E.B. Titchener. Experimental Psychology. Instructor’s Manual
p. xxviii. HOW TO FAIL IN LABORATORY WORK
Assent readily, and with an air of complete intelligence, to all that the instructor says. Make no effort to understand his explanations yourself, but trust your partner for the conduct of the experiment.
Do not accept any general explanation, under any circumstances. Cherish the belief that your mind is different, in its way of working, from all other minds, and that you must be individually treated.
See yourself in everything. If the instructor begins an explanation, interrupt him with a story of your childhood which seems to illustrate the point that he is making. If he is formulating a law, interrupt him with an account of some exception that has occurred within your own or your friend's experience. Go into the minutest detail. If the instructor inclines to reject your anecdotes, argue the matter out with him in full.
Call upon the instructor at the slightest provocation. It he is busy, stroll about the laboratory until he can attend to you. Do not hesitate to offer advice to other students, who are already at work.
Look very critically at the instruments that are put into your hands. Point out their defects to the instructor, and suggest improvements. Offer to spend the next few laboratory hours in the workshop getting out a better appliance.
Never lose sight of the greater questions of the science in the petty routine of experimentation. If, for example, the instructor is explaining the use of the campimeter, ask him whether experimental psychology is not materialistic in tendency, or if he thinks that the results of experimental psychology are of value for education.
If you are balked by an introspective problem that your partner has solved, either say that of course you had thought of that, but that it seemed too trivial to mention, or fall back upon the uniqueness of your mental constitution. Tell the instructor that the science is very young, and that what holds of one mind does not necessarily hold of another. Support your statement by anecdotes.
Work as noisily as possible. Converse with your partner, in the pauses of the experiment, upon current politics or athletic records. Get thoroughly roused up and excited before you proceed with your work.
Do not take the work seriously. Explain frankly, when you enter the laboratory that you have no belief in the methods and results of experimental psychology, but that you like to know what is going on in the various departments. Or, as an alternative rule; explain when you enter the laboratory that you have long been interested in experimental psychology, and that you are overjoyed to have found the present opportunity of studying it. Describe the telepathic experiences or accounts that have aroused your interest; ask the instructor if he has read so-and-so's recent paper in so-and-so, and express disappointed surprised when he replies (as he will) that he has not.
Make it a rule always to be a quarter of an hour late for the laboratory exercise. In this way you throw the drudgery of preliminary work upon your partner, while you can still take the credit to yourself for the regularity of your class attendance.
The author has never found the paragon who obeyed all these precepts. Diligent attention even to one or two of them, will, however, be enough to secure the failure required.