Authority or self-expression? Results of Landis' experiment (6 photos)

This strange experiment in 1924 was one of the most inhumane and was severely criticized by the scientific community. Was it worth it?





Carini Landis was at that time studying human facial expressions at the University of Minnesota. And he set out to prove that when a certain emotion is expressed within a group, certain patterns should appear.



Landis considered the main goal of the experiment to be to identify the primary component - the physiological reaction of the body or emotion. At that time, it was believed that the brain reacts to the stimulus, which causes the body to react. And only after all this does emotion appear.

The researcher set out to identify and prove the existence of one organ responsible for emotions. He considered these muscles to be facial muscles.

Progress of the experiment





Landis drew lines on the participants' faces to help classify emotions more accurately. And then he gave students to smell substances with a pungent odor, watch an excerpt from a film, listen to music, and voice some fact that does not correspond to reality. He recorded all the expressions in the photo.

Then the psychologist decided to turn things up a notch and began:

show participants pornographic pictures and photos;

shoot almost above the ear;

forcing you to put your hands in a bucket of toads;

show photographs of patients with advanced skin diseases.

Emotions were also recorded. And then the third began - the most terrible part of the experiment, after which the psychologist went down in history as a killer of white rats. The test subject was asked to cut off the animal's head. Otherwise, Landis promised to do it himself. That is, in essence, there was no choice.



Some people began to cry, others laughed hysterically. There were those who fell into a stupor or cursed. The most terrible thing was the process of depriving rats of life. The subjects, who were ordinary people, had no experience of taking the lives of living beings. And the animals suffered for a long time.

2/3 of the subjects agreed to cut off the rat's head. As for the remaining animals, the psychologist did what he promised - he cut off their heads in cold blood in front of the amazed group.

Results and their scientific value



The result? The result turned out to be logical: during the experiment it was not possible to prove that people in the group use the same muscles in the same situation.

But no one has canceled the principle of a negative result in science. In accordance with it, the following conclusions were drawn from the experiment:

there are no general facial reactions to express emotions;

during the test all reactions were symmetrical;

women demonstrate emotions more clearly than men;

The most common reaction even to negative experiences is a smile.



After that, the psychologist stopped with sadistic experiments. He received his doctorate, was engaged in teaching and scientific activities, choosing psychopathology as his main direction. The scientist identified the patterns that interested him, or rather, their absence. And he provided the opportunity to terrorize laboratory animals to the next generations of ardent hearts.