The Art of Happiness

eward. Researcher Ronald Melzak tookPavlov’s experiments a step further. He raisedScottish terrier pups in a padded environment inwhich they wouldn’t encounter the normalknocks and scrapes of growing up. These dogsfailed to learn basic responses to pain ; they failedto react, for instance, when their paws werepricked with a pin, as opposed to their littermateswho squealed with pain when pricked. On thebasis of experiments such as these, he concludedthat much of what we call pain, including theunpleasant emotional response, was learnedrather than instinctive. Other experiments withhuman beings, involving hypnosis and placebos,have also demonstrated that in many cases thehigher brain functions can overrule the painsignals from the lower stages on the painpathway. This indicates how the mind can often