5 Psychological Experiments That Went Horribly Wrong

The Monster Study

In this study, conduct. in 1939, 22 orphaned children, 10 with stutters, were separated equally into two groups one with a speech therapist who conduct. "positive" therapy by praising the children, progress and fluency of speech, the other with a speech therapist who openly chastised the children for the slightest mistake. 

The results showed that the children who had received negative responses were badly affected in terms of their psychological health Yet more bad news was 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 damage that the six-month-study had left them with.

MK-ULTRA

The CIA performed many unethical experiments into mind control and psychology under the banner of project MK-ULTRA during the 50s and 60s. Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomler, is reported to have been a test subject in the CIA's disturbing experiments, which may have contributed to his mental instability. In another case, the administration of LSD to US Army biological weapons expert 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 strong evidence that he was murdered. This doesn't even touch on the long-term psychological damage other test subjects are likely to have suffered.

The Third Wave

Running along a similar theme similar to the Milgram experiment, The Third Wore, carried out in 1967, was an experiment that set out to explore the ways in which even democratic societies can become infiltrated by the appeal of fascism. Using a class of high school students. the experimenter created a system whereby some students were considered members of a prestigious order. 

The students showed increased motivation to learn, yet, more worryingly, became eager to get on board with malevolent practices, such as excluding and ostracizing non-members from the class. Even more scarily, this behavior was gleefully continued outside of the classroom After just four days, the experiment was considered to be slipping out of control and was ceased.

David Reimer

In 1956, 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 given a sex change. The parents agreed, but what they didn't know was that Money secretly wanted to use David determined by nature arid upbringing LiavKlwas renamed tirencla, su4carry attered tb have a vagina, and given hormonal supplements - but tragically the experiment backfired.

"Brenda" acted like a stereotypical boy throughout childhood, and the Reimer family began to fall apart. At 14, Brenda was told the truth, and decided to go back to being David. He committed suicide at the age of 38.

Milgram Experiment

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 experiment into human learning, Milgram asked normal members of the public to ask questions to a man attachached to an electric-shock generator and shock him in increasing measure when he answered incorrectly.

The man was an actor. the shocks fake; but the participants didn't know this. The terrifying part? People overwhelmingly obeyed the commands of the experimenter. even when the man screamed in apparent agony and begged for mercy. A little evil in all of us, perhaps?

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