Landis’ Facial Expressions Experiment 1924
In 1924, Carney Landis developed an experiment to determine whether different emotions create facial expressions specific to that emotion. The aim of this experiment was to see if all people have a common expression when feeling disgust, shock, joy, and so on. Most of the participants in the experiment were students, and their faces were painted with black lines to study the movements of their facial muscles. They were then exposed to a variety of things to create a strong reaction. As each person reacted, they were photographed by Landis. They had to smell ammonia, to look at pornography, and to put their hands into a bucket of frogs. In the final part of the experiment they were told to cut off a rats head. 1/3 of them actually did it and the ones who wouldnt, witneessed it being done. The consequences of the study were actually more important for their evidence that people are willing to do almost anything when asked in a situation like this. The study did not prove that humans have a common set of unique facial expressions.
Harlow's Pit of Despair:
Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which demonstrated the importance of care-giving and companionship in social and cognitive development. He did his research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow worked for a time with him. Harlow's experiments were controversial; they included rearing infant monkeys in isolation chambers for up to 24 months, from which they emerged severely disturbed. 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 David be given a sex change. The parents agreed, but they didn't know that Money secretly wanted to use David as part of an experiment to prove his views that gender identity was not inborn, but determined by nature and upbringing. David was renamed Brenda, surgically altered to have a vagina, and given hormonal supplements. 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. |