https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4416012/
It involves rats in a cage. The following two steps are then performed:
1 - With the cage door locked, an electric current is passed through the cage, thus shocking the rats. The rats run around frantically, in an attempt to escape, but are unable to do so.
2 - With the cage door open, an electric current is passed through the cage, shocking the (same) rats. This time, the rats just sit in place, having "learned" the futility of trying to escape, even though an obvious escape is at hand.
I find this experiment to be a great metaphor (while I'm not fond of the torture of innocent animals), because it describes, quite simply and accurately, most of my life ... till I realized the power of surrender. And, I imagine it describes the lives of some others, too.
Yeah, the psychologists have their theory. I, on the other hand, like to think that the rats learn to surrender to the present moment. Tolle in a box ? Or would you say that a Tolle-inspired rodent would calmly and gracefully walk out of the cage in step 2 ?
