Activities

1. Debating conclusions

Draw up a list of factors that you think compromise the conclusions that we draw from our study.

Divide people into two groups and organize a debate in which half of the students attack our study on these grounds and half defend it.

Repeat this same process for other studies (e.g., the Stanford Prison Experiment).

Afterwards, reflect on the broad relevance of the debate to issues in psychology and science as a whole.

2. Developing hypotheses

Identify an event in the course of our study that relates to a topic that you think is important and interesting (e.g., resistance, leadership, stress).

On the basis of your observation and reading, develop a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that might explain the psychological processes that underlie this event.

Design a study that would allow you to test this hypothesis.

Assess the practical issues that would need to be addressed before you could conduct this study and evaluate the theoretical contribution that your research might make.