Electric Shock Study Suggests We'd Rather Hurt Ourselves Than Others

Posted by Soulskill on Monday November 17, 2014 @03:28PM from the unless-it's-over-the-internet dept.

sciencehabit writes: If you had the choice between hurting yourself or someone else in exchange for money, how altruistic do you think you'd be? In one infamous experiment, people were quite willing to deliver painful shocks to anonymous victims when asked by a scientist. But a new study that forced people into the dilemma of choosing between pain and profit finds that participants cared more about other people's well-being than their own. It is hailed as the first hard evidence of altruism for the young field of behavioral economics.

2 of 123 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

This study is... by danknight48 · 2014-11-17 15:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Shocking.
Needs larger sample set. by Narcocide · 2014-11-17 15:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

My guess is these were all volunteers participating in the study "for science?"
My guess is that introduces a selection bias towards altruism. Test any of the several thousand people I've worked for, with, or very near over the past 20 years and I would guess that most of them wouldn't hesitate to shock the other person as much as was allowed, especially if they could be relatively certain the other person could not shock them back as a direct response.