25 Genuinely Interesting Social Experiments

‘Rat heaven’
25 Genuinely Interesting Social Experiments

In the year 2025, if you see the words “social experiment,” you’re likely on YouTube and about to click a thumbnail depicting a teenager with a tight fade throwing milk on a fast-food worker.

The idea of the social experiment has become completely and totally diluted, but they are real things. On Reddit, users shared their examples of the most interesting genuine social experiments, which also kicked off a new impromptu social experiment on whether people on Reddit are capable of not chiming in with stories from their personal life that are only tangentially related. 

Some of them are funny, though, so we’ll let it slide.

soletsgotothezoo 7y ago There was an experiment at an university where they asked students to rate how confident or shy they were. The students were then paired one boy and one girl. They chose the boys who were the most shy and the girls who were they most confident. The twist was that they told the boy that the girl was as shy as he was although she wasn't. In fact she was super confident and not shy at all. The result was that the boys took lead in the discussions, to try to make the girls feel comfortable. The
Melancholicdreams 7y ago Five people were put in sound proof white rooms with all their basic needs met. They have zero contact with the outside room( no internet, cellphones, social media etc.). They are allowed a few items from home to cope with the sudden deprivation of human interaction. One of them brought a sketchbook and art supplies. The social experiment was to see what happens Humans cut off complete social interaction, including online, in complete isolation for 5 days. It was basically white room torture but it was voluntary. At any point if they feel like they're losining, they
Prepostasaurus 7y ago During my field camp course for Geology, we went to New Mexico for some mapping projects. Along the way, we stopped in Roswell and went to the UFO Museum there. If you've been there, you'll know there's a small stage and few rows of chairs facing it toward the back of the museum. One of our professors went up onto the stage and was leaning on the podium, sort of looking like he might give a lecture or something. Over the course of 20 or 30 minutes, people began to sit down in front of the stage,
. 7y ago The Asch conformity experiments They showed the lengths people will go to try to fit in with their peers even denying what is right in front of their eyes to avoid going against the majority of the group.
Spacecircles 7y ago The teacher - Jane Elliott - who one day in 1968 told her 3rd-grade class that the kids with blue eyes were superior to the kids with brown/green eyes. Immediately the blue-eyed kids were delighted, while the others became sullen. Fights broke out in the playground as the children played-out a microcosm of discrimination.
WowThatlsCreative 7y ago The Monster Study. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster Study Orphans were taken and separated only groups of kids who stuttered/had speech problems and those who didn't. The kids who spoke well were repeatedly insulted and told they had speech problems, causing many to stop speaking and developed some speaking problems. Many even as adults say they still have mental trauma from it and are affected. Interestingly enough (if I recall correctly), even though the kids who originally had speech impediments were helped and told that they no speech problems, many didn't have a big advancement in their speech.
silentseashell 7y ago A person at hotel reception sneakily switches out with another person while taking to a customer, and the customer hardly ever notices. Mostly used when the two people look alike, but it sometimes even works with different races, genders, etc. swapping out
RonSwansonsOldMan . 7y ago A fancy restaurant ran tap water through rusty pipes and gave it to customers as special mineral water found in only one spring in the world. The customers gushed over its taste in quality.
. 7 7y ago The bring 4 actors and 1 subject into a room, show them a presentation with questions, have the actors all together pick the wrong answer, and see how long it takes (or not all) for the subject to break from pressure and say the wrong answer.
-eDgAR- 7y ago Edited 7y ago The Third Wave Experiment is pretty interesting. Basically a teacher was trying to explain how the German population could accept the actions of the Nazi regime during WW2 and during the course of 5 days ended up basically recreating it in his school with a movement of hundreds of kids. It ended in a rally where he claimed the announcement of a Third Wave presidential candidate would be televised, but ended up just explaining that this was all an experiment in facism.
MickeyBear . 7y ago Edited 7y ago Visit Nurture on youtube, They did two videos, one where ten twelves year old boys live together alone for a week, and then another with girls. If you've ever been forced to read The Lord of the Flies, you can draw up a lot of conclusions about basic human nature.
manlikerealities 7y ago Our medical school puts on a comedy skit every year. Lots of medical students and doctor alumni attend. There was a commotion in the front row. The lights go up, a couple of audience members are leaning over a person. They shout to call an ambulance. Everybody else in the audience is frozen, as they don't know whether it's part of the skit. | call for an ambulance from the back row and run out with them, because my reasoning is that (1) if it's real, they need one (2) if it's not real, these dumb medical
thechairinfront 7y ago In college I baked a large batch of chocolate chip cookies for a house party. I placed them very beautifuly on a plate with a note underneath that said there were drugs in the cookies (there were not). Once the note was revieled after many people ate them they started getting high and acting dumber than usual. It was an interesting night to say the least.
GLaDOs18 7y ago Edited 7y ago My band teacher bought a big container of Red Vines (see also: Twizzlers) and kept them in his office. Whenever someone asked to have one, he said I don't know, those aren't mine. Не would then take note of who took them and who didn't after he gave an answer. Не did it at the start of every semester to keep track of who would be problem students. I thought it was brilliant. I of course took a couple Red Vines now and then but I was an upperclassman by the time he started
thechauchy 7y ago The Rat Park Experiment is an interesting perspective for human drug addiction and societies view of it. First heard about it from a TED radio episode Confronting.Stigma I might suggest. Basically they put a rat in a cage with regular water on one side, and heroine laced water on the other side. The lone rats would always become addicted to the drugged water. Then they put a bunch of rats in a sort of rat paradise with other rats and food and toys, but again gave them both drugged and normal water. These rats, who were supposedly
ProfessorGigs s . 7y ago No soap, radio BAHAHAHA!!
OneX32 7y ago An economics course was either given a mug or a piece of Swiss chocolate so that their distribution was 50-50. Theoretically, 50% of the class should have traded for the different endowment because they were approximately equal in value. Instead, initial holders asked for 2x as much payment for what they had and very little actually traded. This became known as the endowment effect. In other words, we are less willing to put effort in not losing something than we are in gaining something.
YOUR PARENTS JonseyMcDanes . 7y ago Rat heaven Put a bunch of rats in a box with limited space but unlimited food and water and eventually the rats will stop breeding and die off.
JakoShuen 7y ago A university of Bordeaux once ran an experiment where they had wine experts compare red and white wine. They all agreed the red was far superior. Turns out, they just dyed the white wine red and gave them the same wine, and none of the experts could tell.
bigblu_1 a 7y ago Not really a social experiment in the scientific definition, but this guy. made a fake restaurant that was impossible to book, and it became the top-rated restaurant on TripAdvisor, despite serving shit food. Just goes to show that if something appears to be good and is impossible for people to obtain, they will LOVE it even if it's shit.
5h4fin . 7y ago The bystander effect is pretty interesting. The more people there are observing an emergency, the less likely anyone is to help or intervene. You might have a heart attack in public but nobody might come to help you or even call 911 until it's too late.
Johnvonhein1 7y ago Before ethics ruined experiments on the mentally ill..they took three men who believed they were Jesus and put them together in one room just to see what would happen. First all three Jesuses thought they were with two mentally ill patients and were very pious about their struggle. Then with time, they began to quarrel about who was holiest, who would reign as the Jesus King. Finally, one revealed himself to be Satan. Even at the time many of the researchers were critical of the morality of it, and few thought it would truly help cure their
emz5002 7y ago When Grammy award winning violinist Joshua Bell played as a busker in a subway station and almost nobody realised they were listening to musical genius: In an experiment initiated by The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten, Bell donned a baseball cap and played as an incognito busker at the Metro subway station L'Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. on January 12, 2007. The experiment was videotaped on hidden camera; of the 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen to him, and only one recognized him. For his nearly 45-minute performance, Bell collected $32.17 from 27
. 7y ago Universal basic income. One of my professors was saying how they tried it with homeless men and nearly all of them put their lives back together, got an apartment, stopped abusing drugs, ect.
7y ago Edited 7y ago The the foot in the door technique, where you get someone to accept a large request after getting them to accept a smaller request first. My favourite experiment is this one: Two groups are asked to place a large, very unsightly sign in their front yard reading Drive Carefully. The members of one group have previously been approached to put a small sign in their front window reading Be a Safe Driver, and almost all agreed. In one study, in response to the Drive Carefully request 76 percent of those who were initially asked

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