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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?
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.
Not Buddhists for sure
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)
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
In related news,scientists have discovered a correlation between "thinks that signing up for experiments is fun" and "extrovert".
"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
Actually the PR does say they started with college students and then found some older people to play with, so ignore me.
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.
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.
AND be shocked by my own thoughts. /trick
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
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.
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.
*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.
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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
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]
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