Monday Myth Busters [Familiarity/ Contempt]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Tomorrow I will be in Albany doing some politicking, so I’ll be out all day. It’s lobbying, but technically, I’m not allowed to lobby in my capacity as a worker in a non-profit organization. So, we call it “advocacy.”

We’re facing huge cuts at a time when people are most in need of our services. Welcome to Korporate Kristianity. You might think you’re only a temporarily embarrassed rich person in waiting, but the facts say otherwise.

BTW, check out my opinion piece over at the online magazine, Subversify (click here). I tackle the nuclear crisis unfolding in Japan.

* * *

-=[ Contemptuous Familiarity ]=-

Familiarity breeds contempt... and children.

-- Mark Twain

It’s a well-worn truth that familiarity breeds contempt... right? Right?

Wrong!

While it’s true enough that a person’s flaws can be more easily discerned the more you come to know them, all things being equal, familiarity by itself is more likely to breed comfort than contempt. That’s a more readable translation of the more researcher Robert Zajonc’s more clinical, “Repeated exposure is a sufficient condition of attitude adjustment.”

Zajonc gave experimental subjects a set of seven-letter Turkish words and, in a similar study, a set of Chinese characters. His subjects had no idea what the words meant, but they consistently said a word meant something nicer if they had seen it repeatedly. Likewise, after being shown yearbook photographs of male strangers, people said they liked the men whose photos had already been shown to them.

Since Zajonc’s studies, conducted in the 1960s, literally hundreds of independent studies have confirmed his findings. A meta-analysis of all these studies taken in the 1980s by another researcher concluded that Zajonc was right. There was one caveat, however: if the same stimulus is presented too often or for too long a time on each occasion, familiarity may breed boredom. This is especially to occur in young children who tend to prefer new words or pictures to those they have seen before.

Even for adults, of course, more encounters with someone or something you find distasteful to begin with aren’t going to change your mind or warm your heart. But where you have no aversion the maxim seems to be true -- as advertisers and political consultants know too well -- that we like things more as we get used to them.

In fact, if you were to follow the conservative talking points on any given day, they use this truth to great effect. Say it enough times and people will cozy to the idea that President Obama is a Muslim/ socialist/ Nigerian/ communist/ illegal alien/ anti-Christ. This is especially true if you’re predisposed to see African Americans or people of color as the “other.”

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...

Monday Myth Busters [Beauty is Only Skin Deep]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve been very lazy with writing lately. I’ve been using my laptop at home (I can’t write on those! LOL) and this weekend I finally started unpacking (after almost two months in the new place). My back is only beginning to get back to some semblance of normalcy, so I spent the past weekend painting and I finally started unpacking. First thing I did was unpack my monster Dell desktop.

Whew!

It feels good and I still have literally thousands of books to unpack and arrange... I’m investing in a shelf system that will go great with my decorating scheme and save space to boot. For furniture, I’m getting, yes, IKEA (futon frame, media solutions, dressers)... I’ll take photos and share when I’m finished.

* * *

-=[ Beauty is Only Skin Deep? ]=-

Beauty is only skin deep, and the world is full of thin-skinned people.

-- Richard Armour (1906–1989)

In the early 70s researchers showed that we project various positive characteristics on good-looking people. The study, “What is Beautiful is Good,” literally launched a movement in social psychology and since then, reams of studies have been published on a major self-fulfilling prophecy: Because attractive people are treated as if they have more to offer, they live up to those expectations. Conversely (and sadly), the reverse is true for those not pleasing to look at.

The 1972 study had researchers asking sixty college students to describe people solely on the basis of their photographs. Those whom the researchers took to be the most attractive were rated as socially more desirable were expected to have more prestigious jobs and happier marriages.

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking that surely that’s just the prejudice of the raters, right? It wouldn’t be fair if good-looking people had other things going for them, as well. Well, since when has life been fair? LOL Over the years, researchers have secretly judged the attractiveness of their subjects, measured them on a range of personality variables, and then looked for a relationship for the two. They have rarely been disappointed. Attractive people have turned out to have higher self-esteem, to be happier, less neurotic, and more resistant to peer pressure, than less attractive people. They also have more influence on others; are more valued as friends, colleagues, and lovers; get higher salaries; are dealt with les harshly in court; and are thought by their students to be superior teachers. While not all of these findings have been consistent for males and females, the overall pattern for both sexes is that beauty is definitely more than skin deep.

Even more depressing: Attractiveness is related to the perception (perhaps even the reality) of serious mental disorders. Researchers at the University of Tulsa discovered that students assumed ugly people were more likely than others to be psychologically disturbed. The lead researcher then made a point of telling another group of students that unattractiveness was unrelated to disturbance; he explicitly asked them to disregard this factor. Regardless, they, too, rated unattractive people as more troubled. Another researcher stopped people on the street and asked them to fill out a questionnaire assessing the likelihood that they, themselves, would eventually develop psychological disorders. His findings showed that “increasing attractiveness was related to a decreasing perceived risk of mental illness.”

The problem with these predictions is that they may be right. A study of female psychiatric patients uncovered that they were relatively unattractive compared to other women. It wasn’t that their misfortunes had ruined their looks: Even before they were diagnosed as mentally ill, the less-appealing women had had relationships that were more difficult. And among the patient population, those who were viewed as particularly unattractive were also the ones who had been committed for a longer period of time and had received a more serious diagnosis. Another study of a similar group of patients found them less attractive than their peers even back in high school, based on yearbook photographs.

Of course, all this may happen because appearance affects how we interact with people from the very beginning. Adults are more likely to look at, touch, and hold infants that are deemed “cute,” and this preference for beauty persists. As one researcher from the University of Hawaii put it, “the way we treat attractive versus unattractive people shapes the way they think about themselves, and, as a consequence, the kind of people they become.”

Love,

Eddie

References

For a comprehensive review of the literature see Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1986). Mirror, mirror. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Hatfield, E., & Rapson, R. L. (2000). Physical attractiveness. In W. E. Craighead & C. B. Nemeroff (Eds.), The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology and behavioral science (Vol. 3, pp. 1203-1205). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Obedience to Authority

¡Hola! Everybody…
I’m running late. As usual, I’ll be in prison selling liberation for most of the day.

With the passage of the racist Arizona immigration law aka as SB 1070, I thought the following post on obedience studies was relevant. I realize that comparisons to Nazi Germany often kills an argument -- everybody does it. However, there are instances where the comparisons are not only well-deserved, but especially relevant. As I highlighted recently (click here), Arizona is now suffering the consequences of some of the most pathetic, ill-advised economic measures in recent memory. Today, the state of Arizona has codified the scapegoating of Latino/as, regardless of legal status, for those mistakes. That's how it starts...

* * *

-=[ Obedience ]=-

Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power.

-- Martin Buber (1878–1965)

I sometimes work as a motivational speaker. Most of this work involves other professionals, but oftentimes, I’m asked to address young people. A colleague once asked me to substitute for her at an elementary school. The topic was substance abuse and she had a plan all worked out.

Of course, I discarded her curriculum and proceeded to wing it. LOL!

I’ve always been interested in group behavior and the following is how I “teach” about peer pressure.

Please do not try this at home, you’re not trained, and you can do more harm than good if you practice without a license.

Normally, I wait until students file into the class, and those that are “late” (as defined by me) are asked to wait right outside the door. Before all this, I have taken the liberty of drawing three lines on the blackboard. One line is obviously shorter than the rest. It’s not blatantly shorter, but short enough to notice upon inspection.

Before I allow the “late” students in, I address the class and tell them that they will be my co-conspirators in an experiment on social behavior. I point to the lines and ask, “Which of these lines is the shortest?” Of course, a few students raise their hands and correctly identify the shorter line. Once a consensus has been reached, I tell the students that I am now going to allow the “late” students in and ask them the same question. However, I instruct the class to agree that the shortest line is not the shortest line, that it is, in fact, the same size as the other lines.

At this point, I allow the “late” students in and proceed to ask them the same question. Again, the late students are all in agreement as to which is the shortest line. Then I ask my co-conspirators and one by one, they all say that none of the lines is shortest, that they all are, in fact, the same size.

I ask the late students once again, “Are you sure this line is the shortest?” What often happens is that one by one, the late students experience pressure to fall in line with the consensus of the majority. Some will stick to their guns, but most will fall under the pressure of the power of the group. At this point, I disclose our little conspiracy and then turn to the class and say, “This is what peer pressure feels like.”

The rest of the workshop is dedicated to exploring those feelings, and how that pressure can be used as a way to do almost anything against our will -- drugs, sex, violence, voting for idiots, using immigrants or those we perceive as different as scapegoats, etc.

It’s a powerful way to illustrate the power of the group. If you ask, most people will tell you that they would never succumb to the group. However, studies show that the vast majority of you will obey authority. Even to the point of murder.

Obedience to Authority

I work with currently and formerly or currently incarcerated men and women. I came about this work more through flow than an actual conscious decision. In fact, I was initially reluctant to work with this population because 1) It’s an extremely challenging group to work with, and 2) even those motivated to change face huge systemic obstacles to successful social reintegration. Nowhere is this issue of obedience to authority more clearly illustrated than in prison settings. One experiment, The Stanford Prison Experiment (click here), led by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, had to be abandoned within a couple of days because, normal college students role playing corrections officers were abusing the students role playing the inmates, and the students role-playing the inmates were plotting a prison breakout. It’s a totally engrossing study.

However, the study which I have found the most interesting is one you may have heard about. Anyone who has taken any psych 101 course will have heard of Stanley Milgram, who shocked the world in the early 1960s with his discoveries at Yale while conducting what became known as The Obedience Experiments (click here). In brief, he found that average, presumably normal, groups of residents of New Haven, Connecticut, would readily inflict very painful, and probably deadly, electric shocks on an innocent victim whose actions did not merit such harsh treatment.

The experiment, supposedly dealing with the effects of punishment on learning, required that the subjects shock a learner every time he made an error on a verbal learning task, and to increase the intensity of the shock in 15-volt steps, from 15 to 450 volts, on each subsequent error. The results: 65% of the subjects continued to obey the experimenter to the end, simply because they were commanded to.

Groundbreaking and controversial, these experiments have had enduring relevance, because they demonstrated with stunning clarity that ordinary individuals could be induced by an authority figure to act destructively, even in the absence of physical force, and that it didn’t take evil or aberrant individuals to carry out mass actions that were immoral and inhumane.

Milgram’s findings have had the effect of making us more aware of our vulnerability to manipulation in the face of social pressure, in the process making us reshape our individual morality. While I’m sure most of you reading this would like to think that when confronted with a moral dilemma we would act in line with our conscience, Milgram’s experiments taught us -- with shocking, irrefutable detail -- that, in a concrete situation containing powerful social pressures, our moral sense can get trampled underfoot.

And this is how evil happens; we allow it to happen through acquiescence, obedience, and not wanting to “rock the boat.” This how that Iraqi child today is killed through no fault of his own, it’s how some of us defend a law that targets people based on skin color; how the twin Black and Jewish holocausts come to be…

Love

Eddie

The Conservative Mindset, pt. II

¡Hola! Everybody...
Every once in a while, the online/ offline mewling from the right compels me to post the following.

Edmund Burke promoted the worldview that informed modern conservatism: That people are essentially evil and need a strong controlling force to prevent them from acting out their evil nature (that is, unless you’re rich). Such a force, continued Burke, should (appropriately) come from those have inherited wealth or lawfully obtained wealth, religious, or political power. In addition, Burke believed that a permanent underclass with little power and a permanent power elite with great power would produce the greatest social good because it will ensure social stability. Conservatives want to conserve the status quo. Or as that fabulous racist, William J. Buckley, once implied: conservatives “sit athwart history.”

My observation is that no one is fully conservative or liberal. We tend to fluctuate according to different situations. However, conservatism comes from somewhere -- it is founded on a certain worldview encompassing notions of the origins of human nature. What follows is an attempt to peek behind the curtain.

* * *

-=[ The Conservative Mindset, pt. II ]=-

“Contempt is not a thing to be despised.”

-- Edmund Burke (1729–1797) “Father” of conservatism

In 2003, a group of researchers published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003) that caused an immediate shit storm. Because some government grants were involved in funding the research, conservatives, who at the time controlled all branches of the US government, took an immediate and unfriendly “interest” in the paper. It would seem that they did not particularly care for the results of the research, and threats were made about preventing further “waste of government money” to fund research into the conservative mindset.

[Note: The papers are posted on the internet: click here and here to access PDF versions]

The study was “biased” against conservatives, they insisted! As usual, right-wingers went into their feces-flinging act, outraged that anyone would dare quantify the obvious and actually show they are an emotionally unstable group. ::grin::

Well, it’s not as if we didn’t suspect all along that something was wrong with the likes of Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Lush Rimbaugh, that Michelle Bachmann twat, Sarah Palin and the rest of the Flock of Fools.

The study, funded jointly by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institute of Health (NIH), examined a mindset that the authors were polite enough to refer to as political conservatism. What they were really studying were the right wing wackos who had taken over the GOP and in the process threatening to turn America into a third-rate fascist state (stuff like torture, shredding of the Constitution, spying on US citizens, etc.).

Sensing that their study might cause a slight discomfort among the more sensitive of our conservative brethren (really: they lit up like rabid chimps going ape on considerate neighbors) went to great lengths to reassure one and all that they weren’t calling right wingers a bunch of psychotic, destructive nuts. Obviously, they weren’t studying the right-wingers we see most often on the internets. Essentially, the researchers culled through 50 years of research literature on the psychology of conservatism and reported that at the core of political conservatism is resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Need for cognitive closure
• Terror management

The authors wrote, “Our first assumption, too, is that conservative ideologies -- like virtually all other belief systems -- are adopted in part because they satisfy some psychological needs. This does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled.”

Still, that didn’t stop right-wingers from losing their minds and screaming for the scalps of the researchers. Right-wing radio hosts howled and frothed at the mouth, demanding an immediate investigation into the funding streams, and they were accused, with no regard to rhyme nor reason, of being anti-American and anti-Christian and probably for gay rights, killing babies, and gun control to boot.

OK, let’s try to forget Beck and Lush Rimbaugh for a moment. Sure, there are conservatives who aren’t sadistic amoral sociopaths. Shit, in real life, I know some. I even have conservative friends, although I did warn my sister not to marry my former brother-in-law.

On a serious note, what the researchers were looking at were what could be termed “political fundamentalists.” They tend to be reactionary, paranoid, authoritarian, intolerant, and contemptuous of rules that don’t suit them. While there are left-wing examples, the authors found that they generally gravitate toward fascism and call it conservatism, even though it’s usually better described as radical reactionaries. In any case, the researchers found that left-wingers are less likely to exhibit these traits.

The authors define the two core principles of conservatism as resistance to change, and acceptance of social inequality. Conservatives, they argue, cling tightly to a status quo (“traditional values”), real or imagined, and regard society as hierarchical. Not unsurprisingly, they tend to believe they have inherited and/or merited preferential positions in this hierarchy.

The authors address what they call the “conservative paradox” of radical reactionarism (e.g., Hitler, Mussolini) by pointing out that their calls for extreme inequality in the social order were superimposed with promises to lead the country back to an ideal past, one in which “traditional” values and morality reigned It occurs to me that our present-day right-wing reactionaries continuously evoke a traditional America that never existed: where everyone was a god-fearing generic protestant, people with accents lived in the poor part of town and never bothered folks except to mow their lawn, and women and blacks knew their place. The code for this is embedded in the current caterwauling from teabaggers who want to take their country back.

This goes with what I believe is a hallmark of the fundamentalist mindset: the ability to subsume a philosophy to suit personal needs. In Christianity and Islam, for example, you have religions that place high premiums on respect for fellow humans, peace, and personal integrity. Yet fundamentalists are frequently the most violent, dishonest, and intolerant people around. Furthermore, they often use their religion to rationalize their repulsive behavior. In conservatism, you see people who champion the Bill of Rights, “small government,” and a laissez faire approach to economics, while loudly cheering for a gross militarism and tax structures that have been shown to benefit only the richest five percent of the population.

This emotional and intellectual contradiction is how conservatives are able to condemn what they perceive as dishonest and immoral behavior on Obama’s part (i.e., “tax cheats”) while at the same time accepting that Bush lied his way into a needless and foolish war while declaring that he was “fighting a war on terrorism.” It’s how Republicans can damn Democrats as being fiscally irresponsible even while they ignored Bush’s disastrous conservative fiscal policies that drove the global economy to an economic collapse the likes of which has never been seen. One need only point out conservatives’ vilification of Obama for a deficit that he didn’t cause while ignoring Bush’s reckless tax cuts to see this paradox at work.

One of the more interesting issues in the paper is “The Theory of RWA ,” in which the authors consider the Authoritarian Personality. They state, “harsh parenting styles brought on by economic hardship led entire generations to repress hostility toward authority figures and to replace it with an exaggerated deference and idealization of authority and tendencies to blame society scapegoats and punish deviants.”

Angry, repressed, passive-aggressive, with an overwhelming desire to punish those who don’t conform.

Yup, sounds like our boys!

This may not stop people from growing up to be right-wingers. Many people can no more choose to be conservative than they can choose their sexual orientation. But hey, you can't say I didn't try.

Coming up next are treatments on black conservatives, and the genetic foundations of personality and political affiliations.

References

Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 339-375.

Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003 ). Exceptions that prove the rule -- using a theory of motivated social cognition to account for ideological incongruities and political anomalies: Reply to Greenberg and Jonas (2003). Psychological Bulletin, 129(3), 383-393.