"The greatest psychological experiment in the 20th century" traces back to its source, and psychology must be read, so as to prevent cheating!

Of course, this is a joke. However, this shows that psychology is still a controversial or mature science.

Psychology is a science based on experiments (Freud's post-mortem analysis is not the mainstream). There are two main research methods in psychology, one is objective statistical induction and the other is subjective deductive interpretation. Can these methods be regarded as science? The so-called science, in some ways, is not the subjective interpretation of researchers?

The book "The Greatest Psychological Experiment in the 20th Century" introduces in detail 10, a far-reaching and well-known psychological experiment, and objectively introduces some mixed details and opinions. Students interested in psychology are advised to read carefully. In this article, I want to introduce six of them that impressed me deeply:

Skinner is a representative figure of American new behaviorism. His animal experiments are not only widely known and criticized, but also show the world the great influence of "reward" and "reinforcement" on shaping behavior, and also establish his leading position in the field of psychology.

Skinner designed an experimental device to study operant conditioned reflex-"Skinner's box", which skillfully arranged food, joystick and other stimuli, so that mice were prompted by the situation, and then appeared what we thought was an autonomous and spontaneous reaction. Skinner therefore believes that the "free will" that human beings have always cherished does not actually exist. He advocated that human beings or animals should be trained by positive reinforcement to complete the specified tasks, which is called "operant conditioning". He devoted his life to the study of operant conditioning theory and perfected it in GAI.

Although no one knew the name of the little girl in his experiment of locking her daughter in a box, they swore that the girl was physically and mentally hurt by her father's experiment, and later she ended her life with a pistol and rope in a hotel room, and the details were not clear. As we know, this girl's name is Deborah, and Skinner wants to train her, so she was locked in a box for two years. In this small square space, bells, food trays and various organs are installed, and Skinner will also punish and reward them in due course. He stood behind the grid to observe the girl's progress. The girl was mentally ill when she grew up. At the age of 3 1, she sued her father for abuse, but she lost. Finally, she shot herself in a bowling alley in Billings, Montana. Gunfire sounded, which seemed to announce the end of the heyday of behaviorism. Since then, criticism and questioning have never subsided.

But then I received information about Skinner's daughter Deborah. Someone received a photo of a middle-aged woman with brown hair, and the caption said, "I'm Deborah. It is rumored that I have committed suicide, but I am still alive. Skinner's box is not what you see, and neither is my father. He is a clever psychologist and a loving father. I just want to dispel those false legends.

In the late 20th century, based on Skinner's theory of operant conditioning, clinicians systematically used desensitization and submergence therapy to treat patients with phobia and anxiety. These behavioral therapies are still widely used up to now, and the effect is remarkable. For example, young parents quarrel about holding their children, and a pair of parents talk:

I said, "Maybe Skinner should change her." He said, "What did you say?" "We should use Skinner's theory to get rid of her bad habits. Every time we hug her, she gets what Skinner calls positive reinforcement. To eliminate her behavior, we must first reduce the number of times we hold her, and in the end, ignore her completely. " We will step by step, gradually reduce and strengthen, and strictly implement it. For example, the first time we cried, we hugged her for three minutes, and the second time we cried, we only hugged her for two minutes.

We decided to ask Skinner to change her diaper because we needed a rest. It was cruel to do so at first. Listen to her cry: "mom, mom!" Dad! " Watching it stretch out its gentle arm, we put her back in the crib. We did it anyway, and the result was like magic or science! In less than five days, the child is like a trained narcolepsy patient. As soon as she was put back in the crib and her face touched the sheets, she fell asleep for 65,438+00 hours. I can finally sleep at night.

Among us, 6 1%~65% will follow the instructions given by the authority, even if it may endanger the lives of others, we will do it right. Milgram did the same experiment in Yale University and the neighboring city of Bridgeport, and the results were similar. Subsequent studies around the world also confirmed that this is not nonsense.

"I like my job, my family, I have three children ... I like growing flowers in the yard, and because I like fresh fruits and vegetables, I have also opened up a place to grow vegetables." This is the self-description that milgram asked the subjects to do. The two subjects completely obeyed the examiner's instructions and gave Wallace the highest voltage electric shock. Fresh fruits and vegetables and beautiful flowers are unimaginable. At that time, milgram was an assistant professor at Yale University. Before the experiment, he made a survey, including many famous psychiatrists, students from Yale University and the general public in New Haven. He asked these people to predict how the subjects would react in the experimental situation he designed. The opinions of all the respondents are quite consistent, and they all think that the respondents will never be shocked, and even if they will, they will stop at 150 volts at most. People who hear each other screaming and whining, but still press all the buttons one by one, must be almost morbid sadists. Milgram's research has been published for more than 40 years, and people still seem to insist that "it won't be me". Milgram's experiment is shocking, perhaps because it reveals the huge gap between imagination and true self!

After many years, social psychologists still strongly emphasize that the key lies in the situation, not the personality.

It is not that because of personality instability, whether a person's behavior is moral is not affected by personality traits. But because personality traits are often not as good as environmental factors such as weather, geography, people and so on. "In other words, Ross and others believe that only part of human behavior comes from a stable inner personality, and most of it changes with the change of external forces.

"I'm afraid my heart can't stand it." I repeated his words: "The heart can't stand it?" Chafen turned to look at me and said, "I'm afraid this experiment will make me too nervous and lead to a heart attack." He seemed to think of something and added, "I don't want to hurt that man either."

All masterpieces of art are unique and inspiring, and of course there are inevitably flaws. From this point of view, Rosen Hahn's experiment may be regarded as an art. I still think Rosen Hahn's experimental results reveal some facts: First, labels affect our perception of things. Second, if psychiatry can be called a science, it must still be in its infancy.

Rosenhahn's research results made them even more nervous. This experiment made the psychiatrists very angry and finally turned into a struggle between the two sides. A doctor in a mental hospital confidently declared loudly, "Good! You think we are only nominal, but in fact you are ignorant. Let's have a try. In the next three months, the fake patient will be sent with you, and we can see it at a glance. Bring it on! " The war post has been issued and you can fire at any time.

Rosenhahn was born indomitable and resolutely accepted the challenge. He said that he would assign some fake patients to the hospital within three months. The medical staff must diagnose that these patients are actually mentally normal. This is equivalent to the reversal of the original experiment. Three months have passed. The hospital said with confidence that during this period, they found 4 1 fake patients sent by Rosenhahn. However, there is no one in Rosenhahn. The experiment is over, bring disgrace to oneself.

When the case of a woman who was killed at night was first reported, the neighbors didn't lend a helping hand. The local edition of new york Times reported the case in only four lines. Soon after, Rosenthal, the editor-in-chief of this edition, learned that many people had witnessed the whole case, but stood by and wrote Thirty-eight Witnesses: The Case of kitty genovese. The New York Times not only reported the whole case, but also published many reports one after another, mentioning the strange behavior of these bystanders, which triggered an uproar and crusade among the American people. Many readers write to The New York Times. One reader said, "I think your newspaper should try to get the list of these witnesses and make it public." These people sit idly by, causing irreparable consequences and should be condemned by society. A professor's wife wrote: "Their silence, even cowardice and indifference, is unbelievable. If the current New York State law cannot punish these people, we think your newspaper should urge the New York State legislature to amend the law as soon as possible. Besides, since these 38 witnesses turned a blind eye to their moral obligations, we think Hui Gui will publish their names and addresses as a punishment. "Dali of new york University, Osama bin Laden of Columbia University and many people in new york have read the feedback from these readers, and they all want to know why no one has given a helping hand. Is it indifference? Or because of other psychological factors? Experts in various fields have put forward hypotheses to explain the reactions of these witnesses. Renee Claire Fox, a sociology professor at Barnard College in new york, believes that the behavior of these witnesses is the result of "false denial"; In other words, they are too scared to react or even feel anything. Professor Ralph S. Panai thinks that TV should be the culprit. Americans are deeply influenced by television and have long been accustomed to endless violence, so they can't tell TV from reality. Barnett also explained this phenomenon with the popular psychoanalytic theory at that time. He said: "These people (witnesses) are hypnotized by external stimuli, and their ears, hands and feet are useless. Mature, sound-hearted people don't do this. "More than ten years later, Rosen Hahn published the experimental results of false mental patients, which made barnett's statement strongly questioned. Karl Menninger, a famous psychologist, thinks: "Group indifference is an infringement. "

In response to this accusation, psychologists have done a series of experiments, so that subjects can hear (but can't see) the cry for help of another subject (actually a staff member) in a room, and see the response of the subject. After listening to the audition, someone was sick and everyone panicked. Although they didn't take action, they were not as indifferent as we thought. The examiner heard the subject say from the microphone, "Oh, my God, he has a seizure!" " "Some people keep panting, while others can only say," Oh, no! " Someone said, "Oh, my God! What should I do? "After pretending to be sick for six minutes, if the subject does not take any assistance action, the inspector will enter his room. All the subjects were sweating and shaking, so they asked, "Is he all right? Is anyone in charge? "Look depressed and sad.

As we can imagine, those who witnessed the killings reported by The New York Times should also be in pain. Most of them are at a loss because of fear and hesitation, rather than the usual indifference of urbanites.

Dali and bin Laden speculated that the subjects who did not take action were not heartless, but "not determined to take action". They are full of contradictions, hesitant and don't know whether to respond. This emotion reflects the constant conflict in his heart. Relatively speaking, other subjects who take action will not have conflicts in their hearts.

Bin Laden found that the size of the group is related to the speed of taking action. The more people witness an event, the weaker the sense of responsibility of a single witness, because the more people share the responsibility. They call this unknown phenomenon "responsibility diffusion" and put forward five stages of helping others.

1975 Festinger published his most famous paper, Cognitive Disharmony Theory. He wrote in the book: "If individuals hold conflicting ideas (that is, cognitive results) at the same time, then the final result of ideological opposition is to derive a kind of power, and then change the individual's behavior or attitude. Individuals may sometimes not change their behavior to conform to their beliefs as generally believed, but they may change their beliefs so that they can reasonably explain their behavior. "

Cognitive dissonance theory swept the American psychological circle. Aronson said, "It's like a storm that swept everything. Only cognitive dissonance theory can satisfactorily explain this puzzling behavior. This is the answer. " We always think that if brainwashing is effective, we must resort to torture or the threat of large sums of money. However, according to the cognitive dissonance theory, the less reward a person gets for engaging in behaviors that contradict his beliefs, the more likely he is to change his original beliefs.

One Sunday, when I was studying the murder of Jane Novus and the smoke experiment, I found that some money had been put into the donation basket before the first believer got the money. A few weeks later, my sister, who works as a bartender in a bar, told me that she would put some bills in a tipped goblet every night, "so you can get more tips." The customer thinks that the person in front has given it and will follow suit. "Imitation is human instinct.

Opium, a strange substance, is extracted from the slender poppy, and its round fruit is full of seeds. /kloc-In the 9th century, British women used poppy seeds to make tea to appease crying children. Opium can be sold publicly in the smoky streets of London. Opium, known as "baby tranquilizer" and "Mrs. Winslow's soothing syrup", may be the earliest drug used to treat mental illness and the precursor of ritalin, a common central nervous system stimulant today.

So he went to a hospital in Vancouver to treat drug abuse as an intern, where he first looked at addiction from a non-pharmacological point of view. "I was particularly impressed by a patient whose job was to play Santa Claus in the shopping center around Christmas. He can't work without heroin. As soon as he smoked heroin, he was full of energy, put on Santa Claus costume and black rubber boots, and laughed for six hours without getting tired. At that time, I began to think that maybe all the theories about drug abuse were wrong. When people take drugs, it is not the ingredients that they have to take again and again, but the harsh test that taking drugs can adapt themselves to the environment. "

This explanation is easy to understand, but it is not clear enough and unscientific. Then some researchers cut in from the perspective of pharmacology and put forward quite interesting theories. There is a pharmaceutical factory in the human brain, which produces all kinds of chemical drugs: endorphins are similar to opium and are natural analgesics, while dopamine and serotonin have sedative and sedative effects. The human brain will automatically adjust to produce a small amount of drugs according to the actual situation, which will make us feel comfortable and tide over the difficulties. However, once we start importing drugs from outside, such as smoking marijuana or pure cocaine, the blood that was originally in a balanced state will release information under the influence of foreign drugs, so that the body will stop producing natural chemicals and rely on external supply.

The experiment is not finished yet. Alexander, Combs and Hardaway successfully proved that even the most powerful drug, if it affects the chance of satisfaction, mice will resist it. However, the three people still have a question: what about the addiction that has already formed? The three men tried to make mice in mouse paradise addicted to a substance, but they all failed. It is easy for people who disagree to retort, "All right! Rats enjoy the advanced facilities of five-star luxury hotels and can meet their sexual needs at any time. Of course, they are not addicted. But in the real world, human beings are more vulnerable and may start taking drugs at the low tide of their lives. Once they are addicted, they can't stop. The process of withdrawal is quite painful, and addiction recurs, almost without exception.

Alexander's research means that addiction can actually be controlled through free will. Rats and humans can quit smoking successfully without any problems. If you can't let it go, it's not because some substances are irresistible, but because animals find that there is no better choice than chronic self-destruction in a specific environment. Alexander's so-called addiction is a strategy adopted to cope with lifestyle. All artificially constructed strategies can be changed through education and persuasion. Whether it is addictive or not, we can choose.

It is not difficult to find evidence to refute the experimental results of Mouse Paradise. Rich people who can meet all kinds of needs are often drug addicts. There is evidence that continuous exposure to opioids or cocaine does cause obvious changes in the brain, which leads to the loss of free will. Alexander has his own explanation. Rich people are also subject to social norms and conflicts like ordinary people; The brain changes shown by brain tomography can only prove that there is indeed a correlation, not a causal relationship.