Hedonist Philosopher Epicurus Was Right About Happiness (Mostly)
[Image credit: mharrsch]
"If a little is not enough for you, nothing is." --EpicurusPhilosophers down the ages have been keen to tell the rest of us how to live and how to be happy. Certainly their advice comes to us with the lustre of intellectual achievement; it is both high-brow and high-powered, but can we understand any of it and how does it fare against modern psychological research?
One philosopher who dispensed clear advice about how to live a happy life was Epicurus, a Greek who lived in the third century B.C.. In a new article in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Bergsma, Poot and Liefbroer (in press) explain Epicurus' guide to the good life and then compare it with some of the huge body of work in psychology looking at satisfaction with life.
Especially now as we launch ourselves into a New Year it is worth thinking about what both philosophy and psychology have to teach us about how to live the good life.
Epicurean hedonism
Epicurus was a hedonist, but not in the popular modern sense. Now we tend to associate hedonism with excessive pleasure-seeking or with refined sensual pleasure. What Epicurus meant, though, was something more subtle; he certainly didn't think the road to happiness was paved with luxury or material wealth. What he emphasised was the idea of being 'untroubled'.
Epicurus thought pleasure and pain were at the centre of human morality. His view was that pleasure and pain are so important to human existence that all our actions are governed by seeking pleasure and trying to avoid pain. Epicurus also saw the absence of pain as a pleasure in itself.
Of course there is both bodily or physical pain and there is psychological pain. Epicurus emphasised the idea of being 'untroubled' over the positive experiences of pleasure. He thought the good life could be achieved through satisfaction that both body and mind are at peace.
Self-help, Epicurean style
So far so good for the abstract philosophical concepts, but what about practicalities? How exactly did Epicurus think we could bring peace to both mind and body?
In order to keep the body content and the mind free from fears, he advocated a 'four-part cure':
1. Don't fear the gods (or fate, or blind chance)
Surprisingly, Epicurus' approach to the gods fits in well even in our godless times. For Epicurus the gods were already in a state of bliss and therefore aren't bothered with human activities. We therefore have nothing to fear from them and should also expect nothing from them.
If you are not a religious person, then perhaps this edict is better thought of as: don't fear fate or blind chance, because neither of them care about us.
Practically, then, it is up to each of us to create order in our lives, because the gods (or fate or chance) will not do it for us. We must meet our own needs and manage threats that inevitably arise.
2. Don't worry about death
Easier said than done maybe but Epicurus had a rational approach to death. He saw it as the end of sense experience, as a point of transition which should not concern us. While we are alive death is not important as it does not yet exist; in other words, we're still alive! Equally when we're dead, we can no longer experience anything so it's still not important (Epicurus didn't believe in life after death or the soul's immortality).
3. What is good is easy to get
This is a controversial one but couldn't be more relevant in today's consumer culture. Here Epicurus makes an important distinction between what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Necessary and natural things include the basics of life like food and shelter. Unnecessary and unnatural things include fame, excessive wealth or honours.
Even within the necessary things Epicurus made a distinction between the necessary and the unnecessary. For example bread will satisfy hunger just as well as lobster. Unfortunately getting a taste for lobster might well prove a recipe for future unhappiness, say when you can't afford it any more. Bread, though, will usually remain in most people's price range.
That said, Epicurus wasn't totally against the odd indulgence. Indeed he thought that someone who could enjoy the simple pleasures of life would enjoy extravagance even more when it came along. Generally, however, he was very much in favour of moderation.
Epicurus thought the beauty of learning to love the simple life was that it is much more durable. When you don't get the promotion, can't repay the mortgage or lose it all in a game of cards, it's much easier to shrug it off. The more you have (or want), the more you have to lose (or fail to get).
4. What is terrible is easy to endure
Epicurus thought that even physical pain could be endured by using the mind. Focussing on pleasure, both that experienced in the past and that to come in the future, can help distract us from current bodily discomfort.
Apart from this four-part cure there were a number of other important strands to Epicurus' philosophy.
Philosophy
Unsurprisingly Epicurus thought the study of philosophy was central to happiness. Philosophy can help us deal with both our fear of death and our fear of the gods.
Friendship
Epicurus thought friendship was one of the most important aspects of the good life. Not only does it give us many benefits, it also benefits our friends as well.
In contrast, Epicurus advised against getting married. He wasn't that impressed with sex either saying we should count ourselves lucky if sex didn't cause anyone any harm(!).
Prudence
Here in the UK the word 'prudence' is a cliche thanks to its overuse by former Chancellor and current Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. But actually the idea of prudence was highly valued by Epicurus.
Prudence for Epicurus is an excellent way of making decisions. All decisions can be seen as leading to pleasure or pain. Thinking ahead, planning for the future with these possible outcomes in mind will help lead to a pleasurable life.
Security
Here Epicurus was concerned with how best to secure peace of mind for ourselves when our neighbours provide a threat, at both the individual and societal levels. Epicurus advised that the best solution was to lead a private life without engaging in politics, business or law. Instead, Epicurus advised surrounding oneself with like-minded friends with whom social contracts could ensure a quiet life. Epicurus himself chose to live in a commune.
Modern psychology's view of Epicurean self-help
So, was Epicurus right? We can get an idea by comparing his advice with what modern psychology has observed from a huge body of research on life satisfaction (Bergsma, Poot & Liefbroer, in press).
Before piling on the praise, let's look at the negative points. While doing so, though, it's worth remembering that Epicurus' advice is more than two millennia old. Needless to say, society has changed more than a bit since then.
1. Epicurus was wrong about the detached life and commune living
The reason Epicurus counselled against getting involved in society was that he thought it was a source of stress and unhappiness. Historically, argue Bergsma and colleagues, the time in which Epicurus lived was politically volatile and his advice made sense in that context. Nowadays, though, in relatively peaceful societies, this is less relevant.
Modern research shows there is a correlation between higher levels of happiness and those who are more involved in society. Epicurus' advice was probably more relevant in his own time than it is now. Bergsma and colleagues also argue that living in a commune, where essentially one size is supposed to fit all, will not suit many people.
2. Epicurus was wrong about avoiding marriage
Generally speaking married people, and people who live together as if they're married, are happier. This is a gross generalisation and needs to be acknowledged as such. For example, nowadays in many societies people are much more likely to divorce, and divorce is often very bad for happiness.
Even taking this into account, though, Bergsma and colleagues argue that people are more happy if they give marriage a try and fail, than if they never tried. The worst that can be said of marriage is, on average, it doesn't make us any less happy.
3. Pleasure is not the opposite of pain
Modern psychology has revealed that pleasure isn't the absence of pain, rather positive and negative affect are independent. Positive emotions have so many other positive knock-on effects that Epicurus is probably wrong to downplay them in favour of the absence of pain.
To take just one example, positive affect increases activity and sociability which are both highly likely to lead to greater happiness in the long-term.
What Epicurus got right
Epicurus was, though, right about a lot, including:
1. Using cognitive strategies to deal with death and pain
Some things in life we can't change - the fact that we will die is one of them, for some people pain and/or disease is another. Epicurus advised that we should deal with these through acceptance and adjusting our attitude. This clearly chimes with modern cognitive-behavioural therapy which focuses on changing psychological responses to inevitable stressors.
2. Friendships matter more than status or money
Social bonds are highly correlated with happiness, whereas having more money doesn't necessarily equal higher happiness. See this study I reported recently.
3. Happiness comes from moderate varied pleasure
Recent experimental evidence has shown that varied enjoyable day-to-day activities lead to increased levels of happiness (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006)
Well done Epicurus!
Altogether I don't think that's too bad a showing for two-thousand-year-old advice! I would argue that Epicurus' only serious blunder was thinking that pleasure is the opposite of pain and that pain should be avoided at all costs. The advice about avoiding marriage and leading a detached life were probably historically accurate but now redundant pieces of advice.
On the other hand the importance of friendship, varied activities and cognitive strategies were all pretty much on the spot. When you consider that his main aim was helping people avoid unnecessary unhappiness, he actually did rather well.
» Read more on the science of happiness.
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References
Bergsma, A., Poot, G., & Liefbroer, A. C. (in press) Happiness in the Garden of Epicurus. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-27.
Labels: Happiness, Positive Psychology
At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness
[Image credit: pablo perez]
Across a crowded room your eyes lock with an attractive stranger. You look away, you look back. The first hint of a smile plays across their lips. Suddenly you're nervous, your mind goes blank, you want to go over and you want to run away, both at the same time. You turn around too fast, bump into someone, almost spilling your drink. 'Wow,' you think as you recover, 'Now, that's what I'm talking about!'.
And...cut.
Unfortunately I have to bring you out of this little scene to ask a question. Do you think you'd be able to accurately describe why you find this person attractive? Indeed how good are we in general at pinpointing what it was about others that attracts us?
Although it's a fascinating question, little is known. But if you've been following this series on the hidden workings of the mind you'll already have a clue to the answer. Indeed, it's these studies reviewed by Nisbett and Wilson (1977) that inspired Johansson, Hall, Sikstrom and Olsson (2005) to set up a neat little investigation aimed at the heart of attraction.
Choosing between two women
The procedure for this experiment was very simple. The experimenter showed willing participants (about half men, half women) pairs of female faces on playing-card-sized photos, one in each hand. Participants pointed to whichever of the two faces they found most attractive. The experimenter then passed the card to the participants and asked them to describe exactly why they found that face attractive.
But wait, this is a psychology experiment, so there's a twist in the tail.
Sometimes, when the experimenter passed the card to participants, there was a little sleight of hand involved. This resulted in the participant staring at the female face they didn't choose.
So, now some people were being asked to justify a decision that, in reality, they hadn't made. Or most of them were - 13% spotted the trick and their data wasn't analysed as their heightened suspicion might have affected their reports.
The experimenters, therefore, got two sets of reports:
- The first set from participants who were handed the photo they originally chose, who then explained why they preferred it.
- The other set from participants who were handed one they didn't choose, who then had to explain why they preferred that one.
Guess the outcome
Before you read the results, have a think about what you might expect. Surely if we were handed the photo with a face we didn't choose, and didn't notice it wasn't the same face, our enthusiasm would at least be dampened.
Perhaps the information would be processed unconsciously leading to a subtle difference in how we report our inner thoughts. For example, we might be more uncertain or more vague about why we preferred this face. After all we didn't prefer this face!
The experimenters worked under the same assumption and used these three criteria to assess any differences between the two groups:
- Emotionality: how emotionally engaged participants were with their reports.
- Specificity: how specific participants were with their reports.
- Certainty: how sure they were about the choice they made.
Results
Analysing participants' reports, they couldn't find any difference between the two groups. Both the participants looking at the photo they chose and those looking at the one they didn't both seemed sure of their reasons, used equal specificity, and equal emotionality. It seemed there was no clue in participants' verbal reports of the old switcheroo.
Petter Johansson and colleagues give this phenomena a snappy new name: choice blindness. This, then, is the idea that under certain circumstances we are actually oblivious to the choice we have made.
This 'blindness' was also seen in participants' actual reports of why they preferred one face over the other. Sometimes there was a bleed-through from one face to the other. For example one person said they preferred the woman because she was smiling. In fact it was their original choice, and not the one they were holding who had a slight smile on her face.
Other times participants appeared to have made up the reason why they preferred one over the other. One person said they preferred a woman wearing earrings. In fact only the woman they were shown was wearing earrings, not the original woman they chose.
A little philosophy of science
For a scientist, this experiment leaves a slightly bad taste in the mouth. This is because it relies on drawing a conclusion from an absence; an absence of a difference between the two groups. Scientists frown on this sort of thing because showing that something exists is possible, but showing it doesn't is impossible. Hence, the endless debates over psychic phenomena.
So we have to be cautious about this experiment. Just because there is no difference in the verbal reports between the two groups, a difference could still exist at either an unconscious or even a conscious level.
Electricity in the air
Nevertheless, I think this experiment does speak to a pervasive human experience. That is, the inability to describe what is attractive about another person. That's probably why we end up using such vague words like 'energy', 'magnetism' or 'electricity'. Perhaps we genuinely don't know.
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
- The Hidden Workings of Our Minds
- Our Secret Attitude Changes
- Why Problem Solving Itself is a Puzzle, Even to Poincare and Picasso
- What We Don't Know About Shopping, Reading, Watching TV and Judging People
- When We Are Fools to Ourselves
- » At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness
» If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS).
References
Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikstrom, S., & Olsson, A. (2005). Failure to Detect Mismatches Between Intention and Outcome in a Simple Decision Task. Science, 310(5745), 116-119.
When We Are Fools to Ourselves
[Image credit: Andrew Mason]
Accessing our own higher mental processes is often difficult. Psychologists have found it easy to manipulate the reasons we give for decisions, judgements or actions. Worse than this, even when we're not actively being manipulated, we regularly fool ourselves without the need of any encouragement. But are these mistakes systematic in any way? Nisbett and Wilson (1977) provide five factors likely to have a huge effect on how accurately we report our own higher mental processes. These give us useful clues about when we're most likely to be fooling ourselves.
1. Time
Many of our actions, thoughts and feelings are probably motivated by things that happened a long time ago. The problem is that over time we easily forget. Even things that only happened relatively recently may also pass quickly out of conscious thought, and so we don't consider them potential motivators.
The reverse is also true. When cause and effect are close together we've got a much better chance of picking up on it.
2. Mechanics of judgements
Sometimes the mechanics of our thoughts are just plain weird. A good example is the study that found shoppers, when choosing their favourite from four identical pairs of stockings, were heavily biased towards the pair on the right (described here under 'shopping').
There are all sorts of strange biases like this and they make it much harder for us to guess what's going on in our own minds.
3. When nothing happens
Sometimes it's of vital importance when nothing happens. For example if someone doesn't like us they are usually not directly hostile, but they will often avoid showing friendly behaviours towards us. In this situation it's hard to tell because an absence of something is difficult to spot.
Conversely it's much easier to guess that someone doesn't like us when they walk up and punch us on the nose. Then we get the message real quick.
4. Nonverbal
There's all kinds of nonverbal behaviours that effect us. These include the exact type of smile we display, and even how we synchronise our body language with others.
But because nonverbal behaviours are much less likely to be consciously noticed, they are far less likely to be thought the cause of our thoughts or behaviour than, say, a direct statement or act.
This fact probably helps to explain why we sometimes only get a vague feeling that a person doesn't like us. This information will often be primarily conveyed through their body language which we only process unconsciously.
5. Mismatch between cause and effect
Sometimes great effects are produced by tiny causes. Think of the metaphor used to explain Chaos Theory about the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings over China causing a huge storm in another part of the world.
Intuitively these sorts of explanations don't appeal to us. Great effects should have great causes. Because of this we're likely to miss the connection between cause and effect when there is a mismatch in size.
Road to self-knowledge
Knowing about each of these biases is more than abstractly interesting, it is genuinely helpful in everyday life. It is sometimes easy to form the impression that we know the reasons for the things we do and think. Continually feeding this misapprehension is our need to feel in control of ourselves.
In fact, as this series of posts shows, there are a whole variety of situations where we have little or no clue what's going on in our minds. While it's not always beneficial to announce to other people we have no clue why we made a particular decision or performed a particular act, it's extremely useful to admit this to ourselves. Or, at the very least, to be sceptical about the reasons we attribute to our thoughts and behaviours.
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
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References
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84(3), 231-259.
Can You Recommend an Online Support Group?
[Image credit: What What]
For some common mental health problems people are good at helping each other without the need for professionals. Research has shown face-to-face support groups can be effective for people with depression, chronic mental illness and bereavement. But for those who can't get to a face-to-face support group, or don't want to, there's another rapidly growing option: online support groups.
Almost one in five Americans over the age of 18 with internet access have become members of online support groups (Pew Internet Research Institute, 2005). While no figures are available for the UK, there could be as many as 8 million members. There are almost certainly many millions more using online support groups around the world.
The problem is finding decent groups - it's not easy to talk about sensitive personal issues with strangers, even given the anonymity provided by the internet.
Because of this I'd like to compile a list of support groups, especially ones that are largely based in the UK or made up of participants in the UK. Perhaps you know of an online support group or are a member or administrator of one?
What type of online support group?
I'm particularly interested in online support groups with the following characteristics:
- Mostly based in the UK or having a large number of UK participants.
- Reasonably well-established or already with plenty of activity.
- Aimed at those suffering from common mental health problems like anxiety, depression and phobias.
- Providing a warm and supportive atmosphere.
- Mostly involving participants (not mental health professionals) giving and receiving help.
Please remember that you don't need to register or reveal your identity to post a comment to this blog. Simply click 'post a comment' below and then 'anonymous' on the next page. If you prefer to email me directly, my email address is here - I will, of course, thoroughly respect your privacy.
One UK based online support group I'm already aware of is Touching Minds. I also know there are many yahoo groups but I'm not sure which ones meet the criteria above.
Alternatively perhaps you know of a good guide to online support groups? All ideas are welcome...
References
Pew Internet Research Institute (2005). A decade of adoption: How the internet has woven itself into American life.
Labels: Depression
What We Don't Know About Shopping, Reading, Watching TV and Judging People
[Photo by zebtron]
Psychology studies that rely on deceiving participants have shown we often have little clue what's going on in our own minds. But what about in everyday situations where trickery isn't involved? Here are four everyday situations - shopping, reading, watching TV and judging other people - and four experiments that show how little we know in each situation about what's really going on in our minds (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
Shopping
For this study researchers set themselves up in a mall pretending to carry out a consumer survey on nightgowns and nylon stockings. Passersby were asked to evaluate what they were told were four different nightgowns and four different pairs of stockings. In fact, all four items were identical.
Quite by accident they discovered a positional effect for the identical goods: people seemed to prefer the item that was on the far right. In fact this effect was really obvious for the stockings. The right-most pair, although identical to the left-most was preferred by a factor of four to one.
When asked why they had chosen a particular item, no one mentioned its position. Even when experimenters suggested to people that the position might have an effect, most participants looked at best very confused and at worst utterly dismissive.
Result: these people didn't have a clue why they preferred one identical pair of stockings over another.
Reading
In this study participants read a passage from the novel 'Rabbit, Run' by John Updike. The extract from the book involves an emotionally charged scene in which an alcoholic mother, while washing her baby in the bath, accidentally drowns and kills her.
Four conditions were used:
- The scene was presented in its entirety
- A part of the scene - a description of the baby's messy crib - was deleted.
- A different part of the scene - a physical description of the baby - was deleted.
- Both (2) and (3)
Afterwards participants rated the emotional impact of the particular passage they had read. Comparing the ratings of the participants in the four conditions showed that there was barely any difference between emotional ratings (certainly nothing statistically significant). It seemed the emotional impact of the extract was unaffected by deleting either or both of these sections.
Then, if they were in condition 2, 3, or 4 participants were shown the parts that had been deleted and asked if it would have made any difference to the emotional impact of the extract if they had been included.
Here's what they found:
- Every participant in condition 4 thought the emotional impact would have been increased if the deleted parts had been included.
- 86% of those in condition 2 thought the emotional impact would have been increased if the missing part was included.
- Two-thirds of those in condition 3 thought the emotional impact would have been increased if the missing part was included.
Result: participants thought a particular small part of the scene would increase the overall emotional impact of an extract from a story. In fact it made no measurable difference at all.
Watching TV
This was similar to the previous study on reading. Except in this one, the experimental group were distracted from watching TV by both a noise outside and poor focus on the TV.
The results, while not as comprehensive as the reading study, still showed that more than half of the participants thought the noise had impaired their interest in the film or judgement of the people in it. In fact the ratings from the control group again showed that it hadn't affected their judgement at all.
Result: participants thought distractions impaired their enjoyment of a TV program - in fact it made no difference.
Judging other people
In a study I reported recently on 'the halo effect' student's judgements of a lecturer's accent, mannerisms and physical appearance were all affected by his apparent likeability. But, again, when interviewed afterwards, the participants were completely unaware of what had influenced their judgements.
In fact many thought it was his accent, physical appearance and mannerisms that had affected his likeability.
Hidden workings
Altogether these four studies show how little access we have to unconscious processes during everyday activities. The first and last, about shopping and judging others, both show how we often fail to spot effects that are really there. The second two, on reading and watching TV, show how we sometimes assume effects are there, when really they're not.
This is just a sample of some of the studies reported by Nisbett and Wilson back in the late 70s. There have been many more similar results since. They all help to reinforce the fact that in real-life everyday situations we often have little or no access to our own thought processes.
We probably spend much of our lives making plausible but ultimately incorrect guesses about the inner workings of our minds.
Same ol', same ol', eh?
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
- The Hidden Workings of Our Minds
- Our Secret Attitude Changes
- Why Problem Solving Itself is a Puzzle, Even to Poincare and Picasso
- » What We Don't Know About Shopping, Reading, Watching TV and Judging People
- When We Are Fools to Ourselves
- At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness
» If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS).
References
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84(3), 231-259.
Is Happier Always Better? Socially Yes, Financially No
[Photo by Huro Kitty]
People around the world value happiness - that is, feeling good - above intelligence, success and even material wealth (Diener & Oishi, 2006). This makes sense because happiness is associated with so many positive outcomes: satisfaction with personal relationships, better jobs, better performance in those jobs and a higher income. But happiness is much more complex than this. For example dissatisfaction with our current job probably helps motivate us to get a better one. A person who is happy with their job is less likely to strive for a change. In our relationships, though, less happiness might encourage us to chop and change our partner, perhaps leading to a less satisfactory social life.
What, then, is the optimum level of happiness?
Some of the first hints at the answer to this question are provided by a new study carried out by Oishi, Diener and Diener (2007) who have analysed an impressive amount of data. Thousands of people in almost 100 countries answered questions about their happiness, income levels and relationships over decades of their lives.
To give you an idea of where the data came from, in one dataset freshman students were asked how cheerful they were at the start of their courses. Nineteen years later they reported their income. Other similar datasets were obtained in Australia, Germany and the UK.
Across all the studies, the data revealed two very interesting findings:
1. Happiness and income
Overall, higher levels of income and education were associated with higher levels of happiness, but with one important exception. At the highest levels of happiness, educational attainment and income started to decrease.
In fact the relationship between achievement and happiness is curvilinear - the graph looks like a hill with the peak at about '7' or '8' on a scale of 1 to 10 where '1' is very dissatisfied and '10' is very satisfied. Up around 10, where people report the highest levels of satisfaction, their income and education have significantly dropped compared to those who peg it at 7 or 8.
2. Happiness and relationships
There's a subtly different story for satisfaction with relationships. Instead of seeing a curve there is a straight line. So the happier we are, the more likely we are to be satisfied with our relationships. Those scoring a '10' on the happiness scale are also the most satisfied with their relationships.
Varying effects of happiness
What I like about this study is that it begins to show the complexity of happiness: that it can have different effects on different parts of our lives.
It also challenges the idea that more happiness is always better. It's difficult to be much more specific than that because this study measures people's happiness in a very general way.
Happiness is, of course, bound to vary from day to day. These variations certainly have important effects on other aspects of our lives. For example, dissatisfaction with our job may prove a powerful motivation for us to make an improvement. After that change is made, our happiness increases.
Studies such as this one clearly cannot tell us much about these dynamics but what they can do is hint at overall patterns. They emphasise the fact that extremely high levels of happiness are not always 'a good thing'.
» Discover more articles in this series on the new science of happiness.
» If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS).
References
Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2006). The desirability of happiness across cultures. Unpublished manuscript, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Oishi, S., Diener, E., & Diener, E. (2007) The Optimum Level of Well-Being. Can People Be Too Happy? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 346-360.
Labels: Happiness, Positive Psychology
10 Weird Psychology Studies: Vote Now For Your Favourite!
[Photo by &y]
Psychologists are skilled at inventing unusual tests of human thought and behaviour, but some research is pretty weird. Over the past few months I've been examining some of the weirdest studies around. There's research into psychic dogs, invasions from Mars, the antidepressant properties of semen, pigeon-guided missiles and men's urination. Have a read and then vote below for the study to be crowned PsyBlog's official 'weirdest' study.
» Read on about the urinal periscope -»
» Read on about facial similarity between couples -»
» Read on about the neuroscientist studying his own stroke -»
» Read on about pigeon-guided missiles -»
» Read on about the psychic dog -»
» Read on about whether we are programmed to laugh when tickled -»
» Read on about the anatomy of panic -»
» Read on about whether semen has antidepressant properties -»
» Read on about these staring experiments -»
» Read on about human-dog psychology -»
Now vote for your favourite
Which is the weirdest study? Vote now!
More nominations?
If you've got any more weird psychology research you'd like to nominate, do let me know by email or leave a comment below.
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Labels: Weird Psychology
Why Problem Solving Itself is a Puzzle, Even to Poincare and Picasso
[Detail from 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' by Pablo Picasso]
A classic 1931 experiment shows how the mechanics of our own problem-solving are often a puzzle to us.The process of human creativity is both fascinating and, at the same time, mystifying. Understanding the mental processes of great thinkers offers an enormous reward to any who can replicate them: immortality. Perhaps if we really understood what was going through their minds, we too could create an object or idea that would live long after our deaths.
This idea motivated Brewster Ghiselin to collate the problem-solving processes of great thinkers and artists from Poincare to Picasso (Ghiselin, 1952). Unfortunately, as I mentioned in 'The Hidden Workings of Our Minds', these great thinkers usually report being mere onlookers to their own mental processes. They seem unable to identify what prompted their discoveries and even, when they're actually happening.
The problem is that these reports were usually made many years after the original thought processes. Picasso may simply have forgotten what prompted him to create the first ever cubist painting 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' (detail above). Perhaps if we'd asked him exactly what was going through his mind right after he painted it, the answer would have been more accurate.
A classic psychology study from 1931 suggests, though, that he still wouldn't have been able to tell us what was going on in his mind. This experiment neatly demonstrates how we often don't have a clue how we solve a problem.
The two cord puzzle
Way back in 1931 Norman Maier at the University of Michigan wanted to explore how people solve problems (Maier, 1931). To do this he attached two cords to the ceiling of his lab and asked people to tie the two ends together. What made it tricky was that the two cords were just far enough apart that, while holding on to one cord, you couldn't reach the other cord.
To help participants out he placed some objects around the room which people were allowed to use. There were extension cords, poles, clamps, weights and so on. Most people worked out pretty quickly that tying an extension cord to one of the cords would solve the problem, as would using a pole. These seemingly obvious answers didn't satisfy Maier though; he was looking for something much more simple and elegant.
So what he did was keep asking people to come up with new solutions. When they attached the extension cord, he'd say: "OK, now do it a different way." And he kept doing this until they ran out of new solutions. Then most people just stood there, stumped.
Perhaps you can work out the solution. Remember, there are two cords. They're just too far apart for you to reach one while holding the other one. You can use one of the items I've already mentioned as being in the room but you can't bend the fundamental laws of the universe or get tricksy. So, no growing longer arms or unweaving the cord to make it longer.
Don't read on if you're playing along at home!
The solution
The answer, when you hear it, often provokes forehead slapping, although most people don't get it until prompted. The answer is to attach a weight to one of the cords and set it swinging. Then you grab the other rope and can reach the swinging rope when it comes towards you.
If you got it, well done - that's very unusual. Most people need a clue and that is what Maier eventually gave his flummoxed participants. Throughout the experiment he would be casually walking around the room until, when people had run out of solutions, he would apparently accidentally brush against one of the ropes and set it swinging.
Almost invariably people would work out the solution above in under a minute of this apparently accidental clue.
How did you solve it?
The experiment is a neat way of showing how effectively we can be primed with a solution to a problem. But the question we're really interested in is whether we know where the solution comes from. Did Maier's participants realise they'd been given a hint?
The answer was, on the whole, no.
When they were interviewed afterwards only one-third of his participants realised he'd given them a massive clue by setting one of the ropes swinging. Most people told some, often quite creative, stories about how they had reached the solution. These stories may well have accurately represented their conscious experience, but were clearly not the real reason why they solved the problem.
But when we take a close look at the experiment, it's worse than that.
Fake clues
The rope swinging wasn't the only clue that Maier used in the experiment. He had another hint which was twirling a weight on a cord. He soon found, though, that this hint was useless - it didn't help anyone solve the puzzle. Despite this everyone who saw the dangling weight first reported that it was this that had triggered their solution not his 'accidental' brushing of one of the cords.
What this suggests is that even those people who identified Maier's cord brushing as the really effective clue may have just been guessing.
The power of the unconscious
This experiment, along with others that have been conducted since, tell us that we often know little about how we solve problems, indeed generally how we think. So perhaps the best advice for how to solve problems is that provided by the great novelist Henry James, brother of the famous psychologist William James:
"I was charmed with my idea, which would take, however, much working out; and because it had so much to give, I think, must I have dropped it for the time into the deeper well of unconscious cerebration: not without the hope, doubtless, that it might eventually emerge from that reservoir, as one had already known the buried treasure to come to light, with a firm iridescent surface and a notable increase of weight" (Ghiselin, 1952, p. 26).
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
- The Hidden Workings of Our Minds
- Our Secret Attitude Changes
- » Why Problem Solving Itself is a Puzzle, Even to Poincare and Picasso
- What We Don't Know About Shopping, Reading, Watching TV and Judging People
- When We Are Fools to Ourselves
- At the Heart of Attraction Lies Confusion: Choice Blindness
» If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS).
References
Ghiselin, B. (1952). The Creative Process: A Symposium. New American Library.
Maier, N. R. F. (1931). Reasoning in humans: II. The solution of a problem and its appearance in consciousness. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 12(2), 181-194.
Labels: Problem Solving
Our Secret Attitude Changes
[Photo by cylinder]
When you change your attitude about something, do you know why? Psychologists have argued that the inner workings of our minds are largely hidden away from us. One aspect of this is the surprising finding that people are often unaware when they have changed their attitudes.We may well, for example, be able to identify our current opinions on global warming. We might find it easy to say, "Yes, I think global warming is occurring and humans are to blame," or, "No, it's just a long-term trend that has nothing to do with humans". But when our opinions change, by say watching Al Gore's documentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth', psychologists have found we are unlikely to be aware what changed our minds.
It gets weirder. In certain circumstances we may even be convinced that our attitude has never changed. So that we are convinced our 'new' attitude is the one we always had.
Whether or not this sounds far-fetched to you, the effect is dramatically demonstrated in an experiment carried out by Goethals and Reckman (1973).
Attitude change
High school students were asked their opinions on a variety of social issues, including on how children should be bussed to school and whether it would help with racial integration. The actual topic itself doesn't matter for our purposes, what the experimenters were doing here is getting a measures of participants' attitudes to a specific issue before the experimental manipulation.
A couple of weeks later the students were invited back for a further discussion on the bussing issue. This time, though, they were split into two groups, one that was pro- and one anti- the bussing issue. These, then, are our two experimental groups, along with a third control group, more of which, later.
The two groups had separate discussions about the bussing issue, but amongst their number had been planted an experimental confederate. The confederate was armed with a series of highly persuasive arguments designed to change the participant's minds on the issue. Experimenters wanted to turn the pro- group into an anti- group and the anti- group into a pro-group.
The confederates turned out to be extremely persuasive (and/or the students were easy to sway!) and the two groups were successfully turned around.
Results
The results are quite astonishing when you think about it. When compared to a control group who were not involved in the further discussion, neither of the experimentally manipulated groups could accurately remember their original position. What they remembered as their 'original' opinion seemed to have been significantly warped by the experimental manipulation.
First those who were anti-bussing originally recalled their pre-manipulation position as being much more pro-bussing than it actually was. Even more impressively, those who were originally pro-bussing thought they were actually anti-bussing before the experiment. Their recall of their previous position had completely turned around.
Strangely, when asked what effect the discussion had had on their views, all the participants thought it hadn't significantly changed their views. If anything, they said, the discussion had just confirmed what they already thought.
I think this is absolutely fantastic.
So, these are the bare facts:
- Objectively, the discussion changed people's minds about the issue. Some people's opinions did a complete U-turn.
- Despite this no one actually experienced the discussion as changing their mind, rather people claimed it only reinforced their previous opinion.
- People were plain wrong about their opinions before the discussion, sometimes dramatically, and it had nothing to do with forgetting. Remember that control participants could recall their previous attitudes correctly.
What's going on?
Probably one of the main reasons that the results of this experiment were so dramatic is because the participants had no expectation that the experiment was designed to change their attitude. This is because the purpose of the experiment was completely hidden from participants.
As a result, when people were asked to recall their attitudes before the discussion they simply accessed their current attitude and then assumed it had been the same all along.
There are, of course, alternative explanations - cognitive dissonance is one - plus it is quite easy to think of situations in which people would find it much easier to recall their previous attitudes and probably be much harder to influence in the first place. For example in situations where attitudes are long-held and highly emotive. For some people the earlier example of global warming may be just such a case.
Many of our attitudes are, though, much more mundane, but still important to our lives. And what this experiment demonstrates is how easy it is for them to be changed without us knowing why, or even that it has happened.
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
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References
Goethals, G. R., & Reckman, R. F. (1973). The Perception of Consistency in Attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 9(6), 491-501.
Labels: Social Psychology
The Hidden Workings of Our Minds
[Photo by Chris Keegan]
How do great artists create? How do brilliant scientists solve the hardest problems in their field? Listen to them try to explain and you'll probably be disappointed. Artists say mysterious things like: "The picture just formed in my mind." Writers tell us that: "I don't know where the words come from." Scientists say they: "Just had a hunch."Of course, not all scientists, artists and writers give such mysterious answers. Some talk about the processes they went through or what inspired their conceptual jump. But their explanations are almost invariable unsatisfying. They usually can't really explain how they made that vital leap of the imagination. This is strange. Why is it that otherwise brilliant and articulate people seem unable to adequately explain their thought processes? Don't they know how they did it?
What is true of great scientific and artistic leaps of imagination is also true in everyday life. When people are asked why they chose one career over another, one partner over another or one flavour of ice-cream over another, the same problems emerge. Often, people's answers are unconvincing or they just don't know.
Psychologists no longer find this inability to explain our internal mental processes strange. Like Freud all those years ago, modern cognitive psychologists have come to accept that a lot of the time we don't have much of a clue what's going on in our own minds, and there's evidence to prove it.
Mysterious thoughts
In a classic review of the literature, Nisbett and Wilson (1977) looked at many, many cognitive and social psychology studies conducted in the 1960s, 70s and earlier. These studies involved manipulating participants' behaviour. For an example, have a look at my report of this classic study of cognitive dissonance.
After reviewing all these studies where experimenters are messing with participants' minds, Nisbett and Wilson came to the following conclusions:
- People are mostly unaware that their behaviour or thought processes have been changed by the experimenter.
- Even if they are aware of the manipulation, they can't identify the process of change that occurred.
- Most people cannot connect their changed thought or behaviour with the experimenter's manipulation.
Frustratingly, it seems that the most powerful workings of the mind are hidden away from view, even when we go rummaging around. If this is true, what about the explanations that people actually give for their behaviour? Where do these come from and are they ever right?
Nisbett and Wilson reach two further disturbing conclusions:
- When coming up with their explanations, people don't seem to access the correct thought process(es). If they do then it only happens when the explanation is plausible.
- Sometimes people do report the correct reason for what they've done, but it's probably only a coincidence.
If Nisbett and Wilson are right it has profound implications for what we can know about our own thoughts and whether we can believe what other people say about theirs.
The evidence
In the next few posts I'll explain some of the evidence for these claims. But in the meantime think about a relatively common experience like driving. Most drivers have had the experience of having driven for a length of time without noticing any traffic signals, yet they still stop at every red light.
Some part of our minds has clearly been paying attention and it's these automatic unconscious processes that are keeping us alive. But there's a major difference between being on automatic pilot because it suits us, and being unable to get off automatic pilot even if we want to.
It's this idea of not having access to the vast majority of our own thoughts, even when we try, that has been such a major psychological insight for modern cognitive psychologists.
This post is part of a series on the hidden workings of our unconscious:
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References
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84(3), 231-259.
Labels: Cognitive Psychology
Do We Know What Makes Us Happy?
[Photo by tookie]
Happiness is all about everyday, normal activities, psychologists have argued, but do we intuitively understand what strategies increase happiness or not? To find out if students knew, Tkach and Lyubomirsky (2006) asked 500 undergraduates about the strategies they used to increase their happiness.Below are the strategies students reported using, starting with the most frequently used, down to the least. Also, for each strategy Tkach and Lyubomirsky looked at the relationship between its use and students' reported levels of happiness to see if those who used a particular strategy were actually happier.
Keep in mind that this is a correlational study. That means it can only tell us that two things - like having a social life and happiness - are related, not that one definitely causes the other. That said, there are other studies which do provide evidence of causality in some categories.
1. A social life
Social affiliation - hanging around with friends, helping others - was the most frequently reported method of increasing happiness. It also had the strongest relationship with student's actual happiness. No surprises here. Experiments manipulating people's social activity have found that when increased it leads to more happiness. It's gratifying to see that the number 1, most frequently used strategy probably does work!
2. Acting happy
Direct strategies like 'acting happy' and 'smiling' were the second most popular. While there is some experimental evidence to back this one up, Tkach and Lyubomirsky are cautious. I'd be cautious as well. 'Acting happy' might be useful as a short-term strategy but I'm not so sure about its useful in the long-term.
3. Achieving long-term goals
The students were pretty keen on setting themselves long-term goals for personal achievement, and then sticking to them. This was a relatively popular strategy for increasing happiness and there are also a good few studies to back up this finding. Well done to the students!
4. Passive leisure pursuits
Here's the first bad boy. Passive leisure, like watching TV or playing video games, while relatively popular, showed no connection with happiness. Experimental studies back this up finding few benefits for happiness from passive leisure activities. So, once again, it's time to chuck out the the idiot box and the Xbox.
5. Active leisure pursuits
No question about this one. It's very well established that active leisure pursuits like running or cycling increase happiness. What's worrying is that these pursuits come lower down the list than passive leisure pursuits.
6. Religion
This was a relatively unpopular strategy for increasing happiness, although it is reasonably well-established that religion and being happy go together. Tkach and Lyubomirsky suggest the reason for this connection could be to do with social connectedness, having a sense of purpose in life or even reduced alcohol consumption.
7. Partying and clubbing
Perhaps surprisingly amongst university students this was relatively unpopular as a happiness-enhancing activity. It's just as well since those who partied more weren't any happier, once their extraversion was taken into account.
8. Mental control
This is the second bad boy. It centres around thinking bad thoughts: both contemplating them and trying to suppress them. This category was significantly associated with being unhappy. Indeed, previous research has found that both ruminating on negative thoughts and trying to suppress negative thoughts leads to unhappiness.
A (mostly) positive message
This last category of mental control really stands out: what on earth is it doing on a list of strategies to increase happiness? Statistically it was the strongest predictor of unhappiness. This suggests that a significant minority of people have exactly the wrong idea about what strategies increase happiness.
Passive leisure pursuits is the other category that stands out. All the other categories in the top 6 have at least some connection with happiness. This one has none and yet there it is at number 4 in the list.
The positive message is that generally the strategies that people use to increase their happiness do actually work. We're relying on self-reports here, so people could well be misrepresenting what they actually do - but at least they mostly know what they're supposed to be doing.
» Discover more articles in this series on the new science of happiness.
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References
Tkach, C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How Do People Pursue Happiness?: Relating Personality, Happiness-Increasing Strategies, and Well-Being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(2), 183-225.
Labels: Happiness, Positive Psychology