Originally published at: New study shows that people prefer physical pain to thinking too hard | Boing Boing
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Geez I wonder if this means people who have self-harmed under significant mental duress are just experiencing a symptom of humanity and should be treated as such?
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I remember reading about this and being pretty surprised because I do complicated puzzles and stuff to “relax.” (To be clear, I’m not insinuating I’m in any way “better than” anyone in the study or would respond differently, I was just surprised, given my voluntary hobby.)
Oof, @TornPaperNapkin - that’s an interesting take I hadn’t even considered.
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There’s a lot of people who prefer other people’s pain to thinking too hard.
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Like @ClutchLinkey I didn’t consider this, but having read it, I think you’re really on to something. This is a smart and empathetic take, friend!
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Alternative take - people will rather gnaw off their own arms than undertake pointless boring tasks like remembering letters on a screen.
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I came here to comment on the post… but decided I should just stub my toe instead of thinking of something to say…
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There’s probably an element of voluntary vs involuntary to it, too. The group they tested agreed to do the study, but the challenge questions were not only “involuntary” but also pointless. Like you describe, when I go into an intellectual challenge that I choose to take on, it’s usually a fun experience. When it is something I’m forced to do, I would describe it as literally painful.
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You think too hard, you blow yourself in two
It can happen to you
It can happen to you
Now do it again, but correlate for performance on the test. Maybe it was only the people who were bad at it that preferred the zap over feeling dumb.
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Interesting take. Thank you.
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Yes, according to the original post, people given the 3-back test preferred low to moderate pain, but people given the 4-back test (harder) went for more intense pain.
In addition to the factors mentioned by others here, I suspect it also has something to do with fear of failure. Trying a challenging mental task and not succeeding means you have to consider the idea that you aren’t good enough to succeed at that task. It is damaging to your ego. People really hate to think of themselves as failures even at little things. But accepting pain isn’t failure. It can almost be seen as courageous. So many would choose to do the “courageous” thing rather than look stupid.
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Is 120 degrees that uncomfortable? That’s what my water heater is set to and I don’t really mind a max temp shower…or is that not a fair comparison? Just curious, not “I’m tougher than they are” bs. Plus, do they even allow ‘excruciating’ pain in experiments at universities these days? Seems like there would be both ethical and legal boundaries beyond moderate discomfort.
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…in conclusion, those of us conducting the study decided we’d rather put out cigarettes on our forearms than write up a conclusion.
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I think it may be more complicated then that. It may be that the “pain” they are giving is actually not as painful as they seem to think it is. Maybe to the participants its at most mildly discomforting, or not really bothersome at all. Or perhaps, [not trying to kink shame here] it is actually stimulating to many of the participants, and they end up getting an endorphin rush from it, similar to the “rush” that some people get from things like running, or weight lifting, or scary things like roller coaster rides. “Spanking” is an actual kink that acutal people go out of their way to get (ok, probably everyone on BBS is well aware of that) So is “dripping hot wax on body parts” for that matter. So, the level of exciting “pain” they are giving in this experiment may actually be more of a reward to many of the participants, rather than deterrent. So of course a lot of them are going to prefer it to some dull boring puzzle question.
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I wonder if they chose the painful task - or if they chose the task they couldn’t fail at. The easier one. The one that had no risk of making them feel dumb.
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