Psychology
- Ivan Pavlov's experiments with dogs and classical conditioning (1900s)
- John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conduct the Little Albert experiment showing evidence of classical conditioning (1920)
- Solomon Asch's conformity experiments shows how group pressure can persuade an individual to conform to an obviously wrong opinion (1951)
- B.F. Skinner's demonstrations of operant conditioning (1930s - 1960s)
- Harry Harlow's experiments with baby monkeys and wire and cloth surrogate mothers (1957–1974)
- Stanley Milgram's experiments on human obedience (1963)
- Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment (1971)
- Allan and Beatrix Gardner' attempts to teach American Sign Language to the chimpanzee Washoe (1970s)
- Martin Seligman studies learned helplessness in dogs (1970s)
- Rosenhan experiment (1972). It involved the use of healthy associates or "pseudopatients," who briefly simulated auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals. The hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudopatient. The study is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.
- Kansas City preventive patrol experiment (1972–1973) It was designed to test the assumption that the presence (or potential presence) of police officers in marked cars reduced the likelihood of a crime being committed. No relationship was found.
- Elizabeth Loftus' and John C. Palmer's car crash experiment shows that leading questions can produce false memories (1974)
- Benjamin Libet's experiment on free will shows that a readiness potential appears before the notion of doing the task enters conscious experience, sparking debate about the illusory nature of free will yet again. (1983)
- Vilayanur S. Ramachandran's experiment on phantom limbs with the Mirror Box throw light on the nature of 'learned paralysis' (1998)
Read more about this topic: List Of Experiments
Famous quotes containing the word psychology:
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)