Psychology's most famous theories--played out in real life! Forget the labs and lecture halls. You can conduct your very own psych experiments at home! Famous psychological experiments--from Freud's ego to the Skinner box--have changed the way science views human behavior. But how do these tests really work? In Psych Experiments, you'll learn how to test out these theories and experiments for yourself...no psychology degree required! Guided by Michael A. Britt, creator of popular podcast The Psych Files, you can conduct your own experiments when browsing your favorite websites (to test the "curiosity effect"), in restaurants (learning how to increase your tips), when presented with advertisements (you'd be surprised how much you're influenced by the color red), and even right on your smartphone (and why you panic when you can't find it). You'll even figure out how contagious yawning works! With this compulsively readable little book, you won't just read about the history of psychology--you'll live it!

This book combines the salient features of the methodology of experiments in psychology, the concepts of general experimental psychology, and the advantages of laboratory manual. It aims at developing in the student the understanding and skill to pose a problem, and to plan and conduct an experiment to answer it. Complete reports of a number of experiments have been given which, though based on hypothetical data, will enable students to realise that every step has a rationale behind it. Accounts of related problems and, in several cases, description of the ways to answer them, supplement the detailed reports. Aware of the importance of group experiments in the world of today, the author has included experiments highlighting some special features of group experiments like selection of sample, design of group experiments and treatment of group data. The author has also taken care to avoid use of costly apparatus to carry out the experiments worked out in the book, depending largely on locally improvised materials. This is an unvaluable book for students and teachers of psychology, especially for those in Indian universities.

The typical survey course in psychology has time for only limited presentation of the research on which our knowledge is based. As a result, many students come away with a limited understanding of the role of experiments in psychological science. Where do experiments come from and how are they conducted? What are the pitfalls and how can we avoid them? What advantages do they have over intuition, authority, and common sense as guides to knowing and acting? What distinguishes research-based psychology from psychobabble? What have we learned from experimentation in psychology? This book presents, in more depth than textbook treatment permits, the background, conduct, and implications of a selection of classic experiments in psychology. The selection is designed to be diverse, showing that even for research in vastly different areas of study, the logic of research remains the same—as do its traps and pitfalls. This book will broaden and deepen the understanding of experimental methods in psychological research, examining where the research questions come from, how questions can be turned into experiments, and how researchers have faced the problems presented by research in psychology.

Until recently, most psychological research was conducted using subject samples in close proximity to the investigators--namely university undergraduates. In recent years, however, it has become possible to test people from all over the world by placing experiments on the internet. The number of people using the internet for this purpose is likely to become the main venue for subject pools in coming years. As such, learning about experiments on the internet will be of vital interest to all research psychologists. Psychological Experiments on the Internet is divided into three sections. Section I discusses the history of web experimentation, as well as the advantages, disadvantages, and validity of web-based psychological research. Section II discusses examples of web-based experiments on individual differences and cross-cultural studies. Section III provides readers with the necessary information and techniques for utilizing the internet in their own research designs. Innovative topic that will capture the imagination of many readers Includes examples of actual web based experiments

When social psychologist Stanley Milgram invited volunteers to take part in an experiment at Yale in the summer of 1961, none of the participants could have foreseen the worldwide sensation that the published results would cause. Milgram reported that fully 65 percent of the volunteers had repeatedly administered electric shocks of increasing strength to a man they believed to be in severe pain, even suffering a life-threatening heart condition, simply because an authority figure had told them to do so. Such behavior was linked to atrocities committed by ordinary people under the Nazi regime and immediately gripped the public imagination. The experiments remain a source of controversy and fascination more than fifty years later. In Behind the Shock Machine, psychologist and author Gina Perry unearths for the first time the full story of this controversial experiment and its startling repercussions. Interviewing the original participants—many of whom remain haunted to this day about what they did—and delving deep into Milgram's personal archive, she pieces together a more complex picture and much more troubling picture of these experiments than was originally presented by Milgram. Uncovering the details of the experiments leads her to question the validity of that 65 percent statistic and the claims that it revealed something essential about human nature. Fleshed out with dramatic transcripts of the tests themselves, the book puts a human face on the unwitting people who faced the moral test of the shock machine and offers a gripping, unforgettable tale of one man's ambition and an experiment that defined a generation.

Primarily intended for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of psychology, this book will help understand the methodology of experiments and the basic concepts of experimental psychology. Since the experiments are described in detail with the help of purely hypothetical data, the readers will easily understand the procedure and the steps involved in each experiment. Complete reports of more than fifty experiments will certainly help understand the significance of each step in an experiment. The detailed description of experiments will also help in conceptualising relevant problems and designing appropriate experiments. Another feature is that, more than half of the experiments described in the book do not require sophisticated apparatus. Key Features • Sample data are provided in each experiment. • Theoretical background of experiments is sufficient and clear. • Sample data are analysed with the help of statistical techniques. • Language is lucid and easy to comprehend. • Experiments on most of the topics have been covered.

Traces developments in human psychology over the course of the twentieth century, beginning with B. F. Skinner and the legend of the child raised in a box.

Even if you have no background in experimentation, this clear, straightforward book can help you design, execute, interpret, and report simple experiments in psychology. David W. Martin's unique blend of informality, humor, and solid scholarship have made this concise book a popular choice for methods courses in psychology. Doing Psychology Experiments guides you through the experimentation process in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step manner. Decision-making aspects of research are emphasized, and the logic behind research procedures is fully explained.

An inside view of the experimental practices of cognitive psychology—and their influence on the addictive nature of social media Experimental cognitive psychology research is a hidden force in our online lives. We engage with it, often unknowingly, whenever we download a health app, complete a Facebook quiz, or rate our latest purchase. How did experimental psychology come to play an outsized role in these developments? Experiments of the Mind considers this question through a look at cognitive psychology laboratories. Emily Martin traces how psychological research methods evolved, escaped the boundaries of the discipline, and infiltrated social media and our digital universe. Martin recounts her participation in psychology labs, and she conveys their activities through the voices of principal investigators, graduate students, and subjects. Despite claims of experimental psychology’s focus on isolated individuals, Martin finds that the history of the field—from early German labs to Gestalt psychology—has led to research methods that are, in fact, highly social. She shows how these methods are deployed online: amplified by troves of data and powerful machine learning, an unprecedented model of human psychology is now widespread—one in which statistical measures are paired with algorithms to predict and influence users’ behavior. Experiments of the Mind examines how psychology research has shaped us to be perfectly suited for our networked age.

Electronic Inspection Copy available for instructors here The field of social psychology is defined by a number of 'classic studies' that all students need to understand and engage with. These include ground-breaking experiments by researchers such as Asch, Festinger, Milgram, Sherif, Tajfel and Zimbardo. With the help of international experts who are renowned for work that has extended upon these researchers' insights, this book re-examines these classic studies through careful reflection on their findings and a lively discussion of the subsequent work that they have inspired. Organized in a way that way maps onto the content of most introductory courses, this title can work at a number of levels: as an accessible text for introductory classes that present a historical analysis of social psychology via its key studies, or as a broad-ranging text for higher-level courses that survey contemporary theory and encourage critical thinking. More generally, it is a compelling read for anyone who wants to know more about social psychology and the dramatic studies that lie at its heart.