Start your search early and make sure you have the time you need for background research as well as to design and perform your experiment. You should also discuss your idea with your instructor before beginning your experiment—particularly if your research involves human participants. If you need to design an experiment for an assignment, here are some psychology experiment ideas you can explore for inspiration. You can then find ways to adapt these ideas for your own assignments. The following are some questions you could attempt to answer as part of a psychological experiment:
Are people really able to “feel like someone is watching” them? Can certain colors improve learning? Could the color of the paper used in a test or assignment have an impact on academic performance?You may have heard teachers or students claim that printing text on green paper helps students read better or that yellow paper helps students perform better on math exams. Design an experiment to see whether using a specific color of paper helps improve students’ scores on math exams. Can color cause physiological reactions? Perform an experiment to determine whether certain colors cause a participant’s blood pressure to rise or fall. Can different types of music lead to different physiological responses? Measure the heart rates of participants in response to various types of music to see if there is a difference. Can smelling one thing while tasting another impact a person’s ability to detect what the food really is? Could a person’s taste in music offer hints about their personality? Previous research has suggested that people who prefer certain styles of music tend to exhibit similar personality traits. Do action films cause people to eat more popcorn and candy during a movie? Do colors really impact moods? Conduct an investigation to see if the color blue makes people feel calm, or if the color red leaves them feeling agitated. Do creative people see optical illusions differently than more analytical people? Do people rate individuals with perfectly symmetrical faces as more beautiful than those with asymmetrical faces? Do people who use the social media site Facebook exhibit signs of addiction? Does eating breakfast really help students do better in school? According to some, eating breakfast can have a beneficial influence on school performance. One study found that children who ate a healthy breakfast learned better and had more energy than students who did not eat breakfast. For your experiment, you could compare the test scores of students who ate breakfast to those who did not. Does sex influence short-term memory? You could arrange an experiment that tests whether males or females are better at remembering specific types of information. How likely are people to conform in groups? Try this experiment to see what percentage of people are likely to conform. Imagine that you’re in a math class and the instructor asks a basic math question. What is 8 x 4? The teacher begins asking individual students in the room for the answer. You are surprised when the first student answers 27 (which is not correct). Then the next student also answers 27—and then the next! When the teacher finally comes to you, do you trust your own math skills and say 32? Or do you go along with what the rest of the group seems to believe is the correct answer? How likely are people to conform to the opinions of a group? This conformity experiment investigates the impact of group pressure on individual behavior. How much information can people store in short-term memory? One classic experiment suggests that people can store between five to nine items, but rehearsal strategies such as chunking can significantly increase memorization and recall. A simple word memorization experiment is an excellent and fairly easy psychology science fair idea. What is the Stroop Effect? The Stroop Effect is a phenomenon in which it is easier to say the color of a word if it matches the semantic meaning of the word. For example, if someone asked you to say the color of the word “black” that was also printed in black ink, it would be easier to say the correct color than if it were printed in green ink.
Once you have an idea, the next step is to learn more about how to conduct a psychology experiment. You can also think about the things that interest you. Start by considering the topics you’ve studied in class thus far that have really piqued your interest. Then, whittle the list down to two or three major areas within psychology that seem to interest you the most. From there, make a list of questions you have related to the topic. Any of these questions could potentially serve as an experiment idea. Start by browsing the experiments discussed in your book. Then think of how you could devise an experiment related to some of the questions your text asks. The reference section at the back of your textbook can also serve as a great source for additional reference material. The information from your brainstorming session can serve as a basis for your experiment topic. It’s also a great way to get feedback on your own ideas and to determine if they are worth exploring in greater depth. You might not be able to replicate an experiment exactly, but you can use well-known studies as a basis for inspiration. Visit your university library and find some of the best books and articles that cover the particular topic you are interested in. What research has already been done in this area? Are there any major questions that still need to be answered? While it can feel intimidating to ask for help, your instructor should be more than happy to provide some guidance. Plus, they might offer insights that you wouldn’t have gathered on your own. Before you dive in, make sure that you are observing the guidelines provided by your instructor and always obtain the appropriate permission before conducting any research with human or animal subjects.
