Behavior of young children in a situation simulating entrapment in refrigerators

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/22/4/628.abstract

by ColinWright • 14 years ago

110 65 14 years ago

pediatrics.aappublications.org

  a higher rate of success being associated with fewer years of education attained by mother and father combined.

Tell me more - is that statistically significant? Causes? Related to Reading age?

The bit that worries me is the percentage of children who locked in the fridge just waited and cried.

troels3• 14 years ago

If they cry loud enough, it may not be the worst strategy.

JonnieCache4• 14 years ago

Aren't fridges pretty airtight though? Isn't that the whole point here? If so, then crying loud and long is at best a hell of a bet.

I'd be willing to bet that fridges are pretty good sound insulators. The inside is sort of suspended IIRC.

slurgfest2• 14 years ago

Pure speculation: could be that poor kids were more likely to have dealt with similar problems or even just to have dealt with similar levels of suffering, and therefore respond with a little more short-term resilience.

Not like anyone can do follow-ups on this research any more.

JonnieCache4• 14 years ago

More idle speculation: self-reliance and/or initiative are inversely correlated with social class/socioeconomic status/whatever.

berntb• 14 years ago

>>Not like anyone can do follow-ups on this research any more.

A modest proposal:

Places like Syria seems to not only torture dissidents but also their children -- and the regime need cash because of all the sanctions.

The Syrian Bath party was even inspired by the nazis, so there is precedent for getting experimental data.

(Sorry about this, sometimes my humor disgusts me too.)

pygy_• 14 years ago

The generalization of statistics is relatively recent development in science. AFAIK, it happened during the 50's and 60's, probably at a different pace in different disciplines.

DEinspanjer2• 14 years ago

Yeah, that was the big thing that made me wonder WTF. Really wish there was more data on that part of it.

Wonder if any of the original experiment data or executors are still around.. :)

JonnieCache4• 14 years ago

Somebody here must be able to get us the pdf...

Or at least have a look at it and give us the lowdown.

qohen• 14 years ago

Quick FYI, if it matters: this is from 1958.

nitrogen6• 14 years ago

It would be good to add (1958) to the title -- I doubt such an experiment would fly today, and this presents a fascinating look back in history both at the state of experimental ethics and the development of modern refrigerator doors.

The only experience I have with fridges so old is the one that my grandfather rotated 90 degrees and buried in his yard, to serve as a root cellar. I think the door may have had an actual lock on it, but can't recall; if so, this experiment studying door release mechanisms would make much more sense.

Edit to add: It's possible the invention of magnetic weatherstripping has saved many lives.

ColinWright4• 14 years ago

  > It would be good to add (1958) to the title

Won't fit in the 80 character limit.

nitrogen6• 14 years ago

Get rid of the word "young", perhaps?

nitrogen6• 14 years ago

For some reason this post by Ihavenoname is [dead], but it is an interesting anecdote.

Ihavenoname 12 minutes ago | link [dead]

There were a frightening number of children that were trapped in the old refrigerators. They often used them as hiding places and could not get out until they were redesined They had latches and even when there were interior releases it was not obvious to a child how to open it when in the dark and with limited leverage. Even knowing a study like this would save lives I would find it hard to see it getting approved by modern ethics committees. It really says a lot about how our society has changes as anything. The society is much less Unitarian in its ethics simply sounding suspect is enough to get rejected.

Ihavenoname: perhaps you accidentally double posted and deleted the wrong comment, or perhaps your comment five days ago about Google got flagged by an unhappy Google fan.

vacri3• 14 years ago

The answer is: these days you wouldn't need a study. All you'd need to do is cause a PR ruckus and it would change.

The issue with ethics in this experiment is not "the researchers might be creepy people", it's that it violates the basic idea that human experimentation on non-consenting people shouldn't cause harm (which includes negative emotions like fear, embarassment, etc). Sometimes such experimentation does get past ethics committees, but it generally has much more stringent reporting requirements and control, plus it usually has to answer a useful question and not something trivial. If kids are getting locked in fridges, this is not something that particularly needs an empirical study, just change the fridge doors.

mistercow• 14 years ago

I actually found it quite an interesting experience to read the article and only have the date revealed at the end. Obviously I knew it wasn't recent, but it was interesting to read about the study and have no clear frame of context.

dminor14• 14 years ago

Pretty disgusting, maybe we should drown them and burn them also to see how they react.

melling• 14 years ago

Someone was trying to solve a real problem in 1958. In fact, children still die in refrigerators. I imagine in 54 years, people will look back at some of the stuff we do as primitive and barbaric.

humbledrone• 14 years ago

> Instead, the scientists designed a very small, rather dense, playhouse. It looked just like a normal kid's playhouse, except that it was the exact dimensions of the average home fridge. Not only that, the house was equipped with an infrared camera on the top, which took videos of the kid while they were inside, while at the same time keeping it dark, like it would be in a fridge with the door shut. It should also be noted that the scientists teamed up with a psychiatrist, a child psychologist, and the parents to agree on the length of time the child would be allowed to cry before they helped it out. Three minutes. [1]

Hmm, three minutes of discomfort in a dark playhouse doesn't seem quite as bad as drowning or being burned alive. Especially when you consider the deaths that might be avoided as a result of the research.

[1] http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2009/07/17/friday-wei...

sp3324• 14 years ago

Replace "discomfort" with "trauma", especially once they find out that their parents heard them crying but decided not to come.

brittohalloran2• 14 years ago

Three minutes of screaming in a confined space for a claustrophobic person is an eternity. This would never fly today.

gjm11• 14 years ago

HN article title should probably have (1958) appended to it.

Incidentally, see http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2586/is-it-impossib... for a bit more on the subject.

bryanlarsen• 14 years ago

Interesting, that article claims that magnetic seals were invented well before 1958 but not adopted until 1958 when it was mandated by legislation.

catastrophe• 14 years ago

Anyone who can flag this submission, should.

robotmay• 14 years ago

For what?

robinhouston• 14 years ago

The paper is behind a paywall, but this 2009 Scientopia post has some more interesting details: http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurious/2009/07/17/friday-wei...

It sounds as though the ethical aspects of the experiment were considered pretty carefully, for example.

rotskoff• 14 years ago

201 children from 157 families. Ages 2,3,4,5. The "enclosure" was meant to look like a playhouse; some children were lured into it, but many wandered in on their own. It was 40x18X25 in. It was outfitted with a number of recording devices: video camera, infrared, sound.

gregtour• 14 years ago

As someone who has lived in Fukushima Prefecture, I am going to dare and ask, can nuclear energy, fertilizer, and reverse osmosis save our souls? Shutting down computer, opening window, sitting outside.

afitnerd• 14 years ago

"It was also influenced by the educational level of the parents, a higher rate of success being associated with fewer years of education attained by mother and father combined."

This seems counterintuitive to me. A LOWER educational level of the parents correlated to a HIGHER rate of success of escape, it seems.

pessimizer3• 14 years ago

Let it change your intuition. It will make you look at people differently.

trentlott• 14 years ago

It's interesting how science works like that, right?

egiva• 14 years ago

I wonder how that statement is influenced by investigator bias - in the 1950's where "street smarts" (working class parents, working class background) somehow viewed socially as superior in these situations when compared with educated families?

K2h• 14 years ago

This was the section of the article that caught my attention as well.

My guess is when a child is use to being rescued or cared for after a very very short time, they learn quickly to do (or try) things themselves and not rely on parents, care givers, or others.

I struggle with this notion in raising my own child. I want her to learn - be self sufficient and resourceful, but I don't want her to suffer for it, or not trust people.

saalweachter• 14 years ago

It's also possible that some of the lower income children had already been stuck in a refrigerator while playing outside, and had practice at the task. Ten seconds to escape is pretty impressive!

maked00• 14 years ago

Since it was in the 50's we really have no idea just how statistically accurate this study is. For example, they may not have had a equal spread of income levels. Most of the participants may have been poor and there may have been only one or two high income families involved. Such a small sample would not give reliable results. However if the study did have an accurate cross sample of incomes, then perhaps the results indicate that some sort of education program is in order for children in well to do families.

robotresearcher• 14 years ago

> "Since it was in the 50's"

Plenty of first-class science and engineering was done in the 1950s and before. The 50s produced hydrogen bombs, supersonic aircraft, and great advances in chemotherapy and computer science, for example. They were quite capable of doing an empirical study to a standard we would recognize.

zuralski• 14 years ago

I am very surprised nobody has picked up this line for discussion: " Success in escaping [..] was also influenced by the educational level of the parents, a higher rate of success being associated with fewer years of education attained by mother and father combined. "

There's no attempt at explanation for this in the article itself..

Would it be safe to deduce that the more educated "you" are, the more passive (or "inactive") you are in the face of danger?

Behavior of young children in a situation simulating entrapment in refrigerators

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