In pop culture, it’s tied to the Big Red Button in beyond, with such tropes as “ Forbidden Fruit,” “ Curiosity Killed the Cast,” and “ Do Not Do This Cool Thing.” In psychology, this can be explained by reactance theory, which says that if our freedom of choice is threatened, we feel compelled to protect that freedom, making us want the taboo thing even more. In general, the more we’re told not to do something, the more we want to do that thing. “Or at least, reduces the cortisol that is making us anxious - until we see what pressing it means.” He’s a psychologist and professor at California State University and has written several books about psychology and technology. “We willingly push any and every button because we hope that it provides a squirt of dopamine for pleasure,” says Larry Rosen. If there’s a big red button in front of us, it’s too tantalising not to touch, especially if we’re told not to. In Spaceballs, Dark Helmet is thrown into a Big Red Button, which initiates the ship’s self-destruction.ĭaffy warns Elmer to “don’t ever push the ‘wed’ one.” (It ends up being a tidal wave safety mechanism that catapults the house into the sky.) Picture: Dailymotion The Psychology of Button Mashers And in Men in Black, there’s a “little red button” in the agents’ car that K tells J to steer clear of, except for emergencies - and when it’s pressed, their ride transforms into a wall-climbing menace powered by space shuttle-like thrusters. In Dexter’s Laboratory, hyperactive big sister Dee Dee’s running gag became pressing a red button against Dexter’s commands, which reliably led to disastrous consequences. files these buttons under such time-tested cliches as “ What Does This Button Do?“, “ Plot-Sensitive Button“, and “ Don’t Touch It, You Idiot!” We saw them in scores of James Bond movies, where they triggered ejector seats or overloaded nuclear reactors. The button is a genre-spanning apparatus that’s tested weak wills and spurred cartoonishly cataclysmic events for decades. Lo and behold, what happens? The disobediently curious character presses the red button. Usually one character instructs another to never, under any circumstances, press this button. The big red button trope is up there with the slapstick banana peel and plummeting anvils.
But by then the conspicuous crimson buttons had already seeped into American pop culture. The joke was lost in translation and bombed. Credit: APīack in 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jokingly gifted Russia’s then-Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a bulbous red “Reset Button” to usher in a new era of American-Russo relations.
A “reactor trip” button in Florida’s Crystal River Nuclear Plant.
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