- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
At some point today you will disengage from the rest of the world and just think. It could happen any number of ways: if your mind wanders from work, while you’re sitting in traffic, or if you just take a quiet moment to reflect. But as frequently as we drift into our own thoughts, a new study suggests that many of us don’t like it. In fact, some people even prefer an electric shock to being left alone with their minds.
“I’m really excited to see this paper,” says Matthew Killingsworth, a psychologist at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, who says his own work has turned up a similar result. “When people are spending time inside their heads, they’re markedly less happy.”
The researchers then decided to take the experiment a step further. For 15 minutes, the team left participants alone in a lab room in which they could push a button and shock themselves if they wanted to. The results were startling: Even though all participants had previously stated that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to inflict it on themselves rather than just sit there quietly and think, the team reports online today in Science.
I would press the button because I’d be super curious at how strong the shock would be. My guess would be that it would be quite a mild shock, because it wouldn’t have gotten past the ethics committee if it was going to cause harm to the average person. That curiosity would lead me to press it at least once.
But also a big aspect that I feel they’re not considering in their conclusion is that agency plays a huge role. When I was a kid, my brother was curious about what it was like to use my uncle’s diabetes blood glucose monitor, and my uncle offered him the chance to try it.
After my brother and my mom tried it, they asked if I wanted to try and I was not keen, because I don’t like needles. My brother then tried to force me to have my finger pricked, and I became increasingly upset at the coercion (and the threat of physical force). My mom thought that my reaction was disproportionate, and asked why I was making such a big fuss when it barely hurt at all. Being forced to do something is so much worse than having the freedom to choose to do it to yourself.
It’s like forcing a cat into a box. If you just leave the box out, there’s a decent likelihood the cat will sit in the box of its own accord. If you try to force the cat into the box, then you will likely not escape unscathed. Choice matters.