Rosenhan Experiment Flashcards
How many participants where there?
8 people (3 women and 5 men including Rosenhan himself)
When was the study conducted?
1973
What was the aim of the study?
The aim of the study was to assess the conditions of people diagnosed as mentally ill and the validity of psychiatric diagnosis.
How was this carried out?
Participants falsely claimed to hear auditory hallucinations and where diagnosed (7 where told they had schizophrenia and 1 was told they had manic-depressive psychosis)before being admitted.
What was the average time participants spent in the hospitals?
19 days
How where the participants treated?
Many participants noted that they where severely dehumanized ,had there privacy invaded (even being watched in the bathroom) and were only released when they admitted to having a mental illness and agreed to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition.which Rosenhan takes as evidence that mental illness is perceived as an irreversible condition creating a lifelong stigma rather than a curable illness.
Other information
Participants constantly made note of what the doctors and nurses did,however this was treated as part of their illness (one even noting it was pathological.) .Normal admitted patients (on a ratio of 35 of the total of 118 ) showed suspicion that the participants where journalistists researching the hospital.
What was the second experiment
After being contacted by a teaching hospital that claimed it would not make the same mistakes as those shown in the study Rosenhan claimed to send in 1 or more people to pretend to have an illness and staff would have to rate the likelyhood of them being an imposter.In reality Rosenhan sent no one ,despite out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect.
