When Your Self-View is Skewed, So Goes Your Mood

Some people walk around this planet thinking so highly of themselves that their feet barely touch the ground. Others think so low of themselves that they hardly ever lift their chins. And according to a new study, both sorts of people are in for a world of hurt.

A short research report in the journal Psychological Science investigated the effects of having a distorted self-view, whether too high or too low. The study focused on the self-views of children, ages ranging from nine to 12 years, all of whom were asked to rate how much they liked each of their classmates. Then they were asked to predict the ratings they would receive from each of their classmates. For the purpose of the study, self-view distortion was defined as the difference between the actual and perceived status.

A couple of weeks later, the children were asked to participate in an Internet popularity contest called “Survivor Game,” in which the least liked person is voted out of the group by a panel of peer judges.  Just before the game, the mood of each participant was measured with questions like, “How do you feel right now, at the present time?”  They were asked to rank eight adjectives (including: angry, nervous, sad, irritated, embarrassed) on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much).

Participants then filled out a personal profile describing themselves, and were, without their knowledge, randomly assigned to one of two contest groups: (1) receive threatening feedback during the game (i.e. “you are the least likable person”), or (2) receive non-threatening / neutral feedback (i.e. “your opponent is the least liked”).  Afterward, mood of each participant was measured again.

The results: subjects whose self-views were initially inflated were emotionally crushed when they received threatening feedback during the game.  Same thing happened to those with deflated self-views. No such effect was found for non-threatening feedback.  The graph below shows just how significant the effect was; note that for the most inflated and most deflated self-views (+3 and -3 respectively), the mood swing is the most extreme.

 

 

This is interesting because it directly contradicts the notion that inflated self-views serve the function of protecting against the emotional impact of social threats (a.k.a. positive illusion theory, which suggests that the illusion of control is an adaptive function).  The findings of this study make a strong case that the exact opposite is true: inflated self-views increased, rather than decreased, emotional distress after threatening feedback.

Granted, this was a study of children who have had less life experience that tends to temper self-view.  But when you look around any office or social club, bar, etc., it’s easy to pick out exactly the same self-view inflation and deflation represented by these nine to 12 year olds.  Not to veer too cynical, but I’m thinking these results aren’t far off the mark for the adult world as well as the elementary and middle school worlds, and no less important.

Social Norm Psychology is a Potent Anti-violence Vaccine

An ambitious anti-crime program called “CeaseFire” just released study results on its effectiveness in inner-city Baltimore and Chicago. The program is based on the idea that killing is a disease psychologically transmitted from one person to another, particularly in economically deprived areas. 

The program employs a unique psychological angle, in that it chiefly targets potential retaliators of violence rather than all potential perpetrators of violence.  An epidemiological analogy might be a program that targets potential re-transmitters of HIV instead of a much broader population.

Outreach specialists (called “violence disruptors”) are trained to use social norm pressure to target those most likely to retaliate for violence committed against them or others close to them — as if stopping the transmission of a disease before it reaches the next host.   While that’s happening, other outreach specialists work on communicating the message in schools that retaliation isn’t “cool,” thus building a climate of social norm pressure against retaliatory violence.  The program also recruits reformed violent criminals to communicate the anti-violence message.

The results of the three-year study are impressive:

– Shootings and killings dropped between 41 and 73% in Baltimore and Chicago. Of that, study authors claim that 17-35% is attributable to CeaseFire alone

– Retaliated murders dropped 100% in 5 of 8 communities

– Overall violence was statistically reduced in every community

Evaluating effectiveness of programs like this is notoriously difficult.  For example, murder rates in Chicago have been falling overall since the 1990s.  It’s a massive research challenge to tease apart the drop in violence percentage attributable to the program versus what would have occurred anyway.  No surprise then that CeaseFire has has its share of detractors (not the least of which is the National Rifle Association).

But, the underlying theory is sound: changing social norms is a powerful way to change behavior. The reason, as discussed in a study in the journal Neuron, is that there appears to be a neural network in the brain associated with social norm compliance.  Strong messaging–including messages about punishment–activates this network to varying degrees, resulting in particular behavioral responses.  It would seem that CeaseFire has been successful in communicating messages that tap into this neural apparatus, eliciting genuine behavior change.

Moving forward, I wonder if this approach can be systematized to work in any given city — sort of an anti-violence social norming franchise. As with most public initiatives, I’m sure it’ll be a question of resources and will; the science seems to be in place.  

For more information, link to the New Scientist article about the program.

Painting with Your Brain While Not Moving a Muscle

I’m excited by the new wave of brain-computer interface systems that enable ‘locked-in’ patients, such as those with ALS and paralyzing injuries, to communicate, create art, compose music and other things never before possible. The videos below demonstrate two of these systems, BrainGate and a ‘brain-painting’ interface being developed at the University of Virginia. 

Noggin Raisers

I’ve been guest blogging at Neuroworld for the past week (hence the slight slowdown here…regular programming will resume soon). This set of Noggin Raisers is pulling double duty at both sites, so if you didn’t already see them there, you can catch them here.

If I had a hammer — I’d give it to a woman…because according to a new study, women are better at hammering nails than men.  At night.  Good to know.

Born to be wild — a study reconfirms what James Dean’s life already proved…teens who think they will die young are more likely to engage in risky behavior.

A memory is born! – for the first time, researchers have captured an image of a memory being made. This is cool.

Went right to my head — when it comes to booze, that’s truer than we think…six minutes and it’s there.

Now you see it, now you don’t — or maybe you do? Find out why we’re so bad at noticing changes in even familiar scenes.

Men overspend to attract mates — that’s what the new book Spent by Geoffrey Miller contends…yep, sounds about right .

Second guessing yourself could help you get better test grades — that’s what a new study suggests; the trick is to rethink your first choice from a different perspective and then find a happy medium between the choices. Full write up at the BPS Research Digest.

Battle of the geriatric brains — a new study claims that U.S. seniors are “smarter” than their English counterparts.  But do they drive any faster during rush hour? (sorry, bad joke)

A sucker goes bald every minute — the new “baldness calculator” is just another advertising mind screw. 

Big Pharma’s latest sales ploy– you guessed it, fMRI. Neuroscientist Robert Burton lifts the lid on the scheme over at Salon.

Low Seratonin = lousy mommy– mice with low S make horrible mommies, and a new study suggests that it’s the same for human moms. The answer – drugs that target the problem in the brain more precisely than Prozac, et al.

Is being bilingual always better? — nope, not always. Go watch the short movie at this link and find out why.

Endowment, my favorite sin– ever try on a pair of jeans in a dressing room and like them so much that you feel like you already own them?   Jonah Lehrer tells you why at the link above.

Your brain sees tools as an extension of your body –  that’s not a novel idea by any stretch, but a new study has produced convincing evidence that it may in fact be true.

How animals evolved to count – you probably knew that Arabian horses and Golden Retrievers can count, but how about salamanders and honey bees? Yes, indeed — but how (and, um, why)?

Grab a smoke and damage your brain — that’s what a new study is claiming; both puffing and chewing are suspects for nerve cell damage in your noggin.

If you want me to listen, talk to my right ear — why? because the left hemisphere of the brain is better at deciphering verbal communication, and a new study claims to link this advantage to right-ear hearing. Plus, you’ll be able to bum more cigarettes to damage your brain! (read the article and you’ll get that one.)

It’s Raining in My Brain – Why We’re Obsessed with the Weather

Note to those working on the reinvention of newspapers — stick to the weather.  Evidently, that’s what we Americans really care about most, or so the numbers in a just-released study seem to show.  From the LiveScience article about the study:

Although the number of forecasts an individual obtains varies significantly from day-to-day, depending on factors like weather events and planned daily activities, the researchers found that on average individuals received forecasts 3.8 times a day. These findings, when extrapolated to the total U.S. adult population of 226 million, indicate that Americans receive a yearly total of about 300 billion forecasts.

And not only are we awash in weather news, we also place a surprisingly high dollar value on weather forecasts — much more than it actually costs to provide them.

The survey indicated that households in this country place an average value of 10.5 cents on every weather forecast obtained. This equates to an annual value of $31.5 billion. In comparison, the cost of providing forecasts by government agencies and private companies is $5.1 billion.

So, what does this tell us about the psyche of the average news consumer?  On the face of it, it simply seems that we’re proccupied with knowing what’s coming next. But perhaps at a level beneath that concern, what we’re really preoccupied with is our mood.  According to a study from some years back entitled, “A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather,” the psychology of weather is more important than most of us think, affecting our moods and outlooks in substantial ways. From the study:

Humidity, temperature and hours of sunshine had the greatest effect on mood. High levels of humidity lowered scores on concentration while increasing reports of sleepiness. Rising temperatures lowered anxiety and scepticism mood scores. 

The number of hours of sunshine was found to predict optimism scores significantly. As the number of hours of sunshine increased, optimism scores also increased.

And there was a University of Michigan study in 2004 concluding that warm weather “boosts moods and broadens minds.”  According to that one, 72 degrees fahrenheit is the optimal mood-boost temperature, with mood fluctuations occurring at temps significantly higher or lower. 

Then there was this study (PDF) from 2005 entitled, “A Warm Heart and a Clear Head” that also makes a strong case for the weather-mood connection. From the study:

Pleasant weather (higher temperature or barometric pressure) was related to higher mood, better memory, and ‘‘broadened’’ cognitive style during the spring as time spent outside increased. The same relationships between mood and weather were not observed during other times of year, and indeed hotter weather was associated with lower mood in the summer.

Plenty of other research indicates the same thing, which leads me to believe that our rabid consumption of weather forecasts, and the high value we place on them, is about more than ensuring that we’ll have a sunny day at the beach.  I think we’re also trying to find out if it’ll be a sunny day in our heads.

The N-Effect: Competition Goes Up, Motivation Goes Down

Image via Stockbyte

Conventional wisdom has it that one of our mightiest competitive motivators is social comparison: we begin competing with others as soon as we compare ourselves to them. Whether the stakes are minuscule or massive, something in us wants to measure up inch for inch.  

New research published in the journal Psychological Science, however, shows that our competitive urges don’t engorge in a vacuum: the number of people we’re competing against has a direct effect on our motivation to compete. 

Here’s an illustration: Jessica takes a seat in a classroom with 10 other students. She looks around, evaluates the competitive landscape, and determines that her odds of doing well against this small group are good. The instructor passes out the particle physics exam and Jessica is off and running, motivated to score among the best in this class. 

Jason arrives at a different room to take his exam, and it’s a lot bigger than Jessica’s. In fact, it’s ten times as big, and Jason has to find a seat in a crowd of 100 students. He looks around and gulps. There’s no way to realistically compare himself to so many people.  The instructor passes out the exam and Jason begins without feeling a competitive edge.

The lack of motivation that Jason feels, in comparison to Jessica’s hyper motivated resolve, is the N-Effect.  Researchers assessed this effect through a series of five studies: the first examined SAT and CRT (Cognitive Reflective Test) scores in light of how many people took the tests in given venues over multiple years.  Even when controlling for other variables, researchers found a significant inverse correlation between the number of test takers and scores: the more people taking the test, the worse the scores.

Another study examined whether test takers, told to finish the test as quickly as possible, would finish their test faster when competing against 10 others, versus 100.  As predicted, the best scoring testers finished their tests significantly faster when competing against a smaller group. 

Yet another study compared the N-Effect to the effect of ratio bias (which leads people to think that it’s easier to draw one of 10 red jellybeans from a jar of 100 other colors, than to draw only one red jellybean from a jar containing 10 other colors, despite the equal probabilities of both outcomes).  Ratio bias is typically a within-subjects effect, and not a social-group effect, so the study was crafted to separate out the two to determine if the N-Effect would operate independently of ratio bias; as predicted, it does.

Of course, as with all research, there’s a long series of “yeah, buts” attached. The big one in this case is whether a given individual is more or less social-comparison oriented (SCO).  Returning to our imaginary test takers, maybe Jessica is just a hard-core SCO. If she’s in a room with 10 people, she’s a shark. With 100, more of a mullet.  And maybe Jason is a low-SCO soul. It could be that for him being in a room with 10 people wouldn’t be any more or less motivating than 100. 

But even with these individual differences acknowledged, this is still a quite interesting find — one that could yield better educational fruit if taken seriously.

Getting Your Variety On Keeps the Joy Rolling

It’s a cruel fact of human existence that with enough time, we can become bored with just about anything.  Whether it’s a new car or a new dog, a great Indian dish or a great song, eventually the initial pleasure fades into something more mundane. Which doesn’t necessarily mean we come to dislike the thing in question, but rather that we habituate to its once tantalizing allure and simply enjoy it less. Even sex (gasp!) isn’t immune.

But reseachers who conducted a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research think that they’ve found a cure for habituated boredom.  The trick, they say, is overcoming “variety amnesia” — our tendency to forget that we’ve been exposed to a variety of great things, be they people, food, music, movies, home furnishings or other — and instead focus our attention on the singular thing that no longer gives us the tingles. 

To shake ourselves free from this negative trap, we must “dishabituate” by forcing ourselves to remember the variety of things we’ve experienced.  So, for example, let’s say that you’ve become bored with a particular musical group you once couldn’t listen to enough. This research suggests that what you need to do it recall the variety of other songs from other musical groups that you’ve listened to since the last time you listened to your once-favorite band, and by doing so you’ll revive appreciation for your fave.  

The researchers call this little head trick a simulation of “virtual variety,” which reduces satiation — the lessening of satisfaction over time — in a way similar to that of experiencing actual variety.

The study included three experiments, one involving experience with people, one with songs, and the third with jellybeans (yes, jellybeans); in all three cases, exposure to virtual variety had the effect of increasing enjoyment of the original thing in question.

A previous study discussed here showed that if you’re debating between spending your money on an object or on an experience, you should go with the experience.  Experience usually includes connectedness with others, and over time the memories of the experience–and the feelings they elicit–have more staying power than the pleasure of owning something, which steadily decreases as we habituate. 

The takeaway from all of this is hardly new, but worth repeating: variety and experience keep Jack from becoming a dull boy. Bon appetit.