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Experimental Method In Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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The experimental method involves the manipulation of variables to establish cause-and-effect relationships. The key features are controlled methods and the random allocation of participants into controlled and experimental groups .

What is an Experiment?

An experiment is an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested. An independent variable (the cause) is manipulated in an experiment, and the dependent variable (the effect) is measured; any extraneous variables are controlled.

An advantage is that experiments should be objective. The researcher’s views and opinions should not affect a study’s results. This is good as it makes the data more valid  and less biased.

There are three types of experiments you need to know:

1. Lab Experiment

A laboratory experiment in psychology is a research method in which the experimenter manipulates one or more independent variables and measures the effects on the dependent variable under controlled conditions.

A laboratory experiment is conducted under highly controlled conditions (not necessarily a laboratory) where accurate measurements are possible.

The researcher uses a standardized procedure to determine where the experiment will take place, at what time, with which participants, and in what circumstances.

Participants are randomly allocated to each independent variable group.

Examples are Milgram’s experiment on obedience and  Loftus and Palmer’s car crash study .

• Strength : It is easier to replicate (i.e., copy) a laboratory experiment. This is because a standardized procedure is used.
• Strength : They allow for precise control of extraneous and independent variables. This allows a cause-and-effect relationship to be established.
• Limitation : The artificiality of the setting may produce unnatural behavior that does not reflect real life, i.e., low ecological validity. This means it would not be possible to generalize the findings to a real-life setting.
• Limitation : Demand characteristics or experimenter effects may bias the results and become confounding variables .

2. Field Experiment

A field experiment is a research method in psychology that takes place in a natural, real-world setting. It is similar to a laboratory experiment in that the experimenter manipulates one or more independent variables and measures the effects on the dependent variable.

However, in a field experiment, the participants are unaware they are being studied, and the experimenter has less control over the extraneous variables .

Field experiments are often used to study social phenomena, such as altruism, obedience, and persuasion. They are also used to test the effectiveness of interventions in real-world settings, such as educational programs and public health campaigns.

An example is Holfing’s hospital study on obedience .

• Strength : behavior in a field experiment is more likely to reflect real life because of its natural setting, i.e., higher ecological validity than a lab experiment.
• Strength : Demand characteristics are less likely to affect the results, as participants may not know they are being studied. This occurs when the study is covert.
• Limitation : There is less control over extraneous variables that might bias the results. This makes it difficult for another researcher to replicate the study in exactly the same way.

3. Natural Experiment

A natural experiment in psychology is a research method in which the experimenter observes the effects of a naturally occurring event or situation on the dependent variable without manipulating any variables.

Natural experiments are conducted in the day (i.e., real life) environment of the participants, but here, the experimenter has no control over the independent variable as it occurs naturally in real life.

Natural experiments are often used to study psychological phenomena that would be difficult or unethical to study in a laboratory setting, such as the effects of natural disasters, policy changes, or social movements.

For example, Hodges and Tizard’s attachment research (1989) compared the long-term development of children who have been adopted, fostered, or returned to their mothers with a control group of children who had spent all their lives in their biological families.

Here is a fictional example of a natural experiment in psychology:

Researchers might compare academic achievement rates among students born before and after a major policy change that increased funding for education.

In this case, the independent variable is the timing of the policy change, and the dependent variable is academic achievement. The researchers would not be able to manipulate the independent variable, but they could observe its effects on the dependent variable.

• Strength : behavior in a natural experiment is more likely to reflect real life because of its natural setting, i.e., very high ecological validity.
• Strength : Demand characteristics are less likely to affect the results, as participants may not know they are being studied.
• Strength : It can be used in situations in which it would be ethically unacceptable to manipulate the independent variable, e.g., researching stress .
• Limitation : They may be more expensive and time-consuming than lab experiments.
• Limitation : There is no control over extraneous variables that might bias the results. This makes it difficult for another researcher to replicate the study in exactly the same way.

Key Terminology

Ecological validity.

The degree to which an investigation represents real-life experiences.

Experimenter effects

These are the ways that the experimenter can accidentally influence the participant through their appearance or behavior.

Demand characteristics

The clues in an experiment lead the participants to think they know what the researcher is looking for (e.g., the experimenter’s body language).

Independent variable (IV)

The variable the experimenter manipulates (i.e., changes) is assumed to have a direct effect on the dependent variable.

Dependent variable (DV)

Variable the experimenter measures. This is the outcome (i.e., the result) of a study.

Extraneous variables (EV)

All variables which are not independent variables but could affect the results (DV) of the experiment. EVs should be controlled where possible.

Confounding variables

Variable(s) that have affected the results (DV), apart from the IV. A confounding variable could be an extraneous variable that has not been controlled.

Random Allocation

Randomly allocating participants to independent variable conditions means that all participants should have an equal chance of participating in each condition.

The principle of random allocation is to avoid bias in how the experiment is carried out and limit the effects of participant variables.

Order effects

Changes in participants’ performance due to their repeating the same or similar test more than once. Examples of order effects include:

(i) practice effect: an improvement in performance on a task due to repetition, for example, because of familiarity with the task;

(ii) fatigue effect: a decrease in performance of a task due to repetition, for example, because of boredom or tiredness.

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Equipment for Conducting Research - Summary

Before Computer Science Electro-mechanical instruments were used for recording physiological responses of participants. Some psychologists designed their own devices to carry out their research (Kenneth Craik, William McDougall). Their instruments would then be manufactured by C.F. Palmer Ltd, one of the major commercial firms supplying physiological apparatus for experimental science. Instruments for psychology appeared in their 1934 catalogue.

Sykes, A.H. (1995) A short history of C.F. Palmer (London) Ltd, physiological instrument makers. Journal of Medical Biography , Vol. 3, Part 4, pp. 225-231.

View K. Craik's Control of Velocity Test and W. McDougall's McDougall-Schuster Dotter , provided by the  History of Science Museum .

See the box opposite to view more old instruments.

Today Computers are used to measure brain activity in a number of brain imaging techniques. These techniques allow researchers to see how areas of the brain are responding when a participant performs specific cognitive tasks. They are non-invasive and facilitate observation and “measuring the human brain at work”.

• Electroencephaography (EEG)
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A History of Experimental Psychology

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A History of Experimental Psychology is a monograph on the history of modern psychology. The book was written by American psychologist Edwin Garrigues Boring and published by Appleton-Century-Crofts Company in New York in 1929 (Fig. 1 ). In 1950, the second revised edition was published. In 1935, the Chinese translation of the book by Gao Juefu was published by the Commercial Press in Shanghai, and the second edition in Chinese was published in Beijing in 1981.

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Experimental Methods In Psychology

March 7, 2021 - paper 2 psychology in context | research methods.

There are three experimental methods in the field of psychology; Laboratory, Field and Natural Experiments. Each of the experimental methods holds different characteristics in relation to; the manipulation of the IV, the control of the EVs and the ability to accurately replicate the study in exactly the same way.

When conducting research, it is important to create an aim and a hypothesis,  click here  to learn more about the formation of aims and hypotheses.

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What is Experimental Psychology?

Experimental psychology is an interesting subdiscipline of psychology.

On the one hand, it refers to an approach to studying human behavior – the standardized methods and techniques used to collect and analyze data.  On the other hand, experimental psychology is a unique branch, an applied field of psychology that explores theoretical questions about human behavior.

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So, while virtually all psychologists can engage in experimental psychology in one form or another, there are also professionals who spend their entire careers conducting applied experimental research in the field of psychology. This is what deems professionals in this field experimental psychologists.

In this guide, we’ll explore how experimental psychology developed and review some of the methods that are used in conducting studies of behavior. We’ll also discuss types of experiments, survey a few types of psychological experiments, and go over career-related information for experimental psychologists as well.

Let’s get started!

What is The History of Experimental Psychology?

Cognitive psychology is one of the most fascinating fields today. Questions about the nature of human behavior and the connection of the body and mind go back to classic philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. Likewise, the debate over nature vs nurture raged long before experimental psychologists came along in their formal and modern form.

But the centuries of philosophizing about why people behave in the manners in which they behave sparked the interest of scientific researchers to study human behavior in an empirical manner. If the principles of the scientific methods could be used for the study of behavior, perhaps scientists could provide definitive answers to the age-old questions surrounding human behavior.

This is precisely why the experimental psychologist was born.

The first experimental psychology lab in the world was founded in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt. There, Wundt primarily studied feelings and sensations in a structured manner using objective, systematized measures and controls. This mathematical and experimental approach set the precedent for the scientific methods that experimental psychologists and research centers use today. 

For example, Wundt used his background in physiology to design an experiment on sensory processes in which each participant was exposed to the same stimulus, such as the sound of a metronome. Each participant was then asked to provide a report of the sensations they experienced, a process called introspection.

The goal of this experiment was to understand the underlying structure of sensory processes. That is, Wundt was interested in analyzing each of the elements of the human experience involved in sensing the stimulus – the thoughts, senses, feelings, and so forth.

Wundt believed that breaking down the process of a behavior – in this case, sensing a sound – could be done much like a chemist analyzes a chemical compound. If you examine the individual components, you can learn more about the structure underneath the individual components.

While Wundt’s process of introspection didn’t remain a long-lasting approach to studying psychological processes, his insistence on controlling the experimental environment has had a long-term impact on how psychological research is conducted.

The experiments he devised used the same conditions for the experimental subjects – the same stimuli, the same setting, the same lighting, and so forth. By controlling the environment in which research is taking place, Wundt was able to minimize potential confounding variables. Doing so is critically important for any research.

Because Wundt’s laboratory was the first in the world, he is often considered the father of modern psychology. That is, his contributions to the field shifted psychology from a philosophical pursuit to a scientific one.

In the United States, experimental psychology grew out of the efforts of G. Stanley Hall and George Trumbull Ladd .

• Stanley Hall is credited with developing the first experimental psychology lab in the United States, which was located at Johns Hopkins University. Though his career mostly focused on child development and evolutionary psychology, his most significant contribution to psychology was overseeing the early development of the field in the United States. He was the first American to get a doctorate in psychology and he oversaw 11 of the first 14 doctorates to be awarded in the U.S., including those to John Dewey, Lewis Terman, and James McKeen Cattell, each of whom went on to become influential figures in the field in their own rite.

Meanwhile, George Trumbull Ladd, who was a professor of psychology at Yale University, established one of the earliest experimental labs for psychology in the U.S. He is also credited with publishing the first experimental psychology textbook, entitled Elements of Physiological Psychology.

Another important figure in the history of experimental psychology was Wundt’s American contemporary, William James.

His textbook, The Principles of Psychology , is perhaps the most seminal work in the history of psychology. Published in 1890, the book offers insights into the experiments James performed over the course of his career teaching at Harvard. However, the book is not a manual on experimental psychology. In fact, James wasn’t particularly interested in experimental research.

Despite this, James was the first American to teach a psychology course in the United States. He also helped found functionalism, which was one of the earliest schools of thought in psychology. As a result of this, James is often referred to as the father of American psychology.

What is The Methodology of Experimental Psychology?

Almost everyone is familiar with certain experiments, such as a mouse trying to navigate a maze or a primate trying to figure out a puzzle. However, human experiments are much more complex. For example, the experimental psychologist must take into account extraneous variables, environmental conditions, and experimenter bias as potentially skewing the data that’s collected.

Additionally, experimental psychologists must choose an appropriate sample size, correctly define the operations of the experiment, and use sound statistical analyses. Experimental methods must be completely controlled and perfectly executed in order to stand up to peer review, which is one of the foundations of all scientific endeavors.

An experimental method in psychology can take several forms:

• Laboratory experiments , in which researchers carefully control every aspect of the experiment. This includes where, when, and how the experiment will take place, the number and type of participants, standardized procedures, and assignment of participants to the control or experimental group. Lab experiments are easy to replicate and do a good job of controlling for confounding variables. However, lab experiments can produce unnatural behaviors due to the artificial setting and experimenter bias can be an issue.
• Natural experiments , in which researchers conduct their experiments in a real-life setting. This type of research offers no control over the independent variable (and no control over potential confounding variables, either). However, because the research is conducted in a natural environment, it has better ecological validity than lab experiments and it can be used to study behaviors that would be unethical to study in a lab setting, again because the independent variable is naturally occurring. 
• Field experiments , in which research is conducted in a real-life setting, but with the ability to manipulate the independent variable. While this type of research doesn’t allow for control over confounding variables, it offers the advantage of most closely reflecting real behaviors with a lesser likelihood of demand characteristics influencing the final results.

What is The Science of Experimental Psychology?

Experimental psychologists and scientists all believe in the same basic four principles. First, determinism means that all phenomena have some sort of systematic cause. Second, empiricism means that objective observation is the key to interpreting the world around us. Third, parsimony means that scientists prefer a minimalist approach to developing and researching theories. That is, science embraces the principle of Occam’s razor, which means that the theory with the fewest assumptions should be the logical conclusion. Finally, the fourth principle is testability. All theories must be empirically tested with applied falsifiability.

In other words, experimental psychology follows the same maxims of the physical sciences. The purpose is to use the principles of the scientific method to empirically study human behavior to arrive at testable and repeatable conclusions.

To do so, experimental research methods must be reliable and valid. Reliability refers to the consistency of observations, or the repeatability of an observation. Examples of tests of reliability include the split-half method (in which the results from one half of participants is compared to the other half) and the test-retest method (in which measurements are taken of the same group multiple times to see if the results are consistent.

Validity refers to how well a test measures what it’s intended to measure. So, an intelligence test is a valid measure of intelligence. It is not, however, a valid measure of honesty.

Additionally, the science of experimental psychology is rooted in research design. There are many types of designs that experimental psychologists can use, including:

• Within-subjects designs , in which participants in the study are exposed to more than one condition, thereby allowing researchers to compare different data points on the same subject.
• Between-subjects designs , in which participants are exposed to only one condition, which enables researchers to compare data between different subjects.
• One-way designs , in which there is a single independent variable and often just two groups, one of which serves as the control group (which is not exposed to the treatment) and the experimental group (which is exposed to the treatment).
• Factorial designs , which feature two or more independent variables which occur at all levels and in combination with every other independent variable. These experiments are quantified based on their factorial design, such as a 2×3 design. This design has two independent variables, one of which has two levels and the other of which has three.

What Are Some Experiment Examples?

Since experimental psychologists are involved in every branch of psychology, there is an impressive variety of experimental categories.

Social psychology uses field experiments and objective observation to understand collective behavior. For example, researchers might construct a simulated scenario that tests how participants engage in altruistic behavior, such as helping an injured stranger.

On the other hand, cognitive psychologists can use complex equipment and software to analyze the neurological reactions of participants as they watch scary or violent images.

Finally, psychologists studying abnormal behavior, such as phobias or personality disorders, could test participants with these conditions against groups of people that have not been diagnosed with these disorders.

Over the years, there have been many highly influential psychological experiments using various scientific methods. And while their influence has had far-reaching ramifications on our understanding of human behavior, some of these experiments are now viewed as having been unethical. While an experimental psychologist can make a big difference in the world after a successful experimental, their experimental methods do still have to be rational and fair. Psychology research is pointless if people are getting hurt. 

Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment:

In short, the goal of the experiment was to determine how people conform to social roles. To study this, Zimbardo constructed a makeshift jail in the basement of the psychology building on the Stanford campus. He then recruited 24 male students, each of which were randomly assigned to be a guard or a prisoner.

Prisoners were rounded up and brought to the “prison,” where they were booked and supervised by the group assigned to be guards. Both groups quickly adapted to the roles to which they had ben assigned, with some of the guards engaging in psychological torture of their charges. The experiment ended after just six days because the situation had become so intense and so dangerous.

Despite the questionable ethics of the experiment, it did shed light on conformity and social roles, and how people can very quickly and easily adopt roles they are expected to play, especially when those roles are highly stereotyped

What Are The Careers Options for Experimental Psychology?

According to the American Psychological Association , experimental psychologists seek to answer basic questions about human behavior and mental processes through applied research. These professional perform research to bring light to many topics.

For example, the most popular research topics include memory, emotion, perception and sensation. Typically, experimental psychologists work work in university research centers, but also work for private companies or even the government. Other experimental psychologists may also work in subfields. This may include education (to teach psychology courses), human resources and health care.

Whatever the work setting, you will need a doctorate in psychology to be an experimental psychologist. What’s more, you’ll need to specialize in a particular area of research and pursue post-doctoral studies in that area.

The job outlook for psychology as a whole is about average for the next few years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that all psychology jobs will grow at a rate of three percent through 2029 . The BLS doesn’t provide data specific to experimental psychology, but it’s reasonable to assume that job growth in this field will be on par with the field of psychology as a whole.

In other words, with average job growth for the coming years, competition for experimental psychology jobs will likely be fierce. This is all the more reason to learn about the field, carefully plan your education, and seek out ways in which you can get real-world experience in experimental psychology. The better your combination of education and experience, the more likely you are to stand out in a crowd of other experimental psychology graduates.

Sean Jackson

B.A. Social Studies Education | University of Wyoming

M.S. Counseling | University of Wyoming

B.S. Information Technology | University of Massachusetts

Updated August 2021

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The Ultimate Guide to Tools for Psychologists

Explore a curated collection of essential tools for psychologists, aimed at enriching your professional practice. Our ultimate guide offers an in-depth exploration of both scientific and innovative techniques, highlighting their relevance and application in modern psychological settings. By integrating these tools, you can enhance your understanding of client behavior and emotions, allowing you to be more effective and nuanced with your therapeutic interventions.

The Evolving Landscape of Psychology Tools

Essential tools for therapists, dive into the psychological assessment tool, psychotherapy tools: bridging assessment with treatment, therapy tool programs: leveling up therapy, computer-assisted psychological assessment, an integrative approach.

Are you a seasoned therapist or new to the craft? Wherever you are in your journey, you’ll need to keep your tools for therapists, including your specialist knowledge, up to date.

The study of the mind and human behavior isn’t easy for anyone and without the right techniques, you put yourself at an even greater disadvantage. Moreover, there are many tools for therapists that go beyond traditional talk therapy to consider.

These days, we also have the complexity of online therapy and all the digital tools that go with it. So, how do you keep abreast of everything as a psychologist?

We all know that rapport and emotional engagement are at the core of therapy. With that in mind, digital platforms like Quenza can manage your back office requirements. As such, you give yourself more time to focus on your clients or even bring new ones on board.

Quenza isn’t just an all-in-one platform to cover your administrative needs. It also has a vast library with hundreds of exercises, worksheets, meditations and more. These are taken from a range of psychology methodologies including CBT, ACT and more. You’ll also find art therapy inspired exercises to give even more depth to your practice.

You can even try all this out for yourself for only $1 with the 1-month-only trial . It’s easy to sign up and you’ll be able to test it out with your clients straight away.

What is the history of psychology and its tools for therapists? Do you start with Ancient Greece and Socratic questioning or with Freud or Wundt, maybe even Breuer, in the 19th century? What about the more experiential approaches from the East, mainly Buddhism, Taoism, Patanjali’s Yoga and others?

In the West, we tend to approach the mind as a specific entity to catalog and analyze in order to try to understand it. With the resulting frameworks, we seek to support people by asking them to look at their minds almost as if those minds were in a petri dish, in other words “from without”. The aim is to then work with the therapist to fix the broken behaviors and reassemble them into something  more coherent for this society.

Such a scientific study of phenomena is perfectly valid and has powerful benefits that work well in many cases. Nevertheless, the Eastern approach is increasingly entering Western psychology because it does something different. Eastern philosophies encourage people to work from within and study experience. The aim is not to reduce consciousness to units but to recognize that we are part of a whole physical being [1] .

Some philosophers are taking this idea of being part of a whole one step further by suggesting we move away from reducing consciousness to simply residing somewhere in the brain. Most notably, Alva Noe, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, proposes a strong argument for showing us that consciousness is something we do with our bodies, minds and our environments [2] . It isn’t just about the brain.

The Best Possible Resilient Self

This Quenza exercise taken from its toolbox library gives you an interactive way to explore the fluidity of the ego with your clients. Gone are the days of simply focusing on Freud’s ego to regulate our drives. Instead, this part becomes a sub-function of the agent, or self, capable of activity and well-being. With the more fluid Buddhist view of impermanence and insubstantiality, the ego can be more nimble in adapting to challenges because events and situations are no longer “personal”. They just are [3] .

In many ways, this gives us a stepping stone into digital tools for therapists. Regardless of how you view the ego and what you believe about consciousness, we do not operate in isolation. Our environment, cultural and social influences all play a part in our well-being and digital is also part of that system.

Alongside psychologist tools and equipment, you also have online assessments to further support therapists in their diagnosis. One of the first tests with computers was developed in 1976 and called the Totally Automated Psychological Assessment Console (TAPAC). Its purpose was to automate early IQ tests [4] .

Today, we have more sophisticated computerized cognitive tests and computer-assisted psychological assessments. Not only does this allow therapists to be more efficient but research also suggests that clients tend to be more open in their responses [5] .

Either way, from ancient gymnasia to Freudian couches and modern mobile phones, tools for therapists have never been so versatile. As you keep evolving your practice, make sure you incorporate the latest and best.

As a therapist, you might tap into several methodologies including, but not limited to, behavioral, cognitive, somatic, humanist and or integrative therapies. While each of those has its own psychology toolkit, there are some common tools for therapists, as detailed in the table below.

When developing a therapy tool program, you’ll also want to consider how you impact both your current and future clients. Some might be sophisticated digital users and already have their personal biofeedback tools. Others might still only be happy with email and video chats.

It’s easy to get passionate about tools for Therapists. After all, the potential behind digital tools is exciting and highly impactful. Nevertheless, it’s always about how you use the tools rather than just the tools themselves.

So, one approach is to detail in your case formulation how digital might support or hinder your client’s journey. Moreover, do they think visually or do they enjoy working with their hands? What about their current habits of reflection and the tools they might already have?

Keep those questions in mind as you review the following common tools for therapists.

Research into online psychotherapy tools and assessment tools is steadily increasing. In summary, online interventions have been successful in reaching and supporting a far wider audience than before.

The use of technology-based assessments is also increasing although the research is still limited. To date, it seems that computerized assessments encourage clients to disclose more personal issues such as alcohol use [6] . 


Moreover, online assessments remove bias, reduce cost and provide a standardized approach. As such, they provide a solid data point from which to develop treatment. Of course, therapists will use a variety of data gathering tools, as summarized below, in order to follow a systematic root cause analysis of a client’s presenting problems.

In summary, therapists need both assessments and tests. The former includes psychological tests as well as medical and observational data such as a clinical interview. By contrast, tests tend to refer to checklists and questionnaires [7] . These can be anything from judging a client’s self-care routine to self-monitoring their moods.

Common Psychological Assessment Tools

The art of psychotherapy is enabling the client’s self-awareness so that they can see new choices for new ways of living. Having an assessment is a critical guide for therapists to plan their sessions. Nevertheless, the magic happens when tools for therapists are skillfully implemented.

The Newspaper Headline

For example, it’s all very well for you, as the therapist, to see that your client is highly attached to their thoughts. The only way for a client to sense that and to truly get a chance to unblend from their thoughts is with this Quenza exercise. ACT is one approach among many but you can easily customize this exercise to include other self-reflection questions if you wish.

The key requirement for tools for therapists is that they’re evidence-backed. That’s why all of Quenza’s exercises come from the major methodologies including CBT , ACT, Positive Psychology as well as Buddhist philosophies. It’s one of the few platforms that blends both East and West.

In fact, getting creative with your tools for therapists is one way to keep both your clients’ journeys fresh and engaging. So, you might also inspire yourself with play or dance therapy or include meditation breaks in your sessions.

Whatever your approach, the following table of online tools for therapists will give you the digital angle. Essentially, how can these platforms and apps deepen your clients’ experience as they search for their inner solutions?

Overview of Common Psychology Approaches

Digital tools for therapists are still in their early days partly because apps have come onto the market so quickly that studies can’t keep up. As such, it’s up to the therapist to ensure that they feel they are offering a secure and evidence-based therapy tool program.

Similarly for psychological assessment tools. Just like for online interventions, you need to ensure your digital assessments are unbiased and standardized.

The major benefit of digital tools for therapists is that they are accessible from anywhere including remote places where people can’t physically reach therapists. They also offer a 24/7 experience alongside providing an interactive and experiential journey.

Perhaps most importantly, digital tools for therapists or online psychological assessment tools platforms provide real-time data. Such data can also be regularly referenced for progress check-ups throughout therapy.

To allow you, as a therapist, to start embracing the best tools out there, review the following table showing you how each one can boost your practice.

Summary of Top Therapist Platforms

As mentioned, the earliest form of a computerized version of a psychological assessment tool was the Totally Automated Psychological Assessment Console (TAPAC), developed in the mid 70s. Things have of course moved on since then.

Interestingly, the research back then reviews similar pitfalls to look out for today. First, therapists need to ensure their role as the personal touch to avoid depersonalizing client experiences. Secondly, therapists must never forget that clients are more than a data point and that you can’t fit the human condition into the perfect framework. Last but not least, computerized tests won’t necessarily work for more extreme clinical issues where patients need special care to function [8] .

All those points actually provide a major advantage for therapists because that’s how you bring your value-add. Tools for therapists are simply tools. It’s you with your unique style and approach who can turn them into the secret ingredients that your clients need to turn around their lives.

The future therefore lies in the client being at the center. Virtual reality and high-tech simulations are core enablers for a person-centric approach. User experience will continue to be optimized so that tests and assessments become increasingly enjoyable, perhaps through gaming and other interactive methods.

Another critical aspect for the future of digital applications in therapy is how to cater for today’s and tomorrow’s older generation. While many older adults have adopted digital technologies, the cost of high-speed internet can still be prohibitive. Furthermore, age-related disabilities can be a barrier to using digital platforms [6] .

Whatever blend of AI, VR, apps and interactive platforms we can look forward to in the near future, the range of tools for Therapists will continue to expand. It’s up to you to keep ahead of the curve.

Every therapist clearly has a unique way of leveraging their psychology toolkit to assess, diagnose and treat their clients. Although, the last few decades have seen an increasing number of therapists not using one methodology but actually leveraging several models from psychology.

With 400 various psychotherapy approaches to choose from, there really are multiple ways to offer an “integrative perspective”. While integrative might mean different things to various therapists, it generally refers to combining different psychology models in unique approaches [9] .

Digital tools for therapists are further enabling the integrative approach as more and more borrow exercises, studies, worksheets and more from the range of models available. In other words, you might do a CBT “Thoughts on Trial” exercise with a client followed by a mindfulness grounding moment.

The main advantage of following an integrative process is that you adapt to your clients’ mode of being and way of thinking for any scenario. Adapting to clients’ needs and moods in this way engages them more deeply for a greater chance of long-term change.

As one of the most versatile digital tools for therapists, Quenza combines its back office processes with a library of exercises and worksheets also borrowed from several disciplines.

Unhelpful Thinking Styles- Catastrophizing

For example, this Quenza exercise takes clients through exploring one of the Distorted Thoughts often listed under CBT.

Leaves on a Stream

You could follow it with this other Quenza exercise, for instance, which blends mindfulness with ACT with some reflection points.

Gratitude Meditation

As another example, you could also use this Quenza exercise for your client. This one uses a meditation with some reflection questions that combine Positive Psychology and mindfulness along with some somatic focus.

How you create your perfect mix is what differentiates you as a therapist. Not only are there multiple benefits but you also build deep rapport that connects with every part of your clients’ experiences.

Benefits of Integrative Therapy with Multiple Tools for Therapists

Conclusion: Maximizing Your Tools for Psychologists

Psychologist tools and equipment are the building blocks of your craft. We are still so early in our discovery of the mind and consciousness that we need to stay open to new advances.

As a result, keep your eye on digital tools for therapists and make sure you take advantage of whatever is available for the benefit of your clients. Not only can digital psychological assessment tools make testing more engaging but they also provide more accurate data points that can be easily referred to.

Furthermore, digital tools for therapists can, on the one hand, reduce your admin time by automating your back office processes. On the other hand, they offer resources for your clients to work through that come from a variety of methodologies.

With Quenza, you get all those benefits as well as personalized client dashboards, chat messaging and goal-tracking functions. You can also set up group therapy and file all your therapy notes in a structured and secure place. The platform is fully HIPAA and GDPR compliant so you don’t have to worry about the legal side of things. 

You can test all this out for yourself by signing up for the 1 month trial at only $1 . Your clients are bound to be impressed by the new exercises you’ll be sending them and they’ll keep coming back for more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Frameworks are highly useful in allowing us to understand the patterns of the mind. Nevertheless, every mind and every experience is slightly different. Relying on one tool or methodology won’t work for everyone and nor does it honor the versatility of the human condition.

In short, traditional tools are becoming digital. Just like you can buy a digital pen and pad, so now you can find websites with therapeutic cards and interactive digital visual boards. The added advantage with digital tools is that they can be used anywhere and in situ which makes data-gathering that much more precise.

While it’s always good to try out new things, it’s important to keep checking security and legal requirements. Not all platforms have been researched and nor do they all offer evidence-backed exercises.

As a starting point, make sure that whatever you use is HIPAA or GDPR compliant. Afterwards, do some research on the technology to understand how it was designed and who’s behind the content. Of course, there is always a level of risk but you will know through experience and instinct whether this is something you would be happy to share with an auditor, for instance.

• ^ Gordon, S. (2023, May 31). Eastern Psychology vs. Western Psychology | Is there a difference? Unbound. https://www.saybrook.edu/unbound/eastern-western-psychology/.
• ^ Out of our heads: why you are not your brain, and other lessons from the biology of consciousness. (2009). Choice Reviews Online , 47 (03), 47–1407. https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.47-1407.
• ^ Epstein, M. (2007).  Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist perspective.  Yale University Press.
• ^ Williams, J. E., & McCord, D. (2006). Equivalence of standard and computerized versions of the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Computers in Human Behavior , 22 (5), 791–800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.03.005.
• ^ Young, S., Maddocks, D. L. S., & Caemmerer, J. M. (2022). Computer-enhanced practice: The benefits of computer-assisted assessment in applied clinical practice. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice , 53 (4), 387–397. https://doi.org/10.1037/pro0000449.
• ^ Gould, C. E., Ma, F., Loup, J., Juang, C., Sakai, E. Y., & Pepin, R. (2020). Technology-based mental health assessment and intervention. In Elsevier eBooks (pp. 401–415). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-800136-3.00024-7.
• ^ Understanding psychological testing and assessment. (2022, August 18). https://www.apa.org . https://www.apa.org/topics/testing-assessment-measurement/understanding.
• ^ Space, L. G. (1981). The computer as psychometrician. Behavior Research Methods . https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03202072.
• ^ Zarbo, C., Tasca, G. A., Cattafi, F., & Compare, A. (2016). Integrative psychotherapy works. Frontiers in Psychology , 6 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02021.

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Pursuing a Career in Experimental Psychology

All About Experimental Psychology

Why do we behave in certain ways? What influences our behavior? How can our behavior shape our experiences throughout our lives? 

These are just a few examples of the types of questions that experimental psychologists seek to answer through basic and applied research. In a sense, all psychologists are experimental psychologists because of the discipline’s focus on a research base for all their work. However, experimental psychologists often devote their full-time professional lives to conducting and publishing research — often spending years on a specific research question. These psychologists have a passion for solving problems and exploring theoretical questions. They study a wide range of behavioral topics among humans and animals, including sensation, perception, attention, memory, cognition, emotion and more.

What You Can Do

Experimental psychologists use scientific methods to collect data and perform research. They can work in varied settings, including universities, research centers, the government and private businesses. The exact type of research an experimental psychologist performs may depend on a number of factors, including his or her educational background, interests and area of employment. Often, psychologists with training in experimental psychology contribute across subfields , using scientific research to provide insights that improve teaching and learning, create safer workplaces, and promote healthy child development, to list a few examples. 

Those who work in academia often teach psychology courses in addition to performing research and publishing their findings in psychological journals.

Making It Happen

A career as an experimental psychologist starts out with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Math skills and a strong grounding in how to collect and analyze data are critical to becoming an experimental psychologist. 

Some people choose to work in a lab or on other research teams after earning their master’s degree. After a few years of first-hand experience, many return to school to earn a doctoral degree. 

In addition, specialty areas such as human factors psychology and industrial and organizational (IO) psychology often have a very strong research focus, and professionals who work in these areas often make experimentation and research the major focus of their careers.

What You Can Earn

According to APA’s 2009 salary survey , annual salaries for doctoral-level experimental psychologists ranged from $76,090 to $116,343 depending on the psychologist’s position. The survey captured salary data for experimental psychologists working in faculty positions, research positions, research administration and applied psychology.

Helpful Resources

Division 3: Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science Members of APA’s Division 3 promote scientific inquiry through teaching and research, and support experimental psychology through the advocacy and educational programs.

Research in Psychology Explore the ins and outs of psychology research with information about research tools and methods, research ethics, publishing and funding.

Division 21: Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology Division 21 is at the intersection of psychology and technology. Applied experimental and engineering psychology aims at developing human-centered approaches to the design of myriad objects, machines and systems. It is a growing field with immense potential for rewarding career opportunities.

Learning Goals

• Learning how to conduct ethical research.

Exploring Experimental Psychology

Research ethics, 4.1  moral foundations of research.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with morality—what it means to behave morally and how people can achieve that goal. It can also refer to a set of principles and practices that provide moral guidance in a particular field. There is an ethics of business, medicine, teaching, and of course, scientific research. Many kinds of ethical issues can arise in scientific research, especially when it involves human participants. For this reason, it is useful to begin with a general framework for thinking through these issues.

Weighing Risks Against Benefits

Scientific research in psychology can be ethical only if its risks are outweighed by its benefits. Among the risks to research participants are that a treatment might fail to help or even be harmful, a procedure might result in physical or psychological harm, and their right to privacy might be violated. Among the potential benefits are receiving a helpful treatment, learning about psychology, experiencing the satisfaction of contributing to scientific knowledge, and receiving money or course credit for participating. Scientific research can have risks and benefits to the scientific community and to society too (Rosenthal, 1994). A risk to science is that if a research question is uninteresting or a study is poorly designed, then the time, money, and effort spent on that research could have been spent on more productive research. A risk to society is that research results could be misunderstood or misapplied with harmful consequences. The research that mistakenly linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism resulted in both of these kinds of harm. Of course, the benefits of scientific research to science and society are that it advances scientific knowledge and can contribute to the welfare of society.

It is not necessarily easy to weigh the risks of research against its benefits because the risks and benefits may not be directly comparable. For example, it is common for the risks of a study to be primarily to the research participants but the benefits primarily for science or society. Consider, for example, Stanley Milgram’s original study on obedience to authority (Milgram, 1963). The participants were told that they were taking part in a study on the effects of punishment on learning and were instructed to give electric shocks to another participant each time that participant responded incorrectly on a learning task. With each incorrect response, the shock became stronger—eventually causing the other participant (who was in the next room) to protest, complain about his heart, scream in pain, and finally fall silent and stop responding. If the first participant hesitated or expressed concern, the researcher said that he must continue. In reality, the other participant was a confederate of the researcher—a helper who pretended to be a real participant—and the protests, complaints, and screams that the real participant heard were an audio recording that was activated when he flipped the switch to administer the “shocks.” The surprising result of this study was that most of the real participants continued to administer the shocks right through the confederate’s protests, complaints, and screams. Although this is considered one of the most important results in psychology—with implications for understanding events like the Holocaust or the mistreatment of prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib—it came at the cost of producing severe psychological stress in the research participants.

 Was It Worth It?

Much of the debate over the ethics of Milgram’s obedience study concerns the question of whether the resulting scientific knowledge was worth the harm caused to the research participants. To get a better sense of the harm, consider Milgram’s (1963) own description of it.

 In a large number of cases, the degree of tension reached extremes that are rarely seen in sociopsychological laboratory studies. Subjects were observed to sweat, tremble, stutter, bite their lips, groan, and dig their fingernails into their flesh.…Fourteen of the 40 subjects showed definite signs of nervous laughter and smiling. The laughter seemed entirely out of place, even bizarre. Full blown uncontrollable seizures [of laughter] were observed for three subjects. On one occasion we observed a seizure so violently convulsive that it was necessary to call a halt to the experiment (p. 375).

 Milgram also noted that another observer reported that within 20 minutes one participant “was reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck, who was rapidly approaching the point of nervous collapse” (p. 377).

To Milgram’s credit, he went to great lengths to debrief his participants—including returning their mental states to normal—and to show that most of them thought the research was valuable and were glad to have participated. Still, this research would be considered unethical by today’s standards.

Acting Responsibly and With Integrity

Researchers must act responsibly and with integrity. This means carrying out their research in a thorough and competent manner, meeting their professional obligations, and being truthful. Acting with integrity is important because it promotes trust, which is an essential element of all effective human relationships. Participants must be able to trust that researchers are being honest with them (e.g., about what the study involves), will keep their promises (e.g., to maintain confidentiality), and will carry out their research in ways that maximize benefits and minimize risk. An important issue here is the use of deception. Some research questions (such as Milgram’s) are difficult or impossible to answer without deceiving research participants. Thus acting with integrity can conflict with doing research that advances scientific knowledge and benefits society. We will consider how psychologists generally deal with this conflict shortly.

The scientific community and society must also be able to trust that researchers have conducted their research thoroughly and competently and that they have reported on it honestly. Again, the example at the beginning of the chapter illustrates what can happen when this trust is violated. In this case, other researchers wasted resources on unnecessary follow-up research and people avoided the MMR vaccine, putting their children at increased risk of measles, mumps, and rubella.

Seeking Justice

Researchers must conduct their research in a just manner. They should treat their participants fairly, for example, by giving them adequate compensation for their participation and making sure that benefits and risks are distributed across all participants. For example, in a study of a new and potentially beneficial psychotherapy, some participants might receive the psychotherapy while others serve as a control group that receives no treatment. If the psychotherapy turns out to be effective, it would be fair to offer it to participants in the control group when the study ends.

At a broader societal level, members of some groups have historically faced more than their fair share of the risks of scientific research, including people who are institutionalized, are disabled, or belong to racial or ethnic minorities. A particularly tragic example is the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the US Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972 (Reverby, 2009). The participants in this study were poor African American men in the vicinity of Tuskegee, Alabama, who were told that they were being treated for “bad blood.” Although they were given some free medical care, they were not treated for their syphilis. Instead, they were observed to see how the disease developed in untreated patients. Even after the use of penicillin became the standard treatment for syphilis in the 1940s, these men continued to be denied treatment without being given an opportunity to leave the study. The study was eventually discontinued only after details were made known to the general public by journalists and activists. It is now widely recognized that researchers need to consider issues of justice and fairness at the societal level.

 “They Were Betrayed”

In 1997—65 years after the Tuskegee Syphilis Study began and 25 years after it ended—President Bill Clinton formally apologized on behalf of the US government to those who were affected. Here is an excerpt from the apology:

 So today America does remember the hundreds of men used in research without their knowledge and consent. We remember them and their family members. Men who were poor and African American, without resources and with few alternatives, they believed they had found hope when they were offered free medical care by the United States Public Health Service. They were betrayed.

Respecting People’s Rights and Dignity

Researchers must respect people’s rights and dignity as human beings. One element of this is respecting their autonomy—their right to make their own choices and take their own actions free from coercion. Of fundamental importance here is the concept of informed consent. This means that researchers obtain and document people’s agreement to participate in a study after having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision. Consider the participants in the Tuskegee study. Although they agreed to participate in the study, they were not told that they had syphilis but would be denied treatment for it. Had they been told this basic fact about the study, it seems likely that they would not have agreed to participate. Likewise, had participants in Milgram’s study been told that they might be “reduced to a twitching, stuttering wreck,” it seems likely that many of them would not have agreed to participate. In neither of these studies did participants give true informed consent.

Another element of respecting people’s rights and dignity is respecting their privacy—their right to decide what information about them is shared with others. This means that researchers must maintain confidentiality, which is essentially an agreement not to disclose participants’ personal information without their consent or some appropriate legal authorization.

 Unavoidable Ethical Conflict

It may already be clear that ethical conflict in psychological research is unavoidable. Because there is little, if any, psychological research that is completely risk free, there will almost always be conflict between risks and benefits. Research that is beneficial to one group (e.g., the scientific community) can be harmful to another (e.g., the research participants), creating especially difficult trade-offs. We have also seen that being completely truthful with research participants can make it difficult or impossible to conduct scientifically valid studies on important questions.

Of course, many ethical conflicts are fairly easy to resolve. Nearly everyone would agree that deceiving research participants and then subjecting them to physical harm would not be justified by filling a small gap in the research literature. But many ethical conflicts are not easy to resolve, and competent and well-meaning researchers can disagree about how to resolve them. Consider, for example, an actual study on “personal space” conducted in a public men’s room (Middlemist, Knowles, & Matter, 1976). The researchers secretly observed their participants to see whether it took them longer to begin urinating when there was another man (a confederate of the researchers) at a nearby urinal. While some critics found this to be an unjustified assault on human dignity (Koocher, 1977), the researchers had carefully considered the ethical conflicts, resolved them as best they could, and concluded that the benefits of the research outweighed the risks (Middlemist, Knowles, & Matter, 1977). For example, they had interviewed some preliminary participants and found that none of them was bothered by the fact that they had been observed.

The point here is that although it may not be possible to eliminate ethical conflict completely, it is possible to deal with it in responsible and constructive ways. In general, this means thoroughly and carefully thinking through the ethical issues that are raised, minimizing the risks, and weighing the risks against the benefits. It also means being able to explain one’s ethical decisions to others, seeking feedback on them, and ultimately taking responsibility for them.

Key Takeaways

·         A wide variety of ethical issues arise in psychological research. Thinking them through requires considering how each of four moral principles (weighing risks against benefits, acting responsibly and with integrity, seeking justice, and respecting people’s rights and dignity) applies to each of three groups of people (research participants, science, and society).

·         Ethical conflict in psychological research is unavoidable. Researchers must think through the ethical issues raised by their research, minimize the risks, weigh the risks against the benefits, be able to explain their ethical decisions, seek feedback about these decisions from others, and ultimately take responsibility for them.

4.2  From Moral Principles to Ethics Codes

The general moral principles of weighing risks against benefits, acting with integrity, seeking justice, and respecting people’s rights and dignity provide a useful starting point for thinking about the ethics of psychological research because essentially everyone agrees on them. As we have seen, however, even people who agree on these general principles can disagree about specific ethical issues that arise in the course of conducting research. This is why there also exist more detailed and enforceable ethics codes that provide guidance on important issues that arise frequently. In this section, we begin with a brief historical overview of such ethics codes and then look closely at the one that is most relevant to psychological research—that of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Historical Overview

One of the earliest ethics codes was the Nuremberg Code—a set of 10 principles written in 1947 in conjunction with the trials of Nazi physicians accused of shockingly cruel research on concentration camp prisoners during World War II. It provided a standard against which to compare the behavior of the men on trial—many of whom were eventually convicted and either imprisoned or sentenced to death. The Nuremberg Code was particularly clear about the importance of carefully weighing risks against benefits and the need for informed consent. The Declaration of Helsinki is a similar ethics code that was created by the World Medical Council in 1964. Among the standards that it added to the Nuremberg Code was that research with human participants should be based on a written protocol—a detailed description of the research—that is reviewed by an independent committee. The Declaration of Helsinki has been revised several times, most recently in 2004.

In the United States, concerns about the Tuskegee study and others led to the publication in 1978 of a set of federal guidelines called the Belmont Report. The Belmont Report explicitly recognized the principle of seeking justice, including the importance of conducting research in a way that distributes risks and benefits fairly across different groups at the societal level. The Belmont Report became the basis of a set of laws—the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects—that apply to research conducted, supported, or regulated by the federal government. An extremely important part of these regulations is that universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive support from the federal government must establish an institutional review board (IRB)—a committee that is responsible for reviewing research protocols for potential ethical problems. An IRB must consist of at least five people with varying backgrounds, including members of different professions, scientists and nonscientists, men and women, and at least one person not otherwise affiliated with the institution. The IRB helps to make sure that the risks of the proposed research are minimized, the benefits outweigh the risks, the research is carried out in a fair manner, and the informed consent procedure is adequate.

The federal regulations also distinguish research that poses three levels of risk. Exempt research includes research on the effectiveness of normal educational activities, the use of standard psychological measures and surveys of a nonsensitive nature that are administered in a way that maintains confidentiality, and research using existing data from public sources. It is called exempt because the regulations do not apply to it. Minimal risk research exposes participants to risks that are no greater than those encountered by healthy people in daily life or during routine physical or psychological examinations. Minimal risk research can receive an expedited review by one member of the IRB or by a separate committee under the authority of the IRB that can only approve minimal risk research. (Many departments of psychology have such separate committees.) Finally, at-risk research poses greater than minimal risk and must be reviewed by the IRB.

Ethics Codes

The link that follows the list—from the Office of Human Subjects Research at the National Institutes of Health—allows you to read the ethics codes discussed in this section in their entirety. They are all highly recommended and, with the exception of the Federal Policy, short and easy to read.

 ·         The Nuremberg Code

·         The Declaration of Helsinki

·         The Belmont Report

·         Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects

Here is the link for the Research Guidelines for Human Subjects.

APA Ethics Code

The APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (also known as the APA Ethics Code) was first published in 1953 and has been revised several times since then, most recently in 2002. It includes about 150 specific ethical standards that psychologists and their students are expected to follow. Much of the APA Ethics Code concerns the clinical practice of psychology—advertising one’s services, setting and collecting fees, having personal relationships with clients, and so on. For our purposes, the most relevant part is Standard 8: Research and Publication. Here we consider only some of its most important aspects—informed consent, deception, debriefing, the use of nonhuman animal subjects, and scholarly integrity—in more detail.  You can read the full APA Ethics Code at http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx .

Informed Consent

Standards 8.02 to 8.05 are about informed consent. Again, informed consent means obtaining and documenting people’s agreement to participate in a study, having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision. This includes details of the procedure, the risks and benefits of the research, the fact that they have the right to decline to participate or to withdraw from the study, the consequences of doing so, and any legal limits to confidentiality. For example, some states require researchers who learn of child abuse or other crimes to report this information to authorities.

Although the process of obtaining informed consent often involves having participants read and sign a consent form, it is important to understand that this is not all it is. Although having participants read and sign a consent form might be enough when they are competent adults with the necessary ability and motivation, many participants do not actually read consent forms or read them but do not understand them. For example, participants often mistake consent forms for legal documents and mistakenly believe that by signing them they give up their right to sue the researcher (Mann, 1994). Even with competent adults, therefore, it is good practice to tell participants about the risks and benefits, demonstrate the procedure, ask them if they have questions, and remind them of their right to withdraw at any time—in addition to having them read and sign a consent form.

Note also that there are situations in which informed consent is not necessary. These include situations in which the research is not expected to cause any harm and the procedure is straightforward or the study is conducted in the context of people’s ordinary activities. For example, if you wanted to sit outside a public building and observe whether people hold the door open for people behind them, you would not need to obtain their informed consent. Similarly, if a college instructor wanted to compare two legitimate teaching methods across two sections of his research methods course, he would not need to obtain informed consent from his students.

Deception of participants in psychological research can take a variety of forms: misinforming participants about the purpose of a study, using confederates, using phony equipment like Milgram’s shock generator, and presenting participants with false feedback about their performance (e.g., telling them they did poorly on a test when they actually did well). Deception also includes not informing participants of the full design or true purpose of the research even if they are not actively misinformed (Sieber, Iannuzzo, & Rodriguez, 1995). For example, a study on incidental learning—learning without conscious effort—might involve having participants read through a list of words in preparation for a “memory test” later. Although participants are likely to assume that the memory test will require them to recall the words, it might instead require them to recall the contents of the room or the appearance of the research assistant.

Some researchers have argued that deception of research participants is rarely if ever ethically justified. Among their arguments are that it prevents participants from giving truly informed consent, fails to respect their dignity as human beings, has the potential to upset them, makes them distrustful and therefore less honest in their responding, and damages the reputation of researchers in the field (Baumrind, 1985).

Note, however, that the APA Ethics Code takes a more moderate approach—allowing deception when the benefits of the study outweigh the risks, participants cannot reasonably be expected to be harmed, the research question cannot be answered without the use of deception, and participants are informed about the deception as soon as possible. This approach acknowledges that not all forms of deception are equally bad. Compare, for example, Milgram’s study in which he deceived his participants in several significant ways that resulted in their experiencing severe psychological stress with an incidental learning study in which a “memory test” turns out to be slightly different from what participants were expecting. It also acknowledges that some scientifically and socially important research questions can be difficult or impossible to answer without deceiving participants. Knowing that a study concerns the extent to which they obey authority, act aggressively toward a peer, or help a stranger is likely to change the way people behave so that the results no longer generalize to the real world.

Standard 8.08 is about debriefing. This is the process of informing research participants as soon as possible of the purpose of the study, revealing any deception, and correcting any other misconceptions they might have as a result of participating. Debriefing also involves minimizing harm that might have occurred. For example, an experiment on the effects of being in a sad mood on memory might involve inducing a sad mood in participants by having them think sad thoughts, watch a sad video, or listen to sad music. Debriefing would be the time to return participants’ moods to normal by having them think happy thoughts, watch a happy video, or listen to happy music.

Nonhuman Animal Subjects

Standard 8.09 is about the humane treatment and care of nonhuman animal subjects. Although most contemporary research in psychology does not involve nonhuman animal subjects, a significant minority of it does—especially in the study of learning and conditioning, behavioral neuroscience, and the development of drug and surgical therapies for psychological disorders.

The use of nonhuman animal subjects in psychological research is like the use of deception in that there are those who argue that it is rarely, if ever, ethically acceptable (Bowd & Shapiro, 1993). Clearly, nonhuman animals are incapable of giving informed consent. Yet they can be subjected to numerous procedures that are likely to cause them suffering. They can be confined, deprived of food and water, subjected to pain, operated on, and ultimately euthanized. (Of course, they can also be observed benignly in natural or zoolike settings.) Others point out that psychological research on nonhuman animals has resulted in many important benefits to humans, including the development of behavioral therapies for many disorders, more effective pain control methods, and antipsychotic drugs (Miller, 1985). It has also resulted in benefits to nonhuman animals, including alternatives to shooting and poisoning as means of controlling them.

As with deception, the APA acknowledges that the benefits of research on nonhuman animals can outweigh the costs, in which case it is ethically acceptable. However, researchers must use alternative methods when they can. When they cannot, they must acquire and care for their subjects humanely and minimize the harm to them. For more information on the APA’s position on nonhuman animal subjects, see the website of the APA’s Committee on Animal Research and Ethics ( http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/care/index.aspx ).

Scholarly Integrity

Standards 8.10 to 8.15 are about scholarly integrity. These include the obvious points that researchers must not fabricate data or plagiarize. Plagiarism means using others’ words or ideas without proper acknowledgment. Proper acknowledgment generally means indicating direct quotations with quotation marks and providing a citation to the source of any quotation or idea used.

According to the APA Ethics Code, faculty advisers should discuss publication credit—who will be an author and the order of authors—with their student collaborators as early as possible in the research process.

The remaining standards make some less obvious but equally important points. Researchers should not publish the same data a second time as though it were new, they should share their data with other researchers, and as peer reviewers they should keep the unpublished research they review confidential. Note that the authors’ names on published research—and the order in which those names appear—should reflect the importance of each person’s contribution to the research. It would be unethical, for example, to include as an author someone who had made only minor contributions to the research (e.g., analyzing some of the data) or for a faculty member to make himself or herself the first author on research that was largely conducted by a student.

·         There are several written ethics codes for research with human participants that provide specific guidance on the ethical issues that arise most frequently. These codes include the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, and the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects.

·         The APA Ethics Code is the most important ethics code for researchers in psychology. It includes many standards that are relevant mainly to clinical practice, but Standard 8 concerns informed consent, deception, debriefing, the use of nonhuman animal subjects, and scholarly integrity in research.

·         Research conducted at universities, hospitals, and other institutions that receive support from the federal government must be reviewed by an institutional review board (IRB)—a committee at the institution that reviews research protocols to make sure they conform to ethical standards.

·         Informed consent is the process of obtaining and documenting people’s agreement to participate in a study, having informed them of everything that might reasonably be expected to affect their decision. Although it often involves having them read and sign a consent form, it is not equivalent to reading and signing a consent form.

·         Although some researchers argue that deception of research participants is never ethically justified, the APA Ethics Code allows for its use when the benefits of using it outweigh the risks, participants cannot reasonably be expected to be harmed, there is no way to conduct the study without deception, and participants are informed of the deception as soon as possible.

4.3  Putting Ethics Into Practice

In this section, we look at some practical advice for conducting ethical research in psychology. Again, it is important to remember that ethical issues arise well before you begin to collect data and continue to arise through publication and beyond.

Know and Accept Your Ethical Responsibilities

As the American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code notes in its introduction, “Lack of awareness or misunderstanding of an ethical standard is not itself a defense to a charge of unethical conduct.” This is why the very first thing that you must do as a new researcher is know and accept your ethical responsibilities. At a minimum, this means reading and understanding the relevant standards of the APA Ethics Code, distinguishing minimal risk from at-risk research, and knowing the specific policies and procedures of your institution—including how to prepare and submit a research protocol for institutional review board (IRB) review. If you are conducting research as a course requirement, there may be specific course standards, policies, and procedures. If any standard, policy, or procedure is unclear—or you are unsure what to do about an ethical issue that arises—you must seek clarification. You can do this by reviewing the relevant ethics codes, reading about how similar issues have been resolved by others, or consulting with more experienced researchers, your IRB, or your course instructor. Ultimately, you as the researcher must take responsibility for the ethics of the research you conduct.

Identify and Minimize Risks

As you design your study, you must identify and minimize risks to participants. Start by listing all the risks, including risks of physical and psychological harm and violations of confidentiality. Remember that it is easy for researchers to see risks as less serious than participants do or even to overlook them completely. For example, one student researcher wanted to test people’s sensitivity to violent images by showing them gruesome photographs of crime and accident scenes. Because she was an emergency medical technician, however, she greatly underestimated how disturbing these images were to most people. Remember too that some risks might apply only to some participants. For example, while most people would have no problem completing a survey about their fear of various crimes, those who have been a victim of one of those crimes might become upset. This is why you should seek input from a variety of people, including your research collaborators, more experienced researchers, and even from nonresearchers who might be better able to take the perspective of a participant.

Once you have identified the risks, you can often reduce or eliminate many of them. One way is to modify the research design. For example, you might be able to shorten or simplify the procedure to prevent boredom and frustration. You might be able to replace upsetting or offensive stimulus materials (e.g., graphic accident scene photos) with less upsetting or offensive ones (e.g., milder photos of the sort people are likely to see in the newspaper). A good example of modifying a research design is a 2009 replication of Milgram’s study conducted by Jerry Burger. Instead of allowing his participants to continue administering shocks up to the 450-V maximum, the researcher always stopped the procedure when they were about to administer the 150-V shock (Burger, 2009). This made sense because in Milgram’s study (a) participants’ severe negative reactions occurred after this point and (b) most participants who administered the 150-V shock continued all the way to the 450-V maximum. Thus the researcher was able to compare his results directly with Milgram’s at every point up to the 150-V shock and also was able to estimate how many of his participants would have continued to the maximum—but without subjecting them to the severe stress that Milgram did. (The results, by the way, were that these contemporary participants were just as obedient as Milgram’s were.)

A second way to minimize risks is to use a pre-screening procedure to identify and eliminate participants who are at high risk. You can do this in part through the informed consent process. For example, you can warn participants that a survey includes questions about their fear of crime and remind them that they are free to withdraw if they think this might upset them. Pre-screening can also involve collecting data to identify and eliminate participants. For example, Burger used an extensive pre-screening procedure involving multiple questionnaires and an interview with a clinical psychologist to identify and eliminate participants with physical or psychological problems that put them at high risk.

A third way to minimize risks is to take active steps to maintain confidentiality. You should keep signed consent forms separately from any data that you collect and in such a way that no individual’s name can be linked to his or her data. In addition, beyond people’s sex and age, you should only collect personal information that you actually need to answer your research question. If people’s sexual orientation or ethnicity is not clearly relevant to your research question, for example, then do not ask them about it. Be aware also that certain data collection procedures can lead to unintentional violations of confidentiality. When participants respond to an oral survey in a shopping mall or complete a questionnaire in a classroom setting, it is possible that their responses will be overheard or seen by others. If the responses are personal, it is better to administer the survey or questionnaire individually in private or to use other techniques to prevent the unintentional sharing of personal information.

Identify and Minimize Deception

Remember that deception can take a variety of forms, not all of which involve actively misleading participants. It is also deceptive to allow participants to make incorrect assumptions (e.g., about what will be on a “memory test”) or simply withhold information about the full design or purpose of the study. It is best to identify and minimize all forms of deception.

Remember that according to the APA Ethics Code, deception is ethically acceptable only if there is no way to answer your research question without it. Therefore, if your research design includes any form of active deception, you should consider whether it is truly necessary. Imagine, for example, that you want to know whether the age of college professors affects students’ expectations about their teaching ability. You could do this by telling participants that you will show them photos of college professors and ask them to rate each one’s teaching ability. But if the photos are not really of college professors but of your own family members and friends, then this would be deception. This deception could easily be eliminated, however, by telling participants instead to imagine that the photos are of college professors and to rate them as if they were.

In general, it is considered acceptable to wait until debriefing before you reveal your research question as long as you describe the procedure, risks, and benefits during the informed consent process. For example, you would not have to tell participants that you wanted to know whether the age of college professors affects people’s expectations about them until the study was over. Not only is this information unlikely to affect people’s decision about whether or not to participate in the study, but it has the potential to invalidate the results. Participants who know that age is the independent variable might rate the older and younger “professors” differently because they think you want them to. Alternatively, they might be careful to rate them the same so that they do not appear prejudiced. But even this extremely mild form of deception can be minimized by informing participants—orally, in writing, or both—that although you have accurately described the procedure, risks, and benefits, you will wait to reveal the research question until afterward. In essence, participants give their consent to be deceived or to have information withheld from them until later.

Weigh the Risks Against the Benefits

Once the risks of the research have been identified and minimized, you need to weigh them against the benefits. This requires identifying all the benefits. Remember to consider benefits to the research participants, to science, and to society. If you are a student researcher, remember that one of the benefits is the knowledge you will gain about how to conduct scientific research in psychology—knowledge you can then use to complete your studies and succeed in graduate school or in your career.

If the research poses minimal risk—no more than in people’s daily lives or routine physical or psychological examinations—then even a small benefit to participants, science, or society is generally considered enough to justify it. If it poses more than minimal risk, then there should be more benefits. If the research has the potential to upset some participants, for example, then it becomes more important that the study be well designed and answer a scientifically interesting research question or have clear practical implications. It would be unethical to subject people to pain, fear, or embarrassment for no better reason than to satisfy one’s personal curiosity. In general, psychological research that has the potential to cause harm that is more than minor or lasts for more than a short time is rarely considered justified by its benefits. Consider, for example, that Milgram’s study—as interesting and important as the results were—would be considered unethical by today’s standards.

Create Informed Consent and Debriefing Procedures

Once you have settled on a research design, you need to create your informed consent and debriefing procedures. Start by deciding whether informed consent is necessary according to APA Standard 8.05. If informed consent is necessary, there are several things you should do. First, when you recruit participants—whether it is through word of mouth, posted advertisements, or a participant pool—provide them with as much information about the study as you can. This will allow those who might find the study objectionable to avoid it. Second, prepare a script or set of “talking points” to help you explain the study to your participants in simple everyday language. This should include a description of the procedure, the risks and benefits, and their right to withdraw at any time. Third, create an informed consent form that covers all the points in Standard 8.02a that participants can read and sign after you have described the study to them. Your university, department, or course instructor may have a sample consent form that you can adapt for your own study. If not, an Internet search will turn up several samples. Remember that if appropriate, both the oral and written parts of the informed consent process should include the fact that you are keeping some information about the design or purpose of the study from them but that you will reveal it during debriefing.

Debriefing is similar to informed consent in that you cannot necessarily expect participants to read and understand written debriefing forms. So again it is best to write a script or set of talking points with the goal of being able to explain the study in simple everyday language. During debriefing, you should reveal the research question and full design of the study. For example, if participants are tested under only one condition, then you should explain what happened in the other conditions. If you deceived your participants, you should reveal this as soon as possible, apologize for the deception, explain why it was necessary, and correct any misconceptions that participants might have as a result. Debriefing is also a good time to provide additional benefits to research participants by giving them relevant practical information or referrals to other sources of help. For example, in a study of attitudes toward domestic abuse, you could provide pamphlets about domestic abuse and referral information to the university counseling center for those who might want it.

Remember to schedule plenty of time for the informed consent and debriefing processes. They cannot be effective if you have to rush through them.

Get Approval

The next step is to get institutional approval for your research based on the specific policies and procedures at your institution or for your course. This will generally require writing a protocol that describes the purpose of the study, the research design and procedure, the risks and benefits, the steps taken to minimize risks, and the informed consent and debriefing procedures. Do not think of the institutional approval process as merely an obstacle to overcome but as an opportunity to think through the ethics of your research and to consult with others who are likely to have more experience or different perspectives than you. If the IRB has questions or concerns about your research, address them promptly and in good faith. This might even mean making further modifications to your research design and procedure before resubmitting your protocol.

Follow Through

Your concern with ethics should not end when your study receives institutional approval. It now becomes important to stick to the protocol you submitted or to seek additional approval for anything other than a minor change. During the research, you should monitor your participants for unanticipated reactions and seek feedback from them during debriefing. One criticism of Milgram’s study is that although he did not know ahead of time that his participants would have such severe negative reactions, he certainly knew after he had tested the first several participants and should have made adjustments at that point (Baumrind, 1985). Be alert also for potential violations of confidentiality. Keep the consent forms and the data safe and separate from each other and make sure that no one, intentionally or unintentionally, has access to any participant’s personal information.

Finally, you must maintain your integrity through the publication process and beyond. Address publication credit—who will be authors on the research and the order of authors—with your collaborators early and avoid plagiarism in your writing. Remember that your scientific goal is to learn about the way the world actually is and that your scientific duty is to report on your results honestly and accurately. So do not be tempted to fabricate data or alter your results in any way. Besides, unexpected results are often as interesting, or more so, than expected ones.

·         It is your responsibility as a researcher to know and accept your ethical responsibilities.

·         You can take several concrete steps to minimize risks and deception in your research. These include making changes to your research design, prescreening to identify and eliminate high-risk participants, and providing participants with as much information as possible during informed consent and debriefing.

·         Your ethical responsibilities continue beyond IRB approval. You need to monitor participants’ reactions, be alert for potential violations of confidentiality, and maintain scholarly integrity through the publication process.

References from Chapter 4

Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40, 165–174.

Bowd, A. D., & Shapiro, K. J. (1993). The case against animal laboratory research in psychology. Journal of Social Issues, 49, 133–142.

Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64, 1–11.

Haidt, J., Koller, S. H., & Dias, M. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 613–628.

Koocher, G. P. (1977). Bathroom behavior and human dignity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 120–121.

Mann, T. (1994). Informed consent for psychological research: Do subjects comprehend consent forms and understand their legal rights? Psychological Science, 5, 140–143.

Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S., & Matter, C. F. (1976). Personal space invasions in the lavatory: Suggestive evidence for arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 541–546.

Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S., & Matter, C. F. (1977). What to do and what to report: A reply to Koocher. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 122–125.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.

Miller, N. E. (1985). The value of behavioral research on animals. American Psychologist, 40, 423–440.

Reverby, S. M. (2009). Examining Tuskegee: The infamous syphilis study and its legacy. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Rosenthal, R. M. (1994). Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research. Psychological Science, 5, 127–133.

Sieber, J. E., Iannuzzo, R., & Rodriguez, B. (1995). Deception methods in psychology: Have they changed in 23 years? Ethics Behavior, 5, 67–85.

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Ideas for Psychology Experiments

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

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

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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."

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Experimental psychology, the journal for experimental research in psychology.

• ISSN L: 1618-3169
• ISSN Print: 1618-3169
• ISSN Online: 2190-5142

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As its name implies, Experimental Psychology publishes innovative, original, high-quality experimental research in psychology.

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To get more detailed information, read the Editorial by Andreas B. Eder and Christian Frings.

What makes Experimental Psychology special?

• Now a founding participant journal in the Peer Community In Registered Reports
• Open to all disciplines of experimental research in psychology
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Open Access for UK authors publishing in APA PsycArticles Hogrefe is participating in the open access publishing pilot for the APA PsycArticles database in 2023-24 – this includes eligible articles accepted in Experimental Psychology. Learn more

Announcing a New Submission Category: Replication Reports The Editors are proud to announce a new article category, which gives you as authors the opportunity to present results of studies conducted as either exact or conceptual replications of already published research. For more information, please click here .

Announcing the Peer Community in Registered Reports Experimental Psychology is proud to be a founding participant journal in the recently launched Peer Community in Registered Reports (PCI-RR). After a preprint is posted on a server and submitted for review at PCI, it follows the usual rounds of reviews and revisions. Once authors have their Registered Report recommended by PCI-RR, they have the option to publish their article in a growing list of “PCI-RR-friendly” journals that have committed to accepting PCI-RR recommendations without further peer review – one of them is Experimental Psychology. Click here for more information.

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Article highlights

Recent Editorial

Message From Your New Editor Raymond M. Klein Experimental Psychology, Vol. 68, No. 4, pp. 173-174

Editor’s Picks

(A)symmetries in Memory and Directed Forgetting of Political Stimuli Andrew Franks, Hajime Otani, and Gavin T. Roupe Experimental Psychology, Vol. 70, No. 2, pp. 68-80

Probing the Dual-Route Model of the SNARC Effect by Orthogonalizing Processing Speed and Depth Daniele Didino, Matthias Brandtner, Maria Glaser, and André Knops Experimental Psychology, Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 1–13

Raymond Klein

Editor-in-chief

Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

Faculty of Science

Dalhousie University

1355 Oxford St.

Editorial assistant

Swasti Arora Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Faculty of Science Dalhousie University 1355 Oxford St. Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2 Canada Send email

Associate editors

Ullrich Ecker School of Psychological Science University of Western Australia Perth 6009 Australia Send email Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia. His main interests lie in episodic memory, working memory, feature binding, memory updating, as well as the processing of misinformation and its effects on memory and reasoning. He uses mainly behavioural experimentation, augmented by neuroimaging methods (event-related potentials, fMRI) and computational modelling.

Gesa Hartwigsen Lise Meitner Research Group Cognition and Plasticity Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences Stephanstraße 1a 04103 Leipzig Germany Send email Lise Meitner Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (Germany). Her main interest is the potential for adaptive systems plasticity in neural networks for cognitive functions, with a focus on the healthy and lesioned language network. Her group combines neurostimulation and neuroimaging techniques to probe interactions between domain-specific and domain-general networks.

Manuel Perea University of València Av. Blasco Ibáñez, 21 46010 Valencia Spain Send email Professor of Psychology at the University of Valencia (Spain). His main fields of interest are psychology of language, lexical-semantic memory, and cognitive neuroscience.

James R. Schmidt Université de Bourgogne LEAD-CNRS UMR 5022 Pole AAFE 11 Esplanade Erasme 21000 Dijon France Send email Full Professor at the Université de Bourgogne, working in the Laboratoire d'Etude de l'Apprentissage et du Développement (LEAD; Laboratory for Research on Learning and Development). His main research interests are implicit learning, music learning, cognitive control, and neural networks.

Alexander Schütz University of Marburg Department of Psychology Gutenbergstr. 18 35032 Marburg Germany Send email Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Marburg (Germany). His main research interests are visual perception, eye movements and their interaction in active perception.

Editorial board

The expertise of the international editorial board covers a broad range of subject areas. All papers submitted to the journal are subject to full peer-review by members of the board and external reviewers. Hartmut Blank, University of Portsmouth, UK (memory (misinformation and social influence), hindsight bias and meta-analysis) Arndt Bröder, University of Mannheim, Germany (memory and metamemory, judgment and decision making) Roberto Dell'Acqua, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy (visual attention, visual working memory, attentional blink) Edgar Erdfelder, Universität Mannheim, Germany (episodic memory, judgment/reasoning, cognitive modeling, design/power analysis) Christian Frings, University of Würzburg, Germany (action control, perception-action Integration, inhibition (negative priming), multisensory perception) Morris Goldsmith, University of Haifa, Israel (object-based attention, memory accuracy, and metamemory-metacognition) Dirk Kerzel, Université de Genève, Switzerland (visual search, visual working memory, and motion perception) Andrea Kiesel, University of Freiburg, Germany (cognitive control, multitasking, cognitive-motor interference) Iring Koch, RWTH Aachen, Germany (attention & cognitive control (task switching specifically), bilingualism, sequence learning) Joachim I. Krueger, Brown University, RI, USA (social cognition, JDM, free will)

Stephen Lindsay, University of Victoria, Canada (memory, eyewitness memory, response bias) Ben Newell, University of New South Wales, Australia (judgment, decision making, choice) Klaus Oberauer, Universität Zürich, Switzerland (working memory, executive functions, episodic memory) Michel Regenwetter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA (order-constrained Inference, decision making, probabilistic choice) Rainer Reisenzein, Universität Greifswald, Germany (emotion, surprise, motivation, temporal order) Jeffrey N. Rouder, University of Missouri, MO, USA (methods (Bayesian in particular), individual differences, attention) David Shanks, University College London, UK (learning, memory, and unconscious processes)

Christoph Stahl, University of Cologne, Germany (evaluative conditioning, implicit/unconscious learning, false memory)

Sarah Teige-Mocigemba, University of Marburg, Germany (social cognition, implicit measures, priming)

Sebastien Tremblay, Université Laval, Canada (cognitive limitations, human performance, problem solving, decision making) Christian Unkelbach, Universität zu Köln, Germany (social cognition, person perception, evaluative learning & conditioning, sport psychology) Eva Walther, Universität Trier, Germany (evaluative learning, conditioning, contingency memory) Peter A. White, Cardiff University, UK (causal judgment, causal perception, temporal aspects of perception)

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V.M. Bekhterev and the beginnings of experimental psychology in Russia

2007, Revista De Historia De La Psicologia

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The pattern of the institutionalisation of psychology in Russia was as complex as in other countries. The institutionalisation was more than a single event or even a series of events: it was a manifold process that involved various actors, groups, and political parties, and took at least several decades. Psychology was taught within the subject of philosophy, but as a separate course, at high schools, from the early nineteenth century. When, in mid-century, philosophy was banned from universities for political reasons, logic and psychology still remained in the curriculum. Psychology became a contested area in the 1860s, with the rise of the radical movement that accompanied the abolition of serfdom and other reforms. The young radicals, or nihilists, favoured positive science and gave clear preference to physiology; at medical schools, psychology gradually became part of physiology and psychiatry teaching. Psychiatric clinics provided a venue for the first psychological experiments; the first courses in experimental psychology were also taught to psychiatry students. At the turn of the century, humanities departments joined in by opening laboratories and adding courses in experimental psychology to the philosophical psychology traditionally taught. Yet by 1917, the year when the monarchy ended in Russia, only two universities, in Moscow and Odessa, had succeeded in founding laboratories. The institutionalisation of psychology on a mass scale followed the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The new, communist regime facilitated the country’s modernisation, and psychology became one of its instruments

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