What drives our actions? What are the good reasons? Why do we do this or that? In an attempt to understand the motives of their own and others' actions, psychologists write books, successfully defend dissertations and conduct motivational trainings. And, nevertheless, we remain completely unaware of the principles of action of our mind and its incentives for these actions.
In the twentieth century, in order to penetrate the secrets of our perception of reality and the motivation of behavior, scientists resorted to psychological experiments, the results of which radically changed the idea of human behavior. Many of these experiments can hardly be called humane and ethical, but what scientists do not go for the sake of science. We bring to your attention some classic experiments that can, if not completely change your idea of yourself, then expand it - for sure.
We are all capable of suppressing and obeying
Before you is an experiment that has confirmed that under certain social conditions, even people who were previously considered psychologically adequate are able to show aggression towards their own comrades, who, in turn, become weak-willed victims. This experiment was conducted at Stanford University by psychologist Phillip Zimbardo. The original goal was very innocent - to investigate the behavior of people who have fallen into unfamiliar conditions. For this, a "prison" was created in the basement of the university, and the student volunteers were divided into "guards" and "prisoners." But the experiment, designed for two weeks, had to be stopped after 6 days - so much the participants on both sides got used to their roles.
Recall that all the volunteers were mentally healthy and balanced, but literally from the very first days of the experiment, the "guards" began to behave aggressively towards the "prisoners", beat and humiliated them in every possible way, and their aggression grew at a cosmic speed, and the experiment came out under control. Fearing not only for safety, but also for the life of the "prisoners" who also accepted the proposed conditions so much that they completely obeyed the sadistic guards, Zimbardo stopped the study.
Promotional video:
We do not pay attention to what we face nose to nose
Can you describe in detail the people you come across on your way to work? And in general, do you notice what is happening around? “Of course,” you say, but hold back your first urge to say “Yes”. We will give you an example that refutes your presumptuous statement. This experience was conducted on the Harvard campus in 1998. The purpose of the experiment was to study how real a person is aware of the surrounding reality. A "dummy" passer-by approached the students hurrying to the lecture and asked, for example, the classic "How to get to the library?"
At that moment, when the students began to explain the way to the stray, the workers carried a door between them, which separated the conversation for a couple of seconds. During these couple of seconds, the actor, who portrayed the idiot-passer-by, was changed to another, absolutely different from the "previous instance": he differed in height, physique, clothes, hair color, not to mention eye color. But more than 60 percent of those participating in the experiment did not notice the substitution and continued to tell how to find this library. This simple experience has demonstrated how much we, shall we say, selectively notice the details of the world around us.
We can be successful if we can do it
Remember the Stanford Experiment we talked about at the beginning of our article? It seems that this university simply specialized in "sadistic" experiments on human nature. In the same Stanford, the so-called "Marshmallow test" was carried out. This time, the participants in the experiment were children of 4 and 5 years old. The purpose of the experiment is to reveal the ability to resist the momentary temptation in favor of self-discipline and subsequent reward. The children were left alone in the room with a plate of marshmallows. It was stipulated that marshmallows can be eaten at any time, but those who wait for the return of adults will receive two instead of one serving.
At the beginning of the experiment, all the children claimed that they would wait and get two marshmallows, but in the end some could not resist and ate sweets. But out of 600 children who were tortured, that is, we wanted to say, who participated in the experiment, the majority still waited for adults and received a well-deserved double portion of marshmallows. It turned out to be more difficult to resist those children who did not take their eyes off the longed-for "tasty treat", those who closed their eyes, turned away or in every possible way distracted from the tempting plate, withstood the prescribed 15 minutes. By the way, children who were able to wait were less prone to obesity, smoking and drug use in the future, and were also more successful as adults.
We can blindly obey authority
Each person has their own beliefs and moral principles. They are like fuses, but sometimes these principles and settings, like fuses, break under the pressure of force. An example of this is a very cruel experiment by the psychologist at Yale University Stanley Milgram. In 1961, he conducted research to find out how far decent people who are absolutely not prone to violence in ordinary life can go, obeying those who have power over them, if they order them to do something that previously seemed monstrous to them, and harm other people. … The purpose of the experiment is to explore the deep inner conflict between moral convictions and the need to submit to authority.
Two people were selected to participate, one of whom played the role of a "teacher" and the other as a "student". The participants were taken to different rooms. The meaning of the experience was that when a student incorrectly answered a question asked by the teacher, the latter passed a discharge of current through it. In fact, the student did not experience any electric shock. But the teacher did not know about this, and heard only pre-recorded cries of pain. If the teacher tried to stop the cruel "exam", the experiment leader forbade him to stop and forced him to continue the painful process.
The results were amazing: 65% of the participants, despite all their moral anguish and protests, brought the current discharge to 450 volts, punishing their students. Is it justifiable for them to do it under pressure? Is there an explanation for this blind submission to someone else's will? The results of the experiment confirm that a person who is caring and patient with loved ones, at the same time under certain pressure, can be absolutely cruel towards people who are not included in his inner circle.
A cookie as a symbol of power
Here is another, seemingly completely harmless experiment, as a result of which one can draw an impartial conclusion for a person: power spoils people. This simple experiment provides psychological confirmation that people in power sometimes treat others with disrespect and with unreasonable superiority. During the study, three students had to write a common work, while two of them had to do the work, and the third one had to evaluate it and solve the issue of payment.
During work, students were brought a plate with five cookies. The latter always remained on the plate, but the "boss" always managed to eat one more cookie. And he did it impudently and carelessly. Thus, when one of the participants in the experiment is given power, they begin to behave in an inappropriate way. Sadly, this experience proves that it is in each of us.
We are only loyal to our social group
This experiment involved two groups of adolescents who were vacationing in a summer camp: the team "Orlov" and "Snake". Initially, the children did not know that they were not alone, and individually had a great time at the camp. But when the teams united, problems began: recriminations, competition, conflicts that were constantly increasing. This experiment proves that we, as a rule, are only loyal to our social group, but very prone to intergroup conflicts.
We are self-deceiving
The next experiment confirms the fact that it is human nature to deceive himself, finding justification for even the most senseless of his actions. Participants were asked to do uninteresting and unnecessary work for a certain period of time, for which they were paid between $ 1.5 and $ 20. And upon completion of the work, they had to tell those who were waiting for their turn that the task was very exciting.
Those who earned 20 dollars talked about the work done rather sluggishly, those who received only one and a half dollars, in order to justify themselves and not feel like losers, were very convincing and painted in colors how interesting and fun they were. Thus, we can conclude: we often engage in self-deception, as if it will make the world be more harmonious and joyful.
Stereotypes are everything
Of course, even the thought that we are subject to stereotypes is unpleasant to all of us, and we do our best to get rid of them and convince ourselves and the world of our own originality and creativity, but a simple experiment proves the opposite. A group of young people were asked to name all the words related to old age that they can remember. After half an hour of talking about helplessness, weakness, illness, etc. test participants walked along the corridor with a shuffling gait and much slower than those who spoke of youth.