Psychological Studies: A Free Text

40 Studies that Changed Psychology is a free (presumably because it’s around 10 years old and out-of-print) text I discovered while rooting around the Web that offers-up a selection of influential psychological studies that, in the opinion of its author Roger Hock, changed the way we think about – and in some cases do – psychology.

Whether or not you agree with the author’s claim (an alternative title – “A collection of psychological studies, a lot of which you’ve heard of, some of which you haven’t” – probably doesn’t have quite the zing of the actual title), students and teachers will definitely find something here of interest in its 10 chapters that cover:

• Biology and Human Behavior (sic)
• Perception and Consciousness
• Learning and Conditioning
• Intelligence, Cognition and Memory
• Human Development
• Emotion and Motivation
• Personality
• Psychopathology
• Psychotherapy
• Social Psychology

Each chapter contains 4 readings (Social Psychology, for example, features Zimbardo (1972) “The pathology of imprisonment” / Asch (1955) “Opinions and social pressure” / Darley and Latané (1968) “Bystander intervention in emergencies” / Milgram (1963) “Behavioral study of obedience”), each of which is sub-divided into sections covering:

• theoretical propositions
• research methods
• results
• discussion
• criticisms.

This consistency of presentation is an attractive feature that makes it relatively easy for students to hone-in on the main ideas in each reading, how the research was carried-out, the results it gave and a short discussion of the main criticisms it has attracted over the years.

Although the majority of the studies will only be of interest to psychology teachers, a few – Rosenthal and Jacobson, Rosenhan, Zimbardo, Asch, Milgram – will also be useful to sociology teachers.