social psychology experiments ap psych

Social Psychology Experiments: 10 Of The Most Famous Studies

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. 

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things.

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” –Philip Zimbardo

Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil ), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things.

The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon.

1. Social Psychology Experiments: The Halo Effect

The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment.

It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

It is sometimes called the “what is beautiful is good” principle, or the “physical attractiveness stereotype”.

It is called the halo effect because a halo was often used in religious art to show that a person is good.

2. Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs in their mind.

People resolve this discomfort by changing their thoughts to align with one of conflicting beliefs and rejecting the other.

The study provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do.

3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology experiment on how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

It shows how groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries — and then come into conflict with each other.

For example, each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

One of the reasons the became so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

4. Social Psychology Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was run to find out how people would react to being made a prisoner or prison guard.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who led the Stanford prison experiment, thought ordinary, healthy people would come to behave cruelly, like prison guards, if they were put in that situation, even if it was against their personality.

It has since become a classic social psychology experiment, studied by generations of students and recently coming under a lot of criticism.

5. The Milgram Social Psychology Experiment

The Milgram experiment , led by the well-known psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, aimed to test people’s obedience to authority.

The results of Milgram’s social psychology experiment, sometimes known as the Milgram obedience study, continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial.

The Milgram experiment discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine.

Fully 63 percent of the participants continued administering what appeared like electric shocks to another person while they screamed in agony, begged to stop and eventually fell silent — just because they were told to.

6. The False Consensus Effect

The false consensus effect is a famous social psychological finding that people tend to assume that others agree with them.

It could apply to opinions, values, beliefs or behaviours, but people assume others think and act in the same way as they do.

It is hard for many people to believe the false consensus effect exists because they quite naturally believe they are good ‘intuitive psychologists’, thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people’s attitudes and behaviours.

In reality, people show a number of predictable biases, such as the false consensus effect, when estimating other people’s behaviour and its causes.

7. Social Psychology Experiments: Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory helps to explain why people’s behaviour in groups is fascinating and sometimes disturbing.

People gain part of their self from the groups they belong to and that is at the heart of social identity theory.

The famous theory explains why as soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups.

8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most

Negotiation is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it.

Negotiation doesn’t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone.

In a classic, award-winning series of social psychology experiments, Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss investigated two central factors in negotiation: how we communicate with each other and how we use threats.

9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility

The bystander effect in social psychology is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency.

The bystander effect social psychology experiments are mentioned in every psychology textbook and often dubbed ‘seminal’.

This famous social psychology experiment on the bystander effect was inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

It found that in some circumstances, the presence of others inhibits people’s helping behaviours — partly because of a phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility.

10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

The Asch conformity experiments — some of the most famous every done — were a series of social psychology experiments carried out by noted psychologist Solomon Asch.

The Asch conformity experiment reveals how strongly a person’s opinions are affected by people around them.

In fact, the Asch conformity experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others.

Author: Dr Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

Join the free PsyBlog mailing list. No spam, ever.

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AP Psychology : Social Psychology

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for ap psychology, all ap psychology resources, example questions, example question #1 : ap psychology.

The reduction of a sense of responsibility when individuals are in a group is called __________ .

selective attention

displacement

psychodynamic

diffusion of responsibility

the bystander effect

Members of a group will often feel less inclined to do something about a situation; the larger the group, the less an individual will feel a sense of responsibility to take charge. This is called a "diffusion of responsibility" and is thought to be responsible for the "bystander effect", which describes the unwillingness to offer help if others are present and are also not offering help. The distinction is small, but important.

Example Question #1 : Social Psychology

Milgram's famous shock experiment demanded obedience from its participants and demonstrated the existence of what psychological phenomena? 

The power of authority

The power of motivation 

The power of peer pressure 

The power of social learning 

The power of reinforcement 

Even though many participants felt that they were causing a great deal of pain to the person that they were shocking, they continued to use higher voltage simply because the test administrater told them to. This experiment demonstrated the power that presumed authority has over people's actions and decisions. 

Which two factors are most closely related to the bystander effect?

Diffusion of responsibility and social influence

Diffusion of responsibility and in-group bias

Conformity and obedience

In-group bias and social influence

Persuasion and obedience

The bystander effect suggests that the more people who witness someone in distress, the less likely someone is to intervene. Diffusion of responsibility refers to the phenomenon such that when there are multiple people present, each individual feels less of a responsibility for the situation. Social influence refers to the effect that seeing other people not acting causes you to be less likely to act.

Example Question #2 : Ap Psychology

Which term describes the tendency for groups to make more extreme decisions than individuals?

Group polarization

Group harmonization

Group polarization occurs when a group makes a more extreme decision than its individual members would have made if acting on their own. 

Which of the following traits is NOT typical of people attracted to cults?

Belief in human perfection

Fear of change

Frustration with their current lives

Romantic ideas of utopia

Because joining a cult often requires a dramatic shift in one's behavior and philosophies, people who are reluctant to disrupt their own status quo are less likely to join a cult, no matter how enticing their recruiters' promises may be.

Which of the following factors will inhibit a person's desire to act altruistically?

All of these will inhibit altruistic behavior.

Ambiguity in a situation

Fear of exposing self to humiliation

Fear of exposing self to potential injury

Each factor listed introduces the possibility of harm to a potential actor, be it a minor inconvenience or a greater physical threat, making them more reluctant to aid someone else.

Example Question #2 : Social Psychology

An act of aggression that is designed to meet some end goal is an example of which phenomenon? 

Hostile aggression 

Confirmation bias 

Self-serving bias 

Instrumental aggression

Selfishness 

Instrumental aggression is an act of aggression that is designed to meet a particular goal. This act could be made at the individual or societal level. A good example would be particular wars in which countries fought over food, water, or other resources needed or wanted to maintain their society. This is different from hostile aggression, which could be random with no specific cause or end goal. 

Which of the following factors is most likely to cause an individual to conform their opinion to match that of a group?

The group's view contradicts to the religious beliefs of the individual

The presence of an authority figure, even if the authority figure does not give a personal opinion

None of these

The individual has not yet voiced their opinions, though others have been given a chance to speak

The topic in discussion bears personal meaning to the individual

Solomon Asch is most well-known for his social psychology studies on conformity. Individuals are most likely to conform when they are in a group. Social normative refers to the influence other people have on an individual that leads to conformity, driven by a desire to fit in. If an individual has not yet voiced their opinions, they are also more likely to conform to a group's view. Outside influences such as these have a major impact on conformity.

Which of the following does not increase deindividuation?

Diffused responsibility

Having personal ties to the victimized party

Large group size

Being provided with identical uniforms

Deindividuation is the process whereby individuals show a loss of restraint and individuality due to their being in a group. Having personal ties to a victimized party would decrease deindividuation, while all of the other answer choices facilitate "losing" oneself to a larger group identity. 

Which of the following examples describes social loafing?

Joey refuses to engage in social activities that seem elementary to him.

Johnny tries harder on an individual project than he does on a group project.

Judy tries very hard to impress her colleagues. 

Jacquie refuses to change her mind to conform to group ideals.

After meeting with NRA executives, Jaymes decides to support every person's right to bear arms.

Social loafing is a phenomenon whereby some people exert less effort when working in groups as opposed to when they are working individually. Obviously, the option describing Johnny doing exactly that is the best answer.

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AP Psychology Unit 9 Notes: Social Psychology

February 13, 2024.

Use these AP Psychology notes to prepare for your exam and review what you learned about Social Psychology. We’ll give you an overview of what happened in Unit 9, including key terms and people you should know for the test. These AP Psychology study notes should be used to supplement what you’re learning in your AP Psych class. More study strategies and expert tips can be found in our latest AP Psychology Test Prep Book .

AP Psychology: Unit 9 Summary

This social psychology unit addresses several important theories that influence how human beings behave in groups, and how group membership impacts our thinking and behavior. Some of the most well-known and influential psychological research studies are described and discussed in this unit.

Social psychology is a broad field devoted to studying the way that people relate to others. Our discussion will focus on the development and expression of attitudes, people’s attributions about their own behavior and that of others, the reasons why people engage in both antisocial and prosocial behavior, and how the presence and actions of others influence the way people behave.

A major influence on the first two areas we will discuss, attitude formation and attribution theory, is social cognition. This field applies many of the concepts you learned about in the field of cognition, such as memory and biases, to help explain how people think about themselves and others. The basic idea behind social cognition is that, as people go through their daily lives, they act like scientists, constantly gathering data and making predictions about what will happen next so that they can act accordingly.

Get ahead of the AP game! Our flexible, expert-led AP Psychology Review Course will help you build up your score by breaking down the exam.

Ap psychology: unit 9 key terms & people.

Below, we describe some of the Unit 9 key terms and people you should review ahead of the AP Psychology exam.

• Attitude: An attitude is a set of beliefs and feelings. We have attitudes about many different aspects of our environment such as groups of people, particular events, and places. Attitudes are evaluative, meaning that our feelings toward such things are necessarily positive or negative.
• Cognitive dissonance theory: Cognitive dissonance theory is based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors. When they do not, they experience unpleasant mental tension or dissonance.
• Compliance strategies: Often people use certain strategies to get others to comply with their wishes. Such compliance strategies have also been the focus of much psychological research. Suppose you need to borrow $20 from a friend. Would you be better off asking him or her for $20 right away, asking the friend first for $5 and then following up this request with another for the additional $15, or asking him or her for $100 and, after the friend refuses, asking for $20?
• Attribution theory: Attribution theory is another area of study within the field of social cognition. Attribution theory tries to explain how people determine the cause of what they observe. For instance, if your friend Charley told you he got a perfect score on his math test, you might find yourself thinking that Charley is very good at math.
• Fundamental attribution error: When looking at the behavior of others, people tend to overestimate the importance of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors. This tendency is known as the fundamental attribution error.
• Stereotypes: Stereotypes may be either negative or positive and can be applied to virtually any group of people (e.g., racial, ethnic, geographic). For instance, people often stereotype New Yorkers as pushy, unfriendly, and rude and Californians as easygoing and attractive.
• Prejudice: Prejudice is an undeserved, usually negative, attitude toward a group of people. Stereotyping can lead to prejudice when negative stereotypes (those rude New Yorkers) are applied uncritically to all members of a group (she is from New York, therefore she must be rude) and a negative attitude results.
• Discrimination: While prejudice is an attitude, discrimination involves an action. When one discriminates, one acts on one’s prejudices. If I dislike New Yorkers, I am prejudiced, but if I refuse to hire New Yorkers to work in my company, I am engaging in discrimination.
• Contact theory: One theory about how to reduce prejudice is known as the contact theory. The contact theory, as its name suggests, states that contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity, but only if the groups are made to work toward a goal that benefits all and necessitates the participation of all. Such a goal is called a superordinate goal.
• Social facilitation: A number of studies have illustrated that people perform tasks better in front of an audience than they do when they are alone. They yell louder, run faster, and reel in a fishing rod more quickly. This phenomenon, that the presence of others improves task performance, is known as social facilitation.
• Conformity: Conformity has been an area of much research as well. Conformity is the tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of others.
• Obedience studies: While conformity involves following a group without being explicitly told to do so, obedience studies have focused on participants’ willingness to do what another asks them to do.

• Norms: All groups have norms, rules about how group members should act.
• Group polarization: Group polarization is the tendency of a group to make more extreme decisions than the group members would make individually. Studies about group polarization usually have participants give their opinions individually, then group them to discuss their decisions, and then have the group make a decision.
• Groupthink: Groupthink, a term coined by Irving Janis, describes the tendency for some groups to make bad decisions. Groupthink occurs when group members suppress their reservations about the ideas supported by the group. As a result, a kind of false unanimity is encouraged, and flaws in the group’s decisions may be overlooked.
• Philip Zimbardo: One famous experiment that showed not only how such conditions can cause people to deindividuate but also the effect of roles and the situation in general, is Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment. Zimbardo assigned a group of Stanford students to either play the role of prison guard or prisoner. All were dressed in uniforms and the prisoners were assigned numbers. The prisoners were locked up in the basement of the psychology building, and the guards were put in charge of their treatment. The students took to their assigned roles perhaps too well, and the experiment had to be ended early because of the cruel treatment the guards were inflicting on the prisoners.

Next, test your AP Psychology Unit 9 knowledge using our free Key Terms Worksheets!

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Explains how people determine the cause of what they observe. Occurs when people overestimate the importance of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors

Attribution Theory

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Reciprocity Theory

Compliance Strategy

Based on experiments by Festinger and Carlsmith, the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors. When the do not, they experience unpleasant mental tension or dissonance

attribution theory

cognitive dissonance theory

reciprocity theory

compliance theory

One of the compliance strategies used when people think they ought to do something nice for someone who had done something nice for them.

attribution of reciprocity

compliance strategy/norms of reciprocity

Compliance strategy that suggest that suggests after people refuse a large request, they will look more favorably upon a follow up request that seem much more reasonable

foot in the door strategy

door in the face strategy

reciprocity strategy

Suggests that if you can get people to agree to a small request, they will become more likely to agree to a follow up request that is larger

festinger strategy

group think

Which of the follow are compliance strategies. Select all that apply

foot in the door

door in the face

norms of reciprocity

attribution

Conducted experiment about cognitive dissonance where participants performed a boring task and were then asked to lie and tell the next subject they enjoyed the task

Festinger and Carlsmith

Allport and Gordon

Abbott and Costello

Ren and Stimpy

Loss of self restraint that occurs when group members feel anonymous and aroused, doing things they were never do.

social loafing

deindividuation

group polarization

The tendency of a group's views to get stronger during group discussions, which may lead to more extreme decisions

group norms

Tendency for some groups to make bad decisions. Occurs when group members suppress their reservations about the ideas supported by the group

Where individuals do not put in as much effort when acting as part of a group as they do when acting alone.

Rules about how group members should act

obedience studies

social impairment

Studies that focus on participants' willingness to do what another asks them to do. Stanley Milgram's experiement is an example

social facilitation

The tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of others. Solomon Asch's study would be an example

attraction research

Being watched by others hurts performance when the task being observed is a difficult one rather than simple. Opposite effect is social facilitation

superordinate goal

People perform tasks better in front of an audience than they do when they are along.

ethnocentrisim

Social psychologists study what factors increase the chance that people will like one another

ethnocentrism

discrimination

Contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity if the groups are make to work toward a goal that benefits all and necessitates the participation of all.

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AP Psychology Practice Test: Social Psychology

This AP Psychology practice test covers social psychology. This section of the course focuses on group dynamics, attribution processes, interpersonal perception, conformity, compliance, attitudes, organizational behavior, cultural influences, and antisocial behavior. Continue your test prep right now with our free social psychology quiz.

Francesca’s favorable attitude toward water conservation began to change when she was asked to offer arguments opposing it in a public speaking class. Her attitude adjustment is best explained by what theory?

Kevin and Kristin have a fulfilling marital relationship because they often confide their deepest hopes and fears to each other. This best illustrates the value of:

When 12-year-old Devin saw an old woman lying on the sidewalk in discomfort, he prepared to offer help. When he noticed several adults walk past the woman, he concluded that the woman did not need any help. His reaction most clearly illustrates what social psychology term?

Children often believe their neighborhood is better than the other neighborhoods in their town. This best illustrates what social psychology concept?

Compared with individualistic cultures, people in collectivist cultures:

Jonas and Leif are below-average pool players. Eight other people stop to watch them play. What can we expect to occur?

What is social loafing?

In which situation described below would deindividuation least likely occur?

When is groupthink least likely to occur?

In which of the following situations is diffusion of responsibility least likely to occur?

Which of the following is least likely to reinforce prejudice?

Attraction research supports each of the following except:

Josh receives a phone call from a charity. They ask him to give a $250 donation. He immediately declines. The caller then asks whether he would be able to give $25. He agrees to the second request. This interaction sequence is known as the:

If Alicia wants to ask her dad for a new laptop, her best chances for success will be to ask when he is:

Someone comes to your door and asks you to put a small candidate campaign poster in your front yard. You agree to the request. Just two weeks later, that same person comes to your door with a huge campaign poster and asks to put it in your front yard. In all likelihood, you will agree to the second request. This illustrates what principle?

Research into television violence effects upon children makes frequent reference to whose classic work on modeling?

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Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Inspiration for psychology experiments is all around if you know where to look

Psychology experiments can run the gamut from simple to complex. Students are often expected to design—and sometimes perform—their own experiments, but finding great experiment ideas can be a little challenging. Fortunately, inspiration is all around if you know where to look—from your textbooks to the questions that you have about your own life.

Always discuss your idea with your instructor before beginning your experiment—particularly if your research involves human participants. (Note: You'll probably need to submit a proposal and get approval from your school's institutional review board.)

At a Glance

If you are looking for an idea for psychology experiments, start your search early and make sure you have the time you need. Doing background research, choosing an experimental design, and actually performing your experiment can be quite the process. Keep reading to find some great psychology experiment ideas that can serve as inspiration. You can then find ways to adapt these ideas for your own assignments.

15 Ideas for Psychology Experiments

Most of these experiments can be performed easily at home or at school. That said, you will need to find out if you have to get approval from your teacher or from an institutional review board before getting started.

The following are some questions you could attempt to answer as part of a psychological experiment:

• Are people really able to "feel like someone is watching" them ? Have some participants sit alone in a room and have them note when they feel as if they are being watched. Then, see how those results line up to your own record of when participants were actually being observed.
• Can certain colors improve learning ? You may have heard teachers or students claim that printing text on green paper helps students read better, or that yellow paper helps students perform better on math exams. Design an experiment to see whether using a specific color of paper helps improve students' scores on math exams.
• Can color cause physiological reactions ? Perform an experiment to determine whether certain colors cause a participant's blood pressure to rise or fall.
• Can different types of music lead to different physiological responses ? Measure the heart rates of participants in response to various types of music to see if there is a difference.
• Can smelling one thing while tasting another impact a person's ability to detect what the food really is ? Have participants engage in a blind taste test where the smell and the food they eat are mismatched. Ask the participants to identify the food they are trying and note how accurate their guesses are.
• Could a person's taste in music offer hints about their personality ? Previous research has suggested that people who prefer certain styles of music tend to exhibit similar  personality traits. Administer a personality assessment and survey participants about their musical preferences and examine your results.
• Do action films cause people to eat more popcorn and candy during a movie ? Have one group of participants watch an action movie, and another group watch a slow-paced drama. Compare how much popcorn is consumed by each group.
• Do colors really impact moods ? Investigate to see if the  color blue makes people feel calm, or if the color red leaves them feeling agitated.
• Do creative people see  optical illusions  differently than more analytical people ? Have participants complete an assessment to measure their level of creative thinking. Then ask participants to look at optical illusions and note what they perceive.
• Do people rate individuals with perfectly symmetrical faces as more beautiful than those with asymmetrical faces ? Create sample cards with both symmetrical and asymmetrical faces and ask participants to rate the attractiveness of each picture.
• Do people who use social media exhibit signs of addiction ? Have participants complete an assessment of their social media habits, then have them complete an addiction questionnaire.
• Does eating breakfast help students do better in school ? According to some, eating breakfast can have a beneficial influence on school performance. For your experiment, you could compare the test scores of students who ate breakfast to those who did not.
• Does sex influence short-term memory ? You could arrange an experiment that tests whether men or women are better at remembering specific types of information.
• How likely are people to conform in groups ? Try this experiment to see what percentage of people are likely to conform . Enlist confederates to give the wrong response to a math problem and then see if the participants defy or conform to the rest of the group.
• How much information can people store in short-term memory ? Have participants study a word list and then test their memory. Try different versions of the experiment to see which memorization strategies, like chunking or mnemonics, are most effective.

Once you have an idea, the next step is to learn more about  how to conduct a psychology experiment .

Psychology Experiments on Your Interests

If none of the ideas in the list above grabbed your attention, there are other ways to find inspiration for your psychology experiments.

How do you come up with good psychology experiments? One of the most effective approaches is to look at the various problems, situations, and questions that you are facing in your own life.

You can also think about the things that interest you. Start by considering the topics you've studied in class thus far that have really piqued your interest. Then, whittle the list down to two or three major areas within psychology that seem to interest you the most.

From there, make a list of questions you have related to the topic. Any of these questions could potentially serve as an experiment idea.

Use Textbooks for Inspiration for Psychology Experiments

Your psychology textbooks are another excellent source you can turn to for experiment ideas. Choose the chapters or sections that you find particularly interesting—perhaps it's a chapter on  social psychology  or a section on child development.

Start by browsing the experiments discussed in your book. Then think of how you could devise an experiment related to some of the questions your text asks. The reference section at the back of your textbook can also serve as a great source for additional reference material.

Discuss Psychology Experiments with Other Students

It can be helpful to brainstorm with your classmates to gather outside ideas and perspectives. Get together with a group of students and make a list of interesting ideas, subjects, or questions you have.

The information from your brainstorming session can serve as a basis for your experiment topic. It's also a great way to get feedback on your own ideas and to determine if they are worth exploring in greater depth.

Study Classic Psychology Experiments

Taking a closer look at a classic psychology experiment can be an excellent way to trigger some unique and thoughtful ideas of your own. To start, you could try conducting your own version of a famous experiment or even updating a classic experiment to assess a slightly different question.

Famous Psychology Experiments

Examples of famous psychology experiments that might be a source of further questions you'd like to explore include:

• Marshmallow test experiments
• Little Albert experiment
• Hawthorne effect experiments
• Bystander effect experiments
• Robbers Cave experiments
• Halo effect experiments
• Piano stairs experiment
• Cognitive dissonance experiments
• False memory experiments

You might not be able to replicate an experiment exactly (lots of classic psychology experiments have ethical issues that would preclude conducting them today), but you can use well-known studies as a basis for inspiration.

Review the Literature on Psychology Experiments

If you have a general idea about what topic you'd like to experiment, you might want to spend a little time doing a brief literature review before you start designing. In other words, do your homework before you invest too much time on an idea.

Visit your university library and find some of the best books and articles that cover the particular topic you are interested in. What research has already been done in this area? Are there any major questions that still need to be answered? What were the findings of previous psychology experiments?

Tackling this step early will make the later process of writing the introduction  to your  lab report  or research paper much easier.

Ask Your Instructor About Ideas for Psychology Experiments

If you have made a good effort to come up with an idea on your own but you're still feeling stumped, it might help to talk to your instructor. Ask for pointers on finding a good experiment topic for the specific assignment. You can also ask them to suggest some other ways you could generate ideas or inspiration.

While it can feel intimidating to ask for help, your instructor should be more than happy to provide some guidance. Plus, they might offer insights that you wouldn't have gathered on your own. Your instructor probably has lots of ideas for psychology experiments that would be worth exploring.

If you need to design or conduct psychology experiments, there are plenty of great ideas (both old and new) for you to explore. Consider an idea from the list above or turn some of your own questions about the human mind and behavior into an experiment.

Before you dive in, make sure that you are observing the guidelines provided by your instructor and always obtain the appropriate permission before conducting any research with human or animal subjects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Finding a topic for a research paper is much like finding an idea for an experiment. Start by considering your own interests, or browse though your textbooks for inspiration. You might also consider looking at online news stories or journal articles as a source of inspiration.

Three of the most classic social psychology experiments are:

• The Asch Conformity Experiment : This experiment involved seeing if people would conform to group pressure when rating the length of a line.
• The Milgram Obedience Experiment : This experiment involved ordering participants to deliver what they thought was a painful shock to another person.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment : This experiment involved students replicating a prison environment to see how it would affect participant behavior. 

Jakovljević T, Janković MM, Savić AM, et al. The effect of colour on reading performance in children, measured by a sensor hub: From the perspective of gender .  PLoS One . 2021;16(6):e0252622. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252622

Greenberg DM, et al. Musical preferences are linked to cognitive styles . PLoS One. 2015;10(7). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131151

Kurt S, Osueke KK. The effects of color on the moods of college students . Sage. 2014;4(1). doi:10.1177/2158244014525423

Hartline-Grafton H, Levin M. Breakfast and School-Related Outcomes in Children and Adolescents in the US: A Literature Review and its Implications for School Nutrition Policy .  Curr Nutr Rep . 2022;11(4):653-664. doi:10.1007/s13668-022-00434-z

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

AP® Psychology

Social-cultural perspective: ap® psychology crash course.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 1, 2022

Introduction

In the social-cultural perspective, an individual is evaluated based on the social groups they belong to. Your AP® Psychology exam will require you to understand the basics of who founded this perspective, what it really means and how to diagnose different characteristics of this theory. You’ll want to consider different types of social groups that occur in society. These can include age groups, gender groups and many others.

Any group that restricts some individuals, including clubs or organizations, can also impact an individual. This means that belonging to a band, a gym, or a dance troupe can influence the way that you develop as well as religions and gender groups.

This perspective will be represented in you AP® Psychology exam through multiple choice as well as written questions. This means you’ll need to consider the way that this theory relates to other theories and also how it will impact different parts of life for any individual. It considers not just childhood but adult life as well since different social groups will come into the life of an individual at any aspect of their life. These groups can still impact your life even if you are an adult.

What is the Social-Cultural Perspective?

The social-cultural perspective considers the way that different individuals interact with their social groups and how these social groups influence different individuals and how they develop throughout their lives.

The social group can consist of any group that the individual is a part of. In fact, most people belong to a large number of different social groups. These include gender groups, racial groups, religions and more. For example, your peers can influence you in a dramatic way but so can your family, your social class and your ethnicity. Given all other characteristics exactly the same, a female will develop differently than a male. A wealthy female will develop differently than a poor female.

Different situations that you will find yourself in have a different impact on the way that you continue to develop. For example, as you grow from childhood into adolescence your social groups will affect you differently. Most find that family impacts the childhood of an individual more than peer groups. When you get older however, such as in adolescence, peer groups are more of an influence than family.

In the social-cultural perspective all of the groups that an individual belongs to will influence their future. Only by understanding the full impact of social groups and understanding every group that the individual is involved in will a psychologist be able to fully understand what that individual will do. This will allow you to understand the behaviors of an individual both in the past and in their future.

Who Founded the Social-Cultural Perspective?

Let’s get into an AP® Psychology review of this perspective to help you better understand what’s going to be on your exam. The social-cultural perspective was founded by Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist. Also known as the sociocultural perspective, this theory emphasized how a child would grow to become an adult and come to develop thoughts, behaviors and beliefs.

Vygotsky felt that children were born with different beliefs in their minds. However, those beliefs are subject to interpretation and change based on the groups that the individual belongs to and which groups they are raised into. His theory was based off of Piaget’s perspective concerning cognitive development .

This theory believed that the interactions of children into the world were the way that they primarily learned and developed. On the other hand, Vygotsky focused more on social interaction rather than singular interaction. By considering the differences between these two perspectives it is easier to understand the ways that children come to understand and complete different actions.

Examples of Social-Cultural Perspective

Megan grew up in the country. Her family has always raised animals and she is responsible for feeding the chickens every morning. The chickens get up early and they need to be let out of their pen before breakfast. She also needs to make sure that the eggs are gathered before she goes to eat her own breakfast. So every morning Megan gets up at 6 am because that’s when she needs to start her chores.

Eliza grew up in the city. Before she eats breakfast all she needs to do is get dressed. She hates getting up early and so often she doesn’t even get up until 7:30 am so that she can eat breakfast quickly and catch the bus at 8 am.

The two girls are the same age and they both have to go to school but they get up at different times of the day because of the way they were raised. They have different actions that need to be completed and they also have different interests. Eliza doesn’t like to get up early and she doesn’t need to, her social groups don’t require her to do so. Megan does like to get up early however and her social group definitely does require her to do it.

Peter is Catholic and grew up going to church every Sunday. He never misses a church service and makes sure that he prays before he eats any meal. His family has taught him this and they make sure that he continues to follow all of these traits. Even when his family is not present however, Peter continues to follow these same traits and continues to pray and attend church.

The traits that Peter follows began as something that his parents pushed him into. As he grew older however, he continued to carry out these traits. He did this because he was interested in what he had been raised into and he believed that it was something he wanted to continue. The social group he was raised in (Catholic) influenced his life and his behavior even as he grew older.

Andrew’s family puts a lot of emphasis on education. From the time he was able to read his family encouraged him to do so. They pushed him to study as much as possible and also made sure that he did his homework as quickly as possible. As a result, he was able to get excellent grades in all of his classes. As he enters college he is able to take his pick because he received excellent grades.

When he goes away to college he spends most of his time in his dorm room studying, even though his roommate tries to convince him to go out and party instead. His feelings about studying are influencing the way that he continues to live his life. This shows how the sociocultural perspective influences him.

More About the Social-Cultural Perspective in AP® Psychology

This perspective can influence everything that you do throughout your life. As you continue to grow your social groups will change. As a child you may have some friends and then you may have different friends as you get older. This means that your groups will influence you in different ways.

Understand the way that the social cultural perspective influences an individual as a child, an adolescent and an adult. This theory has still been found to be important and it’s found to be relevant as well. As a result of this theory, there is a better understanding of your way of thinking and looking at the world.

According to the social-cultural perspective the zone of proximal development is also extremely important. This zone is based on a distance between actual development level and potential development. These things help to understand better the way that the individual will develop in the future as well as how they have developed already.

Vygotsky believed that the human mind will continue to learn from others and learn from different groups that they are involved with socially no matter what else is happening in their life or even if they are rather isolated in their lives. Different cultures will influence in different ways simply because these cultures will have different important factors.

One culture may put emphasis on intelligence while another may put more emphasis on memorization. Because of these differences, the social cultural perspective will emphasize the most important aspects of each social group.

This AP® Psychology crash course evaluates the social-cultural perspective of development. The social-cultural perspective requires you to look at the upbringing that an individual has but also at their social groups. Every social group that an individual belongs to is going to impact the way that they develop and these groups are going to influence the way that they look at life. On the other hand, every group will impact the individual slightly differently.

As a result, an individual who is Catholic, African American and female will have a slightly different outlook on life than someone who is Protestant, African American and female. Each social group provides a different influence and those social groups will interact in different ways.

1. Social-cultural perspective considers the many different social groups that an individual belongs to and how those groups influence them throughout their life.

2. This perspective was founded by Lev Vygotsky as an emphasis on the theories of Piaget.

3. The zone of proximal development is an important aspect of this perspective.

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AP Psychology

Learn all about the course and exam. Already enrolled? Join your class in My AP.

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Go to AP Central for resources for teachers, administrators, and coordinators.

About the Course

Have you ever wondered why you act a certain way around different people? Or how your family and society influence your behaviors? In AP Psychology, you’ll learn the foundational concepts that detail how and why people think and behave the way they do.

AP Psychology Revisions for 2024-25

We revised AP Psychology for the 2024-25 school year.

Skills You'll Learn

Connecting psychological concepts and theories to real-life scenarios

Understanding and interpreting data

Analyzing research studies in psychology

Equivalency and Prerequisites

College course equivalent.

A one-semester, introductory college course in psychology

Recommended Prerequisites

Fri, May 16, 2025

12 PM Local

AP Psychology Exam

This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP Psychology Exam.

About the Units

The course content outlined below is organized into commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. Your teacher may choose to organize the course content differently based on local priorities and preferences.

Course Content

Unit 1: biological bases of behavior .

You’ll study behaviors and mental processes from a biological perspective and explore the effects of the interaction between human biology and our environment. 

Topics may include:  

• The interaction of inherited traits, environment, and evolution in shaping behavior  
• Structures and functions of nervous systems 
• Neural firing and the influence of psychoactive substances  
• The study of the brain, including its structures and functions  
• Sleep 
• Sensation 

On The Exam

15%–25% of exam score

Unit 2: Cognition

You’ll examine the complex nature of how memory, intelligence, and other mental processes impact human behavior. 

• Perception 
• Biases and errors in thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving strategies  
• The cognitive and physiological processes that make up memory  
• Forgetting and typical memory errors  
• Defining and measuring intelligence and achievement 

Unit 3: Development and Learning

You’ll study how physical and social changes over humans’ lifespans can influence behavior and mental processes from a variety of perspectives and how learning works. 

Topics may include:   

• Research methods used in developmental psychology 
• Physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development across the lifespan  
• Gender and sexual orientation

Unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality

You’ll study how the social experience influences behavior of individuals and groups and how personality is studied and develops. 

• Attribution theory and person perception 
• Attitude formation and change 
• The psychology of social situations 
• Psychodynamic, humanistic, social cognitive, and trait theories of personality 
• Motivation 
• Emotion 

Unit 5: Mental and Physical Health

You’ll learn how psychologists promote mental and physical health and evaluate, study, and treat a range of psychological disorders. 

• An introduction to health and positive psychology 
• Standards for diagnosing and approaches to explaining psychological disorders  
• Neurodevelopmental and schizophrenic spectrum disorders  
• Bipolar, depressive, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders  
• Dissociative and trauma- and stress-related disorders  
• Eating disorders and personality disorders  
• Historical developments in psychological treatment  
• Modern treatment options and methods 

Credit and Placement

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Course Resources

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AP Psychology Course and Exam Description

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Additional Information

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Unit 9 Overview: Social Psychology

4 min read • june 18, 2024

From the College Board

👀 developing understanding of this unit.

According to the College Board, "In this final unit, psychological concepts and theoretical perspectives are pulled together from throughout the course. Social psychology is the study of how other people and groups 👪influence behavior and mental processes as well as how behavior and mental processes influence our experiences in social situations. Social psychology also involves the study of how our perceptions of social situations impact how we interact with others and how others interact with us. Social psychologists may focus on one aspect of social situations or interactions and may do so from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including other integrative perspectives."

🔎 Guiding Question

• How does the bias of a researcher affect their conclusions?

Contextualizing the Unit

The past units in AP Psych have focused mostly on the individual—how we act, how we perceive things, and our own personality and motivations 🌠 However, there’s a whole other side to psychology called  social psychology : how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. In other words, social psychology studies why the same person behaves and treats others differently based on the situation around them 👪 

🤓 Psychologists and Famous Studies to Know

Many of the famous studies in this unit were conducted before ethical guidelines were a thing. Some of them may be a little unsettling. By studying them, however, the College Board reminds us that we can "learn how to conduct valid research, identify ethical flaws, and use appropriate data and data collection processes." In other words.. how we can not make the same mistakes as before. 

Leon Festinger

Festinger introduced us to  cognitive dissonance theory. Dissonance means when two things clash. In cognitive dissonance theory, our thoughts and our actions clash. Festinger believes that when this happens, it causes discomfort, and leaves us with two choices. We can either change our thoughts or change our actions in order to relieve the tension. 

Philip Zimbardo

Ever heard the expression "fake it 'til you make it?" It's basically the idea that if you act as if you belong in a role, let's say a prison guard or a prisoner, eventually, you will become that person. That can be a good thing when we are new to a role, like a new job or becoming a parent. Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo learned, however, that it can also make good people do evil things. You will learn more about his famous Stanford Prison Experiment in the  9.3 Study Guide.

Solomon Asch

Asch is best known for his famous study on **conformity--**when we change our behavior to fit in with some group standard or expectation. Asch designed an experiment in which he put college students in a room with several other confederates (students who were in on the deception). Their task was to match a target line (see below) with a group of comparison lines (ABC). Looks easy, right? The catch was that Asch instructed the confederates to give wrong answers. Although most of the time the subjects told their truth, Asch was surprised when his results showed that more than one-third of the time they were "willing to call white black" or change their answer to conform with the group. 

Stanley Milgram

In one of the most famous and controversial studies in psychology, Milgram discovered the lengths to which human beings will give in to social pressure. He was motivated to understand the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by people when given orders to do so. What he learned shocked the psychology world. You will learn more about this ethically challenged experiment in the  9.3 Study Guide.

📝Vocabulary

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