Minichan

Topic: KL: what do you think is the most disturbing psychological experiment?

definitely not becky started this discussion 11 years ago #42,490

I was really disturbed when I leaned that people are less able to empathize with others' physical pain when the other person belongs to another race. That made me feel really bad... worse than the Stanford prison experiments or the Milgram experiment.

What about you?

kook !!mCVqftDha joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 31 minutes later[^] [v] #563,963

Evidently they tried to recreate both of those studies but they were unable to do so because the methods were flawed.

Look up baby monkeys and the Pit of Despair.
Its pretty sad.

Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 57 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^] [v] #563,970

@OP
The race thing sorta makes sense to me. Studies have shown there's this effect where people are less able read the facial expressions of others races. So this might be somewhat related to that? Though, of course, some degree racism could also be in play.

But hey, if racism is your particular fear, I might have an even scarier one for you. Sorry I can't find a link for this one, but there was one experiment where they had a bunch of very young black children and white children look at dolls. There was a black doll and a white doll. The kids got asked questions along the lines of "which one will be more successful? Which is prettier?" and both kids, regardless of race, rated the white doll more favourably. And, just to be confirm, both races of kids rated the doll of their race to be "most like them". How fucked up is that? Messed-up racial perceptions apparently start that young. :(

Anyway, to answer your question, the ones that disturb me the most are the ones that show serious, fundamental shortcomings in humanity in general. Because it's something innate to most of us. As you mentioned in the OP, there's the Milgram exeperiment, and its various offshoots. In a nutshell, most people were willing to fatally shock another person when pressured by an authority figure. And just the addition of a lab coat on a person giving orders makes the unethical orders more likely to be obeyed. What sacres me most here is that a person can very simply be made to "harm" a stranger just from some one-to-one pressure from a nominal authority figure. Oh, and two of the participants had seizures during the original experiment, due to the psychological pressure.

There's also the Bystander Effect. This is when a person will ignore even something that should be alarming just because nobody else is reacting. I've seen videos where experimenters had an actor lying in the streets, in obvious pain or distress... Only to be ignored by most people passing by. However, it can at least be nullified by one person stepping forward, which then encourages others.

Edited a bit.

(Edited 4 minutes later.)

Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 52 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #563,975

@previous (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
*truthful racial perceptions

obvious even to children

Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 2 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #563,978

@previous (D)
Kill yourself

Anonymous D replied with this 11 years ago, 3 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^] [v] #563,979

@previous (E)
Upset negroes like yourself are easy to spot.

Fake anon !ZkUt8arUCU joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 10 hours later, 12 hours after the original post[^] [v] #564,150

@563,970 (Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx)
If I already knew all of those, do I get an honorary psychology degree?

Anonymous G joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 3 hours later, 16 hours after the original post[^] [v] #564,207

The Skinner box, where you put a human baby in a box with several hungry pigeons and watch them peck the baby to death.
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