In reading the ~100ish books I’ve read thus far, several anecdotes, studies, and stories have been featured in 3 or more books.
Learned Helplessness
The story about dogs in a cage with an electrified floor. Dogs were kept in a cage with a floor that was electrified a short time after an alarm went off. Only some of the dogs were shown that they could stop the shock by pressing on a button or whatever. Some of the dogs had no such button to stop the shocking. The dogs were moved to a new cage setup, where one half of the cage was electrified, separated from the other half by a short wall. The dogs who had the button to stop the shocking in the original cage quickly realized they could jump over the little barrier and hang out in the half of the cage that didn’t shock them. The dogs who had no recourse in the original cage never even tried to avoid the shocking. The learned helplessness.
This showed up in (at a minimum):
Shockingly Bored
There were a series of students who were left in a room for 15 minutes with nothing other than a button that shocked them when they pressed it. 67% of the males and 25% of the females chose to shock themselves rather than just sit there being bored.
This showed up in (at a minimum):