10 Weird Psychology Studies:1. Don't Stand So Close to Me

Psychologists are skilled at inventing unusual tests of human thought and behaviour, but some research is pretty weird. Over the past few months I\'ve been examining some of the weirdest studies around. There\'s research into psychic dogs, invasions from Mars, the antidepressant properties of semen, pigeon-guided missiles and men\'s urination.

Here\'s a weird study that sometimes gets a mention in ethical discussions about psychology, and it\'s not hard to see why. Middlemist, Knowles & Matter (1976) designed an experiment to test how the speed and flow of men\'s urination in a public lavatory was affected by invasions of personal space.


Piss pilot
To gather some preliminary data on men\'s toilet habits, a pilot study stationed an observer in a public toilet at a US university. He was instructed to look like he was grooming himself in the mirror, but was actually keeping a record of which urinals men stood at and their patterns of urination.

Timing them on his wristwatch, our intrepid toilet researcher measured the onset delay in micturation along with persistence of flow. If you\'re wondering how our correspondent measured these, it was by sound - which must have been no mean feat when there was multiple micturation in progress.

Sure enough the pilot study revealed men prefer not to stand next to each other in the urinals, and the closer other men are to each other, the longer it takes for them to begin urinating, and the shorter the persistence of their stream.


And now for the periscope...
Middlemist et al. were not satisfied with this observational data, however, and decided to carry out a proper experiment. For this they required a more complicated setup, and a little covert action.

They forced unknowing urinators to spend their pennies in one (out of three) urinals that was closest to a single stall. A confederate (who was in on the experiment) then either stood directly next to the various experimental subjects, one urinal away, or was not present at all.

Hidden in the stall was our urine measurement officer (grad students get all the best jobs). Chief amongst his weapons was a specially designed periscope hidden in a stack of books so that the stream of urine could be directly observed.

The experimental version of the pilot study confirmed earlier findings. With no one present, unselfconscious urinators\' average onset was 4.8 seconds, with a confederate present one urinal away, mildly self-conscious urinators\' average micturation onset was pushed up to 6.2 seconds. Finally with the confederate in the next urinal, it was 8.4 seconds before our bashful toilet-goer\'s blessed relief began.


Urination and personality?
Rather than being left with the feeling, as you may be, that this was not only distasteful but also a bit of a waste of time, the psychologist in me comes out. I\'m wondering about personality correlates and personal space. For example, is neuroticism positively correlated with increasing micturation onset, while extroversion is negatively correlated?

The problem is then you\'ve got to get urinators to fill in a personality measure on the way out, which will expose all the periscope business, which in turn may lead on to a variety of uncomfortable conversations. Perhaps we\'ll just leave this one as it is.

最怪异的十大心理学研究之一：离我远点

心理学家善于发明一些不寻常的方法来测试人类的思想和行为。但是，其中的一些研究真的很奇怪。在过去的几个月里我一直在查阅这类研究，它们包括：通灵狗，火星入侵，精子的抗抑郁性能，鸽子导航导弹和男性排尿。

这些奇怪的研究有时会导致对心理学研究的道德性讨论（不难看出为什么）。比如Knowles和Matter在1976年就做了个实验来测试男性在公共厕所小便时，其他人对其私人空间的侵占所导致的排尿时间和速度的变化（-_-!）。

关于排尿的初步实验

为了得到男性排尿习惯的初步信息，研究者在美国大学公共厕所里安排了一个观察者。他一直装作对着镜子打扮自己，但事实上却在记录人们在哪个小便池排尿和他们的排尿信息。

通过手表计时，我们这位无畏的厕所研究者测量了人们从进厕所到开始排尿的时间（以下简称延迟时间）和排尿时间。你也许会奇怪他是如何测量的，答案是听声音。——多人一起排尿的时候这招就没用了。

初步试验揭示了人们不喜欢在紧挨着的小便池排尿。排尿时他们挨得越近，延迟时间就越长，并且排尿时间也就越短。

深入实验——潜水镜的应用

然而，Middlemist等人对这个观察到的信息不太满意，所以决定进行深入实验。这次他做了一点改动，使实验设置更为复杂了些。

实验迫使排尿者在最靠近蹲位的小便池（共3个）里排尿。然后由一个实验人员站在各种各样的被试旁边排尿或者不出现。

在蹲位里面蹲着一位负责测量的实验人员（研究生总是能做好这类事）。他的主要工具是一个特殊设计的潜水镜。他把潜水镜藏在书底下以便直接测量尿液的各个参数。

深入实验验证了初步发现。在没其他人一起上厕所的时候，放松的被试平均用了4.8秒延迟时间，而当实验人员离被试一个位置排尿时，不自然的被试平均的延迟时间则增至6.2秒。最后当实验人员紧挨着被试排尿时，我们害羞的被试们需要8.4秒的延迟时间。

排尿和人格的关联

看完上面的文字，你可能会觉得这项讨厌的实验纯粹是浪费时间。但作为心理学硕士的我却觉得它与人格关联和私人空间有关。举个例子，是不是神经质趋向性与延迟时间的增多成正相关，而外倾性则相反呢？

要解决这个疑问，我们就得去做个人格测试——这原本是潜水镜的作用。不过这样做可能会引起许多不和谐的声音。如果你要做这个测验的话，可以点这个链接http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/06/dont-stand-so-close-to-me.php