Psych Experiments

From Pavlov's dogs to Rorschach's inkblots, put psychology's most fascinating studies to the test

Michael A Britt

• Publisher: Adams Media
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781440597084
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie expérimentale

Psychology's most famous theories--played out in real life! Forget the labs and lecture halls. You can conduct your very own psych experiments at home! Famous psychological experiments--from Freud's ego to the Skinner box--have changed the way science views human behavior. But how do these tests really work? In Psych Experiments, you'll learn how to test out these theories and experiments for yourself...no psychology degree required! Guided by Michael A. Britt, creator of popular podcast The Psych Files, you can conduct your own experiments when browsing your favorite websites (to test the "curiosity effect"), in restaurants (learning how to increase your tips), when presented with advertisements (you'd be surprised how much you're influenced by the color red), and even right on your smartphone (and why you panic when you can't find it). You'll even figure out how contagious yawning works! With this compulsively readable little book, you won't just read about the history of psychology--you'll live it!

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: An Introduction to Psych Experiments
• Classical Conditioning You Can Do Yourself: Maybe We’re Not So Different from Dogs After All
• How You Are Manipulated Into Paying More Money Than You Wanted
• Estimating Distances—More Psychology Than You Think
• Your Memory Is Better Than You Think
• How Eyewitnesses Can Be Misled
• Yes—Walking Through a Door Will Cause You to Forget
• The Method of Loci—One of the Most Powerful Memory Techniques
• Getting Workers to Be More Productive
• How You Can Improve Your Creative Ability
• Mental Sets Can Limit You Into One Way of Thinking
• Noticing a Face in the Crowd
• How to Think More Positively about Life
• How Psychiatric Labels Affect How We See People
• The Design of Everyday Things
• Beauty Is Apparently Not Just in the Eye of the Beholder
• How Roles Can Affect Us at a Deep Level
• When Trying Really Hard Makes No Difference
• How Anonymity Can Make Us Mean
• Why You Choose Your Romantic Partner Is Less Romantic Than You Think
• The Power of Conformity
• What Makes Us Truly Happy?
• Persuasion Tactics in a Restaurant
• Supernormal Stimuli
• Cognitive Dissonance: We See What We Want to See
• The Rorschach Inkblots
• How a Phone Conversation Is Different from In-Person
• Remembering What Never Happened
• How and When We Are Blind to Change
• Why Do You Remember Certain Things?
• How Physical Warmth Translates to Psychological Warmth
• Does Red Make You More Attractive?
• Our Bodies Influence Us More Than We Think
• When Trying to Look Good Looks Bad
• Brain Images and Persuasion
• Our Brains Love Curiosity
• How Your Behavior Is Shaped
• How Does Creativity Really Work?
• How Superstitions Really Work
• Where Discrimination Begins
• You’re Really Not Giving This Much Thought
• The Development of Moral Thinking
• How Children Think Differently As They Grow
• Persuading People by First Asking for the Impossible
• The Psychology of Humor
• A Better Way to Detect Lies
• Your Body Affects Your Thinking
• The Causes of Job Satisfaction
• A Psychological Booster Shot
• Perception Is More Than What We See
• Smartphones: Do They Hinder or Improve Our Life Experiences?
• Bibliography