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Quote : “In this work the team induced depression in rats either chemically or by inducing what's called "learned helplessness." (The latter involves training t
by eecc 9y ago
Quote : “In this work the team induced depression in rats either chemically or by inducing what's called "learned helplessness." (The latter involves training the rats to recognize that they have no control over negative consequences in their environment.)”
Oh shit... that’s quite disturbing
- pault 9y agoThe genesis of the learned optimism movement was Dr. Seligman locking dogs in a cage and giving them electric shocks until they gave up trying to avoid them. This is somewhat glossed over in his books...
- hugi 9y agoApparently they made the rats work on maintaining legacy software.
- SpikeDad 9y agoGood thing this study wasn't around during Y2K - the rats would have killed themselves.
- turbinerneiter 9y agoWhile getting paid? No, they sent them to get their Ph.D.
- scarmig 9y agoThey train the doctoral rats to induce depression in other rats for research purposes, thus completing the cycle.
- rxhernandez 9y agoWith the addendum that it's Class 1 biomedical device software and no one has any real clue about how it works.
- wavefunction 9y agoThat sounds kind of fun, if perhaps lethally risky for whatever poor soul is relying on the device. If there weren't the results of mistakes leading to death or illness, I'd think black-box re-engineering a device like that would be one of the more interesting projects to take on.
- gjvc 9y agoMany a true word spoken in jest. Damn.
- oblib 9y agoNow that is funny!
- itronitron 9y agoand then updating the documentation and test plans
- jakobloekke 9y agoUnless the rats turn to stoicism. Then the joke’s on the researchers.
- udev 9y agoThis is exactly what I thought. Could it be that their results are confounded by a mix of rats for which the induced state of helplessness results in depression and some other rats for which this resulted in enlightenment of sorts.
- gryn 9y agois their enlightenment related to cheese ?
- badpun 9y agoLearned helplessness would manifest differently than stoicism. In LH you don't take clearly good (for external observer) opportunities because you believe it will all end badly anyway.
- im3w1l 9y agoHow can the stoic be so much more knowledgeable about whether the opportunity will work out or not?
- badpun 9y agoThe stoic may have imperfect assesment of the opportunity's true value, but in LH the assesment is way more off - it's basically always zero for all opportunities.
- im3w1l 9y ago> Research has found that a human's reaction to feeling a lack of control differs both between individuals and between situations. i.e. learned helplessness sometimes remains specific to one situation but at other times generalizes across situations.[6][8][9]
- entropie 9y agoMore than a few dogs show this behaviour.
- mattmanser 9y agoThe original studies on learned helplessness used dogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness#Early_key_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness#Early_key...
- joaomacp 9y agoLearned Helplessness is a really curious subject. I think the current capitalist system in western countries relies heavily on this mechanism - "I must work for many hours, otherwise I will become unemployed, so I am bound to this life" is a thought that kills many people's dreams, and relies on a false belief. In fact, you CAN survive without working full-time, trying to work for yourself on novel things, and it's probably a more fulfilling and engaging life, versus willingly giving all your time to your employer. I was first introduced to the concept by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPzDiraNnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPzDiraNnA
- ddorian43 9y agoThey made them watch the news!
- zamazingo 9y agoApparently it's funny to most hn'ers. I'm guessing they aren't clear on what it takes to teach helplessness.
- dang 9y agoLet's not assume that about most HNers.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- c3534l 9y agoYeah, they basically torture rats to test antidepressants. It's really upsetting.