Psychology: Classic Studies Resources

A few years back, around 2006 to be more-precise than is actually warranted by the evidence, Online Classroom (the predecessor of ShortCutstv) made a number of short films under the general heading of Classic Psychological Studies.

While the films are still around to buy if you want to look for them, the technical quality is, as you might expect, “not great” (the words “fuzzy” and “like looking through a muddy window” spring to mind) there were a few resources produced to accompany the films you might find useful.

These resources, in the shape of PowerPoint Presentations and Word-based activities, could, if I was being charitable, be described as “quite basic” (as you can probably tell from the accompanying screenshots), but they “do the job” for which they were originally intended: you might find the Presentations a useful time-saver and the Activities a source of inspiration if nothing else.

Resources

Films

While you don’t actually need the accompanying films to enjoy (a word I use loosely in this context) the resources, if you do want to add a multimedia dimension to your teaching (and, to be honest, who doesn’t?) you can find free versions of the studies on places like YouTube (the London Psychology Collective, for example, has a collection of 8 “classic studies” films that includes Milgram, Zimbardo and Ainsworth for your free viewing pleasure. The quality of these – and most others you’re likely to find – is variable, at best because they mainly use original (analogue) source film that hasn’t aged well after repeated copying).

If you’re feeling a bit more flush, we’ve got a few more-recent films that could cover well the resource-gap:

Psychology: Beyond Milgram: Obedience and Identity from ShortCutstv on Vimeo.

Generations of students have been taught that Milgram’s famous obedience experiments demonstrated how easily ordinary people can be persuaded to harm others when instructed to by a person in authority.

But did Milgram’s research really show that?

Using original footage and new documentary evidence, this film suggests Milgram’s experiments demonstrate something rather different: that obedience to authority is a consequence of social identity

Psychology: False Memories from ShortCutstv on Vimeo.

Elizabeth Loftus’ pioneering research on “false memories” made a crucial contribution to the “recovered memory” debate in psychology.

This film, featuring original interview footage with Loftus, tells the compelling story of her central role in the “Memory Wars” in three related parts:

1. The George Franklin trial.
2. The “Lost in the Mall” technique, critical reception and further research.
3. Jane Doe and the deconstruction of guided imagination.

Psychology: Individualistic and Situational from ShortCutstv on Vimeo.

Most psychology is individualistic, suggesting that people’s behaviour is a product of their biological inheritance and personal experiences.

This short film, using original footage from Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison Experiment, illustrates an alternative idea that people can be literally transformed by the situations in which they find themselves.