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People behave more sadistically when they’re bored

• fosterdill 5y ago
  I don't know if putting a maggot through a grinder counts as acting sadistically. Boredom is dangerous though, sometimes when people are bored they do things like sneak a gun into a situation they know could turn violent and then pretend they're a hero
• quacked 5y ago
  If this is indeed true, it is yet another piece of evidence in the case for prison reform. Prisoners are universally bored, yet in many cases insufficiently protected from one another. Read accounts of any long-time convict's time in prison and you'll hear about excruciating boredom punctuated by acts of outrageous sadism.
  • mc32 5y ago
    So put them to work and pay them the going rate [in the normal economy] and use that toward victim restitution? If you pay them the market rate and this activity improves their well-being compared to being sedentary, I think it’s a win for all involved.
    • wizzwizz4 5y ago
      “The going rate” will be low, because of market dynamics. Either you need a prisoners' minimum wage, or you need to not do that; people do still have rights even if they've committed crimes. Put them in education, give them food and shelter, and they'll be better able to contribute to society when they get out.
      • tw04 5y ago
        They should have the option of school or work, with a minimum GPA required to stay in school. The biggest issue will be supervision of the grading to ensure it's not being abused either to punish people who are doing well or to let people off who aren't actually doing their work.
    • awb 5y ago
      I’d pass on the forced labor part, but make work at a going rate optional. Bring separated from everyone and everything you love is punishment enough in many cases.
    • smt88 5y ago
      Forced labor is an incentive to incarcerate more people. Incarceration should not be profitable. It would be better to give them daily education, therapy, recreation, etc. They have piloted such programs in the US with a lot of success at preventing recidivism. All of this can save costs in the long run. Paying for prison security, medical costs, maintenance, turnover, and recidivism is extremely expensive.
    • lapsedacademic 5y ago
      Forced labor in a fixed geographic region with strict security requirements is fundamentally incongruent with pricing power. I think prisoners should have the option to work and that they should be subject to all of the normal worker protection laws. Wages can go toward some combination of restitution and improving quality of life in prisons: food, lodging, entertainment in off hours, etc. Restitution should be limited to a fixed percentage of monthly income (as it is in the civilian world). Why? Because removing positive reinforcement from the act of labor has perverse psychological effects. These effects persist after incarceration and contribute to recidivism. This sort of system is insufficiently punitive for some, so the politics of these reforms are tricky.
      • notdemo88 5y ago
    • circleit 5y ago
      Look up CCI in Colorado. They pay almost nothing for prisoners to work in industries like manufacturing. They then sell these products to businesses so they can claim it was made in the USA (so awesome!). It’s all slave labor essentially. Then, with the skills these people learn, when they’re released they can’t get hired because they have a record. Whole thing is a disgusting joke. Taking advantage of people that ended up in their situation because they never had direction or opportunities to begin with. (Should mention they just got a new director and she is really awesome. Came from the women’s bean project. Hope she can make some positive change but she’ll have to fight a lot of bureaucracy.)
    • lostcolony 5y ago
      I'd be happy if we'd just get over this vindictive need to deprive prisoners of basic pleasures. I've seen outrage over the idea that prisoners have access to TVs, or gaming consoles, or similar, stories of wardens confiscating books and pen and paper and such. I understand there are some other concerns that may warrant keeping usage of some of those under surveillance or similar (keep a pencil from being used as a shiv say), but other countries don't try and make prisons as miserable an experience as possible, and they have far, far lower rates of recidivism and violence and such.
      • tristor 5y ago
        > I'd be happy if we'd just get over this vindictive need to deprive prisoners of basic pleasures. I won't argue that there aren't some people who have such a vindictive need, but in most cases where I've had conversations with folks about things like this, it's more that they oppose someone having a similar (or maybe "better") quality of life to what they have, without working to pay for it, and rather being paid for by them. The opposition to these things in prisons seem similar to the arguments I hear from people against social safety net things generally. Not to say these arguments are reasonable, but I don't think vindictiveness is the primary driving factor.
        • quacked 5y ago
          I understand their frustration, but I think it's a win-win situation to provide a nice life in prison. They get out of society so we don't have to deal with them and they also aren't subject to torturous conditions.
        • elliekelly 5y ago
          Is there a word that means the opposite of schadenfreude? Displeasure at the advancement of others?
          • WalterBright 5y ago
            envy
  • simmanian 5y ago
    I believe we should focus on separating criminals from non-criminals instead of punishing and torturing them. Give them an environment where they can thrive without being harmful to themselves and others. Let them re-join the society ONLY when they pose acceptable risk. This means violent criminals may never get to re-join the society, but that's okay given that they are still given a humane environment where they can stay healthy and thrive.
    • watwut 5y ago
      Basically, you suggest even longer sentences in country that already leads incarceration rates worldwide.
    • cm2012 5y ago
      Sounds like a pretty good compromise for public safety
    • quacked 5y ago
      I agree with you, I just think it would take a lot more money and effort to provide this environment.
      • serverholic 5y ago
        Ending the war on drugs would open up some room
    • mnw21cam 5y ago
      Isn't that basically how Australia was populated?
      • 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
        Australia was populated long before that. 100k or so convicts shipped over a century probably means fewer than 50k shipped-convict population at once, compared to an 800k aboriginal population (plus or minus a lot).
    • AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  • mensetmanusman 5y ago
    A family member was in prison for petty theft and breaking parole for over 25 years. When they got out, they didn’t even know how to drive because it started from teenage years (abusive father). I was shocked that the state didn’t spend an ounce of energy to at least teach these people basic skills. Now they are forced to live in cities where they are more likely to interact with bad influences. Anyway, I wonder if driving could be part of reform. E.g. let them be a part of the driving economy to build skills and support the nation.
    • kgran 5y ago
      I know a little about car-dependency in the US, but sheesh... I am always astounded how such things like driving being a basic skill or having a car being a necessity are unquestionable parts of living and culture there.
      • smegger001 5y ago
        it comes form having sparse sidewalks, no bikelanes and low desity so everything is far apart.
  • scythe 5y ago
    I mean the "obvious" alternative that satisfies those predicates is house arrest: separated from society, not in danger from other prisoners. So I'd ask: What prevents us from using house arrest as an alternative to imprisonment more often? How can those problems be addressed? Can we "build a better house arrest" -- maybe even from within the private sector?
  • namelessoracle 5y ago
    Prison is fundamentally flawed from a conceptual basis. Is the idea to reform someone? To make them not repeat their crime? Is it to punish? It is to discourage? It does none of these job as well as it could. Lets take for an example a semi successful drug dealer. Odds are the drug dealer choose that profession because the rewards were higher than the risks. So to discourage that you can 1) make prison so terrible he fears it more than the rewards from dealing 2) teach him something that is of comparable economic utility so he no longer wants to deal drugs. The problem is that option 2 is arguably a reward. If you create incentives to break rules ("I break the law and sell drugs, my punishment is that i get locked away from X years and be forced to learn a trade or get a degree") then why wouldnt you break rules? We seem to pretend we dont want 1. But I've seen plenty of comments from conservatives about how the criminals deserve what they get, and oddly enough I also hear "dont drop the soap" jokes from liberals when its people they dont like.... Then you have for example murderers. Quite a few murderers will probably never murder again. The man who kills his wife and her lover after catching them in bed, is probably not going to be killing anyone again. It was that set of situations that drove them to that. What more can the person do than classes on impulse control? And your going to get them to learn that by putting them in the place where the impulse stimulus is completely different than the regular world? What does life or a lengthy prison accomplish if punishment/deterrence is not the goal? Thats not even getting into the fact that prison is the main mental health provider for anyone with serious issues who cant get family to take care of them. (and even people who have family might not be able to afford their particular issues). A person with severe schizophrenia who attacks others can't really be reformed The only real fix is to be honest about what the goal of "prison" is. And break the concept out into reform, containment, and punishment. At least then you can optimize towards those goals.
    • the_jeremy 5y ago
      Making prison worse is unlikely to help[0] in that harsher sentences already don't help reduce crime. [0]: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/247350.pdf
      • namelessoracle 5y ago
  • inglor_cz 5y ago
    Or school reform.
  • pasquinelli 5y ago
    also a good reason to avoid social media.
• encryptluks2 5y ago
  There are a lot of factors that could contribute to sadistic behaviors aside from simply boredom. When people are bored, often they lack purpose and in the modern world a purpose can be difficult to find and follow, especially when depending on someones socioeconomic status it may seem near impossible to accomplish larger goals that they've already dismissed as near impossible (and rightfully so) that may prove to give them value. Maybe they need a career change. Depending on someones age and commitments, the idea of changing careers can be very difficult. How do you keep paying bills and working in a job you hate, taking care of family, but learn something new that will become fruitful. I can relate to feeling like you want to lash out at people, unfortunately often these can be people that just seem like easier targets. At least for me my lashing out is more about just being honest with people that normally I'd normally ignore, but have decided that I should just tell them the cold hard truths.
• ahallock 5y ago
  Does this bode well for when low-level (and even high-level) jobs are mostly automated and we need UBI?
• sleepysysadmin 5y ago
  Pleasure is fleeting. It must be or else you'd still be glowing from your first orgasm. Inevitably the search for pleasure will require variety and inevitably that variety brings you to inflicting pain on others. We do it publicly. The romans fed people to the lions. We have lots of violent sports. Nascar isn't about driving left. It's about the crashes. Hockey is about the fights and checking. Lets not even evaluate violent videogames. The real trick is understanding what's happening in your brain and controlling this before it gets to the need to inflict pain.
  • shmde 5y ago
    How is violent video games trying to inflict pain on others ?
    • kradeelav 5y ago
      I love violent video games and media as much as the next gal (Doom, ME3, Hellsing as an anime, etc) - but I can absolutely see the connection of trying to work out that pleasure/boredom with fiction.
    • pasquinelli 5y ago
      i think it expresses itself when players talk to each other.
      • PeterisP 5y ago
        IMHO multiplayer toxicity is orthogonal to game type, you get that both in "violent" shooting games and also in abstract strategy or card games; harming or griefing someone, or verbally abusing them is a thing no matter if the gameplay itself is violent or fluffy.
  • coolso 5y ago
    NASCAR and hockey are about a whole lot more than the things you mentioned, as any fan of either will tell you.
• omarhaneef 5y ago
  You can see this effect on school playgrounds and twitter.
  • awb 5y ago
    And in rat utopias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park
    • 0_____0 5y ago
      Cool theory with outsized cultural influence, but one would be remiss to not mention that the results of that study are on shaky ground and were not replicated.
    • the-dude 5y ago
      Rather we have a shortage of bored scientists : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
  • coolso 5y ago
    Speaking of which, what can we do to bring up the mean IQ of Twitter to the level of school playgrounds?
    • wizzwizz4 5y ago
      Give them access to toys. Imagine if Twitter users had skipping ropes!
    • JanisL 5y ago
      Give a higher maximum character limit
• surajs 5y ago
• ppeetteerr 5y ago
  Scientific proof that "The devil makes work for idle hands to do" is accurate Edit: not in a religious sort-of-way
  • throwawayboise 5y ago
    Yes, these old sayings are often grounded in reality, even if they are part of a larger philosophy based on faith.
    • rozap 5y ago
      And a lot of practices encoded into faith just grew out of reality. Like not eating pork because at the time, you'd get nasty things like trichinosis. But there's a lot of bullshit, too.
  • good8675309 5y ago
    Do non-christians really reject this type of wisdom just because it's biblical and only now accept it because we have scientific proof of it?
    • julianlam 5y ago
      No? The bible contains a lot of good advice packaged in the form of religious parables. They're not unique to religious people. E.g. "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is the same as "what goes around comes around"
    • ppeetteerr 5y ago
      I suspect religion adopted a lot of sound advice and made it religious
    • TameAntelope 5y ago
      If I'm being completely honest, once I discovered all of the manipulations and lies Christianity perpetrates on its people, everything else I hear about the religion I take with a heaping pile of salt, including wisdom I might, in a vacuum, accept. My thought is usually something like, "Yes, and how did this 'wisdom' help earlier Christian leaders control their followers?"
• dpeck 5y ago
  Perhaps this is why there is all the anecdotal evidence of people being asses to one another, and especially to “low status” retail workers and clerks over the last 2 years. (economic/influence based status here, of course all people should be given the same amount of default respect regardless of occupation or income level, but real life seldom plays out that way)
• enduser 5y ago
  This is a good case for redistribution of wealth.
  • AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Without more details it sounds like seeing everything as a nail when having a pet golden hammer.
  • inglor_cz 5y ago
    You have countries such as the oil sheikhdoms where the citizens (not the guest workers) have a lot of wealth and idle time. They didn't turn into creative utopias, quite to the contrary.
• lr4444lr 5y ago
  This is why the Roman generals in Britain built Hadrian's Wall. They knew it wasn't defensively useful for crap, but it kept a lot of trained soldiers far away from home stuck in a cold unpleasant land with people they did not view as civilized from becoming a dangerous idle mass of people.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lprubin 5y ago
  There is an interesting exploration of this in the Altered Carbon universe. If people can become functionally immortal, will they inevitably grow tired of societally acceptable pursuits and move on to sadism?
  • Apocryphon 5y ago
    It's a sci-fi trope of sorts. Also see the Elder from Warhammer 40,000.
    • danwills 5y ago
      Also 'Wowbagger The Infinitely Prolonged' from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": "After a period of total boredom, especially on Sunday afternoons, he decided to insult everyone in the entire universe in alphabetical order." (A quote from the fandom wiki)
      • Apocryphon 5y ago
        An excellent rare example of this trope being lighthearted!
  • notdemo88 5y ago
    You don’t need fiction to explore it; look at the rich and comfortable in our society forcing austerity on the poor. Bored people playing the only titillating game available to them. It’s not lost on me these folks are generally of the age to have lacked the variety of multimedia we have now. Raised on tales grounded in literal global conquest and missionaries of their culture, chasing “forever life” through family tree taxonomy, enlisting their kids as “skins” in the battle to maintain order as they see it. Of course ideas that challenge their poetic vision are illiberal nonsense.
• mapcars 5y ago
  • atty 5y ago
    I am fully capable of recognizing the complexity of the world around me and still feeling bored once in awhile.
    • mapcars 5y ago
      This means you are not fully there. If you find yourself bored just look at how boredom works, look at how what is there in front of you at that moment is not enough and why you want something different. Just diving into it with a keen attention will remove it right away :)
  • tehbeard 5y ago
    > If one understands even a little bit of how unimaginably complex, fantastic and incredible is that I exist That sounds incredibly narcissistic... The universe doesn't give a single shit that a lump of carbon is doing some weird chemistry on a rock along side other carbon lumps. > Boredom is just a sign of undeveloped human Boredom is a sign of an impedance mismatch, a lack of stimulus or novelty.
    • mapcars 5y ago
      >The universe doesn't give a single shit that a lump of carbon If it truly didn't then we wouldn't exist. Since we are here it means we need to be here, as all things have their place. We are the finest way the Universe can experience itself, at least on this planet and this is our significance. >Boredom is a sign of an impedance mismatch, a lack of stimulus or novelty What better stimulus you can have than the whole Universe in front of you? It's not a lack of stimulus it's inability to see deeper into what is going on. If you look out of the window and see people, trees, cars of course you will be bored. But if you see how none of this would be possible without Sun showering this planet with energy, without stars forging atoms and then evolution combining them in unimaginable ways which ended up in forms you see, then it's a different thing altogether.
• pddpro 5y ago
  I mean, the entire premise of Squid Games is just this.
• MrDrDr 5y ago
  Impressed the author resisted using the phrase “The devil finds work for idle hands”.
• givemeethekeys 5y ago
  "If I'm alone too long I think too much, and I'm not interested in doing that. That won't lead anywhere good, I'm sure. If I'm busy I tend to stay out of trouble. An idle mind is the devil's playground." Lisa Marie Presley =)
• jacob019 5y ago
  So do cats.
• polskibus 5y ago
  Is there a link between proliferation of smartphones with games and lower violence? Most people are never bored these days because they escape to their smartphones.
• dang 5y ago
  I have a similar thought about flamewars on the internet, or rather about why generic discussions so often turn into flamewars: the mind resorts to indignation to amuse itself in the absence of anything more interesting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=mind%20amuse%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
  • stcredzero 5y ago
    I wonder if this doesn't have some survival value for Homo sapiens? If people are bored, it often means that they are secure and well off. At that point, to maximize the survival of the species, perhaps it would be of strategic value to send people off exploring to create new settlements? From the standpoint of genes, in small settlements, there would tend to be some inter-relatedness, so this would be a way for genes to distribute copies of themselves geographically. This could even have memetic (in the academic/generic Richard Dawkins sense) survival implications. In the same way that established villages could send out dissidents like "seeds" to start new settlements, perhaps internet forums do something analogous? (I have another horrible sounding idea: Perhaps the penchant for little children to grab things to put into their mouths is a way for 1) the most expendable members of the community to act as inadvertent food tasters/poison detectors for the group and 2) a late filter to knock inattentive parents out of the gene pool. I know it's all evolutionary "just so stories," but it's fun to speculate.)
    • CapitalistCartr 5y ago
      Little children putting stuff in their mouths has an immediate use. I discovered this with a child that lacked this stage of development. It's important to their eating. Babies learn to eat whatever they're fed. If they're fed spicy food, Thai hot, that's their normal. Being willing to taste/try anything makes this pretty easy. And, overall, babies are hard.
  • throwawaysea 5y ago
    Being bored seems like one of the factors, but I also wonder if it is additionally caused by being unhappy or angry or [some other emotion] in other parts of our lives.
• Borrible 5y ago
  I'm burned by social sciences so I'll wait for a replication study. But as an aside, grinding maggots is not exactly my idea of sadism. I prefer when they feel physical pain. Or at least think they look like they do. Although, mental atrocities are actually my specialty. They must excite my empathy, I'm more the sensitive type. The icing on the cake is, when they like it. Confiscating one of their most important holds on reality, their smarthphones, stealing their time and making them watch boring 20-minute videos about waterfalls on the other hand... There I sense a really sneaky kind of evil. A bit like that Milgram stage drama. Yeah, I know, I'm such a bore.
  • lapsedacademic 5y ago
    Experience with maggots is an important control variable, especially given the tiny sample size (13 people ground maggots). I suspect that people who have experience dealing with a maggot infestation -- or any infestation -- will have a very different relationship to grinding maggots. I wouldn't think twice about grinding maggots, but to do so voluntarily I'd have to have nothing better to do because it's not pleasant work. I don't think grinding maggots is particularly violent. This is probably because I had to deal with a very serious and persistent maggot infestation. There's really no way to deal with a maggot infestation except to kill them en masse using methods that appear sadistic (e.g., boiling water or chemical treatment). An alternative title might be "Dealing with a maggot infestation is necessary but unpleasant work... you have to be pretty bored before you decide to do this work voluntarily."
    • Borrible 5y ago
      > people who have experience dealing with a maggot infestation I do, albeit just a small one. My wife used to feed our American Staffordshire with raw offal, especially beef stomach, tripe, whatever. Absolutely disgusting. But he loved it.He seemed to inhale about two pounds of it in what I perceived as nanoseconds. He was such a charming beast, absolutely adorable. But disgusting nontheless. May he rest in peace. Anyway, one friday morning we forgot to take out the trash with a handfull of leftovers from that stuff before setting off for a little trip over the weekend. I tell you, sunday evening was hell on earth. The lord of the flies himself had infested our kitchen. Thankfully its door was closed during the infestation and they weren't fully awake and they all sat sluggish and fat on the windows. I annihilated most of them with the vacuum cleaner and started a search and destroy mission that lasted half of the night. A few hundred sleepy flies and some leftover maggots had to die. No remorse. Thought about nuking the place from orbit. I don't have to mention, we never ever feed our AmStaff with offal again.
• mrkentutbabi 5y ago
  Another argument against UBI
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• austincheney 5y ago
  I don’t know how true this is in general but upon a bit of reflection I will say I am more honest when I am bored. That is pretty extreme coming from somebody who normally has no resignations about social awkwardness from blunt honesty. The common response to my bored honesty is typically a positive mix of bewilderment and curiosity. People tend to find the unexpected hyper criticality a bit entertaining.
• SavantIdiot 5y ago
  > bored people will give themselves electric shocks That's masochism, not sadism. When I get incensed on the internet it is due to overt display of -isms, and not a desire to hurt someone (or get hurt), but more of: your attitude and behavior is hurtful to others and here is why. However, trying to change someone's attitude in non-troll way when they are entrenched in their belief system leads to a flame-wars 98% of the time. I'm always hoping for that 2%.
• reactspa 5y ago
  "an empty mind is a devil's workshop".
• hermannj314 5y ago
  How do you monetize it? Create a boring livestream of you doing nothing, where people can pay money and then you experience pain. Make it a SaaS, sell an IOT pain inducer to your streamers and collect a percentage.
  • utucuro 5y ago
    Some guy did something similar a few years ago, livestreamed himself sleeping, allowed watchers to wake him up. Can't remember if he monetized it. Also, found out that people actually do livestream themselves sleeping while looking if I could find it to link to it - unrelated & weird.
• xtiansimon 5y ago
  I believe it! I am surrounded by retirement-age non-workers, one who is an alcoholic, one with severe medical condition, a practically non-verbal who lives like a hobo—oh, and one does resent having to work part-time, and let’s you know it. The first one will go nuts and scream his head off all night and has been arrested so many times they know him by name. The next just bought a rolling chair and likes to roll around his apartment, the next wakes up all hours during the night and is constantly moving his milk crates and lawn furniture and dropping things that roll (these two live above me) and the last stomps around the building and can be heard at 0400 in the morning whining about her life and talking $#!t about everything and everyone. Fracking Miserable people who spread misery. I mentioned to the people above me and the one denies he rides the chair and then uses his medical condition as an excuse. The other said flatly, “too bad”.
  • lapsedacademic 5y ago
    > one with severe medical condition... bought a rolling chair and likes to roll around his apartment [all hours during the night]... denies he rides the chair and then uses his medical condition as an excuse I mean... is his medical condition related to his ability to walk and sleep well? E.g., does he: 1. have trouble walking 2. can't afford a wheelchair 3. has continence issues? That would explain rolling around at all hours of the night. And sourcing him some cheap/free mats/carpets to cover the floor between his bed and bathroom could help you sleep better. In any case... sorry you have to put up with that. Having noisy upstairs neighbors sucks.
    • xtiansimon 5y ago
      In this case, the rolling guy does lay off after 2200h. It’s the hobo who is over my bedroom and makes noise at all hours. But that said, you’re right. A friend commented I should have bought the hobo a pair of slippers as a house warming gift. I will totally do this next time someone moves in above.
• intrepidhero 5y ago
  I like the relevant quote from Pascal, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" mainly because it's allows me to feel smugly superior while procrastinating work.
  • oshiar53-0 5y ago
    Talk about lockdowns...
• arcastroe 5y ago
  People also behave more masochistically when they're bored. When placed in a room with no other stimulation other than a button that (painfully) shocks you when pushed, people push the button out of boredom.
• antux 5y ago
  Makes a lot of sense. A study found that boredom could lead to early death (source: https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/bored-death-no-joke-chronic-boredom-killer-study-finds-article-1.194575 https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/bored-death-no...) That means any kind of stimulation is preferred over no stimulation. If sadism is the only kind of stimulation one can get, they'll take it for the sake of survival.
• thoughtsimple 5y ago
  "Bored now"
• VladimirGolovin 5y ago
  I have a pet theory that smartphones and the mobile Internet are the primary reasons for the decline of violent street crime. People these days don't need to be violent to entertain themselves -- because they now have porn, dating, gossip, games, and gambling in their pockets. Plus it's a lot safer than violence.
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    At least in the US you have your timeline backwards. Violent street crime declined strongly starting in the early 1990s. Lots of reasons have been suggested for this, mainly around lead in the environment. But maybe it went the other way. The lack of street crime lead to people walking around, creating the demand to create the mobile internet.
• trembonator 5y ago
• HWR_14 5y ago
  I wonder if this tendency is the reason for the stereotype of the sadistic prep school trust fund kid that is so dominant in popular culture. In some cases it's obvious that they are easy opposition to the main character, but even in other stories they tend to be characterized that way.
• stormouse 5y ago
  Is this experiment fair? People were bored and the only alternative given was to grind worms and conclude that boredom catalyze sadistic behavior? What about give something kind as alternative (like giving away stuff to homeless ppl), what would that give?
• ARandomerDude 5y ago
  As my grandfather used to tell me when I was a child, "An idle mind is the Devil's workshop."
• edmundsauto 5y ago
  It's interesting how little this forum respects social science results due to the reproducibility crisis. Except when it tickles our brains via confirmation bias.