Shadowing Practice: Creepy Psychology Experiments That Actually Happened - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Do you think we all experience emotions in the same way?
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In 1924, Connie Landis designed a sick little experiment to find out just that.
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He wanted to see if emotions triggered the same facial expressions in people.
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So he sat the participants in front of a camera and subjected them to various stimuli, looking for similarities in their reactions.
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He started off mellow, playing some jazz music and making them smell ammonia.
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But the results weren't exciting enough for Landis.
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So he raised the stakes.
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He began showing them gruesome photos of horrendous skin conditions, and even unexpectedly lit a firecracker under their chair.
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But still, Landis was looking for something more.
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They weren't extreme enough.
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And that's when things took a dark turn.
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He ordered the participants to close their eyes and dip their hand into a mysterious bucket.
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Only for them to realize it was filled with live, slimy, frogs.
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He coaxed them into rummaging all the way to the bottom until he had rigged it to deliver a painful electric shock.
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But the worst was yet to come.
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He handed the participant a live mouse in one hand
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and a razor -sharp knife in the other and calmly asked them to behead the mouse.
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If they them.
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The participants had mixed reactions.
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Some burst into tears, others were frozen in fear, and a few even started laughing.
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One was a 13 year old boy who was ruthlessly photographed distressed and on the verge of a mental breakdown.
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Embarrassingly, after all this depravity, he found that there was no typical facial expressions for any of the emotions aroused during this experiment.
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Everyone reacted differently.
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However, he was not a bad person.
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He was not a bad person.
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He was not a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was a bad person.
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He was However, one of the most common reactions to these unpleasant experiences was smiling.
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Although this experiment was a total failure at face value, future researchers did find something unsettling.
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Despite their protests, after being ordered to behead the mouse, two -thirds of the participants actually went through with it.
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How could a person be so easily convinced to commit such a horrible action against their moral and ethical judgments?
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That's actually a grim theme we'll see more of later on in this video.
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But first, you are probably in a creepy psychology experiment right now.
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Just like Facebook's emotion manipulation experiment in 2014,
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where they secretly manipulated the moods of almost 700 ,000 people without their consent.
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They did this by tampering with people's feeds, showing mainly, uh, negative content to one group, and mainly positive content to the other.
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in users' posts were analyzed, and the results were pretty obvious.
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The negative content group posted more negative thoughts, and the positive content group more positive thoughts.
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Basically, Facebook purposely made people depressed, without them knowing, for science.
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Imagine if someone was already dealing with mental health problems, and then this non -consensual experiment pushed them over the edge.
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Technically, this study was also completely legal as well.
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Facebook's data policy But I didn't realize I signed up for that.
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Well, they could probably write "Your life now belongs to Zuck" and we would still tick the box anyway.
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To this day Facebook still has major issues with hateful content and fear -inducing misinformation.
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And from this unethical experiment, the Zuck scientists are clearly aware of the harmful effects these posts have on their users.
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And yet they still allow negativity to spread without strict regulations.
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Negative posts garnering more engagement.
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And more engagement means more money.
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What, you think the green in his eyes is cause he's a lizard?
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Maybe even this video you're watching right now is part of YouTube's experiment.
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You've been selected for the positive content group.
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Now, since you're such a positive person, would you help someone if they collapsed next to you?
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How about if you were in a group of five people? of 30.
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In 1964 New York, Kitty Genovese was murdered in broad daylight, a couple steps away from her house.
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Newspapers reported that 37 people witnessed the attack, and yet no one bothered to help her.
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Why?
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This event coined the term "The Bystander Effect", where it was hypothesized that people were less likely to provide assistance if they were one among a crowd.
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To test this theory, the "Smokey Room Experiment" was devised.
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A participant was sat in a room alone and given a fake survey to fill, during which the room would then be pumped with harmless smoke.
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The results?
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When alone, 75 % of the participants reported the smoke.
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When three participants were together, 38 % reported it.
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And when there was one participant and two actors, only a shocking 10 % of participants reported it.
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Circling back to the Kitty Genovese case, could this explain why none of the witnesses did anything to help?
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Well, actually, not really.
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Multiple people did in fact call for help.
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But in a twist, the New York Police Department tried to cover up their slow
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response time to the scene by giving the media a fake news story, blaming the bystanders for the incident instead.
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But there is still some element of truth for the bystander effect, which has been proven over multiple other studies as well.
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People seem to be more concerned with fitting in instead of their own safety or the safety of others.
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So, the next time you're in trouble in a public place...
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Help me.
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Please.
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Good luck.
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Speaking of murder, if I asked you to kill someone, would you do it?
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How about now?
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Well, that's kind of like an experiment that was conducted at Yale University by Stanley Milgram in 1961.
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He'd always wondered how people could commit such atrocities during the Holocaust.
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Did they have no conscience?
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Or were they just following the orders of an authority figure?
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as the teacher and the other as a student, who was strapped to an electric chair.
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They were split into separate rooms so they couldn't see each other.
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The teacher would then begin to quiz the student, and if the student made a mistake, the teacher was told to activate the electric chair.
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Sounds pretty extreme already, doesn't it?
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What's 1 +1?
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3?
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Every time the student answered wrong, the teacher would increase the shock intensity, and the researchers would reassure that the shocks 4,
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3, Eventually, the shock intensity would get so high
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that the student would start banging on the wall and crying out in pain.
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Even if the teacher wanted to stop, the researcher would insist that they continue.
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The teacher would eventually reach the highest setting, which had a clear warning sign.
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But after delivering the maximum shock, there was no response from the student.
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The participant had delivered a voltage high enough to kill.
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Can you imagine signing up to what you thought would be a fun, interesting study, and walking out thinking that you just murdered someone?
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But that's the catch.
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The student who was being shocked was actually a paid actor, faking their sounds of distress using a recording.
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in harming someone under the influence of an authority figure.
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And disturbingly, 65 % of the participants delivered the maximum voltage of 450 volts,
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with the others delivering at least 300 volts.
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More than enough to kill in this case.
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The results proved something quite dark about humans.
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Despite hearing the cries of pain, the participants continued to torture the students, following orders.
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So who's the real monster in this scenario?
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The authority figure or the participant?
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Well, it's actually this next guy.
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Dr. Wendell Johnson was a speech pathologist who wanted to find out why some children develop stutters.
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He himself had developed a stutter at an early age, with no cure found.
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He hypothesized that stuttering was a learned behavior.
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That is, if a child was told that they were stuttering, they would continue to do so.
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He devised an experiment to prove this: the Monster Study.
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He took 22 children and split them into two groups, randomly labeling them as normal speakers and stutterers.
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The normal speakers would receive praise for their ability to speak well.
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But those in the stutterers group were gaslit into thinking they were stuttering, even if they could speak well normally.
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This continued for six months.
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So what happened?
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At the end of the experiment, there was no significant change seen in the normal speakers group.
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But what happened to the stutterer group was much darker.
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A majority of the children became withdrawn and self -conscious, with many even ending close friendships out of fear of speaking.
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In his pursuit to find the cure to stuttering, Johnson ended up creating more speech problems for the children,
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and many retained these issues for the rest of their lives.
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because the kids were orphans and were as young as five years old at the time.
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Johnson had ruthlessly used them as lab rats and destroyed their ability to speak.
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It was only a whole 60 years later
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that the victims were made aware that their speech trauma was the result of this study.
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None of them had provided consent.
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Imagine having your whole life ruined before it had really even started.
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Well, little Albert has some experience with that.
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How far would you go in the pursuit of scientific knowledge?
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Would you.. traumatize a baby?
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I know you would.
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In 1920, popular behavioral scientist John Watson conducted research into the development of phobias.
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And wanted to prove that emotional reactions could be conditioned in people.
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So he decided to start with a blank slate.
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Boom, and into the guinea pig cage.
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Meet little Albert.
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So here's how the study was conducted.
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Albie was first exposed to a bunch of stimuli, ranging from a monkey, to a burning newspaper, to a white rat.
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And he initially showed no fear to any of these.
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However, the next time Albie was exposed to the white rat, Watson took a hammer out and smacked it against a metal pipe.
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Right into the baby's ears.
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After sadistically repeating this multiple times, Albert eventually began to cry just by seeing the rat.
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In Watson's own words, he began to crawl away so rapidly
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that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table.
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Albie was ready to end it all after seeing that rat.
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Watson was probably happy about the result though, seeing as it provided evidence for his hypothesis.
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But as it turns out, Albie wasn't just scared of white rats now.
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He began to generalize his phobia, so that he developed a fear of anything white and fluffy.
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I'm just a dumb doggo.
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Come back.
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See you next time!

Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “Creepy Psychology Experiments That Actually Happened”. Las palabras que más se repiten: participant, experiment, student. Este vídeo tiene 185 frases y 1951 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 12:10. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 160 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. Solo el 80 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
participant sustantivo/pɑːɹˈtɪsəpənt/participante, partícipe
stutter sustantivo/ˈstʌtɚ/tartamudeo
emotion sustantivo/ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/afecto, emoción
bystander sustantivo/ˈbaɪˌstænd.ə(ɹ)/curioso
stutterer sustantivotartamudo, tartamuda
researcher sustantivo/ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/investigador, investigadora
behead verbo/bɪˈhɛd/descabezar
devise verbo/dɪˈvaɪz/concebir, inventar
hypothesize verbo/haɪˈpɑ.θəˌsaɪz/hipotetizar
phobia sustantivo/ˈfoʊ.bi.ə/fobia
ruthlessly adverbio/ˈɹuːθ.ləs.li/despiadamente, cruelmente
volt sustantivo/vəʊlt/voltio
stimulus sustantivo/ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/estímulo, apetite
distress sustantivo/dɪˈstɹɛs/distrés, distress
expose verbo/ɪkˈspoʊz/exponer, develar

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraSignificado
find out verboaveriguar, anoticiarse
cover up verboencubrir, cohonestar
end up verboterminar, ir a parar
turn out verboresultar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

  • Do you think we all experience emotions in the same way?
  • You've been selected for the positive content group.
  • How about if you were in a group of five people?
  • Sounds pretty extreme already, doesn't it?
  • How far would you go in the pursuit of scientific knowledge?

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

EstructuraEn el vídeo
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hacewas filled · were frozen · being ordered
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahoraYou've been selected · has been proven
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosaeffect, which has · student who was

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 13 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, weren't, couldn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

  • Los sonidos de “th”: hypothesize /haɪˈpɑ.θəˌsaɪz/, ruthlessly /ˈɹuːθ.ləs.li/, unethical /ʌnˈɛθɪkəl/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/
  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, facial /ˈfeɪ.ʃəl/, consensual /kənˈsɛnʃuəl/, misinformation /ˌmɪs.ɪn.fɚˈmeɪ.ʃən/, reassure /ˌɹi.əˈʃʊɹ/
  • Palabras largas — cuida el acento: participant /pɑːɹˈtɪsəpənt/, hypothesize /haɪˈpɑ.θəˌsaɪz/, intensity /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/, atrocity /əˈtɹɑsɪti/, depravity /dəˈpɹævɪti/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: stutter /ˈstʌtɚ/, stimulus /ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/, smack /smæk/, strap /stɹæp/, stake /steɪk/
  • /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: devise /dɪˈvaɪz/, volt /vəʊlt/, voltage /ˈvəʊltɪd͡ʒ/, depravity /dəˈpɹævɪti/, negativity /ˌnɛɡ.əˈtɪ.vɪ.ti/
  • /z/ — sonora, no /s/: devise /dɪˈvaɪz/, hypothesize /haɪˈpɑ.θəˌsaɪz/, expose /ɪkˈspoʊz/, arouse /əˈɹaʊz/, generalize /ˈd͡ʒɛn.(ə.)ɹə.laɪz/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

  1. Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
  2. Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
  3. Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como participant, stutter, emotion.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →