A Tale of Rats and Optimism

Ever read something that really strikes a deep chord, then try to find it again a few days (or weeks) later, only to no avail? 

That just happened & it’s borderline maddening, so hopefully writing about it will either jog ze olde memory bizzanks, or elicit a reply of some variety to circumvent the torment of more hours of searching. 

And so… 

There was a story published recently about a study done on rats, where all of them were to get through a maze with a reward of cheese given at the end for solving it. 

A good time was seemingly had by all, except for one.

Why was that?  Well, one of the rats was placed in a maze that was completely impossible to solve.

Every Day.

No idea how long this went on for, it just sucked though.

At some point, this tormented little being finally had enough & threw his/her fuzzy little paws into the air, squeaking with all his/her might,

 “I F*CKING GIVE UUUUPPPPPP!!!”

(ok that part was embellished, but it’s probably not too far off)

The study shifted focus to this rat that would no longer smile, and the poor little creature was thereafter placed in a maze that could be solved.

S/he didn’t even try.

The reward was moved to make it increasingly easier & easier to achieve, until at some point, it would’ve been the easiest maze for any rat  to solve ever.

Like not even a maze.

Like, the cheese was right f*cking there in sight.

Nothing.

S/he’d been conditioned to such a low level of defeat / non-interest,  s/he didn’t even move.

Just stayed where s/he was. Depressed as all hell.

Poor little rat!!!!

There IS a beautiful ending to this story though… and if there was a way to find the damn report, you’d be reading all about it right here. 

Basically, there was some sort of specific behavioral modification tactic applied to the situation that somehow magically solved everything 

almost instantly. 

Like, boom, s/he had all of his/her optimism completely restored & was able to continue on to solve all the solvable mazes with seemingly no memory of the old days. 

We really need to know more about this….