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Amateur Psychology

Author:

eSolutions

Topic:

Science

Posted:

Jul 23, 2002

Comments:

One of the biggest crazes sweeping the nation is called Psychology, the "science" of the mind. From talk shows to pyramid schemes, psychology is everywhere.

Most psychology is performed by esteemed professionals such as Drs. Phil McGraw or Ruth Westheimer. They must endure rigorous peer review and endless grant requests when they wish to burst the walls of ignorance and stumble forth into the fruited Eden of knowledge.

But you don't need a fancy degree or pharmaceutical license to explore the psychological world. I myself pursue psychological experiments as a hobby, concocting my own experiments and using those around me as subjects. Co-workers, the homeless, women -- you can use these individuals in your own experiments without even interrupting your daily routine.

In this column, I outline the results of three psychological experiments I've performed on my cat, Snickers.

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eSolutions

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EXPERIMENT A

Summary: Bought several dozen taxidermied cats. Placed them around my apartment. Bought motors, transistors, and small speakers from Radio Shack. Automated some of the taxidermied cats. Placed speakers in others and looped meow-ing sound file. Used spare string to make a few of the taxidermied cats walk freakishly around apartment.

Borrowed live cat from the pound, dressed it in little "ninja" outfit and released it into apartment. Released subject (Snickers) into the apartment. Started stopwatch, measuring time until subject's brain exploded.

Results: Subject stood by food dish and brayed loudly until fed.

------------

EXPERIMENT B

Summary: Bought one canoe, two mannequins, one arrow, and assorted supplies. Canoed down the Cahulawassee up-river from Aintry. While canoeing, lectured subject endlessly about importance of the river, how it was like a blue flame burning in her mind; a primal God, savage and majestic, more true and pure than the shallow facade of her domesticated life. Berated subject for her useless, effeminate suburban world; praised the terrible mystery of the ever-watching woods and the river, glowing like radium, ruling them.

On second day, pulled canoe to one bank and unloaded mannequins, arrow, and subject. Anally raped one mannequin, stuck arrow in chest of the other. Buried arrow-slayed mannequin in woods and continued down river as rapidly as possible.

Results: Subject kept shitting in canoe. Must bring litter box next time.

------------

EXPERIMENT C

Summary: Slipped mild tranquilizers in subject's food. While subject slept, placed half-empty bottle of whiskey under her paw. Placed shoebox of kittens and crumpled twenty-dollar bill near subject's head. Waited for subject to awake.

Results: Subject hissed at kittens and pissed on my copy of Linux in a Nutshell.

------------

I hope this was instructive. I've shown how you can perform psychological experiments on your own, unencumbered by "grant proposals" or "credentials." Find your own subjects to experiment on, and you too can join the ranks of scientific pioneers piercing the maidenheads of ignorance.

	Scientific method? (5.00 / 1) (#3)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 10:47:54 AM PST

	These experiments aren't useful, because you haven't defined your dependent and independent variables. You also need a hypothesis of some sort. Here's a link with more information about what you need to be doing.

	Heavens, you silly kid! (1.00 / 1) (#4)
	by gzt on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 12:08:45 PM PST

	He's providing a summary of what he did, not what hypotheses he was testing. You'll have to read the entire paper, which I hope he publishes soon, to divine the intent of his adventures. Don't be a prick, okay? Cheers, GZ

	I will not respond to this obvious not-troll. (3.00 / 1) (#15)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Jul 29th, 2002 at 02:56:21 PM PST

	Clealy, not a troll.

	Where you goin', city boy? (5.00 / 2) (#5)
	by Icebox on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 12:15:25 PM PST

	The Cahulawassee river don't go to Aintry. You done taken a wrong turn.

	If you still have the robotic stuffed cats (1.00 / 1) (#6)
	by Amitabh Bachan on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 12:48:34 PM PST

	please could I borrow them in the spirit of cooperative science so that I may embark on a sinister cross-breeding experiment involving Aibos?

	Social experimentation. (1.00 / 1) (#7)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 09:53:52 PM PST

	I thought this was going to be a serious article. Occasionally, I do what I like to call "social experimentation." I don't have the balls to do anything really crude but I am sure that will come with time. I like to experiment with body language. Normally, I am the quiet guy that sits in the corner, but I have had people hurrying out of my path as I make my way to the subway train door. Anyone else try anything like this? Has anyone taken this type of thing a step further?

	My results. (5.00 / 1) (#8)
	by flowers on Tue Jul 23rd, 2002 at 11:52:52 PM PST

	I have found that most people react poorly to having a total stranger shit in their hat on the subway. Military applications are forthcoming. --- I have unprotected sex with multiple anonymous partners.

	Sorry to report, sir, (3.66 / 3) (#9)
	by jvance on Thu Jul 25th, 2002 at 01:53:24 AM PST

	but it's all been done before. In fact, there is at least one thriving business based on your sort of shenanigans. -- Adequacy has turned into a cesspool consisting of ... blubbering, superstitious fools arguing with smug, pseudointellectual assholes. -AR

	Pretty obvious results. (1.00 / 1) (#10)
	by gordonjcp on Thu Jul 25th, 2002 at 05:15:13 PM PST

	Results: Subject stood by food dish and brayed loudly until fed. Pretty much any experiment involving cats is going to end up with the cat demanding to be fed. Either that, or sleeping. Now, what would be a truly enlightening cat experiment would be to take a series of time-lapse photos of a cat asleep on a human's ankles. The setup would be this: an ordinary bed a sleeping human a duvet, on top of the human a cat, asleep draped over the human's legs. An infra-red camera would be used to take photos of the cat at, say, 10-minute intervals, to see if the cat really does expand overnight. Strain gauges could be fitted to the bed legs to measure the increase in weight that the cat experiences overnight. You could even measure the human's blood pressure to see how the gradual cutting off of blood flow to the legs affected it.

	Dear eSolutions (1.00 / 1) (#11)
	by Richard C Suquer on Fri Jul 26th, 2002 at 08:26:29 PM PST

	Suggested experiment: Shave the pussy and take careful note of the reaction. Reflect on the similarities between the shaving of a pussy and the raping of Native American lands by white people. -- Revolution from Below! GPL the Constitution!

	a useful piece of information (none / 0) (#12)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Jul 27th, 2002 at 10:54:07 AM PST

	Hello, Mister, just wanted to point the fact that white people who raped the native americans are dead a long time ago. By the way, those white people you talk about were the fathers of your grandfathers* so you should not spill shame on them, specially if we take into account that they used to kill native americans after raping them, not like Spaniard conquerors, who used to even marry them. Anyway the father of my grandfather never left Spain so maybe this is none of my business, but I'm just sick of those people in america blaming people still alive and far away from there for raping people who died two hundred years ago. I'm juan fernandez, and I cannot use my adequacy account because people still alive and living in america washed my brain through TV so much that now my memory is so weak that I forgot the bloody passwords both for the adequacy account and the Hotmail one!

	Free tip. (0.00 / 1) (#13)
	by tkatchev on Sun Jul 28th, 2002 at 01:58:52 AM PST

	You could try using a short, easy to remember word as a universal password for everything. For best results, try using a common dictionary word less than five letters in length. -- Peace and much love...

	really interesting tip, indeed (none / 0) (#14)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sun Jul 28th, 2002 at 01:57:01 PM PST

	Ole! what a good idea! really Sir i would like to thank you because my life has been a nightmare since that pirate operating system Linux started to spread and all honest people like us had to start using passwords to protect ourselves against the evil behaviour of the criminals using that sinister hacker tool. I'm sure now everything is going to be fine, anyway, just in case I'll write my new universal password here so i can get it back if forgotten just coming to adequacy and reading this post: "ganda". I would rather have used "gandalf" but it is too long.

	Rapine and Pillaging (none / 0) (#17)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Aug 5th, 2002 at 09:36:41 PM PST

	Oh come on. It's clearly true that all children are accountable to the sins of their ancestors. Based on this blatantly true fact, I have begun a long pilgramige up the ass of every other white person I meet, as well as every descendant of anyone who did anything wrong, in order to atone for the sins of my ancient viking ancestors (directly back to Leod the pirate and beyond) and the carnally obsessed sinful women who tempted them into raping them by their sinful ownership of legs, breasts and a vagina. A. McLeod Great-great-great...descendant of Leod the Scandanavian Pirate

	A treasure to science (1.00 / 1) (#16)
	by KingAzzy on Mon Jul 29th, 2002 at 10:50:27 PM PST

	Thank you very much, eSolutions, for this scientific analysis. I shall attempt to reproduce and embellish your experiments with my own kitty named Monkey. I will report my findings. Thanks, Azzy

	monkeycat (none / 0) (#18)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Aug 21st, 2002 at 05:57:36 AM PST

	2 months ago my monkeycat disappeared without a trace. I am requesting that out of honor for my dear departed monkeycat that you change the name of your monkeycat so that I may never have to be remonkeycatted of my monkeycat. Thank you for your time alternative monkeycat owner

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