Category Archives: emotions

emotions, health, self-development

Future sports

Most popular sports today were created in an earlier era, and by all rights should be obsolete. Some sports, like archery, shooting and the javelin throw, have hunting connections. Many others emphasise physical strength, skill, speed and endurance. Think of weightlifting and swimming. Team sports like football reflect the importance of coordinated action, which is vital on the battlefield. Coordinated action remains important in contemporary life, for example in numerous offices where teams of workers seek to outdo competitors.

            Elite sports also attract spectators, an important function especially when entertainment is tied to marketing.

Despite these functional connections between sport and society, it is curious that so few sports give priority to skills needed to survive and thrive in a world in which mental skills are a central feature. Consider a few new sports inspired by contemporary life.

Congestion challenge Contestants sit in their cars, wired up to monitor their brain waves, and spend hours in a heavy traffic scenario specially engineered to provoke road rage. The winner is the person who can maintain the most stable brain waves while simultaneously negotiating the traffic in a skilled manner, as judged by an artificially intelligent (AI) driving-skill monitor.

Question dodging Contestants ask each other challenging questions. Answers are judged according to how successfully they avoid giving a straightforward answer. Two or more can play, each asking questions and dodging the questions they are asked. Rambling responses receive a low score, whereas responses that seem plausible while having little substantive content are scored highly, by an independent panel. Laughing leads to disqualification. Career politicians are excluded as having an unfair advantage.

Shopping marathon This is a competitive enactment of “shop till you drop.” Contestants are given a credit limit and then must shop continuously for as long as possible, finishing when they spend their last cent. Most events last for days, during which time no food is allowed, only water. Keeping eyes shut for more than a few seconds is not allowed.

Sit-out Two dozen contestants sit at desks in a room facing the front and listening to a speaker. Each contestant is monitored for physical motion and brain waves. The winner is the person who remains awake and maintains focus on an incredibly boring speech, with calm and natural body motions and no tensing of muscles throughout the body.

Smile-a-thon Contestants must maintain a smile and associated positive body language while being exposed to rudeness, verbal abuse and absurd behaviour. They take turns trying to disturb the smiles of other contestants. Smiling authenticity is judged by an independent panel supported by AI.

Binge-watch This is an endurance event. Contestants watch a boring show on a screen while their brain waves are monitored. Beta waves must be maintained, and even a short period of sleep or daydreaming means disqualification. Body movement incurs penalties. The event continues until only one contestant remains.

Kafka challenge Contestants have to negotiate bureaucratic regulations that change in an unpredictable pattern designed to prevent the completion of an assigned task and to generate frustration. To win, it is necessary to keep going longer than any other contestant. Some games last for weeks or months. Psychiatrists are at hand to treat psychological injuries.


Franz Kafka

The new frontier for competitive endeavour is mental rather than physical. Using muscles is very much the old paradigm, suitable for when farm and factory work predominated. Today, in a post-industrial society, mental and emotional capacities are more valued, so it is only appropriate that sports encourage and recognise extreme ability in these domains.

            You might think new sports like these would not be entertaining, but there is great scope for dramatising ordinary actions. Reality television paved the way for the entertainment value of dull everyday activity. There are endless possibilities for close-ups of faces, brain-wave monitors, contestants who drop out or crack up, interviews with contenders, and commentators giving opinions about the course of the competition. After all, many physical sports are either incredibly slow, like cricket, or incredibly repetitious, like tennis. Spectators are attracted by the contest. Who, after all, watches reruns of last year’s events?

            Future mental-emotional sports will be just as exciting as old-style muscle-based ones and will lead to new sporting celebrities, valued for their minds rather than their bodies. Just think how many children will be inspired by these celebrities to practise for years to develop their minds. Rather than perfecting a golf swing, the next frontier is mind control.

Brian Martin, bmartin@uow.edu.au

Postscript

Just to be clear, this is a satire. Actually, I’m a critic of elite sports (while admiring the athletes), especially the Olympics, and support participation in cooperative games.

            Thanks to Aloysia Brooks, Sharon Callaghan, Suzzanne Gray, Tim Johnson-Newell, Olga Kuchinskaya and Yasmin Rittau for valuable feedback. Sharon and Yasmin pointed to present-day versions of some of these “future sports,” and noted that they can foster valuable skills or undesirable behaviours, or both. So far, though, there are no world championships for any of these mental sports. Meditation may be good for you, but should it be a competitive event?

emotions, social dynamics

Controlling our thoughts and actions

In 1972, a book was published titled Body Language and Social Order: Communication as Behavioral Control. I read it a year or two later and was so impressed that I wrote to the authors, saying I especially liked what they had written about social order.

            Recently I was going through my old files of printed material and came across the notes I had taken on the book and my correspondence. I wondered what the book would say to me today, fifty years after it was published. So I ordered a copy and read it again. It was just as interesting as before, and I think there is still much to learn from it.

            Kinesics is the study of people’s physical behaviour: postures, gestures, facial expressions and movements. Some motions are obvious, even striking, as when a child jumps up and down in excitement or anger. Other motions are subtle, such as when you enter someone’s office and they indicate where to sit with a hand gesture, a glance or the positioning of their body. A posture or a shrug can communicate without the conscious awareness of either the sender or the receiver. These subtle motions and what they communicate are what interested the authors.

            Albert Scheflen was a psychiatrist. I say “was” because he died long ago, in 1980. In the book, he is described as “Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Researcher in Human Communication at the Bronx State Hospital and Jewish Family Service.” He began researching kinesics in 1957. Among his colleagues were the prominent figures Gregory Bateson and Ray Birdwhistell.

            The biographical blurb in the book about Alice Scheflen says she “has been a feature writer and editor in medicine and the sciences and Research Assistant in Human Communication.” I couldn’t find any other information about her.

            The first part of the book describes various messages conveyed through body position, gesture and facial expression, and how they relate to spoken language.


An expression suggesting anxiety, in the US context. From the book, page 8

            The authors begin by pointing out that humans share many behaviours with other primates. Chimps stake out territories and can counter intruders aggressively. Examples of human territoriality include fences around houses and boundaries between countries. These sorts of boundaries keep outsiders out and insiders in. When leaving or entering territories, there are bonding rituals, for example waving goodbye or going through immigration control. The Scheflens write that communication, normally thought of as spoken or written words, also includes behaviours that regulate the social order, including the organisation of a group and its dominance and submission patterns. That includes rituals associated with territories.


As a couple steps back from an embrace, the woman grooms her husband by adjusting his collar, an example of bond-servicing. From the book, page 20

            Arriving at a social function, I see people standing around, mostly in groups of two, three or four. Spying someone I know in one of the groups, I approach. If a friend sees me approach, they might open a space for me to join the group, by a small movement. If others recognise the move, they will open a space for me, but sometimes they form a tighter circle, making it harder to join, an elementary example of the “cold shoulder,” so familiar to those who are shunned. It can be an unconscious manoeuvre.


If two people do not want to be interrupted, they may stand closer or put their arms up as a barrier. From the book, page 29

            At the gym, I approach a weight machine just as another exerciser does, coming from another direction. He looks at me and then looks at an adjacent piece of equipment, signalling that he will defer to me and use the other equipment. When I finish my repetitions, he is still at the other piece of equipment. I catch his attention and gesture towards the machine I just left. He smiles. Not a word is exchanged as we negotiate access and priority.


This woman may be saying “On the one hand” and will then open her left fist when saying “On the other.” From the book, page 43

            The first part of the Scheflens’ book is devoted to these sorts of kinesic messages, systematically explaining how people communicate through their bodies. Many different sorts of messages are described, illustrated with photos on nearly every page. The photos are literally snapshots of extended sequences of moves, so the Sheflens provide descriptions of the events displayed.

A kinesic signal of dominance. From the book, page 52

            One message they describe is the “monitor,” designed to control someone else’s behaviour. Observing two of his patients, Albert Scheflen observed a mother making a subtle move, sliding a finger across her lip, whenever her son said something she didn’t like, and her son picked up the message immediately, although neither mother nor son consciously realised what was happening. Different sorts of gestures can serve as monitors, for example a frown or hunched shoulders.

            In some situations, a body-language monitor can be more effective than explicit verbal instructions. A spoken command can trigger resistance in some people, whereas subtle gestures can work better because the message is subliminal. When children are acting up and then realise that others are looking at them in a certain way, this may be enough to get them to stop.

“A common monitoring signal is the act of wiping the index finger laterally across the nostrils. This kinesic act can be seen anywhere in America when some group member violates the local proprieties of that group.” From the book, page 108

            The monitor is just one example of how kinesics can provide insight into social interactions. Many people, in their jobs and outside, experience disapproval, but it can be hard to point to what’s going on because the message is partly or completely nonverbal, conveyed by gestures, postures and facial expressions. It’s almost impossible to collect evidence about this. The same applies to ostracism. People seldom say, “I’m not going to socialise with you.” Instead, they don’t look you in the face, walk by without saying hello or providing a glance of recognition, and avoid sitting near you. These are kinesic and territorial behaviours. Most of these behaviours operate outside of consciousness by either the sender or receiver of the kinesic messages.

Control over the way we think

One of the Scheflens’ chapters is titled “The control of ideation,” which means the control of thinking. They point out that kinesic-territorial behaviours learned at home and school, without formal instruction — a sort of indoctrination — prepare a child for the adult world, usually by acquiescing to dominant ways of thinking and behaving.

“An American child learns at an early age the fundamentals of his culture. He learns to speak and he learns the pointed myths of the culture in the form of fairy tales and the like. He learns to believe doctrines, and he also learns the rudiments of ethnocentrism. If he comes from a middle-class family or a family that aspires to the middle class, he will also learn about upward mobility and develop the motivation to learn and get ahead. He is now ready for schooling.” (page 147)

            The Scheflens say an organisation member can become intellectually and emotionally bound up with the organisation’s official belief system, so when hearing about alternatives or not conforming, ideas and feelings tied to the organisation are evoked. This is “institution-think,” which means thinking and feeling from the perspective of the organisation. You can see how this would be a danger for someone who questions what is going on, who points to shady activities that contravene the official belief system. Those bound by institution-think will respond negatively, based on gut reactions and automatic thoughts.

            In a society like Australia, most people are inculcated with a belief in individual autonomy, a belief that most behaviour is instigated by individuals making conscious choices to achieve their goals. If you think this is completely obvious, you’ve subscribed to what the Scheflens call the myth of individualism. An alternative perspective is that most behaviour is conditioned by the environment, which refers to everything external to the individual, including family expectations, job structures, roads, buildings and other people’s behaviour. In this alternative perspective, which is common in collectivist societies, the focus is on the whole picture, on society, on social life as a dynamic process in which individuals are components that adapt to their environment.

            How, in a place like Australia, do people maintain a belief in individualism? The Scheflens say the myth of individualism is maintained when those who conform to institutional rules make slight deviations that do not challenge the dominant ways of thinking. You can wear your own style of clothes to work but continue to accept and maintain the work hierarchy. You can adorn your room with personal pictures while continuing to be a conventional consumer. You can put your phone in a distinctive case and choose your own ring tone. The Scheflens note that people focus on individual choices and individual differences but do not notice wider-scale regularities and conformities.

Scapegoating

Every social arrangement — families, clubs, businesses and nations — has problems. What should be done about them? Why not blame someone?

            Blaming is a convenient mechanism for exercising control, gaining power and eliminating those who might cause friction. The target of significant blaming rituals is called a scapegoat, someone or some group that is treated as responsible for problems, and attacked and/or expelled. The scapegoat serves as a magnet for others’ psychological projections: all their own unrecognised bad elements are attributed to the scapegoat, magically cleansing the attackers.

            Even the threat of being blamed can keep members subservient. Although the Scheflens never mention whistleblowers — the term was hardly known at the time — their analysis of scapegoating remains relevant today.

            They say two structural factors lead to blaming. One is organisational problems, which are inevitable. The second factor is people believing in blaming and crediting, which is deep-seated in societies like the US and Australia. This can be seen in the deification of some public figures — think of Queen Elizabeth II — and the discrediting of others, such as disliked politicians.

            In the process of scapegoating, the accused is often guilty of something, but no more so than others. This is a double standard, something familiar to whistleblowers.

            When evaluating a worker’s performance, what can be done to downgrade the scapegoat? It’s not so hard. One method is to use a single attribute, for example sloppiness, tardiness, fondness for alcohol or attention to detail, to characterise the whole person. A highly creative and inspiring worker can be downgraded by being labelled sloppy, tardy, alcoholic or obsessive.

            Another method used to downgrade a scapegoat is to apply local standards and ignore other values. In the organisation, it might be routine for corners to be cut, friends rewarded and monies siphoned. These are the local standards, and anyone who doesn’t conform is cast loose. Meanwhile, other values, such as the merit principle and proper accounting, are disregarded.

            When someone is undermined and abused, sometimes they lash out in frustration. This provides a pretext for scapegoating. This applies not just to whistleblowers but also to groups such as drug users and ethnic minorities. When any of them react to their demeaning treatment, they are blamed and repressed, while their life conditions are forgotten or absolved.

            Defending scapegoats from attack is necessary but comes with a downside. The focus remains on the scapegoat and on their treatment. Sometimes the focus is on corrupt operators. But seldom is attention directed at social arrangements, for example the market economy or hierarchy within organisations, that condition people’s behaviour and lead to dysfunctions. Scapegoating is toxic, to be sure, but it may be better to understand it as a symptom of deeper problems, ones linked to the way families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and countries are structured.

Communication and deviancy

The Scheflens describe the process of “binding,” which refers to close attachments, for example of a child to a parent or a patriot to a country. Binding often starts in the family and then continues through life, reinforced by culture, for example through the idea of romantic love.

            Some people are bound to their employers; as already mentioned, they are subject to “institution-think.” Managers do not address how the organisation fosters alienation among workers, but instead blame individuals. You can see how binding can lead to blaming those who don’t conform. A family’s “black sheep” member may be shunned or abused. In an organisation, they may be exploited or bullied. When they resist, they may be treated as insane.

            Then there is the process called “double-binding.” The Scheflens say there are three dimensions of double-binds: (1) contradictory demands on a person; (2) the paradoxical aspects are not recognised, for example one demand being verbal, the other being kinesic; (3) the person is in a social niche with no escape. A girl is told to be independent but whenever she takes initiative, a parent sends a non-verbal message to stop: this is a double-bind.

            This same idea applies to workers who are expected to behave according to the high-minded ideals of the organisation but to live with contrary behaviours. The organisation might have an anti-bullying policy but bullying is rampant. Workers who cannot afford to leave are caught in a double-bind. If they lash out in desperation, they are blamed in the usual scapegoating ritual.

            One of the Scheflens’ final points is that in Western countries, it is assumed that individual behaviour causes wider social processes, for example that politicians and corporate executives are responsible for what happens, good or bad. The Scheflens prefer systems thinking, in which the drivers of behaviour are social structures, communication systems and ways of thinking.

            In the half century since Body Language and Social Order was published, there have been many changes in society and interpersonal behaviour. With the rise of the gig economy, binding to organisations may be less common; perhaps binding occurs through economic insecurity. Social media have changed the way people interact. Still, the Scheflens’ analysis offers many insights that remain relevant today. If anything, society is even more individualistic than before, and so is blaming people — the unemployed, criminals, corrupt operators or foreign enemies — while ignoring the role of social structures like the family, organisations and the system of nation-states.

            After reading the book, in 1974 I wrote to the authors:

I would like to let you know how much I enjoyed your book Body Language and Social Order, especially the part “Communication in institutional and political control.” It seems to me to present an important radical perspective of the world in an easily understandable form, by appealing to an individual’s personal experience of the world rather than to abstract philosophical arguments.

After telling about my own interest in the topics, I continued:

It is obvious that educational institutions, like other institutions, communicate through their structures as a means for effectively obtaining and maintaining control over members. The authoritative space and time structure of the lecture situation, the design of syllabi by “experts,” the creation of a scarcity of knowledge and the monopolisation of certification illustrate the divergence between “Do what I say” and “Do what I don’t need to say.” However, I am not familiar with any formal studies of educational institutions which investigate in detail the use of structure and paracommunicative behaviour in maintaining institutional control. I would appreciate any references you could give me along these lines.

In response, I received a letter from the Bronx State Hospital in New York:

Many thanks for your comments on our book on Body Language and Social Order. Many people have commented on the early part of the book, but it is as though the last part on politics of communication was never written. It is simply ignored by students and reviewers as well. Some people have said I should never have written it. But I disagree. I would like to have written it better but it is high time we stop this nonsense that science is value free and speak out about the abuses of concepts and researches. So many thanks for making it worthwhile. I have no references to send you. The stuff you read is my own and my wife’s. We did not do formal research on the matter and do not know anyone who has.

            Signed “Al Sheflen.”

            After my recent rereading of the book, I returned to my notes about it taken in the early 1970s. They were entirely on three of the fourteen chapters, the ones about control of mobility, control of ideation and control by scapegoating. How good to be reminded of these ideas again. If only the Scheflens were still around to discuss them.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Body Language and Social Order (download entire book)

A version of this post appeared in the October 2022 issue of The Whistle. 

emotions, self-development

The voice in your head

Is there a voice in your head? What does it say? Does it encourage you or does it tell you that you’re no good?

 

Did you ever stay up late during high school with last-minute cramming for an exam or writing an essay due the next day? If so, you have experience with procrastination followed by binges of studying and writing.

I coordinate a writing programme for academics and research students based on a different approach: moderation. It’s inspired by research by Robert Boice and Tara Gray about how researchers can be more productive. The foundation of the programme is brief daily writing sessions. This is quite a contrast with the far more common approach of procrastination and bingeing.

Why do writers procrastinate? One of the factors is the voice in your head that says you’re not ready, you’re not good enough, you’ll never finish, and anyway you might as well wait until you’re in a better mood. Basically, the voice is telling you to give up, which leads to procrastination.

            Gradually I learned that most writers have to deal with this sort of negative self-talk. Boice and Gray each tell about it. In some of our writing group meetings, we’d talk about the voice. Once the question was asked — “Do you have a voice that discourages you?” — people would open up telling about their own experiences. It was reassuring to find out that others have the same obstacle.

To deal with the voice, I have recommended either ignoring it or challenging it, for example telling it that it’s wrong or just to go away. Somewhere along the line I obtained a tiny rubber duck that would squeak when squeezed. Putting it on your shoulder represented the voice in your head. Then there was accompanying note paper that said “Shut the duck up!”

Chatter

If there’s a voice in your head and it’s causing problems for writers, what should be done about it? Ever since learning about this problem, I’ve been on the lookout for insights and practical solutions. Then recently I obtained the wonderful book Chatter by Ethan Kross. Suddenly, there are answers.

            Kross is a researcher, and his special interest is self-talk. He writes that “we all have a voice in our head in some shape or form” (page xxi). Chatter has many pages of references to scientific studies, but the main text is a model of engaging story-telling. Kross tells about his own embarrassing experience when his inner voice took over his behaviour, turning him into a nervous wreck as he irrationally prepared for a threat — and this was despite all he knew about how the inner voice operates.

Kross’s message is that the inner voice, in other words the conversations in our head, can be valuable but can also cause distress and worse.

First consider the advantages in having silent conversations in our heads. Kross provides evidence that the inner voice aids working memory, enables self-control and helps evaluate progress towards goals. Sounds good.

Then there are all the negatives. A basic problem with the inner voice is that it sabotages your focus on tasks. You want to write but the voice is telling you that you’re no good. Even if you can overcome the negativity and start writing, the voice occupies some of your mental capacity so you’re not fully engaged.

            One of the ways to try to address the problem is to tell others about your distress. This seems to help but can push others away. In Chatter, Kross reports on studies showing that ruminating on our difficulties is linked to both aggression and unhealthy stress. This is sounding very bad indeed. So what can you do about it?

One helpful method is to create psychological distance. Have you ever imagined yourself up in the sky looking down on the world, and there you are sitting on a chair, walking along outside, or staring at your screen? Imagining yourself from the outside reduces destructive chatter. You may feel that your problems are not as overwhelming as they seem up close.

            You can also gain distance by imagining yourself from the perspective of five or ten years from now, looking back at what’s going on right now. In this imagined hindsight, what is upsetting or distracting now seems like a triviality in the scheme of things. The point of temporal distancing is to escape being fully immersed in your current reality.

Another way gain distance is to think of yourself in the second or third person. Rather than thinking or saying, “I need to relax”, I should tell myself “Brian needs to relax” or “You need to relax.” This reduces the self-critic. So get out of “I” and talk to yourself with “you.”

This sounds too simple. Does it work? Kross describes experiments in which individuals preparing for a stressful task — speaking to an audience on an assigned topic with little preparation — are less stressed when they speak to themselves beforehand using “you.” Furthermore, independent observers say their speeches are better. How could something like this be so effective? Easy. By using “you,” you reduce the chatter in your head that takes up mental space and undermines confidence.


Ethan Kross

Helping others

I was talking with Alice, who is going through a stressful time. She tells me about her difficulties and I sympathise, and ask for more details. This goes on for some time. Alice feels better for having shared her feelings.

Whoops. Kross says this is not the best way to help. Indeed, when you and your friend commiserate, this “co-rumination” concentrates attention on the details that are linked to distress, so in the longer term this continues the stress by encouraging ever more thinking about the issues.

It’s more useful for me to offer practical help to Alice. Rather than rehashing the events, I can suggest ways forward or other things to think about. Even better, I can offer what Kross calls “invisible support.”

            Alice is preparing for a crucial performance. If I give her unsolicited advice on what to do, the advice might be useful but the giving of advice might reduce her self-belief. More useful is to do some shopping or cleaning. Those who can most readily offer invisible support are people who live in the same household or have regular contact.

There’s another option. I could send Alice some pictures of nature, perhaps of forests or streams. Kross reports fascinating research showing that being in nature has many health benefits, including calming inner conversations. Furthermore, it’s not even necessary to be among trees. Just seeing pictures of them is beneficial.

Another thing that helps is rituals, either personal or social. Most of us in the writing programme have found that it works better to schedule daily writing in the same location and at the same time of day. After a while, it becomes both a habit and a sort of personal ritual, perhaps with the accompaniment of a specific drink, certain music or following a predictable set of steps in preparation.

A social ritual for writing? That’s not so obvious. If you are part of a group of writers, you can schedule a particular time and process.

Another thing you can do is clean up your office so that it looks neat and, more importantly, ordered. Kross offers evidence that order in the external world — such as a neat desk — can foster internal order, including less chatter.

Chatter is engaging to read because of the stories that Kross tells about himself and others, and his attractive style of writing. At the end of the book, he helpfully includes a list of the main methods for reducing chatter, many of which I’ve mentioned above.

The voice in your head is not going to change quickly. If you struggle with self-talk that undermines rather than helps you do what you want to do, reading Chatter should be valuable, and so is a systematic effort to implement Kross’s suggestions.

How does chatter manifest?

One thing intrigues me. Kross says everyone has a voice in their head, but how does it speak? I’ve asked several friends about this. Their answers vary. Some people hear a voice. If so, whose voice is it? Their own? A parent’s? Some people have conversations in their mind. They don’t hear anything but they know what’s being said. Who are the conversationalists? Two sides of themselves? I don’t hear a voice and don’t have mental conversations, so what’s wrong with me?

If I’m reading Kross’s book and concentrating on what he’s written, I’m thinking, but presumably this isn’t chatter. Only, perhaps, if extraneous thoughts intrude, such as thinking about someone I need to contact or about some grievance from decades ago, would that be unproductive thinking. But what if I suddenly have an inspiration about how to address a research puzzle I’ve been working on? That would be welcome.

Experienced on the inside, there are many commonalities in people’s minds but also some important differences. I know some aspects of my own mind, up close, but continue to find it difficult to fully appreciate the diversity of other people’s inner worlds.

Thanks to Tonya Agostini, Aloysia Brooks, Kelly Gates, Tara Gray, Olga Kuchinskaya, Dalilah Shemia-Goeke, Melinda Waterman and Qinqing Xu for useful feedback, and all those who have shared with me their experiences with their inner voices.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

emotions, self-development

Painful routes to happiness

To achieve happiness, can it be useful to pursue pain and discomfort?

            Many people make enormous efforts to avoid stress and strain. They will search for a convenient parking space rather than walk a few hundred meters. When the temperature gets too hot or cold, they turn on the cooling or heating. For headaches, there are analgesics. For emotional pain, therapy or maybe a stiff drink.

While avoiding pain, people often pursue pleasure. This can be comfortable chairs, tasty food, thinking positive thoughts and becoming absorbed in social media. Pleasure is commonly seen as the opposite of pain.

But what if much of this quest is misguided? That is the argument presented by Brock Bastian in his new book The Other Side of Happiness. Bastian, a psychology researcher at the University of Melbourne, reports on studies by himself and others that support a seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion: pain can be a route to true happiness.

Seeking pain

Bastian begins by noting a curious phenomenon. Despite the apparent vanquishing of both physical and emotional pain, levels of anxiety and depression in young people seem to be increasing. I noticed this among students in my classes. Colleagues who deal with student issues tell me the entire university sector is affected. Richard Eckersley has written about the problems affecting young people who, despite reporting high happiness levels, seem to suffer inordinately high levels of psychological distress.

Bastian reports on something else: the pursuit of pain. You might ask, who, except for masochists, would voluntarily seek painful experiences? Actually, quite a few do. Running a marathon is gruelling, yet surprising numbers of people see this as a worthwhile goal. Likewise climbing mountains. Eating a hot chilli pepper can be bracing. Some people get a thrill out of scary rides or jumping out of aeroplanes, even though (or because) these cause a huge adrenaline rush.

There are also painful emotional experiences. For some, singing in front of others requires enormous courage, yet this is undertaken voluntarily. Others find it nerve-racking to approach someone they revere.

            How should a psychologist go about doing controlled studies of how people handle pain, both physical and emotional? It’s hardly feasible to have subjects scale mountain cliffs or have an audience with the Queen.

For physical pain, one ingenious method is to ask subjects to hold their hands in a bucket of ice water. This is quite painful but not harmful. Before or after the ice water treatment (or, for controls, some other activity that isn’t painful), subjects then are asked to do other tasks. The way they react to these tasks reveals something about the role of pain.

For example, one experiment used a task that tested generosity, such as donating to a worthy cause. What do you think: would experiencing physical pain make people more or less generous? (The answer: more generous.)

For emotional pain, a clever technique is to simulate ostracism. In a computer game, subjects find they are being left out of the interaction by the other players. So strong is the urge to be included in a group that even in this short simulation being neglected is a distressing experience.

            As well as studies in the lab, psychologists also undertake survey research. For example, one finding is that early stress in a marriage can make it resilient in the face of future challenges, and lead to greater satisfaction.

Based on a wide range of evidence, from lab studies to studies of trauma victims, Bastian concludes that it’s better to encounter some adversity in our lives. It shouldn’t be overwhelming, just enough to build the capacity to overcome it. In this process, we become emotionally stronger. Conversely, hiding from pain gives it extra power to cause distress.

“The key to healthy psychological functioning is exposure. If we want to be happy, we cannot afford to hide from our challenges and surround ourselves in protective layers of comfort. To achieve emotional stability and the capacity to handle challenges when they arise, we may be well advised to occasionally seek out discomfort and to take ourselves outside our proverbial comfort zones more often than we do.” (p. 95)

Bringing people together

In 1980, Lindy Chamberlain’s baby Azaria was taken away by a dingo. In television interviews, she put on a brave face, hiding her grief. Unfortunately, this was damaging to her credibility, because not showing emotions makes others think you deserve your pain.


Lindy Chamberlain

            On the other hand, expressing your physical or emotional pain triggers support from others. This is observed in the outpouring of generosity after disasters. It is also observed in combat, which bonds fighters together.

Support from people you know or trust makes a difference: it actually reduces the pain. Bastian notes that even a photo of a loved one can have this effect. It is not surprising, then, that experiencing pain encourages people to seek social connections.


Keep a photo of your loved one handy

            There is another fascinating social effect of hardship: studies show it can promote creativity. So perhaps there is some truth in the stereotypical image of the struggling artist. Bastian concludes, “We need to endure the challenge of sometimes stressful, novel and potentially threatening environments to foster true originality.” (p. 125)

This idea might be used to justify unpleasant working conditions, and precarious employment. On the other hand, it could also justify reducing executive salaries and putting political leaders in small, cramped offices.

There’s an important qualification that needs to be emphasised. When discomfort is voluntary, then inhibiting desires can improve performance. An example is uncomfortable yoga postures, which can help train the mind to focus. But involuntary discomfort, for example chronic pain, reduces performance. The implication is that imposed pain should be reduced or relieved, while there should be more opportunities for voluntary discomfort.

Meaning

Bastian cites eye-opening data showing that people in poorer countries report greater meaning in their lives. Perhaps this should not be such a surprise given the number of well-off people who seem to lack purpose, spending time on fleeting pleasures rather than pursuing deeper connections. Note that country comparisons can be misleading and that having a meaningful life is not the same as being happy.

Negative experiences, including being reminded of death, trigger a search for meaning, leading to a greater sense of purpose that isn’t there when there is no suffering. Bastian describes research on an earthquake emergency. People who had thoughts of dying during the earthquake were more likely to shift their priorities from extrinsic to intrinsic ones. This meant, for example, putting less priority on income and possessions and more on relationships and beliefs. Bastian concludes, “The more we consciously engage with our own mortality the more likely we are to focus on things that matter; to seek out things that are ultimately likely to provide more depth in our lives.” (p. 170)

Happiness research

The Other Side of Happiness provides a powerful counter to the usual emphases in society, in which the priority is seeking pleasure and reducing pain. It also puts a somewhat different perspective on happiness research. Happiness researchers have challenged the usual emphasis on possessions, income, good looks and education, saying that, outside of poverty, they have only a limited impact on wellbeing. Instead, changing one’s thoughts and behaviours has greater impact, for example expressing gratitude, being mindful, being optimistic, building relationships and helping others.

However, happiness research gives little attention to the benefits of physical and emotional pain. This is addressed by implication in recommendations for physical activity, building resilience and pursuing a purpose. However, the painful sides to these activities are seldom emphasised, perhaps because it is not easy to sell a recommendation for seeking pain rather than pleasure.


Brock Bastian

            Yet that is exactly Bastian’s recommendation. He says there is a need to recognise that stress, struggle and pain can bring happiness. Examples include intense exercise, having children, working hard and helping others. The key is to recognise the process, namely to see the positive side of negatives.

The takeaway message: seek out calculated risks and challenges, and let your children do the same. Search for discomfort and embrace feelings of sorrow and loss. Recognise that experiencing and valuing unpleasant experiences can be a path to greater satisfaction.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Thanks to Anneleis Humphries and Jordan McKenzie for useful comments.

emotions, social dynamics

Happiness and buying a house in Sydney

The price of housing in Sydney is sky-high. If you’re in the market, it’s worth seeing what happiness research has to say.


Derelict two-bedroom terrace house in inner Sydney valued at more than $1 million

In 2015, the median price of a house in Sydney surged to over a million dollars. That’s about $750,000 in US dollars or 630,000 euros.

For decades, Sydney house prices have been increasing way beyond inflation. The ratio of median prices to median income is one of the highest in the world, and many young people despair of ever owning a house. Some people in occupations like teaching and nursing can only afford houses far from the city centre, often requiring long commutes.

Diagnoses of the problem abound. Commonly cited are government restrictions on land use, the absence of a capital gains tax and the policy of negative gearing that rewards investors who rent out their properties at a loss while anticipating large capital gains.

The problem is replicated in other major urban areas in Australia, where housing prices and rents have grown enormously. The exorbitant cost is largely due to the inflated price of land.

A happiness perspective

It’s useful to step back a bit and ask, why do people want to buy a house or a unit? When they own one already, why do they want a larger one? Why do they value ocean views? A key factor is the search for happiness. This means there is much to be learned from happiness research.

People know when they are happy or sad, but research shows that most people are not good judges of what makes them happy. Most people think that more money will make them happier, so they go in search of better-paying jobs. They think possessions will make them happier, so they obtain a huge mortgage to buy the biggest house possible, and buy new cars, fancy clothes, the latest iPhone and all sorts of appliances.

If you’re poor or destitute, having more money will definitely improve your wellbeing. But for those with a modest income or above, pursuing more money is not a particularly good way to improve happiness.

The reason for this is a process called adaptation. When you get used to something, it loses its appeal. Adaptation applies most of all to the environment around us. Having a large house initially is appealing but after a while it loses its novelty and just becomes the way things are, and you’re not much happier than if you lived in a small house. Similarly, a great view is appealing, but only when you pay attention to it. When it becomes routine, it no longer gives a happiness boost.


Renovated four-bedroom house in outer Sydney sold for $1.7 million in 2015

There’s a saying, “Don’t buy groceries on an empty stomach” because you’re likely to end of buying much more than you need. The same applies to housing. The biggest and most prestigious options are attractive but may not give lasting satisfaction.

For promoting happiness, other options are more reliable. Among the things that research shows reliably improve happiness are fostering relationships, engaging in physical activity, helping others, expressing gratitude, practising mindfulness and avoiding social comparison. These are worth considering in relation to housing issues.

(For accessible treatments of happiness research, see for example Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness; Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness; Paul Dolan, Happiness by Design; Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier. For popular critiques of the research, see Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-sided; Ruth Whippman, America the Anxious.)

Relationships and housing

For most people, personal relationships with family, friends, co-workers and others are the most important factor in happiness. So when choosing where to live, it’s worth asking, “How will this affect my relationships with the people I care about the most?”

Sarah is considering whether to take an exciting new job. It will require a longer commute and longer hours, but it pays more. Should she take it? If she has a close circle of friends and the new job will leave less time to be with them, this may reduce her happiness. If she’s taking the job so she can afford a bigger house, the same applies.

Positive relationships with neighbours can contribute to happiness. Most buyers carefully inspect the house but do not exercise the same diligence in finding out about the neighbours.

The design of space can make a big difference to the way people interact. In some buildings, there are natural gathering places. In an office building this might be around a photocopier, where people bump into each other and have a chat. Likewise, the design of a house can make a big difference to personal interactions. Occupants might congregate in the lounge room or kitchen or — especially with a proliferation of screens — stick to themselves in their own rooms. A house design desirably allows privacy while providing ample opportunities for interpersonal contact.

Surveys show that commuting is one of the least pleasurable activities in people’s lives, especially when travel times are extended. Driving through heavy traffic is more stressful than walking through leafy laneways. So in choosing a house, an important factor should be the implications for travel to work, to shops, to friends and family. If there’s a convenient cycle network, this makes commuting a form of exercise, with the associated benefits of physical activity.

There’s one other factor worth taking into account: social comparison. People compare what they have with what others have, and usually feel better if they have more. This is the driving force behind conspicuous consumption, which means showing off through your fashionable clothes, new car and big house, and generally “keeping up with the Joneses”. Ideally, it’s better to avoid social comparison and focus on the positives in your own life. But if comparisons really bother you, consider living in a less expensive area so you’re not comparing your circumstances to those who seem better off.

In summary, people tend to focus on aspects of housing — the size and cost — that are less important to their happiness than being close to friends and family, enabling exercise and minimising social comparisons.

Happiness-driven policy

Housing policy in Sydney seems primarily driven by money and status. The policies on capital gains and negative gearing serve those who are most well off at the expense of others. Developers seek to maximise their profits, so new housing caters more for the rich than the poor.

Another way to approach policy is for governments to seek to maximise people’s happiness. Danny Dorling has done this in his book A Better Politics: How Governments Can Make Us Happier, available free as a pdf. Dorling focuses on Britain but most of his suggestions apply to Australia.

Dorling reports on his research about the major events in people’s lives that have the greatest effect on their happiness, either positive or negative. The biggest negative is the break-up of a significant relationship, including through death. The biggest positive is formation of a significant relationship.

If loss of relationships is the biggest negative then, Dorling argues, policy should be designed to support relationships. This has several implications for housing. One is that people should have secure housing, so they have the opportunity to build and maintain relationships. Being evicted from one’s abode is a big negative. So is being homeless. Governments should ensure that there is ample low-cost housing, and ensure that residence is secure, so that everyone can be confident of having a place to live and therefore can build relationships.

“After starting a new relationship and getting a new job, the third most significant single event associated with higher than usual happiness in any given year is securing a permanent home.” (p. 53)

Dorling has written extensively on economic inequality, and this is a prominent theme in A Better Politics. There is actually enough housing for everyone, but it is unequally distributed: wealthy people have two or more homes but live in only one at a time, so there is a lot of unoccupied housing. Dorling favours progressive taxation plus a tax on wealth, and introduction of a basic income.


Danny Dorling

Dorling points to other countries in Europe where governments collect more taxes and provide more collective welfare. Britain lags behind on many criteria, including equality.

“We cannot be happy if we do not feel safe and secure in our homes. The government has a responsibility towards the quality and quantity of housing available and it must introduce the security and quality in socially and privately rented housing that we [British people] currently lack compared with nearby countries.” (p. 57)

Using happiness as a criterion for policy is well and good, but this is far off the agenda in most parts of the world. Governments still aim to increase economic growth, which in practice primarily benefits the wealthy. Mass media, advertising and governments perpetuate the belief that more money is the most important way to make people happier. Meanwhile, the implications of happiness research are neglected so far as policy is concerned. Instead, seeking happiness is seen as something for each individual to pursue on their own, within the social system as it exists.

Action

If housing is something you really care about, there is another option: become a campaigner for affordable housing. Research shows that when you help other people, it makes you happier. This is why some lawyers are willing to take a huge salary cut in order to practise public interest law: the satisfaction of serving those who need help the most outweighs the financial benefits of working for a big corporation. Similarly, jobs such as teaching and nursing provide satisfactions that can compensate for low wages and stressful working conditions.

Even better, join an action group pushing for homes for poor people. You will be helping others and gain the benefits of working with others on a common cause. Activism can be its own reward.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Pearls before swine, by Stephan Pastis, 6 May 2018

emotions, health, self-development

Stress: how it can be good for you

By changing the way you think, you can deal with stress more effectively and use it to serve your goals.

A friend complains about being stressed: there’s a deadline at work, one of the kids is sick, the car broke down and she had a nasty argument with a neighbour. Stressful indeed. So the usual goal is to reduce stress, to avoid it. This seems like common sense.

However, when it comes to physical activity, the idea of reducing stress has long been discredited. Exercise is good for you, as long as it’s not too much. For athletes, training is designed to provide the amount of stress on muscles to build them up without causing injury.

Lack of physical stress is disastrous for the body. Lying in bed for day after day is a health hazard, with muscle wastage and other adverse consequences.

If the body needs optimal stress for best performance, what about the mind? Are there actually advantages to stress? The answer to these questions, according to Kelly McGonigal, is an emphatic yes, as indicated by the title of her book The upside of stress: why stress is good for you (and how to get good at it).

McGonigal spent many years recommending the usual advice to reduce stress. Then she was stimulated to rethink her position and started looking into research on the benefits of stress.

McGonigal writes in an engaging fashion. She draws on her personal experience and tells about research findings in an accessible way, often providing stories about the researchers or about people who have been changed by adopting a different approach to stress.

Think differently

Here’s the most amazing finding. If you think that stress is good for you, it will actually become better for you.

McGonigal cites research by Alia Crum. In one of Crum’s studies, one group of hotel housekeepers was told that the physical work they did on the job was a form of exercise and good for them; the other group was told only that physical exercise was good for health. Then after a period of four weeks, each group’s physiological parameters were measured. The group that thought of work as exercise did better, including losing weight and body fat and reducing blood pressure. Simply thinking about their work differently changed its effect on their bodies.

Another typical experiment goes like this. Two groups of subjects are prepared for a stressful experience, for example giving a talk in front of a large audience. One group is given the usual advice that stress is not good for you and that they should to try to relax. The other group is told that stress is a useful tool. The group thinking positively about stress performs better according to independent judges.

Then there are physiological tests. One group, put into a stressful situation, is told in advance that they’ll feel nervous and should try to relax. The other group is told they’ll feel excited. The group that interprets stress as excitement actually has lower levels of biomarkers for harmful products.

The implication is that fearing and avoiding stress causes harm, whereas accepting and embracing stress can reduce its negative impacts and enable better performance.

Mindsets

These results reflect an important process: the influence of thinking on behaviour, in particular the role of a mindset, which is a framework for understanding the world, or oneself. Carol Dweck in her book Mindset described two ways of thinking about intelligence and performance. One is the fixed mindset, in which an individual sees performance as reflecting an innate capacity. The other is the growth mindset, in which performance is seen as reflecting effort. The growth mindset is far better for long-term improvement. People with a fixed mindset avoid challenges where they might fail, because failure might shake their belief about themselves, whereas people with a growth mindset see failure as indicating they need to work harder.

Mindsets about stress are similarly important. The key thing is that they affect behaviour in systematic ways. Believing stress is bad leads to efforts at distraction, getting rid of feelings (rather than addressing their source), drug use and withdrawal. In contrast, when people believe stress is beneficial, they accept the existence of stressful events, strategise, seek information and advice, address the source of stress and make the best of the situation.

Stress responses

McGonigal traces negative attitudes to stress to Hans Selye’s classic studies of the effects of stress on rats. They were highly traumatised, and these findings were interpreted by doctors and the public as indicating that stress should be avoided. This was not Selye’s intention, because there were important differences between the experiences of his rats and those of most people. Selye’s rats were exposed to electric shocks in a situation in which the shocks were unpredictable, unavoidable and meaningless. In contrast, the stresses that most people experience in their daily lives are fairly predictable, sometimes avoidable and often quite meaningful.

“Even in circumstances of great suffering, human beings have a natural capacity to find hope, exert choice, and make meaning. This is why in our own lives, the most common effects of stress include strength, growth, and resilience.” (p. 45)

One of the ways to benefit from stress is to recognise that it provides the resources to deal with situations. Stress commonly causes your heart rate to increase, your body to sweat and your attention to become focused. The trick is to realise that these responses are helpful for dealing with challenges: your attention is focused on the issue at hand, your senses are heightened, your energy is mobilised. So rather than trying to dampen the stress response by avoidance, it can be used to take action.

A second dimension of the stress response relates to interactions with others. To benefit from stress, the key is to get beyond the fight-or-flight options and instead adopt a “tend and befriend” response. This means to interact with others, to help others, to be sensitive to others’ emotions, and to defend them.

There is a third dimension to the stress response: it can help you learn and grow. The way your body responds to stress can help integrate experiences.

The first half of McGonigal’s book is about understanding stress, covering these three dimensions. The second half is about transforming stress, addressing the same three dimensions, describing ways to learn how to change stress from a negative to a positive. This involves exercises to use anxiety (a stress response) for achieving goals, to respond to stress by caring for others and thus build resilience, and to become stronger as a result of stress.

This last dimension can seem unfair. If you’re subject to traumatic experiences, why should the onus be on you to use this as a way of becoming stronger? McGonigal repeatedly emphasises that trauma is bad news: it has many downsides and should be avoided. But trauma is an inevitable part of most people’s lives, and it is worth knowing that it is possible to gain something from it. This is a matter of recognising the hardship involved but also trying to gain something from the experience.

Making attacks backfire

Over the past twenty years, I’ve heard from hundreds of individuals who are concerned about being sued for defamation. Some are worried that something they have said would open them to legal action. Others have received letters from lawyers demanding an apology and a payment for damages. A few have received a writ and are facing expensive court proceedings.

Many of them are frightened, even terrified. They are afraid they might be sued and end up losing their house. To say they are stressed is to put it mildly. They often don’t know what to do and, while looking for information, have stumbled across my website.

McGonigal’s approach to stress offers a different way of thinking about legal threats. Rather than fearing them, they sometimes can actually be welcomed because of the opportunity to try to make them counterproductive for the perpetrators. Truda Gray and I have written about how to use publicity and other means to make defamation threats and actions backfire.

In some cases, there is no easy option, but nonetheless there are options and they need to be carefully considered. The stress of being attacked can be used as a resource to generate courage, seek support and think strategically. Rather than cowering in fear, a better attitude is to think “Come and get me (and beware – you may regret it).”

More on mindsets

In some ways, McGonigal’s biggest challenge is people’s deep-seated beliefs that stress is bad. She is fighting an uphill battle, and experimental findings and stories will only go so far. What is really required is a change of mindset, to rethink stress and how to respond to it.


Kelly McGonigal

McGonigal reports quite a few studies of “mindset interventions.” These are typically group sessions lasting 30 minutes to a few hours designed to change the way people think about themselves and the world. Done well, a mindset intervention can lead to lasting changes in behaviour, for example improved academic performance.

This can be hard to believe. Teachers spend hundreds of hours with students trying to help them learn, and can react with scepticism to someone who says a short session can make a lasting difference. There’s another confounding factor: people whose mindsets are transformed don’t even remember the intervention. They think of things differently and do better because that is their new reality. No extra effort is needed.

If you want to change the way you react to stress, you can create your own personal mindset intervention. Get The Upside of Stress and read some of it. Then write down a brief account of how you could react to stress more positively. Then tell someone else about what you’ve read and how they could change their own reactions. That’s it. It’s not much, and can have lasting benefits.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Thanks to Dalilah Reuben-Shemia for useful comments.

emotions, personality

Understanding minds

Who and what do you think has a mind? Research provides fascinating insights.

The mind is where we experience the world and how we take action in relation to the world — or at least so it seems. Although every person’s mind is, in a sense, the most intimate part of their being, there is much that we don’t know about our own minds, and those of others.

Psychologists have been busy doing all sorts of studies about minds, including our assumptions about minds other than our own. If you’d like to read an engaging treatment in this area, I recommend The Mind Club by Daniel Wegner and Kurt Gray. The subtitle is informative: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters.

You may know your own mind, but how can you be sure that other people have minds? They might be zombies! This leads to deep philosophical issues, but Wegner and Gray are more interested in practicalities. The easiest assumption is that most human adults think and have experiences. This part is easy. But what about the less obvious possibilities for having a mind?

Non-human animals: do they have minds? Your dog or cat for sure, but amoeba surely not. Then there are machines, including robots. Does your smartphone have a mind? Presumably not, but sometimes it seems convenient to think it does, especially when it starts giving trouble. Another challenging case involves people in a persistent vegetative state (a long-term coma), unable to communicate. It’s uncertain whether they are thinking.

Thinking doers and vulnerable feelers

To help understand these different categories, Wegner and Gray introduce two categories, agency and experience. A capable adult has agency, namely the capacity to initiate action, and can experience sensations and feelings, such as pain and elation. However, others may be classified as having only agency or only experience.

A baby, for example, has little capacity for agency but can certainly have experiences. On the other hand, most people think a robot can act but is unlikely to have feelings. It turns out, based on many experiments, that there is a basic dichotomy in the way most people think about other minds: they are perceived as either thinking doers or vulnerable feelers. This dichotomy has many ramifications.

Those seen as vulnerable feelers are usually treated with sympathy, even when they do bad things. Non-human animals such as kittens and puppies are usually treated as vulnerable feelers, so when they cause harm by biting or scratching they are seldom blamed, except when it is done to someone even more vulnerable, like a baby. On the other hand, some animals are seen as doers, like sharks.


A vulnerable feeler

“Our compassion for vulnerable moral patients translates into rage when they are harmed. People care when adults are injured, but they are incensed when children or animals suffer.” (p. 104)

One of the consequences of this dichotomy is that people who are either villains or heroes are perceived as less sensitive to pain. This can help to explain why so many people think it is acceptable to punish criminals severely, with long prison sentences and torture via extended isolation, even though criminologists have shown this is neither rehabilitative nor protective of the community.

Heroes are also seen as relatively imperious to pain. One study asked subjects whether pain should be inflicted on either a bank teller or Mother Teresa. Most said neither but, when forced to choose, selected Mother Teresa because she had more capacity to take it. She was seen as a thinking doer and hence less vulnerable to pain.

Whistleblowing and nonviolent action

Wendy Addison has pointed out the implications for whistleblowers, those people who speak out in the public interest. Employers commonly see whistleblowers as villains and subject them to reprisals. Members of the public, on the other hand, often see whistleblowers as heroes, but the trouble is that this makes them see more capable of handling the reprisals. Seeing whistleblowers as either villains or heroes may be a factor in the resistance to giving them financial rewards.

People who are disadvantaged due to disability, illness, harassment or assault can gain sympathy by being seen as vulnerable feelers. However, this has a disadvantage: they can be assumed not to have agency to respond to their situation, leading others to think of them in as objects of charity rather than having the capacity to take action.

Another possible application of the doer-feeler dichotomy is in relation to nonviolent action. When peaceful protesters come under attack by police, this can be seen as unfair and generate outrage. A video of students sitting in a protest and being pepper-sprayed by police became famous. The students were not threatening anyone, so to many viewers harming them seemed outrageous.

However, sometimes protesters are seen as heroes, especially when they undertake more energetic actions such as chaining themselves to bulldozers or swimming in front of ships. This can turn them from vulnerable feelers to thinking doers and make it seem like they are better able to endure pain and bad treatment.


Robots are seen as doers, with little feeling

Wegner and Gray introduce a sequence of possible minds: animals, machines, patients (vulnerable feelers, without agency), enemies, the silent (people who cannot communicate), groups, the dead, God and the self. Each one of these topics, comprising the chapters in the book, provides fascinating insights.

Dyadic completion

One of the psychological processes that helps explain how people think about minds is called dyadic completion. If there is an injustice, people believe someone must be responsible. Pure randomness is not satisfying psychologically. Wegner and Gray describe a case from 1457 in France in which a pig ate a baby, and the pig was put on trial. Something terrible had happened and so the pig was attributed agency and responsibility.

Dyadic completion is also involved in many conspiracy theories. When something bad happens, the normal explanation may seem inadequate. For many in the US, the 9/11 attacks were so horrific and traumatic that it wasn’t enough to blame only the 19 individuals who piloted the aeroplanes. They assumed something bigger and more sinister must be involved.

Your own mind

Of all the minds in the world, the one we think we know the most is our own self. Yet psychologists have carried out numerous experiments showing that self-knowledge is often quite limited. People do things but often misconceive the reasons why they do them. Pioneering studies by Benjamin Libet showed that when people make a decision, for example to push a button, the brain is activated a fraction of a second before the intention enters the conscious mind. The implication is that the conscious feeling that you are making a decision is an illusion: it is a rationalisation for what the unconscious mind has already decided.

The Mind Club is written in an entertaining fashion and is filled with all sorts of observations about minds. You can learn a lot even if you don’t agree with every point raised by the authors. The book is a highly successful popularisation. I can recommend it to you knowing that whether you decide to read it is not necessarily something you can consciously control!


Daniel Wegner

“Trying to perceive your dead mind is paradoxical, because you have to perceive a state that is incapable of perception – which is impossible while you are currently perceiving.” (p. 243)


Kurt Gray

“Despite the ultimate uncertainty surrounding the question of other minds, it is likely that everyone you know has the same powerful emotions and deep thoughts as you do. Unfortunately, your own collection of memories, thoughts, and feelings – your mind – prevents you from truly appreciating that fact. Being one mind prevents you from truly appreciating the minds of others.” (p. 321)

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

emotions, self-development

The advantages of negative emotions

Happiness is a good thing, but there are also advantages in other emotional states.

 

Most people would like to be happy, and strive for it in various ways, everything from eating chocolate and taking holidays to helping others. But in the pursuit of happiness, is something being missed? Are there actually some advantages in being unhappy?

From 2009 to 2016, Chris Barker and I coordinated a course on happiness. We assigned weekly readings, most of which were about activities or ways of thinking that research shows increase happiness, for example physical activity, gratitude, mindfulness and optimism. To give a bit of balance to the readings, and encourage students to question the dominant orientation, Chris and I wanted to include a text providing a critique of research on happiness. However, we had a hard time finding a suitable reading. Most of the critiques of positive psychology are written in a technical and difficult-to-understand style and were not suitable for our course, which included students from engineering, science, law, education and other fields, with many international students.

Too late, I discovered the ideal source: The Upside of Your Dark Side, by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener, published in 2014. The authors are psychologists who have written extensively on wellbeing. They are fully aware and supportive of the goal of being happy and all the things that contribute to improving happiness. However, they became concerned about an emerging obsession with being happy, an obsession that obscures the advantages of other mental states. In short, they think it is important to be aware of, and sometimes embrace, the “dark side” of human emotions.

The Upside of Your Dark Side is a pleasure to read: clearly written without jargon, filled with examples and anecdotes, logically organised, thoroughly referenced and provocative throughout. It is a powerful counter to the usual one-sided emphasis on positive emotional states.

Benefits of the dark side

You might imagine that being unhappy, pessimistic, mindless and manipulative are things to be avoided. It depends, though, on the circumstances. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener cite lots of research showing the advantages of these apparently negative states. Consider, for example, whether it’s better to be happy when on the job. If the task requires close concentration and attention to detail, then happiness can hinder performance. Air traffic controllers, for example, need to be alert and always aware of possible danger. A happy atmosphere would undermine their job performance and put lives at stake.

More generally, it is valuable to be aware of negative emotions, because they provide information that can give courage, stimulate alertness to dangers, and enable creativity. Being positive all the time can hide the information available in negative emotions, and for example lead to poor choices. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener advocate embracing negative states (not wallowing in them) as part of the skill of emotional agility, meaning the capacity to use a variety of emotions as tools chosen for their value in specific situations.

Mindfulness, which involves being aware of your own situation, including your own emotions, is rightly touted at a route to deep satisfaction and a counter to cascades of intrusive thoughts. Mindfulness enables maintaining a distance from negative feelings like anger and anxiety, so they cause less damage.

            Kashdan and Biswas-Diener are well aware of the benefits of mindfulness, but they also point to the benefits of mindlessness. The unconscious mind is a powerful tool if used the right way. For example, in making a difficult decision when multiple factors are involved, for example choosing where to live or what job to take, studies have shown that making a decision based on intuition can be better than one based on a careful, conscious consideration of all the information. Furthermore, it may be best to first make a careful study of the options, then to be distracted (mindless) for a period before making a quick, intuitive decision. The point is to harness both the mindful and mindless capacities of the mind.

Kashdan and Biswas-Diener say there are times when it is possible to take advantage of anger, Machiavellianism, narcissism and even psychopathy. Psychopaths, who are characterised as having no empathy, do not have a good reputation, often being put in the same category as serial killers. However, many psychopathic traits are functional in specific situations. For example, you probably want your brain surgeon to be focused entirely on the delicate task and not disturbed by feelings of empathy. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener also cite research showing that in some situations when a person needs help, psychopaths are more helpful than others.

            Similarly, narcissistic personality disorder – having grandiose ideas of personal importance and intense anger at being criticised – is not attractive. Yet there are some positive aspects to narcissism, for example a drive to achieve so as to measure up to self-evaluations and to attract praise from others.

Other dark sides

Looking at the benefits of anger, manipulation and other supposedly negative aspects of human personality and behaviour raises the question of whether there are any “dark sides” that should be totally avoided, such as hatred, sadism, greed and envy. Certainly they can cause severe damage, as documented by Joseph H. Berke in The Tyranny of Malice.

Consider greed, the desire for more, especially for more than others have. “Greed is good” has become the mantra of winners in the neoliberal economy, so in this context greed might be necessary for success. But what about individuals who desire a more egalitarian society? Are there still circumstances in which individual greed is part of reaching one’s full potential? Or is it simply greedy to pursue self-interest at the expense of others?

Envy is another dark emotion. It has a positive aspect: it can stimulate efforts to emulate the person who is envied. The more destructive side of envy is revealed in efforts to denigrate, undermine or even destroy the envied person. Envy is thus assuaged not by personal achievement but by tearing down envied others. Even so, this potentially has a positive function. In a highly unequal society, in which those who are privileged exploit the underclass, envy can contribute to revolutionary change.

            Expressing gratitude is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to increase happiness. Research shows that thinking of a few things you are thankful for just once a week can lead to significant improvements in happiness. This is certainly far easier than doubling your income. Yet might there be occasions when it is better to be ungrateful? Perhaps when someone is showering you with favours, you suspect they are trying to manipulate you. Withholding gratitude might make you more alert to scams.

Then there is physical activity, shown to be one of the most reliable mood-boosters available. Too much exercise can be damaging, to be sure, but what about the opposite of exercise: laziness? Are there occasions when laziness is beneficial? Anyone who exercises regularly needs to recover, and being lazy is an opportunity to do this. But what is the benefit of laziness for couch potatoes who avoid activity at all costs?

Forgiveness – better thought of as emotionally letting go rather than sanctioning another’s actions – enables a person to escape damaging thought patterns. However, the pursuit of justice is sometimes served by remaining vengeful for years or even decades.


Todd Kashdan

The whole self

The Upside of Your Dark Side is a valuable antidote to the one-sided glorification of positive states like happiness, altruism and mindfulness. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener say that a person who is “whole” is able to take advantage of negative as well as positive states. The subtitle of their book states this: Why being your whole self – not just your “good” self – drives success and fulfillment.

            They are careful to say that in most circumstances, maybe about 80% of the time, the “good” states are desirable; for the remaining 20%, using your “dark side” can be advantageous to both you and others. By referring to 80% and 20%, they are really saying to draw on negative emotions just occasionally. They also note that “negative” states like anger and selfishness shouldn’t be faked. To obtain full benefits, they need to be genuine, just kept on a leash.


Robert Biswas-Diener

The whole community?

Kashdan and Biswas-Diener, like most figures in the field of positive psychology, focus on the individual. They give little sense of how emotions are linked to social arrangements. In part this reflects their US orientation and the fact that most psychological research is carried out in affluent countries, often with university students.

Research indicates that narcissism has been increasing in the US for decades: surveys of university students reveal that personal goals are now more commonly to make money and become individually successful rather than to serve broader community goals. In this context of competitive individualism, linked to the rise of neoliberalism, displaying narcissistic traits can be useful for the individual, and those who are too altruistic can be easily exploited. But in a different sort of society, drawing on negative personality traits may not be so advantageous, or may be required less often.

            Looking at the social function of emotions and behaviours brings up the challenging issue of how best to bring about positive social change. If the goal is a more caring society, with greater equality and support for those who are most vulnerable, what is the role of anger, manipulation and unhappiness? There are no easy answers.

The Upside of Your Dark Side is a valuable treatment because it raises questions about things taken for granted. It can lead to a philosophy of moderation or balance. If I were again teaching a happiness course, I would assign one or two extracts from The Upside of Your Dark Side, and then hope to learn more from the response of the students.

“Being whole is about being open and accommodating of all parts to your personality: the light and dark passengers, the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and failures. To this we add the combination of a pleasurable and profoundly meaningful life, and the embrace of both novelty and stability. Acknowledging seemingly contradictory aspects of the self will increase the power and influence you wield in the present, and the vitality, agility, and perseverance you can bring to the life tasks that lie ahead.” (p. 213)

Brian Martin
mailto:bmartin@uow.edu.au

emotions, personality

Subtle prejudice

Many people sincerely believe they are not prejudiced. Research shows, though, that subtle prejudice is quite common. Furthermore, getting rid of it is very difficult.

Unconscious-Bias-Part-5

There are all sorts of prejudice, on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, occupation and various other characteristics. Some people are overtly prejudiced, for example expressing antagonism towards gays or refusing to say hello to neighbours of another nationality. However, many types of prejudice are less acceptable than before. In some circles, racist language will alienate listeners.

But can you be prejudiced even if you think you’re not? There’s a way to find out whether you have this sort of subtle, unconscious prejudice. Take the Implicit Association Test (IAT). But let me warn you. If you like to think of yourself as unbiased, be prepared for a possible shock when you take the IAT.

Implicit_association_test

Actually, there are many versions of the IAT, covering race, gender, age and other dimensions. Let’s say you take the age IAT. You look at faces of people and, as quickly as possible, classify them as young or old. You look at words and, as quickly as possible, classify them as good or bad. Then you look at interwoven sequences of faces and words, and classify them the same way. The online IAT calculates how long it takes you to do these tasks. If it takes you longer to respond to certain sequences, the implication is that you have an implicit bias against old people. It’s very common, and worldwide.

If you want to learn more about subtle prejudice, read the book Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald. It’s about the IAT and much more. Greenwald developed the IAT; Banaji was his student and has collaborated with him for many years.

Blindspot

The disturbing finding is that most people who believe they are unprejudiced are actually biased, unconsciously. Greenwald and Banaji admit they are too, even though they wish they weren’t.

Banaji is from India and was dismayed to discover, via the IAT, that she had an unconscious bias against non-whites. The IAT reveals that many women hold, unconsciously, the gender stereotype of male = work, female = family. Many US blacks have an unconscious bias against blacks, and so forth.

Mahzarin Banaji
Mahzarin Banaji

How could this be? The two-minds model of human mental functioning  helps explain. According to a standard view in psychology, humans have two minds, in other words two independent mental systems. One is the rational mind, used for much conscious thinking. It is slow, careful and requires effort. The other system is the intuitive mind, which operates rapidly, automatically and usually out of consciousness.

When you meet someone new, your intuitive mind rapidly classifies the person in terms of categories, including sex, ethnicity, age and social status. This happens out of conscious awareness. This automatic classification process can also result in judgements and changes in behaviour.

The IAT, by requiring rapid responses, taps into the intuitive mind and its biases. Conscious effort by the rational mind is required to overcome automatic responses, and the more effort that is required, the slower your response. The slower response is detectable and used to assess your level of bias, perhaps none but perhaps more than you expect.

As Blindspot‘s subtitle – Hidden Biases of Good People – suggests, Banaji and Greenwald are concerned about people who want to be unbiased, and who usually believe they are unbiased, but who actually have subtle prejudices.

You might want to dismiss your results on the IAT as not reflecting anything serious. Countering this, Banaji and Greenwald report on a large amount of psychological research showing that IAT scores correlate with prejudicial behaviours. But the bias in behaviour is subtle, so people – “good people” in Banaji and Greenwald’s terms – do not realise it is occurring.

Some experiments involved white students being approached by an interviewer, either a black or a white woman, on a neutral topic. A videocamera covertly recorded each interaction. Nonverbal indicators of the subject’s friendliness or discomfort were judged by independent assessors. A typical finding is that most white US subjects respond more positively to white interviewers.

African American woman taking an interview of a woman
African American woman taking an interview of a woman

Another experiment involved leaving a stamped, addressed and unsealed envelope in an airport phone box. On looking inside at the contents, a photo of the writer is hard to miss. White subjects are more likely to seal and post the envelope if the writer is white rather than black. The differences in response are not all that great, but enough to show a correlation between IAT scores and behaviour.

Dozens of clever studies of this sort show that subtle bias is common and that it affects behaviour, often with drastic effects. Banaji and Greenwald say that today subtle, unconscious bias may be the prime source of unfair discrimination in the US, overshadowing overt prejudice in its effects. Subtle bias is all the more potent because it is unconscious and hence unrecognised.

One of the issues addressed by Banaji and Greenwald is support in the US for measures to make up for historical disadvantage. Although a majority of whites disavow racial prejudice, a majority also thinks the playing field is now level, so extra support for disadvantaged groups is not needed. This can be interpreted as the expression of unconscious prejudice.

Because of the attention to the rights of minorities in recent decades, many US whites now believe they are suffering from adverse discrimination. Because their own prejudice is unconscious, their views about social injustice are opposite to what is shown by the evidence. Banaji and Greenwald provide a detailed appendix about black disadvantage in the US, giving ample evidence that it is real and significant.

Anthony Greenwald
Anthony Greenwald

Why unconscious prejudice exists

You might imagine that good intentions, or personal experience, would be enough to overcome unconscious bias. How could a career woman like Banaji hold an unconscious stereotype of female being associated with family rather than career? Why would a capable older person unconsciously accept negative stereotyping about old people? The answer is in cultural stereotypes that we imbibe from many sources.

In studying history, we read a lot about leaders, especially heads of state. Most of them are men, and a large proportion are white, at least for US people studying US history.

Mount Rushmore
No black or female faces on Mount Rushmore

In US television news, most reporting is about the US, and hardly any is about sub-Saharan Africa. As a result, it is easy for the intuitive mind to become attuned to white faces and not easily differentiate black ones.

In Hollywood productions, there are embedded assumptions about gender, age, social class, crime and a host of other social dimensions. Though not all shows have the same implicit message, the overall effect of watching thousands of hours of Hollywood entertainment is to implant associations and assumptions into many viewers’ minds.

The result is that stereotypes become deeply embedded. Think “surgeon” or “soldier” and the mental image of a white man may be automatic.

The messages of culture, including media, buildings, textbooks, ceremonies and much else, shape the unconscious, intuitive mind. The IAT probes the prejudices of this mind.

What to do

In Blindspot, Banaji and Greenwald devote considerable attention to the challenge of overcoming unconscious prejudice. They assume that “good people” would prefer to be unbiased and, if they knew about their unconscious prejudices, would like to change them.

However, changing the intuitive mind is not easy, especially when culture is continually fostering and reinforcing unconscious stereotypes. Banaji and Greenwald are not optimistic about trying to change intuitive responses. So they pursue a different approach: avoiding or sidestepping unconscious prejudice.

A good example is marking essays without knowing the identities of the students. In this way, unconscious biases about gender, ethnicity, appearance and personality are avoided. The same approach is used by editors of some scholarly journals when soliciting peer reviews: the author’s name and other identifying information are removed from the paper. Though reviewers sometimes can figure out the identity of the writer, the intention is to reduce the influence of conscious or unconscious bias.

peer-review-clipart-1

However, this sort of blinding has limited applicability. In the workplace, a person’s gender and ethnicity cannot easily be disguised.

An initial step is for more people to become aware of their own unconscious biases. It can be disconcerting, even distressing, for a consciously fair-minded person to discover prejudice lurking in their intuitive mind, shaping their behaviour without revealing any trace to consciousness. Accepting that this can occur, though, can unleash creativity and energy in redressing culturally induced blindspots.

Recognising that it is difficult for individuals to overcome their own unconscious biases, there may be better prospects for groups of concerned individuals working together with a shared intent of developing ways of reducing prejudice.

A radical alternative

Prejudice is damaging psychologically, and also when it affects people’s job opportunities, promotions, housing options and other material aspects of life. It seems difficult to deal with hidden prejudice because judgements by others are so central to success in life.

This can be seen as a flaw in the connected systems of meritocracy and inequality. The usual idea of meritocracy is that people rise or fall in their station in life depending on their capacities and achievements: those who do better on tests get better grades and advance further through formal education; those who are more qualified and experienced get better jobs; those who do better work are promoted; those who generate new ideas receive recognition. Inequality in society is justified by belief in the merit principle: those who earn more money or become famous deserve their privileges because of what they’ve done.

The problem is that meritocracy is a myth. People often get ahead because of having wealthy parents, good luck, social advantage such as knowing the right people – and prejudice. Inequality due to birth, luck, connections or prejudice is simply unfair, and not justified by merit.

take-the-same-test

One way to nullify the impact of prejudice (and the role of birth, luck and connections) is to move to a more egalitarian society. At the workplace, instead of having huge pay differentials, most workers could receive the same pay. Or, more generally, everyone in society could be guaranteed the same basic income. With such a system, the impact of prejudice on income would be greatly reduced.

The existence of subtle prejudice can be used to motivate thought experiments. If we imagine that unconscious bias is widespread and virtually impossible to overcome at the psychological level, then the question becomes, how should society be organised so this unconscious bias has minimal consequences? There are some radical possibilities. For example, instead of electing politicians, members of decision-making groups could be chosen randomly.

Banaji and Greenwald say that figuring out how to overcome unconscious bias “may require some thought.” That thought needs to include radical alternatives.

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Thanks to Emma Barkus, Anu Bissoonauth-Bedford, Trent Brown, Rae Campbell, Kathy Flynn, Xiaoping Gao and Alfie Herrero de Haro for useful comments on drafts.

emotions, personality, self-development

What’s on your mind?

People have the capacity to be able to figure out what others are thinking. But there are lots of traps involved, according to research reported in Nicholas Epley’s book Mindwise.

Personality-icon

For most of my life, I thought I was no good at guessing what other people were feeling. I marvelled at the capacity of friends who, through their powers of intuition, could understand other people.

Then a few years ago I was a subject in a research project on “personality coaching.” After taking a comprehensive psychological test, I met with a coach, had a look at my personality profile and decided what if any aspect of my personality I would like to change. Many other subjects chose to reduce their anxiety or depression, but I scored very low on “neuroticism.” Instead, I chose understanding others’ feelings, something I thought I was poor at. Over ten weeks of coaching, I was encouraged to think about and practise some ways to improve.

I’m not sure whether I actually improved, but I discovered I was better than I had thought at picking up on the emotions of people I knew, for example when talking on the telephone to my PhD students.

Mindwise

Now I’ve read Nicholas Epley’s illuminating book Mindwise (Penguin, 2014) and learned that my original view was probably more accurate, namely I’m not that great at deciphering others’ emotions. However, my view of others’ skills was skewed. Most of them are probably not very good either. Epley reports that those who are poorest at understanding others are the most overconfident in their abilities.

Epley is a professor of behavioural science at the University of Chicago and does research on what he calls “mind-reading.” This is not extra-sensory perception but rather using our senses to understand — in the words of the subtitle of his book — “what others think, believe, feel, and want.”

Mindwise is an engaging treatment of research findings in the area. Epley uses a variety of examples, including from his own life, to illustrate insights. He has packaged this material into a logical framework, progressing through various dimensions of mind-reading. The book is the best sort of popularisation: it conveys key ideas in an understandable, engaging way while being faithful to the original research.

Knowing yourself

Compared to understanding others, it should be far easier to know our own thoughts. But actually it’s not.

strangers-to-ourselves

A book that greatly changed my thinking is Timothy D. Wilson’s Strangers to Ourselves. Wilson reported on research showing that there are parts of our minds that we cannot consciously access. He recounts a famous experiment in which young men acted on the basis of an incorrect assessment of their own emotions. Wilson concluded that, in some circumstances, the person sitting next to you knows as much about what you are feeling as you do yourself! It’s hard to believe, but the research is convincing.

Epley, covering some of the same ground, devotes a chapter to “What you can and cannot know about your own mind,” offering numerous fascinating observations about a key shortcoming of the mind. When you feel happy, for example, you usually know, but you seldom know why you’re happy, and systematically make incorrect assumptions about the reasons. Epley says we know what mental products are like as completed products but don’t have a clue about how they were created. Therefore, to make sense of our thoughts and emotions, we manufacture a plausible story and “we’re left with the illusion that we know more about own minds than we actually do.” (p. 30).

When pollsters ring to ask about your voting intentions, they now ask who you would vote for if the election were held today. In doing this, pollsters draw on psychological research. They don’t ask who you would vote for in a few weeks or months, because most people do not know their own minds well enough to accurately predict their future preferences.

Then there is the issue of bias. People assume that others are biased, not themselves, and hold fast to their own illusions. Not understanding one’s own mind in this case leads to mistakes in reading the minds of others.

adam-goodes
Adam Goodes

Take the case of Adam Goodes, Australian rules football star and former Australian of the Year. For the past two years he has been subject to booing by spectators every time he has the ball, something unprecedented in persistence. Many commentators attribute this to Goodes being an Aborigine and, furthermore, outspoken in opposition to racism. Those who boo or otherwise criticise Goodes say they aren’t racist. However, it’s quite possible that they do not understand their own motivations. To justify their beliefs and behaviours, they come up with rationalisations, such as that Goodes has been playing unfairly, a view that conveniently ignores the dozens of other footballers who play the same way. Hardly anyone these days admits being a racist. In this case, others may be able to read the minds of those who defend booing better than they can themselves.

Dehumanising others

One of the most serious flaws in the human mind-reading system is caused by proximity. The part of the brain engaged by the system is the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). People close to us stimulate greater activity in our mPFC: they are seen as having minds. By the same token, those who do not trigger mPFC activity are seen to be mindless and hence less than human. This psychological distancing is the source of mistaken judgements and underlies many crimes and atrocities.

mPFC

People from other cultures are harder to understand and are candidates for dehumanisation. Have you ever gotten to know a terrorist? Those who haven’t are prone to systematically misinterpreting their thinking and motivations. Epley says that terrorists are not psychopaths, but rather have an overwhelming empathy for their own group, connected with a contempt for other groups. “They act out of parochial altruism, a strong commitment to benefit one’s own group or cause without regard for the consequences for oneself” (p. 53).

When dehumanisation can be countered, the benefits can be enormous. Epley recounts the well-known story about a General Motors plant in California that was closed in 1982 due to abysmal productivity and quality control. Then GM entered a partnership with Toyota. The new Japanese management reopened the plant, rehired most of the same workers and started treating them as mindful humans with intrinsic motivations rather than as mindless ones interested only in money. Before long, the plant became a top performer. Despite this well-tested insight about the value of intrinsic motivation, bosses in workplaces around the world continue to treat workers as mindless drones who can only be motivated by fear or financial rewards.

Nummi-plant
Nimmi auto plant in Fresno, California

Because of inadequate understanding of the minds of others, most people are apprehensive of striking up conversations with strangers. Have you ever sat on a bus or train and noticed how people will space themselves out, avoiding sitting next to strangers? In one experiment, commuters were asked whether they would prefer to sit alone or talk to a stranger, and nearly all said sitting alone. Then they were asked to talk with strangers and nearly all found it more enjoyable. This shows that people are mistaken about the likely responsiveness of strangers and about their own emotional responses.

Minds when there are none

The capacity of humans to understand the minds of others can sometimes be deployed when it’s not appropriate, in what is called anthropomorphising, namely seeing things as having human qualities. Have you ever seen someone berating their computer, saying “Why do you keep causing me trouble?” This is anthropomorphising: the computer is attributed will or motivation.

cuckoo

Epley reports that inanimate objects are more likely to be seen as human when they are unpredictable. The computer that sporadically plays up is seen as more wilful than the one that always works – or never does. When something needs to be explained, we are more likely to infer the existence of a mind.

Another reason for attributing minds is appearance, for example a face. The animated feature film Cars is more engaging because the cars have big eyes and mouths, so the fiction that they can think and talk is less jarring. A feature titled Rocks showing expressionless rocks would be less likely to attract audiences.

Cars_2006

Epley writes that the process of anthropomorphising is not mysterious: “Forming a connection requires you to consider another person’s mind, to adopt his or her perspective, to do your best to get into his or her head” (pp. 78-79), and this can occur with non-humans. He notes that musicians often form a personal bond with their instruments, even giving them names. I guess my mind-reading sense is unlikely to be triggered in this way. I’ve been playing the same clarinet for 50 years and never thought of giving it a name.

clarinet
Someone else’s clarinet

It’s all about you

When trying to figure out what others are thinking, one of the biggest challenges is getting over egocentrism, in particular the assumption that others think the way we do. People were asked their views on a range of ethical choices, for example “Is it ethical to call in sick to get a day off?” Then they were asked how they thought others would answer, namely to estimate the percentage of others who would agree with them. On this question, 71% answered that it is ethical, and these subjects estimated 66% of others would answer the same way. So far, so good: 66% is close to 71%, so mind-reading seems to work. However, 29% answered that it is unethical, and these subjects incorrectly estimated 64% of others would answer the same way. On a whole set of questions, people thought the majority of others agreed with their answer, even when they were in minorities as low as 10%. This illustrates that, in the absence of specific knowledge about others, the usual assumption is that they think the same way we do.

self-centered-300x300

Most people overestimate their own contributions to shared tasks, for example housework. They also overestimate their role in negative interactions, taking more than their share of responsibility for starting arguments. An excess of self-centredness leads to paranoia.

Another aspect of self-centredness is that most people think they feel emotions more strongly than others. This is because we feel our own emotions very strongly but have only indirect information about others’ emotions. On this particular aspect of self-centredness I can plead not guilty, because for most of my life I’ve assumed I don’t feel emotions as strongly as others (which, of course, could be true).

Another aspect of a self-centred bias is called the “curse of knowledge”: once you know something, it is very difficult to imagine what it’s like not to know it. The result is that highly knowledgeable people are sometimes poor teachers. Studies show that someone who has just learned how to use a mobile phone can teach a beginner more quickly than can an experienced user. The curse of knowledge is especially relevant to me as a university teacher. I try to counter it by setting up conditions for students to learn from each other. One of the counter-intuitive implications of the curse of knowledge is that I may be better at helping students learn when I haven’t previously taught a subject.

Stereotypes

stereotype_map_by_pokemonarenaart-d6kp9vb

When you don’t know much about a person, it’s convenient to assume they fit a stereotype, about being a woman, an Egyptian, a plumber or a redhead. Epley describes research showing both the strengths and weaknesses of stereotypes. Most stereotypes accurately portray differences between groups. For example, those on the political right are more likely to support bosses against workers than those on the left. The shortcoming of stereotypes is that they give an exaggerated idea of how great the differences between groups are. The differences between right and left on many issues actually are fairly small, maybe 1/10 as great as the stereotypes might suggest.

Stereotypes thus can lead to clashes between groups that don’t really differ very much, because each group operates on the basis of its exaggerated idea of the views of the other group.

This is one reason why deliberative democracy has more potential than you might imagine. Put together a randomly selected group of 12 citizens (a so-called citizens jury), give them information about some subject, say genetic engineering or climate change, and have them try to reach consensus on a policy. It sounds like it wouldn’t work, but hundreds of actual citizens juries show that it usually does. When people are brought together, get to know each other and exchange ideas, stereotypes give way to more realistic perceptions, and usually there is more commonality than initially imagined.

Actions

Most people are susceptible to “correspondence bias.” When someone acts violently, we may assume they are angry or aggressive. Many people in the US assume that the 9/11 terrorists hated America and wanted to destroy the American way of life, despite explicit al Qaeda statements about their real motivations.

why-do-people-hate-america

Correspondence bias can reflect an assumption that other people’s actions are internally motivated rather than conditioned by the environment. If your friend Lauren walks by without saying hello, you may assume she is unhappy with you when actually she was just preoccupied and didn’t see you. Epley notes that people in collectivist cultures, such as in Japan, are more attuned to the existence of environmental influences and are less likely to be subject to correspondence bias.

Correspondence bias can have serious consequences. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans in 2005, officials assumed that those who had not been evacuated didn’t want to leave. The officials didn’t take into account the factors that constrained the desires of residents. Epley says “They didn’t need convincing, they needed a bus” (p. 151).

How to read minds

When someone looks to the side while talking to you, does this mean they’re lying? When they fold their arms and keep their distance, does this mean they’re resisting your views? A lot has been written about body language and how to interpret it. Despite reading several books on the topic, I have always thought I was poor at interpreting body language. According to Epley, I’m not unusual: it’s very difficult to learn a lot from it. If you’re going to try, it’s better to listen to someone’s voice rather than watch them.

Then there is perspective-taking: imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes and thereby gaining insight into what they think and how they feel. I always thought this was valuable, but Epley cites many studies showing it is subject to serious shortcomings. We can imagine ourselves in someone else’s circumstances, but often this isn’t accurate at all.

There’s one method for figuring out what other people are thinking that is usually pretty helpful: ask them, and carefully listen to what they say. It seems obvious but, as Epley notes, in many cases people are overconfident in thinking they already know the answer, so they don’t bother to ask. A boss assumes a worker needs higher pay to work harder, or arrives late due to being slack, and doesn’t ask for the worker’s explanation.

The key to getting an honest answer is to reduce the threat of repercussions. Epley tells how he used this approach with his son. Performance appraisals at work are useless when employees fear reprisals for being honest.

Nicholas-Epley
Nicholas Epley

Mindwise is filled with insights. If figuring out what others are thinking is important to you, it could be one of the most useful books you’ll ever read. An important message is that most people are overconfident about their mind-reading abilities. As Epley concludes, “Sometimes a sense of humility is the best our wise minds can offer, recognizing that there’s more to the mind of another person than we may ever imagine” (p. 184).

Brian Martin
bmartin@uow.edu.au

Thanks to Don Eldridge for useful comments.