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