AUTHOR: Peter Anthony TITLE: How important is Hope? DATE: 9/22/2006 ----- BODY:

In 1957 Dr C P Richter of the Psychobiological Laboratory of John Hopkins Medical School carried out an experiment that attempted to measure the motivational effect of hope. The experiments involved placing rats into cylinders of water thirty inches deep and eight inches wide. After a short time, half of the rats were momentarily rescued- lifted out of the cylinders for a few seconds, then put back into the water. The other half were not. The group that was given hope swam for more than three days. The other rats drowned almost immediately.

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