Years ago, as a “starving student” who worked every hour I could get, I also participated in psychology experiments that paid volunteers. I only did the safe ones, the sitting-in-a-sound-proof-room and repeating back numbers sort of experiment. I had thought I might major in Psych but Behaviorism was big, and behaviorists were very big on animal experiments and generalizing behaviors of animals in a lab to judge human behavior. I saw flaws in their logic. But I took classes and paid attention.

A grad student told me that if I ever wanted a rat for a pet—”They make great pets!”—I should not get a white rat. He explained that white rats and mice, even in the 1970s, had been bred for hundreds of generations to have no personality. “Personality interferes with results,” he said. They wanted neat, consistent Behavioral data. This happens and the rat responds to that stimuli. Each rat responding exactly the same way, every time. I remember and experiment with rats in a bare cage. Two buttons. Pressing one button gave the animal a mild electric shock [punishment] and pressing the other button delivered a pellet of food [reward]. They research in this and other experiments “proved” that reward was more effective in learning that punishment or “negative reinforcement.” It also revealed something else: A rat would randomly try pressing the buttons and learn which one fed them. Other rats in the same cage would also randomly try pressing the buttons to find food. That is, one rat would find the right button, but the next one did not observe this and recognize: “Ouch! My cage mate nosed that thing and squealed, but nosed that thing and got food. I’ll try pressing that second thing.”*

We should care more about character than those Behaviorists who completed their research as if it were an unwelcome anomaly. Personality, character, and cultural bias are significant, and we are capable of observing others’ success and suffering and adjusting our own behavior to avoid the latter and gain the former. We’re smarter than lab rats. We don’t have to make every mistake in order to figure out what hurts. We can watch and learn.

Sometimes, what we observe affects our life choices, as it should. I used to describe those lab rats learning only from personal experience, that they can see a danger but do not SEE it till it threatens them personally. I’m not certain this is true, and I said that too.

“You can learn from the experiences of others,” I’d tell my students. “You don’t have to make the mistakes others have made before you. You’re smarter than a lab rat.” We don’t have to make all our own mistakes; we can make choices based on observation.

• I learned from a neighbor who drove his vehicle into a motorcycle that I don’t want to drive past the age of 80. That choice was reinforced when an 80-year-old driver rammed into my car when my children were small.

• I learned from my mother’s determination not to exercise or eat properly, that I needed to do those things.

• I learned from the disconnect of my family’s sentimentality about animals while eating them, stories from a researcher about slaughterhouses, and my own reading and observations of a feedlot that eating meat wasn’t something I could continue to do. I’d read about “factory farming” of animals and also saw how it could be done humanely on a farm in Missouri. I know from research that beef is one of the least sustainable foods, that the industry is heavily subsidized and protected by a powerful lobby, that meat is not good for us when consumed as Americans consume it, and that the meat itself is not the same meat that my grandparents consumed. Beef and lamb and pork never did worse to me than making me constipated and giving me gas, but I have been vegetarian since 1990 because of what I saw and heard and smelled and learned.

• I learned from our tenant that drinking as you age is not a healthy choice. I watched his lack of self-care destroy him and his ability to live independently. It’s not the first time. Doing for yourself and caring for yourself are significant factors in a plan to live long and prosper. Gary and I became non-drinkers this past October. Alcohol has a powerful lobby too.

• I learned from watching others that keeping busy, keeping moving, is a better choice for me.

In South Korea, Seoul Central District Court Judge Jee Kui-youn sentenced former president of South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol to life in prison after he was found guilty of leading an insurrection against the government. With his approval rating plummeting as his administration was engulfed by scandals, on December 3, 2024, Yoon declared martial law and tried to paralyze the parliament by using troops to blockade the National Assembly building and arrest opposition politicians. As Lim Hui Jie reported for CNBC, five other conspirators have also received prison sentences of up to 30 years.

During the trial, prosecutors told the court that Yoon had declared martial law “with the purpose of remaining in power for a long time by seizing the judiciary and legislature.” Yoon claimed that he was within his constitutional authority to declare martial law and that he did so to “safeguard freedom and sovereignty.”

After Yoon declared martial law, 190 of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly fought their way into the chamber and overturned his edict, forcing Yoon to back down about six hours after his martial law announcement. Lawmakers impeached him 11 days later and removed him from office. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for Yoon.

Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson

I’d like to think he could take his eyes off the money for a moment and be smarter than a white rat. We’d like to believe Congressional Republicans would be smarter, and would act with honor.

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*This is what I remember of those old experiments.