In The '60s, A Psychologist Experimented On 22 Harvard Students, And The Consequences May Have Been Disastrous

Ted Kaczynski, the infamous "Unabomber," entered Harvard University in 1958 on a math scholarship with a bright future ahead of him. The next year, he took part in a controversial psychological experiment, and by 1978 he committed his first of a series of mail bombings that killed three people and injured 23.

During the study, the researchers asked the 22 participants to write essays outlining their personal beliefs and goals. The participants then had to sit under bright lights meant to be psychologically stressful while a member of the research team lambasted them for the duration of the study based on the contents of their essays. The lead researcher, Dr. Henry A. Murray, described these interviews as "vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive." The goal of the study was to see how students would respond to extreme psychological stress.

There's no evidence that the Murray's research had any direct impact on Kaczynski's eventual violent crimes, but it's not entirely clear how it may have affected his psyche. As far as is publicly known, none of the other subjects in the study went on to become murderers. The study gained attention at the time of Kaczynski's arrest in 1996 as more details about his life emerged, and is largely remembered for its questionable ethics.

Kaczynski enrolled at Harvard at 16 and was recruited into Murray's study the next year. He would go on to become one of the most infamous domestic terrorists in United States history, serving a life sentence in prison before hanging himself behind bars in 2023. Dr. Sally Johnson diagnosed Kaczynski with paranoid schizophrenia in 1998, two years after he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The fate of the other 21 participants remains largely unknown to the public since researchers generally don't record the names of participants, to eliminate bias from the study and protect privacy.

There's no evidence that the psychological stress from the research was directly responsible for Kaczynski's future behavior, but the study did gain widespread criticism after his arrest since it purposefully created a stressful environment and students didn't originally know what was going to happen to them. Stress affects the brain in many negative ways and can aggravate or trigger symptoms of schizophrenia. It's theoretically possible that stress triggered by the study contributed to the development of Kaczynski's psychiatric problems.

Kaczynski had "anosognosia," which is a symptom characterized by an inability to recognize your own illness. He had a strong belief that he was being mistreated and harassed by his family and modern society. When his lawyers attempted to present an insanity defense, he tried to fire them and then attempted to hang himself with his underwear. Before his arrest, he wrote a 35,000-word manifesto titled "Industrial Society and Its Future," in which he claimed society and technology were leading causes of powerlessness and alienation.

Researchers have to follow a code of ethics to prevent harm to participants. Passing proposed studies through ethics committees can be a pain point for researchers, but it plays an important role in making sure participants are treated fairly. Murray's study from Harvard has been widely criticized for its unethical treatment of the 22 students.

Contrary to what the lead researcher, Dr. Murray, claimed, the participants were deceived into thinking that they would debate their philosophy of life with other students like themselves. Instead, they were met with a young lawyer instructed to mount an aggressive attack against the student's personal beliefs as written in their essays. These attacks continued for the three-year duration of the study.

Ethical standards for researchers have improved over the years, especially for studies involving human subjects. In the United States, psychological research generally follows the code of conduct outlined by the American Psychological Association. Many psychological studies have been remembered poorly through history for potential ethical conflicts. For example, Stanley Milgram's study in the 1960s, where participants were led to believe they were administering shocks, and the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971, where researchers split participants into cohorts of prisoners and guards.