It's a terrible deprivation

I can't remember why, but this seemed like something that would interest Tabitha so we watched it. I honestly forgot just how heartbreaking this is, and how close it flies to some of the incredibly unethical stuff psychologists were doing in the early days.

When I was doing my A Levels, I did a year of psychology and that is such an interesting year. I can't believe that some of these people never thought twice about what they were doing and whether it might have any long term effects on their subjects¹. They had to at least suspect it'd have an impact otherwise why study it in the first place? Natasha Josefowitz' shit-eating "what are you gonna do about it?!" smirk made me so angry. She knows what they did, and that nothing would stick to them. Showing off her photos with the Obamas like "come and get me", made me mad. They had to know how unethical it was, otherwise why bury the records until 2066.

This one's still worth a watch though. The impact this all had on these kids tells you so much about development, hereditary mental issues, and the lengths people will go to to cover their tracks.

1. If you don't already know, have a read about Zimbardo's prison experiment (this actually got repeated for TV! Guess how that went) and the Milgram experiment. It's mind-blowing what they did, got away with and forms the basis of modern psychology/psychiatry. It's a weird scenario where it can never be repeated, but without those leaps, so many things look totally different. Why are we like that as a species? The only way we learn is by messing up in just about the worst way possible and then being like "uhhh nope that wasn't it let's try something else!".