The Power of Hope / Professor Richter’s Drowning Rats Psychology Experiment

In the 1950s Professor Curt Richter of the John Hopkins University who performed an experiment with domesticated and wild rats. By taking twelve domesticated rate and putting them into jars of water and watched each one of them drown to the bottom. Richter measured the amount of time each rat swam before they finally gave up swimming and drowned. The first three rats swam around and survived for 2 minutes. The nine remaining rats swan for days before finally drowning. With the wild rats all 34 of them, which had characteristics of being stronger and more aggressive, were expected to survive much longer than the domesticated rats however all of them died within a few minutes of being placed into the jars of water. Professor Richter pondered why do the wild rats die much quicker compared to the domesticated rats, and decided to alter the experiment. He took other rats and placed them into the jar of water. However, this time as each of the rates starting give up and drown, Professor Richter picked them up out of the water and held them a while before placing back into the water. From this small respite provided by the researcher the rats lasted much longer in the water and did not give up as they had developed hope. Professor Richter summarised the findings from the experiment as follows “The situation of these rats scarcely seems one demanding fight or flight—it is rather one of hopelessness; whether they are restrained in the hand or confined in the swimming jar, the rats are in a situation against which they have no defense. This reaction of hopelessness is shown by some wild rats very soon after being grasped in the hand and prevented from moving; they seem literally to ‘give up’. Support for the assumption that the sudden death phenomenon depends largely on emotional reactions to restraint or immersion comes from the observation that after elimination of the hopelessness the rats do not die. This is achieved by repeatedly holding the rats briefly and then freeing them, and by immersing them in water for a few minutes on several occasions. In this way the rats quickly learn that the situation is not actually hopeless; thereafter they again become aggressive, try to escape, and show no signs of giving up. Wild rats so conditioned swim just as long as domestic rats or longer.” #hope #richter #resilience