Stumbled upon this noteworthy study from 1976 [1].
A group of nursing home residents were given a plant to take care of, and they were divided in to two groups. The low-control group was told by the staff when they could water the plant and tend to it's care. The high-control group was given the freedom to choose when they want to take care of the plant.
Six months later, 30% of the low-control group had died compared to the 15% of high-control group. The researchers had stopped the experiment then and noted the importance that perceived control has over the human mind. I would go a step further and say it's not just control, but the control of a goal that kept them healthy. In fact, in his book "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" Paul Thagard argues just that; we create meanings for our lives through setting goals in the avenues of love, work and play. The whole school of Absurdism which broke away from Existentialism was based on this simple but elegant theory as well. But I digress..
In 1978, researchers took another step forward [2] by substituting plants with college students. As before, there was a high-control group that made the decisions when the students would get to see them on the next visit, and there was a low-control group that were at the mercy of the students' timetable. The results were remarkable- just after 2 months those in the high-control group were happier, heather and took less medication than those in the low-control group.
The researchers were happy and concluded that the experiment was successful. Several months later, they were astonished to find out that a significant large number of residents in the high-control group had died, after the students left.
Talk about withdrawal. When Gouthama talked about attachment being the cause of all human suffering, he wasn't kidding. It seems that people are healthier and happier when they have control over relationships. But they are far more worse than not having control at all when those relationships are taken away from them.
Of course this brings up a few ethical questions. But to me as a young adult in the prime of his life the most important question is whether I would want to have children some day. As Kahlil Gibran once said "Children come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you."
But then arises the Existential question of what we should hold on to. To me as I see it now, we should hold on to relationships that are unattached, we should help those who will never know we helped them, and as Zarathusra (Nietzsche) once said, we should love our farthest rather than our neighbor.
References:
[1] Langer, Ellen J.; Rodin, Judith, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 34(2), Aug 1976, 191-198.
[2]Schulz, Richard; Hanusa, Barbara H., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 36(11), Nov 1978, 1194-1201
