What is your favourite psychology study?

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Black Rose

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Report Thread starter 6 years ago

Is there one you find more interesting than others?

I don't think I can choose a favourite, but my friends really liked learning about Zimbardo's prison study, which you can read about here.

Fox Corner

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I always liked the one I did at A-Level about brain plasticity. The hippocampus region of the brain deals with spatial navigation, and is much larger than average in London taxi drivers who have had to memorise all the streets in London in order to pass a taxi driver test called The Knowledge.

From the Wikipedia:

Brain imaging shows that people have more active hippocampi when correctly navigating, as tested in a computer-simulated "virtual" navigation task.^[42] Also, there is evidence that the hippocampus plays a role in finding shortcuts and new routes between familiar places. For example, London's taxi drivers must learn a large number of places and the most direct routes between them (they have to pass a strict test, The Knowledge, before being licensed to drive the famous black cabs). A study at University College London by Maguire, et al.. (2000)^[43]showed that part of the hippocampus is larger in taxi drivers than in the general public, and that more experienced drivers have bigger hippocampi. Whether having a bigger hippocampus helps an individual to become a better cab driver, or if finding shortcuts for a living makes an individual's hippocampus grow is yet to be elucidated. However, in that study, Maguire et al. examined the correlation between size of the grey matter and length of time that had been spent as a taxi driver, and found a positive correlation between the length of time an individual had spent as a taxi driver and the volume of the right hippocampus.

I love studies about the brain, because we know so little about it and everything is always to interesting!

dmy15

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Milgram because the evaluation points were easier and you could even make them up at the top of your head during the exam

minimarshmallow

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Mark Levine's football shirt study.

And I don't just say that because it was done at my university

fefssdf

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For schizophrenia the rosenhan study is pretty interesting where individuals who displayed schizophrenic symptoms ( hearing voices) were admitted to psychiatric institutions in the US even though they didn't have the disorder as it raises questions as to how such disorders are classified and identified

fefssdf

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(Original post by minimarshmallow)
Mark Levine's football shirt study.

And I don't just say that because it was done at my university

what was this about ?

fefssdf

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(Original post by dmy15)
Milgram because the evaluation points were easier and you could even make them up at the top of your head during the exam

actually so true hahaha... just the same old methodological evaluation, ethics, population validity ect... gosh I'm gonna miss psychology A-level can just wing your way to a decent grade

shawtyb

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not sure if its relevant and im not a psych student but i find things like 'sybil' and other such cases interesting

minimarshmallow

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(Original post by fefssdf)
what was this about ?

Social psychology and football fan identity, using Liverpool and Manchester United fans at Lancaster Uni. They had either their identity as a football fan reinforced, or their identity as a fan of their team, by asking them questions about it. They then went to a different part of the university and witnessed someone falling over - if they'd had team identity reinforced they would be more likely to help someone wearing the shirt of their team, and less likely to help someone wearing the shirt of the rival team. When it was reinforced that they were football fans this effect was less.

Also there's a video somewhere which was on a documentary once and it's really funny how clearly staged the falls are.

fefssdf

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#10

(Original post by minimarshmallow)
Social psychology and football fan identity, using Liverpool and Manchester United fans at Lancaster Uni. They had either their identity as a football fan reinforced, or their identity as a fan of their team, by asking them questions about it. They then went to a different part of the university and witnessed someone falling over - if they'd had team identity reinforced they would be more likely to help someone wearing the shirt of their team, and less likely to help someone wearing the shirt of the opposite team. When it was reinforced that they were football fans this effect was less.

Also there's a video somewhere which was on a documentary once and it's really funny how clearly staged the falls are.

oooh that is an interesting one...and yh i bet the falls are really badly done lol

username2312801

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#11

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#11

I did GCSE but Ramirez et al

username2637499

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#12

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#12

I quite liked Asch

Easy to remember lool

Craig1998

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#13

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#13

I like Rosenhan and Milgram a lot, Watson & Raynor is an interesting one too.

I also enjoy reading case studies on specific people (like Little Hans and Eve White)

clonedmemories

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#14

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#14

Rosenhan was probably my favourite, not least because it also reminds me a lot of Goffman's Asylum. Their methodologies and their impacts regarding patient treatment in institutions are really interesting to me.

Captain Jack

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#15

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#15

(Original post by Fox Corner)
I always liked the one I did at A-Level about brain plasticity. The hippocampus region of the brain deals with spatial navigation, and is much larger than average in London taxi drivers who have had to memorise all the streets in London in order to pass a taxi driver test called The Knowledge.

From the Wikipedia:

I love studies about the brain, because we know so little about it and everything is always to interesting!

That is really interesting.

emiloujess

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#16

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#16

I like Loftus 😊 All of her studies, although if I had to pick a favourite it would be the leading question car crash one.

Also like Watson and Raynor, Raine and Lox.

Asolare

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#17

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#17

If anyone mentions that stupid Bobo doll study which was an absolute joke of a study I will hunt you down.

username1884577

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#18

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#18

(Original post by Inexorably)
If anyone mentions that stupid Bobo doll study which was an absolute joke of a study I will hunt you down.

Bobo doll study by Bandura. The contribution it made to the world of psychology was phenomenal, there were no faults to it whatsoever.

Spoiler:

Show

Professor L

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#19

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#19

Piliavin's subway study on helping behaviour is really interesting to me, I love how it was carried out and how it exposes why we don't really carry out altruistic acts. I also like Dement & Kleitman's REM sleep study and Thigpen & Cleckley's MPD case. Canter's study into how bottom up approaches in offender profiling caught John Duffy was quite cool too

Dominae

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#20

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#20

Throwing in case studies but whatever.

Money and Ehrhardt's study of gender development (the case of David Reimer) and the study of Genie, the "feral child".

Not sure why these are my favourites ;P