In a final example of a study in which research assistants took their lives into their own hands, one very brave investigator set up shop in the toilet stall of a busy university restroom with a stopwatch and a periscope and used the latter to observe men at the urinals. “This provided a view,” the authors explained in the 1976 paper, “of the user's lower torso and made possible direct visual sightings of the stream of urine.”
If you processed that last sentence, you’re probably asking yourself why anyone would want such a good view of a stranger’s micturating penis. In fact, the researchers were trying to gain a better understanding of paruresis, otherwise known as “shy bladder syndrome” (or “pee-shy,” “bashful bladder” and a variety of other monikers). In extreme cases, someone with a shy bladder cannot urinate in public facilities such as airports, restaurants, or their place of employment.
The idea behind this study was that invasion of personal space underlies paruresis—the closer another person is in proximity, the more trouble the pee-shy individual will have urinating. The restroom was therefore rigged so that, in addition to the observer in the toilet stall, another research assistant (called a “confederate” in social psychological parlance) stationed himself either at the urinal next to the unwitting participant or used the urinal farthest away from the participant. As predicted, when the participants were relieving themselves next to the confederate, their urination delay was significantly greater (8.4 sec) than when they were separated from the confederate by one urinal (6.2 sec) or when the confederate was absent (4.9 sec). The duration of urine flow also supported the hypotheses, with participants urinating, on average, for a briefer period in the close condition (17.4 sec) than in either the far (23.4 sec) or alone condition (24.8 sec).
Again, data aside, there are a number of ethical questions raised in this last study. One of these concerns should have been the wellbeing of the research assistant in the toilet stall. Had a particularly hostile participant noticed the glint of a periscope lens on the floor next to his foot, the research assistant could have found himself laid up in a hospital bed for the next six months. The lengths some scientists will go to for a data point!
A final note. It is unlikely that the studies reported here could be done today. In psychological science terms, they are already ancient and most contemporary research ethics committees would see these projects as too high risk for a variety of reasons (including liability concerns for the investigator’s university employer). Frankly, I’m not sure today’s tighter restrictions are a good thing or a bad thing. For example, although they were certainly dangerous in their own ways, each of the studies mentioned above answered legitimate research questions and provided important insights into human social behavior. The realism they afforded by their naturalistic methods would be difficult – if not impossible – to replicate in a laboratory using more innocuous approaches. Once people know they are in an experiment (particularly, when they know the purpose of the study) they tend to behave artificially.
In this new column presented by Scientific American Mind magazine, research psychologist Jesse Bering of Queen's University Belfast ponders some of the more obscure aspects of everyday human behavior. Ever wonder why yawning is contagious, why we point with our index fingers instead of our thumbs or whether being breastfed as an infant influences your sexual preferences as an adult? Get a closer look at the latest data as “Bering in Mind” tackles these and other quirky questions about human nature.
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6 Comments
Add CommentI have been publicly wondering on these forums how these people get grant money for this kind of stupid shit and how I can snag some of it for myself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople need to evaluate this kind of thing prior to participate in research for these kinds of studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ethics boards today would not approve the mentioned studies most likely. Though these kind of pre extensive ethic concern studies are interesting to read about. Nice post!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese studies and many others like them contributed to what became known as the 'crisis of social psychology' in the mid-to-late 1970s and contributed to my decision to abandon the discipline mid-PhD. They simply demonstrated that the discipline had become (and in my view remains) an utterly trivial pursuit lacking epistemological, ethical and ideological credibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe truth is that all these procedures involving electric shocks, was endorse by most of the North-American Continent, in spite of warnings from some European Nations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPsychology procedures was implemented from one of the most self destructing gene, which arrived in Europe around 1200- 1400 century, (some of those gene are still responsible for their own self destruction in population)
and you can see the tresses even here, in North-America.
And to think about ! we stop all that annoyance from happening in the (Retarded Houses) and allowed it to happen on the streets, by Policeman with Electric shocks guns
I remember reading somewhere about a female psychology student conducting a stress experiment on a contractor she had hired to work on her home. She repeatedly annoyed him to study his reactions under stress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe result: he attacked her with a pipe wrench causing massive brain damage leaving her in a vegetative state.
(I can't remember the source so it could be an urban legend but I think it was in a Darwin Award book or one of the DUH! series.)