Hurry is a bad advisersays the proverb … but given the results of some scientific studies of recent years it would be appropriate to replace “haste” with “boredom”. In fact, it seems that being left alone with our thoughts for a few minutes do not make us wise decisions: in order to receive an external stimulus, we are willing to give and receive pain – chopping worms and administering electrical discharges, for example.
Arranged to (almost) everything in order to challenge boredom
In a study published on ScienceVolunteers were asked – between the different experiments conducted – to remain for 15 minutes sitting in a room to think without any distraction. If they wanted, they could administer an electric discharge that had already tried and defined “unpleasant” (even claiming that they would be willing to pay to not receive it). During the 15 minutes, 67% of men and 25% of women self -caught at least one electric discharge – with a participant who even reached 190 total discharges.
In addition to making us seek even painful external stimuli for ourselves, boredom makes us become bad towards others: it demonstrates a study published on Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Which highlighted to which point we can push ourselves when we are bored. The researchers showed a group of participants with a boring 20 -minute video that broadcast images of a waterfall, and another group an interesting documentary in the Alps of similar duration. Both groups had three glasses full of live worms and a mincaffè (modified without their knowledge so as not to hurt animals) to use, if they wanted it, to shredd them. While only one of the 62 participants who had seen the documentary tried to do it, as many as 12 of the 67 people who had bored themselves looking at the images of a waterfall tried to use the grinding grinding to shredd at least one (poor) worm.
Because boredom can become risky
What emerges from these studies shows not only that boredom makes us impulsive, but also that it promotes antisocial behaviors: in those who tend to sadism, the absence of stimuli can lead to hurting others to entertain or unload emotionally.
