Psychology department enjoys free student labor

For some Yalies, taking classes involves a light amount of forced labor. Since the early '70s, students taking Introduction to Psychology have been required to participate in four hours of research experiments. This policy was developed in part to give students the opportunity to see experimentation up close. But, because the students are not paid for their time, the policy also provides a great deal of free labor to researchers. This year alone the policy will save the psychology department approximately $22,000 as students will contribute over 3,100 free hours to the research projects of graduate students and other members of the department.

CAYTE PUSHKAREVA/YH In basement laboratories, Yalies are poked, prodded, and teased in the name of psychology.

For the handful of people who haven't taken the class, the system works like this: students have the entire semester to participate in four one-hour research experiments. The experiments are typically straightforward and relatively simple, designed to benefit the researcher and educate the student, but without putting undue stress on the latter. In fact, experiment proposals must be approved by an additional group, the Student Participant Pool Committee (SPPC), as well as the standard ethics board which reviews all experiments. The SPPC is comprised of faculty and students and is led by Professor David Armor. Armor emphasized that in choosing experiments for approval, "the benefit offered to students is made a priority. There must be an opportunity for learning, for research providing answers to interesting questions."

Armor explained that the students' service to the department is invaluable. Even with the great number of students enrolled in introductory psychology—there have been almost 800 this year—researchers' demand for subjects nearly always outstrips supply. "The student subject pool is a cherished resource for us, and we recognize that they are doing it as a favor to us," Armor said. Considering that regular subjects are usually paid at least $7 per hour, such favors can be vast indeed. This fall, Peter Salovey's introductory class generated almost $15,000 in research labor by itself. Though he only teaches one semester per year, Salovey makes a definite impact on the department's research capabilities. His class normally draws three times as many students as other introductory lecturers, and thus raises almost $10,000 more.

Although Yale saves thousands by requiring psychology students to be test subjects, many view the experiments as fun, often quirky intellectual challenges. Students anxious to put their knowledge to the test may try to "outsmart" the experiment and guess what the researcher is testing. Whether or not the students figure out the thrust of the experiment, their efforts to do so distort the results. To keep students as objective as possible, Professor Armor points out, "it is often necessary to distract the participant from the true purpose of the experiment."

This does not necessarily mean that student subjects are left completely oblivious to what they are doing, only that they are often not told all the relevant information beforehand, or that certain methods are employed to prevent response "tainting." One such method is to create a situation in which students do not control their responses, as when they are asked to respond very quickly. Armor's rationale for what he terms the "minor fictions" of experimentation is that "using deception creates more meaningful psychological experiences for the students."

Some of these experiences are more meaningful than others. While the majority of student-subject experiments are somewhat routine, others are quite unique. Last semester, Adam Rein, BR '03, signed up for an innocent-looking study on "fear and disgust." The premise was to measure subjects' changing reactions to certain activities, but the means for doing so were, as Rein put it, "really weird. I had to stand with my hand in a bowl of live worms for 10 minutes. They checked my heart rate and asked me how I felt once every minute, to see if I was `habituating' or not." Before his hour was up Rein had given his level of disgust for watching a video of heart surgery, touching a tarantula, and eating a cracker which had been touched by a pen which had been touched to the tarantula. "I felt like I was sticking my tongue on the spider, but I loved every second of it," Rein said.

Professor Sheila Woody, who ran the "fear and disgust" experiment, expressed concern that subjects often ignore the all-important debriefing. The debriefing occurs at the end of the hour-long session, when students are told the true purpose of the experiment they just performed. "The benefit [for students] is in the debriefing, although I understand how the debriefing can seem pretty dull when you've just had your hand in a bowl of worms," she said.

Not all students participate in such intense experiments, and Professor Armor maintains that researchers take a student's right to opt out of an experiment at any time very seriously. The psychology department, after all, does its best to "pay" student subjects with valuable knowledge and experience, if not with dollars and cents.

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