Brooks: Boredom studies show most men choose electric shocks over sitting alone
Arthur Brooks · Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks on the simulation we're living in | Masters of Scale · Mar 27, 2026 · at 12:50
Harvard professor Arthur Brooks cites social psychology experiments to explain people's aversion to unoccupied downtime on Masters of Scale.
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“The Dan Gilbert, my colleague at Harvard, who's a visionary social psychologist, he's done boredom experiments, where he puts people in a room in a chair for 15 minutes with nothing to do and nothing to look at, nothing to listen to, and the only choice they have besides sitting there quietly is pushing a key fob with a button that will shock them. Self-administers, it's painful electric shocks. In 15 minutes, a quarter of the women shock themselves and two-thirds of the dudes”
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