22
Two groups of rats were placed in shock cages.  One group could
escape the shock by jumping to an unelectrified platform.  A second
group could not.  In short, the rats who could make the leap had a
primitive form of control.  The systems of the rats who could not
control their shock were flooded with endorphins.  The rats who did
have control, on the other hand, avoided an endorphin surge.  The rats
without control were afflicted with endorphin's dulling of the senses
and the mind.  The rats with a handle on their fate remained perceptive
and alert.33  Other experiments indicate something equally ominous:
the lack of control disables the ability for long-term potentiation of
neurons--in other words, it wreaks havoc on the ability to retain and
act on vital information.34
Control, in humans and rats, energizes the mind.  A lack of
control can cripple mental powers.  Two groups of human subjects
were given a set of complicated puzzles and a proofreading chore.
Both groups had to carry out their tasks while an irritating noise grated
away in the background.  There was one major difference between the
two experimental contingents: one had control and one did not.  The
tables at which one group of subjects sat had a button.  With that
button, they could turn off the wretched sound.  The second group's
members had no control at all.  Without a button, they simply had to
grin and bear it.
The group with the control buttons on their desks sailed through
the puzzles and made only a modest number of errors in their
proofreading.  The group with no control did miserably.  They
mastered five times fewer puzzles.  And their proofreading was
atrocious.  The deprivation of control had clouded their minds.
Strangest of all, the group with the button never actually pushed
that  button  once.    It  wasn't  the  noise  or  lack  of  it  that  affected  their
performance.  It was the mere idea that if they'd wanted to, they could
shut if off.  It was the thought of control.35
The Kota came crawling to their sorcerer neighbors begging for
an invisible form of help because forest witch doctors sold the
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