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A social experiment is a method of psychological or sociological research that observes people's reactions to certain situations or events.
The experiment depends on a particular social approach where the main source of information is the participants' point of view and knowledge.
[5] Field social experiments had proved to be efficient as they reflect real life due to their natural setting.
[7] Social experiments began in the United States as a test of the negative income tax concept in the late 1960s and since then have been conducted on all the populated continents.
[8][page needed] During the 1970s, criticism of the ethics and accusations of gender and racial bias led to a reassessment of both the field of social psychology and the conducted experiments.
[9] Social experimentation has raised many ethical concerns, due to its manipulation of large population groups, often without the consent or knowledge of the subjects.
[10] In some instances, social experimentation has been staged unknowingly to the viewer to promote the image of the individual or for the pure purpose of generating controversy.
[12] Based on the murder of Kitty Genovese outside her home, The New York Times stated that there were 38 witnesses who either saw or heard the fatal stabbing take place, and not a single person came to her aid.
Although this number was proven to be exaggerated, this murder was coined "bystander apathy" by social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley in 1968.
[13] For their experiment, Latané and Darley[13] tried to replicate the Genovese slaying by having participants aware of each other but unable to communicate directly.
Two reasons were offered by Latané and Darley: first is the diffusion of responsibility, and second is pluralistic ignorance or the mentality that if nobody else is helping, then I am not needed as well.
Research on bystander apathy by psychologist Kyle Thomas et al. found that people's decisions to help are influenced by their level of knowledge.
[16] Prior to the program, the preschool and control groups were equivalent in measures of intellectual performance and demographic characteristics.
[20] It is designed to target poverty by providing cash payments to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic visits, and nutrition support.
The experiment was conducted at Stanford University on 14–20 August 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo using college students.
[25] It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research[26] and was of interest to both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners.
Sherif's experimental study of the auto-kinetic movement demonstrated how mental evaluation norms were created by human beings.
This series of experiments, begun in Connecticut and concluded in Oklahoma, took boys from intact middle-class families, who were carefully screened to be psychologically normal, delivered them to a summer camp setting (with researchers doubling as counselors), and created social groups that came into conflict with each other.
[30] The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a study conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel on delayed gratification in the early 1970s.
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
However, his involvement started in 1928 after he was invited by George Pennock, the assistant works manager for the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric.
[35] Several conclusions were made after the experiments finished: The halo effect was first developed and empirically examined by an American psychologist named Edward Thorndike in his 1920 piece "A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings".
[38] The findings of the experiment revealed that a significant portion of participants continued to administer shocks despite their discomfort, showcasing the power of authority in influencing human behavior.
These platforms provide a versatile and accessible means of reaching a broader audience, enabling the performance of social experiments beyond the constraints of traditional laboratory settings.