Studies to Know

MIT Study

• Most participants closest friends in the apartment complex were people who lived in the same building

• People were more likely to be friends with people who live near them compared to people who don’t live near them

• Results showed that the importance of proximity

Telephone Study

Male participants were randomly assigned to female participants they did not know

• Participants were friendlier to the woman on the phone thus the female partners were rated as more confident resulting in the participants rating the partner more positively

• self-fulfilling prophecy

Speed Dating Study

• Study demonstrated the psychological differences between being the approacher or the approachee in a dating scenario

• Men as the approacher- women were more selective and reported lower levels of romantic desire

• Women as the approacher- women identified more prospective mates, were not pickier than the men, and reported more chemistry

Ainsworth Study

Secure attachment

• Child cried and showed signs of distress when parent leaves and happy upon their return

• Tend to find it easy in navigating relationships

Avoidant attachment

• Child didn't react to parents leaving or returning; desire to be close to caregiver but don't rely on it

• Uncomfortable being close to others and difficulty with trust; will avoid relationships

Anxious/ambivalent attachment

• They were upset before and after return; mixture of anger and indifference

• Worry in others feelings about them but want these relationships

Car Accident Carol Marcy Study

• Participants were told that Carol Marcy was injured in a car accident resulting in her falling behind and needing help from another student or she will have to drop the course

• Conditions

  • Empathy

    • Low Empathy- participants were told to be objective and disregard Carols’ feelings

    • High Empathy- participants were told to put themselves in Carols’ shoes

• Cost

  • Low Cost- Carol wouldn't be coming to class in the low cost condition

  • High Cost- they were reminded that she was coming back to class and would see them

Results

• People who felt more empathy (in the high empathy condition) agreed to help more than those with low empathy (in the low empathy condition)

• For people in the high empathy condition, regardless of high or low cost associated, they agreed to help

• For people in the low empathy condition, people agreed to help in the high cost condition more than the low cost condition (concerns of social exchange are present; helped when it was in their interest to do so)

Good Samaritan Study

• seminary students were asked to walk to a building to make a speech on the Good Samaritan and in the midst they passed a man lying unconscious

• some were instructed that they needed to rush

• for those were not rushed, most of them helped the man

• for those in a hurry, few stopped to help him and many didn’t notice him

• effects of distraction on noticing an emergency

Bobo Doll Study

• Adult demonstrate aggressive behavior in front of the children and tested to see

  what the kids would do when playing with the doll

• The children mimicked the behavior they saw, so when the adult was aggressive

  with the doll the children were also aggressive with the doll

• When the adult did not use aggressive behavior, they did not exhibit aggressive

  behavior

• social-cognitive learning

Religious Stories of Violence Study

• When the violent story was attributed to the Bible where God brought upon the violence, participants were more likely to engage in aggressive behavior afterwards

• These results were the same for religious and non-religious individuals

Weapons Effect Study

• insulted students and afterwards leaving some of those students in a room

  where a gun was lying around

• the gun triggered an aggressive response due to participants being primed

  from frustration and anger

Violent Video Games Study

IV1: video game content (20 minutes of play)

• Violent vs. nonviolent

IV2: rumination

• Rumination (“In the next 24 hours, think about ways to improve your play”) vs. no rumination

DV: Aggression

• Measured 24 hours later using a competitive noise blast task

  • Winner can blast loser with pain noise through headphones

  • Controls the decibel level and duration of the noise blast

Results (men only)

• Those who played violent video games and ruminated were far more aggressive (24 hours later)

• Not really meaningful difference between the rest of the conditions

Implications

• Results are likely (in some ways) to generalize to the real world

  • Average play time more than 20 minutes (study was less than average)

  • Ruminate about play in a habitual manner (people who care about video games likely to think about their play)

Effects for women?

• Only saw effects for men

• Did not measure relational aggression (only aggression in one way (more physical aggression that was measured))

• Women may be socialized to care about video game performance, may be less likely to ruminate