Elevator Psychology

Now here is a post that is interesting, yet funny. One place in the world where you meet people for a short amount of time, and you probably never see them again is in an elevator. While in an elevator you might be surprised how much you can influence someone else's actions. This post relates to an earlier post titled "group conformity". You might want to check it out if you enjoy this. This post is a little short on words so I will let the video below do the rest of the talking for me.

Thomas Midgley Jr.

This next scientist created a few experiments that lead to the production of a certain product. Although this product was thought to be wonderful at first it turned out that it killed hundreds and caused extensive damage to the earth. In other words, Ms. Stoklosa would probably not like him very much. Thomas Midgley Jr. discovered that when tetraethyl lead was added to gasoline it prevented the engine from internal combustion. Gm began using the "new gasoline' to sell it, and avoided any reference of lead in the gasoline. Due to the wide usage of the gas, huge amounts of lead were released into the atmosphere, and many people suffered from health problems around the world. Midgley himself had to take a long vacation because he suffered from lead poisoning. In 1923 the General Motors Chemical Company was created to produce tetraethyl lead gas. However production was very slow because people kept dying at the factory from lead poisoning. Dissatisfied with the results GM created a new plant for production, which used a more dangerous high temperature ethyl chloride process. Within two months of the plants opening some people around the area suffered from hallucinations, insanity, and five died. At a press conference Midgley wanted to demonstrate that ethyl lead was not dangerous so he dipped his hands in it, and inhaled it for a whole minute. At the age of 51 Midgley contracted polio, which left him disabled. His last invention was a pulley system to help get him in and out of his bed. This experiment also backfired on him and he ended up getting tangled in it, and died from suffocation.

Phobia

Why do people suffer from phobias of things that are seemingly safe? For example, there are people who have heart attacks every time they see a goldfish through a water tank. Are people born hating things? The real reason is because people are conditioned not to like something from a very early age. An experiment conducted in 1919 showed how fear could be put into a child. Basically the men conducting the experiment placed a few toys in front of a baby such as a rat, blocks, a rabbit, a dog, and more. At first, the baby did not show any fear towards any of the objects. Every time the baby would touch the rat the men would strike a hammer against a metal bar, and they would scare the child. After a few strikes, the child always stayed away from the rat, and actually whimpered sometimes when he saw it. The baby never displayed fear towards any of the other toys; he only feared the rat. This experiment was criticized a lot because the men never attempted to remove the fear. The child remained afraid of rats the rest of his life. This experiment show's that even if people with phobias don’t know it, they attained their fear from childhood incidents. Fear is not the only thing you can condition. You can pretty much condition anyone to do anything at the sound of a specific noise or a particular scent.

The bobo doll

Is aggression in human nature or is it taught to us? Many people think that watching a violent film does not influence people to commit violent acts, but psychologist Albert Bandura proved otherwise. In his experiment he gathered a lot of children and split them into two groups. The first group was placed in a room with a few toys. Among these toys was a doll called the bobo doll. An adult model comes into the room and plays with the toys for about ten minutes. When the model leaves the room the kids play with the toys like any other child would. The second group of kids were placed in the same room, but only with a different adult model. This adult model did not play with the toys peacefully like the first one, but rather started hitting the bobo doll with fists and kicks, and sometimes with other tools. When this group of kids were left in the room (one at a time), they began to hit the bobo doll with fists and kicks just like the adult, and some of them even began to swing a hammer at the dolls head. This experiment resulted with the following conclusion : children exposed to aggressive behavior tend to act in aggressive ways whether if it is watching an adult physically  harm someone or something, or if it is watching a violent movie, and perhaps video games as well. 

Psychology of a psychopath

What is a psychopath? A psychopath is a person who is very antisocial, and thinks in a criminal, perverted, and aggresive ways. Psychopaths feel no empathy or remorse towards others, and that is the main reason they kill human beings and animals. Before researchers and scientist believed that psychopaths were just plain crazy, but it has been discovered that most serial killers have brain defects in which the part of the brain responsible for feeling sympathy towards others was either extremely small or missing completely. This means that if a psychopath killed someone he/she would feel no guilt, or in other words not see anything wrong with his/her action. Scientist performed a few tests to see how a psychopaths brain reacts to emotional words such as love, hatred, and sadness. The results of the test were that while a regular persons brain reacted to the words, a psychopaths brain did not react in any way, and functioned as if the word had never been said. It is estimated that about 4% of the population of the United States are psychopaths. Although this statistic may sound unrealistic at first, that is because most psychopaths are not killers even though they have the tendency to. Most psychopaths have abrasive personalities, and enjoy making life difficult for others. Some things that most killer pyschopaths have in common is that they wet their beds untill their about 12 years old, they enjoy torturing animals, do bad in school, enjoy lighting things on fire, and are actually very intelligent.

Harry Harlow and his monkeys

Rules were meant to be broken, so for this blog post imagine that at the top of this page the title reads "animal psychology". Although in this next experiment the test subjects are monkeys it resembles human actions. The Harlow experiment's purpose was to demonstrate the importance of love. In the experiment there are two sets of monkey's. The first set of monkeys were raised by a mother and were given love and affection from an early age. When the monkeys were put into a cage with a fake monkey made out of wires and a fake monkey made out of a soft cloth the monkeys always went to the wire dummy because it was the only source of food. The second group of monkeys were monkeys that were separated from their mother at birth so they were never given any love or affection. When the second group was placed in the cage the monkeys always went to the soft cloth dummy because it was soft, warm, and resembled love and affection. When scared or frightened the second group monkeys always went to the soft cloth mother, and only went to the wire dummy when they wanted food. Many other animals cannot function normally when separated from their mother at an early age. For example, a pig that was never given love or affection panics regularly, while a pig that was given love and affection lives a regular pig life. The Harlow experiment demonstrates that love is essential to maintaing a healthy live. The video below is the experiment itself.

The Milgram Expirement

The Milgram experiment is very popular, and well known. Even though you may have never heard the name before chances are that you have probably heard or read about the experiment itself. The purpose was to see to what point regular people would obey a figure of authorities command even though it is against their consciousness. In the experiment a man in a white lab coat (the figure of authority) instructed a volunteer to ask another man who he also thinks is also a volunteer (actually an actor) questions. The first time the actor gets a question wrong the volunteer has to press a button in front of him and shock the actor, who is in another room, with 15 volts (because he is an actor he pretends to be shocked every time the button is pressed, but the volunteer thinks it’s real). The buttons in front of the volunteer range from 15 volts to 450 volts, which is considered deadly. As the volunteer makes his way down the buttons, and increasing the voltage the actor screams louder and louder and begs for the volunteer to stop, but the man in the white lab coat keeps saying the same phrases: “Please continue”, “The experiment requires that you continue”, “It is absolutely essential that you continue”, “you have no other choice, you must go on”. Because the man looks like a figure of authority most volunteers go on. Around the 300 volt mark the actor stops screaming and makes no noise at all to make the volunteer believe he is in danger. As a result, out of 40 people, 26 worked all the way down to 450 volts, which is considered deadly, even after the actor stopped making noise. The video below is reproduction of the milgram experiment, not the original.