10 Psychological Experiments That Went Horribly Wrong

Psychology as we know it is a relatively young science, but since its inception

it has helped us to gain a greater understanding of ourselves and our interactio
ns with the world. Many psychological experiments have been valid and ethical, a
llowing researchers to make new treatments and therapies available, and giving o
ther insights into our motivations and actions. Sadly, others have ended up back
firing horribly
ruining lives and shaming the profession. Here are ten psycholog
ical experiments that spiraled out of control.
10. Stanford Prison Experiment
Prisoners and guards
In 1971, social psychologist Philip Zimbardo set out to interrogate the ways in
which people conform to social roles, using a group of male college students to
take part in a two-week-long experiment in which they would live as prisoners an
d guards in a mock prison. However, having selected his test subjects, Zimbardo
assigned them their roles without their knowledge, unexpectedly arresting the "p
risoners" outside their own homes. The results were disturbing. Ordinary college
students turned into viciously sadistic guards or spineless (and increasingly d
istraught) prisoners, becoming deeply enmeshed within the roles they were playin
g. After just six days, the distressing reality of this "prison" forced Zimbardo
to prematurely end the experiment.
9. The Monster Study
Wendell Johnson, of the University of Iowa, who was behind the study
In this study, conducted in 1939, 22 orphaned children, 10 with stutters, were s
eparated equally into two groups: one with a speech therapist who conducted "pos
itive" therapy by praising the children s progress and fluency of speech; the othe
r with a speech therapist who openly chastised the children for the slightest mi
stake. The results showed that the children who had received negative responses
were badly affected in terms of their psychological health. Yet more bad news wa
s to come as it was later revealed that some of the children who had previously
been unaffected developed speech problems following the experiment. In 2007, six
of the orphan children were awarded $925,000 in compensation for emotional dama
ge that the six-month-study had left them with.
8. MK-ULTRA
Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, also seen top
The CIA performed many unethical experiments into mind control and psychology un
der the banner of project MK-ULTRA during the 50s and 60s. Theodore Kaczynski, o
therwise known as the Unabomber, is reported to have been a test subject in the
CIA's disturbing experiments, which may have contributed to his mental instabili
ty. In another case, the administration of LSD to US Army biological weapons exp
ert Frank Olson is thought to have sparked a crisis of conscience, inspiring him
to tell the world about his research. Instead, Olson is said to have committed
suicide, jumping from a thirteenth-story hotel room window, although there is st
rong evidence that he was murdered. This doesn't even touch on the long-term psy
chological damage other test subjects are likely to have suffered.
7. Elephant on LSD

In 1962, Warren Thomas, the director of Lincoln Park Zoo in Oklahoma City, injec
ted an elephant named Tusko with 3,000 times the typical human dose of LSD. It w
as an attempt to make his mark on the scientific community by determining whethe
r the drug could induce "musth"
the aggressiveness and high hormone levels that
male elephants experience periodically. The only contribution Thomas made was to
create a public relations disaster as Tusko died almost immediately after colla
psing and going into convulsions.
6. Milgram Experiment
The Milgram Experiment underway
In 1963, in the wake of the atrocities of the Holocaust, Stanley Milgram set out
to test the hypothesis that there was something special about the German people
that had allowed them to participate in genocide. Under the pretense of an expe
riment into human learning, Milgram asked normal members of the public to ask qu
estions to a man attached to an electric-shock generator and shock him in increa
sing measure when he answered incorrectly. The man was an actor, the shocks fake
; but the participants didn t know this. The terrifying part? People overwhelmingl
y obeyed the commands of the experimenter, even when the man screamed in apparen
t agony and begged for mercy. A little evil in all of us, perhaps?
5. Tony LaMadrid

Many medicated schizophrenics enrolled in a University of California study that

required them to stop taking their medication in a program that started in 1983.
The study was meant to give information that would allow doctors to better trea
t schizophrenia, but rather it messed up the lives of many of the test subjects,
90% of whom relapsed into episodes of mental illness. One participant, Tony LaM
adrid, leaped to his death from a rooftop six years after first enrolling in the
study.
4. Pit of Despair
A rhesus monkey infant in one of Harlow's isolation chambers
Psychologist Harry Harlow was obsessed with the concept of love, but rather than
writing poems or love songs, he performed sick, twisted experiments on monkeys
during the 1970s. One of his experiments revolved around confining the monkeys i
n total isolation in an apparatus he called the "well of despair (a featureless,
empty chamber depriving the animal of any stimulus or socialization) which resul
ted in his subjects going insane and even starving themselves to death in two ca
ses. Harlow ignored the criticism of his colleagues, and is quoted as saying, How
could you love monkeys? The last laugh was on him, however, as his horrific trea
tment of his subjects is acknowledged as being a driving force behind the develo
pment of the animal rights movement and the end of such cruel experiments.
3. The Third Wave

Running along a similar theme similar to the Milgram experiment, The Third Wave,
carried out in 1967, was an experiment that set out to explore the ways in whic

h even democratic societies can become infiltrated by the appeal of fascism. Usi
ng a class of high school students, the experimenter created a system whereby so
me students were considered members of a prestigious order. The students showed
increased motivation to learn, yet, more worryingly, became eager to get on boar
d with malevolent practices, such as excluding and ostracizing non-members from
the class. Even more scarily, this behavior was gleefully continued outside of t
he classroom. After just four days, the experiment was considered to be slipping
out of control and was ceased.
2. Homosexual Aversion Therapy

In the 1960s homosexuality was frequently depicted as a mental illness, with man
y individuals seeking (voluntarily or otherwise) a way to "cure" themselves of t
heir sexual attraction to members of the same sex. Experimental therapies at the
time included aversion therapy
where homosexual images were paired with such th
ings as electric shocks and injections that caused vomiting. The thought was tha
t the patient would associate pain with homosexuality. Rather than "curing" homo
sexuality, these experiments profoundly psychologically damaged the patients, wi
th at least one man dying from the treatment he received, after he went into a com
a.
1. David Reimer
David Reimer
In 1966, when David Reimer was 8 months old, his circumcision was botched and he
lost his penis to burns. Psychologist John Money suggested that baby David be g
iven a sex change. The parents agreed, but what they didn t know was that Money se
cretly wanted to use David as part of an experiment to prove his views that gend
er identity was not inborn, but rather determined by nature and upbringing. Davi
d was renamed Brenda, surgically altered to have a vagina, and given hormonal su
pplements
but tragically the experiment backfired. "Brenda" acted like a stereot
ypical boy throughout childhood, and the Reimer family began to fall apart. At 1
4, Brenda was told the truth, and decided to go back to being David. He committe
d suicide at the age of 38.