Psych Studies Extension Project C

I have participated in three research projects for my psychology 101 class, all of which are very interesting. The first study I participated in was about half an hour long, separated into two parts. In the first half of the study, I went to a room along with two other participants and we watched a short video and were told to focus on the people walking by in white T-shirts. The study was about memory retention and focus, as while we were watching the people in white shirts, the man in the video stealing someone’s backpack went unnoticed to me. We were then told details of the video afterwards, and the following day we took an online quiz of what occurred in the video. My participation was helpful towards the study because they wanted to know more about what the average person notices and remembers, and if they remember false information as being true. I feel as though I was an average study participate who gave solid, predictable results.

The second study was about violent criminals in the courtroom. I served as part of a mock-jury and answered questions on whether I thought someone was truly guilty or not. Once I was debriefed after the study, it turned out that I was being tested on my stereotypes of the types of crime men versus women are more likely to commit. I was told about a man that committed murder in a more passive way (poison) rather than a more aggressive way (strangulation). The theory is that most people would associate more passive crimes with women, and more aggressive crimes with men. If a man committed a passive crime or a women committed an aggressive crime, then a jury hypothetically associates them with being less guilty. I feel like my participation gave opposite results, because even though the man committed a passive murder, I still said that he was guilty and that I would be afraid of him.

The third study was also about memory, where I watched a short ten minute video and then took a quiz about recalling the information from the video. I then took a quiz the next day recalling the same information. I feel like I was a solid participant on this, as I gave predictable results again.