a planned “prison break,” where friends of research subjects were planning to end the experiment by force.
When people design studies in experimental psychology, they explore the behavior they are trying to explain and try to create situational controls to isolate and study that behavior. They must be able to demonstrate how a study will contribute to the field of psychology, and must also show safeguards to protect the health and safety of participants. People who want to volunteer for an experimental psychology study must have the capacity for informed consent, understanding the nature of the experiment, their role, and how to opt out.
@Moldova - I wanted to add that I think that a experimental psychology career would be really interesting. For example, you can really do an effective study on what motivates people and how different people learn and perceive certain things.
It is really amazing when you think about it. If you see a picture that looks like a lady to you, the same picture can look like an older man with a large nose to somebody else.
I wonder why that is? Clearly we all see things differently and have a different level of emotions associated with it.
I remember when I went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, it was an emotional experience for
me because I was in high school during his presidency and followed all of his policies back then.
His strong stance against communisum really resonated with me because of my Cuban heritage. However, there were other people that were there that did not have the connection that I felt and were merely looking at artifacts.
I think that experimental social psychology really looks at how people are influenced in a social setting. They measure their motivation for acting a certain way and look how a situation is perceived by individual.
For example, in one experiment they may be shown a picture of a couple holding hands and in the next slide they will tell the participant that the women is actually the man’s mistress and then they may ask to discuss how attractive each person in the picture is.
Before the added information, the participant may say that the subjects were attractive and even looked happy, but after hearing the additional information the participant might associate negative traits with the subjects. The
participant might make judgments like the female’s skirt is too short or that she has too much make up on when before the negative information was disclosed, the subject was viewed as attractive.
This is really in response to the fact that infidelity is really still taboo in society and society really influences these norms in subtle ways.