Comment by altmanaltman

I mean yeah but that's not what the study says though... full link here: https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pd...

Participants did not choose to give themselves electric shocks continuously. The average was around once during the entire 15-min window. It also showed a stark difference in gender: only 25% of women participants did it while 67% of men did it. All of them did not enjoy it (but that's obvious). 1 man shocked himself more than 190 times during the 15-min period, so the average data is much higher because of him.

So overall, it is correct that the human mind will seek stimulus (even negative ones) if they're bored/have nothing to do but nothing suggests they will give themselves continous painful "electric shocks than be alone".

Additionally, they were alone, but they also had no cellphones, no computers, nothing to engage their brains with other than the possibility to give themselves a small 4 volt shock. And most of them did it once and not again. I think it speaks more to human curiosity than the idea that you'll prefer pain to social isolation.