A groundbreaking study from Purdue University suggests that unemployment may be linked to higher stress levels. Released to the public yesterday, the peer-reviewed study from Purdue’s College of Science covers a controlled experiment that lasted over four months and cost nearly $11,000. Funding came from student tuition.
The experiment analyzed 72 short-haired hamsters operating in an unregulated free-market economy. The hamsters were divided into 12 groups of six, with each group assigned one of 12 occupations — electrician, firefighter, construction worker, line cook, banker, photographer, plumber, teacher, journalist, doctor, pilot, and game show host. Once two months passed, 3 members of each occupation group were terminated from their positions and separated from the others. The terminated hamsters were offered severance packages but unemployment insurance was not provided.
After another two months, researchers “took a good look” at the hamsters’ expressions and decided that the jobless ones “probably looked sadder than those still employed,” one lab assistant explained.
This entire venture all started with one student’s doctoral dissertation.
“I was just playin’ Call of Duty on a Tuesday night when I realized my proposal was due at 11:59,” said Connor Daft, the mind behind this study.
“I was like, man, if I don’t do this paper I’m gonna be jobless, and I’m gonna be sad. But then I was like, dude, will I be sad, though? And then I was like, that’s it!”
Several months, dozens of hamsters, and over $10,000 dollars later, Daft is confident that his insights among rodents are transferable to humans, and that being unemployed “probably makes you more stressed than if you had a job.”
Though Daft later failed his dissertation defense, he’s excited to try again next year and hopes to study the connection between water, sunlight, and flower growth.
