electric shocks after receiving a demonstration. To the researchers’ surprise, 12 of 18 men gave themselves up to four electric shocks, as did six of 24 women. “What is striking is that simply being alone with their thoughts was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid,” the scientists write in Science Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably zap themselves to cheer up a tedious lecture. But, she says more needs to be known about the motivation of the shockers in Wilson’s study. “Imagine the setup – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will deliver a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there and entertain themselves with their thoughts,” she said. “As they sit there, strapped to this machine, their mind starts to wander and it naturally goes to that shock – was it really that bad? “What are the experimenters really interested in? Perhaps this is a case where curiosity killed the cat.”