Unusual Research in Psychology
I need your help with some nominations for the most unusual research in psychology. Zimbardo's prison experiments or Milgram's compliance research are both unusual and strange in their own ways, but quite well known. What about all the other good stuff that's crept in under the radar?
My personal favourite was done by David Rosenhan (left) who faked madness to get into a mental institution. Why? Just to show how little psychiatrists really knew (or even know?).
Nominate any ideas in the comments at the end of this story. Alternatively email them to me. It would be good if you could find a link to some description of the research on the web.
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There's the research that won the Ig Nobel award for psychology. They won for "...demonstrating that when people pay close attention to something, it's all too easy to overlook anything else -- even a woman in a gorilla suit."
Here's the link: Ig Nobel
There's a whole load of good stuff on the Skepdic site:
"Psychologist B.R. Forer found that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone."
This is often known as the 'Barnum' effect after the circus man P.T. Barnum.
Psychology Today has a top ten of unusual ideas that have been completely or partly discredited. The worrying thing is that a lot of these are still strong in the popular consciousness.
I'm a performing arts student and am willing to assist in any way with your research. Rosenhan's experiment is one that I have been very fascinated with since I became a college student.