How Do You Think?

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

Are you as perplexed as I regarding the acrimony in American Politics?  The rift is peppered with claims of amorality and threats of calamity.  It’s almost as if the opposing parties come from entirely different realities.  Perhaps they do.  I have gained some insight into the liberal-conservative divide thanks to Jonathon Haidt’s work, particularly his Moral Foundations Theory.

Haidt contends that the political divide itself boils down to five universal and transcendent morals held to varying degrees by individuals across all cultures and civilizations.  He demonstrated how these moral values group in predictable ways.  In particular, he has identified two dichotomous groupings that had been previously discussed respectively by John Stuart Mill and Emile Durkheim.

Haidt describes the first cluster as the Individualizing Foundation, where the emphasis of one’s moral imperative is on the rights and welfare of all individuals.  Features of this foundation include “widespread human concern about caring, nurturing, and protecting vulnerable individuals from harm” (Haidt, 2009).  The second cluster of values is referred to as the Binding Foundation, which weighs more heavily moral issues that increase social cohesiveness and social order. Rather than focusing on individual equality and personal rights, the emphasis of the Binding Foundation is on loyalty, obedience, duty, self-restraint, respect of authority, piety, self-sacrifice for the group, vigilance for traitors or free-loaders, and orderly cultural boundaries.

Haidt noted that liberals value above all the Individualizing Foundation and hold a relative devaluation of the Binding Foundation.  Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to hold the Binding Foundation as being of equal relative importance as the Individualizing Foundations.  This conceptualization helped me understand why less affluent conservatives support the Republican agenda regardless of the negative economic impact that such support bestows upon them.  They vote based on values that resonate with them.  It also helps explain how people at each extreme can take a stand that they contend is morally superior while their adversaries are viewed as being unprincipled and amoral.  The reality is that each perspective stems from a position of deeply held principles.

I recently finished reading Steven Pinker’s book entitled The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.  Rather than looking at this political divide in terms of morality, Pinker frames it in terms of divergent views of human nature. Underlying this political divide is a deeper and more rancorous debate about what defines human nature.  This issue is as old as civilization itself and was, for example, evident in the divergent lifestyles of the conflicted Greek City States of Athens and Sparta.  Pinker contends that the political divide really comes down to how individuals attribute the motives and behaviors of people in general. It is a very basic question of how one views the human race and what drives human behavior.

Pinker takes a stand against the commonly held notion that human nature is a blank slate shaped exclusively through environmental circumstances influenced by economic, political, and social forces.   The notion of a blank slate concedes social determinism, which is a position that is favored by liberals.  Evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience bring to the table substantial evidence that suggests that there are indeed genetic or biological determinants of behavior.  Accepting this reality comes with the dreadful reality that such notions guided the eugenics movement that resulted in the holocaust (and other horrible crimes of humanity).

As it turns out, political attitudes, for example, are largely, although not entirely, determined by heredity.  Pinker quotes a study of political attitudes among identical twins reared apart where the correlation coefficient was .62.  This suggests that genetics accounts for 38% of the determination of political attitude.  Such a notion is sacrilege to those on the left.  It is deeply disturbing for me, as one who leans heavily to the left on political issues, to learn that my inclinations to accept the findings of these increasingly powerful sciences at some level, distances me from other liberal thinkers.  How can this be?

You see, liberals emanate from the sociological tradition that holds the position that society “is a cohesive organic entity and its individuals are mere parts.  People are thought to be social by their very nature and to function as constituents of a larger superorganism” (Pinker, 2002 p. 284).   On the other hand, conservatives tend to hold the belief that “society is an arrangement negotiated by rational, self-interested individuals.  Society emerges when people agree to sacrifice some of their autonomy in exchange for security from the depredations of others wielding their own autonomy” (Pinker, 2002 p. 285).

The modern theory of evolution aligns best with the latter economic contract paradigm, where natural selection results in complex individual adaptations benefiting individuals rather than the species or community.  This theory holds that “all societies – animal and human – seethe with conflicts of interest and are held together by shifting mixtures of dominance and cooperation” and that “reciprocal altruism, in particular, is just the traditional concept of the social contract restated in biological terms” (Pinker, 2002 p. 285).  To make this dichotomy more clear it might help to think of the sociological tradition as being consistent with Marxist thinking while the social contract is more consistent with Milton Friedman’s free-market conservatism.

At the core of these paradigms are very different conceptualizations of human nature.  Thomas Sowell has captured this dichotomy in his book A Conflict of Visions where he delineates those visions as being either constrained or unconstrained.  Pinker adapted these labels to be more descriptive and thus refers to them respectively as Tragic (a term Sowell later adopted) and Utopian.  These visions refer to the “perfectibility of man” whereas the Tragic Vision holds that “humans are inherently limited in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue” and that as a result “all social arrangements must acknowledge those limits.”   This  pessimistic view of human nature, is steeped in biological determinism and the acknowledgment of self interested motives. The liberal or Utopian View contends that “psychological limitations are artifacts that come from our social arrangements.”  It is believed that economic deprivation elicits social depravity and that social engineering can eradicate the ills of society.

Sowell and Pinker suggest that these very visions of human nature shape the belief mechanisms or morals that result in divergent social policies.  For example, people who hold the Tragic Vision are more likely to support a strong military because of an inherent human selfishness and the inclination to compete for resources.  They are more likely to value religion, tough criminal sentences, strong policing, and judicial restraint because people need to be constrained in order to maintain an orderly and cohesive society.  Likewise, because of this pessimistic view of human nature, people inclined to hold such a view are likely to be censorious, meritocratic, pragmatic, and pro business.

People holding the Utopian View are likely to be idealistic, egalitarian, pacifistic, secularist, and more likely to tolerate homosexuality, to be in favor of the rehabilitation of criminals, judicial activism, generous social welfare programs, and affirmative action.  They are also more likely to be environmentalists. Pinker’s contention is that all these values, more or less, are heritable and that as a result, people are likely to hold them as self defining.  Subsequently, these beliefs are typically not amenable or susceptible to change because they are often held without a rationally based understanding of them.  Such deeply held (intuitive) and heritable attitudes quickly spark emotional responses when challenged and people do not move away from such notions even when reason compels them to do so.

So it seems, at the core of the contentious political divide there are discrepant realities pertaining to the very essence of what it is to be a human being.  And that essence is evolving regardless of the ideologies that shape the political climate.  Perhaps we can escape the gridlock by acknowledging the disconnect between ideology and reality and embrace a truer essence of humanity.  That reality, it seems, is a blend of the Tragic and Utopian Visions where human behavior is guided by both social and biological determinants.  Reality, as it turns out, is often queerer than one can suppose.

Breaking the chains of ideology necessarily involves abandoning and overpowering intuition, which is itself, a formidable task. But social morays have evolved over time as we have gained deeper insight into humankind. Lets hope for continued evolution!

References:

Graham, J., Haidt, J., and Nosek, B. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 5, 1029–1046

Haidt, J. (2008). What Makes People Vote Republican? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

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

I have long suspected that a certain amount of adversity in life ultimately leads to greater degrees of happiness.  This is contrary to the commonly held notion that suggests that traumatic stress is inherently harmful.  It can be argued, as Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”   I’m in sync with Nietzsche here: hard times build resilience and help one appreciate the better times with deeper enthusiasm.  A recent Scientific American Podcast indicated that I might just be right.  In Adversity Is Linked to Life Satisfaction, Christie Nicholson reviews the results of a multiyear study by Mark Seery, Alison Holman, and Roxane Cohen Silver that was just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  Using a national survey panel consisting of  2,398 subjects who were assessed on multiple occasions over a four year period, the authors tested for “…relationships between lifetime adversity and a variety of longitudinal measures of mental health and well-being: global distress, functional impairment, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and life satisfaction.” In their analysis of the data they found that:

“people with a history of some lifetime adversity reported better mental health and well-being outcomes than not only people with a high history of adversity but also than people with no history of adversity.”

For the purposes of this study adversity included: “own illness or injury, loved one’s illness or injury, violence (e.g., physical assault, forced sexual relations), bereavement (e.g., parent’s death), social/environmental stress (e.g., serious financial difficulties, lived in dangerous housing); relationship stress (e.g., parents’ divorce); and disaster (e.g., major fire, flood, earthquake, or other community disaster).”  It is important to note that adverse events were measured using a frequency count rather than any qualitative analysis of degree of adversity.

The implications one might draw from these findings is that without at least some adversity, individuals do not learn through experience how to manage stress; therefore, “the toughness and mastery they might otherwise generate remains undeveloped.”  Overwhelming levels of adversity, are more likely to exceed one’s capacity to manage stress, and thereby impede toughness and mastery.  The authors are careful to note that these data are correlative and as such do not establish causation, but they contend that moderate exposure to lifetime adversity may contribute to the development of resilience.

So, it seems, as Nicholson notes:

“… there’s a sweet spot, where a certain amount of struggle is good and produces a toughness and sense of control over one’s life, but anything above or below that amount is correlated with the inverse:  Distress, anxiety, and feelings of being overwhelmed.”

You might ask “Where is this Goldilocks Zone?” At what quantity does adversity benefit one’s life perspective and where does it cross a line?  Seery et al., acknowledged that it is impossible to pin point the exact parameters of such a sweet spot, but that the data suggests that around two to four adverse events may sufficiently enhance one’s capacity to sustain happiness and tolerate stress.  However, and this is important to note, They do not recommend engineering disasters for those who have been “fortunate” enough to escape adversity.

This research reminded me of a story by an unknown author that my mother sent me a few years back.   I’m guessing that it has made the rounds on the internet.  Regardless, and despite the melodrama, it seems relevant here.  What is cogent here is the notion of just enough.

I Wish You Enough

At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together.  They had announced her plane’s departure and standing near the door, he said to his daughter,

“I love you, I wish you enough.”

She said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.”

They kissed good-bye and she left.

He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me.  Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me.

So I knew what this man was experiencing.
“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?” I asked.

“I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and
the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral, ” he said.

“When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’
May I ask what that means?” He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.”

He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more. “When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

“I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Good-bye.”

I don’t suppose that it is a reach to suggest that exposure to small inconveniences such as rain or pain will likewise help you be more appreciative of sunshine and comfort.  After all, we as humans tend to quickly habituate to smooth roads.  Without a few potholes, we tend to take unbroken roads for granted.  But, the adversity study is suggesting more than this.  Its about developing resilience or reparative mechanisms that help us cope with future stressors.  This is referred to as adversarial growth, of which, I wish you enough.

References:

Nicholson, C. (2010).  Adversity Is Linked to Life Satisfaction. Scientific American Podcast. http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=adversity-is-linked-to-life-satista-10-10-16

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

Halloween seems like an appropriate time to discuss superstition.  What with ghosts and goblins and black cats and witches and all.  But would not Easter or Christmas, or any other evening that a five year old loses a tooth be an equally appropriate time?  In actuality, we massage magical thinking in our children with notions of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy.  And recall if you will, some of your favorite children’s books and the supernatural forces employed to delight your youthful whimsies.  Magic is, along with the thinking employed to delight in it, seemingly a rite of childhood, and in some ways the essence of what it is to be a child.

Much as magical thinking has its roots in childhood fantasies, superstition too has its roots in our species’ youth.  In that nascent time we lacked the capacity to understand the forces and whims of the natural world around us.  Our ancestors struggled to survive, and living another day in part depended on their ability to make sense of the forces that aided or impinged upon them.  We must not forget that our forefathers lived much like the non-domesticated animals around us today.  Survival was a day to day reality dependent upon the availability of life sustaining resources like food, water and shelter, and was often threatened by predation or the forces of nature.  Death was a real possibility and survival a real struggle.  The stakes were high and the hazards were plentiful.  As it turns out, these are the very conditions under which superstition is likely to thrive.

So what is superstition?  Bruce Hood, author of The Science of Superstition, notes that superstition is a belief “that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world that are denied by science…”  He adds that “the inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.” It involves an inclination to attempt to “control outcomes through supernatural influence.”  It is the belief that if you knock on wood or cross your fingers you can influence outcomes in your favor.  It is the belief that faithfully carrying out rituals as part of a wedding ceremony (e.g., wearing something blue, something new, something borrowed) or before going to bat or before giving a big speech will improve outcomes.  It is also the belief that negative outcomes can come as a result of stepping on a crack, breaking a mirror, or spilling salt.  Hood argues that supersense goes beyond these obvious notions and surfaces in more subtle ways associated with touching an object or entering a place that we feel has a connection with somebody bad or evil.  For example, how would you feel if you were told that you had to wear Jeffery Dalmer’s T-shirt or that you were living in a house where ritualistic torture and multiple murders took place?  Most of us would recoil at the thought of this.  Most of us also believe (erroneously) that we can sense when someone is looking at us, even when we cannot see them doing so.  These beliefs and much of the value we place on sentimental objects stems from this style of thinking.

I explored the deep evolutionary roots of superstitious thinking in a previous post, The Illusion of Cause: Vaccines and Autism.   The principle underpinnings are the same.  In that post I noted the following:

Michael Shermer (2000), in his book, How We Believe, eloquently describes our brains as a Belief Engine. Underlying this apt metaphor is the notion that “Humans evolved to be skilled pattern seeking creatures. Those who were best at finding patterns (standing upwind of game animals is bad for the hunt, cow manure is good for the crops) left behind the most offspring. We are their descendants.” (Shermer, p. 38). Chabris and Simons (2009) note that this refined ability “serves us well, enabling us to draw conclusions in seconds (or milliseconds) that would take minutes or hours if we had to rely on laborious logical calculations.” (p. 154). However, it is important to understand that we are all prone to drawing erroneous connections between stimuli in the environment and notable outcomes. Shermer further contends that “The problem in seeking and finding patterns is knowing which ones are meaningful and which ones are not.“

From an evolutionary perspective, we have thrived in part, as a result of our tendency to infer cause or agency regardless of the reality of threat. For example, those who assumed that rustling in the bushes was a tiger (when it was just wind) were more likely to take precautions and thus less likely, in general, to succumb to predation. Those who were inclined to ignore such stimuli were more likely to later get eaten when in fact the rustling was a hungry predator. Clearly from a survival perspective, it is best to infer agency and run away rather than become lunch meat. The problem that Shermer refers to regarding this system is that we are subsequently inclined toward mystical and superstitious beliefs: giving agency to unworthy stimuli or drawing causal connections that do not exist. Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist, in his blog post entitled Hyperactive Agency Detection notes that humans vary in the degree to which they assign agency. Some of us have Hyperactive Agency Detection Devices (HADD) and as such, are more prone to superstitious thinking, conspiratorial thinking, and more mystical thinking. It is important to understand as Shermer (2000) makes clear:

“The Belief Engine is real. It is normal. It is in all of us. Stuart Vyse [a research psychologist] shows for example, that superstition is not a form of psychopathology or abnormal behavior; it is not limited to traditional cultures; it is not restricted to race, religion, or nationality; nor is it only a product of people of low intelligence or lacking education. …all humans possess it because it is part of our nature, built into our neuronal mainframe.” (p. 47).

Bruce Hood takes this notion further and adds that the cultural factors discussed at the opening of this piece and other intuitive inclinations such as dualism (a belief in the separation of mind and body), essentialism (the notion that all discernible objects harbor an underlying reality that although intangible, gives each and every object it’s true identity), vitalism (the insistence that there is some big, mysterious extra ingredient in all living things), holism (that everything is connected by forces), and anism (the belief that the inanimate world is alive) shape adult superstition.  These latter belief mechanisms are developmental and naturally occurring in children: they are the tendencies that make magic and fantasy so compelling for children.  It is when they lurk in our intuition or are sustained in our rational thought that we as adults fall victim to this type of illusion.

It is interesting to note that much like our ancestors, we are more prone to this type of thinking when faced with high stakes, a low probability of success, and incomprehensible controlling circumstances.  Think about it.  In baseball, batters often have complex superstitious rituals associated with batting.  The best hitters experience success only one in three times at bat.  And the speed at which they have to decide to swing or not and where to position the swing defies the rational decision making capacity of humans.  On the other hand, these very same athletes have no rituals when it comes to fielding a ball (which is a high probability event for the proficient).

Superstition is a natural inclination with deep evolutionary and psychological roots embedded deeply in our natural child development.  These tendencies are nurtured and socialized as a part of child rearing and spill over into adult rituals in predictable circumstances (particularly when there is a low degree personal control).   When one deconstructs this form of thinking it makes complete and total sense.  This is not to suggest that reliance on superstitions is sensible.  Often, however, the costs are low and the rituals therein can be fun.  There are some potential costs associated with such thinking.  Some of the dangers are materialized in notions such as vaccines cause autism and homeopathy will cure what ails you in lieu of scientific medicine.  Resignation of personal power in deference to supernatural forces is a depressive response pattern.  Reliance on supernatural forces is essentially reliance on chance and in some cases its applications actually stack the deck against you.  So be careful when employing such tactics.  But, if you’re in the neighborhood, NEVER EVER walk under my ladder.  I’ve been known to drop my hammer.

References

Chabris, C. F., & Simons, D. J. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla. Random House: New York.

Dawkins, R. (2009). The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Free Press: New York.

Gelman, S. A. (2004). Psychological Essentialism in Children. TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 404-409.

Hood, B. (2008). The Science of Superstition (Formerly Titled: Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable). HarperCollins Publishers: New York.

Novella, S. (2010). Hyperactive Agency Detection. NeuroLogica Blog. http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1762

Shermer, M. (2000). How We Believe. W.H. Freeman/Henry Holt and Company: New York.

I’m sure you have heard of subliminal messages. You know that classic story where it was alleged that flashing the words DRINK COKE on a movie screen for a fraction of a second would increase cola buying behavior at the concession stand.  Well, that was a hoax, but you should know that I can, in other ways, tap into your subconscious thoughts and make you smarter, dumber, more assertive, or more passive for a short period of time.

This is not brainwashing!  It has a different name.  In the field of psychology, this interesting phenomena is referred to as priming.  John Bargh (now at Yale University) and colleagues formerly at New York University demonstrated the legitimacy of priming in a very interesting paper entitled Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996).  These researchers contend “that social behavior is often triggered automatically on the mere presence of relevant situational features [and that] this behavior is unmediated by conscious perceptual or judgmental processes.”  One of the studies they used to empirically demonstrate the implications of automatic social behavior (priming) involved a group of undergraduates from NYU who were given the scrambled sentence test.  The test involves the presentation of a series of five scrambled word groupings.  From each grouping one is to devise a grammatical four word sentence.  For example, one of the groupings might include the words: blue the from is sky.  From this grouping your job would be to write The sky is blue.  A typical scrambled sentence test takes about five minutes.

The scrambled sentence test is a diversion and a means to present words that may influence or prime the subject’s behavior, thoughts, or capabilities.  In this study the subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups.  One group was presented with scrambled sentences that were sprinkled with words like “bold,” “intrude,” “bother,” “rude,” “infringe,” and “disturb.”  The second group was presented with scrambled sentences containing words like “patiently,” “appreciate,” “yield,” “polite,” and “courteous.”  Each student independently completed their test in one room and were told upon completion to walk down the hall to get their next task from an experimenter in another office.  For every subject, however, there was another student (a stooge) at the experimenter’s office asking a series of questions forcing the subject to wait.   Bargh and colleagues predicted that those primed with words like “rude” and “intrude” would interrupt the stooge and barge in quicker than those primed with words like “polite” and “yield.”    Bargh anticipated that the difference between the groups would be measured in milliseconds or at most, seconds.  These were New Yorkers, after all, with a proclivity to be very assertive (Gladwell, 2005).  The results were surprisingly quite dramatic!

Those primed with the “rude” words interrupted after about 5 minutes.  Interestingly, the university board responsible for approving experiments involving human subjects limited the wait period in the study to a maximum of ten minutes. The vast majority (82%) of those primed with the “polite” words never interrupted at all.   It is unknown how long they would have waited.  The difference between these groups based simply on the nature of the priming words was huge!  In the same paper Bargh et al., (1996) presented how students primed with words denoting old age (e.g., worried, Florida, lonely, gray, bingo, forgetful) walked more slowly leaving the office after completing the scrambled sentence test than they did on their way to the testing office.  It is suggested that the subjects mediated their behavior as a result of thoughts planted in their sub-conscious pertaining to being old.  These thoughts, in this case, resulted in the subjects behaving older (e.g., walking more slowly).

Priming one to be more or less polite or sprite is interesting, but there are disturbing and perhaps very damaging implications of this phenomena.

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg, a research team from Holland, looked at how priming might affect intellectual performance (1998).  Their subjects were divided into two random groups.  The first group was tasked for five minutes with thinking and writing down attributes pertaining to being a college professor.  The second group was tasked with thinking about and listing the attributes of soccer hooligans.  Following this thinking and writing task, the subjects were given 47 challenging questions from the board game Trivial Pursuits.  Those in the “professorial” priming group got 55.6% of the items correct while those primed with soccer hooliganism got only 42.6% correct.  One group was not smarter than the other – but it is contended that those in the “smart” frame of mind were better able to tap into their cognitive resources than those with a less erudite frame of mind.

And then there is the research from Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson (1995).  These psychologists investigated the impact on African Americans of reporting one’s race before taking a very difficult test.  They employed African American college students and a test made up of 20 questions from the Graduate Record Exam (GRE).  The students were randomly split into two groups.  One group had to indicate their race on the test while the others did not.  Those who indicated their race got half as many of the GRE items correct as their non-race-reporting counterparts.  Simply reporting that they were African American seemed to prime them for lower achievement.

All of these effects were accomplished completely and totally outside the awareness of the involved parties.  In fact, this is an essential attribute.  Effective priming absolutely necessitates that it be done outside the subject’s awareness.  Awareness negates the effect.

Regardless, consider the implications, intended or otherwise of such priming.  Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink notes: “The results from these experiments are, obviously quite disturbing.  They suggest that what we think of as freewill is largely an illusion: much of the time, we are simply operating on automatic pilot, and the way we think and act – and how well we think and act on the spur of the moment – are a lot more susceptible to outside influences than we realize.” (p. 58).

Yes, It is disturbing on a personal level with regard to the vulnerability of rational decision making, but I am more concerned about the ethical implications of our insight into this tool. Priming may be used by those with the power, influence, and intentions to manipulate outcomes to serve ideological purposes.  On yet another level the reality of this phenomena supports my contention in Do we all get a fair start? that there is no true equal starting point.  Societal morays and the media in particular shape how we think about others and ourselves in profound ways.  We all are susceptible to stereotypes, prejudices, and biases and these tendencies can cut in multiple directions.  They can also be used to bolster negative attitudes or weaken individuals in destructive ways.  I am not suggesting that the sky is falling or that there is a huge ideological conspiracy going on, but we must be aware of our vulnerabilities in this regard.  And we must act to avoid constraining individuals as a function of subgroup affiliation.

References

Bargh, J. A., Chen, M.,  & Burrows, L. (1996).  Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 71, No. 2. 230-244

Dijksterhuis, A., & van Knippenberg, A. (1998). The relation between perception and behavior or how to win a game of Trivial Pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 74, 865-877.

Gladwell, M. (2005).  Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Little, Brown and Company: New York.

Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 69  No. 5. 797–811.

I had an interesting conversation with a close family member the other day.  He was struggling to understand why people in the lower echelons of socioeconomic status do not understand or act on their ability to change their circumstances.  He firmly held the belief that the drive to achieve is universal and that we all have the same potential.  Essentially he was convinced that anyone can rise up by working hard in school or the workplace.  Those who do not achieve, he contended, are making an explicitly different choice.  Many refer to these folks as lazy, free loaders and/or cheaters.  He recounted the stories from his days working at the local grocery where people would use their public assistance checks to buy beer, cigarettes and other non essential items.  This is the same story I’ve heard from countless people who contend that public assistance is for lazy people content about, or highly skilled at, manipulating the system for a free ride.  I had a similar conversation with another family member recently, who was enraged about Obama shoving publicly supported health care down the throats of the American tax payer.

We are inherently tribal people and part of our human nature, it seems, is to be on the lookout for freeloaders.  As Jonathon Haidt’s work points out, such vigilance is inherent to various degrees in all of us, as part of the ingroup loyalty moral drive that is fundamental to social cohesion.   Freeloaders detract from the viability and survivability of the group.  This deeply emotional moral position has clear evolutionary roots that remain strong today.

No doubt, there are freeloaders among us.  There are people who scam the system and I am guessing that there will always be those who are comfortable with, or even proud of, their ability to live off the diligence and contributions made by others.  Some argue that entitlement programs enable the freeloaders among us to prosper and propagate.   This may be true for some.  But we need to keep it all in perspective.  To do so there are a number of other factors to consider.

First, isn’t it interesting that we frame freeloaders at the lower end of the spectrum differently than we classify white collar criminals?  Do they not accomplish essentially the same thing?  They illegitimately acquire resources that they are not entitled to.  And I am guessing that the true costs of white collar crime exceed those of “welfare fraud.”  Keep in mind that the major frauds in the medicaid system are generally perpetrated by white collar criminals – Doctors or administrators billing for un-rendered services.  Also think back to the impact of people like Bernie Madoff who essentially stole $21 Billion.  They are criminals indeed, but their crimes do not result in all those within their income bracket as being likewise identified as untrustworthy.  Granted, all crime is bad, but I have to challenge the implications of labeling an entire subset of a population as “bad” because some of them cheat.

Second, isn’t it also interesting that our hyper vigilance for cheaters targets the less fortunate among us rather than the corporations who bilk the system of billions of your hard earned dollars.  Why do we turn our anger against our fellow human beings when corporations like Exxon Mobile get huge tax subsidies while at the same time they are raking in billions of dollars of quarterly profit?  Then consider the financial melt down and the huge bail-outs provided to corporations deemed “too big to fail.”  The costs to our society as a results of welfare cheaters are a pittance in comparison to the impact of the deregulated market-place.

Third, although nobody likes a cheater, when given a chance to do so, and a low probability of getting caught, almost everybody will cut corners or scam the system to save a buck.  And everybody knows someone who works or gets paid “under the table.”  Somehow these folks are given a pass and escape the wrath of the stigma of freeloader.  My guess is, the proportion of people who cheat the system span all income brackets, and the actual social costs rise exponentially and commensurately with income.   The disdain that we target toward the less fortunate among us, I argue, is too convenient and hugely disproportionate.   Part of this may stem from the perception that welfare fraud is more visible to us than is white collar crime.  And while white collar crime is perpetrated by people that look and think like we do (or by faceless corporations), welfare fraud is sometimes perpetrated by people whose faces and lifestyles are different from ours.  We see these cheaters and often hear of their exploits.  I contend that much of what we hear amounts to rehashed urban myths.

The stereotype that many of us hold about the poor is inaccurate and maintained both by attribution error and confirmation bias.  And the belief that many white middle class college-educated people hold – that they alone are responsible for their position in life is reflective of self-serving bias.  Each generation launches from the shoulders of their parents who each launched from the shoulders of their respective parents.   My children are launching from a place that is exponentially different than that of a poor African American from the east side of Buffalo, New York, or a poor Latino from East L.A., or that of a poor white child raised in remote rural Appalachia, or that of white boarding school attendee from a heavily connected affluent Manhattan family.  The educational, social, and economic opportunities across these launching points vary in important and significant ways that shape their perceptions, aspirations, and realities in profound ways.   Heritage, and thus opportunity, play the biggest role in one’s socioeconomic status – although, “the system” benefits from people believing that it is hard work and intelligence that drives wealth distribution.  Believing the American Dream keeps the masses contented.  It keeps people striving, believing that they can rise up if only they are smart enough and diligent enough.   A significant part of our population has figured this out – they are the disenfranchised.  Without hope or opportunity it is hard to buy into the myth that one can rise out of the ghetto by working hard.  It’s difficult to continually swim against the current; and for the fortunate, it is sometimes hard to see that there is in fact a current when one is floating along with it.

I don’t know if you caught it the other night when you were watching the news while skimming your email, checking your twitter and RSS feeds, and updating your Facebook status, but there was an interesting story about multitasking.  Silly me, who actually watches the news anymore? Anyways, much of the recent buzz on this endemic behavior (among the technologically savvy) is not good.  Multitasking is a paradox of sorts – where we tend to romanticize and overestimate our ability to split attention among multiple competing demands. The belief goes something like this: “I’ve got a lot to do and if I work on all my tasks simultaneously I’ll get them done faster.”   However, what most of us fail to realize is that when we split our attention, what we are actually doing is dividing an already limited and finite capacity in a way that hinders overall performance. And some research is showing that chronic multitasking may have deleterious affects on one’s ability to process information even when one is not multitasking (Nass, 2009).

Advances in computer technology seem to fuel this behavior.  If you do a Google search on multitasking you will get a mix of information on the technological wonders of machines that can multitask (AKA computers) mixed with news regarding how bad media multitasking is for you.

Think about it.  There has been increasing pressure on the workforce to be more productive and gains in productivity have been made lockstep with increases in personal computing power. Applications have been developed on the back of the rising tide of computer capacity, thus making human multitasking more possible.  These advances include faster microprocessors, increased RAM, increased monitor size, the internet itself, browsers that facilitate the use of multiple tabs, relatively inexpensive computers with sufficient power to keep open email, word processing programs, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, and YouTube. Compound these tools with hardware that allows you to do these things on the go. No longer are you tethered to the desktop computer with an Ethernet cable.  Wifi and 3G connectivity allow all the above activities almost anywhere via use of a smart phone, laptop, iPad, or notebook computer.  Also in the mix are devices such as bluetooth headsets and other headphones that offer hands free operation of telephones.

Currently, technology offers one the ability to divide one’s attention in ways inconceivable only a decade ago. The ease of doing so has resulted in the generalization of this behavior across settings and situations including talking on cell phones while driving, texting while driving, texting while engaged in a face to face personal interactions, and even cooking dinner while talking on the phone. Some of these behaviors are dangerous, some rude, and all likely lead to inferior outcomes.

Don’t believe it? If you don’t, you are likely among the worst skilled of those who multitask. “Not me!” you may claim. Well research has shown that those who routinely multitask are also the most confident in their ability to do so (Nass, 2009).  But when you look at the products of these “confidently proficient” multitaskers, you find the poorest outcomes.

Multitasking involves shifting attention from one task to another, refocusing attention, sustaining attention, and exercising ongoing judgment about the pertinence and salience of various competing demands. Doing this successfully is exceptionally difficult and is likely well beyond the capacity of most typical human beings. Our brains can only generally concentrate on one task at a time, and as such, multitasking necessitates devoting shorter periods of time on dissimilar tasks.  As a result, overall effectiveness, on all tasks is reduced.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory, including Professor David E. Meyer, point out that the act of switching focus itself has deleterious effects. When you switch from task A to task B you lose time in making the transition and the completion time of the transition itself increases with the degree of complexity of the task involved. Depending on how often you transition between stimuli, you can waste as much as 40% of your productive time just in task switching (APA, 2006).

Shorter periods of focus reduce overall time on task and each transition reduces this time further. Dr. Glenn Wilson at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London in 2005 discovered that his subjects experienced a 10-point fall in their IQ when distracted by incoming email and phone calls. This effect size was “more than twice that found in studies of the impact of smoking marijuana” and was similar to the effects of losing a night’s sleep (BBC, 2005).

As for the negative long term affects of multitasking, Dr. Nass noted that:

 

“We studied people who were chronic multitaskers, and even when we did not ask them to do anything close to the level of multitasking they were doing, their cognitive processes were impaired. So basically, they are worse at most of the kinds of thinking not only required for multitasking but what we generally think of as involving deep thought.”

Nass (2009) has found that these habitual multitaskers have chronic filtering difficulties, impaired capacity to manage working memory, and slower task switching abilities. One must be careful to avoid the Illusion of Cause in this situation. Correlation is not causation and we must avoid inferring that multitasking causes these cognitive declines. The reverse may be true or other undetected variables may cause both.

Much of the research in this area is in its infancy and thus limited in scope and depth, so it is prudent to be a bit skeptical about whether or not multitasking is bad for you. But with regard to the efficacy of multitasking – when you look at the issue from an anecdotal perspective, apply the tangentially related evidence logically, and then consider the data, you have to conclude that multitasking on important jobs is not a good idea.  If you have important tasks to accomplish, it is best to focus your attention on one task at a time and to minimize distractions.  To do so, avoid temptation to text, tweet, watch TV, check your email, talk on the phone, instant message, chat on Facebook, Skype, or otherwise divide you attention. If you believe employing these other distractions helps you do better, you are deluding yourself and falling victim to the reinforcement systems that make multitasking enjoyable. Socializing, virtually or otherwise, is more pleasurable than the arduous processes involved in truly working or studying.

You can likely apply the same principles to plumbing, cooking, housework, woodworking, etc.  The key to success, it seems is to FOCUS on one task at a time, FINISH the job, and then move one.  You’ll save time, be more efficient, and do a better job! Remember – FOCUS & FINISH!

References

American Psychological Association. (March 20, 2006). Multitasking: Switching Costs.
http://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask.aspx

BBC News (2005). ‘Infomania’ worse than marijuana. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4471607.stm

Keim, B. (2009). Multitasking muddles Brains, even when the computer is off. Wired Science News for Your Neurons. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/multitasking/#ixzz11LfOUISp

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

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

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

Why do you sometimes choose that scrumptious chocolate desert even when you are full?  Why is it that you are sometimes drawn in by the lure of the couch and TV when you should be exercising or at least reading a good book?  And why do you lose your patience when you are hungry or tired? Do these situations have anything to do with a weak will?

What is willpower anyways?  Perhaps it is your ability to heed the advice proffered by that virtuous and angelic voice in your head as you silence the hedonistic diabolical voice that goads you toward the pleasures of sloth or sin.   Or perhaps, as Sigmund Freud once contended, it is your ego strength that enables you to forgo the emotionally and impulsively driven urges of the id.   These images resonate so well with us because it often feels as though there is a tug-of-war going on inside our heads as we consider difficult or sometimes even routine choices.  Often, reason prevails, and other times it does not.  What is really at play here? Is it truly willpower? Is it really a matter of strength or even of choice?

As it turns out, like all issues of the human mind, it is complicated.  Studies within the disciplines of psychology and neuroscience are offering increased clarity regarding this very issue.  It is important to understand however, that the human brain is composed of a number of modules, each of which are striving to guide your choices.  There really isn’t a top down hierarchy inside your brain with a chief executive who is pulling and pushing the levers that control your behavior.  Instead, at various times, different modules assert greater amounts of control than others, and thus, the choices we make, do likewise vary in terms of quality over time.  As a result of advances in technology and understanding, we are becoming increasingly aware of the key variables associated with this variation.

At a very basic level we know of two major (angelic v. diabolical) driving forces that guide our decisions.  Within and across these forces there are multiple modules emitting neurotransmitters that ultimately influence the choices that we make.  Broadly, the two forces are reason and emotion.  As I discussed in previous posts, What Plato, Descartes, and Kant Got Wrong: Reason Does not Rule and Retail Mind Manipulation, there is not actually a true competitive dichotomy between these two forces; instead, there appears to be a collaborative interplay among them. Regardless of their collaborative nature, we do experience a dichotomy of sorts when we choose the cheeseburger and fries over the salad, the chocolate cake over the fruit salad, or abstinence over indulgence.

Now that I have clouded the picture a bit, lets look at one study that may help reintroduce some of that clarity that I mentioned.

At Stanford University, Professor Baba Shiv, under the ruse of a study on memory, solicited several dozen undergraduate students. He randomly assigned the students to two groups. For conveniences sake, I will label the groups the 2 Digit Group and the 7 Digit Group.  The students in the 2 Digit Group were given a two digit number (e.g., 17) to memorize whereas those in the 7 Digit Group where tasked with a seven digit number (e.g., 2583961).  In Room-A, each individual, one subject at a time, was given a number to memorize.  Once provide with the number they were given as much time as they needed to commit the number to memory.  They were also told that once they had memorized the number that they were to go to Room-B, down the hall, where their ability to recall the number would be tested.  As each individual student made the transition from the first room to the testing room, they were intercepted by a researcher offering them a gratuity for their participation. The offer was unannounced and provided prior to entering the testing room (Room-B).   The offer included either a large slice of chocolate cake or a bowl or fruit salad.

One would expect, given the random nature of group assignment, that those in the 2 Digit group would select the cake or fruit salad in the same proportions as those in the 7 Digit group.  As it turned out, there was a striking difference between the groups.  Those in the 2 Digit Group selected the healthy fruit salad 67% of the time.  On the other hand, those in the 7 Digit Group selected the scrumptious, but not so healthy, cake 59% of the time.  The only difference between the groups was the five digit discrepancy in the memorization task.  How could this seemingly small difference between the groups possibly explain why those saddled with the easier task would make a “good” rational choice 67% of the time while those with a more challenging task made the same healthy choice only 41% of the time?

The answer likely lies in the reality that memorizing a seven digit number is actually more taxing than you might think.  In 1956, Psychologist George Miller published a classic paper entitled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” whereby he provided evidence that the limit of short term memory for most people is in fact seven items. This is why phone numbers and license plates are typically seven digits in length. Strings of letters or numbers that are not logically grouped in some other way, when approaching seven items in length, tend to max out one’s rational processing ability.  With seven digits, one is likely to have to recite the sequence over and over in order to keep it in short term memory.  It appears that those in the 7 Digit Group relative to the 2 Digit Group had reached the limits of their rational capacity and were less likely to employ good reason-based decision making with regard to the sweets. Those in the 2 Digit Group were not so preoccupied and were likely employing a more rationally based decision making apparatus.  They made the healthy choice simply because they had the mental capacity to weigh the pros and cons of the options.

An overtaxed brain is likely to fall back on emotional, non-rational mechanisms to make choices and the outcomes are not always good.  When you are cognitively stressed – actively engaged in problem solving – you are less likely to make sound, reason-based decisions regarding tangential or unrelated issues. That is one of the reasons why we “fall off the wagon” when we are overwhelmed.

And if you compound cognitive preoccupation with fatigue and hunger – then you may have more problems.  You know those times at the end of the day when you are tired, hungry, and really irritable?   Your muscles are not the only tissues that fatigue when they are not well nourished.  Your brain is a major consumer of nutritional resources – and it, particularly the reasoning portion of your brain, many scientists believe, does not tolerate glucose deficits.  Your grumpiness may be the result of the diminished capacity of your brain to employ reason in order to work out and cope with the little annoyances that you typically shrug off.

So, it seems, willpower is one’s ability to use the reasoning portion of your brain to make sound healthy decisions.  Studies like the one above, suggest that willpower is not a static force.  We must accept the limits of our willpower and realize that this source of control is in a near constant state of fluctuation – depending on one’s state of cognitive preoccupation, fatigue and perhaps blood glucose levels.  It is very important that you know your limits and understand the dynamic nature of your rational capacity – and if you do, you may proactively avoid temptation and thus stay in better control of your choices.  Relying on your willpower alone does not provide you with dependable safety net.  Be careful to not set yourself up for failure.

References:

Krakovsky, M. (2008). How Do We Decide? Inside the ‘Frinky’ Science of the Mind. Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Magazine. February Issue

Krulwich, R. & Abumrad, J. (2010). Willpower And The ‘Slacker’ Brain. National Public Radio: Radio Lab. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122781981

Lehrer, J. (2009). How We Decide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York.

Miller, G. (1956). The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. The Psychological Review. Vol. 63, pp. 81-97.

Last week in my article entitled Political Divide, I introduced Jonathon Haidt’s work and the theoretical framework that attempts to explain the current pervasive and seemingly intractable political acrimony within the United States. Haidt and his colleagues offer the Moral Foundations Theory, the implications of which, suggest that this divide is a result of a moral relativism of sorts – whereas one’s moral composition essentially drives one’s political affiliation. Despite the perspective from each of the polar extremes, individuals in the opposite group are not in fact amoral, instead, Haidt et al., (2009) claim that they have different valuations of five universal morals. According to Haidt, the five universal morals include: (a) harm/care (strong empathy for those that are suffering and care for the most vulnerable); (b) fairness/reciprocity (life liberty and justice for all); (c) ingroup/loyalty – (tribalism, patriotism, nationalism); (d) authority/respect (“mechanisms for managing social rank, tempered by the obligation of superiors to protect and provide for subordinates” Haidt, 2008); and (e) purity/sanctity (“related to the evolution of disgust, that makes us see carnality as degrading and renunciation as noble” Haidt, 2008).

From a political perspective, liberals tend to value care and fairness at a higher level than their conservative counterparts, and hold a lower valuation of ingroup loyalty, authority and purity/sanctity – while conservatives value all at a uniform lower level. Haidt’s research consistently and empirically suggests that these moral inclinations are strongly linked to the aforementioned political tendencies (2009). I thought it would be helpful this week, to look more thoroughly at the five universal morals in relation to some political hot button issues. I am interested in getting a better understanding of what morals drive the support and/or condemnation of these issues?

At the core of the divide are two foundational issues. The moral values of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity are referred to by Haidt, et al. (2009) as Individualizing Foundations where the emphasis of one’s moral imperative is on the rights and welfare of all individuals. Features of this foundation include “widespread human concern about caring, nurturing, and protecting vulnerable individuals from harm” (Haidt, 2009). The second, Binding Foundation, weighs more heavily moral issues such as ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. The implied outcome of focus on these variables is increased social cohesiveness and social order. Rather than focusing on individual equality and personal rights, the emphasis of the Binding Foundation is on loyalty, obedience, duty, self-retraint, respect of authority, piety, self-sacrifice for the group, vigilance for traitors or free-loaders, and orderly cultural boundaries.

Let’s look at some of the issues and lay them out relative to these foundational issues.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Those inclined to value Individualizing Foundations would be inclined to see the policy, as it stands, as ridiculous because it presumes an inherent difference in capability based one’s sexuality. The moral valuation of equality and fairness as well as distaste for discrimination drives the belief that one should not be devalued or discriminated against based on whether one is heterosexual or homosexual. Whereas one inclined to have more relative valuation of authority, purity, and ingroup loyalty, may have more concern about what religion has to say about homosexuality, sensitivity to maintaining the orderliness and comfort of an “all” heterosexual force, strong revulsion of those who engage in sexuality that is different than their own, and respect for the authority of the status quo.

Gay Marriage
“Marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman, the community, and God” is the argument made by those with stronger relative Binding Foundations. One may argue that the Bible asserts this sacred relationship as being one only between a man and a woman. Purity, sanctity, ingroup loyalty, and authority all drive this belief. But again, one with Individualizing Foundational thinking might devalue the importance of the above moral inclinations in preference of the values of fairness and equality. One might argue that love is love, and any two individuals who love one another, should have the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities of any other two humans, regardless of the gender of the individuals involved.

Stem Cell Research
This issue may boil down to the difference between fundamental religious beliefs driven by strong relative valuation of purity and sanctity. It also reflects one’s inclinations to believe whether one has a soul or not and when, in fact, the soul is unified with the body. The issue of the soul is a complicated one with intense importance to some and little to no relevance for others. Those who foresee the potential benefits to those who are harmed by grave diseases value stem cell research because of this potential and may be among those that are less concerned about sanctity.

Abortion
This highly personal issue again, in many cases, boils down to the sanctity of life. Those inclined to support a woman’s right to choose, likely value individual rights and foresee the potential harm that unwanted pregnancies may bring to a woman. They also place the important responsibility of one’s body solely in the hands of the woman. Rape or incest, as well as danger to the mother, in particular, are seen as being important situations where a woman should have the right to choose. Yet many equate abortion with murder, and for many this could not be further from the truth. There are clear and distinct differences here and both sides claim that morality is on their side.

Health Care Reform
One may argue that health care is, or should be, a fundamental human right: and that all people, regardless of age, socioeconomic status, race, sex, or ability should have access to medical services. Others, it seems, hold that it should be a privilege of success. The former represents morality that is based in thinking that highly values equality and fairness. The latter notion, however, is based in vigilance for freeloaders – an aspect of the Binding Foundation.

The Bush Tax Cuts
Those with an Individualizing Foundations mindset generally value a progressive tax structure due to the perceived fairness of it. They believe that those who hold the most wealth should bare a greater share of the burden of caring for the less fortunate among us. They also may argue that the wealthy accumulate their capital as a result of the work performed for them by those who are the less well off. The well to do also benefit from the infrastructure laid down by governments. Regressive taxes it is believed, disproportionately burden the poor with a greater share of the tax load. Diminished government spending also disproportionately affects the poor with regard to education, health care, nutrition, and housing. This cost savings to the wealthy leads to greater income divergence and as a result, subsequent increases in murder, theft, assault, school drop outs, substance abuse, spousal abuse, unwed mothers, and so on. This fundamentally challenges the notion of fairness and reciprocity. On the other hand, those with a Binding Foundational mindset recoil at the notion of freeloaders who cheat the system and are enabled by their government. They may see entitlements as fundamentally flawed handouts that encourage social decline as manifested by AFDC that encourages single parent families. There is an underlying belief that those with wealth are solely responsible for their position in life and that it is unfair for them to have to care for the lazy freeloaders among us. Part of this may stem for the increased valuation of authority and to a certain degree, ingroup loyalty. Some may believe that the wealthy have succeeded because of their internal attributes and work ethic. While the poor, may be likewise responsible for their positions in life because of their own character flaws. Purity may play a role in this.

Issue by issue, the Moral Foundations Theory can be used in such a fashion to account for such moral divergence. Be the issue, immigration, privatization of social security, corporate bailouts, you name it, this model helps explain it. I’m sure there are weaknesses with this model and I hope you are inclined to share your impressions. But for me, I am more inclined to look and listen more deeply knowing that opposing positions are not essentially rooted in baseless principles. How do you think?

References:

Graham, J., Haidt, J., and Nosek, B. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 5, 1029–1046

Haidt, J. (2008). What Makes People Vote Republican? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

The state of affairs in the United States when it comes to politics seems intractable.  I used to believe that a person’s political position could be easily placed on a traditional left – right continuum.  However, if you watch the political pundits on TV, this no longer seems possible.  Apparently there are two distinct mindsets with little or no room for overlap.  The most vociferous of those on the conservative right often hold those on the left in contempt for being socialist, immoral, elitist, unpatriotic, pro baby killing, pro-entitlement, anti-gun, pro-tax, and pro-big government.  Likewise, many liberals just can’t understand the narrow-minded, selfish, corporatist, nationalist, bigoted, anti-populist platform of the right.  The folks on the right just don’t seem to understand why people on the left would see any value in “entitlements,” or support gay rights, a woman’s right to choose, Keynesian economic policies, embryonic stem cell research, or value the environment over business interests.  And the Friedman Free Market  economic policies that promote business and capital accumulation in the hands of a few just baffle many of those on the left.  The differences are vast and the emotional divide is scary deep.

When it comes to social situations, politics can be a deadly third rail.  Often, people are deeply entrenched in their ideology, and cannot find a healthy place to begin discussing diverse perspectives. The issues take on a significance much like religion.  Either you get it or you don’t.  And if you don’t, well you are an outsider.

This divide has driven much of my curiosity regarding how people think.  I know, respect, and love people on both sides of this divide.  I’ve been looking for a way to bridge the gap or at least come to terms with why such divergence exists.  I wrote a blog post earlier this year called Moral Instinct and in it I referenced Jonathon Haidt’s work.  Dr. Haidt is a Professor of Social Psychology in the  Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia.  He studies morality and emotion, and how they vary across cultures.

In 2008 he published an intriguing paper called What Makes People Vote Republican?  More recently Haidt published Liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations (2009).  This paper explicitly deals with, from an empirical perspective, the essence of my question.  Haidt starts his paper with:

“Political campaigns spend vast sums appealing to the self-interests of voters, yet rational self-interest often shows a weak and unstable relationship to voting behavior (Kinder, 1998; Miller, 1999; Sears & Funk, 1991). Voters are also influenced by a wide variety of social and emotional forces (Marcus, 2002; Westen, 2007). Some of these forces are trivial or peripheral factors whose influence we lament, such as a candidate’s appearance (Ballew & Todorov, 2007). In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the role of another class of non-self-interested concerns: morality. Voters who seem to vote against their material self-interest are sometimes said to be voting instead for their values, or for their vision of a good society (Lakoff, 2004; Westen, 2007). However, the idea of what makes for a good society is not universally shared. The “culture war” that has long marked American politics (Hunter, 1991) is a clash of visions about such fundamental moral issues as the authority of parents, the sanctity of life and marriage, and the proper response to social inequalities.”

Haidt’s contention is that this culture war boils down to an issue of differing moral schema. Some might argue that it is purely an issue of degree of morality – both sides can legitimately claim a moral high ground (at least from their vantage points). As it turns out, morality is nuanced and necessitates a more complex understanding than what has traditionally been understood to be a singular concept quantified by a matter of degree. So it is not as though Republicans are more moral than Democrats (or vice versa), it is that Republican values differ in emphasis relative to Democratic values.

To make this more concrete, I need to expand upon the discussion of morality.  A common conceptualization of morality from the late 20th Century was put forth by the Berkley psychologist Elliot Turiel who said that morality refers to “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other” (Haidt, 2008).  This definition might resonate with some – particularly those with liberal tendencies, but it misses several core issues that are important to a substantial subset of the population.  Haidt (2008) notes that morality is more than the golden rule,  it has to do with “….binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.” These latter issues constitute the divide in the culture war, driving the conservative platform on issues relevant to God, Gays, guns, and immigration (Haidt, 2008).   The people on the right tend to hold a moral imperative to foster a unified and morally ordered society.

Each side of the debate holds deep convictions regarding what makes up a good society.  Liberals seem to hold morals consistent with a “contractual society” championed by John Stuart Mill, whereas a “…Millian society at its best would be a peaceful, open, and creative place where diverse individuals respect each other’s rights and band together voluntarily to help those in need or to change the laws for the common good” (Haidt 2008).

Conservatives tend to hold values more in line with sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who valued social order, restraint,  and conventions all held together by a strict authority.   “A Durkheimian society at its best would be a stable network composed of many nested and overlapping groups that socialize, reshape, and care for individuals who, if left to their own devices, would pursue shallow, carnal, and selfish pleasures. A Durkheimian society would value self-control over self-expression, duty over rights, and loyalty to one’s group over concerns for outgroups” (Haidt, 2008).

Haidt has been conducting research into what have been identified as five universal morals (similar in concept to those laid out by Mill and Durkheim) including: (a) harm/care (strong empathy for those that are suffering and care for the most vulnerable); (b) fairness/reciprocity (life liberty and justice for all); (c) ingroup/loyalty – (tribalism, patriotism, nationalism); (d) authority/respect (“mechanisms for managing social rank, tempered by the obligation of superiors to protect and provide for subordinates” Haidt, 2008); and (e) purity/sanctity (“related to the evolution of disgust, that makes us see carnality as degrading and renunciation as noble” Haidt, 2008).  Millians and liberals tend to value care and fairness at a higher level than their conservative counterparts and hold a lower valuation of ingroup loyalty, authority and purity/sancity – while conservatives value all at a uniform level.  See Figure 1 below for the distribution of values by political affiliation as reported in Graham, Haidt, and Nosek’s (2009) paper.

Haidt (2008) notes:

“In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally.”

I found that my moral value scores lined up perfectly with my political affiliation.   You can see for yourself where your values fall relative to your political affiliation by taking the Moral Foundations Questionnaire at www.YourMorals.org. If you look at the data you’ll see that strongly conservative folks are not more moral than strongly liberal folks, it is just that they weigh the universal morals differently.  It is these tendencies that leave individuals in both groups questioning the morals of the other group.  On all moral domains there is divergence.  If you look at the issues individually through the lenses of those with divergent perspectives it is not difficult to see how liberals could judge conservatives as amoral and vice versa.   When looking at this social divergence from the framework that Haidt puts forth, the divide becomes less enigmatic.

Go to Haidt’s website and take the Moral Foundations Questionnaire and see how your results fit with your political affiliation and then let me know how you feel about your score and the subsequent implications.  Next week I’ll delve a bit deeper into Haidt’s paper entitled Liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations (2009).

References:

Graham, J., Haidt, J., and Nosek, B. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,  Vol. 96, No. 5, 1029–1046

Haidt, J. (2008). What Makes People Vote Republican? http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html