10 Unbelievably Cruel Studies (Done In The Name Of Science)

7. Scientists Tell Pilots Their Planes Are Crashing

War is a psychologically taxing, traumatising and overall terrifying experience. Young, barely-trained men get shipped off into war zones they're hardly prepared for, operating equipment they're not familiar with and fighting people for reasons they can't comprehend. The most common feeling for a soldier is fear, so who better to be the subject of a study by some more of those cognitive behavioural scientist goons BF Skinner was so fond of? Psychologist Mitchell Berkun had much the same train of thought when he put together a controversial experiment that necessitated faking a plane crash. Berkun wanted to test the way that human fear can be changed and manipulated so, to that end, he set up a study which would have people experiencing real, genuine terror. Not the sort of thing that can be faked in a lab with electric shocks and the like, but people actually in mortal fear for their life. Ten soldiers going through basic training at the Hunter Liggett Reservation in California were asked to join a test flight, which would pretend to stall once at cruising altitude, followed by the pilot announcing that they were going to have to make an emergency landing. To really get the fear of God into the poor young soldiers they placed a cavalcade of emergency vehicles on the ground below them, visible from the plane, and then asked them to sign a life insurance waiver that said the army weren't culpable if they died. Not only did this seal the deal but it was also the way they tested the level of fear in the participants - how accurate did they fill out a form when they thought they were about to die? Who care because THAT IS SO MESSED UP WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT.