Monstrous experiments of psychologists. Monstrous experiments Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Warning! This post is not for the impressionable.

Psychology as a science gained popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century. The noble goal of learning more about the intricacies of human behavior, perception, and emotional state was not always achieved by equally noble means.

Psychologists and psychiatrists, who stood at the origins of many branches of the science of the human psyche, conducted experiments on people and animals that can hardly be called humane or ethical. Here are ten of them:

"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)

In 1939, Wendell Johnson from the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. The children were divided into control and experimental groups. The experimenters told half of the children how clearly and correctly they spoke. The second half of the children were in for unpleasant moments: Mary Tudor, sparing no epithets, sarcastically ridiculed the slightest defect in their speech, eventually calling them all pathetic stutterers.

As a result of the experiment, many children who had 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 "Aversia" (1970)

In the South African army, from 1970 to 1989, a secret program was carried out to cleanse the army ranks of military personnel of non-traditional sexual orientation. All means were used: from electric shock treatment to chemical castration.

The exact number of victims is unknown, 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 instructions from the command, did their best to “eradicate” homosexuals: those who did not respond to “treatment” were sent to shock therapy, forced to take hormonal drugs, and even subjected to gender reassignment surgery.

In most cases, the “patients” were young white men 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)

The 1971 “artificial prison” experiment was not intended by its creator to be 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, a simulated prison was set up in the basement of the psychology department, and 24 student volunteers were divided into “prisoners” and “guards.” It was assumed that the “prisoners” were initially placed in a situation during which they would experience personal disorientation and degradation, up to and including complete depersonalization.

The "overseers" were not given any specific instructions regarding their roles. At first, the students did not really understand how they should play their roles, but already on the second day of the experiment everything fell into place: the uprising of the “prisoners” was brutally suppressed by the “guards.” From that moment on, the behavior of both sides changed radically.

The “guards” have developed a special system of privileges designed to separate the “prisoners” and instill in them distrust of each other - individually they are not as strong as together, which means they are easier to “guard.” It began to seem to the “guards” that the “prisoners” were ready to start a new “uprising” at any moment, and the control system became stricter to the extreme: the “prisoners” were not left alone with themselves, even in the toilet.

As a result, the “prisoners” began to experience emotional disorders, 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 rather than 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” absolutely got used to their roles and began to feel like they were in a real prison, and the “warders” experienced real sadistic emotions and intentions towards the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends just a few days ago. It seemed that both sides had completely forgotten that this was all just an experiment. Although the experiment was planned to last for two weeks, it was stopped early after just six days due to ethical concerns. Based on this experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel made the film “The Experiment” (2001).

Research on the effects of drugs on the body (1969)

It should be recognized that some experiments carried out on animals help scientists invent drugs that can later save tens of thousands of human lives. However, some studies cross all ethical boundaries. An example is a 1969 experiment designed to help scientists understand the speed and extent of human addiction to drugs.

The experiment was carried out on rats and monkeys, as animals closest to humans in physiology. The animals were taught to independently 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 with a large amount of drugs, left the animals to their own devices and began observing.

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. Monkeys who took cocaine began to suffer from convulsions and hallucinations: the unfortunate animals tore out their phalanges. Monkeys on amphetamines had all their hair pulled out.

“Drug addict” animals that preferred a “cocktail” of cocaine and morphine died within 2 weeks after starting to take the drugs. Despite the fact that the purpose of the experiment was to understand and evaluate the degree of impact of drugs on the human body with the intention of further developing effective treatment for drug addiction, the methods for achieving the results can hardly be called humane.

Landis Experiments: Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Submission (1924)

In 1924, Carini Landis from the University of Minnesota began studying human facial expressions. The experiment undertaken by the scientist was supposed to reveal the general patterns of the work of groups of facial muscles responsible for the expression of individual emotional states, and to find facial expressions typical of fear, embarrassment or other emotions (if facial expressions characteristic of most people are considered typical).

The subjects were his own students. To make facial expressions more distinct, he drew lines on the subjects' faces with burnt cork, after which he presented them with something that could evoke strong emotions: he forced them to sniff ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornographic pictures and put their hands in buckets of toads. Students were photographed while expressing their emotions.

And everything would be fine, but the last test that Landis subjected the students to caused controversy in the widest circles of psychological scientists. 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 subsequently most of them agreed to do it. The worst thing was that most of the participants in the experiment, as they say, had never hurt a fly in their lives and had absolutely no idea how to carry out the experimenter’s orders.

As a result, the animals suffered a lot of suffering. The consequences of the experiment turned out to be much more important than the experiment itself. Scientists were unable to detect any pattern in facial expressions, but psychologists received evidence of how easily people are ready to obey authorities and do things that they would not do in a normal life situation.

Little Albert (1920)

John Watson, the father of the behaviorist movement in psychology, studied 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 response 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 at all afraid of the rat and even loved to play with it.

During the experiment, over the course of two months, an orphan baby from an orphanage was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. Two months later, the child was seated 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 hitting a metal plate behind the child's back with an iron hammer 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 placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried 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, and the Santa Claus mask. Since the scientist did not make loud sounds when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many fears, aversions and anxieties of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson was never able to rid baby Albert of his unreasonable fear, which stuck for the rest of his life.

Learned Helplessness (1966)

In 1966, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Mayer conducted a series of experiments on dogs. The 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 the third group were subjected to sudden shocks that could not be prevented.

As a result, dogs have developed so-called “acquired helplessness” - a reaction to unpleasant stimuli based on the conviction of helplessness in front 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 they could easily escape. The dogs were again subjected to electric shock, but none of them even thought about running away. Instead, they reacted passively to pain, accepting it as something inevitable.

The dogs learned from previous negative experiences that escape was impossible and no longer made any attempts to jump out of the cage. Scientists have suggested that the human reaction to stress is in many ways similar to that of dogs: people become helpless after several failures following one another. It is not clear 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 the book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Study. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor playing the role of another subject. At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of “teacher” and “student” were distributed “by lot” between the subject and the actor. In reality, the subject was always given the role of the “teacher,” and the hired actor was always the “student.”

Before the start of the experiment, it was explained to the “teacher” that the purpose of the experiment was supposedly to identify new methods of memorizing information. In reality, the experimenter set out to study the behavior of a person receiving instructions that diverge from his internal behavioral norms from an authoritative source. The “student” was tied to a chair, to which a stun gun was attached. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” shock of 45 volts.

Then the “teacher” went into another room and had to give the “student” simple memorization tasks over the speakerphone. For each student error, the test subject had to press a button and the student received a 45-volt electric shock. In reality, the actor playing 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 that the experiment be stopped. The “teacher” began to doubt, and the experimenter responded: “The experiment requires that you continue. Please continue.”

As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more intense 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 continue.

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 predictions of the experimenters, the majority of the subjects obeyed the instructions of the scientist in charge of the experiment and punished the “student” with electric shock, and in a series of experiments out of forty subjects, not one stopped before the 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 the subjects were hypnotized by Yale's authority. In response to this criticism, Milgram repeated the experiment, renting a shabby room in Bridgeport, Connecticut, under the banner 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 combined results of all similar experiments showed that from 61% to 66% of “teachers” reached the end of the scale, regardless of the time and place of the experiment.

The conclusions from the experiment were the most frightening: the unknown dark side of human nature is inclined not only to mindlessly obey authority and carry out the most unthinkable instructions, but also to justify its own behavior by the “order” received. Many participants in the experiment felt a sense of superiority over the “student” and, when they pressed the button, they were sure that the “student” who answered the question incorrectly would get 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 instructions, despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.

"The Source of Despair" (1960)

Harry Harlow conducted his cruel experiments on monkeys. In 1960, while researching the issue of social isolation of an individual and methods of protecting against it, Harlow took a baby monkey from its mother and placed it in a cage all alone, and chose those babies who had the strongest bond with their mother. The monkey was kept in a cage for a year, after which it was released.

Most individuals showed various mental disorders. The scientist made the following conclusions: even a happy childhood is not a protection against depression. The results, to put it mildly, are not impressive: a similar conclusion could have been made without conducting cruel experiments on animals. However, the movement in defense of animal rights began precisely after the publication of the results of this experiment.

One of them has already been discussed here. the most cruel experiments, telling how a girl was raised from a boy (). But he is not the only one who exists in the history of psychology. I suggest you familiarize yourself with other, no less monstrous, experiments.

Little Albert (1920)

John Watson, the father of the behaviorist movement in psychology, studied the nature of fears and phobias. While studying the emotions of infants, Watson, among other things, became interested in the possibility of forming a fear response 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 at all afraid of the rat and even loved to play with it. During the experiment, over the course of two months, an orphan baby from an orphanage was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. Two months later, the child was seated 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 hitting a metal plate behind the child's back with an iron hammer 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 placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried 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, and the Santa Claus mask. Since the scientist did not make loud sounds when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many fears, aversions and anxieties of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson was never able to rid baby Albert of his unreasonable fear, which stuck for the rest of his life.

Milgram experiment (1974)

The experiment of Stanley Milgram from Yale University is described by the author in the book “Obeying Authority: An Experimental Study.” The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor playing the role of another subject. At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of “teacher” and “student” were distributed “by lot” between the subject and the actor. 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, it was explained to the “teacher” that the purpose of the experiment was supposedly to identify new methods of memorizing information. In reality, the experimenter examines the behavior of a person receiving instructions that diverge from his internal behavioral norms from an authoritative source. The “student” was tied to a chair, to which a stun gun was attached. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” shock of 45 volts. Then the “teacher” went into another room and had to give the “student” simple memorization tasks over the speakerphone. For each student error, the test subject had to press a button and the student received a 45-volt electric shock. In reality, the actor playing 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 that the experiment be stopped. The “teacher” began to doubt, and the experimenter responded: “The experiment requires that you continue. Continue, please.” As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more intense 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 continue. 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 predictions of the experimenters, the majority of the subjects obeyed the instructions of the scientist in charge of the experiment and punished the “student” with electric shock, and in a series of experiments out of forty subjects, not one stopped before the 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 the subjects were hypnotized by Yale's authority. In response to this criticism, Milgram repeated the experiment, renting a shabby room in the town of Bridgeport, Connecticut, under the banner 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 combined results of all similar experiments showed that from 61% to 66% of “teachers” reached the end of the scale, regardless of the time and place of the experiment. The conclusions from the experiment were the most frightening: the unknown dark side of human nature is inclined not only to mindlessly obey authority and carry out the most unthinkable instructions, but also to justify one’s own behavior by the “order” received. Many participants in the experiment felt a sense of superiority over the “student” and, when they pressed the button, they were sure that the “student” who answered the question incorrectly would get 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 instructions, despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.

Here (http://narod.ru/disk/4518943000/povinuemost_DivX.avi.html) you can download the documentary film “Obedience”, compiled from video materials of the Milgram experiment (474 ​​MB, 49 minutes). Unfortunately, not very good quality.

Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)

The “artificial prison” experiment was not intended 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 prison was set up in the basement of the psychology department, and 24 student volunteers were divided into “prisoners” and “guards.” It was assumed that the "prisoners" were initially placed in a situation during which they would experience personal disorientation and degradation, up to and including complete depersonalization. The "overseers" were not given any specific instructions regarding their roles. At first, the students did not really understand how they should play their roles, but already on the second day of the experiment everything fell into place: the uprising of the “prisoners” was brutally suppressed by the “guards.” From that moment on, the behavior of both sides changed radically. The “guards” have developed a special system of privileges designed to separate the “prisoners” and instill in them distrust of each other - individually they are not as strong as together, which means they are easier to “guard.” It began to seem to the “guards” that the “prisoners” were ready to start a new “uprising” at any moment, and the control system became tougher to the extreme: the “prisoners” were not left alone with themselves, even in the toilet. As a result, the “prisoners” began to experience emotional disorders, 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 rather than 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” absolutely got used to their roles and began to feel like they were in a real prison, and the “warders” experienced real sadistic emotions and intentions towards the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends just a few days ago. It seemed that both sides had completely forgotten that this was all just an experiment. Although the experiment was planned to last for two weeks, it was stopped early after just six days due to ethical concerns.

Based on this experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel made the film "Experiment" (2001).

"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)

In 1939, Wendell Johnson from the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. The children were divided into control and experimental groups. The experimenters told half of the children how clearly and correctly they spoke. The second half of the children were in for unpleasant moments: Mary Tudor, sparing no epithets, sarcastically ridiculed the slightest defect in their speech, eventually calling them all pathetic stutterers. As a result of the experiment, many children who had 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 "Aversia" (1970)

In the South African army, from 1970 to 1989, a secret program was carried out to cleanse the army ranks of military personnel of non-traditional sexual orientation. All means were used: from electric shock treatment to chemical castration. The exact number of victims is unknown, 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 instructions from the command, did their best to “eradicate” homosexuals: those who did not respond to “treatment” were sent to shock therapy, forced to take hormonal drugs, and even subjected to gender reassignment surgery. In most cases, the “patients” were young white males between the ages of 16 and 24. The leader of the “study,” Dr. Aubrey Levin, is now a professor of psychiatry at the University of Calgary (Canada). Engaged in private practice.

Research on the effects of drugs on the body (1969)

It should be recognized that some experiments carried out on animals help scientists invent drugs that can later save tens of thousands of human lives. However, some studies cross all ethical boundaries. An example is an 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 animals closest to humans in physiology. The animals were taught to independently 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 with a large amount of drugs, left the animals to their own devices and began observing. 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. Monkeys who took cocaine began to suffer from convulsions and hallucinations: the unfortunate animals tore out their phalanges. Monkeys on amphetamines had all their hair pulled out. “Drug addict” animals that preferred a “cocktail” of cocaine and morphine died within 2 weeks after starting to take the drugs. Despite the fact that the purpose of the experiment was to understand and evaluate the degree of impact of drugs on the human body with the intention of further developing effective treatment for drug addiction, the methods for achieving the results can hardly be called humane.

Landis Experiments: Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Submission (1924)

In 1924, Carini Landis from the University of Minnesota began studying human facial expressions. The experiment undertaken by the scientist was supposed to reveal the general patterns of the work of groups of facial muscles responsible for the expression of individual emotional states, and to find facial expressions typical of fear, embarrassment or other emotions. The subjects were his own students. To make facial expressions more distinct, he drew lines on the subjects' faces with burnt cork, after which he presented them with something that could evoke strong emotions: he forced them to sniff ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornographic pictures and put their hands in buckets of toads. Students were photographed while expressing their emotions. And everything would be fine, but the last test that Landis subjected the students to caused controversy in the widest circles of psychological scientists. 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 subsequently most of them agreed to do it. The worst thing was that most of the participants in the experiment, as they say, had never hurt a fly in their lives and had absolutely no idea how to carry out the experimenter’s orders. As a result, the animals suffered a lot of suffering. The consequences of the experiment turned out to be much more important than the experiment itself. Scientists were unable to detect any pattern in facial expressions, but psychologists received evidence of how easily people are ready to obey authorities and do things that they would not do in a normal life situation.

Learned Helplessness (1966)

In 1966, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Mayer conducted a series of experiments on dogs. The 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 from the third group were subjected to sudden shocks that could not be prevented. As a result, dogs have developed so-called “acquired helplessness” - a reaction to unpleasant stimuli based on the conviction of helplessness in front 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 they could easily escape. The dogs were again subjected to electric shock, but none of them even thought about running away. Instead, they reacted passively to pain, accepting it as something inevitable. The dogs learned from previous negative experiences that escape was impossible and no longer made any attempts to jump out of the cage. Scientists have suggested that the human reaction to stress is in many ways similar to that of dogs: people become helpless after several failures following one another. It is not clear whether such a banal conclusion was worth the suffering of the unfortunate animals.

"The Source of Despair" (1960)

Harry Harlow conducted his cruel experiments on monkeys. Investigating the issue of social isolation of an individual and methods of protecting against it, Harlow took a baby monkey from its mother and placed it in a cage all alone, and chose those babies who had the strongest connection with their mother. The monkey was kept in a cage for a year, after which it was released. Most individuals showed various mental disorders. The scientist made the following conclusions: even a happy childhood is not a protection against depression. The results, to put it mildly, are not impressive: a similar conclusion could have been made without conducting cruel experiments on animals. However, the movement in defense of animal rights began precisely after the publication of the results of this experiment.

The topic of human experiments excites and evokes a sea of ​​mixed emotions among scientists. Here is a list of 10 monstrous experiments that were carried out in different countries.

1. Stanford Prison Experiment

A study of the reactions of a person in captivity and the characteristics of his behavior in a position of power was conducted in 1971 by psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Student volunteers played the roles of guards and prisoners, living in the university basement in conditions simulating a prison. The newly minted prisoners and guards quickly adapted to their roles, exhibiting reactions not expected by the experimenters. A third of the "guards" showed real 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 depressing condition of the "prisoners", was forced to end the study early.

2. Monstrous experiment

Wendell Johnson from the University of Iowa, together with graduate student Mary Tudor, conducted an experiment in 1939 with the participation of 22 orphans. Having divided the children into two groups, they began to encourage and praise the fluency of speech of representatives of one of them, while at the same time speaking negatively about the speech of children from the second group, emphasizing its imperfections and frequent stuttering. Many of the normally speaking children who received negative comments during the experiment subsequently developed psychological as well as real speech problems, some of which persisted for life. Johnson's colleagues called his research "monstrous", horrified by the decision to experiment on orphans to prove the 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 Marshall Islanders 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 widely, but still did not present a clear picture. In subsequent decades, however, the evidence of impact was undeniable. Children began to suffer from thyroid cancer, and almost one in three of those exposed to toxic fallout developed thyroid cancer by 1974.

The Department of Energy Committee subsequently stated that it was highly unethical to use living people as “guinea pigs” in conditions of exposure to radiation, and experimenters should have sought instead to provide medical care to the victims.

4. Project MKULTRA

Project MKULTRA or MK-ULTRA is the code name for the CIA's mind control research program conducted in the 50s and 60s. There is ample 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.

Experiments included injecting LSD into CIA personnel, military personnel, doctors, government employees, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and ordinary people to study their reactions. The introduction of substances was carried out, as a rule, without the knowledge of the person.

In one experiment, the CIA set up several brothels in which visitors were injected with LSD, and the 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 the investigation into the experiments carried out over many years almost impossible.

5. Project "Disgust"

Between 1971 and 1989, in military hospitals in South Africa, as part of a top-secret program to eradicate homosexuality, about 900 soldiers of both sexes with non-traditional sexual orientation underwent a series of extremely unethical medical experiments.

Army psychiatrists, with the help of priests, identified homosexuals in the ranks of soldiers, sending them for “correctional procedures.” Those who could not be “cured” with medication were subjected to shock or hormonal therapy, as well as other radical means, including chemical castration and even sex reassignment surgery.

The leader of this project, Dr. Aubrey Levin, is now a professor in the forensic department of psychiatry at the University of Calgary.

6. North Korean experiments

There is a lot of information about human experiments carried out in North Korea. Reports show human rights violations similar to those of the Nazis during World War II. However, all accusations are denied by the North Korean government.

A former North Korean prison inmate tells how fifty healthy women were ordered to eat poisoned cabbage despite the clearly audible cries of agony 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 equipment to pump out poisonous gas. People, usually families, were let into the cells. The doors were sealed and gas was injected through a tube while scientists watched people suffer through glass.

The Poisons Laboratory is a secret base for the research and development of toxic 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 were used against them. The purpose of the experiments was to find the formula of a chemical substance that could not be detected posthumously. Samples of poisons were administered to victims through food or drink, or under the guise of medicine. Finally, a drug with the desired properties, called C-2, was developed. According to the testimony of witnesses, a person who took this poison seemed to become shorter in stature, rapidly weakened, became quiet and died within fifteen minutes.

8. Tuskegee Syphilis Study

A clinical study conducted from 1932 to 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, involving 399 people (plus 201 controls) was designed to study the course of syphilis. The subjects were mostly illiterate African Americans.

The study gained notoriety due to the lack of proper conditions for experimental subjects, which led to changes in the policy of treatment of participants in scientific experiments in the future. Individuals who took part in the Tuskegee Study were not aware of their own diagnosis: they were only told that the problem was caused by “bad blood,” and they could receive free medical care, transportation to the clinic, food, and burial insurance if they died in exchange to participate in the experiment. In 1932, when the study began, standard treatments for syphilis were highly toxic and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the scientists' goal was to determine whether 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, and 100 died as a result of complications of the disease. Among their wives, 40 were infected, and 19 children in their families were born with congenital syphilis.

9. Block 731

Unit 731 was 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 carried out by Commander Shiro Ishii and his staff at Unit 731 included: vivisection of living people (including pregnant women), amputation and freezing of prisoners' limbs, and testing of flamethrowers and grenades on live targets. People were injected with strains of pathogens and the development of destructive processes in their bodies was studied. 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 concentration camp experiences during World War II were intended to help German soldiers in combat situations and also served to promote the ideology of the Third Reich.

Experiments on children in concentration camps were carried out to show the similarities and differences in the genetics and eugenics of twins, and to ensure 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 whom less than 200 survived. The twins were injected and their bodies were literally stitched 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 picture above). Another study involved leaving prisoners naked outside in sub-zero temperatures. Experimenters evaluated different ways to keep survivors warm.

A monstrous experiment - it was inherently monstrous, 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 experiment process itself is quite simple - 22 orphans from the city of Davenport were selected for the purpose 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 correctly, how wonderfully they spoke, and at the same time they praised them in every possible way. Children from the second group were strongly convinced that they spoke incorrectly, their speech was full of all sorts of shortcomings, and they called these children, no less, pathetic 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 ended up in the second group experienced constant discomfort - graduate student Mary Tudor was quite sarcastic, blasphemously ridiculing even the most minor 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 from an older and more authoritative person, began to have problematic contacts with others. In these children, previously absent complexes began to appear in large numbers. One of the most striking manifestations was speech inhibition, after which graduate student Mary Tudor began calling children from the second group pathetic stutterers.
The children who were unlucky enough to be in the ill-fated second group had never before experienced absolutely any speech problems, but as a result of the described experiment they 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 delayed speech development and causing symptoms of stuttering. The experiment lasted quite a long time - six long months.
For obvious reasons, the described experiment was hidden from the public for quite a long time. Publicity about its conduct would inevitably affect Wendell Johnson's reputation as a scientist and as a person. But although it sounds banal, everything secret becomes clear, sooner or later. Today this experiment is known as the Monstrous Experiment.
Many years have passed since the monstrous experiment was carried out. And only in 2001, the details of this study were described in one of the Californian newspapers, based on the recollections of one of the participants in this monstrous experiment. Iowa State University issued a formal apology to all victims.
Further events developed as follows - in 2003, six people filed a lawsuit, demanding financial compensation, since as a result of the actions carried out on them, their psyche suffered to a significant extent. The Iowa Attorney General ordered five plaintiffs to pay $900,000 and another to pay $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 force parents and ordinary adults to carefully weigh the words they say to children, keeping in mind the results of the monstrous experiment.

Psychology as a science gained popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century. The noble goal of learning more about the intricacies of human behavior, perception, and emotional state was not always achieved by equally noble means. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who stood at the origins of many branches of the science of the human psyche, conducted experiments on people and animals that can hardly be called humane or ethical. Here are ten of them:

"Monstrous Experiment" (1939)

In 1939, Wendell Johnson from the University of Iowa (USA) and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans from Davenport. The children were divided into control and experimental groups. The experimenters told half of the children how clearly and correctly they spoke. The second half of the children were in for unpleasant moments: Mary Tudor, sparing no epithets, sarcastically ridiculed the slightest defect in their speech, eventually calling them all pathetic stutterers.

As a result of the experiment, many children who had 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 "Aversia" (1970)

In the South African army, from 1970 to 1989, a secret program was carried out to cleanse the army ranks of military personnel of non-traditional sexual orientation. All means were used: from electric shock treatment to chemical castration.

The exact number of victims is unknown, 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 instructions from the command, did their best to “eradicate” homosexuals: those who did not respond to “treatment” were sent to shock therapy, forced to take hormonal drugs, and even subjected to gender reassignment surgery.

In most cases, the “patients” were young white men 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)

The 1971 “artificial prison” experiment was not intended by its creator to be 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, a simulated prison was set up in the basement of the psychology department, and 24 student volunteers were divided into “prisoners” and “guards.” It was assumed that the “prisoners” were initially placed in a situation during which they would experience personal disorientation and degradation, up to and including complete depersonalization.

The "overseers" were not given any specific instructions regarding their roles. At first, the students did not really understand how they should play their roles, but already on the second day of the experiment everything fell into place: the uprising of the “prisoners” was brutally suppressed by the “guards.” From that moment on, the behavior of both sides changed radically.

The “guards” have developed a special system of privileges designed to separate the “prisoners” and instill in them distrust of each other - individually they are not as strong as together, which means they are easier to “guard.” It began to seem to the “guards” that the “prisoners” were ready to start a new “uprising” at any moment, and the control system became stricter to the extreme: the “prisoners” were not left alone with themselves, even in the toilet.

As a result, the “prisoners” began to experience emotional disorders, 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 rather than 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” absolutely got used to their roles and began to feel like they were in a real prison, and the “warders” experienced real sadistic emotions and intentions towards the “prisoners”, who had been their good friends just a few days ago. It seemed that both sides had completely forgotten that this was all just an experiment. Although the experiment was planned to last for two weeks, it was stopped early after just six days due to ethical concerns. Based on this experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel made the film “The Experiment” (2001).

Research on the effects of drugs on the body (1969)

It should be recognized that some experiments carried out on animals help scientists invent drugs that can later save tens of thousands of human lives. However, some studies cross all ethical boundaries. An example is a 1969 experiment designed to help scientists understand the speed and extent of human addiction to drugs.

The experiment was carried out on rats and monkeys, as animals closest to humans in physiology. The animals were taught to independently 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 with a large amount of drugs, left the animals to their own devices and began observing.

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. Monkeys who took cocaine began to suffer from convulsions and hallucinations: the unfortunate animals tore out their phalanges. Monkeys on amphetamines had all their hair pulled out.

“Drug addict” animals that preferred a “cocktail” of cocaine and morphine died within 2 weeks after starting to take the drugs. Despite the fact that the purpose of the experiment was to understand and evaluate the degree of impact of drugs on the human body with the intention of further developing effective treatment for drug addiction, the methods for achieving the results can hardly be called humane.

Landis Experiments: Spontaneous Facial Expressions and Submission (1924)
In 1924, Carini Landis from the University of Minnesota began studying human facial expressions. The experiment undertaken by the scientist was supposed to reveal the general patterns of the work of groups of facial muscles responsible for the expression of individual emotional states, and to find facial expressions typical of fear, embarrassment or other emotions (if facial expressions characteristic of most people are considered typical).

The subjects were his own students. To make facial expressions more distinct, he drew lines on the subjects' faces with burnt cork, after which he presented them with something that could evoke strong emotions: he forced them to sniff ammonia, listen to jazz, look at pornographic pictures and put their hands in buckets of toads. Students were photographed while expressing their emotions.

And everything would be fine, but the last test that Landis subjected the students to caused controversy in the widest circles of psychological scientists. 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 subsequently most of them agreed to do it. The worst thing was that most of the participants in the experiment, as they say, had never hurt a fly in their lives and had absolutely no idea how to carry out the experimenter’s orders.

As a result, the animals suffered a lot of suffering. The consequences of the experiment turned out to be much more important than the experiment itself. Scientists were unable to detect any pattern in facial expressions, but psychologists received evidence of how easily people are ready to obey authorities and do things that they would not do in a normal life situation.

Little Albert (1920)

John Watson, the father of the behaviorist movement in psychology, studied 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 response 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 at all afraid of the rat and even loved to play with it.

During the experiment, over the course of two months, an orphan baby from an orphanage was shown a tame white rat, a white rabbit, cotton wool, a Santa Claus mask with a beard, etc. Two months later, the child was seated 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 hitting a metal plate behind the child's back with an iron hammer 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 placing the rat in the cradle. The baby cried 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, and the Santa Claus mask. Since the scientist did not make loud sounds when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many fears, aversions and anxieties of adults are formed in early childhood. Unfortunately, Watson was never able to rid baby Albert of his unreasonable fear, which stuck for the rest of his life.

Learned Helplessness (1966)

In 1966, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Mayer conducted a series of experiments on dogs. The 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 the third group were subjected to sudden shocks that could not be prevented.

As a result, dogs have developed so-called “acquired helplessness” - a reaction to unpleasant stimuli based on the conviction of helplessness in front 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 they could easily escape. The dogs were again subjected to electric shock, but none of them even thought about running away. Instead, they reacted passively to pain, accepting it as something inevitable.

The dogs learned from previous negative experiences that escape was impossible and no longer made any attempts to jump out of the cage. Scientists have suggested that the human reaction to stress is in many ways similar to that of dogs: people become helpless after several failures following one another. It is not clear 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 the book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental Study. The experiment involved an experimenter, a subject, and an actor playing the role of another subject. At the beginning of the experiment, the roles of “teacher” and “student” were distributed “by lot” between the subject and the actor. In reality, the subject was always given the role of the “teacher,” and the hired actor was always the “student.”

Before the start of the experiment, it was explained to the “teacher” that the purpose of the experiment was supposedly to identify new methods of memorizing information. In reality, the experimenter set out to study the behavior of a person receiving instructions that diverge from his internal behavioral norms from an authoritative source. The “student” was tied to a chair, to which a stun gun was attached. Both the “student” and the “teacher” received a “demonstration” shock of 45 volts.

Then the “teacher” went into another room and had to give the “student” simple memorization tasks over the speakerphone. For each student error, the test subject had to press a button and the student received a 45-volt electric shock. In reality, the actor playing 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 that the experiment be stopped. The “teacher” began to doubt, and the experimenter responded: “The experiment requires that you continue. Please continue.”

As the tension increased, the actor acted out more and more intense 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 continue.

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 predictions of the experimenters, the majority of the subjects obeyed the instructions of the scientist in charge of the experiment and punished the “student” with electric shock, and in a series of experiments out of forty subjects, not one stopped before the 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 the subjects were hypnotized by Yale's authority. In response to this criticism, Milgram repeated the experiment, renting a shabby room in Bridgeport, Connecticut, under the banner 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 combined results of all similar experiments showed that from 61% to 66% of “teachers” reached the end of the scale, regardless of the time and place of the experiment.

The conclusions from the experiment were the most frightening: the unknown dark side of human nature is inclined not only to mindlessly obey authority and carry out the most unthinkable instructions, but also to justify its own behavior by the “order” received. Many participants in the experiment felt a sense of superiority over the “student” and, when they pressed the button, they were sure that the “student” who answered the question incorrectly would get 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 instructions, despite moral suffering and strong internal conflict.

"The Source of Despair" (1960)

Harry Harlow conducted his cruel experiments on monkeys. In 1960, while researching the issue of social isolation of an individual and methods of protecting against it, Harlow took a baby monkey from its mother and placed it in a cage all alone, and chose those babies who had the strongest bond with their mother. The monkey was kept in a cage for a year, after which it was released.

Most individuals showed various mental disorders. The scientist made the following conclusions: even a happy childhood is not a protection against depression. The results, to put it mildly, are not impressive: a similar conclusion could have been made without conducting cruel experiments on animals. However, the movement in defense of animal rights began precisely after the publication of the results of this experiment.