Pavlov's Dogs Preferred Liberty
from COVID-19 & Public Health Totalitarianism: Untoward Effects on Individuals, Institutions and Society, by Peter R. Breggin, MD
“Liberty can be considered a need. Even the mechanistic psychologist I. Pavlov postulated a “freedom reflex” in animals to describe their distress upon being confined or restrained. Pavlov does not show great empathy for the animals he experimented upon and tortured, so it is astonishing that he could recognize their impulse for freedom.”
We tried out experimentally numerous possible interpretations, but though we had
had long experience with a great number of dogs in our laboratories we could not
work out a satisfactory solution of this strange behaviour, until it occurred to us at
last that it might be the expression of a special freedom reflex, and that the dog simply
could not remain quiet when it was constrained in the stand. This reflex was overcome
by setting off another against it -- the reflex for food. We began to give the dog the
whole of its food in the stand. At first the animal ate but little, and lost considerably in
weight, but gradually it got to eat more, until at last the whole ration was consumed.
At the same time the animal grew quieter during the course of the experiments: the
freedom reflex was being inhibited. It is clear that the freedom reflex is one of the most
important reflexes, or, if we use a more general term, reactions, of living beings. This
reflex has even yet to find its final recognition. In [Henry] James's writings it is not even
enumerated among the special human "instincts." But it is clear that if the animal
were not provided with a reflex of protest against boundaries set to its freedom, the
smallest obstacle in its path would interfere with the proper fulfilment of its natural
functions. Some animals as we all know have this freedom reflex to such a degree that
when placed in captivity they refuse all food, sicken and die.
Pavlov's bell/saliva conditioned dogs lost all his built up response after being trapped in a flooded basement for three days. Greater Trauma overrides conditioned reflexive action.