Martin Theodore Orne

Martin Theodore Orne (October 16, 1927, Vienna, Austria – February 11, 2000, Paoli, Pennsylvania, US) was a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Orne is best known for his pioneering research into demand characteristics, illustrating the weakness of informing participants that they are taking part in a psychology experiment and yet expecting them to act normally. He was well known as a researcher in the field of hypnosis and is also noted for his involvement with the poet Anne Sexton, and with the trials of Patty Hearst and Kenneth Bianchi.

Personal life and education Orne was born on October 16, 1927, to Frank Orne, a surgeon and Martha Brunner, a psychiatrist in Vienna, Austria. and relocated to New York City in 1938.

He studied at the Bronx High School of Science. He later moved to Boston and studied at Harvard University. and hypnosis.

Orne became the therapist to the poet Anne Sexton when she was 28. He recorded their sessions and would have Sexton transcribe them as a way to reflect. He also encouraged Sexton to write poetry. Sexton committed suicide in 1974 and the tapes were later passed to Diane Wood Middlebrook, a Sexton biographer. His decision to release the tapes was controversial and met with backlash; he was accused of "dishonoring his profession"

Orne did not believe it was possible to use hypnosis for the purpose of creating a Manchurian Candidate stating, “When the layman inquires whether hypnosis can be used to induce antisocial behavior, he generally wonders whether a hypnotist can induce trance in a total stranger and then compel him to carry out behavior for his own personal and private benefit--the subject somehow becoming the helpless tool of the powerful hypnotist."..."No authority has seriously maintained that such a total control fantasy could be translated into real life with the help of hypnosis. Fortunately, the Manchurian Candidate still remains fiction.”

Orne sought to prove his stance by replicating experiments previously believed to have demonstrated hypnosis could coerce subjects into "unacceptable” or “antisocial” behavior – such as handling a poisonous snake or throwing acid on a research assistant. By adding a control group of simulators to these experiments, Orne demonstrated that the control group (simulators) were more likely than the hypnotized subjects to perform the requested “antisocial” act. Orne explains that this is because subjects in these experiments, both hypnotized and simulators, trusted that they were not in any real danger. He concludes: “The popular view which holds that hypnosis is able to exert a unique form of control over the hypnotized individual, which can compel him to carry out otherwise repugnant actions, must be rejected.

Orne spent a 3 month sabbatical at the University of Sydney in Australia where he furthered his research into the effects of hypnosis on antisocial behavior, subject-expectancy effect, and demand characteristics.

Legacy and awards Orne founded and directed the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Center for Inquiry acquired over 250 boxes of material from Orne's wife. The collection was made available to the public in 2015. The collection contains much of Orne's books and scholarly articles. It is shelved in the CFI's special collections.

Selected works