Rosenhan's Pseudopatient Experiment

David Rosenhan and seven of his colleagues conducted an experiment in 1973 to see if psychiatric professionals could correctly diagnose patients by simulating auditory hallucinations. Admitted to psychiatric facilities across five US states, the "pseudopatients" behaved normally but were often misinterpreted as mentally ill. After personnel failed to identify the fake patients in a subsequent phase, Rosenhan concluded that distinguishing between the sane and insane was challenging for professionals in psychiatric settings.