Lab Coats and Psychology Students?
I am an undergrad psychology student and the top tier classes are the psychology labs, where you concocted little experiments like issuing questioners or observing people doing things. While the students are observing and whatnot they are made to wear lab coats. Why? Would would the purpose of that be? Aren't lab coats meant to keep things clean and sterile? What use would a psychology student have for such a thing?
There could be a number of reasons, but I’m sure you learned about controls in experiments. I think that’s the biggest reason since they can generally wear whatever they want underneath. One test administrator wearing jeans and a T-shirt could potentially gain a different response from a test subject than another wearing a dress shirt and tie. Also, it may be used to establish authority in terms of who to take direction from or ask questions during the lab. There is also the other affect of putting the college aged students into a more professional frame of mind and making them more inclined to behave themselves. Another thing is that it may teach them to leave their work behind when they go home for the night. Some counselors really care about their patients/clients and take their work home only to be depressed when their patients/clients don’t respond to treatment. It could be an attempt to develop habits of keeping things professional rather than letting them get personal.
