Coolest thing(s) from your highschool or college psychology class?

February 17, 2006 7:32 PM

What was your favorite psych class demonstration or experiment from high school or college? What things did the instructor do to make the class fun or interesting for you?

I'm teaching an introductory psychology class next semester and am trying to brainstorm compelling psych demonstrations for my students. Whether it's optical illusions or thought experiments, or whatever else, as long as it engages or 'hooks' the students into being involved in the class, that's what I'm looking for. Also, any psychology jokes or fun elements I can use in class would be appreciated. Thanks!

posted by skechada to Education (22 answers total)

Well, not a general psych class, but a Human Sexuality class. The professor brought in a mtf and a ftm volunteer to talk about some of their experiences.

Most people couldn't tell that the ftm was born with female genitalia, but most people could tell that the mtf was born with external genitalia.

If you can outline some of the core ideas that you want to impart, perhaps it will make it easier to narrow down the kind of demonstration that would be the most effective. Optical illusions are great, but if you don't end up discussing how various (and physically disparate) parts of the brain work togather to give the sensation of vision, then while it (optical illusions) is a hook, the students may very well be disatisfied...
posted by PurplePorpoise at 7:50 PM on February 17, 2006

While not necessarily inspriring/amazing, my high school psych class did this really powerful relaxation exercise once that involved tensing and relaxing all of the muscles in our body in a dark, quiet room, starting with our toes/feet and eventually putting many of us to sleep. No recollection what field of psychology this applied to, however, or how we tied it in with class.
posted by mdonley at 7:51 PM on February 17, 2006

This change blindness video did a number on my class the first time we saw it. And this McGurk effect video still freaks me out.
posted by pealco at 8:02 PM on February 17, 2006

By the way, with the change blindness video, tell your kids to concentrate on counting how many times the ball bounces on the floor. It won't work if they just watch it passively.
posted by pealco at 8:03 PM on February 17, 2006

Teacher pulls out some white posterboard. On it, there are words of colors (red, yellow, green, etc) that aren't written in the same colors they spell (e.g. "red" is spelled in the color green, "yellow" is spelled in the color blue, "green" is spelled in the color red). Now ask the students to tell you, as fast as they can, what colors are printed on the board. Not the words! The colors! (e.g. if you see the word "red" printed in green lettering, the correct answer is green). My brain, at least, would halt several times as it tried to reconsile the dichotomy between the spelled word and the color of the letters.
posted by frogan at 8:15 PM on February 17, 2006

You will have to be more specific, but some of the ones I remember from my class (this was 7 years ago now, they must have been good) were:

the ever-ascending scale (and the descending counterpart)

examples of strong emotions (disgust) - he wore a (new) toilet plunger on his head, ate off of a (new) flyswatter, and drank out of something else usually associated with disgusting.

Stroop test, of course

though this is after that class, don't forget the basketball video

posted by whatzit at 8:16 PM on February 17, 2006

On post: frogan's post describes the Stroop test.
posted by whatzit at 8:17 PM on February 17, 2006

On post: frogan's post describes the Stroop test.

I had no idea it actually had a name. ;-)
posted by frogan at 9:04 PM on February 17, 2006

I liked how my high school psych teacher, counter to school policy, announced that "seating charts be damned" and we could sit anywhere wanted -- and then pointed out two weeks later that we were all pretty much sitting in the same spot each day anyway and had settled into that routine more quickly than classes with mandatory seating charts. (A demonstration of pecking order, I guess.)
posted by RavinDave at 9:18 PM on February 17, 2006

We had these signs affixed to our foreheads, something like "Important person", "Clown", "Smart" etc, and we had to treat the person wearing that the way we would treat someone with that characteristic. The twist was we didn't know what was on our own forehead. This demonstrated to me that the change in behaviour is sometimes because of other people. (This class was 20 years ago). I came out of the discussion feeling important, the guy next to me was the clown and had given up trying to contribute and was just making jokes.
posted by b33j at 10:11 PM on February 17, 2006

"Ok, I'm going to give you a word, your homework assignment is to forget I gave you this word over the weekend."



"Boobies."
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:20 PM on February 17, 2006

My brother teaches college psych and sometimes uses the Monty Hall problem as a demonstration of the unreliability of common sense.

Unfortunately for some students the exercise turns into a demonstration of holding on to a supposed fact long after it has been disproved rationally. A teachable moment, I suppose, but I don't know if you want to get into it that deep.
posted by tkolar at 12:20 AM on February 18, 2006

In social psychology in high school, my teacher wrote the number 107 on the board. He said "Your homework for tonight is to forget this number."

That was 10 years ago.
posted by knave at 1:59 AM on February 18, 2006

No Psych but incredibly powerful in Medical ethics. I'm sure everyone knows this now due to the fierce abortion debates raging in the US but being presented with the history of female multigravid patient A on her 11th (?) pregnanacy, with all of the awfully disabled previous births detailed. Question: How would you counsel this patient?
Class voted for abortion and annihilated Beethoven.
posted by Wilder at 3:05 AM on February 18, 2006

Jr. High: The teacher stood outside the class next to the doorway between classes as students switched rooms. A month or two later he stood next to a door one room down the hall. About half the class walked into the wrong room. Lesson = schema.
posted by raaka at 4:17 AM on February 18, 2006

I participated in an experiment in Psych 101 in which I wore headphones that slightly delayed the sound coming into my ears. I was to recite "Mary had a little lamb" while wearing them, and that tiny delay was incredibly disorienting. This experiment is mentioned on this page.
posted by olecranon at 8:58 AM on February 18, 2006

Way simple college class Psych 101 example:
My professor brought in a jar of Country Time Lemonade Mix, and dished out a tablespoon or so into a small dixie cup for everyone.

She'd ring her cell phone, and instruct us to lick our finger, dab in powder, lick finger again.

Cell phone ring, finger lick, etc.

After 10-15 times, she instructed us to do nothing when we heard the cell phone ring, and see if we started to salivate.

Thus, we were Pavlov's dogs. Conditioned response/stimuli. Hurray.
posted by disillusioned at 9:00 AM on February 18, 2006

I had a professor bring in his own children, ages 4-ish and 7-ish, to demonstrate some of Piaget's developmental theories. I remember the conservation of mass/volume demo most clearly; the 4 yr old couldn't begin to do it, the 7 yr old didn't even have to think about it.
posted by donnagirl at 10:42 AM on February 18, 2006

I grew increasingly irritated in my Psychology 101 class as I realized it was only about naming behaviors, not solving problems, but one thing of value I took away was when the professor drew a circle of little arrows all pointing in the same clockwise direction and said this was a Neurotic.
posted by Rash at 10:54 AM on February 18, 2006

My logic professor drank a can of Coke every day throughout the semester. On the last day of class, after summarizing what we had learned about reasoning, truth tables, and the whole "If all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man....", proceded to crack open his Coke, whip out a glass, and pour a cold beer from the Coke can. Then he chugged it, and walked out of the class. Classic!
posted by jasondigitized at 7:57 PM on February 18, 2006

One of my intro to psych professors did a food experiment. She blindfolded a student and had them drink milked dyed with blue food coloring; it looked gray. The bread had green spots from food coloring, so it looked like mold. Same for the bologna and cheese on the bread - blue and green food coloring to look like mold. I also think there was a hot dog injected with some red food coloring (or some sort of meat, so it looked 'raw' but was cooked). The professor had the test student take a bite of everything and then drink some of the milk.

The test student threw up when the blindfold was removed and she saw the food.
posted by schnee at 10:43 AM on February 19, 2006

In my high school psych class, we actually got to bring kids to school for the day. You could bring a younger sibling, cousin, or any child you knew, (obviously the parents had to sign a permission form). We then did some interesting experiments to assess their cognitive development. Nothing too taxing of course.
posted by katyggls at 5:12 PM on February 21, 2006