Pain Of Torture Can Make Innocent Seem Guilty
www.sciencedaily.com
Psychologists have found that the more a person appears to suffer when tortured, the guiltier they are perceived to be. According to the researchers, those complicit with the torture need to justify the torture, and therefore link the victim's pain to blame.

October 28, 2009, Harvard University — Psychologists have found that the more a person appears to suffer when tortured, the guiltier they are perceived to be. According to the researchers, those complicit with the torture need to justify the torture, and therefore link the victim’s pain to blame.

The full paper, which seems to have been published in 2010, even though the summary is from 2009(???), is: “Torture and judgments of guilt,” by Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner.

Full study is free to read here

So if you are ever arrested and mistreated, try to act stoic, I guess.

It’s easy to see how this phenomenon could lead to spiraling sadism and abuse, as the abuser lashes out in hatred to bury their increasing guilt.

  • Breath_Of_The_Snake [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    4 months ago

    The torture being studied was a hand in ice water, I don’t really understand how this is applicable. What did the distant participants who listened via audio hear? “Oh shit that’s cold water”. A university study would never get ethics board permission to actually give frostbite. Sits just a psych student who has to participate in at least one study in order to get study credit for the program.

    • iie [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      14·
      4 months ago

      It was explained to participants that although there was no way to tell if Carol had lied or had legitimately rolled an 8, people often admit to wrongdoing when placed in stressful situations. To that aim, Carol ostensibly did a cold pressor task after she reported the results of her die-roll, placing her hand in ice water for 80 s. Participants were told that they would listen to Carol being “tortured” and then judge the likelihood that she had cheated. Participants heard her react one of two ways to the cold pressor. In the pain condition, she appeared to feel significant discomfort, whimpering throughout the cold pressor. In the no pain condition, she appeared to feel little discomfort, reacting stoically to the cold.

      After listening to the torture session, participants evaluated the likely guilt of the “torture victim” by answering three questions. The first two were, “How likely is it that the ‘torture victim’ had cheated?” and “How likely is it that the ‘torture victim’ is lying?” with responses made on a scale from 1 (“Not at all likely”) to 5 (“Extremely likely”). The third was “How moral or immoral do you perceive the ‘torture victim’ to be?” with responses made on a scale from 1 (“Extremely moral”) to 5 (“Extremely immoral”). As a manipulation check, participants also evaluated how much pain they perceived the “torture victim” to have felt on a scale from 1 (“No pain at all”) to 5 (“Extreme pain”).

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        4 months ago

        CW: Abuse

        This makes me wonder if patterns of abuse have a similar response. A lot of abuse victims adjust their behaviour to silence, seeking not to react and not to provoke their abuser. The less reaction the better.

        I suspect that abusers also display similar patterns to these torturers, and abuse victims learn this behaviour unconsciously because it is the optimal way to reduce the severity of the abuse they receive.

      • Breath_Of_The_Snake [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        4 months ago

        Edit: how cold was the ice water? That’s deeply variable and 90 seconds is literally nothing

        I may be focusing on how completely inconsequential the phsyicsl “torture” was. If the subject is a good actor they may have been able to effectively convince the subjects being tested on empathy. Maybe.