Thinking You’re in Control Can Lead to an Impulsive Demise

For six months you’ve worked really hard to stick to a diet, and it’s paying off.  Not only have you lost weight, but now more than ever you’re better able to restrain your impulse to eat fattening foods. Your friends are telling you how impressed they are with your resolve, and truth be told you’re feeling pretty damn good about yourself as well.

Which is why, around month seven, you decide that your impulse control is sufficiently strengthened that avoiding being around ice cream, nachos, chicken wings, soda—and all the other things you used to eat out with your friends—is no longer necessary.  You’ve spent half a year changing the way you think about food and it worked. Maintenance won’t be difficult with a new mindset. Time to live again.

I probably don’t have to end this story for you to know how it turns out. It’s a classic tragedy with which many of us are already too familiar.  Pride comes before a fall, but even more often it’s our sense of inflated self-restraint that precedes a tumble into relapse. 

A new study in the journal Psychological Science investigated the dynamics underlying why we repeatedly convince ourselves that we’ve overcome impulsiveness and can stop avoiding our worst temptations.  This particular tendency toward self-deception is called restraint bias, and four experiments were conducted under this study to test the hypothesis that it’s rampant in our bias-prone species.

In one of the experiments, people walking in and out of a cafeteria were approached with seven snacks of varying fattiness, and asked to rank the snacks from least to most favorite. Once they finished ranking, participants were told to pick one snack, and further told that they could eat it at anytime they liked, but if they returned the snack to the same location in one week they’d receive $5 and could also keep the snack.  After choosing the snack, participants indicated if they would return it for the money, and then filled out a questionnaire which assessed their hunger level and impulse-control beliefs. 

Participants who were walking into the cafeteria said they were hungry, and those leaving said they were full; so the first evaluation was whether those leaving with full stomachs would indicate stronger impulse-control beliefs – and they did.  The next evaluation was whether the not-hungry participants claiming the most impulse-control would choose the most tempting (and most fatty) snacks.  They did.  Finally, would those who selected the most tempting snacks be least likely to return them a week later?  Indeed, they were.

In another experiment, heavy smokers were asked to take a test to assess their level of impulse-control.  The test was bogus, designed only to label roughly half of the participants as having a high capacity for self-control, and half as having a low capacity.  Being told which label they earned seeded participants with a self-perception in either direction.

Participants were then asked to play a game that pitted the temptation to smoke against an opportunity to win money. The goal of the game was to watch a film called “Coffee and Cigarettes” without having a cigarette.  They could select among four levels of temptation, each with a corresponding dollar value: (1) keep a cigarette in another room: $5; (2) keep a cigarette on a nearby desk: $10; (3) hold an unlit cigarette in their hand throughout the film: $15; (4) or hold an unlit cigarette in their mouth throughout the film: $20.  Participants earned the money only if they avoided smoking the cigarette for the entire movie.

As predicted, smokers told they had high self-control exposed themselves to significantly more temptation than those told they had low self-control. On average, low self-control participants opted to watch the movie with a cigarette on the table; high self-controllers opted to watch with a cig in their hand. 

The result: the failure rate for those told they had high self-control was massively higher than for the low self-control group, to the tune of 33% vs. 11%.  Those who thought themselves most able to resist temptation had to light up three times as much as those who suspected they’d fail.

One way to view these results is as reinforcement of a very old cliché: we’re our own worst enemies. Restraint bias has a place high on the list of biases we trip on routinely, and tripping on it once is no guarantee of not doing so again, and again…and maybe again.  Dieters relapse, smokers relapse, anyone with anything approaching a compulsion or addiction relapses—usually more than once. This study suggests that part of this repetition is due to thinking we can handle more than we can.

Another takeaway is that an entire industry is based on bolstering impulse control.  Self help books and motivational speakers aplenty play on a dubious concept, that there’s a “gold ring” of restraint we all can reach—just follow X system to get there.  But what this study suggests is that even if you think you’ve arrived “there,” you’ll eventually find out that “there” never existed. You were sold a mirage in the form of an inflated self-perception of restraint.  No refunds.

Reality is, psychological bias–restraint bias included–is a lot like conflict. You can’t avoid it. You just manage it.

Nordgren, L., van Harreveld, F., & van der Pligt, J. (2009). The Restraint Bias: How the Illusion of Self-Restraint Promotes Impulsive Behavior Psychological Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02468.x

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The Dynamics of Human Tribes

At TEDxUSC, business professor David Logan talks about the five kinds of tribes that humans naturally form — in schools, workplaces, even the driver’s license bureau. Initially, Logan’s discussion may come across as a how-to for ascending ’tribal stages’ and a bit reductionistic, but around 11:00 the message gels, and it’s a good one. 

Below that is a video, also from TED, with author Seth Godin discussing how the Internet has revived the human social need for tribes and people to lead them.  If you’re interested, you can download a free PDF “Tribes Case Book” from Godin right here.

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Is the First Spot Always Best in a Preference Test?

Does someone interviewing for a job stand a better chance of getting the position if she’s first on the list of interviewees, last, or somewhere in-between?  Does someone running for public office stand a better chance of getting elected if he’s first on the ballot, last, or otherwise? 

These are questions of order in choice — and depending on who you’re asking, you’ll likely get a different answer about which spot in the picking order is more advantageous.  The issue is whether we can rely on a psychological standard for determining which slot in the order is typically favored by a chooser.  The flip side of this coin — what traits of the chooser play into which position he or she is most likely to favor? 

A new study in the journal Psychological Science investigated these questions using an especially tasty tool: wine.  Researchers wanted to know which wines in a given sequence would be favored by knowledgeable wine drinkers and vino sippers of average experience.  One hundred and forty-two people participated in the study, ages 19 to 75. 

Participants were told that they would taste locally produced wines and were randomly assigned to taste one sequence of two, three, four, or five samples.  Although participants expected to taste different samples of one grape varietal (e.g. Riesling), all of the samples consumed by a given participant actually consisted of the same wine. 

Participants were given a basic description of the wine-tasting procedure and direction on how to taste each wine.  Everyone had  approximately 25 seconds to sample each wine and 10 seconds between wines.  Participants drinking only two wines were given a total of 1 minute for tasting, and the interval increased all the way up to 2.5 minutes for those tasting five wines. 

At the end of each tasting sequence, each participant was asked, “Which ONE of ALL the wines that you have tasted today is you favorite?”  After the tasting was concluded, all participants completed a questionnaire to determine their level of knowledge and experience with various wines.  

The results:  the first wine was generally favored in all wine tasting sets (suggesting a ‘primacy effect’), and this applied to high and low-knowledge tasters.  High-knowledge tasters also tended to favor the most recent wine (‘recency effect’) when there were more than three wines in a set. 

So, across the board, there was a consistent “first-is-best” result, which suggests that participants were biased from the beginning to favor the first item in the set.  However, high-knowledge tasters broke ranks with this standard when they had several options to choose from.

The reason is that when faced with multiple options, high-knowledge users tend to compare the most recent item to the last one in the set.  If the most recent wine is their favorite, it will compare favorably to the last wine (in other words, the new favorite displaces the last favorite). 

In short — it’s usually better to be the first item in a set, unless (1) there are several options to choose from, and (2) the choosers are especially knowledgable about the items in question.  Putting that another way: first is usually best, except when it’s not.

Mantonakis, A., Rodero, P., Lesschaeve, I., & Hastie, R. (2009). Order in Choice: Effects of Serial Position on Preferences Psychological Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02453.x

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What Would You Do?

ABC News in the U.S. occasionally runs a TV show called “What Would You Do?” that puts people in difficult situations to see how they’ll react.  The host, John Quinones, then approaches the unknowing subjects to let them know that the situation was staged and debrief about why they acted as they did.  It all amounts to a well-done, real-world experiment in social psychology. 

The first video clip below features a situation involving a young girl approached by a stranger in a park.  Watch how people nearby react and how the reaction changes, or doesn’t, when the nature of the stranger changes. The second video features a situation involving a guy who won’t leave a woman alone at a bar.   (In the first video, by the way, only 12 of 50 people took action — sad commentary.)

 

 

Just How ‘Blind’ Are You When Talking on a Cell Phone?

Everyday in the news we see stories decrying the use of cell phones while driving.  Research reports aplenty have been released estimating the percentage of one’s attention siphoned by mobile jabber and how little is left to focus on the highway. 

This is great and I’m glad the discussion is happening, but it might be useful to ask whether cell phone use in other (non-driving) venues has a similar effect on attention. What better way to make the point that cell phone use is dangerous when driving than showing its effect on someone doing something not nearly as focus intensive — like walking, for instance.

That’s exactly what the authors of a new study published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology wanted to do. Researchers examined the effects of divided attention when people are either (1) walking while talking on a cell phone, (2) walking and listening to an MP3 player, (3) walking without any electronics, or (4) walking in a pair. 

The measure of how much attention is diverted during any of these activities is called “inattentional blindness” – not ’seeing’ what’s right in front of you, or around you, due to a distracting influence.  If you’ve ever watched the YouTube video of the gorilla walking through the crowd of people passing around a ball, then you’ve seen an example of inattentional blindness (here’s a great paper on the effect downloadable as a PDF). 

For the first experiment of the study, trained observers were positioned at corners of a large, well-traveled square of a university campus.  Data was collected on 317 individuals, ages 18 and older, with a roughly equal breakdown between men and women.  The breakdown between the four conditions (with MP3, with cell phone, etc) was also roughly equal.  Observers measured several outcomes for each individual, including the time it took to cross the square; if the individual stopped while crossing; the number of direction changes the individual made; how much they weaved, tripped or stumbled; and if someone was involved in a collision or near-collision with another walker.

The results:  for people talking on cell phones, every measure with the exception of two (length of time and stopping) was significantly higher than the other conditions.  Cell phones users changed direction seven times as much as someone without a cell phone (29.8% vs 4.7%), three times as much as someone with an MP3 player (vs 11%), and weaved around others significantly more than the other conditions (though, interestingly, the MP3 users weaved the least of all conditions). 

People on phones also acknowledged others only 2.1%  of the time (vs 11.6% for someone not on a phone), and collided or nearly collided with others 4.3% of the time (vs 0% for walking alone or in a pair, and 1.9% when using an MP3 player).

The slowest people, who also stopped the most, were walking in pairs.  In fact, next to the other conditions walking in pairs was the only one that came anywhere close to using a cell phone across the range of measures.

The next experiment replicated the first, but only one measure was tracked: whether or not walkers saw a clown unicycling across the square.  And this was an obnoxiously costumed clown, complete with huge red shoes, gigantic red nose and a bright purple and yellow outfit.  Interviewers approached people who had just walked through the square and asked them two questions: (1) did you just see anything unusual?, and (2) did you see the clown?

The results:  When asked if they saw anything unusual, 8.3% of cell phone users said yes, compared to between 32 and 57% of those walking without electronic devices, with an MP3 player, or in pairs.  When asked if they saw the clown, 25% of cell phone users said yes compared to 51%, 60% and 71.4% of the other conditions, respectively.  In effect, 75% of the cell phone users experienced inattentional blindness.  (The discrepancy between the 8.3% and the 25% might be because the clown didn’t register as something “unusual” — this is, after all, a university campus.)

So, coming back around to the original point — if using a cell phone impairs attention as drastically as this study shows for people just walking, could it by any stretch of the imagination be a good idea to use one while driving? 

One caveat to that concluding question should be mentioned: As noted in the results, people walking in pairs–most likely talking to each other–were next in line for inattentional blindness. This jibes with research (discussed in this TIME article) indicating that talking to someone in your car while driving is significantly distracting–perhaps not quite as much as chatting on a cell phone, but in the neighborhood.  Auditory cues, whether from a phone or from the person next to you, divert attention. The problem with cell phones, however, is that a user lacks the other set of eyes his co-chatter has to offer, which could very well be the difference between being in an accident or getting home safely.

Hyman, I., Boss, S., Wise, B., McKenzie, K., & Caggiano, J. (2009). Did you see the unicycling clown? Inattentional blindness while walking and talking on a cell phone Applied Cognitive PsychologyDOI: 10.1002/acp.1638

Neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe Discusses How We Read Each Other’s Minds

We know that we can sense the thoughts and feelings of others, but how do we do it?  From the TED 2009 Global Conference, Rebecca Saxe, professor of cognitive neuroscience at MIT, shares fascinating research that uncovers how the brain thinks about other peoples’ thoughts — and judges their actions.

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When the Powerful Feel Incompetent, the Rest of Us Feel Their Wrath

You’re sitting at your desk when the phone rings. It’s your boss and he wants to see you in his office.  You’re not sure why – nothing in particular comes to mind that would put you in his crosshairs. In fact, you’ve actually been doing a great job lately. Even your boss’s boss mentioned that you were doing outstanding work in a staff meeting the other day, right in front of everyone, including your boss. What could possibly be the problem?

You walk into his office, sit down, and are immediately awash in the most inappropriate display of yelling you’ve ever seen in the workplace. It’s hard to follow all of the criticisms he’s throwing at you, but you make out “incompetent,” “unresponsive” and “careless” amidst a caravan of expletives. The source of the criticism, you finally realize, is a small error you made in a report—something likely no one else even noticed. How could that bring on all of this?

Or…is that really the source of this reaction? Then you remember the look on your boss’s face when his boss sung your praises in the staff meeting. Suddenly this makes sense—he was threatened, and now he’s found one thing to aggressively nail you on.  

It’s no surprise that power and aggression often move along the same track. In particular, the threat of losing power is like striking a match near the aggression gun powder keg.  Studies have shown that the perceived need to protect one’s power kicks ego defenses into high gear, loaded with enough aggression to regret for a lifetime.

This is, of course, personality specific. Not everyone is going to react this way, but a generous number of people do. According to a 2007 study of American workers, 37% (about 54 million people) have been bullied at work, defined as “sabotaged, yelled at, or belittled” by their bosses.  We know that much of this comes from the kind of defensiveness shown by the boss in the scenario above, but what’s really brewing below the surface of the boss’s psyche to elicit this extreme a reaction?  

A new study in the journal Psychological Science took on this question from an intriguing angle: could it be that a lack of perceived self competence triggers aggression among the powerful?  Power increases the degree to which people feel they must be competent, to fill the demands that come with a high position and to hold onto the position against would-be challengers. If someone in power doesn’t really think he or she is competent enough (or fears they might not be and thinks someone may eventually see through them) then any perceived threat could spark an aggressive reaction – or so this study wanted to test.

Researchers conducted four experiments to test the hypothesis. In the first, they established a basic correlation between power and aggression by having 90 professionals from various fields complete an authority survey (to determine their level of power); the Fear of Negative Evaluation scale (which measures how people think about others’ evaluations of them); and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionaire (which measures things like argumentativeness, likelihood of physical reaction, etc).  The result was that the higher the level of perceived incompetence, the higher the level of associated aggression. Again, this was just a straight correlation – no data manipulation. 

The next three experiments took the study farther. In the second, researchers examined peoples’ responses to a primed power role. Assigned roles of varying authority, participants were asked to complete a survey to determine their level of perceived self competence. They were then asked to determine how loud a sound blast should be used as a penalty for undergraduate students who answer questions incorrectly on an upcoming experiment (a fabricated prop for the study).  The results: for those in high-power roles who had low perceived self competence, the sound blast level was significantly higher than for people with a high level of self competence. More sound, more aggression.     

In the third experiment, participants were first evaluated to determine their level of perceived self competence, and then were asked to complete a “leadership aptitude test.” Some of the participants were given scores indicating that they have excellent leadership skills, and some were told that they had average leadership skills (in other words, some got a self-worth boost and some didn’t). 

They were then divided into two-partner groups and told that they’d be competing for a $20 prize with their partners based on scores they earned from taking an intelligence test, with the twist that one partner would chose from a selection of easy to hard tests for their partner to take. They were also advised that whether or not the partner won $20 would not affect the other person from winning $20 (both could win).  The results: by a wide margin, participants who had low perceived self competence and did not receive a self-worth boost opted to punish their partners by selecting the hardest IQ tests, indicating a significantly higher level of aggression.

Taken together, the findings from these experiments (including the fourth, not described here for sake of post length) point to a strong conclusion: people in positions of power who do not perceive themselves as competent are far more likely to aggressively lash out against others.  The result is ironic, because we typically think of those who attain power as being especially competent – how else can they get so far?  But what this study suggests is that power may enhance self critique of competence, and the more someone questions whether they really have what it takes to be in power, the more threatened they’ll feel by any number of situations and people, and aggression too often follows.

Fast, N., & Chen, S. (2009). When the Boss Feels Inadequate: Power, Incompetence, and Aggression Psychological Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02452.x

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