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Tags: experiment study

The drowning rat study

Curt Richter, a researcher at John Hopkins conducted a famous experiment involving drowning rats in 1957 at Harvard.

3 domesticated rats drowned within a few minutes upon being placed in glass jars. The next 9 were able to average 40-60 hours.

He then got another group of wild rats. These rats sometimes immediately died and others when placed in water would completely lose hope. In his own words the rats would just “give up.”

He started to add another variable, realizing the wild rats were more likely to die immediately because of fear and lack of hope, he began periodically rescuing them before drowning, after drying and recovery the rats would go back into the jars.

The wild rats who were introduced to the hope of being saved began swimming much longer, reaching roughly the same hours as some of the domesticated rats at 40-60 hours.

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⚖️ In contrast, this study became popular because of the case of the wild rats eventually matching the domestic rats in swim time. However, some of the domestic rats were already doing those numbers. Perhaps the domestic ones already had hope or the wild ones were first introduced to the concept. It appears to me most of the instant deaths were a sign of hopelessness.

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