Algorithms, Heuristics, and You

Let’s begin with a short retrospective time travel.  Picture yourself as an early elementary school child, pencil in hand and paper before you. You are just learning to regroup in addition and subtraction—what then, respectively, were called carrying and borrowing.  At the time, no one labeled these as “algorithms,” but the lessons probably were your introduction to them.  You need not have known anything about rationales behind the processes; if you followed them faithfully, you invariably arrived at the “correct” answers and were happy to have done so.  However, in contrast to algorithms, you already had learned some fundamental heuristics long before you entered your first classroom.  And much of that learning was acquired independently and automatically.  For instance, you could have come to believe that grandparents were more likely to buy you a new toy than were mom and dad.  You, of course, were not aware of the term “heuristics,” and they did not always produce the intended effect, but they worked well enough for them to become established in your behavioral repertoire

One of those former elementary school children, Bob—now an adult—was my patient (whose identity I am disguising).  Highly educated and very cerebral, he frequently referred to how he strove to live life by algorithms.  By that, Bob meant that he prioritized following a series of invariant logical steps that he had fashioned to manage broad features of his lifestyle. Whenever his formulae achieved their desired effects, he made sure that I—and everyone around him—knew about it.   Most often those successes were professional ones.   By contrast, when his algorithms failed—often in interpersonal realms—Bob committed the “fundamental attribution error,” always finding time-limited external reasons for his shortcomings while believing that other people’s shortcomings were due to their permanent character flaws.   

In contrast to Bob, another patient, whom I will call Carol, spoke about her heuristic approach—one that she personally characterized as being dominated by “gut feelings” and intuitions.  She did not believe that she could trust any widely available information, feeling that it either would be purely manipulative or unsuited to her circumstances.

The first patient was reluctant to introspect about his feelings and the second, reluctant to entertain information generated outside herself.  Of course, both patients had come to see me because their customary life strategies failed to resolve major life challenges.  And, as expected, the first patient wanted me to help him construct or revise his algorithms and the second wanted me to help her tweak her heuristics.  The patients unwittingly entertained the anachronistic notion of a thoughts-feelings dichotomy.  The approaches offered each a simplified strategy to life consistent with their predispositions and preferences.

So, what does science propose that contradicts their outdated dichotomies?  The renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio offers both research and theory that unites thought and feeling.  He emphasizes body, feeling, emotion, and thought.  I must simplify his complex ideas in order to keep this blog brief.  We start with the body as our nexus. The body generates internal states consistent with health promotion and health threat. Feelings comprise our basic conscious or unconscious awareness of the promotions or threats.  And emotions are the “action programs” instigated by our body-inspired feelings.  You are in an unfamiliar setting, you hear a loud bang, your heart pounds, you feel scared, you scream and/or curse, and/or run. 

The course of events that follow hearing a loud bang in an unfamiliar setting is obvious.  But what about less dramatic everyday situations that might present to Bob, Carol, me, or you? The setting is a car showroom. A salesperson just finished his “final offers” narratives to Bob regarding two favorite automobiles under consideration.   Bob’s heart is unaffected.  He feels calm. The feeling enables him dispassionately to mentally [pm1] calculate the cars’ stats, comparing one car with another to decide which is the better value.  He buys a car.  Carol’s salesperson presents his narrative.  Her heart is pounding.  She feels anxious.  The feeling disrupts her thought processes.  She intuits from his facial expression that the salesperson is overcharging, declines the offers, and leaves the showroom.

If Bob’s salesperson had provided a false narrative, Bob might have deduced that by using his intuition about the salesperson, and refused to purchase.  If Carol’s salesperson had provided a correct narrative, Carol might have used what he presented to objectively evaluate the facts and purchase a proposed car.  In other words, on-line bodily states serve us well when their signals to us are aligned with external realities associated with the decisions that we need to make. And on-line bodily states serve us poorly when their signals to us are misaligned with external realities associated with the decisions that we need to make.  In concrete terms, we ideally make decisions that take into account both what our higher-level brain processes are signaling (called top-down), and our gut-level intuitions are signaling (bottom-up).  To categorically ignore either is to invite problems.  That means that whenever confronting a decision we first must tune in to our dominate on-line bodily state and then employ both our intuition and our rationality before acting.  Per the car-purchasing metaphor then, you get the best car at the best price if you enter the showroom in a calm bodily condition, monitor your body changes in response to the salesperson’s conduct, have in your possession objective information about the car you are considering, and integrate all those elements before reaching your decision.

Broadly speaking then, heuristics are our gut-level intuitions and algorithms are our methodical objective calculations. Neither Bob, Carol, you, nor I are can afford to live life and decide actions exclusively through either strategy.  The trick is for us to start with a body that is as composed as reasonable and strive to integrate our gut-level intuitions with our cerebral inductions and deductions. Body, feelings, and emotions always are present to some degree and always exerting their influences.  Let’s use all three adaptively.

Sleep Position Reveals Personality

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, inadequate sleep is associated with a host of physical and mental ailments, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and depression.  Perhaps for that reason, WebMD.com distributed a posting entitled, “What Your Sleep Position Says About You.”  The post reported the following "research" relating body position to personality:

·        Five percent of the population prefer to sleep on their backs with arms close to their heads.  They frequently are good listeners and attention-seeking.

·        Eight percent of the population prefer to sleep with arms down and close to the body.  They tend to be quiet, keep to themselves, and expect a lot from themselves and others.

·        Fifteen percent of the population prefer to sleep on their side with arms down.  There is research that finds a correlation with sociability and an, easygoing, and trusting demeanor.

·        Forty percent of the population prefer to sleep in the fetal position.  Men are half as likely as women to prefer this. Those preferring this position tend to be warm, friendly, and sensitive[pm1] , but to have protective shells surrounding them.

 

Before I ask you my central questions, think about this:  The WebMD site allegedly receives 75 million visitors per month. https://www.webmd.com/corporate/press-center-fact-sheet#1.  How’s that for what marketers refer to as the influence (manipulation) strategy called “social proof?”  Please consider what you believe about the reliability and validity of the information in the blog presented thus far.  Think about that on your own before continuing to read.

 

Now, what do you think about the WebMD posting about sleep position?  Do you believe the WebMD percentages?  Do you believe that people sleep in the same position every night and all night?  Since elements of personality can change (such as how some men become more mellow with age and some women, more assertive), will their personality changes “cause” sleep position changes, or vice versa?  Do you accept that the posting said absolutely nothing about the influence of physiological factors?  Do you accept that the posting said nothing about the sleep environment?

 

I could go on and on with this, but I’ll spare you. My point is that you would do well to begin every health and science information-seeking activity by reminding yourself that too much of popularly promoted health and science is powered by mercenary and political motives.  At minimum – presumably as in the case of the WebMD sleep positions posting – a primary consideration is acquiring the most site hits to prove its monetary value rather than to provide important, reliable, and valid information.

 

Every time you encounter some new health and/or science information and instantly become enamored with it, I think you should pause.  Ask: Is what I just discovered really just entertainment or social manipulation masquerading as science? Also, ask yourself whether you have been too quick uncritically to accept something consistent with what you already had believed.  And ask yourself whether you have been too quick uncritically to accept it because it’s novel and that telling people about it could make you sound clever.  If you become more self-critical in these ways, you will be a better health and science consumer and more resistant to mercenary and politically-inspired health and science propaganda.

 

Like almost everyone, I would be comforted to believe that physical and mental health can be reduced to one or two simple factors.  Unfortunately, they cannot.  So, I have conditioned myself to trudge along, being skeptical and investigating even the most “obvious” health and science information that media and other institutions promulgate. Human physical and mental health always depend on multiple interacting forces.  That should not surprise anyone.

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 [pm1]

Trust "the Science" ?

I am privileged to communicate conjointly with all of you across time and space for one primary reason -- science.  That simple everyday fact of 21st century life would be unfathomable to virtually anyone born before 1900.  Think about that for one moment.  Those who perished before the 20th century could communicate with each other only if they could deliver and receive auditory or visual signals naturally through their unaided senses.  

What is true for communication is true for virtually every major feature of contemporary life.  Those from the 19th century could not access vaccines to prevent disease nor antibiotics to treat them because science had not progressed that far.  Back then, Covid-19 would have decimated city populations far beyond what it has done thus far to us.

Science is so critical to the contemporary world that the United States government alone expends 50 billion dollars on pure research; that is, on projects with absolutely no guaranteed payoff.  For instance, outer space endeavors such as the Mars Observer alone cost about 1 billion dollars. If you don't remember the Observer, consult Wikipedia and learn that it failed to achieve Mars orbit 331 days after launch.

The savvy sibling of pure research is applied research conducted with clear utilitarian goals and high expectations of actionable benefits.   In 2019, the U. S. government "invested" 656 billion dollars for applied research - the research that has begun to control Covid-19. 

Both pure and applied research, then, are critical for human survival and progress.  But because science also is the ultimate portal to fortune and fame, both pure and applied research can be used to manipulate and exploit its naive consumers.

Of all the science impinging upon us, nothing literally is more critical to life and limb than is health care research.  Covid-19 immediately comes to mind again.  Do you trust the science enough to be content with the fact that "Artificial Proteins Never Seen in the Natural World Are Becoming New COVID Vaccines and Medicines”? (Jacobsen, 2021)

If trust is critical, then knowing which science to trust is even more critical.  We must begin with three obvious premises.  First, science is funded by people. Second, science is done by people.   For those reasons, anyone with relevant resources can fund or conduct any kind of science.  The third premise is that only a very small fraction of scientific endeavor is disseminated and/or implemented.  

Dissemination and implementation of scientific findings, in turn, are mostly controlled by governments, educational institutions, and media and corporate giants.  To make this short blog manageable, let's consider only one recent health-related revelation.

Nature, that began publication in 1869, has been called the world's leading international weekly journal of multidisciplinary science. This is one publication that deserves careful attention; it has "skin in the game" and a reputation of integrity that it fiercely protects.  So, I carefully read Clare Watson's 2021 Nature article entitled, “Health researchers report funder pressure to suppress results."  It certainly is worth a reading. In the hope of spurring your motivation to do so, I offer the following quotes that involved studies from North America, Europe and Oceania: [I added the underscores and bold print]:

McCrabb and her co-authors found that respondents were more likely to report pressure from government department funders seeking to influence research outcomes than from industry or charity funders, or public research funding agencies.

Jon Buckley, a nutritional physiologist at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, says it’s “not surprising that governments intervene to try and suppress results that may not be to their advantage”. Nevertheless, the findings are concerning, he adds, because the suppression perverts the research process and holds back evidence that could help to inform policy-making and solve health problems. Government agencies such as health departments might be more inclined to intervene if findings from a study they commissioned are not as expected or if they are heavily invested in the health intervention — such as an education or health programmed — being trialed, she adds.

Almost one-fifth of respondents to a survey of public-health researchers reported that they had, on at least one occasion, felt pressured by funders to delay reporting, alter or not publish findings. Public-health research has a history of interference from industry funders, so the team behind the study, led by health scientist Sam McCrabb, expected researchers running industry-funded studies to be those most commonly acting under duress. “But we didn’t find any instances of that,” she says. Instead, government-funded trials were the ones most commonly faced with efforts to suppress results that were deemed ‘unfavourable’ by the agencies or departments that had commissioned them.

I was one of the first in line for Covid-19 vaccine.  I studied it to the best of my ability and trusted the science. In the 21st century, my life and yours have benefitted enormously from science.  You and I would be little more than Luddite fools to dismiss science out of hand.  We need to trust some science and mistrust manipulation masquerading as science.  Don’t depend on governmental officials of any party – especially your own party to which you might be naively blind – who show you “science” and demand that you trust it. 

Put aside your preconceptions and biases, and honestly investigate the reliability and validity of whatever you hear or read presented as "the science." If you first can trust yourself to rationally seek scientific truth, you then can trust the scientific truths that you discover.

 

References

Jacobsen, R. (2021) Life, New and Improved," Scientific American 325, 1, 28-37.

Watson, C (2021) Health researchers report funder pressure to suppress results. Nature 18 August.   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02242-x

 

 

 

 

 

 

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

We all have heard the adage “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”  And that advice usually strikes us as being sound.  Why say something that you don’t mean?’  You know potential answers to that question.  Some obvious ones that readily come to mind, for instance, are that we fear hurting someone’s feelings and/or of diminishing our standing in their eyes.  There are a thousand “good” reasons not to truly say what we mean or truly mean what we say.  

What do all the potential reasons have in common?  They all depend on what psychologists call “mindreading.”  When we consider what to say to someone we must explicitly or implicitly “decide” what to say.  Another way to frame the issue is to consider whether mindreading is distinctly separate from or merely a sub-part of metacognition (thinking about thinking, in general).  That is, when you try to guess what another person thinks or will think, is that process different from how you think about your own internal thoughts?  Some theoretical and experimental psychologists say “yes” and some say, “no.”

I do not propose to have the answer—only to have you consider the concepts.  I do so because I believe that your mindreading and metacognition tendencies are critical for your mental health.  

Let’s begin with metacognition, since it is the more general issue.  Metacognition essentially is listening to your thoughts as objectively as possible—being aware of the thoughts that course through your mind. In the verbal realm, for instance, that means tuning-in to the denotations and connotations of what you say.  Denotations are dictionary-derived and connotations are specific to an individual speaker or listener.  If I say, “You are tough,” I could mean that you are a resilient person or one who is hard to deal with.  And you could make either interpretation, depending on your connotative predilection.  I know which meaning I intended by using my metacognition and you presume what I meant through your metacognition.

If you accept Carruthers’ position (2015), metacognition and mindreading are intimately related.  Extrapolating from his theory, one would expect that those accustomed to attending to their own thoughts are better prepared to imagining the thoughts of other people.   Moreover, Carruthers believes metacognition and mindreading depend on similar resources.  It makes intuitive sense that persons unaccustomed to monitoring their own thoughts would be unlikely to think sufficiently about the thoughts of others.  Carruthers also showed experimentally that when one’s metacognitive resources are diminished so too are their mindreading resources.  

Like any other capability, some people are more naturally predisposed toward the introspection that facilitates metacognition and mindreading; they have developed the facilitative habit, and, therefore, have an easier time monitoring and understanding their own thoughts and comments, and those of others.  But, even for those so predisposed, metacognition and mindreading require effort.  Fatigue, anxiety and other stressors disrupt their habit and can cause them to think and say things out of character.  All these challenges, of course, are greater for those disinclined toward introspection.

Whether or not you believe that metacognition and mindreading are directly related, you probably will concede that both capacities are important for your awareness of self and others, as well as for your interpersonal relationships and general mental health.                 

What is the lesson for “Say what you mean, and mean what you say?”  You can decide that for yourself.  But, I conclude that, whenever possible, before I speak I must think about what I truly believe (metacognition) and what I imagine my conversation partner will think (mindreading) if I communicate what I truly believe.  If I determine that my true thoughts would be unacceptable to my partner, I need to make another decision.  Is it more important to be authentic, or to be diplomatic?  Moreover, I need to consciously decide whether being authentic may cause me interpersonal stress.  One way to diminish the risk of that stress would be to tactfully question your conversation partner before making a comment that your mindreading suggests will be unacceptable to her or him.  I bet you can think of some other strategies.

However you accomplish it, using metacognition and mindreading succesfully enables you to thoughtfully and deliberately say what you mean and mean what you say.

Reference:

Carruthers, P. (2015).  Mindreading in adults: evaluating two-systems views.  Synthese, 194 , 673–688.

Sorry, But I Can't Help You.

You need help.  You seek help.  Your health provider makes recommendations, and your problems persist.  Then the provider reluctantly admits, "I can't help you."  Health providers rarely make that explicit admission.  That doesn't mean they don't think it.  And that doesn't mean you don't think it.  

Health care is phenomenally successful in many areas, most of which involve relatively acute problems that can be corrected as a result of precise imaging and surgery.  But health care is abysmally poor in combating many chronic conditions.  For instance, the three leading causes of death in America - heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's Disease - all are lifestyle sensitive.  Every one of the big three can be caused or exacerbated by stress, excessive alcohol, faulty nutrition, and sedentariness.  My not-so-big revelation is that your health provider cannot live for you.

So, how are you living?  I mean real living, not rationalized living.  One example should be sufficient to make my point.  Everyone knows that exercise is essential for health.  You see your doctors, they ask about exercise, and you tell them what you do.  What do studies say about how truthful exercise-related patient-doctor dialogues are?  Take a guess. Ten percent?  Fifteen percent?  No and no.  Andrea Gurmankin Levy and colleagues (2018), for example, found that as many as 81% of patients lie to their doctors about how often they exercise.  (They were equally likely to lie about the amount they eat).  Why?  The researchers suggested that most often the lies were due to desire to avoid judgement and embarrassment.  

There undoubtedly are other reasons for lying to doctors about lifestyle.  But what is the bottom-line implication?

I believe that lying to your doctor about lifestyle usually betrays an external locus of control.  It is as if the patient feels that she/he has to please their doctor, and nothing could be further from the truth.  The sad reality is that most doctors move rapidly from patient to patient.  They do not have the time, the energy, or the desire to ruminate about you.

Don't worry about your doctors' opinions of your lifestyle.  Don't bother to lie to them.  Don't bother to lie to family, friends, or associates about your lifestyle. Adopt an internal locus of control.  Once you do that, you become the only target for your lifestyle lies.  And if you believe you can lie to yourself with impunity, you are wrong. Sure, failure to adopt a healthful lifestyle will harm you, whether you have an external or internal locus of control. But an internal locus means that you cannot avoid responsibility for unhealthful lifestyle consequences.  Perhaps that unavoidable "pressure" will help motivate you to make the changes you need.

One final suggestion.  You often are advised to set lifestyle goals for yourself.  And that is good advice.  But goals are of little value if they are not paired with clear, employable strategies to reach them.  Make sure that you have thought through the strategies, and that you consistently act consonantly with them. When you approach your lifestyle that way, you no longer will need to lie to doctors, nor will you need doctors to help you with common sense lifestyle-oriented health practices.  You will reach your goals by being faithful to your strategies.  

Reference

Gurmankin Levy A, Scherer AM, Zikmund-Fisher BJ, Larkin K, Barnes G, Fagerlin A.  Dishonesty in patient disclosures to healthcare providers. JAMA Network Open 2018; 1(7):e185293. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.5293

Physical & Mental Health Before and After COVID-19

 No, I am not going to dwell on COVID. You have heard enough about that.  Rather, let’s think about how it has affected your lifestyle.

Your lifestyle evolved over time.  Every one of your routines had a starting point.   Every one of your routines became “routine” because it provided something for you.  Few, if any of us, have not had our lifestyles majorly impacted by COVID.  Whatever changed about your lifestyle might now have replaced, in part, or in full, something healthful that preceded it.  Each passing day during which you behave in the changed unhealthful fashion makes it more and more likely that the new unhealthful routine will become a habit that replaces the pre-pandemic one, or that, at least, compromises it.  

You do not need researchers to tell you what you know, but, for the record, Teresa Arora and Ian Grey (2020) reported some COVID-oriented epidemiological information about a few physical and mental health threats.  They found that UK respondents reported 38% less sleep, 49% suffered more anxiety and depression.  Arora and Grey suggested, too, that boredom and seclusion had caused snacking to increase.  Similarly, they said that Australia in March 2020 saw liquor sales rising 86%, and in the United Kingdom and the United States the increases were 22% and 27%, respectively.  Lebanon had a doubling  of domestic violence calls and France had a 32% rise.

But enough of my telling you facts that seem obvious once you hear them. What is the personal relevance to your physical and mental health?  Only you can determine that.  But I can provide some areas for you to consider—health essentials about which I wrote in my book, Don’t Rest in Peace.

Think about whether your status progressed, declined, or remained static during the COVID onslaught relative to the following:

Cognitive-emotional functioning: More or less positive intellectual and affective experiences?

Interpersonal Relationships: Better or worse times with others?

Physical Conditioning: More fit or less fit?

Diet-Nutrition: Healthier or less healthy eating?

Work: More or less productive?

Relaxation-Recreation: Increased or decreased stress?

I expect that you, like I, had more trouble than usual in virtually all the health essential areas.  But that is not my focus.  Rather I advise, first, that you now look at all the health essential areas and determine where, if anywhere, they have changed for the worse.  Second, ask yourself the extent to which the new, lower level of physical and mental health have started to become habitual.  Third, what are you going to do starting today to eliminate the COVID-induced unhealthful habits?  Fourth, and most important, what physically and mentally healthful habits will you begin to cultivate?   

Whatever changed about your lifestyle might now have replaced, in part or in full, something healthful that preceded it.  Each passing day during which you behave in the changed fashion makes it more and more likely that the new unhealthful routine will become a habit that replaces the healthful pre-pandemic one, or that, at least, compromises it.  Don’t let that happen.  

Reference

Health behaviour changes during COVID-19 and the potential consequences: A mini-review

Teresa Arora*, Ian Grey*First Published June 18, 2020 Editorial Find in PubMed

https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320937053

How to decide?

 Most of our decisions occur through totally or largely unconscious processes.  And, usually, that is of no concern.  Whether we decide on vanilla or chocolate ice cream will have no appreciably important effect on our well-being.  But, of course, there are other unconsciously determined decisions that literally can have life or death consequences.  We might automatically, unreflectively decide to drive to the grocery store after “a couple drinks” because we previously have done so with no adverse consequences.

For important decisions such as those that concern relationships, we often, but not always, consciously deliberate.  In those cases, we tend to believe that we are proceeding rationally.  But are we?

When deliberate decisions concern interpersonal relationships, regardless of our intention, our mood very often exerts the most powerful influence.  This point was driven home by a Joseph P. Forgas study  (1989).  Subjects were provided a personnel file that included task and interpersonal skills of eight candidates, one of whom to be chosen as a work partner for themselves or for someone else.  But before choosing, one third of the subject population was primed into a sad, happy, or neutral state.

Forgas found that sad subjects gave greater weight to candidates’ interpersonal qualities rather than their competencies, and took longer to reach decisions than did subjects in the other mood states.  In general, happy subjects made the fastest choices, but only when choosing candidates to work with others.  When choosing partners for themselves, they proceeded a little more slowly and carefully.

The Forgas study, then, emphasized the obvious point that mood and personal benefit affects decisions that are consciously deliberated.  Notice, though, that speed of choosing also was a most significant influencer.  One way to think about this is to contrast the relative decision making value of fund of relevant information versus time taken to decide.  Guy E. Hawkins and Andrew Heathcote (2020) framed the issue as evidence-based versus time-based deciding.  They did so by employing a Timed Racing Diffusion Model (TRDM) that considered how deadlines – explicit and implicit – impact the accuracy and speed of correct and incorrect decisions.

The esoteric details of TRDM probably would lull you to sleep.  So, suffice to say that it is a quantitative unified, comprehensive model of deliberate decision making.  Germane to our discussion is what the model purports.  In brief, whenever we begin to deliberate, we have personal explicit or implicit expectations for the amount and quality of evidence and time required to decide.  Apropos of the model’s title, a race ensues between evidence and time that ends when either evidence or time reaches its boundary.  At that point, we feel acute, intense pressure to reach our conclusion, typically sacrificing either ideal evidence or ideal timing.  In essence, decisions often come down to being willing to trade some measure of information accuracy for decision speed, or vice versa.  Once the accuracy-speed race has ended definitively, the enacted decision depends on the individual’s abilities to encode and execute an appropriate motor response.  To summarize, TRDM must include consideration of evidence, time, encoding, and action requirements.

In light of the two aforementioned studies, what can be said succinctly to address the question, “How do we decide?” or, more specifically, “How do we deliberately decide?”  The cited authors probably would refer to our current mood, personal involvement, readily accessible relevant information, and time allocation.  But I said from the start that most decisions are not consciously deliberated or partially so, at best.  I believe that, overwhelmingly, important decisions proceed unconsciously according to our “Baseline ego strength” (BES) — aspects of ourselves and our behavior that are normative for us.  We usually operate according to them automatically, unless they, themselves, are revised in an enduring and fundamental manner.  There are seven interacting BES elements—history, body, temperament, environment, personality, cognition, and affect.  BES history: such as whether you were raised by one or two parents, and whether you were rich or poor.  BES body: such as whether you are constitutionally thin or heavy, attractive, or plain.  BES temperament: such as whether you are inherently hyper-reactive or hypo-reactive.  BES environment (physical and interpersonal): such as whether you grew up in the city or suburbs, have many friends or few.  BES personality: such as whether you are naturally extroverted or introverted.  BES cognition: such as whether you are more inclined to think abstractly or concretely.  And BES affect: such as whether you laugh often or rarely.  These enduring BES trait characteristics predispose us toward some features of reality and away from others. They determine most of our automatic, everyday decisions.

You certainly do make some conscious, rational, deliberate choices based upon evidence, time, encoding, and action requirements.  But if you hope to reach adaptive decisions in your most critical frequent, routine contexts, you need to understand your BES and how it channels your decisions.  I am close to completing a book to facilitate that understanding.

References

Forgas, J. P. (1989). Mood effects on decision making strategies. Australian Journal of Psychology, 41(2), 197–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049538908260083

Hawkins, G. & Heathcote, A.  (2020)  Racing against the clock: Evidence-based versus time-based decisions.  Psychological Review, Feb 18, No Pagination Specified https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000259

Happy Compared to Whom?

Keeping score is a defining characteristic of contemporary societies.  Civilization, itself, breeds continual tension between human cooperation and competition. Samuel Bowles (2006) explicitly asserts that our evolutionary success required "intense intergroup competition ...in the interest of avoiding group (and hence individual and family) annihilation in the context of intergroup aggression (warfare)."

Fortunately, for most of us, 21st century success rarely is a matter of "annihilation".  Cooperation and competition are not tooth and claw, life and death struggles. We usually choose when and how to compete --discretionary competitions that depend on what we define as important and unimportant.  And those definitions are mostly determined by the ways that we perceive interpersonal issues.

For many people, athletes embody competition, and they self-define similarly.  We hear them say, "I love this game. I'd play for free. I love the battles."  It is reasonable then that athletes compare their game skills to those of their opponents.  But sometimes the competition extends far beyond the playing field.  The classic example is Latrell Sprewell, NBA superstar, who declined a 3 year, $21,000,000 basketball contract, complaining “I've got my family to feed.” (Gaine, 2018).  At the time, seven NBA players had been offered more than Latrell.  Perhaps he declined due to interpersonal competition rather than to athletic competition.  In any case, I guess he did not love the game so much that he would play for free.

Sprewell undoubtedly was comparing himself with the seven basketball stars "above" him, and money was the comparison metric.  Had he never heard the adages that money cannot buy happiness and that we should not try to keep up with the Joneses?   Are those adages true or mere vestiges of the past?

It is hard to be happy if you are starving, freezing, or homeless.  Money obviously is necessary for life's necessities.  But, how much is needed for a contented life?   In 2018, Jebb and colleagues published a Gallup World Poll-based study of approximately 1.7 million individuals sampled from 164 countries.  Converting all finances into their U.S. dollar equivalents, they concluded that once income reached about $95,000 annually, additional income did not appreciably increase individual happiness.   But how much is needed for the most basic emotional well-being, so that lack of money does not add undue stress?  They placed that figure at $60,000 to $75,000 per annum.  If you are skeptical about these results, I am on-board with you.

As this blog title suggests, I believe that the money-happiness-emotional well-being connections depend on who is compared to whom, and who does the comparison.   The work of Piff and Moskowitz (2018) has more utility and face validity.  Their work, conducted exclusively in the USA, suggested that high income individuals tend to base their happiness on pride and amusement.  That is, their comparisons are based on how their personal capacities and pleasures compare to those of their elite peer group.  By contrast, so-called “lower class” individuals determine their happiness and well-being not by counting their money, but by comparing how much interpersonal support they have relative to their peers. 

The Jebb and colleagues and Piff and Moskowitz studies are more reasonable, and are more consistent with my views, when they are combined with the work of Xi Chen (2015).  That international work emphasized comparison in terms of relative wealth and relative poverty.  In short, it concluded that people look around them and contrast their standard of living with that of their peers.  That comparison was most impactful for persons within the working class and below.  Xi Chen provided evidence to explain the obvious fact that poor people world-wide are far better off today than they ever were.  With few exceptions, today’s poor have more to eat, better housing, and better health care than in the past.  But today, impoverished people are acutely aware of the “lifestyles of the rich and famous” within their countries and throughout the world.  They would readily realize, for instance, that Latrell Sprewell is not having any trouble feeding his family.

References

Bowles, S. (2006). Group competition, reproductive leveling, and the evolution of human altruism. Science, 314, 1569–1572.  https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1134829

Gaine, C. (2018).  12 Athletes Who Turned Down Mega Contracts and Missed Out on Millions.https://www.complex.com/sports/2018/03/12-athletes-who-turned-down-mega-contracts-missed-out-millions/

Piff, P. K., & Moskowitz, J. P. (2018). Wealth, poverty, and happiness: Social class is differentially associated with positive emotions. Emotion, 18(6), 902-905. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000387

Xi Chen (2015).  Relative deprivation and individual well-being.  March IZA World of Labor 2015 DOI: 10.15185/izawol.140

I'm Not Answering That Question

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was the colloquial term for official U.S. military policy from 1993 to 2011.  What was that all about?  Americans born on or before about 1973 probably remember—it concerned the armed forces approach to homosexuality.  Actually, the entire policy was “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, and don’t harass,” and it was Bill Clinton’s and the Legislature’s way simultaneously to both address and  avoid the issue.

The policy is one obvious example of questioning and answering influences on human psychology and interpersonal relationships.  All people personally are inclined to ask about some issues and to avoid others.  Knowing those inclinations of your own can empower you to make good decisions.  For instance, given the current toxic social environment, most of us have learned to be very circumspect about what formerly would have been casual, harmless political questions and answers.  

Even folk wisdom and popular entertainment have touted the value of the avoidance technique.   For instance, in the Disney cartoon, "Bambi," (first released in 1942) a diminutive, shy bunny, Thumper, quietly advised, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."

So, what does psychology say about avoidant questioning and answering?  As usual, I will discuss just an idea or two.  First, consider context.  Your status vis-à-vis your conversation partner is, of course, critical.  Can you obviously avoid answering without undue negative repercussions?  Is the topic very serious, marginally so, or light?  What about your interlocutor?  Is it important for you to save face or impress that person?  

Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John (2018) divide questions as occurring within a cooperative context and within a challenging one.  In cooperative situations, the relative risk would be avoiding a correct uncomfortable answer but, in the process, inadvertently providing another one unfavorable to you.  That can happen if you are so relaxed that you do not sufficiently monitor that which you say, and, therefore, say too much.  The excess could be quantitative or qualitative, either by rambling on too long, or by revealing sensitive information.

Answering questions within a challenging context, of course, is more likely to produce negative consequences for you.  Accordingly, Brooks and John recommend, ideally, that you enter such conversations after having already decided what to keep private.  They also want you to be mindful of the importance of maintaining trust, and, therefore, try not to blatantly refuse answering proffered questions. 

Bitterly and Schweitzer (2020) elaborate the basic principles presented above, but they focus on describing five answer avoidance strategies much more than assessing their pros and cons.  The first is simply to decline answering, with its attendant risks.  The second is to blatantly lie and hope to get away with it.  Third, is to palter—provide a truthful answer or partial answer that deliberately avoids revealing information that the questioner clearly wants to know.  Fourth, one could dodge the question, avoiding it by giving an answer sufficiently close to the original question that the questioner readily accepts it.  Fifth, and finally, avoidance can be achieved via deflection.  There are two common approaches to do so.  One can evade answering a direct question by presenting a new one, or by injecting an emotional distraction, such as a joke.  

The aforementioned study offered some advice about question avoidance.  Those who avoided direct questions by deflection were less likely to be regarded as untrustworthy or unlikeable than were those who used the other assessed strategies.  However, with those findings in mind, Bitterly and Schweitzer  provided some suggestions to questioners.  They encouraged questioners to anticipate deflection, to have plans to counter it, and to persist in those efforts.  If the deflection simply cannot be remedied, questioners should know how to interpret the deflections, and to factor that information into their judgements about the issue, the deflector, and the deflector’s sensitivities.

Perhaps, in some situations, “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, and don’t harass” policy is good general advice.  Brooks & John and Bitterly & Schweitzer seem to agree.  But neither of their works said one word about my preferred method of avoiding difficult questions.  I would rather metacommunicate - communicate about the communicaiton - to handle the to-be-avoided question.  The metacommunication strategy allows one to be both honest and empowered.  Why not provide an authentic reason for your reluctance to answer? Ninety-nine percent of the time, your interlocutor will accept your legitimate reason, and agree to defer the question, at least temporarily.  Of course, that strategy will not suffice in some special situations.  But, more often than not, if your conversation partner cannot accept your wish to defer a question, maybe you need to rethink your relationship with them.   

 References

Bitterly, T. B., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2020). The economic and interpersonal consequences of deflecting direct questions.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 118(5), 945-990. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000200

Brooks, A. W. & John, L. K.  (2018). The surprising power of questions.  Harvard Business Review, May 17.