I was mindlessly searching through my Facebook newsfeed and saw an article from Global News that caught my eye. It was a video about a female actor who was portraying a lost, intoxicated and alone female. The video was showing how men reacted to the “drunk” woman’s plight and it was a little bit disgusting to see the actions of some men. We have talked about this sort of thing in class before but seeing as my next few blogs will be about “New Age Research”, I wondered if there will ever be a place for this type of research in our everyday lives as up and coming psychologists. Should we allow people who may have never even taken a psychology or research methods class before to perform these types of experiments on regular society without the proper certification and authority from ethical boards? Will this type of psychological experimentation take over the laboratory settings that many of us have gone to school for and will continue to go to school for? If this type of video is so easy to do, then why do we put our time and money into doing it if anyone off the street can do it? The end of the video states that this is the true videos that they got from the experiment and that some others were too disgusting to show. I am not trying to say that the man at the end is untruthful when he says this (he may very well be telling the truth) but how are we to know for certain the validity of this test without seeing all the proper data? To be a bit of a devil’s advocate (and making up numbers), if they had 100 people coming up to this girl and the only negative videos are the ones they showed in the finished product (the rest of the videos in the sample show people helping this girl), does this mean that the general population can just draw conclusions based on this? I do not believe so but I think it is a safe estimation that a good majority of the population will take this as truth without even thinking twice about it. I would even go as far as saying that many will not even think about the cross cultural variation that occurs in our world and they will wrongly generalize the results of this “study” world wide.
As I wrap up this blog, I have had an epiphany as to why I put my time into studying in psychology. I do this so that I can think critically as I have in this blog and to be choosey in believing the stuff that I see on the internet. I also go to school so that I can help my friends and family do the same. Many people say not to believe anything they see on the internet. I just wonder how many average people take this to heart and practice what they preach.
What do you think? Will these social experiments help or hinder the field of psychology in the future?
The Weekly Blog 
Hi Koleton:
I think the internet has become a great place to find information quickly and efficiently. However, it does come with the issue of validity. Way too many people believe everything they read, see, watch and hear. They take these ‘studies’ to heart and will tell their friends and family about the results, believing them to be fact, then it spreads like wildfire and before you know it you have a large group of people believing something that may not necessarily be true.
As discussed in last week’s class I do think there is room for this type of ‘research’ in psychology today but it definitely has its flaws that should be taken into critical consideration. As stated in class, issues surrounding confidentiality and consent are big problems with performing these studies. I said before, and still believe, that making these videos of real, everyday occurrences without people’s knowledge is the only way to get accurate responses and is therefore permissible in my eyes.
However, since anyone can do these social experiments the credibility should always be checked. There should be a way to ensure that the videos have proof that the experiment was done legitimately and by people who actually know what they are doing in the field of research. However, the issues surrounding which clips to put into the video are tricky. Obviously you would only want to show the results favorable to the message you are searching for. In the case you mentioned above, they did not play any clips of men trying to help the woman. To be fair, they may not have captured anyone trying to help her but if they had they should have put it in the video or at least stated that the majority did not (if that in fact was the case).
I am not sure if we could eliminate this bias. But, I do think there is something to be said about social experiments and what they can show us.
The potential for something great is there but I think more research and time should be dedicated to ensuring a proper procedure. Unfortunately, we will probably always have to weed out the legitimate videos from the ‘home-movies’ but perhaps there is hope for this ‘new age research.’ For now, don’t believe everything the internet tells you.
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The thing about videos like this that I think is beneficial is the mere shock factor of it. Seeing truly is believing and when the average joe sees this video its not unlikely that it could open their mind and change their behavior. It is quite one thing to read a study about baboons, but nothing quite solidifies this theories and concepts like video evidence. I personally believe these types of social experiments could revolutionize qualitative research but as we all know it is very risky. The amount of flaws with these videos are very high. For example the very motivation for doing the research is messed up, these youtubers need views more than they need to create valid research, they have their own biased and selfish reasons for creating these studies. Also the female was at risk the entire time, it could have been traumatic for her to see how those men responded to her. And even the men being involved without consent, though it allowed a more realistic response (similar to the show WWYD) it is unethical to deceive them in such a way.
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I agree that these videos do have a shock factor but I fear for the stereotypes that may be formed by people when they see this. If a person with very little critical thinking skills sees this video and takes it at straight face value (all men treat drunk and vulnerable women like this), that person may think that all men are actually like this in reality. This may wrongly place all men in this category in her eyes which is not the right thing to do at all. There definitely needs to be revisions and monitoring of these social experiments in order to ensure that this sort of wrongful stereotyping does not occur.
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Hi Koleton,
I’ve coined a term for this type of social experimentation: “Guerilla Sociology”, based on the concept of Guerilla Theater (think about things like flashmobs and groups like Improv Everywhere). As you say, the methodology in these “experiments” is highly flawed and would be unlikely to be approved by any modern ethics board, much less survive any actual peer review at the publishing stage. Of course, the point of these displays is not to generate actionable data, but to evoke emotional responses in viewers. For that, they will obviously choose the most marketable responses (one way or another) to display for their audience, and allow the audience to reach their own conclusions.
I feel as though this sort of thing ought to be subject to lengthy disclaimers denouncing the scientific validity of the results produced, similar to how ads for pharmaceuticals are required to list potential side effects within their advertisements.
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I liked your blog this week! I think that with the example you gave of the intoxicated lady and the responses of men is useful in order to create awareness. Like you said you found this on your Facebook newsfeed, which shows that it can be found by anybody and not only in libraries or journals. You would hope that since it was posted by global news that it would be ethical, valid, and non-biased. However, there are many websites that are not good sources, but people believe what they post. I think that this is a downfall of online popular media studies that are posted for the public to see. We as university students are taught how to find scholarly articles that are reliable sources, whereas many individuals just believe whatever they read no matter where it is from. Overall, I think that posting these types of studies in a public media way is positive and negative. It can be helpful if the study is reliable and valid to give out messages, but if it is not reliable it can be spreading false information.
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