Revolutionary Psychology Experiments That Are As Crazy As Their Results

30. Facial Expressions – What’s Your Expression When You Behead a Rat

In 1924, Carney Landis of the University of Minnesota wanted to study common facial expressions. He painted the subject’s facial muscles in black and recorded their expressions to various stimuli using photos.

While the experiment sounds innocent on the surface, the actual dark part came in when participants were asked to behead a rat to get their expression. This went similar to the Milgram experiment and many participants hacked the rat even when they have never done it before. When they couldn’t, Landis did the act for them.