Ellsworth Memorial Hospital commemorated Edward Ellsworth Jones, a renowned American expert in social psychology and cognitive psychology, and the founder of Attribution Theory.
This theory held that people inferred the intentions and motives behind actions from those actions and their outcomes. The inferred intentions and motives corresponded to the observed actions and outcomes—hence, correspondent inference.
The more information someone possessed about an action and its causes, the more corresponding their inference about that action would be. The more unusual an action was, the greater the correspondence in an observer's inference about its cause.
After observing enough samples, Attribution Theory could even be incorporated into logical reasoning. This was the psychological profiling commonly used in solving cases today.
By examining what a criminal suspect did to a corpse—such as the method of murder, preparations for the killing, and behavior afterward—it was possible to infer their mental state: whether they were introverted or extroverted, whether they had particular fetishes, and what psychological motives drove them to do it.
That was why Ellsworth Memorial Hospital itself resembled a laboratory more than anything else. Its purpose was to house all kinds of mental patients so researchers could observe them at any time and collect pathological data and behavioral records.
Unlike treatment institutions such as Arkham Asylum, they basically did not use medication or psychotherapy here. They merely provided a comfortable environment where mental patients could fully display their nature and instincts.
All right, after saying so much, it was simplest to think of this place as a zoo.
They flew over Suicide Slum, where everything below was pitch-black. Only this hospital remained brightly lit in the night, like a lighthouse.
Still, it was a psychiatric hospital. Its tall, sturdy walls, dense barbed wire atop them, security posts at the entrance, and guard dogs were