Avoidance of Adverse Stimuli

A couple of years ago I was reading through a Psychology textbook and came across a section on behavior and conditioning.

The chapter looked at studies involving mice and different motivators used in observing how they responded under different situations. Food was used in some, sex in others, but the most interesting experiment is where they placed a mother on one side of an electrically charged plate, and her baby mice on the other side.

The electric plate was used as a source of adverse stimuli, and food, sex, water, etc was used as the motivators. When food, or sex (a male on one side and female on the other) was used, the mouse would not cross the plate to obtain its reward. However, when it was the mother - separated from the baby mice - she was willing not only to cross the plate, suffering electrocution, but would do so at increasingly stronger voltages, up to a point the charge could have killed her!

The mother was willing to suffer great pain, and even death to reach, secure and protect her children.

This study ranked motivators, and placed the parent/child at the top, food, sex, water, etc at the bottom and second form the top, avoidance of adverse stimuli (the electric plate).

When it came to pain, the mother was willing to face the adverse stimuli for her children, but without baby mice on the other side of the plate, neither sex, or food, or water, or any other motivator could get the mouse to cross the plate.

Nothing could get the mouse to endure pain.

I give us humans a bit more credit then mice, however, barring any metal disorder, at the basic psychological and behavioral core, pain is a really really difficult thing to deal with.