Monday 1 February 2010

The noble art of psychological insanity

Most people, when hearing talk of psyhology, immediatly think of people lying on couches expressing their deepest darkest emotions and a psychiatrist sitting next to them spewing nonsense about them either hating their fathers, or wishing to have sex with him. Such stereotypes are all thanks to Freud, the man who suggested that every single thought or action is ultimately about sex. 
As crazy as this may seem, Freud is not the only complete mentalist in the psychology world, and there are various studies out there to prove it.

4 Ridiculous and unethical psycological studies (that make Freud look normal)

4. Dennis R. Middlemist hides in a toilet 
What was the point?
It is a commonly known fact among men that, when sandwiched between two other guys at a urinal, it becomes suddenly impossible to actually perform. No one really knows why. Some put it down to that self concious thought that every man in the room want to stare at your penis, but mostly it's just dismissed as 'shy bladder' syndrome. Well one man took it upon himself to study the effects of close proximity of fellow urinal users, and performance in said act. He believed that the closer one is to another man while using a urinal, the longer one will spend at the urinal due to physiological arousal tightening muscles and making it more difficult to piss.
Where it all went wrong
There really is no easy, plausible, even sane way to test this, but Middlemist decided that rather than even attempt something far more simple, he would hide in a toilet cubicle and watch men at the urinals using a periscope and time how long it took them to piss. Now of course this is pretty fucked up, but it gets worse when we find out that he actually hired confederates to occupy the urinals to either side of the man being studied, pretty much forcing this physiological arounsal that wouldn't allow him to take a piss. Now some could argue that because each man being study didn't know he was being studied, then there's really no harm done. But really, when you're watching a man pissing at a urinal through a fucking periscope, that's bordering on illegal, right?

3. Philip G. Zimbardo lets all hell break loose in a prison
What was the point?
When you were younger did you ever dress up as a super hero and think from then on that you really could fight crime like Batman, or fly like superman? Well it's not just kids that feel this miraculous transformation when they put on a costume. What Zimbardo set out to study was to what extent people would consider their own power and authority when put in a uniform? By putting on a uniform, he theorised that people would immediatly feel as though they had the authority that the uniform implied. While seemingly cute and obvious that a kid feels like a superhero when dressed like Batman, discovering that a man dressed as a policeman genuinely believes he can do whatever the fuck he wants is pretty incredible.
Where it all went wrong
Zimbardo reasoned that the best way to study these theories was to dress a load of people up like prison guards and inmates and just let them get on with it. He guessed that the guards would feel absolute power over the inmates because of the uniform they were wearing and the fact that they were told nothing they did would get them in trouble. And he was right: The guards - even those who may have been introverts or shy before the experiment - were extremely forceful towards the inmates and took thorough advantage of the power granted to them by the uniform. What Zimbardo didn't guess was that things got pretty nasty pretty quickly. Physical beatings were common, as well as the 'guards' totally abusing their power in the cruel and abusive way they were treating the inmates. The study was cancelled after just 6 days purely because researchers were seriously worried someone was about to get killed.
I mean really, you sign up for a psychological study and before you know it you've got a black eye and sleeping in your own piss in a crowded jail cell. It's a wonder this thing even lasted 6 days.

2. Stanley Milgram made people electrecute strangers
What was the point?
Obedience to authority is extremely common pretty much everywhere you look. Teachers, parents, even just people older than you, demand some form of respect and obedience, and generally we comply for fear of being punished. There are a great number of psychological studies that suggest we will do what ever it takes not to be punished. On the flip side, however, it's also been shown that when responsibility of an act is completely taken away, people are willing to do some pretty horrific stuff. Soldiers are the perfect example: Armed with the knowledge that they won't be thrown in jail for murder, they will have no problem killing as many people as they can. Milgram set out to study the exten people will go to obey authority when responsibility is removed.
Where it all went wrong
The man made people sit in a room and deliver electric shocks to people they didn't know and couldn't even see for getting questions wrong. This is crazy enough to begin with, but when we think that a) the strongest shock was 400 volts - enough to kill a human, and b) about 60% of participants had no problem going all the way up there, purely because the researcher told them that they weren't to blame for anything that happened.  Ok so fair enough these people weren't actually shocking randomers, but they genuinely believed that they were. Imagine you were sat in a chair and tol you couldn't leave until you had practically electrecuted a complete stranger. 'Oh but it's okay' you might say, 'even if i kill this person i won't get in trouble! Let's fry this bitch'
Really makes you feel good about humanity, huh?

1. Psychologists cure homosexuality with pain
What was the point?
In the 60s, homosexuality in America was pretty badly frowned upon. In fact, until the 1980s is was listed as a mental disorder. Good going America. But because it was a mental disorder, and not any of the sensible explanations that we have today, psychologists believed they could cure it. So thinking about this logically, how could you go about teaching people that thinking about people of the same sex in a sexual way was evil? That's easy, torture those blasphemous feelings out of them!
Where it all went wrong
These people thought it'd be a good idea to use a common theory learning by association to scare people into forgetting all those homosexual tendencies that dwelled like a cancer inside them. And how did they do this? Showing people pornographic images of homosexuals whilst similtaneously injecting them with drugs that make them violently ill of electrecuting them, in an attempt to force them to associate homosexual images with pain and revulsion. Needless to say these 'treatments' worked nothing like they were supposed to. Learning by association is pretty much only applicable to children or people with serious phobias or mental disorders. And since it became pretty clear about 20 years later that homosexuality is, in fact, not a mental illness, all this really did to them was fuck them up. Many people came out of this experience left with some form of post traumatic stress disorder and in one case, someone actually died after basically vomiting their lungs out. Again, well done America.

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