Flex your willpower muscle

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/video.aspx?vid=703f4f41-ffb8-81ac-834d-7e8344dd8442%26tab=Hot%20Topics&from=gallerywidget_en-us_health_hp_gallery&src=FLGal:videoContainer:play:smartPools

A group of researchers testing will power had participants perform three different tests of will power. The first was pain tolerance, participants were asked to put their hand in a bucket of ice water. Next, participants were asked to drink a poor tasting vinegar beverage. The last task was to be in a food line and choose healthy foods over the unhealthy options. Participants were then divided into two conditions. In one condition participants were asked to flex a muscle while performing these tasks and in the control condition participants did not flex. Researchers found that those who flexed during these tasks performed better than their non-flexing counterparts especially if the goal of the specific willpower task aligned with their personal goal. For instance, participants who valued health were aided by flexing their muscle when the gross vinegar drink was said to be a health drink.

One might explain these findings by simply pointing to the fact that flexing might have divided focus from the willpower task, but I suggest that there is something more at play here than simple distraction. Embodied cognition asserts that there may be a bidirectional relationship between the mind and the body and that changes in the body can influence an individual’s cognition. Look no further than the experiment conducted by Strack, Martin and Stepper (1988) in which participants were asked to either bite down on a pencil to simulate a smile or purse their lips over the pencil to simulate a frown. The participants who bit down on the pencil rated comic as being funnier than those who were asked to purse their lips.

When participants were asked to flex while performing self-control tasks, this may have resulted in stronger willpower due to the effects from embodied cognition. Individuals usually flex when they are engaging in a strenuous task and must dig down deep to use additional effort. The flexing during the will-power tasks in this study may activate the same sources of will-power used during squat thrusts. The changes in the body from flexing may have carried an effect on the mind to supply extra willpower for the three tasks. 

Define “Stealing”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110413093211.htm

In a new study examining college student’s beliefs on stealing, researchers found that students judge shoplifting as immoral but view online digital theft as moral. This could possibly be explained by the lack of obvious harm stealing an online song might be, but I believe these beliefs are guided by the principle of cognitive dissonance. Festinger (1957) described cognitive dissonance as arriving when we behave in ways which are inconsistent with our attitudes or beliefs. Festinger asserted that dissimilarity between our attitude and behavior would result in an aversive state of dissonance and that individuals would strive to reduce this aversive state by changing behavior or attitude. He became interested in this phenomenon when he saw that a cult proclaiming the end of the world only became more devout followers when their leader’s doomsday prophecy did not come true. He speculated that because the followers had quit their jobs and given away their possessions, they wanted to make sense of their actions. The disconnect between actions and beliefs is said to cause an uncomfortable dissonance and the way to rectify this feeling is to change either your actions or beliefs to align with one another. 

More students will steal online music then go out and shoplift in stores. If the students deemed online stealing as immoral this might violate their self-concept of being moral and therefore cause dissonance. Appraising online stealing as being moral might be in response to the feelings of dissonance they might experience if they had a self-view of morality and actions of immorality. The interpretation from Aronson (1969) links cognitive dissonance with inconsistencies between actions and self-concepts rather than actions and beliefs. Students self-evaluation of morality must align with their actions, so a belief about digital stealing must be altered. Students will generate excuses to perceive their actions as moral, thus protecting their self-image of morality. 

Misery loves company?

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42747581/ns/today-today_health/?gt1=43001

Utah paradoxically ranks at the top of the list of states in well-being and among the highest in suicide rates. How can these two seemingly opposite events be found in the same area? The answer might best be answered by Festinger’s (1954) idea of social comparison. Social comparison states that individuals self-evaluate through comparison with others. The positive or negative value of the target in the comparison situation also influences the effects of social comparison. When the comparison target is deemed superior to the self, then one engages in an upward comparison. The disparity between the upward target and the self can hurt self-concept.

If Utah ranks among the highest states in well-being then this can result in upward comparison when less happy individuals see the disparity between their own feelings and their happier counterparts. Imagine waking up, feeling down and then seeing everyone else having a great time with smiles on their faces. This would naturally result in feelings of jealousy and discontentment. You might be thinking that comparison doesn’t matter as much as your absolute value of happiness. The idea that one’s absolute value trumps one’s relative value has been shown to be flawed. In a study by Klein(1997), he showed that individuals who scored a higher grade on a test but less that of their comparison targets were less content with their score than individuals who had scored an overall lower grade but higher than their comparison target. The number on your test doesn’t matter as much as the grade on everyone else’s test in relation to yours. One’s individual level of happiness can be damaged if everyone else is walking around with high levels. 

Do unto others….

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110418083245.htm

The need to belong is one of our essential needs in life. In the famous Harlow (1958) experiment, baby monkeys were presented with two options, one wire figure resembled a monkey mother and was covered with brown terry cloth while another wire figure resembled a monkey mother and had a feeding bottle attached but did not have the terry cloth. The baby monkey chose the comfort and love of the cloth covered figure over the figure that offered food. We do not ever fully grow out of this need for love and care in life, but this is especially true in the social arena of school.

Social connections are essential to our happiness, so the lack of connections can be devastating to our well-being and self-esteem. Even something as minor as being left out of a ball catch session can lead to feelings of rejection and ostracism. Often those who stand out from the group are ostracized which is undoubtedly what the lesbian, gay and bisexual kids felt. These feelings of ostracism can lead to feelings of unimportance in the world which can transition into suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

A vicious cycle can be sparked by rejection in which rejection can lead to anti-social behaviors such as diminished generosity, cooperative and helpfulness. Rejected individuals will then reject novel possible connections, thus continuing the cycle of loneliness. A chilling, but important example of what rejection can do is evidenced by the columbine shootings and other such school shootings. The perpetrators of these events were often picked on and excluded by others. These dangerous behaviors of murder and suicide may be avoided if these individuals were accepted into groups unmet with rejection.

THE MAN… lending a helping hand?

http://news.discovery.com/human/billionaire-pledge-income.html

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose (Don Marquis)? Empathy is usually credited for generating prosocial behavior, so those who can experience another individual’s emotions should be more likely to help the other individual. Billionaires often lead lives completely different from those who they are pledging money to help. Billionaires are stereotyped as callous businessmen that don’t care about those below them, so why are all these billionaires pledging to give away half of their money to charity? Many theories are used to explain these charitable and prosocial behaviors and each may apply in alternate situations. Egotistic helping refers to the form of assistance where the helper only helps to get something in return. This doesn’t seem like the best explanation behind this huge charitable behavior, because the billionaires will not be paid back by the charities, especially not to the extent to which they are giving. This means that the billionaires could be engaging in altruistic helping which is done without expecting anything in return.

Two theories about giving may best provide the answer to why these billionaires gave such a large amount of money. The first is the negative state hypothesis which states that these billionaires are helping the others in need in order to relieve their own distress. The commercials on TV which show starving kids in Africa try to use this concept to get people to pledge money. Seeing those hungry boys and girls can inspire feelings of guilt and distress, so giving money to the cause can assuage this guilt.

Alternatively the empathy-specific reward hypothesis would suggest that the billionaires are giving money in order to receive social reward which could include praise, honor and pride. These billionaires have worked hard to get where they are in life and many have garnered fame, praise and pride. These massive donations could positively influence public opinion of these people and may be a motivating factor in their decisions to donate. In the end, the fact that giving to others gives us good feelings is very beneficial. There must be powerful forces to keep us from just being selfish, so these motivations work well to make sure prosocial behavior remains a real topic.

No prejudice or stereotypes eh?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110425153551.htm

One might view the individuals in this article and judge them for being prejudice or having stereotypes. What if I told you that it was highly likely that YOU also stereotype others and these stereotypes may lead to prejudiced behaviors. In today’s society it is largely inappropriate to discriminate others. America values equality and speaks out against racism. Racism still exists today but is more subtle in manner than it was in previous times when individuals could speak out publicly against other types of people. Moreover, many individuals have a self-concept of viewing others as equal and will not consciously accept that stereotypes may guide their manner of thinking.

We have mentioned before that humans have the tendency to be cognitive misers, or to conserve thinking and this situation is no different. Stereotypes can be quite useful in inferring large amounts of information about an unknown person, but can be subject to errors and overgeneralizations. You may be shocked to find out that these stereotypes are from the automatic processing system. This means that you may hold these stereotypes and not even consciously know about it! In fact, while examining non-prejudiced people and overtly prejudice people, researchers found that both groups held stereotypes in their automatic processing system. The difference was that non-prejudiced individuals consciously override the automatic system to produce thoughts and behaviors that rejected these stereotypes. The implicit association test is used to measure those automatic attitudes that we carry unconsciously. Our implicit attitudes guide many of our actions and appraisals of ambiguous situations, so having these tested can allow conscious correction for these underlying attitudes. A whole new spin on getting yourself tested ; )

Get a raise from your boss using Psychology!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/office-diaries/201104/how-when-and-why-ask-raise

Asking for a raise from your boss is an intimidating task; your boss probably doesn’t want to offer you more money to do the same job. There are some common sense tips that you can find all over the internet (e.g. come prepared, dress well, be confident), but when your boss is hesitant to give that raise, you might need to bring in some new techniques. I will focus on two techniques that will lead you to a bigger paycheck: labeling and disrupt then reframe.

First is the labeling technique which involves applying a label to an individual and then giving the person a chance to perform in a manner consistent with a label. For example, you might tell your buddy that he’s a great friend before you ask to use his car so that he’s more likely to rise to the giving qualities of a good friend. Labeling can have such a strong effect because it pertains to an individual’s self-concept. The individual will want to appear to match the label you have just assigned to verify to both you and their selves that the label is accurate. When you walk into your boss’ room, preempt the negotiation of salary by telling your boss that they have always been a fair and reasonable person. This is a nice label to hear and the boss will want to have consistency with this appraisal and their actions.

The average person is bombarded with thousands of messages each day that ask for compliance whether it be to buy a special bar of soap or to give money to the homeless person at the end of the street. At this point people are used to hearing the same spiel and will reject many persuasion attempts. The disrupt and reframe technique involves using a momentary disruption to prevent people from processing persuasive messages through critical thinking. For example, one researcher tried to sell Christmas cards by asking for $3, whereas to another group, the researcher tried to sell Christmas cards by saying, “It’s 300 pennies, it’s a bargain.”  First the disruption was used to guide targets to avoiding the conscious, rational mind and the reframe of “it’s a bargain” was used to perform the task that the rational mind would normally do to determine whether to make the purchase. This technique utilizes an individual’s automatic system with is more prone to errors and biases. When talking to your boss, ask for a raise in an unexpected manner and then reframe the petition with a positive frame. For instance you might say, “I think I deserve $100 a day, that’s a great deal to keep a hard worker like myself on board!” Good luck!

It’s a shame there aren’t more movies about studying

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118180512.htm

Smoking is an interesting behavior to evaluate; there are no immediate physical benefits to smoking, it is dangerous long-term and yet millions of people continue to light up. The first puff may result from a need to belong with a fellow group of smokers. Moreover, seeing important or well-respected individuals smoking may lead to smoking behaviors. When John Wayne stands triumphant over evil and lights up a cigarette this can result in an increased desire to smoke like the great John Wayne. Tobacco Companies spend millions of dollars in product placement so that we see these actions and want to be just like these desirable targets. Still, if the first puff causes violet coughing, why would anyone take a second puff? Our need to belong might carry a stronger effect on our behavior than the unpleasant coughing. When seeing others in a group smoking, the desire to conform can be very powerful.

Furthermore the effects on our own behavior from witnessing others can be outside our conscious awareness. Goal contagion theory refers to the tendency of an individual to adopt another individual’s behavior through observation. If others are trying to look cool through engaging in risky behaviors, this may become a goal of our own. Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) conducted a study which showed that children who observed adults behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll were more likely to behave aggressively against the same toy Bobo doll. The article shows that even watching a movie that contains smoking can influence smokers to plan to light up.

Finally, temporal discounting may carry a strong effect on individual’s choice to take up smoking. Temporal discounting refers to our tendency to put more weight on immediate consequences over those in the future. The immediate benefit of acceptance from others in a smoking group outweighs the future consequences of lung cancer and emphysema. Combined with many young people’s feelings of invincibility, smoking seems like an easy, although costly decision.

Violent Canadians? Say it ain’t so!

http://statschew.blog.ca/2008/04/22/vandalism-after-montreal-hockey-victory-4078756/

Excuse the stereotype, but how could the peace loving Canadians loot liquor stores and set cop cars ablaze? Could it be that this group of Canadians operates different then singular Canadians? Deindividuation or the loss of individual accountability and self-awareness occurs in some groups and can lead to antisocial behaviors (Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952).  Known also as mob mentality, a swirl of psychological factors combines to result in behaviors not seen individually. With decreased self-awareness, individuals feel more available to react on automatic impulse rather than conscious decisions of rule adherence. Conformity may also contribute to the antisocial behaviors; when others are marching out with bottles or destroying cars, it becomes easy to follow others’ lead.

Suicide baiting is an interesting phenomenon related to deindividuation in which people in a crowd will shout out to a person threatening suicide to “do it!” (Mann, 1981). The decreased risk of identification allows individuals to behave with less regard for others. Perhaps adding a big mirror to increase self-awareness might decrease these destructive behaviors from the mob.

The implications from these vandalizing mobs can be quite disheartening. Are individuals “moral” or at least law abiding only because of the possible resulting punishment? Left to our own devices with no fear of consequence, anarchy might be a very real possibility. Government and police are often met with hostile attitudes, but this may not be the case if one were to see the result of having less action consequences. 

and yet many people choose flight as their superpower

http://thestatsblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/fear-of-flying-after-911-led-to-increase-in-auto-deaths/

We want speed AND accuracy. Just try it right now- type a paragraph as fast as you possibly can. If you don’t have any errors in that paragraph then you’re either extremely talented or you didn’t actually type as fast as you could. Inevitably either speed or accuracy must suffer to improve its counterpart. The brain is no different; it must quickly process large amounts of information and accuracy suffers as a result. Humans are described as cognitive misers to illustrate our tendency to conserve thinking when possible (Fiske & Taylor, 1984). Because of this proclivity towards thinking conservation, we often utilize mental heuristics which serve us to make quick decisions about uncertain situations.  These heuristics simply our lives, but will also lead us toward mistakes.

One such heuristic leads to incorrect judgment of risk or relevance and can explain why millions of people have a fear of flying over statistically more safe forms of transportation. The availability heuristic can lead us towards determining the frequency of an event by the ease at which it comes to mind. September 11^th was the flashbulb memory of my generation; each person can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the attacks. The dramatic images that are burned into our minds have led to an increased fear of flying, even though the 1 in 2 million death rate from airplane flight does not compare to the more frequent 1 in 8,000 death rate from automobile accidents.

Still there might be another variable at play here: level of perceived control. Humans are programmed for survival, so it only seems natural that we would prefer the control of driving over the “sit and prey” of flying. Again problems with this logic arise because driving does not result in total control; even the best drivers cannot always avoid the poor ones. Inevitably, perception of reality trumps reality. When desire for control and heuristics lead us towards dangerous decisions, conscious override must be used to help us survive.