I Kind of Believe It: A Large Number of Our Fellow Citizens Would Rather Subject Themselves to Painful Electric Shocks Than To Sit Alone With Their Thoughts

They find thinking so unpleasant they'd prefer external pain to that internal pain.

Now, this sounds like another hyped-up, silly psychological study which will be debunked in three weeks but we'll still hear people citing it sixty five years from now.

But, on the other hand, my opinion of my fellow American has sunk to such hellish depths I'm kinda buying it.

You know, to celebrate July 4th, let's officially make this Hellish Dystopia Day. I've got another semi-creepy sci-fi story coming next.

People, and especially men, hate being alone with their thoughts so much that they’d rather be in pain. In a study published in Science Thursday on the ability of people to let their minds "wander" -- that is, for them to sit and do nothing but think -- researchers found that about a quarter of women and two-thirds of men chose electric shocks over their own company.

...

When it became clear that people were desperate for distractions, the researchers decided to give them one. "It dawned on us: If people find this so difficult," Wilson said, "would they prefer negative stimulations to boredom?" He gave them access to a device that would provide a small electrical shock by pressing a button. It wasn’t a very strong shock, as the device was built around a 9 volt battery. "But we weren’t even sure it was worth doing," he said. "I mean, no one was going to shock themselves by choice."

But they did....

One guy shocked himself 190 times. But he was an outlier and they tossed his data out of the group.

Of course that was a dude, and I can guess why he was doing that.

posted by Ace at 02:37 PM

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