Chapter 3 - Of Sane People in Insane Places
This chapter is very interesting. The author describes the research of Dr. Rosenthal where he fakes his way into a psychiatric ward, and then begins acting normal the very second he is admitted. When he is in the ward he us treated badly, forced to take medicine, and doesn't get released for 19 days. He has 8 of his friends do the same thing in different wards and they all get the same results. Afterwards Dr. Rosenthal published his findings in Science and lit the world of psychiatric analysis on fire. He basically debunked a science and met alot of opposition. The author reenacted the experiment and didn't meet the same results. In my opinion, the original study by Rosenthal is incredibly interesting. I can't believe that there would be such inherent wrongness in psychology. It's scary almost, I don't think I want to ever see a psychologist because I think I'd get diagnosed with something, regardless of what mental condition I'm in.
Chapter 4 - In the unlikely event of a water landing
This chapter is about a murder that took place in downtown New York that took place over 45 minutes. A lady got stabbed several times and raped right in the middle of the street. People turned on their lights and told them to quiet down, but no one came and helped. A few weeks later the NY Times publish an article about the unusual behavior of the witnesses and this set of some experiments. This eventually leads to the idea of diffusion of responsibility. Which is, the discovery that people seem to be less likely to take action or help someone when surrounded by other people. This chapter, which inherently cool, bored me. Which is mostly because I've already learned about this experiment in detail in previous years. But it does make sense and I've seen it happen before.
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