What is your favorite *actual* social experiment?

1. 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 to display the small sign complied, in comparison with only 17 percent of those in the other group not exposed to the earlier, less onerous, request. I remember when I learnt about this in psych I just found it so hard to believe. As if people would agree to put a huge\-ass sign in their yard just because they put a small one in their window... but it's a thing and it's a commonly used sale technique.
   — stardust48


2. 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 girls did not notice any shyness at all from the boys and they experienced the boys as totally cool. A couple of years later they talked to the boys again and for many of them - this experiment had changed their lifes - making them much less shy.
   — soletsgotothezoo


3. 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, expecting a lecture. After most of the seats were full, our professor just walked away. It was pretty funny to watch.
   — Prepostasaurus






4. hitchBOT, a 2015 hitchhiking robot that successfully made its way across the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada before being dismembered in a Philadelphia alley. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/us/hitchhiking-robot-safe-in-several-countries-meets-its-end-in-philadelphia.html
   — chunes


5. [The Asch conformity experiments.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.
   — rubberbanditshorse


6. The teacher - [Jane Elliott](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/01/16/blue-eyesbrown-eyes-teacher-says-mlks-legacy-just-relevant-today/96647750/) - 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.
   — Spacecircles






7. 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.
   — WowThatIsCreative


8. 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
   — silentseashell