Tag: experiment

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Rules

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1967, a group of scientists designed an experiment where five monkeys were put in one cage with a ladder in the middle and a banana suspended over it. When a monkey tried to climb the ladder to reach the banana, it was hosed down with ice cold water to discourage it. However, at the same time the four other monkeys were sprayed as well. This was repeated until the monkeys were conditioned not to climb the ladder as it meant being blasted by cold water. Interestingly, even when the reward was tempting enough for a monkey to brace the cold water and climb the ladder, the monkey was swiftly taken down by the other monkeys – fearing the cold water – and was punished by a beating. This further discouraged the monkeys from climbing the ladder even when the researchers stopped spraying the monkeys with water.

The researchers then substituted one of the original monkeys with a new monkey who had not been in the cage before. This new monkey immediately noticed the banana and started to climb the ladder. The other monkeys saw this and responded with rage, enforcing their unspoken “rule” of never climbing the ladder. The new monkey quickly learned that climbing the ladder was a bad thing.
The researchers substituted another original monkey for a new monkey and the same thing happened. They repeated this until all monkeys were replaced.

When they substituted the last monkey in (number 10), the cage was already filled with “new” monkeys who had never been hosed before, but nonetheless knew not to climb the ladder. When the monkey was punished for climbing the ladder, it gave an expression that seemed to question why he was being punished. The other monkeys did not know why; none of them had been punished with cold water and only knew that the other monkeys would beat him up. Even though none of them knew why the punishment was required, they dished it out regardless. The rule had been engrained into the mob, with each monkey following it without any logical reason.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Conformity

Posted on by Jinavie

We often see people who criticise others for being “sheeple” – people who blindly conform to the majority and follow someone like sheep do. They protest that as human beings, we have a right and duty to exercise free will, sticking up for one’s own opinions. However, according to an infamous experiment from the 1950’s, we know that human beings are bound by our natural instincts to be social creatures, obeying the collective will of the group we are in.

In 1953, Solomon Asch designed an experiment to study the power of conformity. He told participants that they will be taking part in a vision test with a group of people. They were shown a picture depicting lines of various lengths, asking which line on the right matched the line on the left:

It was a simple task of matching the line to another line of the same length with the answer being blatantly obvious. But as with so many psychological experiments, there was a trick. The group of “participants” were actually in on the experiment other than the one subject. During the experiment, the group would all put their hands up on the blatantly wrong answer instead of the actual correct one. How did this action affect the subject’s answer?

Although it seems clear that the answer is A in the given example, when in a situation where the majority of people put their hands up for “B” or “C”, up to 32% of the subjects gave the incorrect answer. No matter how large the differences were between the sizes of the lines, the results did not change. Although 32% is only a third of the study group, one must bear in mind that this experiment only looked at black-and-white scenarios of lines of different length. If the issue at hand was much more “grey” – such as an ethical dilemma – it can be extrapolated that the person would easily sway and conform to the majority opinion.

The reason for the level of conformity exhibited in the experiment is quite simple: it’s the one who is different that gets left out in the cold.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Six Degrees Of Separation

Posted on by Jinavie

It is said that through a chain of five people, we can be acquainted to anyone in the world. In other words, an Eskimo man can be no less than six steps away from a Parisian lady. This is the concept of the six degrees of separation.

The concept can be explained mathematically. We all know hundreds of different people each. If we assume that we each have 100 friends, then in the first stage we only know the 100 friends. However, at the second stage we know the 100 friends of each of our friends, meaning we know 10000 people. At the third stage we know 1 million people, fourth stage 100 million and fifth stage 10 billion people. As the world population is 7 billion, by the fifth stage we should theoretically know every person on the world. This means that crossing four metaphorical bridges lets us shake the hands of anyone we want. The concept of the degrees of separation came from the idea of the small world phenomenon.

The first person to properly study the small world phenomenon was Harvard social psychologist Stanley Milgram. In 1967, Milgram asked 296 people in the Midwest (USA) to help him send a package to someone in Boston. To complete the experiment, the participants had to send the package to one of their friends they thought would know this stranger in Boston. Milgram found that in half of the cases, the package was delivered to the target in Boston through five people (5.5 exactly), thus giving birth to the concept that we are at six degrees of separation from another human being. 

Of course since 1967 our societies have undergone many changes. One of the most noticeable changes has been the development of technology – specifically the development of the internet and social networking. Nowadays, the younger generations use the internet to communicate with friends and make connections. Knowing this, what degrees of separation exists in modern societies? According to a recently finished study (2011) using data from the social networking site, Facebook, the average number of “bridges” for the world is 4.7. In countries such as the US where there is a bigger proportion of Facebook users, this number fell to 4.4. Ergo, in the past 40 years we have developed more connections to other people, making our world even smaller.

The theory of six degrees of separation reminds us how small a world we live in and how interconnected we are to each other.

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Posted in Science & Nature

Murphy’s Law

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1947, an aerospace engineer named Edward A. Murphy Jr was involved in high-speed rocket sled experiments led by the US Air Force. The aim of the experiment was to research the effect of sudden deceleration on the human body so to improve the safety of jet fighter pilots. To study this, a flight surgeon named Dr John Stapp devised a “sled” attached to a rocket that could be used on a long track. The rocket would propel the sled to a massive speed and brakes would induce as sudden deceleration. However, they found that the machines that were used to measure the G-force (force of deceleration relative to the force of gravity) were unreliable. Murphy proposed that they use electronic strain gauges attached to the harness of the test subject to measure the G-force, something he learned while working with centrifuges.

The idea was great but there was one problem: the gear kept failing, showing no reading whatsoever. Murphy soon found that the sensors were attached correctly but were wired backwards. This simple mistake frustrated Murphy, who blamed the incompetency of his assistant, stating that “if that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will.” This became the famous Murphy’s law, now simplified to “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

Murphy’s law actually played a fundamental role in defensive design, where the worst-case scenario is always assumed and prepared for. Thanks to this system, the rocket sled experiment was successful and in 1954 Dr Stapp became the fastest man in the world – travelling at a speed of 1011km per hour and decelerating at a force of 46G (it was hypothesised that a human being could not survive past 18G). Not only did he survive (albeit with broken limbs, ribs, hernias, detached retina and temporary blindness), Dr Stapp went to build bigger rockets to further test the limits of the human body.

Interestingly, there’s another side to the Murphy’s law involving psychology. People suffer from a fallacy called appeal to probability, where they believe that because there is a possibility of something can happen, it will happen. The brain is surprisingly inefficient in dealing with probabilities and has a tendency to ignore that there is a relatively miniscule possibility and instead focuses on the absolute fact that there “is” a probability. This is the best explanation for why people are compelled to buy lottery tickets and why every student believes they will grow up to be rich and successful. 

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Bystander Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

March 13, 1964 – Queens, New York. A young woman called Kitty Genovese was running from a man chasing her across the parking lot. She screamed for help as she ran from the attacker but not a single person came to her rescue. The attacker stabbed her repeatedly but the police were never alerted to the incident. The astonishing fact is that not only was there someone watching the whole attack – completely able to call the police or intervene – but there were no less than 38 bystanders.

This case sparked a question in social psychology: what prevented those 38 people from stopping a murder happening in front of them? Was it fear of attracting the assaulter’s attention? The bystanders were all watching from their apartment and calling the police would have been simple and discreet, so this was not the reason. Psychologists designed an experiment to study the natural human response as a bystander in an emergency situation.

The experiment was simple: have participants fill a survey in a room and have the helper leave the room. The helper would then stage a collapse with a yell. The participants’ response would then be observed (particularly their response time).
What they found was fascinating. When only one person was in the room, it was very likely he or she would check to see what happened. But with a group (even three would suffice), the response time would dramatically increase, if they responded at all. Simply put: the more bystanders there are, the less likely someone will step in to do something.

The reason is actually simpler than people think. It is not that people are naturally evil and wish to see others suffer; the bystander effect is a consequence of the basic human psyche.
Firstly, people constantly observe others’ responses in a social situation. This creates a paradox where everyone assumes that since no one is doing anything, they themselves do not act either.
Secondly, there is a shared sense of delusion where people think “others will do it”. This is known as “responsibility splitting” and explains why more people lead to less response.
These two factors combined with cognitive dissonance reduce the guilt and burden of the bystander as they consider it alright to not respond as long as no one else does (or if they do, good for them).

Unfortunately, this effect is so powerful that they occur in about 70% of assault cases and also other emergencies such as a person collapsing from a heart attack (i.e. no one rushes to perform CPR). The same effect is seen in cases of suicides (where the person publicly announces their intentions with no one responding) and classrooms (when the teacher asks the class a question).

This is why one of the greatest tips for emergency response is to pick a single person out and instruct them to do something. For example, “You there, in the red jacket, call the ambulance” is much more effective than “Somebody do something”.

Posted in Science & Nature

Mentos Coke Experiment

Posted on by Jinavie

There is an extremely entertaining experiment that can be done with two simple ingredients found in the local supermarket: Mentos mints and Diet Coke (it is more effective than original Coke). The experiment procedure is as following:

After opening the bottle, quickly drop the Mentos in to the Diet Coke. Run.

As soon as the Mentos falls in, the Coke spurts foam explosively, which shoots up to great heights. Depending on the temperature of the Coke (the warmer the better) and the number of Mentos mints (it is more effective to thread them and drop them all at once), the pillar of foam can rise to a few metres.

This fascinating phenomenon is not caused purely by a chemical reaction, but has more to do with physics. Mentos mints are coated with menthol, which has numerous microscopic dents. When it enters the Coke, the dissolved carbon dioxide forms bubbles that collect in these pits. As they collect, the bubbles expand until the pressure builds past a certain level, causing an explosion. 

The most important point is that if this experiment is not performed outside, one could end up cleaning a sticky room for days.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Open Hand

Posted on by Jinavie

90% of human communication is non-verbal. This shows how facial expressions and body language have a powerful effect on our subconscious. Even the position of the hand can send a clear signal.

An open hand suggests peace, love and openness. Because of this, if the other person has his or her palm showing, you will feel more comfortable talking with them and view them in a more positive light. Jesus is often pictured in a pose with his arms stretched and palms showing, sending the message: “I would like to embrace you”. The same signal is used to initiate a hug.

On the other hand, a closed hand sends a cold message of strictness and professionalism. Therefore, people who are debating or negotiating often have their hands flat on a table or their lap to symbolise their resolution and defiance.

From this analysis, we can tell that an open hand is a good way to gain the affection of another person. Furthermore, this body language can manipulate the other person’s subconscious.

From my experiments, I found that when given the choice between a closed fist facing up and another fist facing down, the subject would choose the fist with the palms facing up about 90% of the time. Although it is a crude test, it definitely beat the 50:50 statistics that is expected.
This experiment was probably affected by other factors. Especially because people will usually choose the unusual choice due to curiosity (as when told to pick a hand, the person will usually have both fists facing down) and due to the psychology of “the unusual fist will probably contain something more interesting”. Also, most people who chose the downward-facing fist later said that they “deliberately chose the other fist because they felt they were supposed to choose the upwards-facing fist”. Thus, they too were first attracted to the unusual fist.

This test must be done suddenly to bypass the logical conscious mind and have an effect on the subconscious mind. If you take too long to explain the test, the results become skewed. 
Bypassing the conscious mind to suggest an acceptable choice to the subconscious mind – this test shows the basic principles of hypnosis.

Posted in Science & Nature

Schroedinger’s Cat

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger, a famous quantum physicist, devised a thought experiment in an attempt to explain the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics (which posits that the state of every particle can be described by a wave function, and that the process of calculating its position determines it). It goes as follows:

A cat is placed in a box with a sealed vial of poison that is set to release when a radioactive material has decayed. As the time taken for the decay varies (roughly 50:50 chance), it is unknown whether the vial has broken after an hour if the box is closed. This also means that it is unknown whether the cat is alive or dead. To solidify this variable reality, one must open the box, whence the cat is determined as either alive or dead. 

This experiment may be hard to understand for a non-physicist, but it is still a fascinating thought experiment. This is because there are many times in life where one cannot know the outcome of something unless action is taken. Ergo, if you want a state of uncertainty, do nothing; if you want a set answer, take action. This is a particularly useful answer to someone questioning whether they should start a relationship with someone and are unsure of the outcome.

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