The topic of experiments on people excites and causes a sea of ambiguous emotions among scientists. Here is a list of 10 monstrous experiments that were carried out in different countries.
1 The Stanford Prison Experiment
A study of the reactions of a person in captivity and the characteristics of his behavior in positions of power was carried out in 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Student volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners while living in the basement of the university in conditions that simulated a prison. Newly minted prisoners and guards quickly adapted to their roles, exhibiting reactions not expected by the experimenters. A third of the "guards" showed genuine sadistic tendencies, while many of the "prisoners" were emotionally traumatized and extremely depressed. Zimbardo, alarmed by the outbreak of violence among the "guards" and the deplorable state of the "prisoners", was forced to stop the study early.
2. Monstrous experiment
Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa, together with graduate student Mary Tudor, conducted an experiment in 1939 involving 22 orphans. Dividing the children into two groups, they began to encourage and praise the fluency of the speech of the representatives of one of them, while at the same time speaking negatively about the speech of the children from the second group, emphasizing its imperfection and frequent stuttering. Many of the normal-speaking children who received negative comments during the experiment subsequently developed psychological as well as real speech problems, some of which remained for life. Johnson's colleagues called his research "monstrous," horrified by the decision to experiment on orphans to prove a theory. In the name of preserving the scientist's reputation, the experiment was hidden for many years, and the University of Iowa issued a public apology for it in 2001.
3. Project 4.1
"Project 4.1" is the name of a medical study conducted in the United States among residents of the Marshall Islands who were exposed to radioactive fallout in 1954. During the first decade after the trial, the results were mixed: the percentage of health problems in the population fluctuated a lot, but still did not present a clear picture. In the decades that followed, however, the evidence for impact was undeniable. Children began to suffer from thyroid cancer, and almost one in three of the toxic fallouts found in the area discovered by 1974 the development of neoplasms.
The Department of the Energy Committee subsequently stated that it was highly unethical to use living people as "guinea pigs" under conditions of exposure to radioactive effects, the experimenters should have sought to provide medical care to the victims instead.
4. MKULTRA project
Project MKULTRA or MK-ULTRA is the code name for the CIA's mind control research program in the 1950s and 60s. There is a lot of evidence that the project involved the covert use of many types of drugs, as well as other techniques to manipulate mental state and brain function.
The experiments included administering LSD to CIA officers, military personnel, doctors, civil servants, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and just ordinary people to study their reactions. The introduction of substances was carried out, as a rule, without the knowledge of the person.
As part of one experiment, the CIA set up several brothels where visitors were injected with LSD, and reactions were recorded using hidden cameras for later study.
In 1973, CIA chief Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all MKULTRA documents, which was done, making it almost impossible to investigate years of experiments.
5. Project "Disgust"
Between 1971 and 1989, in South African military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to eradicate homosexuality, about 900 gay soldiers of both sexes underwent a series of highly unethical medical experiments.
Army psychiatrists, with the help of priests, recognized homosexuals in the ranks of the soldiers, sending them to "correctional procedures." Those who could not be "cured" by medication were subjected to shock or hormone therapy, as well as other radical means, among which were chemical castration and even sex reassignment surgery.
The project leader, Dr. Aubrey Levine, is now a professor of forensic science in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Calgary.
6. North Korean experiments
There is a wealth of evidence about human experimentation carried out in North Korea. The reports show human rights abuses similar to those of the Nazis during World War II. However, all allegations are denied by the North Korean government.
A former North Korean prison inmate recounts how fifty healthy women were ordered to eat poisoned cabbage despite the clearly audible cries of anguish from those who had already eaten it. All fifty people were dead after 20 minutes of bloody vomiting. Refusal to eat threatened to lead to reprisals against women and their families.
Kwon Hyuk, a former prison warden, described laboratories equipped with poison gas equipment. People were let into the cells, as a rule, families. Doors were sealed and gas was injected through a tube while scientists watched people suffer through glass.
The Poison Laboratory is a secret base for the research and development of poisonous substances by members of the Soviet secret services. A number of deadly poisons were tested on Gulag prisoners ("enemies of the people"). Mustard gas, ricin, digitoxin and many other gases have been applied to them. The purpose of the experiments was to find the formula for a chemical that cannot be discovered posthumously. Samples of poisons were administered to the victims with food or drink, and also under the guise of medicine. Finally, a drug with the desired properties, called C-2, has been developed. According to the testimonies of witnesses, the person who took this poison seemed to become shorter, rapidly weakened, quieted down and died within fifteen minutes.
8 Tuskegee Syphilis Study
A clinical study conducted from 1932 to 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 people participated (plus 201 participants in the control group) aimed to study the course of syphilis. The test subjects were mostly illiterate African Americans.
The study gained notoriety due to the lack of provision of adequate conditions for test subjects, which led to changes in the policy of treating participants in scientific experiments in the future. Individuals in the Tuskegee Study were not aware of their own diagnosis: they were only told that "bad blood" caused the problem, and they could receive free medical care, transport to the clinic, food, and burial insurance in the event of death in exchange to participate in the experiment. In 1932, when the study began, the standard treatments for syphilis were highly toxic and of questionable efficacy. Part of the scientists' goal was to determine if patients would get better without taking these toxic drugs. Many test subjects received a placebo instead of a drug so that scientists could monitor the progression of the disease.
By the end of the study, only 74 subjects were still alive. Twenty-eight men died directly from syphilis, 100 due to complications of the disease were dead. Among their wives, 40 were infected, 19 children in their families were born with congenital syphilis.
9. Block 731
Unit 731 is a secret biological and chemical military research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that carried out lethal experiments on humans during the Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
Some of the many experiments performed by Commander Shiro Ishii and his staff in Block 731 included: vivisection of living people (including pregnant women), amputation and freezing of the limbs of prisoners, testing flamethrowers and grenades on living targets. People were injected with strains of pathogens and studied the development of destructive processes in their bodies. Many, many atrocities were carried out as part of the Block 731 project, but its leader, Ishii, received immunity from the American occupation authorities of Japan at the end of the war, did not spend a day in prison for his crimes, and died at the age of 67 from laryngeal cancer.
10 Nazi experiments
The Nazis claimed that their experiments in concentration camps during World War II were aimed at helping German soldiers in combat situations, and also served to promote the ideology of the Third Reich.
Experiments with children in concentration camps were carried out to show the similarities and differences in the genetics and eugenics of twins, and to make sure that the human body could be subject to a wide range of manipulations. The leader of the experiments was Dr. Josef Mengele, who conducted experiments on more than 1,500 groups of twin prisoners, of which less than 200 survived. The twins were injected, their bodies were literally sewn together in an attempt to create a "Siamese" configuration.
In 1942, the Luftwaffe conducted experiments designed to clarify how to treat hypothermia. In one study, a person was placed in a tank of ice water for up to three hours (see figure above). Another study involved leaving prisoners naked outdoors in sub-zero temperatures. The experimenters evaluated different ways of keeping the survivors warm.
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Little Albert (1920)
John Watson, the father of the behavioral trend in psychology, was engaged in research on the nature of fears and phobias. Studying the emotions of infants, Watson, among other things, became interested in the possibility of forming a fear reaction in relation to objects that previously did not cause fear. The scientist tested the possibility of forming an emotional reaction of fear of a white rat in a 9-month-old boy Albert, who was not afraid of a rat at all and even liked to play with it. During the experiment, for two months, an orphan baby from a shelter was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. After two months, the child was placed on a rug in the middle of the room and allowed to play with the rat. At first, the child was not at all afraid of the rat and calmly played with it. After a while, Watson began to strike with an iron hammer on a metal plate behind the child's back every time Albert touched the rat. After repeated blows, Albert began to avoid contact with the rat. A week later, the experiment was repeated - this time the strip was hit five times, simply by placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried already only at the sight of a white rat. After another five days, Watson decided to test whether the child would be afraid of similar objects. The child was afraid of the white rabbit, cotton wool, the mask of Santa Claus. Since the scientist did not make loud noises when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many of the fears, dislikes, and anxiety states of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson did not succeed in ridding baby Albert of his causeless fear, which was fixed for the rest of his life.
"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)
In 1939, Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. Children were divided into control and experimental groups. Half of the children were told by the experimenters about how clean and correct they were speaking. Unpleasant moments awaited the second half of the children: Mary Tudor, not sparing epithets, caustically ridiculed the slightest flaw in their speech, in the end calling everyone pathetic stutterers. As a result of the experiment, many children who never experienced problems with speech and, by the will of fate, ended up in the "negative" group, developed all the symptoms of stuttering, which persisted throughout their lives. The experiment, later called "monstrous", was hidden from the public for a long time for fear of damaging Johnson's reputation: similar experiments were later carried out on concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany. In 2001, Iowa State University issued a formal apology to all those affected by the study.
In 1965, an eight-month-old baby, Bruce Reimer, born in Winnipeg, Canada, was circumcised on the advice of doctors. However, due to a mistake by the surgeon who performed the operation, the boy's penis was completely damaged.
Psychologist John Money from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA), to whom the parents of the child turned for advice, advised them on a “simple” way out of a difficult situation: to change the sex of the child and raise him as a girl until he grew up and began to experience complexes according to about his male incompetence.
No sooner said than done: soon Bruce became Brenda. The unfortunate parents had no idea that their child was the victim of a cruel experiment: John Money had long been looking for an opportunity to prove that gender is due not to nature, but to upbringing, and Bruce became the ideal object of observation.
The boy's testicles were removed, and then for several years Mani published reports in scientific journals about the "successful" development of his experimental subject.
“It is quite clear that the child behaves like an active little girl and her behavior is strikingly different from the boyish behavior of her twin brother,” the scientist assured.
However, both home and teachers at school noted typical boyish behavior and biased perception in the child. Worst of all, the parents, who hid the truth from their son-daughter, experienced extreme emotional stress.
As a result, the mother was observed to have suicidal tendencies, the father became an alcoholic, and the twin brother was constantly depressed.
When Bruce-Brenda reached adolescence, he was given estrogen to stimulate breast growth, and then the psychologist began to insist on a new operation, during which Brenda was to form female genital organs.
But then Bruce-Brenda rebelled. He flatly refused to do the operation and stopped coming to see Mani. Three suicide attempts followed one after the other.
The last of these ended in a coma for him, but he recovered and began the struggle to return to a normal existence - as a man.
He changed his name to David, cut his hair and started wearing men's clothes. In 1997, he went through a series of reconstructive surgeries to bring back physical signs of sex.
He also married a woman and adopted her three children. However, the happy ending did not work out: in May 2004, after breaking up with his wife, David Reimer committed suicide at the age of 38.
Milgram experiment
It is a classic experiment in social psychology, first described in 1963 by psychologist Stanley Milgram of Yale University in the article Behavioral Study of Obedience, and later in the book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Study. Authority: An Experimental View, 1974).
In his experiment, Milgram tried to clarify the question: how much suffering are ordinary people willing to inflict on other, completely innocent people, if such infliction of pain is part of their work duties? It demonstrated the inability of the subjects to openly resist the "boss" (in this case, the researcher, dressed in a lab coat), who ordered them to complete the task, despite the great suffering inflicted on another participant in the experiment (in reality, the decoy actor). The results of the experiment showed that the need to obey authorities is so deeply rooted in our minds that the subjects continued to follow instructions despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.
In fact, Milgram began his research to clarify the question of how German citizens during the years of Nazi domination could participate in the destruction of millions of innocent people in concentration camps. After fine-tuning his experimental techniques in the United States, Milgram planned to travel with them to Germany, where he believed the people were very obedient. However, after the first experiment he conducted in New Haven, Connecticut, it became clear that a trip to Germany was not necessary and that one could continue to engage in scientific research close to home. "I found so much obedience," Milgram said, "that I don't see the need to do this experiment in Germany." Subsequently, Milgram's experiment was nevertheless repeated in Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Austria and Jordan, and the results were the same as in America.
Description of the experiment
The participants were presented with this experiment as a study of the effect of pain on memory. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor who played the role of another subject. It was stated that one of the participants ("student") must memorize pairs of words from a long list until he remembers each pair, and the other ("teacher") - check the memory of the first and punish him for each mistake with an increasingly stronger electric discharge.
At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of teacher and student were distributed between the subject and the actor "by lot" using folded sheets of paper with the words "teacher" and "student", and the subject always got the role of teacher. After that, the "student" was tied to a chair with electrodes. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” shock with a voltage of 45 V.
The "teacher" went into another room, began to give the "student" simple tasks to remember, and with each mistake of the "student" he pressed the button, supposedly punishing the "student" with an electric shock. Starting with 45 V, the "teacher" with each new error had to increase the voltage by 15 V up to 450 V. In reality, the "student" did not receive blows, but only pretended to.
At “150 volts”, the actor-“student” began to demand to stop the experiment, but the experimenter said to the “teacher”: “The experiment must be continued. Please continue." As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more discomfort, then intense pain, and finally yelled for the experiment to be stopped. If the subject showed hesitation, the experimenter assured him that he took full responsibility for both the experiment and the safety of the "student" and that the experiment should be continued. At the same time, however, the experimenter did not threaten the doubting "teachers" in any way and did not promise any reward for participating in this experiment.
results
The results obtained amazed everyone involved in the experiment, even Milgram himself. In one series of experiments, 26 subjects out of 40, instead of taking pity on the victim, continued to increase the voltage (up to 450 V) until the researcher gave the order to end the experiment. Even more alarming was the fact that almost none of the 40 subjects who participated in the experiment refused to play the role of a teacher when the "student" was just beginning to demand release. They did not do this later, when the victim began to beg for mercy. Moreover, even when the “student” responded to each electric shock with a desperate scream, the “teacher” subjects continued to press the button. One subject stopped at 300 volts, when the victim began to scream in despair: “I can’t answer questions anymore!”, And those who stopped after that were in a clear minority. The overall result was as follows: one subject stopped at 300 V, five refused to obey after this level, four after 315 V, two after 330 V, one after 345 V, one after 360 V and one after 375 V; the remaining 26 out of 40 reached the end of the scale.
Psychology as a science gained popularity in the early twentieth century. The noble goal of learning more about the intricacies of human behavior, perception, and emotional state has not always been achieved by equally noble means. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who were at the origins of many branches of the science of the human psyche, conducted such experiments on humans and animals that can hardly be called humane or ethical. Here are a dozen of them:
"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)
In 1939, Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. Children were divided into control and experimental groups. Half of the children were told by the experimenters about how clean and correct they were speaking. Unpleasant moments awaited the second half of the children: Mary Tudor, not sparing epithets, caustically ridiculed the slightest flaw in their speech, in the end calling everyone pathetic stutterers.
As a result of the experiment, many children who never experienced problems with speech and, by the will of fate, ended up in the "negative" group, developed all the symptoms of stuttering, which persisted throughout their lives. The experiment, later called "monstrous", was hidden from the public for a long time for fear of damaging Johnson's reputation: similar experiments were later carried out on concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany. In 2001, Iowa State University issued a formal apology to all those affected by the study.
Project Aversion (1970)
In the South African army, from 1970 to 1989, a secret program was carried out to clear the army ranks from military personnel of non-traditional sexual orientation. All means were used: from electroshock treatment to chemical castration.
The exact number of victims is not known, however, according to army doctors, during the "purges" about 1,000 military personnel were subjected to various prohibited experiments on human nature. Army psychiatrists, on behalf of the command, "eradicated" homosexuals with might and main: those who did not respond to "treatment" were sent to shock therapy, forced to take hormonal drugs, and even subjected to sex change operations.
In most cases, the "patients" were young white males between the ages of 16 and 24. The then leader of the "study", Dr. Aubrey Levin, is now a professor of psychiatry at the University of Calgary (Canada). Engaged in private practice.
Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
In 1971, the “artificial prison” experiment was not conceived by its creator as something unethical or harmful to the psyche of its participants, but the results of this study shocked the public. The famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo decided to study the behavior and social norms of individuals placed in atypical prison conditions and forced to play the roles of prisoners or guards.
To do this, an imitation of a prison was equipped in the basement of the Faculty of Psychology, and student volunteers in the amount of 24 people were divided into "prisoners" and "guards". It was assumed that the "prisoners" were initially placed in a situation in which they would experience personal disorientation and degradation, up to complete depersonalization.
The "guards" were not given any special instructions regarding their roles. At first, the students did not really understand how they should play their roles, but on the second day of the experiment, everything fell into place: the uprising of the “prisoners” was brutally suppressed by the “guards”. Since then, the behavior of both sides has changed radically.
The "guards" have developed a special system of privileges, designed to divide the "prisoners" and instill in them distrust of each other - they are not as strong alone as together, which means that it is easier to "guard" them. It began to seem to the “guards” that the “prisoners” were ready to raise a new “uprising” at any moment, and the control system was tightened to an extreme degree: the “prisoners” were not left alone even in the toilet.
As a result, the "prisoners" began to experience emotional distress, depression, and helplessness. After some time, the "prison priest" came to visit the "prisoners". When asked what their names were, the “prisoners” most often gave their numbers, not their names, and the question of how they were going to get out of prison led them to a dead end.
To the horror of the experimenters, it turned out that the “prisoners” completely got used to their roles and began to feel like they were in a real prison, and the “guards” experienced real sadistic emotions and intentions towards the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends a few days ago. Both sides seemed to have completely forgotten that this was all just an experiment. Although the experiment was scheduled for two weeks, it was terminated early, after just six days, for ethical reasons. Based on this experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel made the film The Experiment (2001).
Studies on the effects of drugs on the body (1969)
It must be admitted that some animal experiments help scientists invent drugs that can save tens of thousands of human lives in the future. However, some studies cross all the boundaries of ethics. An example is a 1969 experiment designed to help scientists understand the speed and degree of human addiction to drugs.
The experiment was carried out on rats and monkeys, as on animals that are closest to humans in terms of physiology. Animals were taught to self-inject themselves with a dose of a certain drug: morphine, cocaine, codeine, amphetamines, etc. As soon as the animals learned to “inject themselves” on their own, the experimenters left them a large amount of drugs, left the animals to themselves and began observation.
The animals were so confused that some of them even tried to escape, and, being under the influence of drugs, they were crippled and did not feel pain. The monkeys who took cocaine began to suffer from convulsions and hallucinations: the unfortunate animals pulled out their knuckles. The monkeys, "sitting" on amphetamines, pulled out all their hair.
Animals "addicts" who preferred a "cocktail" of cocaine and morphine died within 2 weeks after starting the drugs. While the goal of the experiment was to understand and evaluate the effects of drugs on the human body with the intent of further developing effective drug addiction treatment, the way the results are achieved is hardly humane.
Landis Experiments: Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Subordination (1924)
In 1924, Carini Landis of the University of Minnesota began studying human facial expressions. The experiment, started by the scientist, was to reveal the general patterns of work of the facial muscle groups responsible for the expression of individual emotional states, and to find facial expressions typical of fear, embarrassment or other emotions (if we consider typical facial expressions characteristic of most people).
The subjects were his own students. To make facial expressions more distinct, he drew lines on the faces of the subjects with a burnt cork, after which he presented them with something that could evoke strong emotions: he made them sniff ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornographic pictures and put their hands in buckets of toads. At the moment of expressing emotions, students were photographed.
And everything would be fine, but the last test, which Landis subjected students to, caused rumors in the widest circles of psychologists. Landis asked each subject to cut off the head of a white rat. All participants in the experiment initially refused to do this, many cried and screamed, but later most of them agreed to do it. The worst thing was that most of the participants in the experiment, as they say, did not offend a fly in life and had absolutely no idea how to carry out the experimenter's order.
As a result, the animals suffered a lot. The consequences of the experiment turned out to be much more important than the experiment itself. Scientists failed to find any regularity in facial expressions, however, psychologists received evidence of how easily people are ready to obey authorities and do what they would not have done in a normal life situation.
Little Albert (1920)
John Watson, the father of the behavioral trend in psychology, was engaged in research on the nature of fears and phobias. In 1920, while studying the emotions of infants, Watson, among other things, became interested in the possibility of forming a fear reaction in relation to objects that had not previously caused fear. The scientist tested the possibility of forming an emotional reaction of fear of a white rat in a 9-month-old boy Albert, who was not afraid of a rat at all and even liked to play with it.
During the experiment, for two months, an orphan baby from a shelter was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. After two months, the child was placed on a rug in the middle of the room and allowed to play with the rat. At first, the child was not at all afraid of the rat and calmly played with it. After a while, Watson began to strike with an iron hammer on a metal plate behind the child's back every time Albert touched the rat. After repeated blows, Albert began to avoid contact with the rat.
A week later, the experiment was repeated - this time the strip was hit five times, simply by placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried already only at the sight of a white rat. After another five days, Watson decided to test whether the child would be afraid of similar objects. The child was afraid of the white rabbit, cotton wool, the mask of Santa Claus. Since the scientist did not make loud noises when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many of the fears, dislikes, and anxiety states of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson did not succeed in ridding baby Albert of his causeless fear, which was fixed for the rest of his life.
Learned Helplessness (1966)
In 1966, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Mayer conducted a series of experiments on dogs. Animals were placed in cages, previously divided into three groups. The control group was released after some time without causing any harm, the second group of animals were subjected to repeated shocks that could be stopped by pressing a lever from the inside, and the animals of their third group were subjected to sudden shocks that could not be prevented.
As a result, dogs have developed what is known as “acquired helplessness,” a reaction to unpleasant stimuli based on the belief that they are helpless in the face of the outside world. Soon, the animals began to show signs of clinical depression. After some time, the dogs from the third group were released from their cages and placed in open enclosures from which it was easy to escape. The dogs were again subjected to electric current, but none of them even thought about running away. Instead, they reacted passively to pain, accepting it as inevitable.
The dogs had learned from previous negative experiences that escape was impossible and made no further attempts to escape from the cage. Scientists have suggested that the human response to stress is much like a dog's: people become helpless after several failures, one after another. It is only unclear whether such a banal conclusion was worth the suffering of the unfortunate animals.
Milgram experiment (1974)
A 1974 experiment by Stanley Milgram of Yale University is described by the author in Submission to Authority: An Experimental Study. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor who played the role of another subject. At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of “teacher” and “student” were distributed between the subject and the actor “by lot”. In reality, the subject was always given the role of "teacher", and the hired actor was always the "student".
Before the start of the experiment, the "teacher" was explained that the purpose of the experiment was supposedly to reveal new methods of memorizing information. In reality, the experimenter set out to investigate the behavior of a person who receives instructions that are at odds with his internal behavioral norms from an authoritative source. The “apprentice” was tied to a chair to which a stun gun was attached. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” electric shock of 45 volts.
Then the “teacher” went into another room and had to give the “student” simple memory tasks over the speakerphone. For each student error, the subject had to press a button, and the student received a 45-volt electric shock. In reality, the actor who played the student was only pretending to receive electric shocks. Then, after each mistake, the teacher had to increase the voltage by 15 volts. At some point, the actor began to demand to stop the experiment. The “teacher” began to doubt, and the experimenter replied: “The experiment requires you to continue. Please continue."
As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more severe discomfort, then severe pain, and finally broke into a scream. The experiment continued up to a voltage of 450 volts. If the "teacher" hesitated, the experimenter assured him that he took full responsibility for the experiment and for the safety of the "student" and that the experiment should be continued.
The results were shocking: 65% of the "teachers" gave a shock of 450 volts, knowing that the "student" was in terrible pain. Contrary to all the preliminary forecasts of the experimenters, most of the subjects obeyed the instructions of the scientist who led the experiment and punished the "student" with electric shock, and in a series of experiments out of forty subjects, not one stopped at a level of 300 volts, five refused to obey only after this level, and 26 "teachers" from 40 reached the end of the scale.
Critics said that the subjects were hypnotized by the authority of Yale University. In response to this criticism, Milgram repeated the experiment, renting a shabby building in the town of Bridgeport, Connecticut, under the sign of the Bridgeport Research Association. The results did not change qualitatively: 48% of the subjects agreed to reach the end of the scale. In 2002, the summary results of all similar experiments showed that from 61% to 66% of "teachers" reach the end of the scale, regardless of the time and place of the experiment.
The most frightening conclusions followed from the experiment: the unknown dark side of human nature tends not only to thoughtlessly obey authority and carry out the most unthinkable instructions, but also to justify its own behavior by the received “order”. Many participants in the experiment experienced a sense of superiority over the "student" and, pressing the button, were sure that the "student" who answered the question incorrectly was getting what he deserved.
Ultimately, the results of the experiment showed that the need to obey authorities is so deeply rooted in our minds that the subjects continued to follow the instructions, despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.
"Source of Despair" (1960)
Harry Harlow conducted his cruel experiments on monkeys. In 1960, researching the issue of social isolation of the individual and methods of protection against it, Harlow took a baby monkey from its mother and placed it in a cage all alone, and chose those cubs that had the strongest connection with the mother. The monkey was kept in a cage for a year, after which it was released.
Most individuals showed various mental abnormalities. The scientist made the following conclusions: even a happy childhood is not a defense against depression. The results, to put it mildly, are not impressive: a similar conclusion could be drawn without conducting cruel experiments on animals. However, the animal rights movement began after the publication of the results of this experiment.
A warning! This post is not for the impressionable.
Psychology as a science gained popularity in the early twentieth century. The noble goal of learning more about the intricacies of human behavior, perception, and emotional state has not always been achieved by equally noble means.
Psychologists and psychiatrists, who were at the origins of many branches of the science of the human psyche, conducted such experiments on humans and animals that can hardly be called humane or ethical. Here are a dozen of them:
"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)
In 1939, Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. Children were divided into control and experimental groups. Half of the children were told by the experimenters about how clean and correct they were speaking. Unpleasant moments awaited the second half of the children: Mary Tudor, not sparing epithets, caustically ridiculed the slightest flaw in their speech, in the end calling everyone pathetic stutterers.
As a result of the experiment, many children who never experienced problems with speech and, by the will of fate, ended up in the "negative" group, developed all the symptoms of stuttering, which persisted throughout their lives. The experiment, later called "monstrous", was hidden from the public for a long time for fear of damaging Johnson's reputation: similar experiments were later carried out on concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany. In 2001, Iowa State University issued a formal apology to all those affected by the study.
Project Aversion (1970)
In the South African army, from 1970 to 1989, a secret program was carried out to clear the army ranks from military personnel of non-traditional sexual orientation. All means were used: from electroshock treatment to chemical castration.
The exact number of victims is not known, however, according to army doctors, during the "purges" about 1,000 military personnel were subjected to various prohibited experiments on human nature. Army psychiatrists, on behalf of the command, "eradicated" homosexuals with might and main: those who did not respond to "treatment" were sent to shock therapy, forced to take hormonal drugs, and even subjected to sex change operations.
In most cases, the "patients" were young white males between the ages of 16 and 24. The then leader of the "study", Dr. Aubrey Levin, is now a professor of psychiatry at the University of Calgary (Canada). Engaged in private practice.
Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
In 1971, the “artificial prison” experiment was not conceived by its creator as something unethical or harmful to the psyche of its participants, but the results of this study shocked the public. The famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo decided to study the behavior and social norms of individuals placed in atypical prison conditions and forced to play the roles of prisoners or guards.
To do this, an imitation of a prison was equipped in the basement of the Faculty of Psychology, and student volunteers in the amount of 24 people were divided into "prisoners" and "guards". It was assumed that the "prisoners" were initially placed in a situation in which they would experience personal disorientation and degradation, up to complete depersonalization.
The "guards" were not given any special instructions regarding their roles. At first, the students did not really understand how they should play their roles, but on the second day of the experiment, everything fell into place: the uprising of the “prisoners” was brutally suppressed by the “guards”. Since then, the behavior of both sides has changed radically.
The "guards" have developed a special system of privileges, designed to divide the "prisoners" and instill in them distrust of each other - they are not as strong alone as together, which means that it is easier to "guard" them. It began to seem to the “guards” that the “prisoners” were ready to raise a new “uprising” at any moment, and the control system was tightened to an extreme degree: the “prisoners” were not left alone even in the toilet.
As a result, the "prisoners" began to experience emotional distress, depression, and helplessness. After some time, the "prison priest" came to visit the "prisoners". When asked what their names were, the “prisoners” most often gave their numbers, not their names, and the question of how they were going to get out of prison led them to a dead end.
To the horror of the experimenters, it turned out that the “prisoners” completely got used to their roles and began to feel like they were in a real prison, and the “guards” experienced real sadistic emotions and intentions towards the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends a few days ago. Both sides seemed to have completely forgotten that this was all just an experiment. Although the experiment was scheduled for two weeks, it was terminated early, after just six days, for ethical reasons. Based on this experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel made the film The Experiment (2001).
Studies on the effects of drugs on the body (1969)
It must be admitted that some animal experiments help scientists invent drugs that can save tens of thousands of human lives in the future. However, some studies cross all the boundaries of ethics. An example is a 1969 experiment designed to help scientists understand the speed and degree of human addiction to drugs.
The experiment was carried out on rats and monkeys, as on animals that are closest to humans in terms of physiology. Animals were taught to self-inject themselves with a dose of a certain drug: morphine, cocaine, codeine, amphetamines, etc. As soon as the animals learned to “inject themselves” on their own, the experimenters left them a large amount of drugs, left the animals to themselves and began observation.
The animals were so confused that some of them even tried to escape, and, being under the influence of drugs, they were crippled and did not feel pain. The monkeys who took cocaine began to suffer from convulsions and hallucinations: the unfortunate animals pulled out their knuckles. The monkeys, "sitting" on amphetamines, pulled out all their hair.
Animals "addicts" who preferred a "cocktail" of cocaine and morphine died within 2 weeks after starting the drugs. While the goal of the experiment was to understand and evaluate the effects of drugs on the human body with the intent of further developing effective drug addiction treatment, the way the results are achieved is hardly humane.
Landis Experiments: Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Subordination (1924)
In 1924, Carini Landis of the University of Minnesota began studying human facial expressions. The experiment, started by the scientist, was to reveal the general patterns of work of the facial muscle groups responsible for the expression of individual emotional states, and to find facial expressions typical of fear, embarrassment or other emotions (if we consider typical facial expressions characteristic of most people).
The subjects were his own students. To make facial expressions more distinct, he drew lines on the faces of the subjects with a burnt cork, after which he presented them with something that could evoke strong emotions: he made them sniff ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornographic pictures and put their hands in buckets of toads. At the moment of expressing emotions, students were photographed.
And everything would be fine, but the last test, which Landis subjected students to, caused rumors in the widest circles of psychologists. Landis asked each subject to cut off the head of a white rat. All participants in the experiment initially refused to do this, many cried and screamed, but later most of them agreed to do it. The worst thing was that most of the participants in the experiment, as they say, did not offend a fly in life and had absolutely no idea how to carry out the experimenter's order.
As a result, the animals suffered a lot. The consequences of the experiment turned out to be much more important than the experiment itself. Scientists failed to find any regularity in facial expressions, however, psychologists received evidence of how easily people are ready to obey authorities and do what they would not have done in a normal life situation.
Little Albert (1920)
John Watson, the father of the behavioral trend in psychology, was engaged in research on the nature of fears and phobias. In 1920, while studying the emotions of infants, Watson, among other things, became interested in the possibility of forming a fear reaction in relation to objects that had not previously caused fear. The scientist tested the possibility of forming an emotional reaction of fear of a white rat in a 9-month-old boy Albert, who was not afraid of a rat at all and even liked to play with it.
During the experiment, for two months, an orphan baby from a shelter was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. After two months, the child was placed on a rug in the middle of the room and allowed to play with the rat. At first, the child was not at all afraid of the rat and calmly played with it. After a while, Watson began to strike with an iron hammer on a metal plate behind the child's back every time Albert touched the rat. After repeated blows, Albert began to avoid contact with the rat.
A week later, the experiment was repeated - this time the strip was hit five times, simply by placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried already only at the sight of a white rat. After another five days, Watson decided to test whether the child would be afraid of similar objects. The child was afraid of the white rabbit, cotton wool, the mask of Santa Claus. Since the scientist did not make loud noises when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many of the fears, dislikes, and anxiety states of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson did not succeed in ridding baby Albert of his causeless fear, which was fixed for the rest of his life.
Learned Helplessness (1966)
In 1966, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Mayer conducted a series of experiments on dogs. Animals were placed in cages, previously divided into three groups. The control group was released after some time without causing any harm, the second group of animals were subjected to repeated shocks that could be stopped by pressing a lever from the inside, and the animals of their third group were subjected to sudden shocks that could not be prevented.
As a result, dogs have developed what is known as “acquired helplessness,” a reaction to unpleasant stimuli based on the belief that they are helpless in the face of the outside world. Soon, the animals began to show signs of clinical depression. After some time, the dogs from the third group were released from their cages and placed in open enclosures from which it was easy to escape. The dogs were again subjected to electric current, but none of them even thought about running away. Instead, they reacted passively to pain, accepting it as inevitable.
The dogs had learned from previous negative experiences that escape was impossible and made no further attempts to escape from the cage. Scientists have suggested that the human response to stress is much like a dog's: people become helpless after several failures, one after another. It is only unclear whether such a banal conclusion was worth the suffering of the unfortunate animals.
Milgram experiment (1974)
A 1974 experiment by Stanley Milgram of Yale University is described by the author in Submission to Authority: An Experimental Study. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor who played the role of another subject. At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of “teacher” and “student” were distributed between the subject and the actor “by lot”. In reality, the subject was always given the role of "teacher", and the hired actor was always the "student".
Before the start of the experiment, the "teacher" was explained that the purpose of the experiment was supposedly to reveal new methods of memorizing information. In reality, the experimenter set out to investigate the behavior of a person who receives instructions that are at odds with his internal behavioral norms from an authoritative source. The “apprentice” was tied to a chair to which a stun gun was attached. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” electric shock of 45 volts.
Then the “teacher” went into another room and had to give the “student” simple memory tasks over the speakerphone. For each student error, the subject had to press a button, and the student received a 45-volt electric shock. In reality, the actor who played the student was only pretending to receive electric shocks. Then, after each mistake, the teacher had to increase the voltage by 15 volts. At some point, the actor began to demand to stop the experiment. The “teacher” began to doubt, and the experimenter replied: “The experiment requires you to continue. Please continue."
As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more severe discomfort, then severe pain, and finally broke into a scream. The experiment continued up to a voltage of 450 volts. If the "teacher" hesitated, the experimenter assured him that he took full responsibility for the experiment and for the safety of the "student" and that the experiment should be continued.
The results were shocking: 65% of the "teachers" gave a shock of 450 volts, knowing that the "student" was in terrible pain. Contrary to all the preliminary forecasts of the experimenters, most of the subjects obeyed the instructions of the scientist who led the experiment and punished the "student" with electric shock, and in a series of experiments out of forty subjects, not one stopped at a level of 300 volts, five refused to obey only after this level, and 26 "teachers" from 40 reached the end of the scale.
Critics said that the subjects were hypnotized by the authority of Yale University. In response to this criticism, Milgram repeated the experiment, renting a shabby building in the town of Bridgeport, Connecticut, under the sign of the Bridgeport Research Association. The results did not change qualitatively: 48% of the subjects agreed to reach the end of the scale. In 2002, the summary results of all similar experiments showed that from 61% to 66% of "teachers" reach the end of the scale, regardless of the time and place of the experiment.
The most frightening conclusions followed from the experiment: the unknown dark side of human nature tends not only to thoughtlessly obey authority and carry out the most unthinkable instructions, but also to justify its own behavior by the received “order”. Many participants in the experiment experienced a sense of superiority over the "student" and, pressing the button, were sure that the "student" who answered the question incorrectly was getting what he deserved.
Ultimately, the results of the experiment showed that the need to obey authorities is so deeply rooted in our minds that the subjects continued to follow the instructions, despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.
"Source of Despair" (1960)
Harry Harlow conducted his cruel experiments on monkeys. In 1960, researching the issue of social isolation of the individual and methods of protection against it, Harlow took a baby monkey from its mother and placed it in a cage all alone, and chose those cubs that had the strongest connection with the mother. The monkey was kept in a cage for a year, after which it was released.
Most individuals showed various mental abnormalities. The scientist made the following conclusions: even a happy childhood is not a defense against depression. The results, to put it mildly, are not impressive: a similar conclusion could be drawn without conducting cruel experiments on animals. However, the animal rights movement began after the publication of the results of this experiment.
A monstrous experiment - it was monstrous in its essence, and it was carried out in 1939 by psychologist Wendell Johnson and his graduate student Mary Tudor in the United States of America. The purpose of the experiment was to find out how susceptible children are to suggestion.
The process of the experiment itself is quite simple - 22 orphans from the city of Davenport were chosen for the purposes of the experiment. The children were randomly divided into two groups. The first group (more precisely, the children from this group) were constantly told how correct, how wonderful they were speaking, and at the same time they were praised in every possible way. Children from the second group were strongly convinced that they were speaking incorrectly, their speech was full of all kinds of shortcomings, and they were called, no less, these children were miserable stutterers.
Perhaps, because the children were orphans, there were no such interested people who would intervene in time and stop the shocking experiment at the beginning of its implementation.
And if the children from the first group expected only positive emotions, then the children who fell into the second group experienced constant discomfort - the graduate student Mary Tudor was quite caustic, blasphemously ridiculing even the most insignificant deviations in their children's speech. At the same time, she performed her duties very conscientiously and did not skimp on using the most juicy epithets in her speech.
It is not surprising that children, systematically subjected to verbal bullying, experiencing public humiliation on the part of an older and authoritative person, began to make contact with others in a problematic way. These children began to manifest in large numbers previously absent complexes. One of the clearest manifestations was speech inhibition, after which graduate student Mary Tudor began to call children from the second group miserable stutterers.
Children who were unfortunate enough to be in the ill-fated second group had never before had absolutely no speech problems, but as a result of the described experiment, not only formed, but also developed vivid symptoms of stuttering. And, unfortunately, these symptoms persisted throughout their lives after the experiment.
Those who conducted this monstrous experiment - scientist Wendell Johnson and his graduate student Mary Tudor - wanted to confirm in practice the theory that psychological pressure affects the speech of children, causing a delay in speech development and causing symptoms of stuttering. The experiment went on for quite a long time—six long months.
For obvious reasons, the described experiment was hidden from the public for a long time. Publicity about its holding would inevitably affect the reputation of Wendell Johnson as a scientist and as a person. But although it sounds trite, everything secret becomes clear, sooner or later. Today this experiment is known as the Monstrous Experiment.
Many years have passed since the monstrous experiment. And only in 2001, the details of this study were described in one of the Californian newspapers, based on the memories of one of the participants in this monstrous experiment. Iowa State University issued a formal apology to all those affected.
Further, the events developed as follows - in 2003, six people filed a lawsuit demanding material compensation, since as a result of the actions carried out on them, their psyche suffered to a large extent. The Iowa Attorney General ordered five plaintiffs to pay $900,000 and another $25,000. Whether this money was actually received by the plaintiffs, at the moment there is no reliable information about this.
Psychology-best.ru hopes that this article will make parents and just adults carefully weigh the words they say to children, remembering the results of a monstrous experiment.
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