#bc theyre flashy and kinda fun to learn about so people know abt them quite a bit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

moodr1ng · 10 months

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"this social psychology experiment proves humans are inherently cruel and domineering!" "no this other social psychology experiment proves humans are inherently kind and cooperative!" everyone learn that singular experiments cannot be taken as conclusive proof of anything + consider that perhaps literally no amount of social psychology studies will ever "prove" any kind of inherent, all-encompassing moral truth about all of humanity and will only ever be an example of possible group conduct in certain conditions, in a certain culture and time, among certain people

#97 #sorry for the occasional random complaining about psych experiments #but truly theyre soooo irritating #bc theyre flashy and kinda fun to learn about so people know abt them quite a bit #but theyre never presented with like.#the necessary understanding of the scientific method or proper balancing of their claims to qualify what exactly they supposedly show.#so instead people are just encouraged to draw the simplest conclusions.#often misanthropic ones bc of how badly done many of these so-called experiments are (and i do not recognize many of these as experiments #due to the lack of application of the scientific method eg researcher intervention lack of control group etc)#(and not being reproducible quite often as well)#(imo shit like for example most infamous stanford prison experiment but also many others are just demonstrations.)#(not a scientific experiment. did not involve the scientific method. just some guy doing ethical misconduct in a basement.)#not hating on psych research as a field btw i literally would like to do psych research #however the way cherrypicked flashy and impressive or shocking isolated experiments are placed front and center in the popular understandin #of psych imo just misinforms the public greatly and often about like. yknow stuff you probably dont want to ingrain into people?#like. for example if you want to talk about the way perceived authority can lead many people to commit acts they morally dont agree with?#yes the milgram experiment is like a good thing to learn about imo.#however that experiment is like.. almost coupled in the popular consciousness w again the stanford prison scientific mishandling #and its conclusion is broadened to 'if given the chance all people will brutalize and abuse other people'#when the kindest possible interpretation of that mess is that if you take milgrams experiment but the researchers are in denial that #they are also inducing obedience to authority and also theyre using real people as the abused subject instead of an actor #and also every subject selected is a college aged white man whos interested in prison environments #then yes it turns pretty fucking bad.#but its not about the nature of humanity. its about an event of that obedience to authority leading some very specific subjects #who are not representative of the general population whatsoever #into behaviors which should never have been allowed to take place in an ethical research environment

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