It's Not You. It's Only Your Brain

Read a book, watch a film, talk to a person about a mental problem and you probably will learn that whatever ails you emotionally is due to something amiss with your brain.  That is true whether you express concern about your personal functioning or interpersonal relationships.  And because it is a brain malfunction, you must medicate or reprogram your brain in order to heal.

That approach to mental health is what I call the "disembodied brain perspective" (DBP).  It implies that your brain operates independent of the rest of your body and mind.  The DBP provides an ideal rationalization for inappropriate or troublesome behavior.   Personal responsibility no longer is an issue.  You smacked your child during a neurological short-circuit.  Don't worry about doing anything to remedy  that behavior; just rest so that your brain is not hyper excited next time.   DBP also is your family doctor's best friend.  If you come to the office with vague feelings of discomfort, she/he can write you a quick prescription so that the two of you believe that the visit and fee were warranted.

How much sense does DBP make?  Suppose you have a tooth ache and feel depressed.  You snap at your spouse and kick the dog.  Then you go to the dentist who fixes your decayed tooth.  One hour afterward, you feel great.  You apologize to your spouse and give the dog a heaping helping of  Kibbles and Bits.  Does that mean that brain dysfunction caused your tooth ache and the dentist repaired your brain?

Anyone with half a brain knows that we have a whole brain and a whole body, both of which are inextricably integrated.  To anthropomorphize, your brain feels poorly when your body feels poorly and vice versa.  Most of what you do to enhance brain health enhances bodily health.  And most of what you do to enhance bodily health enhances brain health.

When you perceive a problem, reject the DBP.  Instead, take personal responsibility via a simple ABC solution.  "A" equals "affect."  Learn how to control your emotions.  "B" is "behavior."  Perform some real world actions that reduce, minimize, or eliminate the problem.  And  "C" stands for "cognition."  Examine your thought processes, take steps to understand the roots of the difficulty, and reframe your perception of it—from an incapacity that troubles you to a challenge whose partial or total solution can be achieved by thinking it through.

For a thorough discussion of ABCs, consult a cognitive behavioral therapist or CBT self-help manual.  By doing so, you eventually will become empowered to solve virtually all but your most severe problems.

Reference

David Westbrook,‎ Helen Kennerley,‎ & Joan Kirk (2011). An Introduction to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.  Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA

       

Meaningfulness and Healthfulnesss

Everyone at some point has asked themselves about the meaning of their life.  That question was much easier to answer in past centuries and decades. The religious could be content to know that their purpose was to "serve God."  The secular could believe that they were born to care for their family and/or community.  Religion and a shared moral code provided a reassuring and calming influence for its subscribers.  Unfortunately, contemporary America provides much less direction toward a meaningful life than it did in the remote past.

Reassurance and calm always has contributed to physical and mental health.  In bygone days, those who truly believed in the divine and in the social good had more incentive to comport themselves properly, since standards of proper behavior were more widely shared.  For instance, back then, all but the most non-religious people recognized the benefits of a life that avoided the seven deadly sins - pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.

Even today, one readily can imagine benefits from avoiding the seven.  Among other things, we could  anticipate something like the following: Absence of pride would decrease esteem problems.  Absence of greed would facilitate the distribution of scarce resources.   Absence of lust would fortify marital bonds. Absence of envy would enable us to feel more content and to appreciate better what we do have.  Absence of gluttony would reduce our waistlines and minimize our need to work relentlessly to get things we really don't need. Absence of wrath would lower our blood pressures and promote family and community unanimity.  And absence of sloth would help us come much closer to achieving our potentials.

Today those who make assiduous efforts to avoid the seven deadly sins inadvertently fashion a meaningful lifestyle.  By actively behaving to avoid the corrupting influences of the seven, people create implicit or explicit goals and standards that facilitate well-being.  One simply cannot engage consistently in unhealthful behaviors while committing the deadly sins.

Religion and community concern of course are not the only motivators to avoid the sins.  Even a purely selfish desire to live healthfully can prompt one to avoid pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Whatever the reason for the avoidance, if it encourages a meaningful life, benefits accrue.  Stephanie A. Hooker, Kevin S. Masters, and Crystal L. Park (2017), in fact, render empirical support to the idea that a global sense of meaning reduces the likelihood of illness and death.  "Meaningful," they defined, as a life that their subjects felt had a comprehensible purpose with positive social implications. After scrutinizing the data, the researchers did conclude that a strong sense of meaning in life was correlated with improved coping skills, more health-promoting behavior, and reduced stress.

What "meaning" do you ascribe to the meaningfulness study?

Reference

Hooker, Stephanie A.; Masters, Kevin S.; Park, Crystal L. (2017).   A Meaningful Life Is a Healthy Life: A Conceptual Model Linking Meaning and Meaning Salience to Health.  Review of General Psychology, July 06 , 2017, No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000115

From Healthful Intention to Healthful Action

We all have moments when we would like to do something, whether that is going to the gym or calling our mother.  But what gets us from the liking to the doing?   First, we must be aware of the liking.  Second, by definition, during our state of liking to do something, we almost certainly are doing something else that needs to end, or at least be radically reduced.   Third, we must desire the future behavior more than the current behavior or other competing behaviors.   That is, we must expect a payoff for switching to the future behavior.  Fourth, we must have the competence necessary to perform the activity to reach the goal associated with the liking.  And fifth, we must have sufficient energy to perform the activity to reach the goal associated with the liking.

Your good health intentions depend on the same set of conditions described above.  How often have you said “I’d like to exercise more often,” but never actually did so?   Are you aware of what you would like to do for yourself health-wise?  I mean explicitly aware, not implicitly aware.  Do you know what you currently are doing that is competing with your good health intentions?   Do you expect that behaving healthfully truly will be more rewarding than your customary behaviors?   Are you confident that you know how to implement the activity required for the healthful payoff?  And finally, are you willing and able to exert the energy needed to enact the healthful behavior?

Good intentions can break done at any of the five steps.  So you must be cognizant of all of them and of how each specifically affects you personally.

Let's take a concrete example.  Suppose you want to reconnect with a friend whom you haven't seen in six months, and who lives an hour and a half away.  The only day you both have free is Saturday.  But Saturday is your usual grocery shopping day.  You should ask yourself a series of questions.  Is seeing your friend more important than shopping on Saturday?  Do you know how easily you can get to her house and how you two probably will send your time together?  Are you willing to dedicate three travel hours to reconnect with someone whom you haven't seen in six months.  In essence: Is this relationship sufficiently rewarding and important to you that you are willing to "put yourself out" to re-establish the connection?

The re-connection opportunity might be a minor or major factor in your life.  And that obviously also will impact your decision to act relationship-wise rather than merely to intend to act. Moreover, it could be a one-time decision, or the prelude to more regular Saturday visits to your friend.  The important issue is that every physical health or mental health decision can be viewed through a similar lens.  The more you understand your unique decision process, the more you will be in control of your lifestyle.  It is well worth your time and effort to think about the five steps.

     

References

McCusker, P.  (2016).  Don't Rest in Peace: Activity-Oriented, Integrated Physical and Mental Health.  New York: Amazon Createspace.

Kruglanski, A. W. (2017). Motivational phases on the road to action. Motivation Science, 3(3), 196-207.

What You Talk About, Who You Talk With, and Their Affects on Your Health

Talk can be a blessing or a burden that affects your physical and mental health accordingly. The mere act of talking often drives up your blood pressure; the mere act of listening often lowers it (Lynch, 1985).  And we all know from everyday experience that the content of some conversations definitely upsets us emotionally, and others definitely calms us.  Moreover, since our body and mind are inextricably connected, whatever raises the pressure within our body does the same within our mind, and vice versa.

So, when it comes to our health, talk is not cheap; it’s costly.  Your conversation partner and conversation topic can make a world of difference in your return on health investment.

Some people almost literally have nothing good to say.  When around them, all you hear are their complaints and problems.  Their negativism can prime you to dwell on your own dissatisfactions.  That is, you not only get caught up in their difficulties, but you unwittingly are conditioned to look for difficulties in your own life.  Their toxic influences linger long after you cease talking to them.  This is a "show me your company and I'll tell you who you are" consequence. 

When it comes to the content of conversation, anything is possible.  However, the most common areas of conversation relate to the four constants of mental life: body, environment, thoughts, and feelings (BETF).  These four always are exerting their influence on us, and always begging for our attention.  It is natural, therefore, that BETF dominate our conversations (McCusker, 2004). So, the most healthful conversations likely will occur when you are speaking with a relatively healthy person in a relatively comfortable environment.  Having the constants of body and environment optimized to the extent possible, you can direct your attention toward selecting topics most likely to encourage positive thoughts and feelings, and steering clear of topics likely to instigate negative ones.

The health information that receives the most attention in our culture concerns diet and exercise.  Professionals and media regularly attempt to influence us in both regards.  And that certainly is warranted.  However, during a physical exam, did your doctor ever ask how well your conversations are going?  Have you ever seen a public service announcement advising to improve your health by improving your conversations?  Yet, your conversations play a central role in orienting you toward or away from health promoting behaviors.

What you talk about and who you talk with can make the difference between physical and mental health versus physical and mental illness.  Take control and reap the benefits.

References:

Lynch, J. (1985).  The language of the heart: The body's response to human dialogue.   New York: Basic Books

McCusker, P. (2004).  Conversation: Striving, surviving, and thriving .   Lincoln, NE:  iUniverse   iUniverse  

  

Who Is Deceiving You ?

In the past two decades, psychology has evolved from a primary emphasis on human psychopathology to one mostly focused on positive mental health.  The redirection has much to be said for it.  We certainly want to understand as much as possible about happiness and what promotes it, and we would like to spread mental health as widely as we can.

However, as so often happens in science, a new focus causes a profession to ignore the old ones, as though there is nothing more to learn there.  When that happens, the earlier field ceases to develop, and then begins to atrophy.  We do better with a middle ground that embraces the new while continuing to refine the old.

Given the unprecedented, wide dissemination of influence and persuasion techniques, then, psychology would be remiss in failing to develop its ability to identify and counter persons who use influence and persuasion in ways iniminicable to the common good.  There is merit in learning who the manipulators are, and how they operate.  For that reason, I have chosen to write today about Daniel N. Jones and Delroy L. Paulhus’ latest research.

Jones and Paultus (2017) investigated deceit as practiced by "Dark Triad" persons who traffic in manipulation and exploitation.  Those referred to by that term evidence some combination of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, and they are among the most prolific peddlers of destructive influence.

Each of the three Dark Triad subtraits predispose one to a particular form of influence asociality.  The narcissist is inclined toward persuasion that lifts his status, the Machiavellian, that which confers power onto him, and the psychopath that which promotes his impulsive desires.

Jones and Paultus mentioned the well-established fact that the three Dark Triad subtypes all engage in interpersonal exploitation.  Although all those within the subtypes tended to be dishonest, each subtype handled their deceit a little differently.  The narcissist were the most inclined to engage in self-deception, presumably to justify their nefarious behavior while maintaining some semblance of self-esteem.  The Machiavellian and the psychopath, but not the narcissist, behaved deceitfully even when the deceit required them to lie intentionally and blatantly.  When deceit exposed them to an obvious risk of punishment, the psychopaths were not deterred, but the narcissists were.  The Machiavellians, on the hand, usually refrained from deceit when punishment was a definite risk, but not so when they were ego-depleted.  For the Jones and Paultus study, ego depletion meant that subjects had to focus their attention while expending their energy blocking-out significant distractions.

For your mental health sake, you must be on-guard to resist Dark Triad subtypes.  The narcissist, Machiavellian and the psychopath all are prepared to deceive you in order to achieve their self-serving ends.  But the three do not always use the same methods.  To avoid being manipulated and exploited, be aware of their predilections.  One other thing not mentioned thus far: Dark Triad people initially often are perceived by others as physically and interpersonally attractive (Holtzman, 2012).  They know how to present themselves in ways to maximize the likelihood that you will give them a chance to implement their deceptions. Don't let them do it.

References

Holtzman, N. (2012). "People With Dark Personalities Tend to Create a Physically Attractive Veneer". Social Psychological and Personality Science. 4: 461–467. doi:10.1177/194855061

Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2017). Duplicity among the dark triad: Three faces of deceit. Journal 

of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 329-342.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp00001392461284

Time Bandits' Assault on Health

In all cultures familiar to me, robbery has been a crime.  Accordingly, all such societies have imposed penalties upon robbers.  That of course presumes that the robbery was reported and the perpetrator was convicted. On the other hand, failure to report or failure to apprehend robbers renders robbery both a lucrative and comfortable profession that requires no formal education or training.

History documents that the targets and frequencies of robberies has varied from age to age.  Since ancient Romans allegedly were paid in salt, salt presumably was stolen then. When coal was the home heating fuel of choice in the early 20th century, it too was stolen.

In the 21st century, our precious time is stolen.  Contemporary time bandits, many of whom are multi-millionaires and billionaires are organized into a variety of cartels.  A few of these thieving conglomerates are tech hardware manufacturers, internet providers, and entertainment producers.  A mafia of others - marketers and similar influence purveyors - assist those who traffic in time theft.

Today we primarily will address a favorite instrument of time crooks: personal electronic devices, such as cellphones and computer tablets.  These so-called mobile devices have an addictive allure and permit unprecedented intrusive manipulation by persons seeking to exploit us.   Virtually all tech hardware manufacturers, internet providers, and entertainment producers create and disseminate methods and memes to keep us perennially focused on whatever they are selling.  The more they can do so, the more they earn.  Compulsively attached to their items and agendas, we have little time for personal activities that occupied us in the 20th century.  To cite one well-publicized and obvious example: We rarely talk at length on the telephone anymore, and we tend to keep our face-to-face meetings to a minimum.  When we must be in the presence of another flesh and blood person, we often interpose an electronic device between them and us at every opportunity.  Our electronic hardware, software, and internet are specifically structured to continually present a never-ending array of enticing stimuli to capture and monopolize our attention.

If you believe that the time robbers are satisfied with their success, think again.  Consider the research of Nicholas H. Lurie and his colleagues (2016).  Their paper, Everywhere and at All Times: Mobility, Consumer Decision Making, and Choice explicitly targets electronic mobile devices and consumer decision making.  They seek to advise on ways to advance strategies to steal our time through mobile electronics by better understanding mobile ecosystems, their contexts, and the interactions between the ecosystems, contexts, and the minds of the consumers.  To directly quote three of the many questions that they seek to answer and exploit:

"How does mobility affect cognitive capacity and the influence of incidental information?"

"Are mobile decision-makers more myopic?"

"How do mobile ecosystem capabilities and pervasivity affect socially undesirable and personal  choices?"

If Lurie and his group succeed in their quest, electronic hardware, software, and the internet will be all the more effective in monopolizing your time.  Please note that I am not condemning all electronic devices and the persons who make, distribute, or use them.  The devices of course can and do save us time, if used with discretion.  My point is that the "system" promulgates indiscriminate, continuous, compulsive use. 

Every minute of indiscriminate, continuous, compulsive electronic device use is a minute not spent on anything else.  Only you can determine the physical- and mental-health consequences of your personal, unique electronic device usage.  Do your devices keep you in your chair rather than moving about?  Do the devices interpose a barrier between you and authentic, in vivo human experiences?  On the other hand, do you use devices sparingly and prudently - think FitBit - in ways that can enhance your health?  The choice is yours to make.

Reference:

Nicholas H. L., et al. (2016).  Everywhere and at All Times: Mobility, Consumer Decision Making, and Choice.  Invitational Choice Symposium, Lake Louise, Canada, May, 2016.

Seeking and Acting Upon Health-Relevant Messages

What health-relevant information do you seek?  What health-relevant information do you avoid?  What health-relevant information do you act upon?  What health-relevant information do you not act upon?

The answers depend on factors contained in your personality, in messages, and in the interactions between your personality and the messages.  Let's discuss some of the more important of these.

The first is a dimension that underscores the role of personality that I discussed in a previous post:  promotion versus prevention.  Persons with a promotion orientation mostly look for, attend to, and act upon information that emphasizes health advantages contained within messages. Conversely, those with a prevention orientation mostly look for, attend to, and act upon information that emphasizes health dangers contained within messages.  For example, an article or video that extensively details the many benefits of adopting a stress management program would be particularly appealing to a promotion oriented person, whereas one that extensively details the many dangers of failing to adopt a stress management program would be particularly appealing to a prevention oriented person.  

Moreover, since perceived advantages mostly are subjective, how one frames an event is determinative.  The advantage that you perceive reveals your personality.  If you chose a promotion reason, you are “eager’ about the outcome that you expect to derive from your healthful change.  And if you chose a prevention reason, you are “vigilant’ about the outcome that you fear from not making the healthful change.  Eager anticipation suggests that you have a more hopeful orientation and vigilant anticipation, that you have a more fearful orientation.

The second is a dimension that underscores the role of messages.  Specifically, Matthias R. Hastall and Anna J. M.Wagner (2017) have introduced the notion of high-susceptibility and low-susceptibility messages.  Some health messages – such as printed material or videos  - are framed to emphasize gain whereas others emphasize loss.  Since gain messages directly or implicitly elaborate practices that benefit our physical or mental selves, they are more likely to attract the attention of persons with a promotion orientation, who are very susceptible to gain messages.  Conversely, loss messages that directly or implicitly elaborate practices that undermine our physical or mental selves are most likely to attract the attention of persons with a prevention orientation who are very susceptible to loss messages.

The third dimension concerns responses to threatening messages.  Some individuals are called "sensitizers" because they direct their attention toward potential threats in order to confront them head-on.  Others are "repressors" who turn their attention away from potential threats, essentially denying danger.  

So, when thinking about yourself, you might want to consider how you stand on the three dimensions: 1) promotion vs prevention, 2) susceptibility to gain vs susceptibility to loss, and 3) sensitizing vs repressing.  Equally important is how the three interact among themselves and with other features of your personality.  There is no straightforward equation that will enable you to use your understanding of the dimensions.  Since we all are unique, the possibilities are limitless.  Let's consider a simplified situation merely for illustration.

Imagine that I primarily am a promoter with a strong inclination toward gain and that I have a sensitizing orientation.  I see a health video about a recent study emphasizing that direct sun exposure between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. increases skin cancer risk. Taken at face value, given my promoter-gain status, one might presume that I would be less inclined to attend to this than to a message that emphasized health-enhancing sun exposure practices. On the other hand, since I am a sensitizer, taken at face value, I might be inclined to attend to the skin cancer risk message in order to combat the implied danger. There is, then, a kind of intrapersonal struggle that will determine how the three dimensions interact with my overall personality. As important, perhaps even more important, are contextual factors specific to me.  For instance, if my sibling developed a melanoma, that quite likely would trump everything else in directing my behavior. Conversely, if I am a top-flight inveterate golfer, that fact quite likely would be pivotal in determining my decision about accepting sun exposure.

Since only you can answer the health-relevant questions about information that you seek, avoid, act upon, and not act upon, by considering the three aforementioned dimensions, their interactions, and your unique contexts, you will be better equipped to validly decide health-critical questions.

References

Hastall, M. & Wagner, A. (2017).  Enhancing Selective Exposure to Health Messages and Health Intentions: Effects of Susceptibility Cues and Gain–Loss Framing.  Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, January 18, No Pagination Specified.  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000197

The Human Information Machine

You have information, I have information, and we have information.   Neither you nor I independently can accumulate or apply all the information necessary to make the most of our lives.  The information that we possess has been created both through our own efforts and experiences (ontogenetic) and through the efforts and experiences of our species (phylogenetic). In fact, much of culture involves mutually giving and receiving information.  What happens when your information and mine are in partial or total disagreement?

Roy F. Baumeister and his associates (2017) proposed that human beings relate to information in five fundamental ways, we 1) seek and acquire information. 2) communicate our information to other individuals, 3) communicate our information to groups with whom we interact, 4) manipulate our information, and 5) collectively create a socially shared reality.

All five of the aforementioned purposes seem constructive and prosocial. On the other hand, the Baumeister group did acknowledge a destructive and antisocial feature of information accumulation and dispersal.  Namely, they noted that people deliberately can communicate falsehoods, withhold helpful information from others, or conspire with their group to manipulate others via the information that they possess.

The knowledge that we possess and share, then, create our individual and group “self.” Herein lies the opportunity for the partial or total disagreements and discontinuities with which we began our discussion.  We wittingly or unwittingly can manipulate others or be manipulated by them.  In the former case, we delude ourselves or others into believing that which we want to believe in order to satisfy our self-serving, unrealistic desires.  In the latter, we accept what others self-servingly tell us.  In the second case, it is unfortunate to be duped into misinterpreting reality when we do not know any better.  More damning, however, is when we know the reality, but follow inaccurate information disseminated by our group in order to be accepted by its members.

Practical physical and mental implications result from these circumstances.  How about one simple, concrete example of following inaccurate information disseminated by our group in order to be accepted by its members?  Suppose, for whatever reason, that you correctly believe that alcohol is unhealthful for you so that when alone you always prefer not to imbibe it. However, your mates just love to "chill out" on weekends, meaning go to a bar and drink themselves into oblivion.  They always "demand" that you participate with them, insisting that "a little wine actually is good for you."  Their information is in total disagreement with yours.  Who wins the battle of information interpretation, your individual or group self?

References:

Baumeister, R., Maranges, H. & Vohs, K. (2017).  Human Self as Information Agent: Functioning in a Social Environment Based on Shared Meanings.   Review of General Psychology, June, No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000114

                

Motivated to Work?

Why work?  For some people in some cultures, the answer is not always obvious. Imagine a relatively poorly-educated, unemployed person living in a country with an adequate to good government safety net.  The amount of effort demanded from a job for which they are qualified and its remuneration could be such that the individual might live more comfortably if he/she chose not to work.  In such a social environment, one might be ridiculed, called a fool, for choosing "menial" poorly remunerated work the performance of which yields a decreased standard of living when compared to the life that could be lived as an unemployed person.  Of course, even better-educated individuals who could work above the so-called poverty level might eschew employment, preferring to live via state welfare for any of a thousand reasons.

Work is a critical factor in lifestyle and health.  Although work's financial and status values are obvious, other issues are less readily apparent.  To name a couple lifestyle advantages: work can satisfy our needs to be active, to socialize, and to exercise our competencies.  Health-wise, among other things, work encourages us to maintain a reasonable sleep schedule, to refrain from mind-altering substances, and to be fit enough to do our jobs.  Not surprisingly then, psychologists carefully study human work activities.

Ruth Kanfer and her colleagues (2017) sought to determine how well we now understand work motivation relative to dominant ideas from the past.  As one might expect, they decided that work motivation is not static.  Our desire for work varies according to our extant needs and to external circumstances.  The emotions connected with work are particularly salient in determining our effort and performance.  They noted that our needs, desires, interests, and motives determine work goals that impel us toward action.  Specific and difficult goals, they felt, comprised important conscious determinants that combine with nonconscious influences that ultimately result in whether and to what extent we work.  The bottom line was that several factors reciprocally interact to determine whether we will work.  They are: our personal attributes, our individual experiences, our personal environments, our culture, the resources that we possess, and the resources that we lack.

The answer to “Why work?” then is far from simple.  At base, as is true for any complex human behavior, the answer to the question derives from interactions among internal factors (e.g., our personality) and external factors (e.g., our interpersonal field).  Moreover, everything that Kanfer concluded about work motivation could be applied to work non-motivation.  And, significantly, although she and her colleagues investigated work as employment, virtually everything, except perhaps for financial incentives, can be used to inform our understanding of work of a non-employment type.         

So, I conclude that the desire to work is dynamic and idiosyncratic.  It fluctuates due to internal and external factors.  We might love our work one day and hate it the next.  In those extreme circumstances we have the opportunity to introspect about the meaning of that particular work and its particular value.  By taking the time and exerting the effort to mindfully consider the work’s meaning and value (versus continuing on unconscious automatic pilot, as most of us typically do) we can make a deliberate reasoned decision about how to proceed.  Some persons then might decide that it is preferable to work at a substandard job while others would decide to jettison that same job in order to relax or to look for another job. Although work is critical for human well-being, the kind of work makes all the difference.

Reference

Kanfer, R., Frese, M., and Johnson, R. (2017).  Motivation related to work: A century of progress.  Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 3, 338-355.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000133

Healthy Skepticism

Experts, experts, experts.  So many to read and hear, so little time.  Empowered by the Internet, millions of us are trying to influence millions of us, myself of course included.  Should you listen to me?  That’s your call.  In fact, I repeatedly have advised that neither I nor any other expert can provide the fine grained advice that any rational person needs to decide whether what is offered is applicable to them.  Everything must be filtered through unique features of yourself and your essential contexts.

To reinforce the reasonableness of my skepticism regarding experts, let’s think about the beliefs of two legendary Nobel Prize winners: Albert Einstein and Paul Krugman.

As many of you know, Einstein vigorously disputed what has come to be called quantum physics.  For instance, in cynically doubting a portion of the theory he infamously wrote in 1926 that God does not play dice with the universe.  At that particular point in time, had interest in quantum physics evaporated, we quite likely would not now have computers, smartphones, the Internet, GPS, or  MRI.     

Paul Krugman, formerly a professor at Princeton University and MIT and presently Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for The New York Times, made some infamous misstatements of his own.  Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was his prognosticating in 1998 that:

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.

The Krugman quote is supremely ironic in that he made his prediction in an article that he penned entitled, “Why most economists' predictions are wrong.”  No big thing?  For at least thousand years some of the most learned Europeans asserted that the earth is the center of the universe.  When indisputable evidence accumulated to the contrary I am sure that many resisted admitted their mistake.  But I wonder if they had the unmitigated gall of Paul Krugman who in December, 2013 rationalized:

But the main point is that I don't claim any special expertise in technology -- I almost never make technological forecasts, and the only reason there was stuff like that in the 98 piece was because the assignment required that I do that sort of thing.

Shame on Time Magazine then for forcing Krugman, Nobel prize winner and former professor at  Princeton University and MIT, to make a mistake!  He surely is too brilliant to take responsibility for an erroneous statement made of his own volition.

Given human fallibility then, I encourage you to be especially cautious when exposed to information presented under the guise of expertise.  Too often we are lulled into complacency by fancy titles and prominent people.  To maintain any credibility in all of this I must admit that while cautioning you about experts, I implicitly present myself as having some expertise to dispense.

Certainly I am not arrogant or delusional enough to compare myself to Einstein or even to Krugman.  Even after 40 years of psychological practice, I am reluctant to summarily predict what will be best for you.  And since “healthy” skepticism is my default, I could not criticize you for being equally cautious about anything you read that I write, including today’s post.

References

Einstein, Albert (1926).  "I, at any rate, am convinced that [God] does not throw dice."  Letter to Max Born.

Krugman, Paul (1998).  Why most economists' predictions are wrong.  Red Herring Magazine, June.

Yarow, J. (2013).  Paul Krugman Responds To All The People Throwing Around His Old Internet Quote.  Business Insider.  http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-internet-quote-2013-12.

Internal and External Influences on Healthful Lifestyle Decisions

Ultimately our health mostly is impacted by our decisions.  And since our decision making often is flawed, the more we understand our approaches, the better.  For instance, common sense indicates that decisions under stress are qualitatively different from decisions made calmly.  When stressed, we tend to give excessive import to information about rare circumstances and inadequate weight to information from our frequent personal experiences.  For instance, when suffering extraordinary problems at work, a healthy person undergoes a routine physical examination, is told that his heart rate is slightly accelerated, and decides that he needs an immediate cardiac catherization  to stave off an impending heart attack.  By reasoning thus, the frightened person “forgets” the fact that he always has had annual physicals that never revealed any major heart problems.  That is, he discounts the more likely fact that would be based on his personal experiences of past physicals, and seizes upon a more remote possibility based on his immediate interpretation of information just disclosed.

In addition to your personal opinions, health decisions are sometimes based upon information derived from outside yourself,  Such information,for instance, might issue from something that you read, the Internet, a media report, or from face to face interaction.  Your education and personality, including your levels of openness and self-confidence, are critical in determining the balance of looking within or looking without for data to determine your decisions.

Ido Erev and colleagues (2017) concluded that contemporary psychological research points to three major factors that determine most decision making.  First, we depend on our subjective opinions about the probability that given information is accurate.  That means, for instance, that I place more weight on "facts" that I personally have perceived through my life experiences.  Second, we also rely on heuristics - rules of thumb - so that I trust that when in doubt I should choose a less risky option.  Finally, when attempting to reach a decision, I retrieve from memory facts that I deem relevant to the decision at hand.  If I remember having had good results from prescription medication and poor results from generics, that will guide  my current choice.  The three major factors of course need not be mutually exclusive.  Even personal life experiences could have been affected significantly by external influences.

The researchers in question concluded that regardless of the initial source of information, feedback predictably influenced decision makers’ behaviors.  When provided initial information, the subjects’ reached decisions based on four major parameters:  their level of pessimism , their recognition of the likelihood of maximizing a positive outcome, equal weighting (presuming that all outcomes under consideration were at least possible), and their attitude toward the decision regret.   Moreover, the subjects’ pre-experiment life experiences decreased their inclinations toward decision pessimism, likelihood of maximizing  positive outcome, and equal weighting. By contrast, pre-experiment life experiences increased the impact of regret on decision making. Therefore, both initial and subsequent data could enable any or all of the four  parameters to be modified by decision-oriented feedback.

Although factors other than those that Erev investigated can be important for determining health decisions, his study should alert us to the following:  We need to look inward and outward for information related to our health.  We should not delude ourselves into believing the we have all the answers.  But health information must be personalized in a manner that only you can achieve. For instance, only you understand your stressors in enough depth to understand their effects on you.  Only you know your life experiences, customary heuristics, and memories that pertain to any health issue.  Similarly, only you can decode your level of pessimism , expectations of maximizing a positive outcome, appreciation for equal weighting, and attitude toward decision regret.  

The challenge for you and for me is to balance internal and external influences sufficiently to make decisions affording the best chance of achieving our health goals.  Since we all mostly operate on automatic pilot, we first must be conscious of the importance of making deliberate health decisions, and then take the considerable time and exert the considerable effort necessary to timely execute the require actions. 

  

Reference:

Erev, I., Ert, E., Plonsky, O., Cohen, D. & Cohen, O. (2017).  From Anomalies to Forecasts: Toward a Descriptive Model of Decisions Under Risk, Under Ambiguity, and From Experience.  Psychological Review, Mar 09 , 2017, No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000062  

Feeling Well

To say that something is "subjective" often is to imply that it is of questionable validity.  Our culture places a premium on "objective" data.  For instance, virtually all of the behavioral and health sciences insist that only"evidenced-based' research is worthy of dissemination.  Therefore, at first, it seems contradictory to discuss findings derived from studies of "subjective well-being."  Yet, such studies generally are accepted as reasonable by most psychologists.  This perhaps is because the subjective well-being opinions of research subjects are collected and evaluated with scientific rigor and satisfy state of the art academic standards.  For the most part, well-being data is comprised of single or combined assessments of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors elicited from the research subjects and/or from persons who know them intimately.           

Subjective well-being (SWB) data quantify an individual’s general sense of how well their life is proceeding.  SBW, then, depends on relatively chronic, versus episodic, features of life.  Because everyone occasionally has an especially “bad day” or an especially “good day,” SWB must be assessed over time to determine one's modal satisfactions and feelings.

So what is assessed in deciding SWB?  Certainly, the assessment needs to be multifaceted.  Some common, obvious determinants of SWB, for instance, are an individual’s health, income, and sense of competence and control.  The issue of control is quite salient because some psychologists have asserted that much of SWB is genetically determined.  If so, one might conclude that there is little or nothing that we can influence that will make an appreciable difference in our SWB.  If  “It’s all in the genes,” our well-being is preordained.

Recent studies, however, have challenged the contention that genes are primary for SWB.  For instance, Diener et al. (2017) cite research by Nes and Roysamb (2015) suggesting that non-genetic factors account for most of our SWB.  This supports the commonsense notion regarding the importance of health practices, employment, and marital quality.  Relationships are especially central in that good interpersonal relationships facilitate in us a strong tendency to behave in ways that promote physical and mental health.  And the more physically and mentally healthy we are, the more SWB we experience.

The self determination theory (SDT) of Edward L. Deci and Richard Ryan (2002) affords a rather succinct system for understanding and applying much of the SWB research data.  According to SDT, three major relatively controllable factors are critical for SWB: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.  Autonomy of course is synonymous with personal control, and personal control is a prerequisite for both initiating and maintaining efforts that facilitate a lifestyle consistent with SWB. But autonomy alone is not sufficient.  Competence enables one to take prerequisite autonomy and to translate it into actions that actually effect the desired outcomes.  For SWB purposes, relatedness has two aspects.  On the one hand, relatedness refers to an individual's  ability to interact constructively with other people to achieve health and happiness.  But think of relatedness also as the extent to which she/he experiences a compelling attachment not only to people, but also to SWB-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  When relatedness is strong in that sense, the individual better understand what she/he is doing, and, therefore, can make more committed, informed, and integrated SWB-relevant choices.'

The take-away of course is that you you will feel content, and even well, to the extent that you foster your personal competence, autonomy, and relatedness.  Those are health-promoting qualities whether they are subjectively or objectively true.      

References

Diener, Ed; Heintzelman, Samantha J.; Kushlev, Kostadin; Tay, Louis; Wirtz, Derrick; Lutes, Lesley D.; Oishi, Shigehiro.(2017).  Findings all psychologists should know from the new science on subjective well-being. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne,  58,2, 87-104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cap0000063

Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (Eds.), (2002). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68

Understanding and Combating Boredom

"Bored to death."  You probably have heard that phrase many, many times.  And you undoubtedly would agree that boredom certainly is a negative emotion.  But how deadly or negative an emotion is it?  Since Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg and Eric R. Igou (2017) carefully investigated boredom, it is fitting that we start with their research,

van Tilburg and Igou sought to determine how boredom compared to the negative emotions of sadness, anger, frustration, fear, disgust, depression, guilt, shame, regret, and disappointment.  They specifically looked at the extent to which boredom differed from the others conceptually and experientially, and  how the experience of boredom differed from person to person.  Their general conclusions made sense.  The investigators reported that boredom is in fact conceptually different from the other negative emotions.  When bored, individuals experience mildly negativity, low arousal, inattention, and a sense of meaninglessness.

As describe thus far, the emotional profile of boredom does not seem to be especially worrisome.  However, boredom is found to correlate positively with other more distressing conditions such as anxiety, anger, risk seeking, gambling, depression, and loneliness.  The positive correlation of course does not mean that boredom necessarily causes the other problems, but it certainly might increase one’s vulnerability to them.

The picture is not totally bleak, however.  Investigators other than van Tilburg and Igou have suggested that boredom sometimes can confer benefits.   First and foremost, like all emotions, boredom has a signal function.  It is obvious to all that anger, for instance, signals that the angry person perceives a significant threat to their person.  Even children know boredom's signal function; they unwittingly express that knowledge when they complain, "I'm bored.  I don't have anything to do."  So, if we recognize that we are bored, we can follow mother's advice and find something satisfying to do.

The experience of "flow" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) is the ideal antidote to boredom.  Flow occurs when we engage in activities that are moderately challenging and engrossing.  Passive experiences rarely produce flow.  Most often, flow activities involve a clear goal and method by which we can determine success toward that goal.  Typical flow-inducing pursuits are playing complex games, such as chess, or executing complex behaviors, such as playing a musical instrument or fabricating an object.  Watching television or mindless random Internet surfing are unlikely to confer flow.

When bored then, recognize the signal.  Find some engrossing activity that can elicit flow.  If you currently have no such flow-inducing activity, do yourself a favor and find one.  Don’t permit yourself to be bored to death.  Find a way to be animated and activated with life.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M.  (1997).  Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday Life.  New York: Harper Collins.

van Tilburg, W. A. T., and iIgou, E., R. (2017).  Boredom begs to differ: Differentiation from other negative emotions.  Emotion,  17, 2, 309-322.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000233.

Emotional Influences on Lifestyle Decisions

You have decided how to conduct your lifestyle and your health will be affected accordingly.  "Wait a minute," you say, “I have made no such decision.” 

But, of course, you have.

There are at least three ways to decide on a healthful or non-healthful lifestyle.  You can make a deliberate, conscious decision about what you should do.  You can fail to make a deliberate, conscious decision, and unconsciously enact health-inducing or health-impairing behavior.  Or you can make a conscious or unconscious default decision by merely behaving in health-relevant ways that are most convenient at any given point in time.

The choice of deliberate, enacted, or default decisions often is determined by your emotions.   The more you understand the connections between decision making and emotions, the better.  So, let’s review what Jennifer S. Lerner, Ye Li, Piercarlo Valdesolo, and Karim Kassam (2015) have to teach us about the issue.

The group points out the well-accepted notion that emotions usually predispose us to a particular action.  For instance, fear often causes us to flee from the source of our fear, and anger often incites us to strike out against its source.  Lerner et al. add that emotions also bias us to view the environment in ways consistent with the emotion.  If we are fearful, we perceive the environment as threatening, and if we are angry we regard the environment as frustrating.  Emotions then encourage us both to perceive the environment and to act within it in a manner than is emotion-consistent.

Several other important researched-based features of decision making and emotion are emphasized that are germane to our discussion.  First, emotions influence decisions in predictable ways.  Second, some of the influences are integral to the emotions and some are incidental.  Third, features specific to a given emotion exerts particular influences.  Fourth, emotions can affect the depth of thought, the content of thought, and/or the content of a given goal. Fifth, it is the interaction among the intellectual and motivational features of a given emotion that determines the extent and nature of that emotion’s influence on decision making.  Sixth, when emotions unconsciously prompt us, if we are aware of that prompt we frequently can use our conscious rationality to modify the emotional affect.

The seventh research-based feature of decision making and emotion warrants separate discussion because it directs us toward helpful strategies.  Number seven suggests that unwanted emotional influences can be combated in several ways.  One way is for us to learn how to reduce emotional intensity.  Another is to ensure that the emotion that does occur provides as little influence as possible.  Finally, we can cultivate a proclivity toward emotions opposite to the problematic ones.  Applying the Learner et al. advice, when you must make a stressful decision and you feel yourself becoming angry, you might take a walk before finalizing that decision (reducing intensity).  You also could accept your anger, realize that the anger will only interfere with your decision, and make a dispassionate list of the pros and cons involved in the decision (anger provides as little influence as possible).  Or, knowing that you are prone to anger, you can learn to see the source of your anger as weak, irrelevant, and not worth getting yourself upset (cultivating feelings opposed to anger).

The bottom line is this: decisions are either deliberate, enacted, or default.  And all three possibilities can be powerfully determined by your emotions.  Be aware of the way you make health-relevant decisions.  Be proactive and conscious with them.  And know that your emotions will be central in how you intentionally or inadvertently structure your lifestyle.

Reference

Lerner, L., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P., & Kassam, K.  (2015).  Emotion and Decision Making.  Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 799-823.  

How to Drive Yourself Crazy

Regardless of your current health, wealth, or intelligence, you will die.  Not a particularly pleasant or reassuring thought, but one that incontestably is true. Dwelling about one's mortality is enough to drive anybody insane.

The tendency to anticipate our own demise is merely one example of what psychologists call prospective forecasting. That is, our natural human proclivity to imagine what the future has in store for us.  Prospective forecasting is the proverbial double-edged sword - great when it predicts the positive, and dreadful when it does the opposite.  Even when imagining circumstances far less dire than death, negative prospective forecasting poisons our current experiences and aspirations.

We all fall victim to negative prospective forecasting at times.  While awaiting the results of a medical blood workup, most people recall some recently experienced minor or major ailment, wondering whether it signals an impending medical crisis. After submitting the competed exam for a professional license, we remember all the "tough questions" that we fear we answered incorrectly, and forget all the ones we answered confidently.

Psychologists assert that "bad" expectations and perceptions generally are stronger than good ones (Baumeister, et al., 2001), meaning that we usually ascribe greater significance to negative feelings and thoughts. Evolution theorists believe that the natural human tendency toward pessimism kept our ancestors alert to potential dangers and, therefore, promoted their survival.  So, we descendants of survivors all inherited that pessimistic mindset.  As the old saying goes, however, "better safe than sorry."

The negative prospective forecasting bias is burdensome enough.  Unfortunately, it is made more onerous due to counterfactual reasoning, another common thinking style.  This is the "what if" aspect of reflection.  After receiving upsetting news regarding your blood work or licensing exam, you ruminate about what you could have done differently to avoid the outcome you just experienced. Had you eaten more sensibly or studied more diligently, you reason, you would not be in your current predicament.

Counterfactual reasoning focuses us on the past and prospective forecasting focuses us on the future. Together they distract us from the present, and it is only in the present that we can act to remedy past deficiencies and to avoid future ones. Almost everyone by now is familiar with "mindfulness," a mental state in which we focus on the present to the exclusion of all else.  As you probably know, mindfulness typically promotes relaxation and clarity of thought.  There are a host of psychological and medical therapeutic modalities that employ mindfulness as a central curative element.

What healthful insights can we glean by integrating the notions of prospective forecasting, counterfactual reasoning, and mindfulness?  First, be aware that your mind frequently is pulled by one or more of the three. and, second, consider whether you are more vulnerable to one or another.  Prospective forecasting, counterfactual reasoning, and mindfulness can have helpful or detrimental effects, depending on how and how often they are employed.   

Because the future is extraordinarily difficult to predict and the past cannot be changed, too much prospective forecasting and counterfactual reasoning usually predisposes us to problems. Handled properly, however, both can be positive forces. Prospective forecasting and counterfactual reasoning can inform us about ways to change our current thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, thus promoting proactive mindfulness. In such cases, the result most likely will be health-inducing when we not only realistically assess past and current weaknesses and strengths, but also act decisively in the present to make best use of the obtained information.  Although we all will die, we have the potential to live better day to day. Rather than driving yourself crazy, drive yourself healthy.

Reference

Baumeister, Roy F.; Bratslavsky, Ellen; Finkenauer, Catrin; Vohs, Kathleen D. (2001).  Bad is stronger than good.  Review of General Psychology, Vol 5(4), December, 323-370.  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323