Randy Smith asked: > Does anyone have a tried-and-true activity that you use on the first >day of class >to get students interested and excited about the course? > Eliot Shimoff replied with a problem for students: > US Marine volunteers were deprived of water for 24 hours, and then > placed in a room with a water fountain. The catch was that whenever the > water >fountainwas operated, the person who pressed the button got a > brief electric >shock. Marines were placed in the room either alone or > in groups of three. The >students are then asked to predict which group > will drink the most -- Marines alone >or in groups of three. > > Most students (at least in my experience) agree that the Marines in > groups of three will drink more, which is correct. Now ask the > students to >explain why. > > Collect lots of suggestions -- e.g., one marine forces the others, or > they agreeto work as a team, or Marines are macho ... > > Now admit that you misrepresented the experiment in only one minor way; > the subjectswere rats, not US Marines. (In fact, it's a standard > comparative >social psyc facilitation experiment!) Will the students > change their hypotheses? > Randy Smith then asked: > Can you provide the reference for this study? Although Eliot provided some refs, he wasn't sure of the exact source. I don’t know one for rats, but my colleague Michael Milburn makes a similar point with cockroaches. Here's the ref: AU: Zajonc,-Robert-B.; Heingartner,-Alexander; Herman,-Edward-M. TI: Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach. SO: Journal-of-Personality-and-Social-Psychology. 1969; 13(2): 83-92 AB: Observed maze and runway performance of cockroaches under solitary and social conditions in an attempt to test the drive theory of social facilitation. In Exp. I, 72 adult female cockroaches (Blatta orientalis) were observed under 2 types of social treatments, coaction and audience. In both treatments maze performance was impaired while runway performance was facilitated when compared to performance of Ss in solitary conditions. In Exp. II, the effects of reduced presence on conspecifics on 180 female Blatta orientalis were investigated. Exp. I generated results that were in support of the hypothesis that the mere presence of conspecifics is a source of general arousal that enhances the emission of dominant responses. The results of Exp. II suggest that partial presence of conspecifics may have distracting effects. (33 ref.) ((c) 1999 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved) > -- dennis l. byrnes Psychology Department University of Massachusetts at Boston Boston, MA 02125-3393 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: (617)287-6380 FAX: (617)287-6336
