  = − .22, p  < .001), psychoticism ( r  = − .26, p  < .001), antagonism ( r  = − .27, p  < .001), Unhelpful thinking ( r  = .27, p  < .001), Dysfunctional attitudes ( r = - .21, p  < .001), and psychological distress ( r  = − .21, p  < .001), and therefore age was controlled for in the subsequent analysis. A MANOVA (IV: gender; DVs: study variables) identified result was significant for gender, Pillai’s Trace = 0.01, F (14,1428) = 5.42, p  < .001. A subsequent, univariate F test indicated that females had a significantly higher mean psychoticism compared to males ( F (2,719) = 3.35, p  = .036). No other gender-based difference across the study variables was found.

In relation to the second hypothesis, a final model was developed based on an iterative approach where nonsignificant paths were removed from a saturated mediation model. Initially the model controlled for age and gender, however its inclusion produced a poorer fit and was therefore removed from the model. Similarly, psychoticism found to be a poor predictor and was also removed from the model. Overall, the final model (see Fig. 1 ) had an excellent fit (CMIN/df = 2.23, p  = .063, TLI = 0.98, CFI = 0.99, SRMR, = 0.01, and RMSEA = 0.04). The total amount of variance accounted for in each of the variables was 33% of dysfunctional attitudes, 40% of unhelpful thinking, and 44% of psychological distress. As shown in Fig. 1 , Disinhibition had a significant direct influence on psychological distress and the relationship between Antagonism and psychological distress is fully mediated via BUTS and DAS-SF. The relationship between Negative affectivity and psychological distress is partially mediated via BUTS and DAS-SF while the relationship between Detachment and psychological distress is partially mediated via DAS-SF. The configural model fit indices indicated an adequate fit (χ2(36) = 1.65, p  = .009, TLI = 0.98, CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.05, RMSEA = 0.02, Akaike information criterion (AIC) = 155.28), and the measurement weights model, with equal factor loadings on males and female groups, fit indices were also acceptable (χ2(46) = 1.42, p  = .031, TLI = 0.99, CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.05, RMSEA = 0.02, AIC = 144.47). Comparisons across models showed that the increase in chi-squared values (Δχ2(10) = 6.19, p  = .799) was not statistically significant and changes in other model fit indices were small, indicating robust measurement consistency across gender.

Final mediation model (** = p  < .001)

The results supported the first hypothesis in that after controlling for gender and age, there would be significant positive correlations among PID-5 personality traits, dysfunctional attitudes, and psychological distress. These findings were consistent with the cognitive theory model linking these variables (Góngora & Castro Solano, 2017 ; Hopwood et al., 2013 ; Kotov et al., 2010 ; Pretzer & Beck, 2005 ). Also consistent with past research were the findings that Negative affectivity and Detachment produced the strongest correlations with psychological distress, dysfunctional attitudes, and the significant positive correlations between all five PID-5 personality traits and dysfunctional attitudes (Hakulinen et al., 2015 ; Hopwood et al., 2013 ; McDermut et al., 2019 ; Thimm et al., 2016 ). Additionally, there were no significant differences between male and female for individuals concerning dysfunctional attitudes, unhelpful thoughts, psychological distress, and personality traits, except for psychoticism.

The results also partially supported the second hypothesis in that dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts would mediate the relationship between PID-5 personality traits and psychological distress. Specifically, Negative affectivity and Detachment’s relationship with psychological distress were partially mediated via dysfunction attitudes and unhelpful thoughts, and dysfunctional attitudes respectively. Further, supporting the second hypothesis was the finding that Antagonism’s effect on psychological distress was fully mediated by both dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts. Not supporting the second hypothesis were the findings that neither dysfunctional attitudes nor unhelpful thoughts had any impact on Disinhibition’s effect on psychological distress.

The partial mediation of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts upon Negative affectivity’s relationship with psychological distress was consistent with McDermut and colleagues’ ( 2019 ) findings, and subsequently indicates that Negative affectivity predicts psychological distress, at least partially, by operating through these two cognitive mediators. Moreover, the novel findings that dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts fully explained the relationship between Antagonism and psychological distress suggests they are the primary cognitive processes inherent within this relationship. Conversely, neither dysfunctional attitudes nor unhelpful thoughts had any impact upon Disinhibition’s relationship with psychological distress which indicates that this relationship exists outside of these cognitive models linking personality and psychological distress (Beck et al., 2015 ).

Clinical implications

The findings suggest that dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts play a role in explaining the relationship between psychological distress and the AMPD PID-5 personality traits Negative affectivity, Detachment, and Antagonism. Subsequently, clients who present with psychological distress and score highly on these three scales may benefit from therapeutic interventions which focus on clients’ attitudes and unhelpful thinking patterns via well-established approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Antagonism specifically, may be efficaciously treated by interpersonal therapy (IPT) given that it’s key feature interpersonal problems (Vize et al., 2022 ; Wright, 2019 ). Conversely, this approach may not be as efficacious for clients scoring high on Disinhibition, as this trait’s characteristics include irresponsibility, impulsivity, and risk taking; all of which infer potential treatment-interfering behaviours including missed appointments, difficulty focusing in-session, and nonadherence to homework tasks (APA, 2013 ). The utilisation of an intervention to such specific personality traits may be more efficacious, rather than focusing on attitudes and thoughts which may be symptoms of the trait. For instance, Conrod et al. ( 2013 ) created personality-specific interventions which included psychoeducation of personality traits and goalsetting to enhance motivation to change. The authors found that the intervention significantly reduce disinhibition-related behaviours (i.e., substance use) among adolescents. However, more research is required to determine the efficacy of this approach across wider community and clinical populations.

Limitations and future studies

This study has several limitations. The cross-section design lacks the robustness of a longitudinal approach from which casual inferences (true mediation) could be attained. The study also utilised a largely homogeneous non-clinical convenience sample of university students thus limiting the generalisability of findings, including age, cultural, socioeconomic, and educational diversity. It is also important to recognise the potential impact and limitations associated with social desirability and selection and response bias given the student-based convenience sample. Future research should investigate if these results can be replicated using community and clinical populations. Additionally, this paper utilised dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts broadly. A more judicious approach might be to explore which specific dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts are associated with specific personality traits. This could improve theory and potentially offer a more targeted approach to treating personality-related psychological distress.

In addition to addressing the above limitations, future studies should also look to explore and address other potential processes or confounders which may influence the identified relationships. These include coping strategies, comorbid psychological and/or physical conditions, and psychosocial stressors (e.g., relationship, employment, educational, financial). For instance, Huang et al. ( 2021 ) found that other psychological processes such as self-efficacy, coping styles, and psychological resilience mediated this relationship between personality traits and psychological distress among Chinese nurses. Similarly, a recent paper by Kestler-Peleg and colleagues ( 2023 ) found intolerance to uncertainty mediated the relationship between personality traits and a form on adjustment disorder-associated psychological distress.

In conclusion, this study’s findings indicate that three AMPD PID-5 personality traits (i.e., Negative affectivity, Detachment, and Antagonism) predicted psychological distress via the dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts. This study is the first to extend the limited research to date by exploring the potential mediating role of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts on the relationship between personality and psychological distress. The findings provide evidence for the mediating role of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts. While limited by the cross-sectional design and evidence for true causal mediation, the findings highlight the relevance and importance of targeting dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts in therapy.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request and after relevant ethical approval.

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Galloghly, R.J., Apputhurai, P. & Knowles, S.R. Exploring the role of dysfunctional attitudes and unhelpful thoughts in the relationship between personality traits and psychological distress in Australian University students. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06239-3

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Understanding Methods for Research in Psychology

A Psychology Research Methods Study Guide

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

Types of Research in Psychology

• Cross-Sectional vs. Longitudinal Research
• Reliability and Validity

Glossary of Terms

Research in psychology focuses on a variety of topics , ranging from the development of infants to the behavior of social groups. Psychologists use the scientific method to investigate questions both systematically and empirically.

Research in psychology is important because it provides us with valuable information that helps to improve human lives. By learning more about the brain, cognition, behavior, and mental health conditions, researchers are able to solve real-world problems that affect our day-to-day lives.

At a Glance

Knowing more about how research in psychology is conducted can give you a better understanding of what those findings might mean to you. Psychology experiments can range from simple to complex, but there are some basic terms and concepts that all psychology students should understand.

Start your studies by learning more about the different types of research, the basics of experimental design, and the relationships between variables.

Research in Psychology: The Basics

The first step in your review should include a basic introduction to psychology research methods . Psychology research can have a variety of goals. What researchers learn can be used to describe, explain, predict, or change human behavior.

Psychologists use the scientific method to conduct studies and research in psychology. The basic process of conducting psychology research involves asking a question, designing a study, collecting data, analyzing results, reaching conclusions, and sharing the findings.

The Scientific Method in Psychology Research

The steps of the scientific method in psychology research are:

• Make an observation
• Ask a research question and make predictions about what you expect to find
• Test your hypothesis and gather data
• Examine the results and form conclusions
• Report your findings

Research in psychology can take several different forms. It can describe a phenomenon, explore the causes of a phenomenon, or look at relationships between one or more variables. Three of the main types of psychological research focus on:

Descriptive Studies

This type of research can tell us more about what is happening in a specific population. It relies on techniques such as observation, surveys, and case studies.

Correlational Studies

Correlational research is frequently used in psychology to look for relationships between variables. While research look at how variables are related, they do not manipulate any of the variables.

While correlational studies can suggest a relationship between two variables, finding a correlation does not prove that one variable causes a change in another. In other words, correlation does not equal causation.

Experimental Research Methods

Experiments are a research method that can look at whether changes in one variable cause changes in another. The simple experiment is one of the most basic methods of determining if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables.

A simple experiment utilizes a control group of participants who receive no treatment and an experimental group of participants who receive the treatment.

Experimenters then compare the results of the two groups to determine if the treatment had an effect.

Cross-Sectional vs. Longitudinal Research in Psychology

Research in psychology can also involve collecting data at a single point in time, or gathering information at several points over a period of time.

Cross-Sectional Research

In a cross-sectional study , researchers collect data from participants at a single point in time. These are descriptive type of research and cannot be used to determine cause and effect because researchers do not manipulate the independent variables.

However, cross-sectional research does allow researchers to look at the characteristics of the population and explore relationships between different variables at a single point in time.

Longitudinal Research

A longitudinal study is a type of research in psychology that involves looking at the same group of participants over a period of time. Researchers start by collecting initial data that serves as a baseline, and then collect follow-up data at certain intervals. These studies can last days, months, or years. 

The longest longitudinal study in psychology was started in 1921 and the study is planned to continue until the last participant dies or withdraws. As of 2003, more than 200 of the partipants were still alive.

The Reliability and Validity of Research in Psychology

Reliability and validity are two concepts that are also critical in psychology research. In order to trust the results, we need to know if the findings are consistent (reliability) and that we are actually measuring what we think we are measuring (validity).

Reliability

Reliability is a vital component of a valid psychological test. What is reliability? How do we measure it? Simply put, reliability refers to the consistency of a measure. A test is considered reliable if we get the same result repeatedly.

When determining the merits of a psychological test, validity is one of the most important factors to consider. What exactly is validity? One of the greatest concerns when creating a psychological test is whether or not it actually measures what we think it is measuring.

For example, a test might be designed to measure a stable personality trait but instead measures transitory emotions generated by situational or environmental conditions. A valid test ensures that the results accurately reflect the dimension undergoing assessment.

Review some of the key terms that you should know and understand about psychology research methods. Spend some time studying these terms and definitions before your exam. Some key terms that you should know include:

• Correlation
• Demand characteristic
• Dependent variable
• Hawthorne effect
• Independent variable
• Naturalistic observation
• Placebo effect
• Random assignment
• Replication
• Selective attrition

Erol A.  How to conduct scientific research ?  Noro Psikiyatr Ars . 2017;54(2):97-98. doi:10.5152/npa.2017.0120102

Aggarwal R, Ranganathan P. Study designs: Part 2 - Descriptive studies .  Perspect Clin Res . 2019;10(1):34-36. doi:10.4103/picr.PICR_154_18

Curtis EA, Comiskey C, Dempsey O. Importance and use of correlational research .  Nurse Res . 2016;23(6):20-25. doi:10.7748/nr.2016.e1382

Wang X, Cheng Z. Cross-sectional studies: Strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations .  Chest . 2020;158(1S):S65-S71. doi:10.1016/j.chest.2020.03.012

Caruana EJ, Roman M, Hernández-Sánchez J, Solli P. Longitudinal studies .  J Thorac Dis . 2015;7(11):E537-E540. doi:10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2015.10.63

Stanford Magazine. The vexing legacy of Lewis Terman .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Meta Analysis: definition, meaning and steps to conduct

Meta-analysis: This article explains the concept of meta-analysis in a practical way. The article begins with an introduction to this concept, followed by a definition and a general explanation. You will also find a practical example and tips for conducting a simple analysis yourself. Enjoy reading!

What is a meta-analysis?

Have you ever wondered how doctors and researchers often make the right decisions about complex (medical) treatments? A powerful tool they use is the so-called meta-analysis. With this approach, they combine the results of multiple scientific studies to get a clearer picture of the overall effectiveness of a treatment.

Definition and meaning

But what exactly is meta-analysis? It’s a research process that systematically brings together the findings of individual studies and uses statistical methods to calculate an overall or ‘absolute’ effect.

It’s not just about merging data from smaller studies to increase sample size. Analysts also use systematic methods to account for differences in research approaches, treatment outcomes, and sample sizes.

For example, they also test the sensitivity and validity of their results for their own research protocols and statistical analyses.

Admittedly, that sounds difficult. It can also be described as putting puzzle pieces together to see the bigger picture. According to experts, scientists are often confronted with valuable but sometimes contradictory results in individual studies.

Meta-analyses play an important role in putting these puzzle pieces together and combining the findings of multiple studies to provide a more complete understanding.

Due to the combination of several scientific studies, it is considered the most comprehensive form of scientific research. This creates more confidence in the conclusions drawn, as a larger body of research is considered.

A practical example

Imagine this: there are several studies examining the same medical treatment, and each study reports slightly different results due to some degree of error.

Meta-analysis helps the researcher by combining these results to get closer to the truth.

By using statistical approaches, an estimated mean can be derived that reflects the common effect observed in the studies.

Steps in conducting a meta-analysis

Meta-analyses are usually preceded by a systematic review, as this helps identify and assess all relevant facts. It is an extremely precise and complex process, which is almost exclusively performed in a scientific research setting.

The general steps are as follows:

• Formulating the research question , for example by using the PICO model
• Searching for literature
• Selection of studies based on certain criteria
• Selection of specific studies on a well-defined topic
• Deciding whether to include unpublished studies to avoid publication bias
• Determining which dependent variables or summary measures are allowed
• Selection of the right model, for example a fixed-effect or random-effect meta-analysis
• Investigating sources of heterogeneity between studies, for example by meta-regression or by subgroup analysis
• Following formal guidelines for conducting and reporting the analysis as described in the Cochrane Handbook
• Use of Reporting Guidelines

By following these steps, meta-analyses can be performed to obtain reliable summaries and conclusions from a wide range of research data.

Meta-analyses have very valuable advantages.

First, it provides an estimate of the unknown effect size, which helps us understand how effective a treatment really is.

It also allows us to compare and contrast results from different studies. It helps identify patterns between the findings, uncover sources of disagreement, and uncover interesting connections that may emerge when multiple studies are analyzed together.

However, like any research method, meta-analysis also has its limitations. A concern is possible bias in individual studies due to questionable research practices or publication bias.

If such biases are present, the overall treatment effect calculated via this type of analysis may not reflect the true efficacy of a treatment.

Another challenge lies in dealing with heterogeneous studies.

Each study can have its own unique characteristics and produce different results. When we average these differences in a meta-analysis, the result may not accurately represent a specific group studied.

It’s like averaging the weight of apples and oranges – the result may not accurately represent both the apples and the oranges.

This means that researchers must make careful choices during the analysis process, such as how to search for studies, which studies to select based on specific criteria, how to handle incomplete data, analyze the data, and take publication bias into account.

Despite these challenges, meta-analysis remains a valuable tool in evidence-based research.

It is often an essential part of systematic reviews, where multiple studies are extensively analyzed. By combining evidence from different sources, it provides a more comprehensive insight into the effectiveness of medical treatments, for example.

Meta-analysis in psychology

Meta-analysis plays an important role in various fields, including psychology. It provides value primarily through its ability to bring together results from different studies.

Imagine there are many little puzzle pieces of information scattered across different studies. Meta-analysis helps us put all those pieces together and get a complete picture.

It helps psychologists discover patterns and trends and draw more reliable conclusions about certain topics, such as the effectiveness of a treatment or the relationship between certain factors.

Now it’s your turn

What do you think? Do you recognize the explanation of meta-analysis? Have you ever heard of this research method? Have you ever performed this analysis yourself? What do you think are the benefits its use? How would you explain its importance to someone who has no experience with research methods? What tips or comments can you share with us?

Share your experience and knowledge in the comments box below.

More information

• Guzzo, R. A., Jackson, S. E., & Katzell, R. A. (1987). Meta-analysis. Research in organizational behavior, 9(1), 407-442.
• Becker, B. J. (2000). Multivariate meta-analysis. Handbook of applied multivariate statistics and mathematical modeling, 499-525.
• Haidich, A. B. (2010). Meta-analysis in medical research. Hippokratia, 14(Suppl 1), 29.
• Field, A. P., & Gillett, R. (2010). How to do a meta‐analysis. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, 63(3), 665-694.

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Ben Janse is a young professional working at ToolsHero as Content Manager. He is also an International Business student at Rotterdam Business School where he focusses on analyzing and developing management models. Thanks to his theoretical and practical knowledge, he knows how to distinguish main- and side issues and to make the essence of each article clearly visible.

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This programme provides an opportunity for intensive advanced training in psychological research while giving you flexibility to select courses in the areas of psychology and cognitive neuroscience of most interest to you.

In addition to advanced training in general academic skills and statistical modelling, you will be trained in a variety of specific methodologies, typically including:

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Building on the research methods training, you will take topical courses in one or more of the core research areas of our department: social psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, individual differences, psychology of language, and human development.

Your MSc culminates in a research dissertation in a core research area: an original, publication-quality piece of research, undertaken in close collaboration with researchers in the relevant group.

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• competency in applying a range of methods and research tools, including statistical models and programming
• skills in research management, including managing data and conducting and disseminating research in ways consistent with both professional practice and the normal principles of research ethics
• transferable skills in written and verbal communication, group and teamwork, computing, programming and numeracy, time and project management
• the ability to work as an independent researcher and as part of a team

Career opportunities

The programme is primarily designed for students who aspire to pursue a research-oriented career in psychological science. However, students interested in careers outside research will obtain a broad range of highly desirable transferable skills applicable to a wide range of modern jobs, such as:

• research design
• data science
• data management and processing
• critical evaluation and synthesis of scientific literature
• statistical modelling and interpretation
• synthesis and communication of complex ideas
• Careers Service

Our award-winning Careers Service plays an essential part in your wider student experience at the University, providing:

• tailored advice
• individual guidance and personal assistance
• internships and networking opportunities (with employers from local organisations to top multinationals)
• access to the experience of our worldwide alumni network

We invest in your future beyond the end of your degree. Studying at the University of Edinburgh will lay the foundations for your future success, whatever shape that takes.

Important application information

Your application and personal statement allow us to make sure that you and your chosen MSc are good matches for each other, and that you will have a productive and successful year at Edinburgh.

We strongly recommend you apply as early as possible. You should avoid applying to more than one degree. Applicants who can demonstrate their understanding and commitment to a specific programme are preferred. If you plan to apply to more than one programme, you should discuss your choices with us before you submit your application.

Personal statements

When applying you should include a personal statement detailing your academic abilities and your reasons for applying for the programme

The personal statement helps us decide whether you are right for the MSc programme you have selected, but just as importantly, it helps us decide whether the MSc programme is right for you.

Your personal statement should include:

• What makes this particular MSc programme interesting for you?
• What are the most important things you want to gain from the MSc programme?
• The key courses you have taken and that are relevant for this specific programme.
• Your experience with collecting empirical data (e.g., preparing and carrying out experiments, surveys or interviews).
• Your experience with statistical analysis and programming or qualitative research methods.
• Your experience with writing empirical research reports (including any that have been published).
• Any other information which you feel will help us ensure that you are a good match to your intended MSc programme.

A good personal statement can make a big difference to the admissions process as it may be the only opportunity to explain why you are an ideal candidate for the programme.

You will be asked to add contact details for your referees. We will email them with information on how to upload their reference directly to your online application. Alternatively, they can email their comments to:

• [email protected]

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

• How to apply

Psychology at Edinburgh

Entry requirements.

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in psychology or a related discipline.

We may also consider candidates with a UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent, in a non-psychology subject if they can demonstrate evidence of their aptitude for research or research methods.

Students from China

This degree is Band C.

• Postgraduate entry requirements for students from China

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Tuition fees, scholarships and funding.

There are a number of highly competitive scholarships and funding options available to MSc students.

Deadlines for funding applications vary for each funding source - please make sure to check the specific deadlines for the funding opportunities you wish to apply for and make sure that you submit your application in good time.

• Drever Trust Scholarship

UK government postgraduate loans

If you live in the UK, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan from one of the UK’s governments.

The type and amount of financial support you are eligible for will depend on:

• your programme
• the duration of your studies
• your tuition fee status

Programmes studied on a part-time intermittent basis are not eligible.

• UK government and other external funding

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• PPLS Postgraduate Office
• Phone: +44 (0)131 651 5002
• Contact: [email protected]
• Programme Director, Prof Martin Corley
• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 6682
• Contact: [email protected]
• Dugald Stewart Building
• 3 Charles Street
• Central Campus
• School: Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

This programme is not currently accepting applications. Applications for the next intake usually open in October.

Start date: September

Awards: MSc (12 mth FT, 24 mth PT)

Application deadlines

This MSc programme operates a gathered field approach to applications. This means that all complete applications which meet our minimum entry requirements will be held until the nearest deadline at which point the Admissions Panel will meet to consider all applications received at this time.

Gathered field deadlines for this programme are as follows:

Applications submitted after the deadline date will unfortunately not be considered.

Please read through the ‘Important application information’ section on this page before applying.

Research Hypothesis In Psychology: Types, & Examples

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

A research hypothesis, in its plural form “hypotheses,” is a specific, testable prediction about the anticipated results of a study, established at its outset. It is a key component of the scientific method .

Hypotheses connect theory to data and guide the research process towards expanding scientific understanding

Some key points about hypotheses:

• A hypothesis expresses an expected pattern or relationship. It connects the variables under investigation.
• It is stated in clear, precise terms before any data collection or analysis occurs. This makes the hypothesis testable.
• A hypothesis must be falsifiable. It should be possible, even if unlikely in practice, to collect data that disconfirms rather than supports the hypothesis.
• Hypotheses guide research. Scientists design studies to explicitly evaluate hypotheses about how nature works.
• For a hypothesis to be valid, it must be testable against empirical evidence. The evidence can then confirm or disprove the testable predictions.
• Hypotheses are informed by background knowledge and observation, but go beyond what is already known to propose an explanation of how or why something occurs.

Predictions typically arise from a thorough knowledge of the research literature, curiosity about real-world problems or implications, and integrating this to advance theory. They build on existing literature while providing new insight.

Types of Research Hypotheses

Alternative hypothesis.

The research hypothesis is often called the alternative or experimental hypothesis in experimental research.

It typically suggests a potential relationship between two key variables: the independent variable, which the researcher manipulates, and the dependent variable, which is measured based on those changes.

The alternative hypothesis states a relationship exists between the two variables being studied (one variable affects the other).

A hypothesis is a testable statement or prediction about the relationship between two or more variables. It is a key component of the scientific method. Some key points about hypotheses:

• Important hypotheses lead to predictions that can be tested empirically. The evidence can then confirm or disprove the testable predictions.

In summary, a hypothesis is a precise, testable statement of what researchers expect to happen in a study and why. Hypotheses connect theory to data and guide the research process towards expanding scientific understanding.

An experimental hypothesis predicts what change(s) will occur in the dependent variable when the independent variable is manipulated.

It states that the results are not due to chance and are significant in supporting the theory being investigated.

The alternative hypothesis can be directional, indicating a specific direction of the effect, or non-directional, suggesting a difference without specifying its nature. It’s what researchers aim to support or demonstrate through their study.

Null Hypothesis

The null hypothesis states no relationship exists between the two variables being studied (one variable does not affect the other). There will be no changes in the dependent variable due to manipulating the independent variable.

It states results are due to chance and are not significant in supporting the idea being investigated.

The null hypothesis, positing no effect or relationship, is a foundational contrast to the research hypothesis in scientific inquiry. It establishes a baseline for statistical testing, promoting objectivity by initiating research from a neutral stance.

Many statistical methods are tailored to test the null hypothesis, determining the likelihood of observed results if no true effect exists.

This dual-hypothesis approach provides clarity, ensuring that research intentions are explicit, and fosters consistency across scientific studies, enhancing the standardization and interpretability of research outcomes.

Nondirectional Hypothesis

A non-directional hypothesis, also known as a two-tailed hypothesis, predicts that there is a difference or relationship between two variables but does not specify the direction of this relationship.

It merely indicates that a change or effect will occur without predicting which group will have higher or lower values.

For example, “There is a difference in performance between Group A and Group B” is a non-directional hypothesis.

Directional Hypothesis

A directional (one-tailed) hypothesis predicts the nature of the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. It predicts in which direction the change will take place. (i.e., greater, smaller, less, more)

It specifies whether one variable is greater, lesser, or different from another, rather than just indicating that there’s a difference without specifying its nature.

For example, “Exercise increases weight loss” is a directional hypothesis.

Falsifiability

The Falsification Principle, proposed by Karl Popper , is a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory or hypothesis to be considered scientific, it must be testable and irrefutable.

Falsifiability emphasizes that scientific claims shouldn’t just be confirmable but should also have the potential to be proven wrong.

It means that there should exist some potential evidence or experiment that could prove the proposition false.

However many confirming instances exist for a theory, it only takes one counter observation to falsify it. For example, the hypothesis that “all swans are white,” can be falsified by observing a black swan.

For Popper, science should attempt to disprove a theory rather than attempt to continually provide evidence to support a research hypothesis.

Can a Hypothesis be Proven?

Hypotheses make probabilistic predictions. They state the expected outcome if a particular relationship exists. However, a study result supporting a hypothesis does not definitively prove it is true.

All studies have limitations. There may be unknown confounding factors or issues that limit the certainty of conclusions. Additional studies may yield different results.

In science, hypotheses can realistically only be supported with some degree of confidence, not proven. The process of science is to incrementally accumulate evidence for and against hypothesized relationships in an ongoing pursuit of better models and explanations that best fit the empirical data. But hypotheses remain open to revision and rejection if that is where the evidence leads.

• Disproving a hypothesis is definitive. Solid disconfirmatory evidence will falsify a hypothesis and require altering or discarding it based on the evidence.
• However, confirming evidence is always open to revision. Other explanations may account for the same results, and additional or contradictory evidence may emerge over time.

We can never 100% prove the alternative hypothesis. Instead, we see if we can disprove, or reject the null hypothesis.

If we reject the null hypothesis, this doesn’t mean that our alternative hypothesis is correct but does support the alternative/experimental hypothesis.

Upon analysis of the results, an alternative hypothesis can be rejected or supported, but it can never be proven to be correct. We must avoid any reference to results proving a theory as this implies 100% certainty, and there is always a chance that evidence may exist which could refute a theory.

How to Write a Hypothesis

• Identify variables . The researcher manipulates the independent variable and the dependent variable is the measured outcome.
• Operationalized the variables being investigated . Operationalization of a hypothesis refers to the process of making the variables physically measurable or testable, e.g. if you are about to study aggression, you might count the number of punches given by participants.
• Decide on a direction for your prediction . If there is evidence in the literature to support a specific effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable, write a directional (one-tailed) hypothesis. If there are limited or ambiguous findings in the literature regarding the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable, write a non-directional (two-tailed) hypothesis.
• Make it Testable : Ensure your hypothesis can be tested through experimentation or observation. It should be possible to prove it false (principle of falsifiability).
• Clear & concise language . A strong hypothesis is concise (typically one to two sentences long), and formulated using clear and straightforward language, ensuring it’s easily understood and testable.

Consider a hypothesis many teachers might subscribe to: students work better on Monday morning than on Friday afternoon (IV=Day, DV= Standard of work).

Now, if we decide to study this by giving the same group of students a lesson on a Monday morning and a Friday afternoon and then measuring their immediate recall of the material covered in each session, we would end up with the following:

• The alternative hypothesis states that students will recall significantly more information on a Monday morning than on a Friday afternoon.
• The null hypothesis states that there will be no significant difference in the amount recalled on a Monday morning compared to a Friday afternoon. Any difference will be due to chance or confounding factors.

More Examples

• Memory : Participants exposed to classical music during study sessions will recall more items from a list than those who studied in silence.
• Social Psychology : Individuals who frequently engage in social media use will report higher levels of perceived social isolation compared to those who use it infrequently.
• Developmental Psychology : Children who engage in regular imaginative play have better problem-solving skills than those who don’t.
• Clinical Psychology : Cognitive-behavioral therapy will be more effective in reducing symptoms of anxiety over a 6-month period compared to traditional talk therapy.
• Cognitive Psychology : Individuals who multitask between various electronic devices will have shorter attention spans on focused tasks than those who single-task.
• Health Psychology : Patients who practice mindfulness meditation will experience lower levels of chronic pain compared to those who don’t meditate.
• Organizational Psychology : Employees in open-plan offices will report higher levels of stress than those in private offices.
• Behavioral Psychology : Rats rewarded with food after pressing a lever will press it more frequently than rats who receive no reward.

Related Articles

Research Methodology

Mixed Methods Research

Conversation Analysis

Discourse Analysis

Phenomenology In Qualitative Research

Ethnography In Qualitative Research

Narrative Analysis In Qualitative Research

What is the importance of statistics in research and can you provide examples?

Table of Contents

Statistics play a crucial role in research as it allows researchers to interpret and analyze data accurately. It helps in making informed decisions and drawing reliable conclusions based on data. Statistics can also aid in identifying patterns and trends, making predictions, and testing hypotheses. For instance, in medical research , statistics are used to analyze data from clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of a new drug . In social sciences, statistics can be used to study population demographics and behavior patterns. Additionally, in business and economics, statistics can assist in market research and forecasting future trends. Overall, statistics provide a systematic and objective approach to understanding and interpreting data in various fields of research.

The Importance of Statistics in Research (With Examples)

The field of statistics is concerned with collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting data.

In the field of research, statistics is important for the following reasons:

Reason 1 : Statistics allows researchers to design studies such that the findings from the studies can be extrapolated to a larger population.

Reason 2 : Statistics allows researchers to perform hypothesis tests to determine if some claim about a new drug , new procedure, new manufacturing method, etc. is true.

Reason 3 : Statistics allows researchers to create confidence intervals to capture uncertainty around population estimates.

In the rest of this article, we elaborate on each of these reasons.

Reason 1: Statistics Allows Researchers to Design Studies

Researchers are often interested in answering questions about like:

• What is the average weight of a certain species of bird?
• What is the average height of a certain species of plant?
• What percentage of citizens in a certain city support a certain law?

One way to answer these questions is to go around and collect data on every single individual in the population of interest.

However, this is typically too costly and time-consuming which is why researchers instead take a  sample  of the population and use the data from the sample to draw conclusions about the population as a whole.

There are many different methods researchers can potentially use to obtain individuals to be in a sample. These are known as  sampling methods .

There are two classes of sampling methods:

• Probability sampling methods : Every member in a population has an equal probability of being selected to be in the sample.
• Non-probability sampling methods : Not every member in a population has an equal probability of being selected to be in the sample.

By using probability sampling methods, researchers can maximize the chances that they obtain a sample that is of the overall population.

This allows researchers to extrapolate the findings from the sample to the overall population.

Reason 2: Statistics Allows Researchers to Perform Hypothesis Tests

Another way that statistics is used in research is in the form of .

These are tests that researchers can use to determine if there is a statistical significance between different medical procedures or treatments.

For example, suppose a scientist believes that a new drug is able to reduce blood pressure in obese patients. To test this, he measures the blood pressure of 30 patients before and after using the new drug for one month.

He then performs a using the following hypotheses:

• H 0 : μ after = μ before (the mean blood pressure is the same before and after using the drug )
• H A : μ after < μ before (the mean blood pressure is less after using the drug)

If the of the test is less than some significance level (e.g. α = .05), then he can reject the null hypothesis and conclude that the new drug leads to reduced blood pressure.

Note : This is just one example of a hypothesis test that is used in research. Other common tests include a , , , and .

Reason 3: Statistics Allows Researchers to Create Confidence Intervals

A confidence interval is a range of values that is likely to contain a population parameter with a certain level of confidence.

For example, suppose researchers are interested in estimating the mean weight of a certain species of turtle.

Instead of going around and weighing every single turtle in the population, researchers may instead take a simple random sample of turtles with the following information :

• Sample size  n = 25
• Sample mean weight  x  = 300
• Sample standard deviation  s = 18.5

Using the , researchers may then construct the following 95% confidence interval:

95% Confidence Interval:  300 +/-  1.96*(18.5/√ 25 ) =  [292.75, 307.25]

The researchers would then claim that they’re 95% confident that the true mean weight for this population of turtles is between 292.75 pounds and 307.25 pounds.

Additional Resources

The following articles explain the importance of statistics in other fields:

Related terms:

• What is the importance of statistics in accounting and can you provide examples?
• What is the importance of statistics in healthcare and can you provide examples?
• What is the importance of statistics in finance and how are they applied in real-life examples?
• What is the importance of statistics in psychology and what are some examples?
• What is the importance of statistics in education, and what are some examples of its significance?
• What is the importance of Statistics in Psychology (With Examples)?
• What is the importance of statistics in business and how can it be applied?
• What is the importance of statistics in economics and how are they used in real-world scenarios?
• What are the key components of research design and how do they contribute to the overall success of a research study?
• What is Cronbach’s Alpha and how is it calculated to measure the internal consistency of a scale or test? Can you provide examples of its application in research studies?