Finally, a science book I can understand without having to refer to wikipedia or the planned parenthood website.
My aunt is now 2 for 3 (for those of you keeping score). I had high hopes for this book and I was not let down. What we have here is a retrospective look at 10 psychological experiments of the twentieth century which have changed the field of psychology and created rifts within the medical community. Lobotomies tend to do that.
One of the more surprising things about this book is that it did not include the Stanford Prison Experiment. I’m not complaining, and I’m kind of grateful seeing as its been somewhat overplayed (yet still incredibly interesting). Slater’s chosen experiments range from behavior and obedience to, in essence, our current day obsession with pills.
I could talk about each one but to spare you the reading and me the writing I think I’ll only choose one to write about briefly. There once was/is a lady named Elizabeth Loftus and… she thought it would be fun to mess with your memory. Not to mention defend accused child abusers, death-row inmates and now as of a recent press conference the alleged Zodiac killer as accused by his daughter (ok, she’s not really defending the guy but this is the sort of thing she would take on).
It’s ironic that I’d finish the book the same day that some woman claims that repressed memory syndrome is the reason why she did not or could not recall that her father was the Zodiac killer. Who she claims took her along when he performed the murders. Ms. Loftus would have a field day with this.
Loftus’ memory study was a little bit of that and a little bit of this. Studying how memories are not always reliable. Her interest in the subject stemmed from a case in which she was called to sit as an expert witness in a trial where a grown woman was accusing her father of sexually abusing her twenty years earlier. Her testimony was not successful. She was called as such to aid in the defense by testifying that traumatic episodes cannot be repressed for twenty years and then suddenly come to the forefront of your mind enabling you to press charges twenty years on. This sounds like the alleged Zodiac killer’s daughter, then again she isn’t pressing charges, just accusing her father of being a serial killer.
Her study involved making up stories and getting people to believe they were true and then observing and listening to them expand on these false memories to the point that the subject actually thought the event happened.
Anyways, if I were to perform my own memory experiment it would probably play out something akin to this:
Do you remember that time we went the movies and saw Hook for the fourth time and that guy tried to grab your ass? I bet you do. Oh, whats that, you say he was wearing a red sweater and had a big puffy white beard and told you his name was Santa Clause? Wow, I’m surprised you’re memory of that is so vivid. Guess what jerk, it never happened. You managed to create a memory based upon my suggested memory, sucker! (Mike, this would be similar to the time that you touched my ass and in your altered memory of the situation it was I who touched your ass.)
Awesome, time for a fire drill here at the office. Ooooh, I think this is the opportunity to perform another experiment. Results to come, but only if they are extremely controversial and spark riots and fist fights at the next psychology conference.
