Richard Wiseman's Experiments

Richard Wiseman is a professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. Wiseman has gained an international reputation for research into quirky areas of psychology, including deception, humour, luck and the paranormal. In Richard’s website you can find exciting experiments related with belief in ghosts, magic tricks, the power of both memory and suggestion and etc.

There is Wiseman‘s amazing project which is called „The People Watchers“.It consists of many small experiments. Three psychologists perform hidden-camera stunts on unsuspecting members of the public to demonstrate why we behave the way we do in everyday situations. In one of these experiments Richard Wiseman questions how people choose a person for whom they would like to help. Three people: the young nice women, the old lady, and the fat fellow collected money from the customers for the charity in the supermarket. Lots of people passed the old lady and the stout and gave money for the beauty. In this experiment Richard reveals that people are unconsciously attracted by attractive people.

Another experiment is related with people credulity. People got invitations to use facilities of the established hairstylist and evaluate her work. Although she had done nothing only brushed and wetted out people hair, all of them claimed that the hairdresser was the perfect specialist. This experiment demonstrates how easy is to persuade people and make them believe in silliest things.

There is the interesting experiment related with people honesty. Two tables were left in the supermarket. On one of them were laid a lot of magazines. On another was put the box with advertisement: “In a hurry? Take a paper and put your change in here”. Only two girls paid for magazines. A reason for this was people’s belief that nobody could watch them. So, this experiment exposed that the public has huge influence on people’s behavior.

Richard Wiseman’s experiments are both interesting and very beneficial. We could have a lot of knowledge about ways of thinking and perception of people, their behavior causes and understand how we could change that behavior from Richard’s experiments.

References: http://www.richardwiseman.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2rF3THVuhs&feature=PlayList&p=394E176D57B63320&index=0