
The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology - jonbaer
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-bad-news-on-human-nature-in-10-findings-from-psychology
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platz
All the evidence for claims is from single studies.

I'm sure all of those will replicate.

Just like ego depletion and smiling in the mirror.

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some_not_all

      We would rather electrocute ourselves 
      than spend time in our own thoughts. 
    

It really doesn't matter what was demonstrated by that study. Whatever
percentage you want to try and come up with, it's still wrong for me.

How about instead of " _we_ " change that to " _some_ " and catch your breath
on the provocative tone of panic. That some might feel this way is no shock.
To presume _all_ is where the controversy lies.

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disgruntledphd2
Overall, 67% of men shocked themselves at least once, in Study 10 of a bunch
of studies.

The full text is on
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4330241/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4330241/)
and the data can be found at: [https://osf.io/cgwdy/](https://osf.io/cgwdy/)

Like, I'm not sure I believe this, but at least the data is available, so
other people can try different things with it.

~~~
some_not_all
Yeah, I'm aware. Can we frame the concept differently?

Why the projection of "alone with thoughts"? Why seed the concept of
existential dread in the mind of the reader of the study results?

How do the researchers _know_ that it was assuredly the terror of the
subject's own mind, their internal monologue or what have you, which certainly
provoked them to preoccupy themselves with pain?

Answer: they cannot know _why_ the individuals shocked themselves, but only
that the shock happened.

~~~
disgruntledphd2
Totally agreed. I have this dataset open in R at home, and intend to dig into
it a bit more. One would expect the meditation participants to be more
comfortable.

But to be fair, if I was left alone in a room with a button that would shock
me, I would probably push the button at least once.

~~~
ajsalminen
> But to be fair, if I was left alone in a room with a button that would shock
> me, I would probably push the button at least once.

That was my thought as well but didn't they provide a sample of how it feels
to each participant beforehand so it was not new to them anymore?

