This one will share some interesting, informative, and meaningful stories. These stories are largely derived from Lauren Slater's The Greatest Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century.
Lauren Slater holds a M.A. in Psychology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Boston University, but teaches "Creative Writing in Nonfiction Literature" at the university. The english version of the title of her "The Greatest Psychological Experiment of the 20th Century" is literally translated as "Opening skinner's Box: The Great Psychological Experiment of the 20th Century," and it is clear that there is a story of marketing planning behind the name of the Chinese edition that catches the reader's eye. The book tells about 10 famous psychological experiments, but it is certainly an exaggeration to say that it is the "greatest of the 20th century", or whether the original English text is suitable for the actual situation.
There is an interesting story in the preface to the book. When the author was 14 years old, she raised a small raccoon that had not yet opened her eyes, thinking that according to the "imprint effect" this raccoon would imitate her behavior, and as a result, her life habits became more and more like this raccoon, like to go out at night, use her hands to catch fish in the pond, and even the dark circles under her eyes became more and more obvious. In fact, the American psychologist Winthrop Kellogg did an experiment in raising a newborn chimpanzee with a newborn son, which lasted 9 months and then had to be discontinued because his son was acting more and more like a chimpanzee. These two experiments, or stories, may reveal the truth that human imitation is probably the strongest of all species, and that man can only become human in human society.
When it comes to imitation in infancy, it may be useful to expand it. Tarzan of the Apes was probably inspired by the "Aveyron Boy", a naked wild-like boy found in the forested region of southern France in the 1790s. In 1920, two girls were found in a wolf's den in a small town northeast of Kolkata, India, named Kamala and Amara respectively, who could no longer learn like human infants and young children. On January 19, 2007, the Times reported that a woman living in the wild was found in Cambodia, who was said to have been accidentally lost in childhood, and also lived like a beast, did not understand human language, and had a habit of day and night.
Chapter 1 of the book tells Skinner's story. The chapter begins by mentioning that Skinner had kept his infant daughter in a box he had designed for two years, causing her to suffer from mental illness as an adult and eventually shoot herself at the age of 31, and later in the narrative pointing out that this was not the case, and that the daughter who was kept in the box was called Deborah, who is still alive and has not suffered from mental illness. Skinner is probably one of the most controversial psychologists, because he is a representative of the behaviorist school and has a radical view: he believes that human beings do not have free will, and that human behavior is only the result of reinforcement. His book Walden II is considered a declaration of authoritarianism, and Beyond Liberty and Dignity by critics as "telling us how to tame human beings in the way we tame dogs." Human dignity was challenged, so he was attacked, a phenomenon that has appeared more than once in human history, such as the emergence of the "heliocentric theory" has been strongly attacked (religion is only one reason), and Darwin's theory of evolution is still under attack today.
In Skinner's chapter, there is a short story in which the author and husband use Skinner's behaviorist approach to make their babies learn to sleep honestly, otherwise the babies will always cry and make adults physically and mentally exhausted. This again involves a controversial topic, whether the baby should cry and hug, or implement the "cry immunity method" so that it can learn to cry and sleep when it is tired. Before Harry Harlow, narrated in chapter 6, published his famous monkey experiment, the public generally believed in an activist approach, and Harlow's experiment changed perception.
Harlow's undergraduate and graduate students studied slowly with Stanford University's prominent IQ researcher, and one of his phD students was the famous humanistic psychologist Maslow. Interestingly, the author calls harlow "Ang Lee of psychology", is this a recognition of Ang Lee or an appreciation of Harlow? No, it can be guessed from the narrative that follows, and it is likely that the author is expressing sarcasm, mocking Harlow's penchant for "sensationalism".
Another interesting story is that Harry Harlow was originally called Harry Israel, and he behaved badly, and he didn't know what to do, so he pleaded with his mentor Terman, who could not resist his pleading and suggested that he change the surname "Israel", which led to "Harry Harlow".
Why did Harlow's monkey experiment have such a huge impact? In a word, this experiment proves the power of love. In his experiments, the young monkeys were separated from the mother, and the young monkeys could contact two devices that replaced the mother, that is, the surrogate mother, one was the surrogate mother made of wire who could provide milk on a regular basis, and the other was the surrogate mother made of plush and could not provide milk, according to the previous theory, the young monkeys should like to stay with the previous surrogate mother, because the wire surrogate mother met the survival needs, but the fact is surprising, the young monkey prefers to stay with the plush surrogate mother. This reflects the importance of touch and touch to primate mammal pups. That's not all, after a few years these young monkeys have grown up, they have developed communication barriers, unable to fall in love and reproduce normally! It is not only about touching love, but also about movement and play. This is the experience gained from the tragedy of the monkey, and I hope that human parents do not make such mistakes.
The book is both experimental and storytelling, and is highly readable, but the author's female perspective has more personal emotional tendencies, which is a phenomenon that needs attention. Limited in space, the experiments and stories in other chapters are only briefly summarized, and if there are many people who like this article, then introduce them again.
Chapter 2 deals with Mirgram's electric shock experiments. Milgram is a social psychologist who has done many interesting experiments, such as testing the "small world" theory (the six-degree separation theory), such as driving different cars stuck in front of red lights to see how long the car behind can endure before starting to honk the horn - the more expensive the car, the longer other owners endure. Electric shock experiments have proved the influence of authority, and if someone clearly holds the power to give orders, others will mostly give up thinking and blindly obey. Interestingly, the "hero" of the experiment who openly rebelled against the experimenter's order to continue to increase the voltage later became a good soldier, and a person who was very obedient in the experiment later became a maverick homosexual (before the experiment did not dare to disclose his identity).
Chapter 3 tells the story of David Rosenham. In 1972, Rosenhan, who had just received a double degree in psychology and law, found that many people used mental illness as an excuse to avoid conscription, so he found 8 friends to do an experiment: pretending to be a mentally ill person to go to the hospital. Unexpectedly, it would be difficult to turn back, and 9 people were arrested and put into a mental hospital.
Chapter 4 tells the story of the bystander effect. In 1964, a horrific crime occurred in New York, a professional woman returning from night shift was stabbed by gangsters, and for 35 minutes, Jenovese repeatedly called for help, 38 people looked through the window but did not help, and finally it was too late to call the police. Initially the case was only reported in the New York Times in four lines, but the details of the bystanders were later reported, causing an uproar, and the citizens of the Lighthouse Nation roared like our domestic keyboard warriors: the list of bystanders should be published and punished. Psychologists Dali and Laden revealed the mystery with a series of experiments.
Chapter 5 tells the story of cognitive dissonance, explaining why some people make mistakes again and again, do not change their mistakes, and become more serious.
Chapter 7 tells the story of the psychologist Alexander, who used experiments to show that addiction is more affected by psychological than physiological factors.
Chapter 8 tells the story of the memory psychologist Lovest, whose memories are constructed and who are easily suggested and make up false memories out of nothing.
Chapter 9 deals with the sea snail experiment by medical professor Kandel, which found chemicals that are closely related to long-term memory.
Chapter 10 tells the story of leukectomy, a procedure that won a medical scientist a Nobel Prize but is still criticized to this day.
What stories are you interested in?