Happy Halloween from Rutgers BRAIN! We hope that you have a spooky and safe time during this season back on campus. During this BRAIN meeting, we told the stories of different scary, unethical psychological studies and cases. The three cases we talked about are the following: Three Identical Strangers, The Bystander Effect, and Patient B-19. If you missed out, I'll provide a quick summary of these cases; however, you should check out in detail by clicking the photo above. Keep in mind of the following trigger warnings: death, blood, abandonment, and homophobia.
The first case, Three Identical Strangers, is about the story of David, Robert, and Eddy. They are identical triplets that were separated at birth and raised by different families, re-discovering each other by chance. However, the scary part is that they didn't know they were part of a scientific study.
The second case, The Bystander Effect, is in result of the murder of Kitty Genovese. Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered by a man at night nearby her apartment, but nobody did anything to help. Although people in her neighborhood cried for help, help was not called until thirty minutes after she was stabbed. All in all, Psychologists studied this heinous act and defined the bystander effect in result of her murder
The final case, Patient B-19, is about Dr. Robert G. Heath and the Neuroscience of Pleasure. Initially, he conducted brain stimulation experiments to alleviate symptoms of MDD and Schizophrenia. However, with Patient B-19, since that he was a gay male that suffered from depression and other mentally disturbing events. Dr. Heath used the same experimentation method to alleviate his symptoms; however, he turned it into a form of conversion therapy so that he cannot be homosexual anymore. Obviously, such an act is considered a hate crime and unethical, so he was deemed as a bad scientist.
As always, if you missed out on this meeting, click the image below to view the PowerPoint presentation. For updates on our future meetings and events at Rutgers BRAIN, be sure to follow us at our Instagram,@rutgers_brain, and our Facebook, Rutgers BRAIN.
