The Dark Side of Science: The Horror of the Pit of Despair Isolation Experiment 1970 (Documentary)



#science #history #dark

The Pit of despair was a name used by American psychologist Harry Harlow for a device he designed, officially called a vertical isolation chamber apparatus……

Harlow has previously been on this channel with his monkey mother experiment : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdbnwrNbINI

00:00 Intro
01:36 Background
02:44 Partial Isolation
05:29 Total Isolation in Monkeys
10:12 Harlows Depression
12:24 The Pit
18:07 My Rating

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Sources:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.68.7.1534

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC285801/pdf/pnas00159-0105.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091677374914758

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jhbs.22180

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48 thoughts on “The Dark Side of Science: The Horror of the Pit of Despair Isolation Experiment 1970 (Documentary)”

  1. Saying your first name in the intro of your videos is a really good idea. It makes you seem WAY more personable. Also, a first name is hardly enough information to 'doxx' someone, so it's not like you're oversharing

    Reply
  2. Psychologists are the most evil and vile of animal abusers…how anyone can trust or take advicd from such twisted minds ldont know.
    The WHOLE of the Psych disciplines is about cruelty and dispicable abuse…
    Those who do these type of Psych 'studies' are vile evil and inhumane experimental Mengele type personalities

    Reply
  3. as someone who might have depression or might have some other mental disorder, what i will never understand is why Harlow felt the need to create depression in any other living being. like yeah, okay, he thought maybe it could lead to a cure, but like….that still doesnt excuse it in my mind. depression is awful…why would you subject anyone, animal or human, to it?

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  4. This is 10 on the scale of terrible things. Any research that does physical or mental harm to a sentient being is in my opinion entirely unethical and should long be forbidden. I do not consider this to be research. .

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  5. For some good news, in an class about animal experimentation and the rules and regulations (Netherlands) primate studies are extremely rare with 40 monkeys a year and there are random checks for following guidelines. Also you need to pass a very strict ethical board and explain why you can’t use another organism for testing.

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  6. Wtf, after seeing the 3 months isolated monkeys I would've stopped the experiments: it was obvious already that isolation would cause a bad effect

    Seriously, this is just unnecessarily cruel. I don't understand why this wasn't stopped before it got out of hand.

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  7. Life is not difficult and cruel enough, so we have such experiments? Maybe we can experiment on people who do these kind of experiments. We can measure the irony, make a graph, etc. Publish the results.

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  8. i feel as though Harlow's attitudes towards his test subjects and his struggles with mental health is proof enough for impacts of lack of parental contact/connection, as it has been noted that his parents (especially his mother) were quite cold to him

    dude pretty much said "yo i have some mommy issues imma go torture some monkeys to try and find out whats up with me"

    Reply
  9. Hi there!
    I've been a long time watcher of your videos.
    This past year I've had some really strange experiences happen to me personally. I have a strong hunch that my father (clinical psychologist) may be conducting some very real unauthorized, unsupervised experiments on some of his family members (myself included).
    I started a blog trying to outline some of these experiences from a totally logical point of view and I'm planning on adding more. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking a look at my blog and see if it's something you'd consider covering in one of your videos (with names changed for anonymity's sake.)
    https://psychologicalmindgames.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  10. Grant Board: "So your proposal here says you want to make monkeys sad."
    Harlow: "I want to study isolation's effects on depression."
    Grant Board: "And you plan on doing this by, and I quote, by putting them in a 'pit of despair'."
    Harlow: "That's right."
    Grant Board: "Seems perfectly reasonable, you're approved."

    Reply
  11. "You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!"

    Reply
  12. … I’m off to hug my son and my dogs. That was bloody horrible. I understand that medical research can reap worthwhile rewards.

    But you don’t need to be a bloody expert to know that separating infants from their mothers will cause behavioural problems.

    These studies went way, way too far and seem to have reaped less and less useful information as the cruelty increased.

    Reply
  13. He dint isolate then he locked them up in small boxes. He just wanted to see how much of this type of torture they can endure

    They could have been isolated in a nice nature-looking place where a monkey can be a monkey. Not a fetus in a box.

    Who is giving these maniacs money and power for this? To prove things any person with a sane mind can tell you?

    You know what creates depression? People like Harlow.

    Reply
  14. In my experience isolation to the mentally disturbed is akin to a bottle of whiskey to an alcoholic. Although it should probably be stated outright more often than not no one is forcing a glass of whiskey into the hands of an alcoholic. Would not put it past 'society' though honestly to happen or have happened as most of the time it seems we prefer creating problems where none previously existed in order to satisfy some vain, imaginary sense of self gratification within our claims to have ever actually 'fixed' anything regarding 'society' as a whole, over fixing issues which actually exist continually piling up to the point it is tacitly deemed impossible to actually fix any of them. Although we of course continue the charade for all the aforementioned reasons. Good times.

    Reply

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