In Joshua Greene's course, "Social Psychology," students design and run their own original "unobtrusive experiments" as the final project for the class. Students read and conduct background research to get ideas, write a proposal and refine it with the help of the TF, carry out the research, give a presentation on the research, and write up the results.
Unobtrusive methods measure behavior without intruding on a situation. This includes observing public behavior and analyzing content or archival data. Students are given the following ground rules:
- Don’t interact with the humans!
- No online chatting
- No surveys
- Any observed behavior must be public
- Any manipulation must be harmless and non-deceptive (e.g., no fake Craigslist ads)