Unlike physical disabilities, intellectual disabilities are invisible. That makes it more difficult for them to be classified at the Paralympics and more complicated to ensure a level playing field among the competitors. Recent changes to the eligibility rules at the Paralympics attempted to address these issues and allowed for the intellectually disabled to compete in [...] Read more »
What does it mean to conform? Sheep conform: they prefer to follow the rest of the flock, even if that decision takes them over the edge of a cliff. By contrast, we humans like to think we follow the beat of our own drum and non-conformity is seen as the preferable choice, but what happens [...] Read more »
There are many famous psychology experiments that have shaped the world of human psychology as we know it. A lot of these experiments would never have taken place today as they would be considered too unethical, but read on for a list of famous psychology experiments that led researchers to make important breakthroughs in various [...] Read more »
The Little Albert Experiment is a famous psychology study on the effects of behavioral conditioning. Conducted by John B. Watson and his assistant, graduate student, Rosalie Raynor, the experiment used the results from research carried out on dogs by Ivan Pavlov—and took it one step further. What was the Little Albert Experiment? Watson used Pavlov’s [...] Read more »
What is operant conditioning and where can you find operant conditioning examples in everyday life? Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning, is the notion of behavior modification through a system of reward and punishment. Behavioral psychologist B.F.Skinner first introduced the term and, as a result, operant conditioning is sometimes referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. [...] Read more »
What is the Lucifer Effect Summary? The Lucifer Effect is the title of a book written by Philip Zimbardo, the man responsible for the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. In his 2004 book, Zimbardo discusses whether ordinary, average, or even good people can become the perpetrators of diabolical acts of evil. The Lucifer Effect Summary/ Zimbardo [...] Read more »
Ivan Pavlov first demonstrated classical conditioning, also known as Pavlovian respondent conditioning, when he noticed dogs could be “conditioned” to salivate to a stimulus when it became associated with food. Today, “Pavlov’s dog” is a phrase commonly used when a person or animal has developed a conditioned response to a particular stimulus. So if you [...] Read more »
Punishment is a way of actively encouraging a person or animal to change their behavior and it can be both negative and positive. The use of discipline as punishment is a commonly accepted way of admonishing a child, and like reinforcement, punishment is one of the key components of operant conditioning. So what are examples [...] Read more »
The Milgram Experiment was a series of experimental studies that took place in the 1960s to investigate how willing subjects were to obey an authority figure even when their actions directly conflicted with their personal conscience. The experiments proved to be extremely controversial and were considered to be highly unethical at the time, and although [...] Read more »
The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in 1971 and was designed to explore the psychological impact of the prison environment on prisoners and prison guards. Although Zimbardo intended the experiment to last two weeks, it was abruptly halted after only six days due to the increasingly disturbing behavioral [...] Read more »