The Dark side of Science: The Baby Cliff Experiment 1960 | Short Documentary

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The Visual Cliff is an experimental apparatus to see if children are born with the innate ability to be scared of heights, the experiment joins a long line of child psychological testing, similar to Donald and Gua, the Bobo Doll and the Little Albert studies........

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CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
01:20 Beginnings
06:10 The Experiment

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[jasperjones]

My infant daughter crawled to the edge of our bed, looked down, then looked back at me and said "Uh-oh." Among her first words. But this cliff, though maybe only 10 inches high, was real. She sensed the danger. I didn't talk about the danger with her, as the whole thing was unexpected and cracked me up.

[JuMiKu]

Honestly? I think this is OK even by modern standards. This is a lot like stuff, you'd do during baby exercises and swimming (trying to get them to crawl past new stuff or into the water). Yes, the baby may be stressed for a second, but so long asit ends with reassurance and love it's very different from shooting a gun to distress a child. Babies will naturally encounter heights and "cliffs". It is good for parents to know about this innate fear.

[fnoigy]

Yeah there was little or nothing truly unethical about this one. If the babies then had lifelong trauma, sure. But if it was just some nervousness during the experiment, it's nothing worse than a mildly bad, but otherwise normal day

[The_Modeling_Underdog]

As much as I dislike experiments with toddlers, this one seemed pretty ethical. Mother was there, safeguards were given so the kids wouldn't get hurt and the stressful situation was brief.

Thanks for another interesting video, John.

(Having a paetron named "I wish I was Brian Blessed" is pretty cool. We all want that smile and booming voice.)

[sheldoniusRex]

>the Behavior Farm.
You literally could not try to create a more ominous name for a psychological facility.

[nintendocafe]

As others have discussed in this comment section I'd have to say this study would probably pass ethical guidelines even today, and is far better than many of its era before institutional review boards were the norm. I actually had a social psych professor in college that had worked with Dr. Gibson when she was still alive and from what I recall he spoke highly of her and she seemed like a pretty down to earth person, only specific I remember was a story about her demonstrating the cliff principle by setting a chicken down on top of a fencepost to keep it in place.

[mildlycornfield]

No harm was done, not even to any of the animal subjects, and all of the infants' mothers entered the study willingly, so in my opinion this is by far one of the most ethical psychology studies of the era you've ever covered.

[Mantuamaker]

I really appreciate this series. It points out things people don’t know about early psychology. Cognitive psychology is seen as the most scientific division of psych, but it has its roots in studies like this just like many other do.

[beanny]

I'm glad this one is free of tragedy.

[morganleanderblake]

9:09 Thank you for saying this. A lot of people explaining this would make broad sweeping statements about a mother's love and how obviously the child would go to their mother.

[RedHeadForester]

This one is a genuinely interesting experiment, and probably the most ethical experiment I've seen covered on this channel!
Now I know I can safely leave my baby up a tree when I want to nip down the shops for some ciggies and a bottle of Coca Mariani without worrying about it crawling away.

[Ciborium]

My parents tell me that when I was a toddler, I climbed on the back of a chair and fell and broke my arm. I have no recollection of this but I have always had a fear of heights. As a child and as an adult, I would feel great anxiety over climbing a stepladder, and climbing a regular ladder absolutely terrified me. Did my fall and injury as a toddler affect me psychologically to have an unreasonable fear of heights? Maybe, I don't know.

[transtwill]

it would be interesting to know the visual impairments, if any, of the infants that did crawl over the illusory cliff. i lack depth perception because my eyes don't work together so i could totally see baby me crawling across something a regular child would nope out of

[BasilBard]

I feel like this vein of testing is important because it can help inform safety design, and the ways we try to naturally guide people through architecture and infrastructure. The stress introduced to the children in this study is pretty innocuous, and something that could happen unintentionally in casual settings anyway. Like setting a baby down on a glass table for a moment, and they become startled about the perceived situation. This is honestly really tame for an older study.

[Wrathful_Scythe]

Was half expecting the experimenters to ditch the glas and see if the babies, that were willing to go on the glass, were willing to off themselves to get to their mothers with the nature of past experiments on this channel.
From the information given its pretty ethical.

[MostlyLoveOfMusic]

This is relatively tame for an experiment, compared to most involving sentient beings

[october]

a bit of a breath of fresh air to hear about an experiment without malice or malpractice. the babies were in no real danger and could easily be assisted if needed. the children also will not remember this, though they might be fearful of hights to a higher degree.

[PlainlyDifficult]

Thank you for watching l!Any suggestions for more dark science experiments let me know!!

[MKFTEN]

love coming home from work to a plainly difficult upload

[SazzyNoodles]

I think this has to be one of the most ethical out of most tests I've seen. Yes there was stress during the tests but afterwards they were showered with motherly love. The fear of heights is probably one of the most common fears to humans there is as well so nothing traumatic really. I'd be interested to hear what scientists/psychologists would think about doing this test in modern times.