Summary: With their mental health histories kept secret, ten adults enter a period of psychiatric observation in an isolated group setting. It is up to a panel of experts to determine who is healthy and who isn't. This program documents the first three days of the session, which features several tests designed to bring out evidence of mental disorders. Simulated urban warfare evokes reckless behavior;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Echoing the infamous Milgram experiment from the 1960s, this ABC News program sets up a psychological test in which an authority figure urges men and women to inflict pain. Test administrator and social psychologist Dr. Jerry Burger interprets the disturbing findings. The program also analyzes the 1971 Stanford prison experiment as well as the 2004 hoax in which a McDonald's manager and her...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Philip Zimbardo has spent decades researching the transformation of character that occurs when generally good people are led to engage in evil actions. In this lecture, Zimbardo discourses on theories of conformity, prejudice, aggression, social influence, and antisocial behavior. Topics include the permeability of behavioral boundaries; the nature of evil and its societal consequences;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: How long can mental illness stay hidden, especially from the eyes of trained experts? This program rejoins a group of ten adults-five of them healthy and five of them with histories of mental illness-as psychiatric specialists try to spot and correctly diagnose the latter. Administering a series of collaborative and one-on-one tests, including assessments of personality type, physical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Segal, Nancy L.
Summary: Accidental Brothers tells the unique story of two sets of identical Colombian twin brothers who discovered at age 25 that they were mistakenly raised as fraternal twins--when they were not even biological brothers. Due to an oversight that presumably occurred in the hospital nursery, one twin in each pair was switched with a twin in the other pair. The result was two sets of unrelated...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: St. Martin's Press 2018
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 306.8 SEGSummary: Drawing upon laboratory and field experiments, this program compares and contrasts experimental research methods through an attractiveness study involving young adults. Section one observes how subjects respond to photos in two lab environments-one comfortable, and one not. Then, section two repeats the experiment in two field locales: a trendy bar and a dull coffee shop. Does context make a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This video focuses on effective ways to understand and organize data using descriptive statistics. Analyzing data collected from studies of young music students, the video helps viewers sort through basic data-interpretation concepts: measures of central tendency, levels of measurement, measures of dispersion, and graphs. A wide range of organization principles are covered, including mode,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Who said statistics were boring? Using magic and circus motifs, this program demonstrates the significance of probability theory and the importance of using the correct test to analyze research data. Host Amy and her friend Matt the Magician guide viewers through the need to make probability statements, and along with a team of students, use juggling skills to explore choice of test. Setting...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Adam suspects that most hairy dogs have balding owners. Testing his "pet" theory at a local park, he quickly finds flaws in his own experiment. This video demonstrates Adam's second test, involving better preparation, more rigorous analysis, and an exciting pasta cook-off. Showing how Adam can effectively determine the best spaghetti recipe, the program illustrates concepts that are central to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Selfish Gene is frequently misread as a biological justification for ruthless behavior. In this classic program, author Richard Dawkins sets the record straight through an exploration of selfishness and enlightened self-interest built upon evidence from the Prisoner's Dilemma game and real-world non-zero-sum social situations. "The tragedy of the commons," symbiotic behavior among animals,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: When people decide whether or not to follow the crowd, what happens inside their brains? This ABC News program explores that question, highlighting neurological research that helps explain conformity and sheds light on the complex relationship between group and individual behavior. Placing test subjects in candid-camera style settings, the program illustrates how social pressures can alter...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Breslin, Susannah
Summary: "What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you're a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are? When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year study of...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Legacy Lit 2023
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 BRESLIN, SUSANNAH BRESummary: What if twelve strangers were deposited in separate locations all over New York City and ordered to find each other-without being told where to look? This ABC News program presents an intriguing psychological puzzle involving participants who must join up-somehow, somewhere-in a city of eight million people. Incorporating principles from the mathematical discipline known as game theory, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Berns, Gregory.
Summary: A neuroscientist recounts his efforts to overcome administrative and behavioral hurdles to train his dogs to sit still during an MRI scan, an effort that produced evidence about canine empathy and the human-dog bond.
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 636.7 BERSummary: The true life story of controversial psychologist Stanley Milgram, whose legendary experiment tested ordinary people's willingness to obey orders from an authority figure, even if they felt what they were doing was wrong. This led Milgram's whirring mind to delve into a parade of human behavior inquiries, including the Six Degrees Of Separation theory.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2016
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Drama DVDs, Call number: DVD DRAMA EXPSummary: What compels a seemingly normal person to disregard a fundamental societal principle and commit murder? In this disturbing program, correspondent Steve Aveson reports on recent scientific research into the behavior of killers. An exclusive interview with serial killer Joel Rifkin, convicted of strangling 17 women, is combined with neurological testing, brain scans, and even information derived...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: As time creeps by, the exercise of reward and punishment and the friction of social inequality within the microsociety of prison take their toll, fraying nerves among the prisoners and generating anxiety among the guards. In this episode, two inmates form an unlikely alliance-and the guards are taken by surprise when three prisoners launch a nighttime revolt. Contains harsh, inflammatory, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this episode, the primal exercise of negotiation and opportunism is explicated as 12 prisoners and guards band together to form a new and balanced society. Mere hours later, faced with an inability to enforce the commune rules, four members fill the power vacuum by launching a ruthless bid for control of the group. Contains harsh, inflammatory, and explicit language.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program brings to life five of psychology's most significant studies: Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment, 1961; Milgram's Study of Obedience, 1963; Ainsworth's Strange Situation Experiment, 1971 and 1978; Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, 1973; and Loftus's Eyewitness Testimony Experiment, 1974. Footage from the original experiments and from contemporary reconstructions is featured...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are the results of scientific experiments affected by the desired outcome of the researcher conducting the trials? In this TEDTalk, psychologist Dan Ariely tells two personal stories that explore a subtle and perhaps subconscious bias that can lead to a scientific conflict of interest. "The most difficult thing," Ariely says, "is to recognize that sometimes we, too, are blinded by our own...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Austrian-born psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, whose work varied from profound to radically unconventional, died in an American prison in 1957. This program documents his life and the progressively defiant actions and ideas that brought it to such an ignominious end. Interviews with prominent members of Germany's medical and psychoanalytic community help to clarify Reich's initially productive...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this profile of the psychology of leadership, a new prisoner joins the group in lockup, a master set of the guards' keys is stolen, and the two most forceful prisoners go head-to-head in a struggle for authority. Contains harsh, inflammatory, and explicit language.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: A dream may be the most difficult human experience to quantify-but dreaming is an excellent topic for building qualitative research skills. This program illustrates experiments, designed and conducted by students, that revolve around sleep and dreams. In the process, it provides thorough insight into the issues relevant to collecting and utilizing qualitative data. Viewers are shown how to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Psychological experiments have shown that the natural human desire to conform can lead people to mistrust their own experiences, turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, and even inflict harm on the defenseless. But these findings have come at a price: the potential emotional damage of those being studied. This three-section program grapples with some of the thorny ethical issues arising...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009