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On being sane in insane places (1973) [pdf]

108

It's unclear if this experiment actually happened the way Rosenhan claimed. A journalist went through Rosenhan's archives and tried to verify his story. She managed to track down one of the pseudopatients, who disputed some of Rosenhan's claims such as the amount of preparation, and whether Rosenhan had worked out a legal backup plan in case the institution refused to release the patient.[1] She also noted large discrepancies in various numbers. Apparently she wrote a book about the whole thing, but I haven't had the chance to read it.[2][3]

1. https://sci-hub.red/10.1038/d41586-019-03268-y

2. https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/777172316/the-great-pretender...

3. https://www.susannahcahalan.com/the-great-pretender

4 days agoby ggreer

Related. Others?

The Rosenhan Experiment: On Being Sane in Insane Places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785783 - Nov 2025 (1 comment)

On Being Sane in Insane Places (1973) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32686098 - Sept 2022 (2 comments)

David Rosenhan’s fraudulent Thud experiment set back psychiatry for decades - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22155529 - Jan 2020 (119 comments)

Troubling discrepancies in Rosenhan's “On Being Sane in Insane Places”? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21437852 - Nov 2019 (16 comments)

On being sane in insane places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10885181 - Jan 2016 (1 comment)

On being sane in insane places - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4371212 - Aug 2012 (2 comments)

Rosenhan experiment (1973) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1469370 - June 2010 (2 comments)

4 days agoby dang

This study was a fraud: https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154x221150878

4 days agoby ameliaquining

If you've ever taken a depression screener at a wellness visit, that's a consequence of this work. This paper describes how unreliable psychiatric diagnosis used to be. There were standards, but they ultimately came down to physician judgment. This created demand for more objective standards, which resulted in the "checklist" approach that we have now.

4 days agoby ossicones

An experiment where they sent normal people to mental institutes to see if professionals would be able to identify them.

4 days agoby dbgrman

We are trained to be scared of lone individuals and rural environments, when in fact most abuses occur within a hierarchy and urban settings. I feel the fatal flaw in human nature is so many are obedient to power without question, especially when power has some kind of uniform, but also within gangs etc.

In the hospital environment, power is partly conveyed by the clothes people where and if you do not conform or obey, then you are punished. It is a pattern we are conditioned into from nursery/kindergarten onwards.

4 days agoby nephihaha

This is one of those "important research with unbelievably flawed methods" sort of situations. Psych research before IRBs was crazy.

4 days agoby 12_throw_away

This experiment is now widely debated, the author may have made up or exaggerated details.

4 days agoby cm2012

Reminds me of: Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

4 days agoby wumms

"The normal are not detectably sane"

I remember reading an essay explaining that patients not sharing the political beliefs of the physician running the asylum are more likely to be classified as mentally ill. A mental asylum paid by state money is usually going to be in the hand of physicians who never see anything wrong with the state (not biting the hand that feeds you and all that): so when for example a libertarian arrives, he's much more likely to be classified as mentally ill than if a socialist arrives.

So it's all arbitrary and, moreover, you better put the odds on your side by trying to determine what are the physicians' political beliefs and pretend you have the same ; )

4 days agoby TacticalCoder

Hello from a wildcat alumnus class 2006, never thought I would see a weber state link in HN top 20.

4 days agoby nibles_and_bits

This is from the seventies. I wonder if things would be different fifty years later.

4 days agoby tines

easy solution is to not put yourself in that situation

3 days agoby lalith_c

Grifters gonna grift. No reason to talk about yet another failure in social sciences

https://spectator.com/article/how-a-fraudulent-experiment-se...

4 days agoby readthenotes1

[flagged]

4 days agoby sddfgvdsvsdfas