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Research register
The famous hospital experiment—and the evidence that challenged it
The account: Hospitals cannot distinguish sane from insane; labels stick
Read each occurrence in context. Evidence labels below are the labels recorded by the source edition; importing a row does not independently verify it.
What the record says
California case and incident register · Batch 1
- Date
- 1973
- People / institutions
- David Rosenhan, Stanford; 12 hospitals (locations partly in California)
- Mechanism
- Pseudopatient admission
- Allegation
- Hospitals cannot distinguish sane from insane; labels stick
- Finding or outcome
- DISPUTED: Cahalan (2019) found Rosenhan's notes contradict the article and most pseudopatients cannot be verified
- Open questions
- Treat as a caution about evidence quality, not as proof of institutional failure
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Linked corrections
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Reference and provenance
1973-CA-ROSENHAN