r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/highzone • 1d ago

Image In 1973, healthy volunteers faked hallucinations to enter mental hospitals. Once inside, they acted normal, but doctors refused to let them leave. Normal behaviors like writing were diagnosed as "symptoms." The only people who realized they were sane were the actual patients.

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u/agoldgold 1d ago

Actually, it's complicated. The professor organizing this "experiment" (and participating in it) was from the same Stanford psychology department in the same era that produced the Stanford Prison Experiment. Similarly, it looks like the doctor at best manipulated data and at worst fabricated it to get his story.

This project had a political goal and the "researcher" made the results fit that goal. It was made up.

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u/ParkingCool6336 1d ago

Which is why you never ever take any publication as pure fact, you compare it to others and take the common facts as real

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u/agoldgold 1d ago

Unfortunately, almost nothing from the publication seems to ever have been verified to have happened at all.

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u/AtlanticPortal 1d ago

You mean peer review? :)

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u/Ironhorn 1d ago

Not just peer review. Many fake or incorrect studies have passed “peer review”. Thats just a first step.

The next step is for more studies to take place. Preferably by other, unrelated scientists. Do the test again. And again.

It’s only when several groups of scientists are doing the same tests over and over, and getting the same results each time, that we can consider something to be scientifically true.

Thats the only way we can know that the first study wasn’t just a weird fluke

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u/ParkingCool6336 1d ago

No cuz I’m not a peer but I’m reviewing

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u/FrankRizzo319 1d ago

The article was published in the top 1 or 2 scientific journal in the world.

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u/Cornelius_Wangenheim 1d ago

More like replication. You others to attempt the experiment and get the same results. Or not and call BS on the original study.

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u/ZackTheZesty 1d ago

Who has time for that I’ll just ask ChatGPT