Chapter 1. Schacter’s Affiliation Experiment

Short Description

Stanley Schacter's study of the need to affiliate provides a very good illustration of psychology's use of the experiment.

Long Description

Stanley Schacter's study of the need to affiliate provides a very good illustration of psychology's use of the experiment.

In the opening clip, the investigator introduces himself to a small group of college women who have obviously volunteered to serve as research participants. He explains that as a member of the medical school's department of neurology and psychiatry, he is conducting an experiment on the effects of electric shock.

The second clip presents Schacter's experimental manipulation of the independent variable. In one condition, the experimenter tells participants that they will be receiving a painful shock. The experimenter displays an ominous looking shock generator and once again forewarns the women that the shocks will be intense. In the second condition, the same experimenter presents a quite different message to a different group of college women. The shock generator has been removed and the experiment suggests that the participants will be subjected to very mild shock that will resemble a tickle or a tingle rather than something unpleasant. In summary, the experimental manipulation was designed to elicit different levels of fear.

In the following scene, the experimenter explains that there will be a ten minute delay before the study begins. The participants are told that they can either wait alone in small, comfortable rooms or wait together in a larger classroom. Each participant is then asked to indicate, on a questionnaire, her preference for waiting alone or with others as well as the intensity of that preference. The responses to the questionnaire represented the experiment's dependent variable.

In the fourth clip, the experimenter debriefs the participants. He explains that the experiment is finished and that no electric shock will be administered. He indicates that he is a social psychologist who is only interested in the responses the participants gave to the questionnaire.

In the final scenes, Stanley Schacter states his experimental hypothesis that people who are anxious or fearful will demonstrate a strong need to affiliate. Moreover, he carefully explains the need for the experiment to test the hypothesis. Many variables impact our everyday behavior. Only the isolation of the critical variables, careful manipulation of these variables under controlled conditions, and measurement of the effects of the manipulation can provide an adequate test of the hypothesis.

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