Psychological 

phenomena

Students: Brumă Virginia-Mihaela

David Cristian-George
Group of study : 8
The second year of
Psychology
 Why did we choose this topic ?

● We choose this topic due to the fact most of us encounter more or

less strange situations that most of the time we don't even realize
that happened.

● Today we will present you a series of psychological phenomena

encountered at least once by one of us.
 What is a     A phenomenon is a fundamental
psychological process that has

psychological theoretically deduced antecedents and

consequences and thereby helps
explain: 
phenomenon ? ● human cognitions;
● feelings 
● behaviors;
 A series of common psychological 
phenomena

          Deja Vu The Mandela

1  4 Effect

The
            Placebo Ringelmann
2  5 Effect

Cryptomnesia The Bystander

3  6 Effect
 DEJA VU
Dr.Art Markham defines the term déjà vu:
● as a mechanism that our mind use to create a
sense of familiarity in a certain situation using
source memories as context clues.
● He says that people are good at remembering
objects.
● However, we do not do very well with memories
based exclusively on the way objects are
arranged.
 PLACEBO
● is a pill or treatment that has absolutely no physical
effect, but can produce a psychological benefit called
the placebo effect. 
● The effect occurs when someone takes a placebo,
which can be a sugar pill, and subsequently
experiences an improvement in health
An example of this :
● is Case MK869, an experimental antidepressant
developed by Marc in 2002.
● The drug was tested with very good results at first,
● the data showed that those who took the drug felt
better, and so did the same number of people who took
the placebo.
 CRYPTOMNESIA
The term was invented by doctors Alan Brown and Dana Murphy .
● They discovered that people will unknowingly borrow the ideas of others rather than think of new ideas.
● Instead of the unconscious theft of a song or a story, the human brain is able to take a story, a song or an idea
and transform it. In that person's mind it becomes original, when in fact it is just a memory. This phenomenon
is quite common, but it is difficult to prove the difference between it and a lie.
 The Mandela Effect

● refers to a situation in which a large mass of

people believes that an event occurred when it did
not.
● looking at the origin of the Mandela effect, some
famous examples, as well as some potential
explanations for this strange confluence of
perceptions can help to shed light on this unique
phenomenon.
 The Ringelmann Effect

● in 1913, Ringelmann, a French agricultural engineer, took a

rope and asked individual people to pull on it.
● then he asked those same people to pull on the rope with a
group.
● he observed that when people pulled with a group, they put
in less effort than when pulling on their own.
We call it “the Ringelmann effect,” or social loafing.
● it describes the tendency for individual productivity to
decrease as group size increases.
● it doesn’t just happen in tug-of-war games: It’s present in
companies like Google and Facebook more than a century
after Ringelmann’s discovery. 
The Bystander Effect

● is a psychological phenomenon of a social nature;

● it is characterized by the non-involvement of a
group of people to help in an emergency situation;
● the more a group of people who witness such a
situationis bigger the probability of helping the
person involved decreases;
 An example for the the
Bystander Effect
Kitty Genovese and the Bystander Effect:
● this term was coined after the brutal murder of Kitty
Genovese in 1964 ;
● where it was reported that 38 bystanders watched or heard
the attack occur but instead relied on others to intervene or
call the police.
 The experimental study
● The experimental study represent young children show
the bystander effect in helping situation .
● Procedure:
● participants were sixty children 5 year-olds;

● Participants were told that they were going to color

a pictureAll children and the experimenter then 
● entered the testing room and chose a pictures. 
● the experimenter then noticed a puddle of water in
the middle of the room which she wiped up with
some paper towels. She put the leftover paper
towels on the floor, saying “…in case something
needs to be wiped up later.
● Children were asked to sit down to color. 
 The experimental study
● After approximately half a minute, E ‘accidentally’ knocked over the cup and spilled
colored water all over her table. 
● After those 15 seconds, if participants had not yet helped, she said, “My cup has fallen
over.”
● After 60 seconds, she said, “I need the paper towels there,” looking at the paper towels,
out of her reach. She then looked for the first time at the children,
● After 75 seconds, she said, “Could somebody give me the paper towels“
● then looking at the children again as described above. After 90 seconds, if the participant
still had not brought her some paper towels, she appeared to realize that there were paper
towels behind her that she could reach easily and so cleaned up the water herself
● REZULTS : Preliminary analysis revealed that gender did not have an effect on the overall number of
participants who helped so we collapsed across gender in the following analyses.The number of
participants who helped E was significantly different across the three conditions of bystander.
 Psychological words
A phenomenon= is a fundamental psychological process that has theoretically deduced antecedents and
consequences and thereby helps explain: human cognitions; feelings,behaviors;
DEJA VU = as a mechanism that our mind use to create a sense of familiarity in a certain situation using
source memories as context clues.
PLACEBO= is a pill or treatment that has absolutely no physical effect, but can produce a
psychological benefit
CRYPTOMNESIA= unknowingly borrow the ideas of others rather than think of new ideas.
The Mandela Effect= a situation in which a large mass of people believes that an event occurred when it
did not.
The Ringelmann Effect= tendency for individual productivity to decrease as group size increases
The Bystander Effect= is a psychological phenomenon of a social nature which is characterized by the
non-involvement of a group of people to help in an emergency situation
 Questions

● 1) When was the last time you felt deja vu?

● 2) Have you assumed an idea as original only to discover later that it

has been used by someone in the past?

● 3) Have you been involved or do you know other cases of the bystander
effect type?
 Thank you for staying this far

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Latane, B., & Darley, J. M. (1968). Group inhibition of

bystander intervention in emergencies, Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 10, 215-221