The disobediently curious character presses the red button. Something blows up, usually.

The button is a genre-spanning apparatus that’s tested weak wills and spurred cartoonishly cataclysmic events for decades. TVTropes.com 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. 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. 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 Spaceballs, Dark Helmet is thrown into a Big Red Button, which initiates the ship’s self-destruction.

It’s hard to pin down its exact genesis, but one particularly early example is a short story that appeared in Playboy in 1970, called “Button, Button,” by legendary sci-fi writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man). In the original short story, a couple receives a box with a button inside. Every time they press it, and they’ll receive $50,000. However, someone they don’t know will also die. (Isaac Asimov also wrote a short story called “Button, Button” in 1953, but that plot was completely different.) It went on to inspire a Twilight Zone episode in the 80s, and even inspired The Box, a clunky 2009 Cameron Diaz thriller.

Do they press it? If so, how many times do they press it? It was one of the earliest examples of buttons in pop culture being used to tap into characters’ dark sides, or at least, a curiosity that gets the better of them.

The Psychology of Button Mashers

If there’s a big red button in front of us, it’s too tantalizing not to touch, especially if we’re told not to.

“We willingly push any and every button because we hope that it provides a squirt of dopamine for pleasure,” says Larry Rosen. He’s a psychologist and professor at California State University and has written several books about psychology and technology. “Or at least, [it] reduces the cortisol that is making us anxious—until we see what pressing it means.”

In general, the more we’re told not to do something, the more we want to do that thing. 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. It’s been used to study the relatively high drinking age in America, which has been found to promote illegal, underage drinking in college students.

As far as buttons go, buttons equal power. Press one, and something always happens. In the real world, rarely is that “something” negative. Often, it’s summoning something, or someone. The call button on an airplane, or a doorbell. We want to press buttons because we think it’ll help us achieve or obtain something. And when we’re told not to press a button, some people find it hard to resist the urge. It’s human nature.

Read the full article at gizmodo.com/why-we-always-want-to-push…

So that begs the question, do you press the red button that says "Do not press" not knowing what potential catastrophe may result such as the event that occurs in Please, Don't Touch Anything 3D?