Nir Eyal
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Can I tell you a quick study?
Please.
So this is a classic study that was done in the 1950s by a biologist by the name of Kurt Richter.
And Kurt Richter had a very simple question.
How long can a wild rat swim?
So I'm excited you're about to go through it.
And so I want to demonstrate...
how we can manipulate persistence, at least in these rat models.
And it does carry over to humans as well.
So here's what he does.
He takes a wild rat.
You can't do these kinds of experiments anymore, thank goodness, but the rats are already dead so we can learn from them.
Here's what he does.
He takes a wild rat.
He measures how long this rat can swim in a cylinder of water.
Turns out about 15 minutes.
A stressed wild rat swims for about 15 minutes before it kind of gives up.
Okay, he has that piece of information.
Now he wants to determine, can he increase the rat's persistence?
So here's what he does.