What's Stopping You?: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can

Experiments in Emotional Manipulation

In his book Motivation (1975) psychologist Phil Evans details the relatively short history of academic experiments on our emotions – and particularly on fear – and how they impact our motivation.

For instance, in 1948 the pioneering American psychologist Neal Miller experimented on the impact of fear on behaviour by placing rats in a box with two compartments – one black, one white – with those in the white zone consistently given electric shocks. Of course, the rats soon exhibited great reluctance to venture into the white zone, even overcoming physical barriers in order to escape to the safety of the black zone. And before long, Miller’s harassed rodents needed only to catch sight of the white zone to exhibit ...