[FernandoTN]

The study mentioned is "Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75

>Next, participants received our standard instructions to entertain themselves with their thoughts (in this case for 15 min). If they wanted, they learned, they could receive an electric shock again during the thinking period by pressing a button. We went to some length to explain that the primary goal was to entertain themselves with their thoughts and that the decision to receive a shock was entirely up to them. Many participants elected to receive negative stimulation over no stimulation—especially men: 67% of men (12 of 18) gave themselves at least one shock during the thinking period [range = 0 to 4 shocks, mean (M) = 1.47, SD = 1.46, not including one outlier who administered 190 shocks to himself], compared to 25% of women (6 of 24; range = 0 to 9 shocks, M = 1.00, SD = 2.32).

You can read the complete study here, https://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pdf

I´m quite intrigued about the outlier who managed to shock himself every 4.7 seconds for 15 minutes straight. Was he trying to go for a record or just plain masochism...

[automatoney]

Thanks for finding this, was it linked in the article and I just missed it?

Either way, I was wondering if people shocked themselves out of curiosity, but the part after what you quoted says "Note that these results only include participants who had reported that they would pay to avoid being shocked again... But what is striking is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 min was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid." They all already knew what it would feel like and they did it anyway.

[FernandoTN]

No, it was not properly referenced in the article. I had previously seen the study.

From the supplementary material:

> All participants delivered the shock to themselves in this first part of the study. Thus, in Part 2 of the study, when people had the opportunity to shock themselves again, everyone knew what the shock entailed and how painful it was.

They also asked the participants to rate the experience from the sock in a 1-10 scale (negative to positive) and removed all participants who didn't find the shock as a negative experience.

The grade the remaining participants gave to the shock experience was in the lowest part of the scale, which makes it even more insane:

> ratings of the shock, t(52) = 1.40, p = .167

[RobertRoberts]

It's too bad studies like this have errors (obvious only in retrospect). I learned as a kid to entertain myself with thoughts and can do so easily for a long time.

But I will shock myself at least once just to see how bad the shock is... not because I would be bored.

(unless they took this into account and let everyone shock themselves before starting the experiment? That would be smart of them... didn't have time to read the study)

[automatoney]

I wondered about the same, see my sibling comment. They all had been shocked and had said they'd pay to not be shocked again.

[purple-again]

I am you and you are me! I have to reign in the day dreaming or I can sit on a bench happy in my mind for hours. I too would have to shock myself at least once to assuage my curiosity.