Interesting Social Psychology Experiment

[I D Shukhov]

A textbook I have shows the the following 2 pictures:

Picture 1) A raccoon and a rat are in box on an electrified grate.  Each animal is minding their own business as far away from each other as they can get.
Picture 2) A shock is applied to the grate and the raccoon is now seen savagely attacking the rat.

Caption:  "The pain-attack reaction:  Upon receiving a shock or other painful effect, many animals will automatically attack whatever animal is within reach."

A paragraph goes onto state:   "Do rats alone react this way?   The researchers wanted to know.  So next they found that with a wide variety of species, the cruelty the animals imposed upon each other matched zap for zap the cruelty imposed upon them."

Apparently we are wired at the limbic system level to kick the dog when we come home after a bad day at work.   Not that this excuses anything because we have a cerebral cortex, so we're responsible for our behavior.

[DG9]

This may explain why half the population seems to be on mood altering meds.  may be just to keep everyone from killing each other! Yikers!!!

[I D Shukhov]

This may explain why half the population seems to be on mood altering meds.  may be just to keep everyone from killing each other! Yikers!!!

It's just something to be mindful of, IMO.   The paying-somebody-back behavior is hardwired, but since we're humans we can choose to do things differently -- like getting away from the situation instead of lashing out or, if that's not possible, exercising.

[Carrie Cobol]

Speaking as someone who's dealt with chronic pain for, well decades, this applies to humans as well.  I've noticed in myself and in others who I knew had pain issues that pain makes you cranky.  The level of crank scales with the intensity of the pain. 

It sounds kind of lame, but this principal helps my marriage at times.  DH and I both deal with pain at times from chronic musculoskeletal issues - or as I like to say for the alliteration, connective tissue issues.  If I comment on DH being grumpy and then ask if he's hurting and he says yes, then I'm like "ahh" and get off his back.  On the other hand when he's just cranky for mood reasons, then I poke his cage a bit to try to snap him out of it.  It never works, but who doesn't enjoy poking the other guy a bit?

[David Randolph]

I have my doubts about the original point. I could see that in a badger.

However, it is clear that human societies tend to do that. When a society is in pain, it is much easier to find a scapegoat and kill that person rather than deal with the real issues. This scapegoating is far more likely to happen when there isn't a clear understanding of why the society is in pain. Thus, we have antisemitism / anti gypsy / anti gay sweep Germany between the wars and we have had similar efforts in our country. Politicians have used that to try to gain power (McCarthy, Nixon, and others).

[Carrie Cobol]

Yes.  Another angle is the overcrowded rats experiment.  Which we can see in the human world on modern day airliners.  They've got the seats squashed together so closely that the guy in front reclines into your lunch/knees (or breaks your laptop screen).  I enjoy a forum called Flyertalk and about five times a year somebody starts a long flame-fest about reclining.  The I-have-a-right-to-recline crowd fight viciously with the I-have-a-right-to-my-space crowd and neither ever turn their angst/anger on the real culprits:  the airlines.

[DarkHumour]

I wonder how this experiment fairs against the recent study about "last place aversion", e.g. in a group where you're told that two other participants are present - one poor and one rich they found that people preferred to give more money to the rich person.

I guess the theory was that people who have inclination against poor people (e.g perceived as 'losers') are actually afraid that by helping them they are are going to socially advance upward.  This change shuffles the order and now the helper is 'the loser'.

DarkHumour

[I D Shukhov]

I have my doubts about the original point. I could see that in a badger.

I looked again -- David G. Myers'  Social Psychology, 3rd Ed., chapter 12 -- Aggression.    It's definitely a raccoon and a rat.  I don't think a badger would be suitable for this type of experiment because it would start killing the other animal without the shock stimulus.

[unix]

It's the old Maslow's hierarchy of values. Food and shelter will come first before some abstractions like love and empathy. But don't be so sure that's always the case, they are always people who give up their seat in the overcrowded lifeboat.

I think it's completely misguided to equate people to rats and then find some parallels and draw some conclusions from it.  People are not rats. Although they say "Rats are people too".