Feel free to check out my first article on this subject where I described examples like the “Dollar Auction” and various strategies of persuasion.

1. The Commons Dilemma:

   Perhaps the primary reason humans just can’t get along is exemplified in the Commons Dilemma which describes a social situation in which a group shares a common resource. The supply of a resource, fish for example, can be expected to naturally replenish itself over time. This requires that the group only moderately use the resource so that they do not overuse it.

   In a classic experiment, a number of college students were gathered and given a bowl of peanuts and were told that the amount of peanuts would double every minute. The most logical response would have been for the subjects to not touch the peanuts until a few rounds into the experiment after which they would reach a threshold where they could not possibly exhaust the resource. Instead, in almost all cases the peanuts were all gone before even the first stage (Ernst, 1994).

   This dilemma involves both the fear of exploitation and the unwillingness to delay immediate gratification for a larger reward.

2. Cognitive Dissonance:

   A state of cognitive dissonance arises when a person is faced with conflicting ideas and is forced to resolve these issues and relieve an otherwise tense personal state. What is particularly interesting about this idea is its influence on our understanding of rewards and reinforcement.

   Most would agree that rewarding someone for performing a desired action would make them more likely to perform that action later. Festinger and Carlsmith’s experiments in 1959 showed that the opposite was true under some conditions. To make a long experiment short, subjects in this experiment performed a very menial and boring task and were then deceived into recommending the task they had performed to another subject. Some were paid only $1 to do this and some were paid $20. The results showed that those who were paid $1 were much more likely to lie about their thoughts on the task than those who were paid $20. Why? Apparently, those who were paid $20 (a much higher amount today) experienced cognitive dissonance greater than those who were paid only $1 because the higher amount of money forced them to scrutinize their own actions and found the conflict of lying about the excitement of the task less bearable.

   What does this mean? Be careful when rewarding someone, a much higher than necessary reward could actually result in a decrease in the desired activity (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959).

3. Phineas Gage:

   The famous case study of Phineas Gage gives great insight into the physical nature of the brain and the impact that various regions have on decision-making, emotion and cognition.

   Phineas Gage was a construction worker who experienced a severe brain injury while working with explosives on a railroad. An unintentional explosion caused a 3-foot long and 1.25 inch thick iron rod to shoot through his head and land almost 65 feet behind him. Amazingly, Phineas regained consciousness moments after the incident and remained responsive during his trip to the doctor (Kalat, 2006).

   However, after returning to work, co-workers noticed a change in the previously friendly Gage who had become much more aloof and was prone to long cursing bouts and irresponsible behavior.

   Another interesting area concerning the brain is the phenomenon of Split Brains.

4. Little Albert:

   The Little Albert experiments are famous examples of classical conditioning. These experiments, performed by John Watson, involved fear and its learning in humans. Little Albert was taught to fear certain animals by first presenting them with no reaction (other than an understandable curiosity) and then presenting them combined with a loud stimulus. This combination conditioned the infant’s response of fear to the loud sound to the presence of the animal.

   An interesting note that my professor explained was that Watson had no experience with unconditioning and Little Albert remained unreasonably frightened of rabbits for the remainder of his life.

5. Facial Expressions and Emotion

   One of the most interesting experiments I have ever encountered studied the impact of facial expressions on our emotions. Subjects in this experiment were told to rate the funniness of a cartoon. The first group was told to hold a pen with their teeth while reading and the other was told to use their lips. The first group’s face was therefore in an almost full smile while the second group’s position was incompatible with smiling. The results of the experiment showed that subjects rated the cartoons much funnier if they had the pen held with their teeth in the forced-smile position (Strack, Martin, & Stepper, 1988).

   The results were echoed in later experiments that showed that subjects who were told to smile more for a day reported being happier than they were on normal days (Kalat, 2006).