Thank You for Your Service?

As with all blogposts, this one will resonate strongly, moderately, mildly or not at all with some of you.  Please note that although I am using the United States armed forces as the central organizing element, you can deduce obvious and important non-military conclusions from what I write here.  Although I will try to be as objective as I can, having spent four years as a Marine, you legitimately can question some of what I am about to say. 

During my psychology practice of over 40 years, I have treated thousands of patients with all kinds of cognitive and emotional challenges.  Many were veterans from World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Middle East.  Only those from “Nam” returned to face jeers, bias, or indifference.  And, although I have heard the same basic complaint from all veterans of all the wars, those from Viet Nam have voiced it most often and most stridently.

The complaint is about being told “Thank you for your service.”  Surprised?  Perhaps you are; it seems to be a counterintuitive, harsh reaction to a gracious remark.  Why not be grateful ?”  The vets experience no gratitude due to the way they contextualize the “thanks.”  

Veterans sometimes tell me that they regard the “gracious” remark as hollow, mechanical, and generally unconvincing.  Sometimes they say that it is the subsequent sequence of interpersonal events that irritates them, especially when it involves a salesperson or institutional provider.  For instance, after the thanks,  the thanker might adopt a condescending, arrogant, or other negative tone when the veteran expresses an opinion or request.  Some vets say that the shift frequently is so abrupt that it almost shocks them.

If you are thinking that people always have uttered disingenuous, insincere comments encouraged by their culture, I agree.  In the 21st  century, however, disingenuous, insincere comments have acquired a significance very far beyond their value. Today, many people are hyperattentive to learning, practicing, and broadcasting any verbal behavior that will enhance their status.  Scan the media and/or internet and you readily can determine what is the current self-enhancing verbal meme.

Almost everyone reading this blog knows the definition of a "meme" but, just in case someone is unsure, the dictionary definition is "an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation."  I must add, however, that the particulars of culture vary within subgroups, and, therefore, so do some memes. That certainly is true for political subcultures wherein one will promote words, phrases, and practices diametrically opposed to the other. For instance, one party's members might regard something as unamerican that another party's members believe is elementally American.

Try, at least occasionally, to listen carefully to yourself.  Determine where you got  your voiced memes and meme sound-alikes, and whether they truly express your views. Do this especially when you converse with someone "different" from you. Don't presume that following your sub-culture speak will ennoble you.  Know that it is not only veterans who recognize and are troubled by disingenuous, insincere speech and trite statements.  Recognize that parroting the meme of the month does nothing substantial for you or your loved ones.  Perhaps. rather than following the language of one or another person or group, you would prefer to think and speak in ways true to yourself.  And, please, don't tell a veteran, "Thanks for your service" unless you really, really mean it.  

 

Do You Think Rationally ?

If you read this blog post to the end, you will have read one unlike any I ever have written. My goal is not political. I am using China only because the subject is current and likely to have some emotional resonance with most people. The blogpost's genesis can be traced to my discussion with someone who regards any unflattering talk about the Chinese as racist, as attempting to elevate those who subscribe to “traditional American values,” and as denigrating everyone non-American.  For that reason, here I have chosen to cite only liberal, “progressive” sources for the data about China to which I refer.  Most of what follows merely are my literal quotes to information readily available to you from the URLs and webpages listed. 

I must underscore, again, that I am not writing this as a political statement, but rather as a way to encourage you to think about general emotion-charged pro- or anti- opinions that you automatically entertain.  You see, as a psychologist, I am interested in facilitating your insight into your mentation, not to your acceding to any particular political opinions. So, let’s try this and see what YOU think about what follows, since that’s all that really matters.

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 Confronting China’s Efforts to Steal Defense Information

Author: Jeff Jones | May 2020

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/confronting-chinas-efforts-steal-defense-information

The Robert and Renée Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, also known as the Belfer Center, is a research center located within the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, in the United States.

CONFRONTING CHINA’S EFFORTS TO STEAL DEFENSE INFORMATION

1. Introduction

China’s cyber espionage activities represent a significant threat to the United States military and the safety and security of this nation. Defense contractors, research institutes, and universities are failing to adequately secure their computer networks, allowing China to steal research and development pertaining to some of America’s most important military technology. This wholesale theft represents losses to the United States in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

So, why are contractors and research institutes so vulnerable to having their work product stolen? Given the technical and sensitive nature of these activities one would assume that these companies would take enormous care in protecting that information from being stolen or destroyed. What, after all, could be more important than information pertaining to the defense of the nation? However, the track record for many defense contractors in protecting classified information is abysmal and seems to suggest that the United States government values this information much more than the companies contracted to research and develop it. Simply put, the United States is not incentivizing the protection of this information, so contractors and research institutes are not making cybersecurity a priority…

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 POLITICS

Chinese hackers took trillions in intellectual property from about 30 multinational companies

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-in-intellectual-property-from-about-30-multinational-companies/#:~:text=The%20CCP%20continues%20to%20increase,China%20counterintelligence%20investigation%20every12%20hours.

 In May 2021, the Justice Department charged four Chinese nationals connected to APT 41 for their participation in a global computer intrusion campaign targeting intellectual property and sensitive business information. The FBI estimated in its report that the annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.

 But researchers from Cybereason say it is hard to estimate the exact economic impact of Operation CuckooBees due to the complexity, stealth and sophistication of the attacks, as well as the long-term impact of robbing multi-national companies of research and development building blocks. 

 "It's important to account for the full supply chain – basically selling a developed product in the future, and all the derivatives that you're gonna get out of it," Div said.

 "In our assessment, we believe that we're talking about trillions, not billions," Div added. "The real impact is something we're going to see in five years from now, ten years for now, when we think that we have the upper hand on pharmaceutical, energy, and defense technologies. And we're going to look at China and say, how did they bridge the gap so quickly without the engineers and resources?"

 Cybersecurity firms including Eset Research have previously detailed supply chain attacks carried out by APT 41. In August 2019, Mandiant released a report detailing the evolution of the group's tactics, and techniques, as well as descriptions of individual criminal actors.

 According to Cybereason's report, the APT group leveraged both known and previously undocumented malware exploits, using "digitally signed kernel-level rootkits as well as an elaborate multi-stage infection chain," comprising six parts. That clandestine playbook helped criminals gain unauthorized control of computer systems while remaining undetected for years.

 The FBI has consistently warned that China poses the largest counterintelligence threat to the U.S.

 "[China has] a bigger hacking program than that of every other major nation combined. And their biggest target is, of course, the United States," FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday, during a public forum at the McCain Institute.

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 The Rise of English in China: A Threat to China’s National Unity?

 https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/2017/8/16/the-rise-of-english-in-china-a-threat-to-chinas-national-unity#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20staggering%20statistic,100%20and%20300%20million%20people.

Currently between 440-650 million Chinese citizens are learners of English. This is a staggering statistic, not only because it implies that thirty to fifty per cent of China’s population of 1.35 billion is currently learning English, but also because this number surpasses the English-speaking population of the United States by between 100 and 300 million people…

 English permeates many facets of Chinese culture. It can be found in advertisements, brands, and business names as an indicator of international prestige. English is also increasingly used in both local and national television and print news. For example, the national television broadcaster Central China Television (CCTV) replaced its 30-minute daily programming in English with a channel offering 24-hour English programming.

The dominant role of English in China is perhaps most visible in education. In 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), the country adopted a policy of mandatory English education for primary school children starting from grade three (age eight or nine).  English is also a key component of college admissions and matriculation in China, as it is one of three compulsory subjects in the National University Entrance Qualifying Exam along with Chinese and Mathematics.  All university students must also pass Level 4 of a standardized English examination called the College English Test (CET4) to graduate from university. English proficiency is tied to employment opportunities and in some cases employees must pass the higher level of CET6 to advance to a better post. This increased emphasis on proficiency in English has generated a booming market for private English language schools and the development of private bilingual preschools and kindergartens that introduce English to children at the age of three or four.  The English language market in China is the largest in the world, worth an estimated worth 4.5 billion USD with growth at a rate of 12-15% over the next two years.

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Statista

 2019-2020            number of United States students studying in China =2,481    

https://www.statista.com/statistics/372900/number-of-chinese-students-that-study-in-the-us/

 2019-2020            number of Chinese students studying in the United States =372,900

 https://www.statista.com/statistics/372900/number-of-chinese-students-that-study-in-the-us/

United States Students in China

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 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/01/chinese-purchase-of-north-dakota-farmland-raises-national-security-concerns-in-washington.html

Chinese company’s purchase of North Dakota farmland raises national security concerns in Washington

PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 1 20229:55 AM EDT UPDATED FRI, JUL 1 20225:54 PM EDT

Eamon Javers

KEY POINTS

Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group bought 300 acres of land near Grand Forks, North Dakota, to set up a milling plant.

The project is located about 20 minutes from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, raising national security concerns.

Both the Democratic chairman and the Republican ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee told CNBC they are opposed to the project.

… when the three North Dakotans who owned the parcels of land here sold them for millions of dollars this spring, the transaction raised alarm bells as far away as Washington, D.C.

Grand Forks Air Force Base

That’s because the buyer of the land was a Chinese company, the Fufeng Group, based in Shandong, China, and the property is just about 20 minutes down the road from Grand Forks Air Force Base — home to some of the nation’s most sensitive military drone technology.

The base is also the home of a new space networking center, which a North Dakota senator said handles “the backbone of all U.S. military communications across the globe.”

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Now for brief personal proselytizing comments for you to consider, if you choose.

Whether or not you believe in traditional American values, you might support people, such as the mostly Muslim, 12 million Uyghurs and 7 million Tibetans, living under China’s despotic control.   If nothing else, I trust that almost all of you love your children and grandchildren, if you have any.  I think that the Uyghurs, Tibetans, your children, and your grandchildren would be better off living in a world more American-like than China-like. Unfortunately, based on what I wrote here, the current odds strongly favor China’s surpassing the USA in power and influence.

 In any case, I hope that whenever you are told something- political or non-political- that you instinctively view as emotion-charged you, at least temporarily, put the brakes on mindless, emotional preconceptions and engage your cognitive data-driven rationality before reaching your conclusions.  More important, insights from this blogpost will serve you best if you find ways to apply them in your everyday life, such as in your interpersonal opinions.

 

 

I Know What You Really Are Thinking and Why !

Sometimes, the most important mental activity is not what you think, but what you think about what you think. Let's unpack that contention.

Suppose you are walking along the avenue, and a friend drives past.  You wave and your friend does not acknowledge you.  Your automatic thought is "What's wrong with him?" You then proceed to thinking: "The last time we talked, he asked me to come over to his house to help him, and I declined. I bet he's still irritated about that” You then might think about something else while retaining the belief in your friend's irritation. You also could ruminate about your friend not-waving-to-you problem for minutes, hours, or days. When you see your friend again, you mention that you waved and he did not respond, and he answers, "Oh, I don't remember seeing you."  At that point you could accept his explanation, be satisfied, and banish the not-waving-incident from your mind. However, it also is possible that you do not believe his "excuse" and consider him merely to be avoiding an uncomfortable discussion.

As I have written in several previous blog postings, psychologists use the term "metacognition" to describe one's thoughts about their own thoughts. It is important for you to understand that metacognition can operate unconsciously and/or consciously.  Most often it is unconscious, and, therefore, outside your deliberate control.  So, when you wave to your driving-by friend you might not be aware of details of the thoughts that briefly raced through your mind.  Instead, you might only experience a vague, negative, fleeting sensation.  In that case, you are unlikely to be able to rationally process the experience. Even if you are conscious of the entire cognitive and emotional experience, your enduring or current personality condition could make rational processing difficult for you.

Those who are savvy about metacognition could be at an advantage in processing the non-waving-friend situation.  Yes, no, maybe?  As you might guess, that is a "maybe."

Although I, of course, cannot cite research directly relevant to your personal, idiosyncratic metacognitive style, I can mention a study that illustrates some important metacognitive considerations. First, let's think briefly about research by Sabnam Basu and Shikha Dixit (2022).  Their study included139 male and female MBA students from top tier business schools in India. Analysis of their data underscored the importance of knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition in explaining the decision-making styles. That is, whether knowing about decision processes and being able to control your cognition are singly or jointly important for decision outcome.

They suggested the while knowledge about cognition was positively associated with intuitive and spontaneous decision-making styles, regulation of cognition emerged to be positively related to rational decision-making style. Both knowledge and regulation of cognition could explain these decision-making styles over and above the demographic variables of age, gender and work experience. The maladaptive decision styles of dependent and avoidant decision-making, however, could neither be explained by knowledge about cognition nor regulation of cognition.  For example, those with knowledge of cognition who usually depended on their intuition and spontaneous “feeling” performed better than other intuitive and spontaneous types who had poor cognition knowledge.  And those with good regulation of cognition who usually depended on their rational analysis skills performed better than other rationally-oriented types who had poor regulation of cognition skills.  In short, a strong regulation of cognition orientation was not enough; one needed to be able to actively apply rationality in ways directly relevant to the decision task at hand.

My point in introducing these ideas is to suggest implications for everyday interpersonal interactions and relationships. When someone says or does something that involves you substantively, at that moment you consciously or unconsciously decide how to respond. If you are more of an intuitive and spontaneous type, you are inclined to respond without much deliberation.  Your intuition and/or spontaneity has the best chance of producing a constructive outcome when you have had a great amount of experience with the particular person and particular context present. On the other hand, if you are more rationally oriented, you will seek “data” on which to make your interpersonal decision.  The critical issue then is whether there is data that is valid and reliable. You might think that you methodically have performed all the necessary “calculations “to decide rationally, but be sorely mistaken.  Imagine that someone failed to deliver on what you perceived as their promise to you, and after parsing the available information, you conclude that they deliberately lied.  However, they might never have made an explicit promise; your data was faulty.

So, whether you attempt to reach interpersonal decisions via intuition, spontaneity, or rationality, you will arrive at the most adaptive conclusions by first seeking feedback and testing your tentative conclusions before speaking or acting upon them.  You must use internal and external metacommunication as effectively as possible.  As for what Sabnam Basu and Shikha Dixit called the “maladaptive decision styles of dependent and avoidant decision-making,” you know that there are particular people and particular contexts when a dependent or avoidant strategy can be useful, if only in the short-term.

The bottom line suggestion is for you neither to presume you know what other people are thinking or why they are thinking what they are, in fact, thinking.  An easy recommendation for me to make; a difficult behavior for you to enact.  So, it might be an interpersonal strategy that you are willing to apply to interactions involving only the most important people and important people-oriented decisions.  If you do, you will find it well worth the effort.         

Reference

Basu, S. & Dixit, S. (2022).  Role of metacognition in explaining decision-making styles: A study of knowledge about cognition and regulation of cognition. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 185, February 2022, 111-318

Hold Me

It's early morning, you are in bed with your partner, and you both have just awakened.  What do you immediately do?  That depends on the state of your heart and mind.  One partner might reach out for, hold, and embrace the other, savoring some precious moments together. To do so provides more than mutual warmth and comfort.  The activity communicates powerful messages—you are top of my mind, my day begins with you, you have my undivided attention and time.  If instead, you awaken, reach for, and become engrossed in your mobile device, you also are communicating clearly to your partner.

Attention and time.  No matter how rich or poor you are, these are life’s most precious, unreplenishable resources.  In the 21st century, our limited attention and time are stolen. 

Contemporary attention and 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 attention and time theft.

Attention and time crooks have preferred devices: 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 promoting.  The more they can do so, the more they earn.  Compulsively attached to their items and agendas, we have little attention and 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 and time.

If you believe that the attention and 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 Attention and 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 attention and 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 attention and time.  Please note that I am not condemning all electronic devices and the persons who make, distribute, or use them.  The devices actually can and do save us attention and 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?  When you awaken in the morning will you first hold, attend to, and spend time with your partner or with your device? 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 to Please

For purposes of this posting, let’s presume that most people prefer to be liked, accepted, or, at least, tolerated. That begs the question, “By whom?”  Who is the person or persons who determine your worth?: family? friends? neighbors? co-workers?  Do you believe that all the valued ones want to see the same attitudes and behaviors from you?  When their expectations conflict, which, if any, members of the multitude exert the greatest influence?

Where are you, yourself, in the “how to be” equation?  When you realize that someone or some group expects you to exhibit a particular attitude or behavior, do you start with them or start with you?  What parameters do you apply when attempting to reach your conclusion?  Equally important, what parameters do you ultimately apply when acting upon your decision?  If your decision and/ or action is contrary to expectations of valued others, do you explicitly address the discrepancy or not?

Of course, you rightly can reply that your decision and/or action “depend” on specifics of the situation.  True, but, in that case, you would do well to understand what contextual features are determinative for you and when.

Focusing on others vs. on oneself has many potential implications. Here we only consider influences on our self-regulation (how we manage our feelings and self-esteem) and our motivation as reported by Diel, Grelle, and Hofmann (2021).  The study included 5400 subjects who were presented with everyday scenarios that required them to compare their personal standards with others’ standards.  Would they make their decisions primarily by looking within themselves or by looking to others?

The answers depended on the value they ascribed to how they perceived self-others discrepancies. One group of subjects engaged in “upward comparison” by which they saw others’ standards as “better” than their own.  Many of these persons pushed themselves to reach that higher standard of others but some did not.  The latter had made extreme demands of themselves and soon gave up when failing to achieve their unreachable goals.  Failure within that group was all the more disappointing for a subgroup who perceived that they had strong personal control within the presented situation or when they strongly valued that situation. 

Another group of subjects engaged in “downward comparison” by which they saw their own standards as “better” than those of others.  Such people were generally more content with their performance in the presented situation than were the upward comparison group.  On the other hand, the downward comparers put forth less effort in attempting to satisfy the expected standards.

So, what might this mean for you?  How much of your self-regulation and motivation are strongly or primarily determined by what you believe others prefer or by what you independently prefer?  But before you answer those questions, consider an issue that I have saved for last.  Maybe in addition to, or in lieu of, family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, there are “remote” others that strongly influence your self-regulation and motivation.  For instance, do so-called identity leaders that reach you via media—for example, celebrities, politicians, and “tribal” group trendsetters—exert such powerful effects that you want to believe and act in ways consistent with them?

Important, too, is the possibility that identity leader influences steer you so automatically and unconsciously that you do not even personally consider what they are presenting, but rather, you mindlessly adopt their positions without personal reservation or deliberation.  You might also upwardly or downwardly compare yourself to the identity leaders with negative implications for your self-regulation and/or motivation. 

In sum then, be on guard against mindlessly, uncritically allowing your attitudes and/or behaviors to be altered by family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers whose knowledge in any given area is no more informed than yours.  And be exponentially more guarded when uninformed and/or agenda-driven identity leaders try to sway you toward their positions. 

Reference

Diel, K., Grelle, S., & Hofmann, W. (2021). A motivational framework of social comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1415–1430. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000204

How and When to Use Your Mobile Phone

 Most evolution scientists assert that human language began 200,000 to 300,000 years ago and they use speech development as a defining feature, if not the defining feature of homo sapiens. People, of course, could communicate via body language and physical signaling of various kinds at some undefined period, as well.  And pictorial communication, such as by cave paintings, are conventionally dated to about 30,000 years ago. 

Before 1844, real time talk required real time physical, in-person interaction.  That meant that people were consciously or unconsciously perceiving not only the literal content of their verbalizations but also their body language and prosody (vocal pitch, length of sounds, loudness, and timber [quality of the voice]).  Ancient wisdom acknowledges the importance of body language and prosody as expressed in the advice, “It’s not what you say but how you say it.”

Not until the invention of the telegraph approximately in 1844 could people could do anything close to real-time “talking.”  We all now are acutely aware of and preoccupied with our ability to talk to almost anyone on earth at virtually any time.  Progress?  Yes and no.

The contemporary telephone that provides real-time vocal conversation also makes texting possible as an alternative to vocal talk.  We all know the misunderstandings that can arise when texting.  When texting, there obviously is no way to confidently perceive the body language or prosody that face-to-face conversation enables, especially critical communication nuances, such as facetiousness or sarcasm.

Whether used for vocal talk or texting, however, the mobile phone has profoundly changed the dynamics of human communication.  Each contact attempt invites the sender and the target to evaluate the quality of their relationship according to the frequency and rapidity of sending and receiving.  Both communicators commonly presume that the message has been delivered and that their counterpart virtually has total control over deciding the next step.  Thus, as expected, Emma M. Templeton and associates (2022) found that people who received faster responses regarded themselves as “more connected” to their response partner than did those with slower responses.  Also, unsurprisingly, people who prized quick responses from their response partner did not necessarily believe that their own speed was as important.  One might infer that such people were operating according to the “fundamental attribution error” (Miller, J. G., 1984), finding reasonable external excuses for their own delayed responses but believing that the speed of others’ responses were determined by enduring personality characteristics of those others.  It is worth mentioning, too, the Templeton group’s belief that extremely short response times, such as those less than 250 milliseconds, are made without conscious control and thus are considered to be an honest signal as to how well and easily two people relate to one another.

Consider the “texted” information that I presented within this blog when you are deciding how and when to communicate, particularly when interpersonal and/or other adaptive issues are important to you.

References:

Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(5), 961–978.

Templeton, E. M., et al. (2022).  Fast response times signal social connection in conversation. 

PNAS January 25. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2116915119.  

When You Do and Do Not Qualify Your Statements

Please pause before reading this blogpost and answer the title's implied questions for yourself.

Okay, let's try a concrete metaphor to begin our discussion.  Imagine you live immediately adjacent to a field pock-marked with many bare and grassy areas.  You do not have a garage or driveway, so you park on the street and your car occasionally is dusty.  How often do you wash it?  That depends on your personality and on external factors as sifted through your personality. If you are a "car person," you might wash the car often.  If you are a "it's just transportation" person, you might wash it rarely or never.  But even in the second case, if the car is new, you might be strongly inclined to keep it clean. 

My example is so simplistic and obvious that you could consider it worthless.  Almost anyone would realize that both internal and external factors would affect car-washing. However, I believe that literally everything you think and feel are determined by simultaneous online internal and external forces, either of which is more dominant in any given situation.  And to make my points I have chosen to offer one of the most contentious and divisive issues in America..

Tom says to Harry “There is never a justifiable reason for abortion” and he truly believes that.  In other words, at the time of speaking, Tom’s internal focus enables him to be cognitively and emotionally content with what he just said.  If he then allows his statement to remain unqualified, it further presumes that Tom’s externally-focused expectation is that he believes Harry agrees with the remark, or at least is not significantly troubled by it. 

On the other hand, what if after Tom utters his statement, he thinks that Harry might disagree with it?  That external focus presents Tom with a choice.  He, himself, needs no internal justification.  The main issue is whether he feels compelled to justify to Harry, a source outside himself.

To a considerable extent, the central issue is the importance that he ascribes to his own internally-based sense of genuineness versus the importance he ascribes to being socially accepted by Harry. For the latter, Tom might try to convince Harry about Tom’s abortion beliefs, or at least to positively influence Harry’s response to and/or evaluation of Tom.  There is a “critical threshold” specific to Tom that will cause him to act to stand by his original statement (internal sense of genuineness) or to reluctantly “water down” or change his comments (desire for social acceptance).     

Psychologists often use the term “agreeableness” to designate what they regard as one of five universal features of our personality.  They do not include “genuineness” among those five.  But I believe they should.

In our example, the fundamental issue might very well be the strength of Tom’s external need to be seen as agreeable to Harry versus his internal need to see himself as genuine.  In either case, Tom performs a costs-benefits analysis, probably unconsciously, but possibly consciously, that guides his course of action.  The variables within each costs-benefits analysis are idiosyncratic to Tom. For instance, does he have either a very strong or very weak need to be true to himself versus a very strong or very weak need for a positive relationship with Harry?

When you do or do not qualify your initial important assertions, you often can gain critical insight into your personality by assessing the relevant genuineness versus social acceptance dimension appertaining.  That is because life’s most valuable answers almost always are self-explored and self-generated. 

 

Heuristics, Algorithms, 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.

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