WEBVTT - When Did Scientists Hide Under Beds to Do Research?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, Brainstuff. Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>Vogelbaum here, it's quite a conundrum needing to conduct research

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<v Speaker 1>on people who don't know your conducting research on them.

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<v Speaker 1>After all, when people know they're being watched, they may

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<v Speaker 1>very well behave differently than they otherwise would. This is

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<v Speaker 1>a scientific predicament as old as the science of psychology.

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<v Speaker 1>But today we're talking about researchers Mary Henley and Marian B.

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<v Speaker 1>Hubble and a study that they did in the nineteen thirties.

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<v Speaker 1>By the way, Henley went on to be an important

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<v Speaker 1>expert in the stalt psychology. And I tried to look

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<v Speaker 1>up how she pronounced her name but couldn't find it.

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<v Speaker 1>Henla is the traditional German way of saying it, but

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<v Speaker 1>it's often Henlee in English, so I'm going with that

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<v Speaker 1>at any rate. As part of Henley's psychology graduate work

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<v Speaker 1>at britainmar College, a women's school in Pennsylvania, Henley and

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<v Speaker 1>Hubble were trying to determine whether children become less ego

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<v Speaker 1>centric as they grow older. In order for the researchers

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<v Speaker 1>to get a real feel for the conversations of college students,

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<v Speaker 1>they took any means necessary, but to quote their paper

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<v Speaker 1>Egocentricity and Adult Conversation, published in the Journal of Social

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<v Speaker 1>Psychology in May of nineteen thirty eight. In order not

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<v Speaker 1>to introduce artifacts into the conversations, the investigators took special

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<v Speaker 1>precautions to keep the students ignorant of the fact that

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<v Speaker 1>their remarks were being recorded. They concealed themselves under beds

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<v Speaker 1>in students rooms where tea parties were being held, eavesdropped

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<v Speaker 1>in dormitory smoking rooms and dormitory washrooms, and listened to

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<v Speaker 1>telephone conversations. And the researchers didn't confine themselves just to

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<v Speaker 1>students campus activities. They also captured remarks in waiting rooms,

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<v Speaker 1>hotel lobbies, theaters, and restaurants, even on the street car.

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<v Speaker 1>They pursued their unsuspecting subjects in the streets, in department stores,

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<v Speaker 1>and into their homes. In each case, the researchers jotted

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<v Speaker 1>down a verbatim record of the remarks on the scene

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<v Speaker 1>before the article. This episode is based on how Stfforks

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<v Speaker 1>spoke about email doctor Ali Mattou, a clinical psychologist. He

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<v Speaker 1>explained the hallmark of psychological science is experimentation, highly controlling

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<v Speaker 1>an environment and only manipulating one experimental variable. While this

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<v Speaker 1>type of research can tell us a lot about the

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<v Speaker 1>relationship between cause and effect, experimental studies can sometimes lack

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<v Speaker 1>external validity, which is to say, the more control a

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<v Speaker 1>researcher exerts on an experiment, the less it seems like

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<v Speaker 1>real life. Observational studies like the one Henley and Hubble

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<v Speaker 1>carried out pose a way to mitigate that effect, although

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<v Speaker 1>they have their own drawbacks. The duo hoped to get

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<v Speaker 1>good data without the biasing effect of letting their subjects

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<v Speaker 1>know they were being observed. Because again, knowing you're being

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<v Speaker 1>observed changes your behavior, Mattu said, this is called objective

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<v Speaker 1>self awareness. This can be helped full in a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of situations. Banks and other high security environments show you

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<v Speaker 1>camera security footage of yourself to trigger objective self awareness

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<v Speaker 1>and reduce the chances you might do something stupid for

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<v Speaker 1>the purposes of research. Knowing that you are being observed

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<v Speaker 1>can lead to reactivity. People might act the way they

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<v Speaker 1>think an experimenter wants them to act, or they might

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<v Speaker 1>act more in line with cultural expectations. They might also

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<v Speaker 1>act the opposite of what is expected because they know

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<v Speaker 1>that this is an artificial situation back in Henley. In

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<v Speaker 1>Hubble's time, though the concept of objective self awareness hadn't

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<v Speaker 1>been defined, they also lacked something else critical to research

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<v Speaker 1>studies today, informed consent that would arise from the Nuremberg Code,

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<v Speaker 1>created after World War II, an important set of ethical

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<v Speaker 1>standards for the treatment of human subjects and scientific experiments

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<v Speaker 1>of all kinds, upon which many international regulations and guidelines

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<v Speaker 1>have been based. Mattus said. The rules now state that

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<v Speaker 1>people must be fully aware of an experiment's risks and

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<v Speaker 1>benefits before they sign on to participate. Additionally, you cannot

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<v Speaker 1>involve anyone in any type of research without their complete consent,

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<v Speaker 1>and if at any time they want to pull out

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<v Speaker 1>of a study, they can. Scientists could do a sort

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<v Speaker 1>of modern take on Henley and Hubble's experiment today, but

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<v Speaker 1>in a much more controlled and etical way. All research

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<v Speaker 1>has to go through institutional review boards that work to

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<v Speaker 1>protect participants from studies that would have scientists hiding under

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<v Speaker 1>their beds. Mattu said. Researchers can easily study behavior in

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<v Speaker 1>public spaces without getting informed consent from others, as long

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<v Speaker 1>as they don't reveal any identifying information about the people

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<v Speaker 1>being observed. Researchers typically do this by showing results in aggregate.

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<v Speaker 1>For example, someone studying public behavior in times square could

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<v Speaker 1>describe how many times people help each other out, as

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<v Speaker 1>long as they don't describe specifics of individuals, a meaning

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<v Speaker 1>that if the authors of the nineteen thirty eight study

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<v Speaker 1>wanted to get their results today, their methodology would need

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<v Speaker 1>to be drastically different to conform to ethical standards. In

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<v Speaker 1>case you're curious, Henley and Hubble found that adults don't

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<v Speaker 1>shed their egocentricity after all, and they've had a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of time to think about it, hiding under beds and

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<v Speaker 1>sneaking around campus. Today's episode is based on the article

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<v Speaker 1>Ridiculous History when scientists hit under beds to do research

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<v Speaker 1>on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Brian young a brain

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with hastuffworks dot

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<v Speaker 1>Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts

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<v Speaker 1>from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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