I'm disturbed this student was doing research on this site. For my job, I do humans subject research and at least in the U.S., there are gazillions of rules and regulations you have to abide by if doing research on humans. You have to submit a detailed plan of your proposed research (including surveys of people on websites) to your institution's Institutional Review Board (IRB) and get their approval before you can proceed. This is a complicated process. They would never approve research in which the people taking part (for example, members of Psych Central) did not sign an Informed Consent Form, which details the purpose and procedures of the study, and lists the potential harms and benefits. Freewill, I feel confident an IRB would never approve the survey you described, which did not include informed consent and caused you quite a bit of psychological trauma, just in seeing it (yes, the IRB's consider this sort of negative impact and are very protective of research subjects). If this student's research institution can be identified, she could be reported to her IRB and be in SERIOUS trouble, perhaps having to pay a hefty fine or being forbidden from conducting further humans subject research. I am not exaggerating.

Does anyone have the link to the original post made by the researcher? I would like to look at the survey and its explanation and instructions. Or does anyone know the poster's screen name? I'm thinking I may like to contact her and read her the riot act. She has broken so many regulations, it is not funny.