11 Facts About David Rosenhan

David Rosenhan is known best for the Rosenhan experiment, a study challenging the validity of psychiatry diagnoses.

David Rosenhan was a professor of law and of psychology at Stanford University from 1971 until his retirement in 1998, and applied psychology to such legal topics as the examination of expert witnesses, jury selection, and jury deliberation.

David Rosenhan served as a research psychologist for the Educational Testing Service.

David Rosenhan later became a professor emeritus of law and psychology at Stanford University.

David Rosenhan was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and various psychological societies, including the APA, and had been a visiting fellow at Wolfson College at Oxford University.

David Rosenhan died on February 6,2012, at the age of 82.

David Rosenhan believed that there are seven main features of psychological abnormality: suffering; maladaptiveness; vividness and unconventionality; unpredictability and loss of control; irrationality and incomprehensibility; observer discomfort; and violation of moral and ideal standards.

In 1973, David Rosenhan published "On Being Sane In Insane Places", which describes what is known as the David Rosenhan experiment.

Later, a research and teaching hospital challenged David Rosenhan to perform a similar experiment involving its own diagnosis and admission procedures, where psychiatric staff were warned that at least one pseudo-patient might be sent to their institution.

The David Rosenhan experiment can be described as addressing the relationship between psychiatric and medical diagnoses and labeling theory, theorising that deviance is a product of external judgements that can modify an individual's self-identity and change how others respond to the labeled person.

Subsequent pseudo-patient studies similar to that of David Rosenhan have had significant methodologic and other concerns.