Psychology

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Student Torture in the Name of Science

In the summer of 1971, on the campus of one of the nation’s top universities and under the supervision of a faculty member, 11 students tortured 10 others over a six-day period, all in the interest of “science.” The Experiment Intended to last two weeks, according to the study’s author, Professor Phil Zimbardo, the original…

Tech News Melissa - TodayIFoundOut.com

Animals Could Help Reveal Why Humans Fall For Illusions

Visual illusions, such as the rabbit-duck (shown above) and café wall (shown below) are fascinating because they remind us of the discrepancy between perception and reality. But our knowledge of such illusions has been largely limited to studying humans. That is now changing. There is mounting evidence that other animals can fall prey to the…

io9 Laura Kelley + Jennifer Kelley – The Conversation

Why B.F. Skinner May Have Been The Most Dangerous Psychologist Ever

B.F. Skinner gave us concepts like “conditioned behavior,” “positive reinforcement,” and even “time-outs” for children. But he was also a radical among psychologists who cast aside notions of dignity and free will. Here’s why Skinner continues to be relevant — and even a bit dangerous. Though not as famous as some of his forebears and…

io9 George Dvorsky

Why Meetings Are The Worst Possible Way To Get Things Done

Have you ever had to talk out a decision in a big meeting? Did the meeting take forever and accomplish nothing? Here’s why. The Study That Shut People Up At least one study has demonstrated the fact that talking can take away a group’s ability to make a good decision — not to mention a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Real Experiment That Determines How You Should Split The Check

At the end of every dinner with friends comes that awkward moment when you have to split the check. This moment has caused so much consternation that a trio of scientists took real groups of people out to dinner to figure out how it should be done. The Unscrupulous Diner’s Dilemma Say you are a…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Has Naive Cynicism Become A Literary Problem?

Naive cynicism is a cognitive bias, and a particularly tough one to argue against. It’s blamed for all kinds of trouble in the real world. Could it also be a problem when creating fictional worlds? Naive cynicism basically means we tend to think that other people suck far more than they actually do. It’s at…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Clap If You Believe in the Tinkerbell Effect

The Tinkerbell Effect spans multiple scientific disciplines, including economics, but perhaps its most dramatic demonstration is in psychology – where it literally makes people see things. There are multiple Tinkerbell Effects, but they all get their name from the scene in the stage play of Peter Pan during which Tinkerbell is dying and the audience…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Twist people’s minds to make them think disgusting words are nice

Words don’t just convey a meaning, but a feeling as well. Pleasant words like “ice cream” make us feel happy, while unpleasant words like “toe jam” make us feel queasy. But there is a way to make people experience bad words as good, if only briefly. In one particular experiment, dealing with subliminal words, subjects…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Do dogs experience joy? You be the judge.

How anyone can watch this video and not be convinced that dogs experience complex emotions is beyond me. The video, which is currently flirting with pole position on the front page of reddit, shows a pitbull having the time of its life on a bed that is usually off-limits. Its owners aren’t home, but they’ve…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

This fascinating auditory illusion transforms normal speech into music

Turn your speakers on and listen up – it’s experiment time. Sometimes, the only thing separating speech from music is repetition, and the speech-to-song illusion proves it. In an outstanding feature published over at Aeon, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis – director of the music cognition lab at the University of Arkansas – explores why humans so…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Why are materialists less happy?

The latest word on how to be happy: be more appreciative of the things you have. Newly published research out of Baylor University finds materialistic people are less happy in large part because of their lack of gratitude. Top Image via Forbes via Driving “As in past research, we found that materialism was negatively associated…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

“Attentional blink” causes you to forget what’s in front of your eyes

Sometimes, when taking in new information, your eyes blink. Sometimes your mind does too. This special “blink” might explain why you sometimes get half-second amnesia, and forget what you’ve just seen. The experiment sounds simple. A group of subjects are shown a series of cards, or computer images, most of which have numbers on them.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Stop Pretending You Enjoy Bad Sex

A newly published study on people’s perceptions of sexual satisfaction in committed, heterosexual relationships reveals that men and women are both surprisingly good at estimating their partners’ contentment (or lack thereof) with their sex life. The study, which was led by University of Waterloo psychologist Erin Fallis andappears in the latest issue of Archives of…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Would you remember a pretty face?

There’s a good chance that even if you picked a pretty face out of a lineup, you wouldn’t remember it seconds later. Even if you thought it was the most memorable face in the world. We are almost never paying as much attention to things as we think we are. This comes up time and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

Put enough pressure on someone and they will often change their story, even in crucially important situations like police interrogations. The question is, how much pressure is “enough”? The Gudjonsson suggestibility scale helps people find out. Gísli Hannes Gudjonsson was a professor of forensic psychology, and so was fascinated with the idea of memory, and…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Canadian student has “out of body experiences” whenever she wants

After attending a lecture on “out of body experiences,” a 24-year-old student from the University of Ottawa approached her professor saying, “I thought everybody could do that.” She can apparently do this at will — making her the first person with this condition to be studied. The resulting paper, which now appears in Frontiers in…

io9 George Dvorsky

The word game that reveals peoples’ anxiety and depression

Depression changes people’s feelings. It might also change their thoughts, or more specifically, it may make them pay more attention to these thoughts. Psychologists have noticed that a particular word game, a game that evokes the Stroop Effect, seems to have a peculiar impact on people with depression. The Stroop Effect is quite a well-known…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

Reaching a Child with Autism through Disney

When Ron Suskind’s son, Owen, was just shy of three years old, the once talkative child fell silent and turned inward. “Regressive autism,” doctors told Suskind and his wife. The boy became unreachable – until one day, while watching The Little Mermaid, a glimmer of hope. Could the world of Disney serve as a portal…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

One of the best habits for happy living may also be the least practiced

A recently conducted survey of 5,000 people identifies a strong link between self-acceptance and happiness. The problem? Self-acceptance is not something most of us are in the habit of practicing. Photo Credit: Daniel Y. Go via flickr The survey, which was conducted by the charity Action for Happiness, in collaboration with Do Something Different, asked…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Why we hold grudges about little injuries but forgive big ones

Why do people forgive the guy who burned their house down, but still hate that one relative who had a nasty tone while thanking them for a birthday present? Here’s why we nurse grudges about small things, but forgive the big ones. We seem to have a kind of pettiness built into our nature. We…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Student Torture in the Name of Science

Animals Could Help Reveal Why Humans Fall For Illusions

Why B.F. Skinner May Have Been The Most Dangerous Psychologist Ever

Why Meetings Are The Worst Possible Way To Get Things Done

The Real Experiment That Determines How You Should Split The Check

Has Naive Cynicism Become A Literary Problem?

Clap If You Believe in the Tinkerbell Effect

Twist people’s minds to make them think disgusting words are nice

Do dogs experience joy? You be the judge.

This fascinating auditory illusion transforms normal speech into music

Why are materialists less happy?

“Attentional blink” causes you to forget what’s in front of your eyes

Stop Pretending You Enjoy Bad Sex

Would you remember a pretty face?

The Gudjonsson test can discover how suggestible you are

Canadian student has “out of body experiences” whenever she wants

The word game that reveals peoples’ anxiety and depression

Reaching a Child with Autism through Disney

One of the best habits for happy living may also be the least practiced

Why we hold grudges about little injuries but forgive big ones

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