Experimentally Produced Social Problem in Rats

Three rats are trained individually to "work" by depressing a lever which releases food. The lever is then removed rather far from the food trough and all three rats work more or less at depressing the lever, but the one who does misses the food since the other two are free to eat it. As a result, there develops a "depression" in which all three fight for food but none works. Later one rat discovers he can depress the lever several times quickly and run to the trough in time to get food; consequently the one rat does all the work and the other two become parasites.

Related films

Sources

  1. 16mm Filmography (legacy record) — title, year, creator, length, format, color, description, catalog record