How Do You Think?

My wife (Kimberly) and I decided to make and share a top ten list of our favorite TV Shows from the last 5 years (some reaching back further in time).  The task of consolidating them down to merely ten shows proved more challenging than we anticipated – so we employed a multi-tiered ranking system and both of us independently ranked each show within that tier.  Although ultimately our list includes 37 shows, you can infer the top ten, because they are in rank order under categories of The Very Best, Excellent, Very Good, Good, and Good but Faded.  The latter category includes shows that were initially captivating, but they lost our interest over time. 

We have watched each of these shows, and all of them left us wanting more at the end of each episode.  That longing for more is what made, in our opinion, these shows binge worthy.  The Very Best and Excellent shows and even some of the Very Good shows truly captivated us and we found ourselves talking or thinking about the characters the next day.  Production quality, artistry (as in The Handmaid’s Tale), and both character and plot development played important roles in sustaining our interest.  Epic stories with multiple characters and big complicated story lines elicited intrigue, confusion, and the formation of hunches that we absolutely needed to see unfold.

The average IMDb score on our list was 8.2 out of 10 and the average Rotten Tomatoes (and in a few cases Percent of Google Users liked) score was 86.5%. A close (statistical) look at these ratings indicates that there is a diminishing trend of score quality from our top rated shows to those at the bottom of our list.  It appears that professional and lay people think highly of most of these shows, and overall, they concur with our ranking system.  We have also included the Genre and TV rating level for each show.  Most of our preferred shows are Action/Adventure/Dramas, many with a SciFi twist.  Our preferences also trend toward shows for Mature Audiences (MA) only, but there are several family friendly or TV-14 and/or PG shows. 

The Very Best

1. Game of Thrones (HBO) IMDb 9.3/10 89% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) – Action/Drama/Adventure
2. The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) IMDb 8.5/10 88% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) – Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller

Excellent

1. Black Sails (Starz and Hulu) IMDb 8.2/10 81% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Adventure/Drama – This TV Show is a fictional prequel to the book: Treasure Island
2. Madam Secretary (CBS) IMDb 7.6/10 92% Google Users Like (Family) Political Drama
3. Outlander (Starz) IMDb 8.4/10 91% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Fantasy/Romance
4. Mr. Robot (USA Network, Hulu) IMDb 8.5/10 94% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Thriller
5. Chernobyl (HBO) IMDb 9.4/10 96% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/History/Thriller
6. Mars (National Geographic, Netflix, Hulu) IMDb 7.5/10 95% Google Users like (TV-PG) Adventure/ Drama/Sci-Fi
7. Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 8/10 84% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Sci-Fi/ Thriller
8. Counterpart (Starz, Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 8.1/10 100% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller
9. Fleabag (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 8.7/10 100% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Comedy/Drama
10. Travelers (Netflix) IMDb 8.1/10 100% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
11. Carnival Row (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 7.9/10 57% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Fantasy/ Mystery/Thriller
12. His Dark Material (HBO) IMDb 8.5/10 94% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-14) Adventure/Drama/Family/ Fantasy
13. Blue Planet II (BBC America) IMDb 9.4/10 97% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-G) Documentary                                                                                                                

Very Good

1. The Expanse (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 8.5/10 93% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-14) Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi/Thriller
2. Justified (Hulu) IMDb 8.6/10 97% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
3. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 8.1/10 71% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/ Drama/Thriller
4. Westworld (HBO) IMDb 8.7/10 85% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi/Western
5. Homeland (Showtime, Hulu) IMDb 8.3/10 85% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
6. The Outsider (HBO) IMDb 8.0/10 82% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
7. Hunters (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 7.2/10 63% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Mystery
8. Marvel’s Agents of Shield (ABC, Netflix) IMDb 7.5/10 94% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-PG) Action/Adventure/Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller
9. Altered Carbon (Netflix) IMDb 8.1/10 76% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller
10. The Deuce (HBO) IMDb 8.1/10 93% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama
11. Ozark (Netflix) IMDb 8.4/10 81% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Thriller
12. Mindhunter (Netflix) IMDb 8.6/10 97% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama/Thriller
13. The Mandalorian (Disney+) IMDb 8.7/10 93% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-PG) Action/Adventure/SciFi

Good

1. The Blacklist (NBC, Netflix) IMDb 8/10 91% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-14) Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
2. Hanna (Amazon Prime Video) IMDb 7.5/10 97% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/Drama
3. The OA (Netflix) IMDb 7.9/10 84% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Drama/Fantasy/Mystery/Sci-Fi
4. The Witcher (Netflix) IMDb 8.3/10 67% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/Adventure/Drama/Fantasy/Horror/Mystery
5. Nightflyers (Syfy, Netflix) IMDb 5.9/10 35% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-14) Horror/Sci-Fi

Good but Faded Over Time

1. Jessica Jones (Netflix) IMDb 8.0/10 83% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Action/Crime/Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller
2. Girls (HBO) IMDb 7.3/10 89% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Comedy/Drama
3. Peaky Blinders (BBC, Netflix) IMDb 8.8/10 92% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Crime/Drama
4. Love (Netflix) IMDb 7.7/10 94% Rotten Tomatoes (MA) Comedy/Drama/Romance
5. Stranger Things (Netflix) IMDb 8.8/10 93% Rotten Tomatoes (TV-14) Horror

Although I did not make a substantial number of posts in 2013, the traffic to my site remained relatively vigorous.  Throughout 2013 my blog had 24,007 hits from 21,042 unique visitors, accounting for nearly 30,000 page views.  I had visitors from every state in the US and 158 nations around the world.  Visitors from the United States accounted for the vast majority of those hits, but the UK, Canada, Australia, India, China, and Germany also brought in large contingents.

Of my posts published in 2013, none made it to this year’s top ten list: five were from 2010,  four were published in 2011, and one was from 2012.  This year the top ranked article (The Moral Instinct) was a 2010 review of a very popular 2008 New York Time’s article by Steven Pinker.   This perennially popular piece ranked 5th last year, 4th in 2011 and 3rd in 2010.   Its bounce to the top this year is more of a testament to Pinker and the popularity of his piece that explores the universality of morals.  In that piece I wrote:

Pinker delves into the neurological factors associated with morality and the evolutionary evidence and arguments for an instinctual morality. He reviews several important studies that provide evidence for these hypotheses. But, he argues that morality is more than an inheritance – it is larger than that. It is contextually driven. He notes: “At the very least, the science tells us that even when our adversaries’ agenda is most baffling, they may not be amoral psychopaths but in the throes of a moral mind-set that appears to them to be every bit as mandatory and universal as ours does to us. Of course, some adversaries really are psychopaths, and others are so poisoned by a punitive moralization that they are beyond the pale of reason. ” He further contends “But in any conflict in which a meeting of the minds is not completely hopeless, a recognition that the other guy is acting from moral rather than venal reasons can be a first patch of common ground.

This article may have also remained popular because of its relevance with regard to the state of affairs in today’s political arena and the application of Jonathon Haidt’s increasingly popular work on the Moral Foundations Theory.  

The 2013 number two ranked piece Nonmoral Nature: It is what it is, is a review of one of Stephen Jay Gould’s most famous articles where he argued that there is no evidence of morality in nature, that in fact “nature as it plays out evolution’s dance, is entirely devoid of anything pertaining to morality or evil. We anthropomorphize when we apply these concepts. Even to suggest that nature is cruel is anthropomorphizing. Any true and deep look at the struggle for life that constantly dances in our midst can scarcely lead to any other conclusion but that nature is brutal, harsh, and nonmoral” (Gould).  Historically this has been a controversial topic and remains so in certain circles today.  This piece has remained popular over the years – ranking 4th last year and 2nd in 2011 and 2010.

Brain MRI

Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures – the 3rd ranking post this year ranked 2nd last year and 1st in 2011. This very popular piece takes a pragmatic, comparative, and colorful look at the various ways of measuring brain activity.  My 2012 article Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really?  is finally getting some attention.  Although it ranked 10th last year, it has climbed into the number four slot this year.  I contend that this is perhaps one of the most important articles I have written.

Proud as a Peacock By Mark Melnick

My critical article on the widely used Implicit Associations Test ranked 5th this year, 6th in 2012, and 4th in 2011. Last year’s number one piece on Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail  is one of my favorite pieces.  It addresses our inherent drive to advance one’s social standing while actually going nowhere on the hedonic treadmill.  It delves into the environmental costs of buying into the illusion of consumer materialism and its biological origins (the signaling instinct much like that of the Peacock’s tail).

I am excited to report that Poverty is a Neurotoxin is also finally gaining some traction.  Published in 2011 it has never achieved a top ranking; although, in my humble opinion, it is no less important.  Rounding out the top ten of 2013, my Hedgehog versus the Fox mindset piece ranked 8th this year, 9th last year, and 10th in 2011. One of my all time favorite posts from 2010,  What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule made it back to the top ten list this year coming in 9th.  It was 7th in 2011 and 8th in 2010.  My 2011 post Where Does Prejudice Come From? ranked 10th this year, 7th last year, and 5th in 2011.

So here is the Top Ten list for 2013.

1. Moral Instinct  (2010) 4182 page views since published – All time ranking #5
2. Non Moral Nature: It is what it is (2010) 4616 page views since published – All time ranking #3
3. Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures (2011) 7941 page views since published – All time ranking #1
4. Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really? (2012) 1719 page views since published – All time ranking #8
5. IAT: Questions of Reliability and Validity  (2010) 2572 page views since published – All time ranking #6
6. Conspicuous Consumption & the Peacock’s Tail (2011) 7677 page views since published – All time ranking #2
7. Poverty is a Neurotoxin (2011) 960 page views since published – All time ranking #18
8. Are you a Hedgehog or a Fox?  (2010) 1702 page views since published – All time ranking #9
9. What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule (2010) 1381 page views since published – All time ranking #12
10. Where Does Prejudice Come From?  (2011) 1625 page views since published – All time ranking #10

Rounding out the top ten All Time Most Popular Pieces are:

• Wicked! Things are NOT as they Seem (2012) 4485 page views since published – All time ranking #4
• Attribution Error (2010) 2263 page views since published – All time ranking #7

These top ranking articles represent the foundational issues that have driven me in my quest to understand how people think.   This cross section of my work is, in fact, a good starting point for those who are new to my blog.

There are several other 2013 posts that ranked outside this year’s top ten list; regardless, I believe they are important.  These other posts include:

1. Mind Pops: Memories from out of the Blue
2. Who Cheats More: The Rich or the Poor?
3. Crime, Punishment, and Entitlement: A Deeper Look
4. Cheaters
5. American Exceptionalism: I’m all for it!
6. Partisan Belief Superiority and Dogmatism as a Source of Political Gridlock

Maintaining relevance is an article, published in 2012, The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth: Our Microbiome, pertains to the collection of an estimated 100 trillion individual organisms (bacteria for the most part) thriving in and on your body that account for about three pounds of your total body weight (about the same weight as your brain).  These little creatures play a huge role in your physical and mental well being and we are just beginning to understand the extent of their reach.  Modern medicine in the future, will likely embrace the microbiotic ecosystem as a means of preventing and treating many illnesses (including treating some mental illnesses).  I have continued to update this piece with comments including links to new research on this topic.

Children of high socioeconomic status (SES) show more activity (dark green) in the prefrontal cortex (top) than do kids of low SES when confronted with a novel or unexpected stimulus. (Mark Kishiyama/UC Berkeley)

Although, not among the most popular articles this year, my pieces on the pernicious affects of poverty on child development from 2011 warrant ongoing attention.  If we truly wish to halt the cycle of poverty, then we need to devote early and evidenced based intervention services for children and families living in poverty.  As it turns out, poverty is a neurotoxin.  Knowing the information in this series should motivate us, as a society, to truly evaluate our current political and economic policies.

• Parenting May Matter: For Infants and the Economically Deprived 

• The Effects of Poverty on Brain Development 

• The Economic, Neurobiological, and Behavioral Implications of Poverty 

• Halting the negative Feedback Loop of Poverty 

• Poverty Preventing Preschools 

• Poverty is a Neurotoxin 

The bottom line:

The human brain, no matter how remarkable, is flawed in two fundamental ways.  First, the proclivities toward patternicity (pareidolia), hyperactive agency detection, and superstition, although once adaptive mechanisms, now lead to many errors of thought.  Since the age of enlightenment, when human-kind developed the scientific method, we have exponentially expanded our knowledge base regarding the workings of the world and the universe.  These leaps of knowledge have rendered those error prone proclivities unessential for survival.  Regardless, they have remained a dominant cognitive force.  Although our intuition and rapid cognitions (intuitions) have sustained us, and in many ways they still do, the subsequent everyday illusions impede us in important ways.

Secondly, we are prone to a multitude of cognitive biases that diminish and narrow our capacity to truly understand the world. Time after time I have written of the dangers of ideology with regard to its capacity to blindfold its disciples.  Often those blindfolds are absolutely essential to sustain the ideology.  And this is dangerous when truths and facts are denied or innocents are subjugated or brutalized.  As I discussed in Spinoza’s Conjecture:

 

“We all look at the world through our personal lenses of experience.  Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, and ultimately our understanding of [it], then filters what we take in.  The end result is that we may reject or ignore new and important information simply because it does not conform to our previously held beliefs.

Because of these innate tendencies, we must make additional effort to step away from what we believe to be true in order to discover what is indeed true.

The Hand of God as an example of pareidolia.

Although I did not make a substantial number of posts in 2012, the traffic to my site doubled.  Throughout 2012 my blog had 35,819 hits from 31,960 unique visitors, accounting for over 46,720 page views.  I had visitors from every state in the US and visits from people from 165 nations around the world.  Visitors from the United States accounted for the vast majority of those hits, but the UK, Canada, India, and Australia also brought in large contingents.

This year the top ranked article was my 2011 post on Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail, which accounted for 50% more hits than this year’s number two ranked article (Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures – the number one post from last year).  The piece on conspicuous consumption, is in my opinion, one of my all time most important pieces.  It addresses our inherent drive to advance one’s social standing while actually going nowhere on the hedonic treadmill.  It delves into the environmental costs of buying into the illusion of consumer materialism and its biological origins (the signaling instinct much like that of the Peacock). The Brainwave piece, also from 2011, compares and contrasts the different measures used to peer into the workings of the brain.

Of my posts published in 2012, only two made it to this year’s top ten list: five were from 2010 and three were published in 2011.  Of those eight from previous years, five were also on the top ten list last year.

My 2012 review and discussion of the Broadway Musical Wicked topped the list of posts actually written in 2012, but it came in third overall this year relative to all other posts.  This article explores the theme that “things are not as they seem.”  I relate the story told in the show to the political and historical manipulation American citizens are subjected to, and it stirs up unpleasant and inconvenient realities that many would prefer remain unknown.

Great interest persists in my post entitled Nonmoral Nature: It is what it is.  This review of Stephen Jay Gould’s most famous article received a number four ranking, down from a number two ranking over the last two years.  I had also reviewed in 2010 a very popular New York Time’s article by Steven Pinker entitled The Moral Instinct.  This article moved down two notches this year, ultimately ranking number five.  My critical article on the Implicit Associations Test ranked number six this year, versus a number four ranking last year.  My 2011 post Where Does Prejudice Come From? ranked number seven this year, down two spots from its ranking in 2011.  One of my all time favorite posts from 2010, Emotion vs. Reason: And the Winner is?  returned to the top ten list this year coming in eighth.   In 2010 it ranked number ten, but it fell off the list last year.  My Hedgehog versus the Fox mindset piece ranked number nine this year, compared to a number ten ranking last year.  Finally, in the number ten slot this year,  is my 2012 article Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really?  This post was perhaps the most important post of the year.

So here is the Top Ten list for 2012.

1. Conspicuous Consumption and the Peacock’s Tail (2011)
2. Brainwaves and Other Brain Measures (2011)
3. Wicked! Things are NOT as they Seem (2012)
4. Non Moral Nature: It is what it is (2010)
5. Moral Instinct  (2010)
6. IAT: Questions of Reliability and Validity  (2010)
7. Where Does Prejudice Come From?  (2011)
8. Emotion vs. Reason: And the Winner is? (2010)
9. Are you a Hedgehog or a Fox?  (2010)
10. Happiness as Measured by GDP: Really? (2012)

Again this year, the top ten articles represent the foundational issues that have driven me in my quest to understand how people think.   This cross section of my work is, in fact, a good starting point for those who are new to my blog.  There are several other 2012 posts that ranked outside the top ten; regardless, I believe they are important.  These other posts include:

• So Your Partner Drives You Crazy? You’re Not Alone. Here’s Why
• Freud: In Some Ways He Was Right
• The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

This latter article, The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth, pertains to the microbiome, the collection of an estimated 100 trillion individual organisms thriving in and on your body that account for about three pounds of your total body weight (about the same weight as your brain).  These little creatures play a huge role in your physical and mental well being and we are just beginning to understand the extent of their reach.  Modern medicine in the future, will likely embrace the microbiome as a means of preventing and treating many illnesses (including treating some mental illnesses).

Although, not among the most popular articles this year, my pieces on the pernicious affects of poverty on child development from 2011 warrant ongoing attention.  If we truly wish to halt the cycle of poverty, then we need to devote early and evidenced based intervention services for children and families living in poverty.  As it turns out, poverty is a neurotoxin.  Knowing the information in this series should motivate us, as a society, to truly evaluate our current political and economic policies.

• Parenting May Matter: For Infants and the Economically Deprived  

• The Effects of Poverty on Brain Development  

• The Economic, Neurobiological, and Behavioral Implications of Poverty  

• Halting the negative Feedback Loop of Poverty  

• Poverty Preventing Preschools  

• Poverty is a Neurotoxin  

The bottom line:

The human brain, no matter how remarkable, is flawed in two fundamental ways.  First, the proclivities toward patternicity (pareidolia), hyperactive agency detection, and superstition, although once adaptive mechanisms, now lead to many errors of thought.  Since the age of enlightenment, when human kind developed the scientific method, we have exponentially expanded our knowledge base regarding the workings of the world and the universe.  These leaps of knowledge have rendered those error prone proclivities unessential for survival.  Regardless, they have remained a dominant cognitive force.  Although our intuition and rapid cognitions have sustained us, and in some ways still do, the subsequent everyday illusions impede us in important ways.

Secondly, we are prone to a multitude of cognitive biases that diminish and narrow our capacity to truly understand the world. Time after time I have written of the dangers of ideology with regard to its capacity to blindfold its disciples.  Often those blindfolds are absolutely essential to sustain the ideology.  And this is dangerous when truths and facts are denied or innocents are subjugated or brutalized.  As I discussed in Spinoza’s Conjecture:

 

“We all look at the world through our personal lenses of experience.  Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, and ultimately our understanding of [it], then filters what we take in.  The end result is that we may reject or ignore new and important information simply because it does not conform to our previously held beliefs.

Because of these innate tendencies, we must make additional effort to step away from what we believe to be true in order to discover the truth.

Saying “I’m sorry” can be very difficult for some of us.  We routinely make mistakes.  As coined by Alexander Pope: “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”  Within any interpersonal relationship there will be inadvertent missteps or even acts of anger that hurt those close to us.  Its not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.  Forgiving is important, as Pope emphasizes: and it is also quite often a difficult thing to do.  But the act of apologizing, it seems to me, can be even harder.

But why?

Obviously it necessitates swallowing one’s pride and accepting responsibility for one’s misdeeds.  It also requires a departure from one’s unique view of the world and the adoption of another person’s perspective.  Swallowing one’s pride is hard enough and perspective taking stirs the feelings of guilt.  For these reasons alone, I believe that saying the two simple words “I’m sorry” is perhaps one of the bravest things a person can do.

There are other factors that contribute to the difficulty associated with an apology.   Some view it as a tacit acknowledgement of one’s weakness.  It does tend to elicit a personal feeling of vulnerability and perhaps pangs of subjugation, defeat, and loss of status.  It can entwine and envelope one in a aura of incompetence and humility.  No one likes such feelings: none of them elevate one’s sense of  well being.  The opposite is true: they instead elicit dysphoric feelings that essentially punish the inclination to apologize.   Thus, many avoid, ignore, or steep themselves in denial.  Pointing outward and blaming the other party for causing the problem strips one of responsibility and allows escape from the unpleasantness of having to apologize.  It is the easy way out, and ultimately it tends to bankrupt a relationship.

I really like how Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, conceptualizes relationships.  He analogizes relationships to a bank account.  When you treat another person with dignity and respect, you make deposits in their emotional bank account.  When you hurt someone, you essentially make a withdrawal.  By virtue of being in a sustained relationship, you will, over time, make a series of deposits and withdrawals.  When you hurt another person and then deny your responsibility for having done so, you compound the withdrawal.  And too many withdrawals can drain that person’s emotional bank account.  A drained account stirs contempt and lays the foundation for the end of that relationship.  A genuine apology is typically a deposit and it can go a long way toward bringing the account back into balance.  To be effective, it must be heartfelt, with an acknowledgment of the depth of harm done, and with full acceptance of responsibility.  The results should help heal wounds and it may even strengthen the relationship.  It is a gift, because it can make forgiveness easier for the injured party.  Denial, on the other hand, deepens the wound and widens the gap.

Saying “I’m sorry” is supposed to be difficult.  It is an act of contrition, whereby one bares the difficult weight of the misstep and takes responsibility for it.  This courageous endeavor is essential for sustaining a loving and caring relationship.  The world in general, and your relationships specifically, will be better if you endeavor to be brave enough to utter these simple words.  Doing the right thing is ultimately way more important than being right (Ludwig, 2010). To err is human; to apologize, heroic.

References:

Belkin, L., (2010). Why is it so Hard to Apologize Well? The New York Times

Lazare, A., (2004). Making Peace Through Apology.  GreaterGood.berkley.edu

Ludwig, R., (2009).  Why is it so Hard to Say “I’m Sorry?”  NBC NEWS.com

Mumford & Sons (2010). Little Lion Man

O Leary, T. (2007). 5 Steps to an Effective Apology.  Pick The Brain.com

Citizens of the United States are endowed with certain unalienable rights: one of which is the right to pursue happiness.  Governments generally need to attend to the common level of happiness of its citizens in order to sustain power.  As evidenced by the Arab Spring, unhappy people have the capability to overthrow ineffectual governments.  As it turns out, the way politicians and economists presume to measure happiness is through a statistical measure called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  Let’s take a closer look at GDP and ponder the questions as to whether it is, in fact, an appropriate measure with regard to overall happiness.

Following World War II, a metric called the Gross National Product (GNP) was adopted as the key indicator of a nation’s economic growth.  Eventually GDP replaced GNP and it acquired broader meaning as a proxy of individual well-being (happiness).  But what does GDP really measure?  GDP as defined by InvestorWords.com is:

The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports.

GDP is the measure we look at to determine whether our economy is growing, in recession, or in depression.  This makes sense.   But the deeper fundamental belief is that GDP equates to personal wealth, and that the more personal wealth individuals posses, the happier they will be.  Our economy grows when people have money and spend it.  The bottom line assumption here is that money buys happiness.

Since developed nations have strategically attended to this measure, GDP has skyrocketed.  Concurrently, there have been unequivocal rises in living standards and wealth.  The United States has done relatively well in this regard.   But you might be surprised to know that according to a CIA website, the US ranks 12th in the world on a measure of GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) behind countries like Qatar, Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Brunei.

In poor nations where GDP is very low, quality of life and subjective measures of happiness are indeed low.  As GDP increases, there is a correlated increase in both quality of life and happiness.  But that relationship holds up, only to a certain point, and then it falls apart.  For example, in developed Western Democracies such as the United States, UK, and Germany, since the 1970’s, GDP has grown, but on a variety of measures, the happiness of its citizens has stagnated or declined.  See the chart below from James Gustave Speth’s book The Bridge at the Edge of the World.

Average Income and Happiness in the USA

As it turns out, when a nation’s GDP rises above $10,000.00 per capita there is no relationship between GDP and happiness.  For a reference point, in the United States our GDP per capita rose above this $10k point in the 1960s and is currently around $50k per capita.  The reality is that despite a five-fold increase in personal wealth, people as a whole, are no more happy today than they were in the 1970s.  This suggests a fundamental flaw in the thinking of our policy makers.

I am not alone, nor am I first to point out the problem with assuming that GDP equates to citizen happiness.  James Gustave Speth, provides a ground shaking critique of our current political, economic, and environmental policies in his 2008 book The Bridge at the Edge of the World.  This GDP-Happiness issue is a prominent theme in his book and he explores what actually accounts for happiness.  What follows is a summary of Speth’s discussion of this topic.

Research suggests that there are a number of important factors associated with individual happiness.  What is interesting is that the major factors are relativistic, innately internal, as well as social and interpersonal.  Yes, below a certain point, when people are impoverished and struggling to survive, happiness is indeed tied to GDP.  But above that $10K GDP per capita line, these other human factors play a major role.

Let us start with perhaps the most powerful factor associated with happiness, our genes.  It is estimated that about one-half of the variability in happiness is accounted for by our genetic composition.  One’s happiness is much like one’s personality, to a large extent it is written in our DNA.  Some people are just congenitally happier than others.  Some are chronic malcontents no matter what the circumstances provide.  Such proclivities are difficult to over ride.  But the remaining 50% of variance in happiness does seem to be rooted in variables that we can influence.

One’s relative prosperity is a clear variable.  There is an inverse relationship between happiness and one’s neighbors’ wealth.  If you are relatively well-off compared to those around you, you are likely to experience more happiness.  If however, you are surrounded by people doing much better than you, you are likely to experience discontent.  It is more about relative position rather than absolute income.  And as everyone’s income rises, one’s relative position generally remains stable.  So more money does not necessarily equate to more happiness.

Yet another innately human factor that plays out in this happiness paradox is our incredible tendency to quickly habituate to our income and the associated material possessions that it affords.  We seem to have a happiness set point. There may be an initial bump in happiness associated with a raise, a bigger better car, or a new house; however,  we tend to return to that set point of happiness pretty quickly.  We habituate to the higher living standards and quickly take for granted what we have.  We then get a relative look at what’s bigger and better and begin longing for those things.  This is the hedonic treadmill.

Happiness is to a large extent associated with seven factors:

1. Family relationships
2. One’s relative financial situation
3. The meaningfulness of one’s work
4. Ties to one’s community and friends
5. Health
6. Personal freedom
7. Personal values

Speth notes that “except for health and income, they are all concerned with the quality of our relationships.”  We clearly know that people need deeply connected and meaningful social relationships.  Yet we are living increasingly disconnected and transient lifestyles where we relentlessly pursue increasing affluence all the while putting distance between us and what we truly need to be happy.   We are on that hedonic treadmill convinced that happiness comes from material possessions, all the while neglecting the social bonds that truly fulfill us.

Obviously, GDP misses something with regard to happiness.  Speth quotes Psychologist David Meyers who wrote about this American Paradox.  At the beginning of the twenty-first century he observed that Americans found themselves:

“with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility.  We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life.  We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose.  We cherished our freedom but longed for connection.  In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger.  These facts of life lead us to a startling conclusion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically.”

The reality is that there is a great deal of disillusionment in this country.  And we are falling behind in other areas of significant importance.  Our healthcare systems ranks 37th in the world with regard to life expectancy.  The efforts of our education system finds us loosing touch with the world’s top performers.  A 2010 US Department of Education report releasing the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores indicated that 15-year-old students from the US scored in the average range in reading and science, but below average in math. Out of the 34 countries in the study, the US ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.  The US students ranked far behind the highest scoring countries, including South Korea, Finland, Canada, and Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai each in China.  Secretary Duncan, at the time of the PISA announcement, said that:

“The hard truth is that other high-performing nations have passed us by during the last two decades…In a highly competitive knowledge economy, maintaining the educational status quo means America’s students are effectively losing ground.”

Although GDP is an important economic measure, many economists and some leaders suggest that we should assess well-being more precisely.  For example, alternatives include the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) that factors into the equation environmental and social costs associated with economic progress.  See the graph below for how we in the US have fared on GPI.

GDP and GPI Growth

This GPI data suggests that since the early seventies there has been a clear divergence between GDP and the well-being of the citizens of the United States.  This GPI line correlates strongly with the relative happiness line over the same time period.

Another effort made with regard to measuring the well-being of the citizens is the Index of Social Health put forward by Marc and Marque-Luisa Miringoff.  They combined 16 measures of social well-being (e.g., infant mortality, poverty, child abuse, high school graduation rates, teenage suicide, drug use, alcoholism, unemployment, average weekly wages, etc.) and found that between 1970 and 2005 there has also been a deteriorating social condition in the United States despite exponential growth in GDP.

The New Economics Foundation in Britain has developed the Happy Planet Index (HPI) that essentially measures how well a nation converts finite natural resources into the well-being of its people.  The longer and happier people live with sustainable practices the higher the HPI.  The United States scores near the bottom of this list.  At the top of the list in the Western Developed nations are countries like Malta, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Iceland, and the Netherlands (due to long happy lives and lower environmental impact).  At the bottom across all nations are countries like the US, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait (each as a result of atrocious environmental impact) and Rwanda, Angola, Sudan and Niger (due to significantly shortened life spans).

“Right now,” Speth notes, “the reigning policy orientation and mindset hold that the way to address social needs and achieve better, happier lives is to grow – to expand the economy.  Productivity, wages, profits, the stock market, employment, and consumption must all go up.  Growth is good.  So good that it is worth all the costs.  The Ruthless Economy [however] can undermine families, jobs, communities, the environment, a sense of place and continuity, even mental health, [but] in the end, it is said, we’ll somehow be better off.  And we measure growth by calculating GDP at the national level and sales and profits at the company level.  And we get what we measure.”

All this taken together seems to suggest that we would be better off as a citizenry if we radically re-prioritized our economic, social, and environmental policies with increased focus on factors that more closely align with human well-being.   Yet, we continually forge ahead striving unquestionably for economic growth because we believe it will make us better off.  Closer scrutiny suggests that we should broaden our thinking in this regard.  If we were to focus our energies on GPI and/or HPI, like we have on GDP over the last 50 years, just imagine what we could accomplish.

References:

Central Intelligence Agency. The World Fact Book: GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP).

Guild, G. (2011). We’re Number 37! USA! USA! USA!

Happy Planet Index. NEF

Johnson, J. (2010). International Education Rankings Suggest Reform Can Lift U.S. US Department of Education.

Speth, James Gustave.  (2008).  The Bridge at the Edge of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press.

I’m not an emotional man.  As such, I rarely experience the extremes of sadness or joy.  This is not to say that I do not experience joy or sadness – I do.  I take great pleasure in life and also feel the pain that comes with it.  But, I am very stable and steadfast – very familiar and comfortable with the middle of the emotional spectrum.  Some might say that I am too serious, and that they have.

Because of this disposition, I don’t cry very often – in fact it takes a lot to make me cry.  It is not as though I actively resist crying, or that I view it as a weakness.  I just seem disinclined to go to such places.  It is my composition.

Lately however, things have changed and I have found myself more inclined to tear up.  My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer about six months ago and has since endured a great deal.  I guess one might say that I too am a bit more vulnerable and raw.

The tears that I have shed have not sprung from fear or even from empathy.  I have sustained confidence that she will survive this.  And at times when she has been fearful or just exhausted and frustrated, I have instinctively been her rock.   My tears instead, have fallen quite unexpectedly at times of great relief.

I vividly recall meeting with my wife’s surgeon just after her diagnosis and tearing up as he left the office having reassured Kimberly that she will be okay. I held Kimberly firmly in my arms and we both wept.

On the day of the lumpectomy I sat with my mother and our college aged children as we anxiously awaited news from the surgeon. At that point in time Kimberly had also been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and we did not know whether her breast cancer had moved to her lymph nodes. It was a very tense and scary time. When her surgeon called me out for the post surgical conference, he shared with me the good news that her lymph nodes were clear.  I choked back tears as I thanked him.  The emotional relief emerged forcefully and tearfully when I walked back into the waiting room to share this news with my family. I’m sure that my children have never before seen me in such a state.  A few minutes later, as I tried to share this news with Kimberly’s mother on the telephone, I could not talk and again tears streamed down my recently moistened cheeks.

Since that Spring day, Summer has come and gone, and Kimberly has endured prolific post surgical bleeding, mammosite radiation, a reevaluation of her thyroid nodules (negative for cancer), completed 50% of her chemotherapy treatments and I have resumed my steadfastness.  I have been a rock – steady and sure.  Of course this is not completely true.  I am less able to endure violence for entertainment on the television and I have little patience for the malicious or ignorant forays of others.  But generally, I have held it together.

Then one day my wife came to me in tears after reading a letter sent to her by my daughter (Meghan), her step-daughter.  I read it and it shook me to my core.  I cried as thoroughly as I ever recall.  She wrote (this is just an excerpt):

All of the things you are going through really, really, really suck and it is out of everyone’s control. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before with the flood of cards you have been receiving since mid May. But maybe you haven’t heard what I am going to say…

 

Life is amazing.  We are all so truly lucky to be here. Out of all the stars, out of all the systems WE are here. It is a one in infinity probability. And despite all the suffering, you are here and you are unique; the only one that thinks like you… you are the only one that hears your thoughts… you are the only one here right now experiencing what you’re experiencing and feeling how you feel about it. And maybe that makes people feel lonely, but I feel lucky and I hope you do too.  So whenever you’re having one of those moments when you’re hating everything, “Why me?!” turn it around to “I am lucky to be here and living the life I’m living.” You’re the only person who can have the relationship you have with me, my Dad, with Alec and Paige, with your siblings. With this random chance of us all being in the same time, we are all so lucky… So keep going, hang in there, stay strong, let weakness, vulnerability, and sadness take over when you feel it fitting, but after,  breath deeply (because you are the only one in that moment feeling what you feel, breathing that 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen & remaining percentages, that is your breath and only yours).  We have to cherish and recognize the awesomeness of it all, it is truly incredible and it blows me away almost daily.  So the next time we are all together at dinner or bumming around, take a second to think “Wow, there will be no moment like this, we are truly unique!”

My daughter in that moment became the rock and I could let go.   And I did let go!  This morning I read a quote posted on Facebook by a friend that read:

People cry not because they’re weak.  It’s because they have been strong for too long.

It is immensely touching and life changing when your “child” rises and shows the capacity and wisdom to be the rock.  And I am thankful that I had the capacity to let go of that role in that moment.  I am fortunate to have a wife that helped nurture such love in my daughter, and a daughter who has herself persevered through adversity and grown into an incredible woman.  Meghan is right, we are so very fortunate to be here at all, to be together, to be loved, and to be aware of the uniqueness and improbability of it all.  A wise person of unknown identity once said “Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.” This cancer has given us the opportunity to appreciate the strength and character of those around us who take turns being the rock.  It is this strength of others that gives me the occasion to let go, and shed some tears.

Have you ever heard someone make an argument that leaves you shaking your head in disbelief?  Does it seem to you like some people are coming from a completely different reality than your own?  If so, then this blog is for you.  I have spent the last year trying to develop an understanding of the common thought patterns that drive the acrimonious spirit of our social and political dialogue.  I am continually amazed by what I hear coming from seemingly informed people.  I have assumed that some folks are either deluded, disingenuous, or downright ignorant.  There is yet another possibility here, including the reality that different moral schema or belief systems may be driving their thinking.  And if this is the case, how do these divergent processes come to be?  I  have learned a lot through this exploration and feel compelled do provide a recap of the posts I have made.  I want to share with you those posts that have gathered the most traction and some that I believe warrant a bit more attention.

Over the past year I have posted 52 articles often dealing with Erroneous Thought Processes, Intuitive Thinking, and Rational Thought.  Additionally, I have explored the down stream implications of these processes with regard to politics, morality, religion, parenting, memory, willpower, and general perception.  I have attempted to be evidenced-based and objective in this process – striving to avoid the very trappings of confirmation bias and the erroneous processes that I am trying to understand.   As it turns out, the brain is very complicated: and although it is the single most amazing system known to human kind, it can and does lead us astray in very surprising and alarming ways.

As for this blog, the top ten posts, based on the shear number of hits, are as follows:

1. Attribution Error
2. Nonmoral Nature, It is what it is.
3. Multitasking: The Illusion of Efficacy
4. Moral Instinct
5. Pareidolia
6. IAT: Questions of Reliability
7. Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?
8. What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule
9. Illusion of Punditry
10. Emotion vs.Reason: And the winner is?

What started out as ramblings from a curious guy in a remote corner of New York State ended up being read by folks from all over the planet.  It has been a difficult process at times, consuming huge amounts of time, but it has also been exhilarating and deeply fulfilling.

I have been heavily influenced by several scientists and authors in this exploration.  Of particular importance have been Steven Pinker, Daniel Simons, Christopher Chabris, Jonah Lehrer, Bruce Hood, Carl Sagan, and Malcolm Gladwell.  Exploring the combined works of these men has been full of twists and turns that in some cases necessitated deep re-evaluation of long held beliefs.  Holding myself to important standards – valuing evidence over ideology – has been an important and guiding theme.

Several important concepts have floated to the top as I poked through the diverse literature pertaining to thought processes. Of critical importance has been the realization that what we have, when it comes to our thought processes, is a highly developed yet deeply flawed system that has been shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution.  Also important has been my increased understanding of the importance of genes, the basic element of selective pressures, as they play out in morality and political/religious beliefs.  These issues are covered in the top ten posts listed above.

There are other worthy posts that did not garner as much attention as those listed above.  Some of my other favorites included a review of Steven Pinker’s article in the New York Times (also titled Moral Instinct,) a look at Jonathon Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory in Political Divide, as well as the tricks of Retail Mind Manipulation and the Illusion of Attention.  This latter post and my series on Vaccines and Autism (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) were perhaps the most important of the lot.  Having the content of these become general knowledge would make the world a safer place.

The evolution of understanding regarding the power and importance of Intuitive relative to Rational Thinking was humbling at times and Daniel Simons’ and Christopher Chabris’ book, The Invisible Gorilla, certainly provided a mind opening experience.  Hey, our intuitive capabilities are incredible (as illustrated by Gladwell in Blink & Lehrer in How We Decide) but the downfalls are amazingly humbling.  I’ve covered other topics such as  happiness, superstition, placebos, and the debate over human nature.

The human brain, no matter how remarkable, is flawed in two fundamental ways.  First, the proclivities toward patternicity (pareidolia), hyperactive agency detection, and superstition, although once adaptive mechanisms, now lead to many errors of thought.  Since the age of enlightenment, when human kind developed the scientific method, we have exponentially expanded our knowledge base regarding the workings of the world and the universe.  These leaps of knowledge have rendered those error prone proclivities unessential for survival.  Regardless, they have remained a dominant cognitive force.  Although our intuition and rapid cognitions have sustained us, and in some ways still do, the everyday illusions impede us in important ways.

Secondly, we are prone to a multitude of cognitive biases that diminish and narrow our capacity to truly understand the world. Time after time I have written of the dangers of ideology with regard to its capacity to put blind-folds on adherents.  Often the blind- folds are absolutely essential to sustain the ideology.  And this is dangerous when truths and facts are denied or innocents are subjugated or brutalized.  As I discussed in Spinoza’s Conjecture:  “We all look at the world through our personal lenses of experience.  Our experiences shape our understanding of the world, and ultimately our understanding of [it], then filters what we take in.  The end result is that we may reject or ignore new and important information simply because it does not conform to our previously held beliefs.

Because of our genetically inscribed tendencies toward mysticism and gullibility, we must make extra effort in order to find truth. As Dr. Steven Novella once wrote:

“We must realize that the default mode of human psychology is to grab onto comforting beliefs for purely emotional reasons, and then justify those beliefs to ourselves with post-hoc rationalizations. It takes effort to rise above this tendency, to step back from our beliefs and our emotional connection to conclusions and focus on the process.”

We must therefore be humble with regard to beliefs and be willing to accept that we are vulnerable to error prone influences outside our awareness.  Recognition and acceptance of these proclivities are important first steps.   Are you ready to move forward?  How do you think?

What makes a good parent?  Really?  What can we do to ensure that our children grow up happy, healthy and wise?  There is a lot of advice out there – some of which, on the surface seems quite sage.  But history is replete with really bad advice – some based in moral authority and some in the ill formed wisdom of so called experts.  New advice is commonplace and how often have you been confused by the contradictory nature of yesterday’s and today’s tips?  There are enough schools of thought out there to confirm and satisfy almost any advocate of any “reasonably sane” parenting approach and even some not so prudent approaches.  There is a pretty good reason for this variability and I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, lets look at a recent article from Scientific American MIND that provides a summary of a scientific analysis resulting in a list of the top ten most effective child rearing practices.

In What Makes a Good Parent? the author, Robert Epstein, shares the results of a study on parenting skills that he carried out at UC San Diego, with a student (Shannon Fox).  The results were presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association this past summer.  Epstein and Fox looked at parenting techniques advised by experts, strategies commonly employed by parents, and strategies that seemingly had efficacy in the real world.  They collected their data online from nearly 2000 parents who volunteered to take a test of parenting skills at Epstein’s website: http://MyParentingSkills.com.  The test was devised by Epstein based on the literature, whereby ten parenting techniques that had robust evidence with regard to good outcomes were selected and measured.   Epstein had the 10 skills assessed by 11 parenting experts to further evaluate their validity.    The participants answered 100 questions pertaining to their agreement (on a 5 point agree to disagree scale) with the ten parenting variables (e.g., “I generally encourage my child to make his or her own choices,” “I try to involve my child in healthful outdoor activities,” “No matter how busy I am, I try to spend quality time with my child.”).   In addition to these questions the test asked questions pertaining to important variables such as income and educational levels of the parents, marital status, parenting experience, age, as well as questions regarding the happiness, health and functioning capacity of their child/ren.

The results, coined by the author as The Parent’s Ten, make perfect sense to me as a parent of three reasonably well adjusted, happy and successful college students.  They also gel with my exposure to the literature and my experiences guiding parents within my professional capacity as a child psychologist over the last 16 years. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Here are 10 competencies that predict good parenting outcomes, listed roughly in order from most to least important. The skills – all derived from published studies – were ranked based on how well they predict a strong parent-child bond and children’s happiness, health and success.

1. Love and affection. You support and accept the child, are physically affectionate, and spend quality one-on-one time together.
2. Stress management. You take steps to reduce stress for yourself and your child, practice relaxations techniques and promote positive interpretations of events.
3. Relationship skills. You maintain a healthy relationship with your spouse, significant other or co-parent and model effective relationship skills with other people.
4. Autonomy and independence. You treat your child with respect and encourage him or her to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.
5. Education and learning. You promote and model learning and provide educational opportunities for your child.
6. Life skills. You provide for your child, have a steady income and plan for the future.
7. Behavior Management. You make extensive use of positive reinforcement and punish only after other methods of managing behavior have failed.
8. Health. You model a healthy lifestyle and good habits, such as regular exercise and proper nutrition, for your child.
9. Religion. You support spiritual or religious development and participate in spiritual or religious activities.
10. Safety. You take precautions to protect your child and maintain awareness of the child’s activities and friends.“

Although you may not find these results all that surprising, Epstein suggests that they are because if you look closely at the list you’ll see that the vast majority of the skills are parental personality and/or life skill issues.  As this study suggests, a child’s well-being, it seems, is most closely associated with how a parent treats oneself (e.g., manages stress and maintains a healthy diet and exercise regimen), how one gets along with the co-parent (e.g., maintains and models important healthy relationships), as well as the efficacy of one’s life skills (e.g., sustains income and plans for the future), and how deeply one values education.

These “skills” constitute a full 50% of the list and when weighted, based on the degree of association, likely account for a huge and disproportionate amount of the influence on child happiness, health, and adaptive functioning outcomes.  And several of the other “skills” (e.g., affection, respect for the dignity of children, degree of parental control imposed, and even level of spirituality) really are behaviors that are known to vary associated with one other crucial, yet unmentioned variable.

You see, the presumption here is that children are brought into the world as malleable blank slates that we can mold through the type of parenting we employ.  The reality is that parents who employ these skills likely do so as a function of their intelligence and personality, which are heavily influenced by their genes.  The truth of the matter is likely that children whose parents care for themselves, have good social skills, and plan for the future will have happier, healthier, and wiser children, but not because of the parenting skills employed during their upbringing, but because of their shared genes.  Epstein did not control for the effect of shared genes in this study.  And neither have most of the researchers looking at the relationship between parenting behavior and children outcomes (Pinker, 2002).  The current research from behavioral genetics suggests that the home environment, as it is influenced by parents, accounts for 0 to 10% of the variance in the wellness outcomes of children!  Heredity accounts for about 50% and the child’s peer group accounts for the remainder (40-50%) (Pinker, 2002).

Epstein asks what parental characteristics are associated with good outcomes and finds that women produce only slightly better outcomes then men.  Likewise they found that married individuals produce slightly happier children then divorced parents.  Gay individuals actually report slightly happier children then do straight individuals.  And no differences were noted associated with race or ethnicity, but more educated individuals had the best outcomes.  He notes that “Some people just seem to have a knack for parenting, which cannot be easily described in terms of specific skills.”  He’s got that right!  That knack, although unacknowledged by Epstein, is largely a function of one’s genes.  Temperament is a personality trait that we know is hugely influenced by genes and Epstein notes that “Keeping calm is probably step one in good parenting.”

So we have another conundrum.  We are lead to believe, based on the results of this study, that we, as parents, can shape our children, and thus by engaging in The Parent’s Ten,  produce happier, healthier, and wiser children.  But can we really?  Is there an illusion of cause here?  Are these simply correlations?  The findings of behavioral genetics would suggest that this is an illusion – that these variables vary in predictable ways based on the influence of a third variable – genes.

Next week I’ll delve into this notion of whether how one parents really matters.  This exploration comes with significant discomfort for me as I am a behavioral child psychologist with 11 years of training and 16 years of practice steeped in the belief that I can help parents make a difference in the lives of their children.  I have long accepted the notion that the nature-nurture debate is not an either-or issue.  I see in my life and practice that outcomes are clearly the result of the influences of both nature and nurture.  Regardless, I have held the notion that it is parenting to a large extent, that accounts for a large portion of the nurturing influence.  Now I have to look carefully at the evidence, be willing to shed the ideological notion that we are blank slates, and accept the reality of the situation, no matter how hard and contrary they are to my beliefs.  This necessitates true intellectual honesty and deep scientific scrutiny.

References:

Epstein, R. (2010). What Makes a Good Parent? Scientific American MIND. November/December 2010. (pgs 46-51).

Pinker, S. (2002).  The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Penguin Books.

Happiness keeps popping up in my life.  Not just the feeling, but the topic.  In fact, this morning I woke up to a text asking me how happy I was. That didn’t make me feel happy at all.  More on that in a minute.  Ever since my recent posts on happiness, it feels like relevant conversations and tweets also keep popping up.  I know that this is a result of my reticular activating system cuing me into this omnipresent topic, but it just makes me happy when it happens.

Certainly a big contributor to my awareness of happiness is my participation in a research project that randomly asks me to quantify my level of happiness throughout the day.   I heard of this study on NPR’s Science Friday where Ira Flatow interviewed a Doctoral Candidate from Harvard University upon the publication of his study that found a relationship between mind wandering and lower levels of happiness (Killingsworth, 2010).  The way the data was collected is very interesting, well actually it is very cool (at the risk of sounding too pedestrian).  To a guy who really appreciates technology and has a dendrite tight connection to his iPhone, this is way cool.  So this is how it works.  Once you sign up to participate and give some basic demographic data you start getting texts that ask you to rate your happiness at that moment.  They also ask other questions such as wake and sleep time, quality of sleep, desire and need to do what you are doing at the moment, level of current social interaction, degree of focus on task, what the task is, and where you are.  They ask other questions too, but not too many in any one session.  Each session takes about a minute to complete.  And upon completion, they send you some graphic data about you and your responses over time.  The catch is you need to have an iPhone to participate.  Granted, this skews the data set, but pretty soon they will release it to Android owners, so that wannabes can participate too 😉 .  Yes, I know! The data will still be skewed.

I have found this to be very rewarding on multiple levels.  It is great to contribute to research, yes, but I have also learned some things about myself and about the levels and situations of my happiness.  For one thing, I find that I am happier far more often than I had ever really realized.  I guess I don’t really think about it much, but when asked and put in a position to respond, I assess my mood, and often find it to be good to very good.  The grumpy and pissed off moments really amount to that, just moments, and for the most part, I’m feeling pretty good.

I also found that my inclination to be exercising with my wife or working on a project or being outside or helping someone to be associated with the highest states of happiness. There is one more topic they assess from time to time, which I will not share here: but lets just say that it is associated with the pinnacle of pleasure.  I am drawn to all the above activities perhaps because I am rewarded with a flood of the feeling good neurotransmitter (dopamine) that sweetly caress my nucleus accumbens (NAcc).  These are parts of, and reactions that occur in, the brain.  I felt the need to clarify this for those that may be reading soft porn into my prose.

Granted, the data is limited to three sessions a day (I selected this frequency) so not all activities of my daily life have been sampled sufficiently to draw any firm conclusions, but it is interesting nevertheless.  I suggest that if you have an iPhone, you should go to https://www.trackyourhappiness.org/ and sign up.  You will be contributing to science and learning a bit about yourself.  Really it is non-invasive and actually quite fun, except at 6:00 am, (I gave them permission to send texts at this time), the morning after hosting a large family Thanksgiving Dinner.  I got over it, and really I was quite happy anyways.  I’m very fortunate to have such a great family.

On a different note, I recently received a tweet with a link to an article titled A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder (Bentall, 1992).  This absolutely cracked me up.  The abstract reads as follows:

 

“It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains–that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.”

Obviously, this is a satirical paper, but it says something important about happiness and perhaps more importantly, something about our obsession with it.  This paper was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics back in 1992.  You can see get a free copy at Pub Med.  Its a “fun” read if you get a kick out of reading scholarly papers written tongue in cheek.

Finally, I have to state the obvious, Happiness is in the eye of the beholder.  This weekend I went camping with my brother-in-law.  It was snowing, very windy, and pretty darn cold in Western New York.  At one point my companion checked the Weather Channel on his Android hoping to find that the lake effect snow bands were swinging south to really blast us.  The temperature was 24° and the wind chill made it feel like 12° (Fahrenheit).

Later, in the middle of the night, in my tent, my thermometer read 25 degrees.  And I was HAPPY!  My wife suggests that it is a testosterone thing.  I’m not sure, but I find that there is something greatly fulfilling about enduring adversity such as this.  At one point my brother-in-law blurted out his supreme happiness, as we sat eating a delicious freeze dried beef stew among great rock city quartz conglomerate relics of Devonian Age deposition.  And as we later cooked our dinner over the hot coals of our warmth providing camp fire, amidst bone chilling winds, we again mutually proclaimed deep happiness.  There is something about eating food cooked outside on a fire or even on our tiny camp stoves that makes it taste so much better than it would were we to cook it in the shelter and warmth of a conveniently contrived home.  It’s about getting back to one’s roots: it’s about the struggle for survival, the very capabilities that ultimately brought us here, to this point in time in our evolution.  But it also reminds me how fortunate I am to have such conveniences.  I am aware that what I now have was not available to a vast majority of my fore bearers.  I am also aware that even today, so many of my fellow human beings are far less fortunate.  I am happy because I can appreciate the relative bounty that is my life.  So much of happiness is about perspective.  From my perspective – life is good.

References:

Bentall, R. P. (1992). A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder. Journal of Medical Ethics. 1992 Jun;18(2):94-8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1619629

Killingsworth, M. (2010). Quantifying Happiness.  National Public Radio. Science Friday. http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131274191/quantifying-happiness

Are you Happy?  What makes you happy? These questions, although seemingly rudimentary, are more difficult to answer than you might think.  As it turns out, happiness, as a condition, eludes clear understanding.

Throughout history, mankind has grappled with a definition of this emotion.  Perhaps the most meaningful framing of happiness is rooted in the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia.  Eudaimonia suggests that fulfillment comes not from experiencing the feeling of  joy, but from living a virtue-based and meaningful life.  Central to this notion is an emphasis on being a good person.  Others have put forth perhaps equally telling notions.  Nietzsche wrote that “the secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.”   Bertrand Russel noted that “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”   These latter two concepts acknowledge something important about the reality of happiness that Ayn Rand denied when she wrote that happiness is “a state of non-contradictory joy, joy without penalty or guilt.” (Salerno, 2010).

We all know (I hope) the feeling of happiness.  We might surmise that, if given the power to manipulate our circumstances, we would be able to effectively engineer our world in a way that would guarantee this desirable state. But, as it turns out, as Nietzsche and Russel suggest, happiness is paradoxical.

We think we know what we want, but the acquisition of one’s desires often fails to live up to expectations and sometimes it brings regret, remorse, guilt, or dissonance.  Those situations or items we covet in hopes that they will bring us happiness, come with detractors. Many women for example, desire children. Yet many mothers struggle with the need for fulfillment beyond domestic responsibilities (Salerno, 2010).  And these two pursuits often collide in stressful ways.  We are it seems, hard wired to pursue some goals that are, by their very nature, contradictory when happiness is concerned.

Life’s most prized aspirations, namely children and wealth, actually do not tend to bolster happiness. When looking at the research on the impact of children on maternal levels of happiness, the conclusions suggest that child rearing has a neutral to negative affect on quality of life. Positive associations are hard to come by.  And although it appears that there is a slight positive relationship between wealth and happiness, there are numerous caveats to this correlation. Lottery winners for example, after the initial excitement of the win end up being no happier or even less contended than they were before the draw.  And people in the United States, the richest nation in the world, report overall lower levels of happiness than folks from poorer countries. (Salerno, 2010).

In reality, our daily lives are comprised of unending battles between opposing objectives. On the one hand, we are drawn to selfish, indulgent, freedom while at the same time we are constrained by altruism, frugality, and commitment (Salerno, 2010).  We can’t have it both ways and this conundrum often leaves us conflicted. After all, if we all were to pursue or own selfish interests we would have a highly dysfunctional, disjointed, and even dangerous society. The drive for social cohesion and the necessary restraint have deep evolutionary and strongly compelling roots.  And then there is the drive to build social status through material acquisition or conspicuous consumption.  This pursuit  is really a zero sum game.  Whatever you accumulate, there are many others that have bigger and better houses, cars, and jewels.  It is all quite complicated and we are a curious lot. We want happiness, yet often what we aspire to, diminishes our happiness. I am reminded of the proverb: “Be careful of what you wish for. You just might get it.”   What we want and what really brings happiness are often opposing forces or at least likely to stir conflict.  This seems to be especially true with regard to deeper, genetically driven, intuitive drives (e.g., procreation and status building).

A similar paradox plays out in society where it is need, or misery, that catalyzes advancement. To paraphrase Plato: Necessity is the mother of invention. We prosper through innovation, creativity, and achievement: all of which, to some degree, stem from discontent (Salerno, 2010).  Sociologists Allan Horowitz and Jerome Wakefield suggest in their book, The Loss of Sadness, that sadness has a clear evolutionary purpose – essentially to propel adaptation.   Daniel Gilbert (2006), a happiness guru from Harvard University once wrote that “We have a word for animals that never feel distress, anxiety, fear, and pain. That word is dinner.” It seems that contentedness fosters passivity and stagnation. For example, college students who score very high on measures of happiness rarely have correspondingly high GPAs.  And the perkiest adults among us tend to make less money than their more even-keeled colleagues. (Salerno, 2010).   I refer to yet another paradox in “Adversity: Had Enough?” where I shared research that contends that happiness is strongest in those that have experienced two to four adverse life events. Moderate amounts of adversity seem to bolster one’s capacity to tolerate and cope with future stressors and elevate one’s general level of contentedness (Seery, 2010). One might assume, that smooth sailing brings happiness, but as it turns out, this is not quite true.  And a newly released study from Harvard University suggests that lower levels of happiness are associated with mind-wandering (Killingsworth, 2010).  I discussed this in Multitasking: The Illusion of Efficacy, where I suggested that the mantra of FOCUS & FINISH will result in more efficiency (Nass, 2010), but as it turns out, it may also bring one a better mood.

Okay, so what brings people true happiness?  There are general circumstances that appear to be associated with higher overall levels of happiness.  For example married people tend to be happier than singles, church goers happier than atheists, and people with friends tend to be happier than the insular (Salerno, 2010).   Recent findings suggest that people in their 50s are happier than those in their 20s (Stone, 2010).

To me happiness has to do with how you frame it and mostly about your expectations.  It is helpful to think of life as a transient series of states dappled with moments of joy.  It is unrealistic to expect a chronic state of bliss.  We are much too inclined to misery to ever accomplish this. And this brings me to perhaps my greatest offering:

Misery exists in the gap

between expectations and reality.

Think about it.  I am suggesting that a flexible and open minded focus on the world and the realities of its constraints will help you avoid misery.   The most miserable people I know have the most rigid expectations about life, about others behavior, about rules, about fairness, and about shoulds.  We have a concept in psychology called the tyranny of the shoulds (coined by Karen Horney) whereby one’s expectations that things should go a certain way, result in subsequent neuroses.  This is often true it seems because generally our expectations are unrealistic.  The more rigid and prolific one is with regard to expectations, the more likely they are to be slapped down by reality.  These folks are consistently victimized by life.

Happiness I contend is a multidimensional construct.  In part, it is an absence of misery.  But that doesn’t tell us what it is.  Perhaps Charles Shultz had it right when he said “Happiness is a warm puppy.”  In reality we have to accept that it is paradoxical and that pursuit of it is a personal responsibility.  This latter fact is a stressor for many (Salerno, 2010).  I myself get joy from shared moments of close interpersonal intimacy, from adventure, from persevering on challenging tasks, from increased understanding of the world around me, and from the contributions I make toward the betterment of other people’s lives.  I am happy because I make a difference, because I choose to include adventure in my life, and because I am very fortunate to live in this time and place where I am relatively well off (although not wealthy) and loved.

I ask again: What makes you happy?

References:

Gilbert, D. (2006).  The Science of Happiness. Edge The 3rd Culture. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gilbert06/gilbert06_index.html

Harmon, K. (2010). It’s getting better all the time: Happiness, well-being increase after 50. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=its-getting-better-all-the-time-hap-2010-05-17

Horowitz, A., Wakefield, J. (2007).  The Loss of Sadness. Oxford University Press: New York

Killingsworth, M. (2010). Quantifying Happiness.  National Public Radio. Science Friday. http://www.npr.org/2010/11/12/131274191/quantifying-happiness

Nass, C. (August 28, 2009).  Talk of the Nation: National Public Radio:  Multitasking May Not Mean Higher Productivity. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112334449

Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. v. 106, no. 37. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/37/15583

Salerno, S. (2010).  Ignorance of Bliss.  Skeptic Magazine Vol. 15 No. 1.

Seery, M. D., Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2010, October 11). Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0021344

Seldon, B. (2009). Multitasking, marijuana, managing? http://www.management-issues.com/2009/9/21/opinion/multitasking–marijuana–managing.asp

Stone, A. (2010). Positivity And Life At 50 Plus. http://commcgi.cc.stonybrook.edu/am2/publish/Medical_Center_Health_Care_4/Positivity_And_Life_At_50_Plus_–_SBU_Scientist_And_Colleagues_Find_Patterns_of_Perceptions_Of_Well-Being_Across_The_Life_Span.shtml

Tierney, J. (2010).  When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/science/16tier.html