Comments on: Don’t Stand So Close to Me

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:58:00 +0000

OMG, this paper is such a classic ... and I love that it's published in the venerable Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

It's an excellent one to discuss if you're teaching an experimental methods course ...
1. it doesn't fail to inject levity into even the most stressed of classes ... levity - heh - i mean outright snickers. especially at the periscope part.
2. gets students thinking out of the box if they're required to plan and execute their own experiments. (PLEASE, not another paper on the effects of music on studying).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:06:00 +0000

I had one of the authors of the study as an instructor at UW-GB.

By: EricO

EricO — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:37:00 +0000

I don't think this is an american thing... I was once told by a Latin teacher that Romanians were having discussions while all having a poo together. I guess, if it's true, that they were not all pretending...

I don't find this experiment especially schocking and I think it may be good for some to now that's not a personnal problem of them which prevents them from peeing next to other men. My guess is it may have been the goal of the researcher to reassure himself ^^

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:11:00 +0000

This brings to mind a little note I saw in front of the bowl:
STEP CLOSER, IT IS SHORTER THAN YOU MAY THINK!
LOL

By: crash

crash — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:13:00 +0000

In a decade when this will put you on a sex offender list, it may be fun to recall open urinals. As a child of the 60's, I recall the horse trough urinal where you stood hip to hip and everything hung out for all to see. Then came the individual urinal, then having partitions between urinals, and now the partitions are so high, you have no eye contact with the person next to you. It gives the feeling of being in a stall at a toilet, but with less room. I believe it may be an American hangup about penis size, and less about homophobia. Now before you scoff, let me say that I have always noted that the more endowed a man is, the less likely he would belly up to the urinal in modesty. On a final note, I miss the urinal that went to the floor, as I hate the shock when the head of my penis falls into the water.

By: Trev

Trev — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:41:00 +0000

Michael ur a tool, the last Anon ment, he was alone in that he couldnt pee right away when someone was near him... idiot..

By: michael mallows

michael mallows — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:01:00 +0000

Jeremy,
when you say, 'before things tightened up'....

And, Anonymous, you are NEVER alone; BB is watching your every move, so be afraid, be very afraid!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:24:00 +0000

Ha, I thought I was alone.

By: Jeremy (PsyBlog author)

Jeremy (PsyBlog author) — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:45:00 +0000

Yes, I think most ethics boards nowadays would take the view that this study is unnecessary and intrusive. But it was done in the 70s before things were tightened up.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Doesn't this seem like a fairly intrusive and unnecessary invasion of privacy to begin with? If this were done in a women's toilet, or by anyone other than grad students with the periscope, it would be prosecuted. It seems like a sensor system at, say, an interstate rest stop measuring flow and whether or not someone is at the porcelin would gather the same data more effeciently.
Hey, maybe that's the real reason behind those electric eye flushers that have turned up everywhere.