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Study: People Would Rather Be Shocked Than Be Alone With Their Thoughts
sciencehabit writes "How much do we hate being alone with our own thoughts? Enough to give ourselves an electric shock. In a new study, researchers recruited hundreds of people and made them sit in an empty room and just think for about 15 minutes. About half of the volunteers hated the experience. In a separate experiment, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to push a button and shock themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think. One of the study authors suggests that the results may be due to boredom and the trouble that we have controlling our thoughts. "I think [our] mind is built to engage in the world," he says. "So when we don't give it anything to focus on, it's kind of hard to know what to do."
"The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom"
Arthur Schopenhauer
What kind of idiots did they pick for their study?
Sadomasochists?
probably... you'd be shocked if you know what my thoughts were when I was alone.
Or maybe not, yours probably revolve around dodgy sex too :-)
At first I assumed that the people were stuck n a room for hours upon hours with nothing to do. Then I read...
"The period of time that Wilson and his colleagues asked participants to be alone with their thoughts ranged from six to 15 minutes. Many of the first studies involved college student participants, most of whom reported that this "thinking period" wasn't very enjoyable and that it was hard to concentrate. So Wilson conducted another study with participants from a broad selection of backgrounds, ranging in age from 18 to 77, and found essentially the same results.
Is it just me or is it a very poor reflection on today's society if people can not just sit and think for 15 minutes?
For the record I would have ZERO problem doing this at all... in fact I could think for hours... although having a pencil and paper to keep track of ideas and plans would be helpful.
Another study with subjective criteria, no scientific rigor, and coming to arbitrarily conclusions based on already flawed data! I never even saw this coming!
Not Buddhists for sure
Are people mindless?
nosig today
Sensory deprivation experiments, partial or full, have been going on for decades. How is this 'news' to the scientific community?
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I just read this study as an example of how people are completely disconnected from their own inner life and addicted to constant stimulation. Seriously, an electric shock instead of enjoying a little bit of peace and quiet and a chance to gather yourself? What kind of total lack of self-control is that?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If they put me in a room and told me a button would give me a shock, I'd probably push it once. Not out of boredom, but curiosity.
I'd be interested to see what percentage of people pushed the button twice.
and I like my thoughts. I just feel that I should point that out, to stop the tide of generalization.
I'd be interested to know the correlation between each candidate experience and whether they are introvert or extrovert on the Myers-Briggs scale.
Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel demeanor. He said: "They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad." ...
The Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving.
The Power of Now, p. 62 - 63.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
I wonder how closely these numbers corresponded to people being introvert / extroverts, I'd expect a big correlation.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Facebook generation.
According to the paper, all participants had experienced the shock before and had reported that they would pay not to experience it again. Then, during the thinking period, 67% of the men and 25% of the women shocked themselves again, so I don't think this was out of curiosity.
Fun fact: One participant administered 190 shocks to himself.
It calms me and it clears my head. Being in a with people exhausts me.
ayottesoftware.com
It DOES depend on where the electrodes were attached to be fair...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Scientists: http://xkcd.com/242/
It would be interesting to see results of this over generations. My suspicion is that we're much more impatient now than we used to be say 30-50 years ago. I think there's a big difference between people who grew up w/o 24/7 entertainment (I call them the "I'm bored" generation), and someone who grew up like me...only child, spent summers at a cottage w/o access to TV, radio, etc, swam competitively several years...six days a week with my head in the water for several hrs. a day. There's certainly downside to my upbringing, not learning decent social skills at the same pace as your peers.
Just another day in Paradise
electric shock not large enough magnitude
In related news,scientists have discovered a correlation between "thinks that signing up for experiments is fun" and "extrovert".
"What's the reason for closing down my place?"
"I'm shocked, shocked to find there's gambling going on here."
"Your winnings, sir."
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
"This is just fascinating: Joe Henrich and his colleagues are shaking the foundations of psychology and economics, and explain why social science studies of Westerners — and Americans in particular — don't really tell us about the human condition: 'Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.'"
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
So I can say that without any stimulation I can sit for about a day and a half without any real problem. I get along with me just fine.
I know this rather well due to hunting deer in Wisconsin. Yes, you sit there for a little over a week with very limited interaction. You can't make noise, you can't move too much. It's you and nature. Yes it is a type of meditation when you are not seeing any deer. For me this is what happens:
First half a day: I have tons of things to think about. Little niggling problems that I haven't had the time to sit and think about. Typically things like how can I best fix this at the house, what would the optimal method of doing this in this program be.
Second half of the day: Things quiet down a bit start thinking about the Wife, kids, finances... Figuring out what to do when this one or that one does something, how to best react...etc.
Day 2 first half: Hey look... nature... that tree is kinda neat... I wonder why it grew that way...
Day2 second half: Ok, ummmm what now.... kinda bored... what time is it... oh, two minutes since I last checked.
Day 3+: Find things to be interested in... a single squirrel or bird can be hours of entertainment and the highlight of your day.
6-15 minutes!?!? Man, I haven't even finished thinking about that hot girl I saw on the way in! lol
I wonder, was that sample of people take from a single city/state/country whatever?
Generalising this to a study of, "People" might be more than a little misleading...
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
Hahaha! Funny article is funny. A large percentage of the readership of this site have no problem just sitting still and thinking. For quite a few of them, it's their job. Norms, or people not in STEM, think differently and choose not to actively use their brains.
Who woulda thunk? The few non-STEM people that read the article will think it's sort of weird. The majority of people that it's about won't even see it. Nerds innately know this crap anyway, but are too busy going about their business to care.
Or maybe not, yours probably revolve around dodgy sex too :-)
That depends - are you talking style or species?
also, what is a "mild" shock? given the option of a small shock to leave, it's no big deal, just a momentary tingle. crank it up to 240V and see how many people press the button for a full two seconds to leave early.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I think that's precisely what I'd be do as well. I wouldn't be able to resist experimenting with the only electrical device in the room. At least once anyway.
I think they need to diversify the volunteers population. They will be amazed to see how many people exists that can be up to eight hours at day without doing anything :)
A university press release, so my money is on the participants being any student wandering round campus who saw the sign offering $5 for doing experiments in the Psychology Dept. Not biased at all.
Press release says the research is coming out in Science today so can check later.
Actually the PR does say they started with college students and then found some older people to play with, so ignore me.
On the other hand, there are people happily paying to go into a sensory deprevation tank.
It's all about context. If you choose the sensory deprevation, it's relaxation, if you're put into the same situation, it's boredom.
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Study seems to give weight to the already considerable evidence that solitary confinement is psychological torture.
I was told once by someone doing their Masters in Psychology that the vast majority of research starts on university students, exactly as you initially described, and then moves onto a broader pool of people to eliminate that as a variable.
But undergraduate university students are probably the most studied group on the planet from a psychology perspective, precisely because for a little extra credit, or a small amount of cash, they're a readily available pool of subjects.
Which is odd, because you'd think by now someone would understand them. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
When confronted with a complex problem -- often one involving data structures -- I'll often sit down and think it through. There does come a "wall" at about the five to fifteen minute mark where it becomes increasingly difficult to keep focus and keep thoughts ordered. But it's only by going through that wall that you get to the point where you can really clear your mind and focus on the problem. I suspect in the modern world of distractions, people haven't had enough experience of this or practice at it.
"The wisdom of the Patriarchs was that they *knew* they were fools." --Master Foo
Well, can't speak for the original poster, but where there's woods, there's wood. Knives can do interesting things with wood.
INTJ and 15 minutes of just thinking are no problem. Even less so since I began doing some meditation a bit over a year ago.
... to flip the result entirely: padded recliner.
AND be shocked by my own thoughts. /trick
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I wonder if the test would be the same if they had let people shock themselves ponce beforehand and then asked them to sit in there for 15 minutes. It seems to me that if you put a big red shiny button in front of them and tell them to ignore it, you're testing their limits of curiosity and self restraint more than their ability to sit and think quietly. It's a "Don't think about punk elephants!" situation.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
the subtext is you are bored by your own thoughts
For the nocturnal badgers. Vicious. Kill you as soon as look at you.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Erotic is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken.
And don't forget the vampire squirrels! http://science.slashdot.org/st...
What kind of idiots did they pick for their study?
Most people don't get shocked very often. Sit in a room, think to yourself, "I wonder what that's like". Try it once, realize it sucks, and leave it alone would be the behavior I'd expect from most people.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
15 minutes in an empty room.
Have gnu, will travel.
*IF AND ONLY IF* they had agreed to sit for 15 minutes but were permitted to leave right away after shocking themselves -- and some did so, could the researchers claim that some people would rather endure a shock than be alone with their thoughts.
As the experiment was conducted (correct me if I'm wrong!) they agreed to sit out the period alone and all of them did so. They were not asked to refrain from pressing the button..
So the only difference from the basic experiment was the presence of the button which offered entertainment and also enlightenment -- in the form of providing the subject an opportunity to test and prove they could endure the shock, a new and unfamiliar experience.
In this version the experimenters FAILED to provide an environment with NO stimulation. They merely reduced available entertainment options to one, the button.
What the experiment did prove is that given time alone to think and reflect -- people will reevaluate their own aversion to an "unpleasant" sensation and decide to take advantage of an opportunity to better themselves by proving (to themselves) they can endure it.
This is SO DIFFERENT from the conclusion that people are little scardie-rabbits who cannot endure being alone with themselves, these researchers should be ashamed of themselves for irresponsibly portraying this, or permitting this to be portrayed in the news without rebuttal. They should apologize and re-do the experiment.
Hrrrmph. These subjects were cheated. These times are full of shoddy research and tabloid sound-bite conclusions like this.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
and yeah, I did really really mean to use "retard" - feed up with PC nonsense today
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
dodgy, not doggy.
you've been doing something so long its starting to affect your eyesight :-)
When I read this I was shocked!
As usual, the abstract draws a general conclusion. Due to the paywall I can't check it, but presumably, as usual, they didn't actually test a wide variety of people from all sorts of international cultures. To judge from their results, I guess they didn't test primarily Tibetan monks.
I am not surprised that the likely demographic of the tests, when you deprive them of their cellphones and don't give them anything else to do, turn to autoaggressive behaviour. Over the past year I have experienced how students at a German school behave nowadays if they have to hand in their cellphones, and how the behaviour improves if they are allowed to keep and use them or if they have a PC with internet connection.
Do I get to smoke a joint first?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Most people haven't experienced sensory deprivation, so it would be something interesting (at least briefly).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This wasn't a test of anything but the subjects attention span. If the shock was so mild as to not offer sufficient disincentive, I'm surprised more participants didn't elect to just get the process over with as soon as they grew bored and felt confined. Change the parameters of the experiment to include a more prolonged discomfort and see what happens.
When I read this study, I had considered posting something about how this relates to prison, eg "it would be more humane to occasionally shock prisoners than just keep them in a cage". I've long thought that prison was cruel and unusual punishment, albeit not because of how they were treated but because of how it removes them from society, ironically* replacing their social support network of family and friends with a society composed of criminals and being the single biggest predictor that they will go to jail in the future. Yet I get the feeling that occasionally giving prisoners a mild electric shock would be considered cruel and unusual punishment, even if it were in lieu of some jailtime, yet hardly anyone considers that jail itself is cruel and unusual (and mostly good for turning its victims into career criminals).
*ironically for the taxpayers and victims, good business sense for the for-profit jail managers. Gotta increase shareholder value!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
In the margins of the original study notes it is noted that two percent of the subjects sat in the room, "trying to think very loudly" as they guessed that the purpose of the study was to try to read their minds and they "just wanted to help out." These subjects were given freezer pops and escorted from the building. One asked, "is this to cool my brain after all the hard thinking?"
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I have trouble focusing my thoughts on stuff for longer then 20 seconds at a time. I can do it, but I have trouble, very easily distracted, mainly by my own thoughts.
Now my ADHD doesn't like me doing nothing for 15 minutes, but I can be alone with my own thoughts, dang, it's how i entertain myself.
TBH, I'd probably space out and not even realize 15 minutes have gone by.
I live alone, I prefer to be alone, my biggest contact with people is thru online video games. And most the time I'm trying to kill them (just kidding, I play EQ2 mainly, love raiding).
We are social creatures, but get the fuck off my lawn before i shoot you.
Be seeing you...
After major surgery when one starts to return to consciousness the personality seems to lag behind a bit. You will still recognize your internal voice but you just are not present as a person. It is sort of a lovely experience. You have always been you. And now you are sort of awake and can think but the "you" is sort of missing for a few minutes. It is like a vacation and something to look forward to. The other effect is that you are so far under during major surgery that even dreams are blocked out. In effect you are dead. And that is pretty real as my surgery involved stopping my heart and being on a machine for six hours. The difference between being alive and dead at that point is theoretical and from that perspective death is no problem at all. You do not feel, think or notice a thing. Under lite anesthesia vivid and happy dreams take place for me. I had a dental assistant think that I was fighting to wake up and she was trying to help me but the opposite was true. I was fighting to stay under and finish my dream. I do understand why Michael Jackson loved Propocol.
"when we don't give it anything to focus on, it's kind of hard to know what to do."
The stillness... focus on the stillness...
They don't give the power of the shock in either the summary or the article. Perhaps these people valued their time enough that they'd rather have the electric shock and move onto other things that day. I mean, if I could get money and extra 15 minutes out for my day for a brief shock, I might consider that although I enjoy being alone for long stretches of time. What is the opportunity cost here?
Also, Slashdot: a place where nerds come together to talk about being alone.
Limited protection. But the 2 things you should ALWAYS carry on you are a hatchet(or knife) and a lighter. If you get lost out in the wilderness those two things can be rather helpful.
"That's right...I said it."
Whoa, I am not saying you are right or wrong, but why are you so angry about this?
This might be one of those many flawed studies.
How many times did they shock themselves? If it was just once and then they sat there without doing it again then perhaps it was more of curiosity than not being able to be alone and deprived of stimuli.
Many people are very curious about stuff.
And some are stupid or rebellious - if you tell them don't push a button many of them will push the button without trying to find out why not e.g. they might ask "You mean this button?" and then push it...
Also known as the Separate System. It was a system of organizing prisons so every inmate spend their time in solitary. A lot of the inmates went crazy. This isn't anything to do with modern society. There's a reason solitary in modern prisons is punishment.
The current incarnation of the media might need this—especially if they rely on advertising instead of being paid by the people who consume what they produce. As it turns out, who pays determines what is made/said! This is merely capitalism at work, and here I mean 'capitalism' entirely neutrally—an emergent system based on many individuals voting on their conception of 'good' and 'bad'. Yeah I've been reading some F.A. Hayek recently. I don't think all incarnations of the media require this. Some might need actual mature adults. You know, if they wanted to actually make the world a better place instead of spread inanity and mediocrity around like some cheap butter substitute. (Yeah, I'm a butter supremacist.)
It seems to me that the popularity of music may have something to do with the the need to replace thinking during times of low sensory stimulation. I'm not a great thinker but I'd rather try than to have a constant stream of tunes running through my head. "Do-di-do-di-do-di-dooty-do". It's almost painful.
Whoa, I am not saying you are right or wrong, but why are you so angry about this?
Thanks kindly for asking.
Because some one needs to stand up for the whole damned human race. I'm no stellar specimen -- but someone needs to do it. Misanthropy is becoming "cool", in the guise of clumsily vague self-effacing applied psychoanalysis, in environmental activism, in trendy herd angst. Now that we have developed this comfortable security blanket of modern technology, some of us feel no need to show respect for our own kind on any scale whatsoever.
In the case of the study, this simple 'respect' might have taken the form of following up on the men and women who administered themselves shocks to determine their real motivation for doing so. Could be mere curiosity, or a desire to endure/accomplish something one had dismissed as scary/unthinkable. For all we know, some of the subjects could have believed they were expected to use the button at least once. Why was it there at all if it had no other effect (such as releasing them from remaining contemplation time)?
I find it perfectly healthy that half of the people admitted they "hated" the experience of enforced idleness on some one else's terms. Asking people their feelings towards contemplation, especially in cases the subject could choose their own place, that's real research. The part with the shock-button was badly done and butt-ugly.
These psychologist boffins who put their heads together only to discern only one possible motive for pushing the button -- being "tormented" by boredom or idleness, my response is what the fuck. Why am I angry? Without passionate opinion life itself is a dull study in uselessness that none would care to read.
___
The press has already seized on this pop-psych tabloid lollipop and is slurping on it nosily:
"When asked to sit alone in a room, with nothing but a button that administers an electric shock, men will choose to take that shock more often than not. Yes, a series of 11 experiments has confirmed that men would rather experience a mild electric current course through their body, than think."
~Wired UK
"People, and especially men, hate being alone with their thoughts so much that they'd rather be in pain."
~Washington Post
"In a new study, people who were asked to spend a few minutes alone with their thoughts disliked it so much that they would zap themselves with electricity during their alone time."
~LA Times
"The results are a testament to our discomfort with our own thoughts, say psychologists, and to the challenge we face when we try to rein them in." [...] " In the next experiment, participants were given a small electric shock that was so unpleasant that three-quarters of them said they would be willing to pay not to experience the shock again. Yet when they were placed in the room to sit alone with their thoughts, 67 percent of male participants and 25 percent of female subjects were so eager to find something to do that they shocked themselves voluntarily."
~Business Standard [India]
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I can sit in a room by myself for any length of time, and not go stir crazy. There ARE things to think about. I say this indicates 'well adjusted'-ness, I am well adjusted. Am I normal ?
cjacobs001
They probably start with students because in the beginning they aren't testing the subjects, they're testing the test, trying to make sure there are no unanticipated bugs.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...are the ones who can't agree with themselves as to how many lights there are.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
So the only difference from the basic experiment was the presence of the button which offered entertainment and also enlightenment -- in the form of providing the subject an opportunity to test and prove they could endure the shock, a new and unfamiliar experience.
Yeah, except it wasn't actually "new and unfamiliar." Those who did this phase of the study were selected because they had been previously shocked AND had found the previous experience SO disagreeable that they were willing to PAY not to endure it again.
What the experiment did prove is that given time alone to think and reflect -- people will reevaluate their own aversion to an "unpleasant" sensation and decide to take advantage of an opportunity to better themselves by proving (to themselves) they can endure it.
What evidence do you have of this? Did you interview the subjects yourself and ask about their motivations? If not, how is your theory about why they acted any better than the one offered by the researchers?
The subjects were asked to sit quietly and think. The button may have been presented, but they certainly weren't encouraged to press it. In fact, they previously had indicated how much they hated the sensation of pressing it, so it seems rather strange to assume that the subjects would feel like they were in any sense being encouraged to press it now. Regardless of their motivation (either simple boredom or some noble "learning" or "conquering" narrative in your elaborate made-up accounts of potential psychological motivation), the net result is the same: even though asked to simply sit quietly and think, the subjects often chose to revisit a stimulus they previously had found very disagreeable instead of just thinking.
This is SO DIFFERENT from the conclusion that people are little scardie-rabbits who cannot endure being alone with themselves, these researchers should be ashamed of themselves for irresponsibly portraying this, or permitting this to be portrayed in the news without rebuttal. They should apologize and re-do the experiment.
You are being more than a little crazy here. You've concocted an elaborate story about what you're absolutely positive these subjects MUST have been thinking, and therefore you've decided the researchers are not only morons, but immoral people.
Do you know whether the subjects participated in any exit interviews? Do you have evidence to support your ideas? If not, your insane rant isn't any more likely than other explanations.
And even if you're right, and you're giving a detailed and accurate portrayal of how some (or most) subjects were feeling, the researchers' conclusion is still correct. It's not like the researchers said that the subjects may not have various motivations -- but the point is that the subjects chose painful "entertainment" (as you put it) that they had previously said they would avoid, rather than following the basic task they were asked to do (simple sit quietly and think).
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/oct/24/ceder-fire-san-diego-ten-years-later/
ISTP, I would have no problem being alone with myself, there are plenty of exciting things to mentally figure out!
Eat the rich.
The excerpt/summary of the study from the source is so vague nothing real can be gleaned from it. Probably a similar study can conclusively show that most people prefer to be left to their thoughts and not engage the world around them. So what does this tell us?