The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Katherine Kam in the Brain Matters column in the May 9, 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
Are some people born with a greater potential to be wise? Some scientists such as neuropsychiatrist Dilip Jesse think so. Jesse believes wisdom is a trait that may be genetically inherited, so although environment also play a major role.
Jeste, a former associate dean for healthy aging and senior care at the University of California at San Diego has been on a quest to understand where wisdom might reside in the brain.
Wisdom, he says, isn’t only a product of experience and age but also of distinct traits and behaviors associated with specific but connected brain regions. The prefrontal cortex and amygdala are also key, he said.
“The prefrontal cortex, hands down, is the most important part of the neurobiology of wisdom,” Jesse said. Behind the forehead, the prefrontal is the newest part of the brain evolutionary. “It is what makes us human,’ he said.
It’s also the region responsible for reasoning, judgment and behavior control. The amygdala, nestled in the oldest part of the human brain, helps us to experience emotions, name said, “but the prefrontal cortex controls it.”
Just look at the archives listed on your right. This blog began in 2009, yet none of these posts are out of date. Note the search block on the top. Just enter any topic of interest and all the relevant posts will be returned.
HM will return, but in the meantime there’s lots to read and contemplate.
This entry was posted on December 11, 2022 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.
When it comes to intellect and creativity, I’d boil the relationship down to this:
An intelligent person answers a question.
A creative person comes up with the question in the first place, and then answers it.
I have learned too much from astrophysicists who have likened creativity to the birth of a new universe —and the aha—moment as happening at the “edge of chaos” where stability collides with disorder. In this case, instead of an idea falling into an infinite abyss of failure, it becomes a new foundation for the human experience.
THEOLOGIANS DESCRIBED to me human creation as the outgrowth of the divine. These religious ideas, remarkably enough, tie closely with the way creativity takes place in Constitutional Law—and the decision making of high courts across the world., including the United States Supreme Court. New research also shows that deeply religious people can struggle to be creative because they subvert their ideas to the wisdom of an all knowing God.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a book by Matt Richtel. The subtitle is Understanding Creativity A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul.
“These are among the subjects I hope to illuminate:
NEUROSCIENTISTS HAVE have begun to use imaging to map the brains of creators and understand the regions where ideas get generated and where they are assessed. Spoiler alert. There is a long way go.
PSYCHOLOGISTS HAVE increasingly refined personality models to improve prevailing traits in creators, including the critical insight that creativity does not require one to be of particular high intellect. It’s good news for many of us: Average intelligence will do! Raw talent accounts to a point. Of equal importance, if not greater, are qualities that can be developed, like openness and curiosity.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a book by Matt Richtel. The subtitle is Understanding Creativity A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul.
This means that creativity is not mere habit. It is as natural as reproduction itself, the mating, combination, and recombination of ideas. As with mating, though, we can choose to create. This is where the analogy with nature departs. Our discoveries are not completely accidental or random.
Creations can be pursued. How creators do it has become the source of a growing body of scholarship. We are learning through creative research—powered by innovative technology—how to wield our creative power with greater precision.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a book by Matt Richtel. The subtitle is Understanding Creativity A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul.
This means that creativity is not mere habit. It is as natural as reproduction itself, the mating, combination, and recombination of ideas. As with mating, though, we can choose to create. This is where the analogy with nature departs. Our discoveries are not completely accidental or random.
Creations can be pursued. How creators do it has become the source of a growing body of scholarship. We are learning through creative research—powered by innovative technology—how to wield our creative power with greater precision.
Once, a creativity scholar told me, Albert Einstein felt overcome by a creative spark. He felt certain he had discovered a unified field theory to explain the whole of existence. He confided in a colleague.
“Interesting, the colleague answered, but “under that theory the universe can’t exist.”
A tight parallel exists linking the fact that a fish crawls onto land, or a reptile takes flight, and the trial-and-error way in which the Theory of Relativity ultimately came to Einstein, or how modern astronomy sprang from Galileo’s brainier sounds of glory and ennui emanate from the lips of Miles Dewy Davis III. The machinery of change, the factories of creativity that live inside in each of us, are directly analogous to the machinery that exists inside cells to replicate and and mutate genes.
In fertile brains, we make random connections among ideas. These are highly similar to the emergence of mutations in the genetic coding of more primitive organisms. Ideas materialize, draw one another, connect, rearrange like new genetic material made of imagination. Then, in other parts of the brain, we scrutinize these ideas, vetting them, almost instantaneously for their viability. Can they survive in the world? Should they?
In short, ideas bubble and rise, accidents of connections, mutations, some bold and relevant, most destined to die in the ruthless terrain of reality. Even, for the most creative.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a book by Matt Richtel. The subtitle is Understanding Creativity A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul.
Then, as animals became more advanced and complex, some were creative in ways that might feel more familiar to the way human beings create. For instance, animals like birds and monkeys, even some insects, display versions of creativity recognizable to our eye, like the singing of songs, or the building of tools or nests. New mutations come about, confer survival advantage, take hold. Nature endures through the powerful, relentless machinery of regular and consistent creation, but it does so without conscious direction.
Human beings bring to this an almost Godlike twist. We can create at will. We were born to create.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a book by Matt Richtel. The subtitle is Understanding Creativity A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul. The first post on this book will address the topic of creativity.
“Creativity lives inside us and, collectively, we create our world.
It is not, as many have come to believe, the province of a few, another well traveled misconception. Creativity is, in fact, part of our more primitive physiology. It comes from the cellular level, part of our most essential survival machinery. We are creativity machines.
When a fish first crawled onto the land, it did not do so in a single aha! moment, a single burst of inspiration, adaptation, or evolution. When a bird-like creature took flight, it did not magically sprout wings. Rather, the ability to crawl onto land, or to first fly, built on one prior creation after the next, changes to anatomy over millennia, incremental transformations laying groundwork. These happened by the accident of evolution.
Random changes in genetics altered in tiny ways the programming of an organism. Some changes had no particular impact. Many actually led to the animal’s death because the change left the creature unfit for the environment. Some changes gave the organism a slight survival advantage, changing, for instance, how well it metabolized energy or protected itself against threat.
Bit by bit, small changes could add up. Eventually they might lead to the anatomy that became the basis for a wing, or webbed feet. In rare cases, a profound mutation led to a clear survival advantage, and that genetic change—or creation—took over and made the prior genetic version of that organism obsolete. It was creativity, but mindless, unconscious, random.
The title of tis post is identical to the title of an article by Gretchen Reynolds in the March 7 issue of The Washington Post.
“Walking for at least 11 minutes every day could lower your risk of premature death by almost 25%, according to the largest study to date of physical activity, disease risk and mortality.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the ambitious study analyzed health data of more than 30 million people, looking for correlations between how much people move and how long and well they live.
It’s findings show that even small amounts of exercise contribute to substantial improvements in longevity and can lower risks of developing or dying of heart disease and many types of cancer.
‘The investigations looked extensively at the available evidence and provided encouraging findings,’ said I-Min Lee a professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who was not involved in the new study.
Perhaps most inspiring, the study’s statistical analysis suggests that 1 in 10 of all early deaths might be averted if each of us got up and moved even a little more than many of us currently do.
150 minutes vs. 75 minutes a week.
For years, governmental agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe and other nations have recommended that anyone capable of exercising should exert use moderately for at least 150 minutes a week for optimal health. (Moderate exercise means a brisk walk or similar exertions that raise your heart rate and breathing enough that conversation becomes difficult.)
In practical terms, these guidelines promote walking briskly for half-an-hour five times a week.
But most of us don’t do that, according to the lates federal statistics, which show only about 47% of American adults exercise enough.
That sobering statistic prompted some researchers to begin looking into the effects of smaller amounts of exercise. Most of the resulting research, though, involved relative small numbers of people, making broad conclusions about the best doses of exercise elusive. But even with those drawbacks, the findings provide a helpful nudge, Garcia said. ‘Adding physical activity into your daily routine does not need to be daunting,’ he said. ‘Small and gradual changes are a great starting point and will bring a range of health benefits.
Park a little farther from your office, he said. Take the stairs. Dance around the living room with your kids.
Ideally, aim for about 11 minutes a day of moderate movement to start, he said, and if you find that amount ‘manageable,’ then ‘try step-in it up gradually to the full recommended amount of 150 minutes a week. But under any circumstances, he said, ‘doing some physical activity is better for your health than doing none.’”
This post is taken from Richard Sima Brain Matters column in the 28 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“Knowing that racial discrimination impacts our biology and brain raises ‘a really empowering question,’ Gupta said. ‘Is there some way that we can change the biology to deal with this negative racism or this discrimination?’
Brain-directed treatment busy as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness sessions with therapists and counselors trained in racial stress may help, Gupta said. ‘Is there some way that we can change the biology. To deal with this negative racism or this discrimination?’
Brain-directed treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness sessions with therapists and counselors trained in racial stress may help, Gupta said. Medications for reducing stress and addressing mental health may also help. And seeking or building support networks with peers to commiserate and share experiences can be essential, as racial trauma is often not publicly acknowledged.
When Fani speaks with communities about her research, she said many people express appreciation for their experiences being validated and gratitude for some public scientific recognition of their experiences.
‘For them, well, this is not rocket science. Of course, this is true,’ Fani said. ‘But I think there’s some relief that there’s some public acknowledgment that this is racism that’s causing these effects and not just being Black’
Before George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer and the racial reckoning of his death, research around race and racial discrimination was not popular, and there was even resistance from the scientific community over acknowledging racism as its own type of trauma and stress, Fani said. Now, there is more interest, funding, and research, which are already leading to better understanding.
‘I’m hoping that in making this invisible stuff visible, it helps people feel a greater sense of self-validation, like that their responses to trauma are valid and norma,’ she said. ’And not pathologizing those responses.
‘Things change slowly. It’s an uphill battle, but they do change,’ Harnet said. ‘And I do think that more people care about this now in a way that is tangible and feel like things are moving forward more now than they might have several years ago.’
This post is taken from Richard Sima Brain Matters column in the 28 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“In a 2021 study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, Fani, Harnett and their colleagues found that among 55 black women who had experienced some form of childhood or adult trauma, those who experienced more racial discrimination had proportionately higher neural responses in brain regions related to adult vigilance and emotional regulation. At the same time, there was also increased activation in visual brain areas involved with visual attention, suggesting they may be more attentive to their environments.
Vigilance has a function in the presence of a threat, racial or otherwise, by helping us detect and get away from it. And in the short term, increased vigilance can be adaptive. In the study, the Black women who reported experiencing more racial discrimination performed better on an attention task.
But with long-term stress come long-term changes to the brain. ‘The issue with aspects of racial, like racial discrimination, is that these things are ever-present,’ Harnet said.
In a 2019 study, Harnett and his colleagues examined the differences between 198 Black and White young adults who responded to a threatening loud sound.
The researchers found that White individuals had much larger reactivity to he stressor than Black individuals. White participants had increased skin conductance and activation of neural circuits involved in threat-related emotional processing, including the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala.
But when the researchers took into account negative life experience—indexes of structural racism such as violent exposure and neighborhood disadvantage—these differences these differences between Black and White subjects went away.
This suggests that real-life adversity for many of the Black subjects was contributing to an ‘almost blunting of emotion to laboratory stress,’ Harnett said.
‘A little bit of stress is probably god for you,’ he said. ‘It’s probably god to have a little bit of adversity because you learn to regulate, you learn to overcome it.’
This post is taken from Richard Sima Brain Matters column in the 28 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“Problems arise when the stress is persistent, as the direct and indirect effects of racism often are. ‘At a certain point, you reach the end of the resources that have to actually continue regulating,’ Harnett said.
Chronic and constant racial stress contributes to allostatic load, the cumulative burden of ‘wear and tear’ of the body and overall health. Neuroimaging data shows that racial discrimination I associated with degradation in the brain’s gray and white matter in cognitive and emotional regulation ares.
‘Our brains aren’t really designed to constantly be engaging in effortful attention regulation or emotion regulation,’ Fani said.
In one 2022 study, Fani Harnett and their colleagues reported that among 81 black woman who had experienced trauma, those who reported experiencing more racial discrimination showed proportionately thinner gray matter in the cingulate corticinges.
In another study from the same year, Fani and colleagues found that a racial discrimination also compromises the integrity of white matter—the neural connections—of the prefrontal cortex, a key brain area for behavioral self-regulation. Loss of these connections, in turn, was associated with more overall medical issues.
This could make sense if the loss of white matter impacted the capacity to self-regulate, Fani said. If they are emotionally eating, turning to drugs or now exercising as a result, the Black female study subjects ‘may have a greater vulnerability to health problems that are related to these behavior like diabetes metabolic problems, cardiovascular disease. In this way the harm from racism is a whole-body problem that interacts and feeds on itself.
‘We’re not linear,’ Gupta said. ‘As humans, our biology is impacting our behavior, and its impacting our environment, but then our environment is also impacting our biology.’
In a 2022 study of 14 participants who were White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Gupta and her colleagues reported that discrimination, in general, was correlated with anxiety and depression.
For Black and Hispanic individuals, discrimination was also associated with altered brain connectivity associated with psychological coping as well as more systemic inflammation of the gut and microbiome, which can also have an adverse effect on mental health.
‘How we treat people and we’re treated really has a huge impact on our biology,’ Gupta said.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article written by W. T. Miller in the Brain Issue of the 28 February ’23 issue of The Washington Post. The article discussed how to use therapy skills in everyday life. In many ways, it comes down to how we treat our own thinking. Some tips include:
Choose reflection over reflex: We get caught up in tough thinking patterns because we do not step back to consider other points of view. When we find ourselves stepping into a tough loop, it helps to catch ourselves and try to consider other ways of looking at the situation.
Bring softness, not hostility: We often assume the worst about other people when we they say something we don’t agree with. Even if people are behaving or speaking in a way we disapprove of, it is useful to remember that they have a story behind their perspectives. The stronger the negative negative feelings we have about people, the more it might help to get to know them better. This helps us to develop empathy and connectedness.
Be curious, not judgmental: The mind is complex and can go anywhere, if given the chance. Although it is tempting to think our understanding of life is all there is to know, being open and inquisitive about things that are confusing and unsettling helps us to stay flexible. If our mind goes to unpleasant and defeating places, instead of beating ourselves up over it, we should welcome the thought and reflect on what we can learn about ourselves by holding onto it, instead of throwing it away.
The title of this post is identical to the full title of The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert J. Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, Ph.D. This Harvard Study of Adult Development followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than eighty years. Shepherding a study like this requires tremendous trust. Part of that trust comes from a deep commitment to protecting the confidentiality of participants. We have changed names and identifying details to protect particular participants’ confidentiality. All quotes in the book, however, are either verbatim or based on actual study interviews, audiotapes, observations, and other data.
The good life is joyful…and challenging. Full of love, but also pain. And it never strictly happens; instead, the good life unfolds, through time. It is a process. It include turmoil, calm, lightness, burdens, struggles, achievements, setbacks, leaps forward, and terrible falls. And, of course, the good life always ends in death.
A cheery sales pitch, we know.
But let’s not mince words. Life, even when it’s good, is not easy. There is simply no way to make life perfect, and if there were, then it wouldn’t be good.
Why? Because a rich life—a good life—is forged from precisely the things that make it hard.
The title of this post is identical to the full title of The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert J. Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, Ph.D. This Harvard Study of Adult Development followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than eighty years. Shepherding a study like this requires tremendous trust. Part of that trust comes from a deep commitment to protecting the confidentiality of participants. We have changed names and identifying details to protect particular participants’ confidentiality. All quotes in the book, however, are either verbatim or based on actual study interviews, audiotapes, observations, and other data.
“Over time we develop the subtle, but hard-to-shake feeling that our life is here, now, and the things we need for a good life here over there, or in the future. Always just out of reach.
Looking at life through this lens, it’s easy to believe that the good life doesn’t really exist, or else that it’s only possible for others. Our own life, after all, rarely matches the picture we have in our heads of what a good life should look like. Our own life is always too messy, too complicated, to be good.
Spoiler alert: The good life is a complicated life. For everybody.
The title of this post is identical to the full title of The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert J. Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, Ph.D. This Harvard Study of Adult Development followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than eighty years. Shepherding a study like this requires tremendous trust. Part of that trust comes from a deep commitment to protecting the confidentiality of participants. We have changed names and identifying details to protect particular participants’ confidentiality. All quotes in the book, however, are either verbatim or based on actual study interviews, audiotapes, observations, and other data.
Meanwhile, all day long we’re bombarded with messages about what will make us happy, about what we should want in our lives, about who is doing life ‘right.’ Ads tell us that eating this brand of yogurt will make us healthy, buying that smartphone will bring new joy to our lives, and using a special face cream will keep us young forever.
Other messages are less explicit, woven into the fabric of daily living. If a friend buys a new car, we might wonder if a newer car would make our own life better. As we scroll social media feeds only pictures of fantastic parties and sandy beaches, we might wonder if our own life is lacking in parties, lacking in beaches. In our casual friendships, at work, and especially on social media, we tend to show each other idealized versions of ourselves. We present our game faces, and the comparison between what we see of each other and what we feel about ourselves leaves us with the sense that we’re missing out. As an old saying goes, we’re always comparing our insides to other people’s outsides.
The title of this post is identical to the full title of The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert J. Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, Ph.D. This Harvard Study of Adult Development followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than eighty years. Shepherding a study like this requires tremendous trust. Part of that trust comes from a deep commitment to protecting the confidentiality of participants. We have changed names and identifying details to protect particular participants’ confidentiality. All quotes in the book, however, are either verbatim or based on actual study interviews, audiotapes, observations, and other data.
The first chapter asks the question, What Makes a Good Life? The book begins with the question: What makes a good life?
If you had to make one life choice, right now, to set yourself on the path to future health and happiness, what would it be?
Would you choose to pit more money into savings each month? To change careers? Would you decide to travel more? What single choice could best insure that when you reach your final days and look back, you’ll feel that you’ve lived a good life.
On a 2007 survey, millennial were asked about their most important life goals. Seventy-six percent said the becoming rich was their number one goal. Fifty percent said a major goal was to become famous. More than a decade later, after millennials had spent more time as adults, similar questions were asked again in a pair of surveys. Fame was now lower on the list, but the top goals again included things like making money, having a successful career, and becoming debt-free.
These are common and practical goals that extend across generations and borders. In many countries, from the time they’re barely old enough to speak, children are asked what they want to be when they grow up—that is, what careers they intend to pursue. When adults meet new people, one of the first questions asked is, “What do you do?” Success in life is often measured by title, salary, and recognition of achievement, even though most of us understand that these things do not necessarily make for a happy life on their own. Those who manage to check off some or even all of the desired boxes often find themselves on the other side feeling much the same as before.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Orna Guralnik in the Health & Science section of the 21 Feb ’23 issue of The Washington Post.
“People often complain that their partner is projecting. Projection ‘is a way of avoiding one’s own weaknesses and faults,’ says Sigmund Freud in ‘New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.’
By projecting, we disavow unacceptable thoughts, feelings or impulses in ourselves and instead perceive them as belonging to another person or group.
Projection contorts reality in ways that can lead to serious misunderstanding and conflicts in relationships.
Breaking out of projective identification. Pay attention to roles. Notice the roles you have come to play. It helps to first label the roles each of you take by understanding your patterns—for example, ‘litigator and defendant.’
Ask yourself questions.
What might be unconsciously informing the role you are playing? Here is where the deeper work comes in. Challenge yourself to a thought experiment: If you assume that what is bothering you most about your partner is to some extent a projection of some part of. You that you are finding difficult to acknowledge, what would that be?
Take steps to change the pattern
Moving on from projection. Our closest partner can become a screen upon which various disavowed, unprocessed experiences—whether aspects of self or one’s history can be projected.
By becoming familiar with the parts projected, reclaiming them as parts of the self and breaking the spell of rituals, couples can become better partners and build richer and more honest relationships
This article is based on an article by Maria Luisa Paul in the Health & Science of the 14 Fe 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
‘“Researchers have found that the amount of fat isn’t nearly as important as its location—a discovery that could pave the way for a new generation of chocolates that aren’t only tasty but also healthier and more sustainable’”, Sarkar said.
The biggest bottleneck in designing food is the taste and texture. If we understand the mechanics of why something is delicious, it’s easier to recreate more healthy and sustainable versions. We can also better design food for vulnerable populations, people who have swallowing disorders or need energy-dense products.
‘Imagine if we could make broccoli taste as good as chocolate, said Sarker, a self-described chocolate lover. ‘Or, at least make something like a zero-calorie chocolate have the same creaminess and silkiness of a normal one.’
Sarkar said her team’s findings could apply to other beloved foods, like cheese. The goal, she said, is to have a better understanding of how food texture plays a role in people’s tasting experience.
‘Our inclinations and aversion to food really come from its texture, not the taste,’ she said. ‘So, for example, many things people love contain sugar, but, you know, an orange isn’t the same as a piece of chocolate. So, it’s not the sweetest, it’s the texture.
Other studies suggest that texture and deliciousness are tied together. According to one study published in 2015, people’s texture preferences fall into four groups: chewier, who love chewy food; crunchers, who like crispiness; suckers, who prefer items that dissolve; and smokers who want nothing more than food to spread around in their mouths.
This post is based on an article by Richard Sima in the Health & Science Section of the February 14, 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“Research suggests that social-touch-sensitive neurons may be key for making the touch of a loved one feel good, which in turn helps bind us.
A study in cell this month found that direct stimulating neurons in female mice—similar to C-tactile fibers in humans—can release dopamine, a neurochemical associated with. Reward, in their brains. These Mrgrpb4 neurons are also necessary for female mice to be receptive to sexual advances in male mice.”
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Matt Fuchs in the Health & Science section of the 7 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“Zeitzer is a scientific adviser for a sleep mask that flashes light through the eyelids in the wee hours of the morning, just enough to rewind the brain’s clock without waking its wearer until sunrise. Compared with continuous light, flashes may be more effective at penetrating the eyelids to reach the brain, according to a study published last year by Zeitzer and other scientists in the Journal Proceeding of the Royal Society B.
Zeitzer test mask use among about 100 teenagers, a population notorious for circadian struggles. When teens combined wearing the masks with cognitive behavioral therapy, they woke up earlier, got to bed on time and slept an average of 45 minutes longer.
Calendaring sleep at night is essential, says physician Royal Kamyar, who creates Waves, an app that lets people plan their daily schedules according to their circadian rhythms.
Research suggest the digestive system is most effective at absorbing nutrients and medicines at certain times; the Owaves app provides daily pie charts and notifications nudging you to eat in the morning, midday and just before sunset. ‘There’s merit to eating in a time frame that’s evolutionary appropriate — between sunrise and sunset,’ Kamyar says.
Such apps encourage users to actively manage their circadian calendars, partly because biological clocks for eating and exercise can vary depending on the individual.
Michael Grandeur, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, says the calendar concepts is promising in theory, pending studies that prove they help.
‘We should plan our sleep opportunities ahead of time to get the amount of sleep we need,’ he says. ‘That also means we should explicitly plan to allow sufficient time for our wind-down routine before going to sleep,’ while calendaring time for means and workouts during the day.
People can adjust their routines as they observe how scheduled activities affect health metrics on their Apple watches, Oura Rings and other monitors.
And in coming years, doctors may be able to directly measure our internal clocks. Zee has studied the possibility of a blood test that could show whether circadian clocks are running too fast or slow. Such tests have been developed but they need more study.
Once physicians have an easy method to monitor the timing of internal clocks the goal is to prescribe treatments that more precisely support healthy circadian rhythms.
‘The technology will soon be available,’ Zee says.”
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Matt Fuchs in the Health & Science section of the 7 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
A light recipe for good sleep follows: Figueiro is studying the use of special eyeglasses by older people. In their late 60’s, many people become less sensitive to light, especially short wavelengths; the front of the eye absorbs more of this light, so not as much can get through to the master circadian clock in the brain. The deficit upsets rhythms — sleep cycles, in particular.
In some seniors, such disturbances are associated with cognitive decline and a disconnect between the master clock and the body’s more specific, peripheral clocks.
The glasses Figueiro examined bathe the eyes in blue of green light, the same sort wavelength light we take in from the sun in the morning and early afternoonOn cloudy days, the glasses remind body clocks that it’s time to decrease production of the hormone melatonin, which can trigger daytime drowsiness.
In her study of lighting and people with Parkinson’s disease, ‘the results have been very good,’ Figueiro says. When the glasses were used along with other light technologies, such as special floor lamps, every morning for two hours over a period of one month, the patients took fewer naps during the day, fell asleep more easily at bedtime an slept about 20 minutes longer at night, according to Figueiro’s preliminary data.
Figueiro sys the most important nighttime strategy is to turn down lights—whether red or blue. And, she adds, many of us already possess one type of technology for doing this: dimmer switches. Unlike blue light, red light doesn’t suppress melatonin at night, but too much of any bright light can arouse the nervous system to disrupt circadian rhythms.
If you must use a television, phone or computer in the evening, blue-light-blocking glasses can help. Orange-tinted shades work best Figueiro says. They’re dark enough to filter out enough light while still allowing clear vision.
Downloadable programs such as f.lux and Windows Night Light can also help—they shift computers to a warmer, less stimulating mode at night.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Matt Fuchs in the Health & Science section of the 7 February 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
“Circadian rhythms guide the body through the 24-hour cycle. They tell us when it’s time to eat and sleep, and when it’s time to get up and start a new day.
‘Think of [the circadian clock] as the conductor of an orchestra, and all your organisms are different instruments,’ says Jamie Zeitzer, a professor of sleep medicine at Stanford University.
Unfortunately, it the internal clock gets shifted, it can set off a cascade of problems, including changes to metabolism and immunity that have been linked to cancer heart disease and overall fatigue.
And, so, new technologies are working to reset internal clocks he right way, even as smartphones and other gadgets have been rightly blamed for many of our unhappy circadian shifts.
The light that stimulates
In the morning and afternoon, it’s important to take in blue-light—the short-wavelength, high energy light that stimulates the body. The sun is the main blue light generator, but at all times fluorescent lighting and computer and phone screens also emit high-energy light, and at a much closer distance to the eyes and at all times of day. Sun-generated blue light dissipates and shifts to lower-energy red light toward the end of the day.
Ideally, humans get enough blue light from going outdoors, but on a dark day, especially when you’re stuck indoors, tech could help make up for a blue light gap, says Phyllis Zee, director of Northwestern University’s center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine.
She recommends circadian lighting systems, in which many smart lights are installed throughout a home. The create a semblance of natural blue light during he day, then shift later on to longer-wavelength lighting that resembles amber sunsets that cue our bodies to prepare for sleep.
“That will allow us to remain more stably entrained to the light-dark cycle, Zee says.
Because such systems can cost thousands of dollars, a more feasible alternative is buying ‘red-green-blue’ smart bulbs, also known as RGB bulbs,’ which produce many colors. The relatively low-cost bulbs can be adjusted by remote control or programmed to change automatically as the hours pass, son they look blue during the day and red at night. Users should take all technology promises ‘with a grain of salt,’ says Mariana Figueiro, director of Mount Sinai’s Light and Health Research Center in New York. ‘There is still the need for researchers to validate the results obtained with many of these devices.’”
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Amanda Morris in the Health & Science Section of the 31 January issue of The Washington Post.
“Mindfulness practices such as breathing exercises have been used to treat anxiety for a long time, but this is the first study showing how effective they can be in comparison with standard treaties for anxiety disorders said the study’s lead author, Elizabeth Huge, who id a psychiatrist and director of the Anxiety Disorders Research Program at Georgetown University.
Those who received this eight week mindfulness intervention attended a weekly 2.5 hour long class with a mindfulness teacher, completed daily at-home exercises for 45 minutes, and attended a one-day mindfulness retreat five or six weeks into the course.
The reason mindfulness may help with anxiety is that it can interrupt a negative feedback loop in the brain. But mindfulness can help train your brain to have new habits because it helps you to recognize that worrying is not rewarding and provides an alternative sense of control that feels better than worrying, Brewer said.
In people who worry a lot, a part of the brain called the default mode network can become overactive, causing their minds to wander toward negative or anxious thoughts more often, Lazar said.
But research shows that meditation and mindfulness exercises can help turn off this part of the brain and make it less active by training people to refocus, she explained.
Mindfulness training also has been shown to reduce activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that helps regulate fear, stress, and other emotions, she said.
And her research suggests that these types of changes can be long lasting.
People who who go through these programs, even if they discontinued, continue to report benefits months months later, Lazar said. “It’s like learning to ride a bike, even if you stop you can do it again.
Enter ‘mindfulness’ into the search block for this blog to find much information regarding mindfulness.
Also enter “Relaxation Response” to learn more about the meditation technique.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article written by Ted Amanabar in the Health & Science section of the January 24 ’23 issue of The Washington Post.
“One of the most surprising findings in the science of relationships is that both romance and friendship often start the same way—with a spark.
But what happens next? Often, we place or romantic partners above all else and ask our friends to wait in the wings, say relationship experts. Yet a growing body of research shows friends are essential to a healthy life—and they are just as important for our well-being as healthy eating habits or a good night’s sleep.
‘We’ve always had this hierarchy of love and romantic love at the top and friendship as second class,’ said Marisa G. Franco, a professor at the University of Maryland and author of ‘Platonic: How. The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—-Friends.’ ‘We are constantly fed the message that the romantic relationship is the only one that matters.’
But platonic love trumps romantic love in a number of ways.
People with strong friendships tend to have better mental health and studies suggest they’re in better physical health as well. Researchers have found large social networks lower our risk of premature death more than exercise or diet alone.
A six-year study of ‘736 middle-aged Swedish men found that having a life partner didn’t affect risk of heart disease or fatal coronary heart disease—but having friends did. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a lot of friends were 22% less likely o die during the study period than those with few friends. Notably, having a social network of children and relatives did not affect survival rates.
‘We need an entire community to feel whole,’ Franco said. ‘Being around different people brings out different sides of our own identity.
Health and friends
There are multiage theories about the association between friendship and better health. Part of the effect may be because it’s easier for healthy people to make friends. A strong social network could be an indicator that someone has more access to medical care. And someone with more friends may just have a better support system to get a ride to the doctor’s office.
But there is also a psychological effect of friendship that likely plays a roles. Friends help us cope with stress. In one study at the University of Virginia, may people were intimidated as the prospect of climbing a steep hill. But researchers found that when people were standing next to a friends, they rated the hill less challenging that those who were alone.
Brain imaging studies suggest that friendship affects brain systems associated with reward, stress, and negative emotions, offering an explanation for why social connection benefits mental health and well-being.
Friendship even seems to affect our immune response. In one remarkable study, 276 healthy volunteers were given nose drops containing a flu virus. Those with diverse social ties were less likely to develop cold symptoms.
Franco said the term ‘platonic love’ was originally intended to reflect Plato’s vision of a love ‘so powerful it transcends the physical.’
Making new friends
Friends don’t just appear out of thin air, Franco said. Here’s her advice for making new connections and maintaining the old ones.
Take the initiative. Trust your gut when you’re meeting new people. We’re particularly good at knowing when someone is a potential new friend (remember that spark). And you should assume people like you. We often underestimate how positively others think of us, Franco said.
“People like you more than you think, ‘Franco said. I know it’s scary to reach out but it’s likely to end more positively that your brain is assuming.’
Start with a text. Start small by scrolling through your phone and shooting a test message to an old friends you’ve been meaning to reconnect with.
Show your gratitude. If a potential friend reaches out to you to grab coffee or pizza, tell them how happy you are that they reached out, and that you appreciated the effort, Franco said.
In s University of Utah study, researchers asked 70 college freshman to keep a check list of certain interactions—like to going to see a movie together or calling just to say hello—they did with new friends. After three months, the researchers found that close friendships were more likely to form when the pairs expressed affection for each other.
‘When we don’t express affection we are at risk of losing friendship itself, Franco said./
Invite friends to things you’ve already planned. If it’s hard to find time from friends, think of the tasks you already have to accomplish and tag on a friend, Franco said. The next time you workout sat the gym, for example, you could invite someone to join.
The title of this post is two-thirds of the title of an article by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary in the Well+Being section of the January 24, 2023 issue of The Washington Post.
The third part of the title is “Here are some tips.”
“Worry is the thinking part of anxiety, directing us to figure out why we’re anxious and what to do about it. It evolved to grab our attention and focus it on its uncertain future, priming us to take useful actions. Worry is a form of problem solving, where we use ‘what-if’ simulations to picture worst and best simulations to find solutions. In that sense, worry is an attempt to control the future. That’s why worry agitates us, persistently or even relentlessly, because it exists to engage us in dealing with future uncertainties and working to make things turn out all right.
Worry has to feel bad to do its job, but it can make anxiety worse, especially when combined with meta-worry—worrying that worry will spiral out of control and do us harm. In people diagnosed with anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, meta-worry often drives the vicious cycle of anxiety. In an attempt to feel more in control and less emotional pain, they worry persistently—like a perpetual motion machine of the mind. Yet this judgment of thoughts and feelings amplifies anxiety to distressing levels, and feels so out of control that it causes people to worry more and feel less able to cope. The more one worries, the harder it is to let go.
Doesn’t all this go to show that we should prevent or squelch worry as soon as possible? Yet this is exactly the wrong thing to do. Suppressing thoughts and feelings never works—and paradoxically increases anxiety and worries while reinforcing the belief that worries are uncontrollable, and block us from figuring out other ways of coping.
I discovered this for myself with my son’s heart condition. My worries were constant and exhausting, but shunting them aside didn’t work. So I tried the opposite. I tried to use my worries. Every time I worried, I went into action mode: I read every paper published on the condition. I asked our nurses and doctors a million questions, and I imagined best- and worst-case scenarios so I could plan each detail oaf my son’s care.
Worry didn’t only prime me to prepare. It helped me to survive emotionally because I never stopped believing that if I planned and worked hard enough, our son would live and thrive—even though I also knew that total control over the future is an illusion.
Our son is now 14 years old. He loves playing the piano, writing, running and wrestling. As his doctors told us after his surgery, there are no restrictions on what he can do.
Worry isn’t going anywhere. It’s the human condition—and can be an adventure in challenging times. But is is also a double-edged sword and can become a serious problem. Suppression of worry simply doesn’t work, so we need other approaches so that we can learn to worry well and eventually to worry less. Try these steps in order:
Locate worry in your body Worry keeps you in your head rather than feeling emotions in your body. So, when you find yourself worrying, pause, and refocus attention on your sensations. Look for the usual signs—heart beating faster; weakness; warmth; stiffness; a dry, constricted throat; rapid breathing; or butterflies in the stomach. Explore them. Maybe move your body to see if that changes how you feel. Stretch. Sit up straight. Breathe. Practice riding the wave of your feelings. They will rise and fall, even without you doing anything.
Make worry concrete
Next, tune into your worried thoughts. Treat yourself like a friend who needs you to lend an ear. Ir you have a jumble of thoughts, what’s the one that rises to the surface? You can also schedule worry time: Pick a specific period of time to worry (for example, 15 minutes). Write down all the worries that pop into your head and describe them clearly and concretely. Consider the negative outcomes, as well as the positive possibilities. Only worry during worry time. It might surprise you to find that during worry time, you become bored of worrying and stop early.
Problem solve
Worries are diminished plans and actions. So, once you identify a worry, problem solve in steps. *Brainstorm solutions that you are in control. *Evaluate their pros and cons. *Take time to think through your ideas. *Make a solid plan to try out one or more of these solutions. The more details you write down, the better. *Start with small doable steps. If you keep your plan vague or overambitious, you’ll be less likely to achieve it. *Try out the solution and evaluate how it worked. *Consider wether adjustments and additional problem solving is needed.
Let go of worries
Worries send us into the future, and once we’ve visited there, it’s time to let go and return to the present. There are many ways to do so; exercise; take a long walk; write in your journal; paint a picture; or speak with a friend or counselor. Social support—speaking with someone you trust to help you put your worries into words, rather that stew in a miasma of vague distress—is one of the best ways to go. When we practice taking these steps in order, we will find that worry can be a call to action, and when we act, it graciously steps aside and tells is—job well done!
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article in the Local Living (Arlington-Alexandria Edition) of the January 5, 2023 issue of The Washigton Post.The subtitle is Building empathy in kids takes practice. Parents can help. The author is Elizabeth Chang.
The article notes that as important as building empathy is “removing the barriers to dressing stereotypes and biases, including our own.” An important part of empathy is unconditional positive regard, that is caring for people despite their mistakes or flaws.
A serious problem is that what is the common discourse and news that amplifies the least kind, most extreme, most toxic voices are often those that get amplified in today’s society. Experts note that older kids feel a lot of pressure to fit in with whatever culture is around them. So if we give them a skewed perspective that people are really cruel, they’ll feel that maybe kindness and empathy are for dorks, and they won’t want to express these. This perspective is the result of societies having a dearth of empathy. This dearth of empathy needs to be addressed.
The importance of empathy and empathic skills need to be taught in schools, in the home, and I civic organizations.
Being empathic requires you to understand other people even, and perhaps more importantly, people you don’t like.
There is a type of meditation called loving kindness meditation. It starts with thinking of someone you like and wish them loving kindness. Then moving to someone that you like somewhat and wishing them loving kindness. You make this wish with the hope that this love will grow over time.
Then, you think of someone for whom you are indifferent and wish them loving kindness.
Then you think of someone for whom you dislike somewhat and wish them loving kindness
Then you move to someone whom you actively like and wish them loving kindness..
Research has shown that people who practice this type of meditation develop vagal tone.
If you don’t know that vagal tone is go to wikipedia.org and enter vagal tone into the search block.
William James if the father or American Psychology, and the James family consists of outstanding intellects. But they also had enormous wealth and enormous travel and educational resources.
Although the topic of spirituality is important, it is also tedious and slow moving, at least as it has been presented in this blog.. So there will be large change going forward. This is good because one might conclude that spirituality is a topic for only the very rich and privileged . HM apologizes. There have been many posts on Buddhism that had large readerships. Enter (Buddhism) into the search block on the home page..
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
This experience initially prompted a nervous experience. Eventually, though, Henry Sr. came to see it as a spiritual second birth. His attempt to understand his experience led him to the work Emanuel Swedenbourg, an —18th century Christian mystic who was influential with a number of 19th century European intellectuals. According to Swendonborg, Henry’s experience was a “vastation,” or a kind of awakening to the spiritual side of life. This interpretation strengthened Henry Sr/‘already obsessive interest in religious topics. William later quoted his father’s experience The Varieties, and William himself would later report a similar experience of his own, though Williams’ experience of it would be far more scientific and broader than his father’s fixation on the purely spiritualist, Swedenborgian interpretation.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
Religious experience was a common topic of discussion at the James household. Besides dinner table conversations with Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, Henry Sr. himself had an experience that he came to believe had profound religious implications. His experience came when his son was about 2 yrs. old. Henry Sr. wrote the following of that moment: One day, towards the close of of May [1884] , having eaten a comfortable dinner, I remained sitting at the table after the family had dispersed, idly gazing at the embers in the grate, thinking of nothing when suddenly, in a lighting flash as it were —“fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.” To all appearance it was perfectly insane and abject terror, without ostensible cause, and only to be accounted for to my perplexed imagination, by some damned shape squatting invisible to me within the precincts off the room, and raying out from his fetid personality influences fatal to life. The thing had not lasted ten seconds before I felt myself a wreck.
We all should be interested in self-improvement and growth, and these resolutions provide another means for personal growth. Choosing resolutions should be done with care. And they need to be kept to a reasonable number, say two. It is good to pick one that should be fairly easy to achieve, and one that would be somewhat of a stretch. You want to have at least one in the win column. The stretch resolution would constitute a profound achievement, but just making some progress to success would be valuable.
Just look at the archives listed on your right. This blog began in 2009, yet none of these posts are out of date. Note the search block on the top. Just enter any topic of interest and all the relevant posts will be returned.
HM will return, but in the meantime there’s lots to read and contemplate.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
Emerson enjoyed Henry Sr’s company, describing him as “wise, gentle, polished, with heroic manners, and a serenity like the sun.” These sentiments were opposite to Henry Sr.’s own father’s harsh judgments of him, so Emerson became a kind of spiritual father to Henry Sr. The James family often hosted Emerson at their home, even setting aside a room for the purpose, nicknamed the “Emerson room.” When Henry Sr. and Mary’s first child, William James, was born in New York City on January 11, 1842, Emerson stopped by to give his blessing, Emerson thus became godfather to the child who, 60 years later, would publish The Varieties.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
When Emerson and Henry Sr. first met, Emerson was already famous for his advocacy of individualism and Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was a syncretic blending of Judea-Christianity with mostly Hindu-based traditions such as the Vendetta, which became popular among New England intellectuals for a time. According to one Emerson historian, his emphasis in Transcendentalism could be summarized as: “The purpose of life is was spiritual transformation and direct experience of divine power, here and now on earth.”
Emerson’s writing also contained frequent descriptions of spiritual raptures:
Standing on the bare ground—my hair bathed by raw blithe air, and uplifted into infinite spaces, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all;The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me. I am part or parcel of God.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
William James father, who would become known as “Henry Sr.” Religion was the only subject that caught Henry Sr.’s interest, eventually becoming his scholarly and personal obsession. After hitting rock bottom with his drinking and mental health in college and then recovering with the help of his minister brother, he pursued studies in theology. He worked at a Unitarian newspaper in New England before following his brother’s example by enrolling at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. As his studies progressed, his thinking became increasingly heretical and anti-institutional. After a trip to Ireland, Henry Sr. decided to leave to leave the seminary and become a freethinker and author. Shortly thereafter he met Mary Walsh, who showed a genuine interest in his ideas, and they were married in an unorthodox wedding ceremony outside the church (officiated by the Mayor of New York City).
Henry Sr.’s writing was dense and narrow in focus. Nearly all his publications argue for the inherent goodness of human beings, blame society for humanity’s failings, and promote ‘the negation of self and the exultation of God. His dismissal of academic (and all other) institutions meant his writing was difficult for both academics and laypeople to understand—and this motivated his son William James to strive to be clear and accessible in his own work. A passage from one of Henry Sr.’s books, Substance and Shadow (which received some rare praise) addresses the problem of evil in this labyrinthine prose: It is no doubt very tolerable finite or creaturely love to love one’s own in another, to love another for his conformity to one’s own self: but nothing can be in more flagrant contrast with the creative love, all whose tenderness ex vi termini [to the furthest limit to one’s own strength] must be reserved for only for what intrinsically is most bitterly hostile and negative to itself.
Henry Sr. wrote a number of articles and essays (which his son William James would later edit into a volume of his own writings) despite his lack of commercial success. Henry Sr. was far better known for his gifts as a conversationalist than as an author. His intellectual interests and outgoing personality brought him into close contact with many of the era’s most important thinkers, artists, and scientists including, to mention just a few of the many illustrious names: Michael Faraday, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
To say James had an unusual childhood would be an understatement. His family has been described as “perhaps the most remarkable family the country has known in terms of its literary and intellectual accomplishments.
The family’s typical way of telling its mythology begins with William James’s grandfather. “Old Billy” came to the United States as a penniless Irish immigrant in 1789. In a quintessentially American rags-to-riches tale (this case being one of the rare occasions in which it is actually true), he became one of the richest men in New England. He bought real estate throughout New York State, including the entire city of Syracuse, and helped finance large infra structure projects like the Erie Canal. Old Billy had an intimidating personality, and was influential in New England high society. In contrast, William’s grandmother, Catherine, was shy and introverted, preferring the company of the household’s gardeners, cooks, and maids.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
James’s live was a study in contrasts. He became a scientist, but first studied as an artist; he was a skeptic, but was fascinated with spiritual feelings; he hoped to understand mental states in terms of physiology, but he defended the inherit value of individual subjectivity; he taught physiology for years, but always argued against simplistic biological reductionism of mental events. In the words of biographer Linda Simon: “He was a scientist with the disposition of a philosopher and a philosopher with the disposition of an artist.”
His career was slow to start. Yes, James would eventually become president of both the American Philosophical Association and the American Psychological Association due to his monumental contributions to both fields. But at 34 years old he was bedridden, unemployed, and living in his parents’ home. It took him ten years to finish the manuscript of a book, The Principles of Psychology, which provided the foundations of the new field of psychology. In the note to his editor accompanying the final manuscript, he called himself “an incapable.” This could hardly be further from the truth.
James thought is, like his life, not easy to summarize. Scholars of James point to numerous contradictions in his philosophical work—and the reconciliation of those ideas remains a major part of contemporary scholarship on James. Despite the kaleidoscopic perspective James brought to his work, he eventually did form a coherent and distinct scientific and philosophical approach that is frequently referred to as “Jamesian.” This Jamesian approach—rigorously scientific yet humanistic, ever striving for scientific progress yet rejecting of certainty—has left a lasting influenced on the modern fields of physiology, psychiatry, philosophy, religious studies, neuroscience, and psychology. According to the scholar Cheryl Misak: “ James was the most famous academic of his time, both at home and abroad.’ While his name is less known today, the impact of this thought is ubiquitous in these fields
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
According to James, if you want to understand a person’s beliefs, then you should seek to learn about that person’s temperament and life circumstances. In other words, to understand an individual’s philosophy look to her or his psychology. Thus we begin with the study of Williams James life and his influences to understand how he developed the worldview and approach that he brought to The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (The Varieties).
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
The aim of this book Is to provide a contemporary, scientific guide to spiritual experiences. We aim to convey William James’s insights while describing the state of the art of scientific research on meaningful, inner “spiritual experiences”—substantially altered states of consciousness involving a perception of, and connection to, an unseen order of some kind. We think that James would have been pleased to see this study taken up by other thinkers and scientists over the years. In fact, in the closing chapter of The Varieties James wrote: “But all these statements are unsatisfactory from their brevity, and I can only say the I hope to return the same questions in another book. Unfortunately, James was unable to return to the same questions in another book before his death. This book, we hope, picks up where James left off with the benefit of over a century’s worth of scholarly and scientific work on the subject.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
Part III focuses on interpreting and integrating these experiences. We begin by examining how people tend to treat their spiritual experiences as real (even somehow as “realer than real”). We then turn to philosophical considerations around spiritual experience, such as whether we can determine if these experiences are real or illusory, and how some beliefs may change as a result of these experiences (as well as how some beliefs may change the nature of the experiences themselves). Next, we consider how some experiences are sometimes ‘transformative” and how such brief moments can exert lasting impacts on one’s behavior and beliefs. We follow this with a chapter on whether the positive impact of some of these experiences can somehow be harnessed for the purpose of therapeutic applications, with a special emphasis on emerging work on psychedelics. In the penultimate chapter, we consider whether the study of spiritual experiences has any relevance for the study of consciousness given that these experiences can temporarily change one’s sense of time, space, and self. Finally we offer some visions about the potential future of the scientific study of spiritual experience.
This message has been repeated many times in this blog. This current message is motivated by a news story showing a promising treatment for the amyloid plaque and neurofibrillary tangle that are the defining features of Alzheimer’s. But there have been many posts on this blog regarding people whose autopsies showed that their brains were filled with these plaques and tangles yet who exhibited none of the behavioral or cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s during their lifetimes.
The explanation for these findings is that during their lifetimes these people had built up a cognitive reserve as a result of their cognitive activities and a dedication to lifelong learning. Living a healthy lifestyle is also important! The goal of this blog is to provide information to help foster the buildup of this cognitive reserve.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
Part II focuses on the different types or”varieties,” of spiritual experiences. Here we provide an evidence-based classification of spiritual experiences complete with historical and contemporary examples. First we examine “numinous” experiences of divinity, or God, which involve a sense of communion with a greater kind of mind or spirit. Next, we cover “revelatory” experiences, visions, and voices that seem to come from beyond one’s self and often relate to ones ’ life purpose. We then examine “synchronicity,” the sense that events and seeming coincidences have a hidden message. Next, we examine feelings of unity or oneness, which James broadly referred to as “mystical’ experiences. We then explore “aesthetic” experiences, like awe and wonder, which almost everyone has felt to some degree with art, nature, or seeing someone exhibit excellence or moral courage. Last we investigate “paranormal” experiences, moments when individuals seem to perceive a nonphysical entity (e.g., a seeming visitation from a deceased family member). Each type of experience in terms of its prevalence, triggers and outcomes, as well as examples from people who report having had them. This part of the book functions as something like a field guide for identifying the various types of spiritual experiences one might spot in the wild—in one’s family, friends, acquaintances, or oneself.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
It begins by summarizing the primary points ff The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences and especially its emphasis on the study of experience over beliefs. Next it explores the ways in which spiritual experiences are currently studied using modern scientific methods, looking at methods from psychology, psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and neuroscience. We then discuss common triggers, like spiritual practices, rituals, and, especially, psychedelic substances each of which have been shown to increase the likelihood of having a spiritual experience. This part concludes with with a preliminary consideration of the evidence about whether spiritual experiences exert a mostly positive, negative, for neutral effect on people’s lives.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
The data show that spiritual experiences are surprisingly common and are usually not related to mental illness. On the contrary, spiritual experiences are often potent sources of well-being. Emerging research on psychedelic is testing whether such substances can be harnessed for therapeutic purposes.
This book provides a tour through the contemporary science of spiritual experience and an overview of what James dubbed the “Science of Religions’ as it appears in the 21st century. This tour takes us to the heights and depths of individual subjective experience as we investigate some of the most profoundly meaningful moments of some people’s lives. Along the way, we peer into the inner life of a diverse group of people, as spiritual experiences occur in people from all belief systems—religious, spiritual, agnostic, and atheistic alike—from all over the world.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University, The Varieties of Spiritual Expericne. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
In psychology, an entire subfield is devoted to the study of religious and spiritual beliefs, practices, rituals, and experiences. We draw on finding from this field throughout this book. Yet another subfield in psychology, called positive psychology, founded by Martin Seligman and others, is the scientific study of well-being and may be particularly relevant to the study of how spiritual experiences affect people’s lives. Positive psychology includes, among a number of subjects, the study of mental states related to well-being, such as awe, love, and joy. Previously the dominant approach in psychology in terms of spiritual experiences was to study them as forms or manifestations of mental illness. Pathological aspects of spiritual experience also exist and have been described in Diagnostic and Manual of Mental Disorders, and we discuss these connections in detail. But the positive aspects of such experiences are just beginning to be studied systematically. We consider both positive and pathological of spiritual experience throughout this book. As we argue, the data show that spiritual experiences are surprisingly common and are not usually related to mental illness. On the contrary, spiritual experiences are often potent sources of well-being. Emerging research on psychedelic substances is testing whether such experiences can be harnessed for therapeutic purposes.
This book provides a tour through the contemporary science of spiritual experience and an overview of what James dubbed, “the Science of Religions” as it appears in the 21st Century. This tour takes us to the heights and depths of individual subjective experience as we investigate some of the most profoundly meaningful moments of some people’s lives. Along the way, we peer into the inner life of a diverse group of people, as spiritual experiences occur people from all belief systems—religious, spiritual, agnostic, and atheistic alike—from all over the world.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
In neuroscience, neuroimaging scanners now allow researchers to measure changes in the brain and body of people who are having spiritual experiences. This approach has been called “neurotheology,” and Andrew Newberg is among the pioneers in this field. This field studies the relationship between brain states and mental phenomena related to religion and spirituality, including spiritual experience. We feel that neurotheology can play an important role in the development and understanding of the varieties of spiritual experience. Thus, we nope to show not only the psychological nature of these experiences, but also their associated psychology correlates. Thus multidisciplinary approach, we hope, provides a rich and comprehensive analysis of such experiences.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
The aim is to carry forward James’s insights and fill in some of the empirical gaps of his speculations with decades of scientific work on spiritual experiences. In James’s interdisciplinary spirit, findings from a number of fields, but as psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology, and neuroscience are our primary domain of expertise, we feature findings related to the brain, mental processes, and behavior.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
We follow this approach by attempting to take a metaphysically agnostic stance toward the question of whether spiritual experiences ultimately spring from a supernatural source. While we find thus question fascinating from the standpoints of philosophy and theology, as we will discuss, there are few if any testable claims for science to address. Whether it is possible to ever find introcontrovertible evidence that such experiences either are or are not supernatural in their origin is a question for the future that must be carefully evaluated and considered. Unfortunately, we find that some of our colleagues who have a metaphysical axe to grind can allow obvious biases to enter into their discussion of spiritual experiences. For example, religious researchers will sometimes claim that some experiences “prove” the reality of a religious or spiritual doctrine, while atheist researchers will attempt to “prove” that spiritual experiences are mere delusions. Both of these biases can result in faulty reasoning and unsound science, as such conclusions are drawn from beyond what the data will allow.
Third by scientifically oriented we mean that James brought his training in physiology and medicine as well as his foundational work in psychology to bear in his study of spiritual experiences. James repeatedly called for future research on the physiology and psychology of spiritual experience. James also anticipated a number of scientific findings related to spiritual experiences, such as some of their triggers as well as the fact that spiritual experiences can exert positive, pathological, or mixed effects on the lives of those who report them.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
First, by phenomenological sensitive we mean the respectful curiosity James shows his subjects, those people who provided the written descriptions of the experiences he analyzes throughout The Varieties. James holds up the dignity of each individual report, never falling into condescension or detached objectivication. James approach would later inspire Edmund Husserl, who explicitly acknowledged James as an influence when he articulated “phenomenology” as a formal philosophical school that prioritizes subjective experience. We follow in this approach by appreciating individuals’ subjective experiences, regardless of whether we with their particular interpretation of their experience. We commend the bravery of every person who shared an experience we include in this book, not only because these experiences are deeply personal and meaningful, but also because many people still reflexively view these experiences as indicative of mental illness—a view we intend to challenge throughout this book (while also realizing the nuance between some spiritual experiences and some mental disorders). For over 100 years, many physicians and psychologists dismissed spiritual experiences as merely symptoms of epilepsy or mental illness, but we think it is high time to change this perspective. James work, as well as our own, is made possible by people who are willing to share some of their most meaningful and personal moments.
Second, by philosophically sensitive we mean the way James ‘bracketed,” or put to the side the question of the ultimate metaphysical reality of spiritual experiences in order to examined them scientifically. Again and again James resisted the temptation to allow his own particular metaphysical beliefs to enter his psychological and physiological investigations of spiritual experiences. James was less concerned with the origins of spiritual experiences—whether they come exclusively from changes in the brain or ultimately from a supernatural source—and was far more interested in their outcomes. That is, he focused on how such experiences impact people’s everyday lives. Put more poetically, James advocated focusing on the “fruit” rather that the “roots” (origins) of spiritual experiences. This approach is in line with his philosophy of “pragmatism,” which emphasized considering the effects of an action or belief when seeking to determine its value.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
We expand on James’s work by including a diverse set of historical and contemporary accounts across traditions and cultures, rather than the more limited accounts that fill the pages of The Varieties. Several researchers have conducted surveys of spiritual experiences (James himself drew on the survey work of one of his students, Edwin Starbuck). We have conducted a number of surveys on spiritual experiences, and we included the results throughout this book. We have found this approach to be a valuable way to educate about the research process when it has been similarly described in books by other leading researchers, such as anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann. In one survey that we conducted for this book, called the Varieties Survey, we gathered data on around 500 individuals; the data include their demographic information, religious and spiritual history, religious practices, well-being, mental illness, and most importantly, questions about their most intense spiritual experience(s). The sample was generally representative of the U.S population and will provide additional empirical data to complement some of our comments throughout the book. (Note: The sample consisted of 461 subjects who provided complete data. This U.S. sample had more females than males [62.5% to 36.7%]; ranged from 18 to 71 years old, with an average age of 36; and was 81% White [6% Black, 5% Hispanic, 4% Asian. The sample had all graduated from high school, and 66% had a college degree of some kind.). We also posted a website called The Varieties Corpus (https.www.VarietiesCorpus.com), where you can share your experience and read about other contemporary experiences. In our data we find that “spiritual experience” is the label the largest percentage of participants prefer when describing the sorts of experiences James set out to study. Thus the advice of contemporary scholars and our data converge on the term “spiritual.” Going forward we use the term spiritual experience when referring to all such experiences in general , although we introduce more specific terms as we progress.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
We wholeheartedly echo this sentiment of humility and direct it first back to James himself, whose monumental reputation towers over our attempt over our attempt to examine The Varieties and provide an update on relevant scientific findings and contemporary scholarly work. It is no small task to approach the work of a nearly universally acknowledged genius. According to philosopher John McDermott, “James thought is the vestibule to the thought and values of the twentieth century.” For contemporary psychologist Steven Pinker, “James was one of the greatest writers in the history of modern English.
We also direct a note of humility toward those scholars among our readers who may have had a spiritual experience. We know such moments are often so meaningful that they can be held close to the core of one’s identity. While some readers may feel uncomfortable with examining such intimate experiences in the light of scientific inquiry, our intention is to illuminate these experiences for the purpose of further understanding, not to diminish their values a sentiment with which James would have wholeheartedly agreed.
In The Varieties of Spiritual Experience, James hoped to inspire future scientific work on “religious” experiences—an initiative he called the “science of religion.” Due to the broad and non dogmatic way James handled these experiences, modern scholars have suggested that if James were to rewrite Varieties today, he would opt for the more expansive title, The Varieties of Spiritual Experience. We agree and have named the present work accordingly.
Religious experiences generally refer only to those experiences that involve content explicitly derived from a particular religious tradition. However, for our purposes, we would like to use “spiritual’ to refer not only to religious experiences, such as a Christian seeing Christ, but also experiences that are not specifically religious in nature, such as feeling at one with all things. We are aware that some people and scholars may not agree with this usage, but we feel that ‘spiritual experience” can include all religious experiences as well as the large variety of other experiences that may be referred to in religious, spiritual, or even secular claims. We will see that a number of agnostics and atheists, such as Bertrand Russell, Sam Harris, and Barbera Ehrenreich have had experiences they refer to as “spiritual’ or “mystical” despite their lack of supernatural beliefs. We will address the many meanings of spirituality, spiritual belief, and spiritual experience throughout this book.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
“The Varieties can be read in several different ways. For scientists, it provides a sensible rationale for conducting research on spiritual experiences. For religious scholars, it provides a contentious account on the origin and perpetuation of religions. For readers, who have not had a religious experience, it provides vivid descriptions of some strange and spectacular mental states. For readers who have had a spiritual experience, it can be a source of great consolation, as these readers often come to realize that they are not alone or “crazy,” which is unfortunately a common reaction caused, in part, by the social taboo around expressing these experiences. For us, The Varieties is not only a perennial classic but also a source of continual inspiration for work in this area.
James largely succeeded in bringing out the many layers of personal meaning and scientific potential in studying spiritual experiences without making it clear whether he endorsed a supernatural or non supernatural worldview. In The Varieties, James maintains an essential agnostic and even-handed approach throughout. Readers tend to feel that they are along for the ride of engaging in scientific and philosophical inquiry about a fascinating subject, rather than being sold a particular worldview (which is a more typical approach to this topic).
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
William James wrote the on the scientific study of these experiences. The book grew out of James’s Giffords lectures The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Nature, which he delivered at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1901-1902. The lectures attracted one of the largest audiences in the 14 year of the Gifford lectures to that point, which included academics as well as the public. In the 19th century equivalent of a standard ovation at a TED talk, the audience sang, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow after James finished his last lecture.
The many accounts of extraordinary religious and spiritual experiences that James included in The Varieties likely account of the finished fascination surrounding the book; it can feel like a voyeuristic journey into the psyche of people in the midst of some of their most meaningful moments. But its true brilliance comes from James method. James approached spiritual experiences from the standpoint of empirical science, while putting aside metaphysical and theological questions surrounding these experiences. That is to say, he recorded and catalogued religious/spiritual experiences and described their psychological and physiological aspects largely, without speculating about whether or not they actually pointed to some religious spiritual reality.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
People who’ve had experiences like these—whether they’re a Christian experiencing God’s presence, a Buddhist experiencing enlightenment, or a secular neuroscientist having a stroke—often count them among the most meaningful moments in life. Yet people’s interpretations of these experiences widely diverge. Here William James was describing the experiences that are our subject: Our normal waking consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted by it from the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question—for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness.
How should we regard these experiences? The author of the above quote—psychologist, physician, and philosopher William James pondered these questions in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study of Human Nature (1902). We are still searching for the answer. Yet the specifics of the answer have certainly changed in the 122 years or so since he wrote these words. Given the advances in the sciences of brain, mind, and behavior, how can contemporary people make sense of these experiences? Do such experiences still have validity and worth in an increasingly secular world? What has modern science revealed about these experiences? And how might we category these experiences in terms of their content and intensity? These are the questions that drive this book.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University, The Varieties of Spiritual Experience. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
“I felt my self one with the grass, the trees, birds, insects, everything in nature. I exalted in the mere fact of existence, of being part of it all. I knew so well the satisfaction of losing self in a perception of supreme power and love.
I lost the boundary to my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I spoke, but my words had lost their meaning.
I could no longer discern the physical boundaries of where I began and where I ended. I sensed the composition of my being as that of a fluid rather than that of a solid. I no longer perceived myself as a whole object separate from everything.
The following post comes from a new book by David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg of Oxford University, The Varieties of Spiritual Experience. The subtitle is 21st Century Research and Perspectives.
“In the midst of life’s many ordinary moments, some experiences feel extraordinary. They can mark inflection points in one’s life, after which one is never quite the same. Most brief experiences capable of making a long lasting impact involve obvious changes in one’s outward circumstances like a birth, a death, a marriage, or an illness. Yet some life changing moments seem to come solely from another source, appearing as mental states to altered states of consciousness from either deep within a person’s mind, or, perhaps, a source beyond the self. These experiences have been called by different names over time: spiritual, religious, mystical, peak, or self-transcendent, and people around the world and throughout history have experienced them, up to, and including the present day. The sacred texts of every major religion describe these moments, philosophers since the ancient Greeks have pondered them, and, according to recent Gallup polls over 30% of contemporary Americans have experienced them.
Visiting Agoura has made me see that there is a ray of hope. Later, when Sjef Drummen drops me off back at the station, he gives me another grin. ‘I think I talked your ear off today.’ True, but I have to hand it to him: walk around his school for any length of time and you’ll find quite a few certainties start to crumble.
But now I understand: this is a journey back to the beginning. Agoura has the same teaching philosophy as hunter-gatherer societies. Children learn best when left to their own devices, in a community bringing together all ages and abilities supported by coaches and play leaders. Drummen calls it ‘Education-0.0’— a return to Homo loudens
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Agoura is part of a movement of schools that are charting an alternative course. People may scoff at the course at their approach to education, but there is plenty of evidence that it works: Summerhill School in Suffolk, England has been demonstrating since 1921 that kids can be entrusted with an abundance of freedom. And so has the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, where since the 1960s thousands of kids have spent their youth—and gone on to live fulfilling lives.
The question is not: can our kids handle the freedom?
The question is: whether we have the freedom to give it to them?
It’s an urgent question. ‘The opposite of play is not work, the psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith once said. ‘The opposite of play is depression.’ These days, the way many of us work—with no freedom, no play, no intrinsic motivation—is fueling an epidemic of depression. According to the World Health Organization, depression is now the number one global disease. Our biggest shortfall isn’t a bank account or budget sheet, but inside ourselves. It’s a shortage of what makes life meaningful. A shortage of play.”
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
In 2018 two Dutch economists analyzed a poll of twenty-seven thousand workers in thirty-seven countries. They found that fully a quarter of respondents doubt the importance of their own work. Who are these people? Well, they’re certainly not cleaners, nurses, or police officers. The data show that most ‘meaningless jobs’ are concentrated in the private sector—in places like banks, law firms, and ad agencies. Judged by the criteria of our ‘knowledge economy,’ the people holding these jobs are the definition of success. They earned straight A’s, have sharp Linked-in profiles, and take home fat pay checks. And yet the work they do is, by their own estimation, useless to society.
Has the world gone nuts? We spend billions helping our biggest talents scale the career ladder, but once at the top they ask themselves what’s it all for.
Meanwhile politicians preach the need to secure a higher spot in international country rankings, telling us we need to be more educated, earn more money and bring the economy more ‘growth.’
But what do all these degrees really represent? Are they proof of creativity and imagination, or of the ability to sit still and nod? It’s like the philosopher Ivan Illich said decades ago: ‘School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Bullying is often regarded as a quirk of our nature; something that is part and parcel of being a kid. Not so, say sociologists, who over the years have compiled extensive research on the places where gullying is endemic. The call these total institutions. Sociologist Erving Goffman, writing some fifty years ago, described them as follows:
*Everybody lives in the same place and is subject to a single authority. *All activities are carried out together and everybody does the same tasks. *Activities are rigidly scheduled, often from one hour to the next. *There is a system of explicit, formal rules imposed by an authority.
Of course, the ultimate example is a prison, where bullying runs rampant. But total institutions show up in other places, too, such as nursing homes. The elderly, when penned together, can develop caste systems in which the biggest bullies claim the best seats and tables at Bingo time. One American expert on bullying even calls bingo, ‘the devil’s game.’
And then there are schools. Bullying is by far the most pervasive at typical British boarding schools (the kind that inspired William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.). And little wonder: these schools resemble nothing so much as prisons. You can’t leave, you have to earn a place in a rigid hierarchy, and there’s strict division between pupils and staff. These competitive institutions are part and parcel of Britain’s upper class establishment—many London politicians went to boarding schools—but according to education scientists, they thwart our playful nature.
The good news is that things can be different. Bullying is practical non-existent at unstructured schools such as Agora. Here you can take a breather whenever you need one: the doors are always open. And, more importantly, everyone is different. Difference is normal, because children of all ages, abilities, and levels intermingle.
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Angelique is fourteen. Her primary school sent her to vocational education, but the girl I met is terrifically analytical. She’s obsessed with Korea for some reason and set on studying there, and has already taught herself quite a bit of the language. Angelique is also vegan and has compiled an entire book of arguments to fire at meat eaters.
Every student has a story. Rafael, also fourteen, loves programming. He shows me a security leak he discovered on the Dutch Open University website, but it hasn’t been fixed yet. Laughing, Rafael tells me, ‘If I wanted to get his attention, I could change his personal password.’
When he shows me the website of a company he’s done some front-end work on, I ask him if he shouldn’t be billing them for his trouble. Rafael gives me an odd look. ‘What, and lose my motivation?’
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“No homework or grades. No hierarchy of vice-principals and team leaders—only teams of autonomous teachers (or ‘coaches’ as they are called here). Actually, the students are the ones in charge. At this school, the director is routinely booted out of his office because the kids need it for a meeting.
And, no, this is not one of those elite private schools for offbeat students with zany parents. This school enrolls kids from all backgrounds. It’s name. Agora.
It all started in 2014, when the school decided to tear down the dividing walls. (Drummen: ‘Shut kids up in cages and they behave like rats.’ ) Next kids from all levels were thrown together. (‘Because that’s what the read world is like.’). Next, kids from all levels were thrown together. (‘Because that’s what the real world is like.’). Then each student had to draw up an individual plan. (‘If your school has one thousand kids, then you have one thousand learning pathways.’).
The result?
Upon entering the school, what first comes to mind is a junk playground. Rather than rows of seats lined up facing the board, I see a colorful chaos of improvised desks, an aquarium, a replica of Tutankhamun’s tomb, Greek columns, a bunk bed, a Chinese dragon, and the from half of a sky blue ’69 Cadillac.
One of the students at Agora is Brent. Now seventeen, until a few years ago he attended a bilingual prep school where he was earning good grades in everything except French and German—which he was failing. Under the Dutch three—track system Brent was transferred to down to a general secondary education track and then, when he continued to lag behind, to a vocational track. ‘When they told me, I ran home, furious. I told my mother I was getting a job at McDonald’s.
But thanks to friends and friends of friends, Brent wound up at Agoura, where he was free to learn what he wanted. Now he knows all about the atomic bomb, is drafting his first business plan and can carry on a conversation in German. He’s also been accepted on an international programme at Modragon University in Shagon.
According to his coach Rob Houben, Brent felt afflicted about announcing his admission to college. He told me, ‘There’s still so much I want to give back to this school for everything it’s done for me.’
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Granted, we’re a lot less strict with kids today than we were a hundred years ago, and schools are no longer the prisons they resembled in the nineteenth century. Kids who behave badly don’t get a slap, but a pill. Schools no longer indoctrinate, but teach a more diverse curriculum than ever, transferring as much knowledge as possible so they’ll find well paying jobs in the ‘knowledge economy.’
Education has become something to be endured. A new generation is growing up that’s internalizing the rules of our achievement-based society. It’s a generation that’s learning to run a rat race where the main metrics of success are your resume and your paycheck. A generation less inclined to color outside the lines, less inclined to dream or to dare, to fantasize or explore. A generation, in short, that’s forgetting how to play.
This post is based on an article by Lisa Strauss in the On Your Mind section of The Health & Science section of the 8 November, 2022 issue of The Washington Post.
The first way is to think of sleep as a bodily function. Once this is understood it is easier to let go of trying to control it. Adults can reclaim this natural relationship to sleep and learn to get out of its way. Recognize that it is not your job but your body’s job to sleep. Approach your sleep habits in a relaxed, flexible, and curious manner.
Compress your sleep window. When we adapt an unrealistically lengthy period for sleep (falling asleep at 10 p.m. and waking at 8 a.m., for example, can lead to interrupted sleep, light sleep, and protracted wakeful periods.
Use mental selfies. If you are overthinking redirect your focus from the subject of your overthinking to the fact that you are overthinking. Then try directing your attention to ‘a soothing distractor’ such as a peaceful book, audio book, or lecture series (on a generous timer). A good soothing distractor can be better that the familiar techniques people tend to turn to at night, such as muscle relaxation and visualizations. These otherwise excellent approaches may not last long enough or may be too goal-oriented or insufficiently distracting. You can still use them as needed once you are already feeling sleepy or for rapid calming.
The title of this post is identical to the first part of the title of an article by Erin Blakemore in the Heath & Science of the 1 November 2022 issue of The Washington Post. The second part of the article is 22% have mild cognitive impairment. Readers of Healthymemory’s Blog should be reminded of the motivation for this blog.
The defining basis for a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is the presence of amyloid plaque and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Yet many people have died with these defining characteristics of Alzheimer’s, yet exhibited none of the cognitive or behavioral characteristics.
Much research has be done to determine how these people avoid the cognitive and behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Research has shown that these peoples have used their brains throughout their lifetimes and have lived a lifetime of continual learning. The explanation offered is that these practices produced a cognitive reserve in the brain that precluded the behavioral and cognitive symptoms.
But these people have done more than avoiding the cognitive and behavioral symptoms. These people have lived richer, more fulfilling lives.
The purpose of this blog is to help people build a cognitive reserve and to live more fulfilling lives.
“The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“These golden days were short-lived, however, as from the 1980s onward life grew progressively busier, in the workplace and in the classroom. Individualism and the culture of achievement gained precedence. Families grew smaller and parents began to worry whether their progeny would make the grade.
Kids who were too playful now might even be sent to a doctor. In recent decades, diagnosis of behavioral disorders have increased exponentially, of which, perhaps, the best example is ADHD. This is the only disorder, I once heard a psychiatrist remark, that’s seasonal: what seems insignificant over summer vacation requires more than a few kids to be dosed on Ritalin when schools start again”.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“For children, the dawn of civilization brought the yoke of mind-numbing farm labor, as well as the idea that children required raising, much like one would raise tomatoes. Because if children were born wicked you couldn’t leave them to their own devices. They first needed to acquire the veneer of civilization, and often this called for a firm hand. The notion that parents should ever strike a child originated only recently among our agrarian and and city-dwelling ancestors.
With the emergence of the first cities and and states came the first education systems. The church needed pious followers, the army loyal soldiers, and the government hard workers. Play was the enemy, all three agreed. ‘Neither do we allow any time for play,’dictated the English cleric John Wesley (1703-91) in the rules he established for his schools. ‘He that plays when he was a boy will play when he is a man.’
Not until the nineteenth century was a religious education supplanted by state systems in which in the words of one historian, ‘a French minister of education could boast that, as it was 10:20 a.m., he knew which passage of Cicero all students of a certain form throughout France would be studying. Good citizenship had to be drilled into people from an early age, and all citizens had to love their country. France, Italy and Germany had all been traced out on the map; now it was time to forge Frenchmen, Italians, and Germans.
During the Industrial Revolution, a large portion of manufacturing drudgery was relegated to machines. (Not everywhere, of course—in Bangladesh still work sewing machines to produce our bargains). That changed the aim of education. Now, children had to learn to read and write, to design and organize so they could pay their own way when they were adults.
Not until the late nineteenth century did children once again have more time to play. Historians call this period the ‘golden age’ of unstructured play, when child labor was banned and parents increasingly left kids to themselves. In many neighborhoods in Europe and North America no one even bothered to keep on eye on them, and kids simply roamed free most of the day.”
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“…the fascinating thing is that it’s the most intelligent animals that exhibit the most playful behavior. Domesticated animals play their whole lives. What’s more, no other species enjoys a childhood as long as Homo puppy. Play gives meaning to life, wrote the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga back in 1938. Everything we call ‘culture,’ said Huizinga originates in play.
Anthropologists suspect that for most of human history children were permitted to play as much as they pleased. Considerable though the differences between individual hunter-gatherer cultures may be, the culture of play looks very similar across the board. Most significant of all, say researchers, is the immense freedom afforded to youngsters. Since nomads rarely feel they can dictate child development, kids are allowed to play all day long, from early in the morning until late at night.
But are children equipped for life as an adult if they never go to school? The answer is that, in these societies, playing and learning are one and the same. Toddlers don’t need tests or grades to learn to walk or talk. It comes to them naturally, because they’re keen to explore the world. Likewise, hunter-gatherer children learn through play. Catching insects, making bows and arrows, imitating animal calls—there’s so much to do in the jungle. And survival requires tremendous knowledge of plants and animals.
Equally, by playing together, children learn to cooperate. Hunter-gatherer kids always play in mixed groups, with boys and girls of all ages together. Little kids learn from the big kids, who feel a responsibility to pass on what they know. Not surprisingly, competitive games are virtually unheard of in these societies. Unlike adult tournaments, unstructured play continually requires participants to make compromises. And if anyone’s unhappy, they can always stop (but then the fun ends for everyone).
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Play is not subject to fixed rules and regulations, but is open-ended and unfettered. It’s not an Astroturfed field with parents shouting at the sidelines; it’s frolicking outside without parental supervision, making up their own games as they go along.
When kids engage in this kind of play, they think for themselves. They take risks and color outside the lines, and in the process train their minds and motivation. Unstructured is nature’s remedy against boredom. These days we give kids all kinds of manufactured entertainment, from LEGO Star Wars Snowspeeder, complete with detailed assembly instructions, to Miele Kitchen Gourmet Deluxe with electronic cooking sounds.
The question is, if everything comes prefabricated, can we still cultivate our own curiosity and powers of imagination? Boredom may be the wellspring of creativity. ‘You can’t teach creativity,’ writes psychologist Peter Gray, ‘all you can do is let it blossom.’
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Edward Deci, the American psychologist who flipped the script on how we think about motivation, thought the question should no longer be how to motivate others, but how we shape a society so that people motivate themselves. This question is neither conservative nor progressive, neither capitalist nor communist. It speaks to a new movement—a new realism. Because nothing is more powerful than people who do something because they want to do it.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
FAVI is a French firm that supplies auto parts. When Jean-Francois Zobrist was appointed its new CEO in 1983, FAVI had a rigid hierarchy structure and still did things the old-fashioned way. Work hard, you’ll get a bonus. Clock in late, your wages will be locked.
From day 1 Zobrist imagined an organization in which not he, but his staff made decisions. Where employees felt it their duty to arrive on time (and you can be certain that if they didn’t, they had a good reason). ‘I dreamed of a place,’ Zobrist recounted later, ‘that everyone would treat like home. Nothing more, nothing less.
His first act as CEO was to brick up the huge window that let management keep an eye on the whole shop floor. Next he binned the time clock, had the locks taken off the storage rooms, and axed the bonus system. Zobrist split the company into ‘mini-factories’ of twenty-five to thirty employees and had them each choose their team leader. To these he gave free rein to make all their own decisions: on wages, working hours, who to hire, and all the rest. Each team answered directly to their customers.
Zobrist also decided not to give up the firm’s old managers when they retired, and cut out the HR, Planning and marketing departments. FAVI switched to a ‘reverse delegation’ method of working, in which the teams did everything on their own, unless they themselves wanted to call in management.
This may sound like the recipe for a money-guzzling hippy commune, but in fact production at FAVI went up. The company workforce expanded from one hundred to five hundred and it went on to conquer 50% of the market for transmission forks. Average production times for key parts dropped from eleven days to just one. And while competitors were forced to relocate operations to low wage countries, the FAVI plant stayed put in Europe.
All that time Zobrist’s philosophy was dead simple. It you treat employees as if they were responsible and reliable, they will be. He even wrote a book about it: L’enterprise qui cruise que le homme est bon. Translation: The company that believes people are good.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Jos de Blok says, “There’s this notion that doers can’t think strategically, that they lack vision. But the people out doing the work are brimming with ideas. They come up with a thousand things, but don’t get heard, because managers think they have to go on some corporate retreat to dream up plans to present to worker bees.”
De Blok has a different take on things. He sees his employees as intrinsically motivated professionals and experts on how their jobs ought to be done. ‘In my experience, managers tend to have very few ideas. They get their jobs because the fit into a system, because they follow orders. Not because they are big visionaries. They take some ‘high performance leadership’ courses, and suddenly they think they’re a game changer, an innovator.’
When I point out to de Blok that ‘healthcare manager’ was the fastest growing occupational group in the Netherlands in the years 1996-2014, he heaves a sigh.
‘What you get with all these MBA programmers people who’ve learned a convenient way to order the world.You have HR, Finance, IT.
Eventually, you start believing that a lot of what your organization is accomplishing is down to you. You see it with loads of managers. But subtract management and the work continues as before—even better.’
As statements like this testify, de Blok tends to swim against the tide.
He’s a manager who prefers not to manage. A CEO with hands on experience. An anarchist at the top of the ladder. So as care became a product and patients became customers, de Blok decided to give up his management job and start something new. He dreamed of an oasis in this vast bureaucratic wasteland, a place fueled not by market forces and growth, but by small teams and trust.
Buurtzorg started out with one team of four nurses in Enschede, a Dutch city of 150,000 on the country’s eastern fringes. Today it numbers more than eight hundred teams active nationwide. However, it’s not what the organization is, but what it is not, that sets Buurtzoog apart. It has no managers, no call centre and no planners. There are no targets or bonuses. Overheads are negligible and so is time spent in meetings. Buurtzorg does not have a flashy HQ in the capital, but occupies an uninspiring block in an outlying business park in outlying Almelo.
Each team of twelve has maximum autonomy. Teams plan their own schedules and employ their own co-workers. The organization has an intranet site where colleagues can pool their knowledge and experience. Each team has its own training budget, and each group of fifty teams has a coach and they can call in if they are stuck. Finally, there’s the main office which takes care of the financial side of things.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
How you get paid for what you do can turn you into an entirely different person. Two American psychologists demonstrated a few years ago that lawyers and consultants who are paid by the hour put a price on all their time, even outside the office. The upshot? Lawyers who meticulously log their hours are less likely to do pro bono work. It’s mind boggling to see how we get tripped up by targets, bonuses, and the prospect of penalties.
Think about CEOs who focus solely on quarterly results, and wind up driving their companies into the ground. Academics who are evaluated by their published output, and then tempted to put forward bogus research. Schools who are assessed on their standardized test results, and so skip teaching those skills that can’t be quantified. Psychologists who are paid to continue to treat patients, and thus keep patients in treatment longer than necessary. Bankers who earn bonuses by selling subprime mortgages, and end up bringing the global economy to the brink of ruin.
The list continues. A hundred years after Frederick Taylor, we’re still undermining one another’s intrinsic motivation on a massive scale. A major study among 230,000 people across 142 countries revealed that a mere 13% actually feel ‘engaged’ at work. Thirteen per cent. When you wrap your brain around these kinds figures, you realize how much ambition and energy are going to waste.
And how much room there is to do things differently.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Time and time again we assume that others care only about themselves. That, unless there is an award in the offing, people much prefer to lounge around. A British study recently found that a vast majority of the population (74%) identify more closely with values such as helpfulness, honesty, and justice than with wealth, status, and power. But just about as large a share (78%) think others are more self-interested than they really are.
Some economists think this skewed take on human nature isn’t a problem. Nobel Prize-winning-economist Milton Friedman, for instance, argued that incorrect assumptions about people don’t matter so long as your predictions prove right. But Friedman forget to factor in the nocebo effect: simply believing in something can make it come true.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“ Researchers at the University of Massachusetts analyzed fifty-one studies on the effects of economic incentives in the workplace. The found ‘overwhelming evidence’ that bonuses can blunt the intrinsic motivation and moral compass of employees. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they also discovered that bonuses and targets can erode creativity. Extrinsic incentives will generally play out in kind. Pay by the hour and you get more hours. Pay by the publication and you get more publications. Pay by the surgical procedure and you will get more surgical procedures.
Here again, the parallels between the western capitalistic economy and that of the former Soviet Union are striking. Soviet-era managers worked with targets. When targets went up—say, at a furniture factory—the quality of the furniture plummeted. Next, when it was decided tables and chairs would be priced by weight, suddenly the factory would produces pieces too heavy to move.
This may sound amusing, but the sad truth is that it’s still happening in many organizations today. Surgeons paid on a per treatment basis are more inclined to sharpen their scalpels than to deliver better care. At a big law firm that requires it staff to bill a minimum number of hours (say 1500 per year) isn’t stimulating its lawyers to work better, only longer. Communist or Capitalist, in both systems the tyranny of numbers drowns out our intrinsic motivation.
So, are bonuses a complete waste of money? Not entirely. Research by behavioral economist by Dan Ariely has shown that they can be effective when the tasks are simple and routine, like those Frederick Taylor took on his stopwatch on production lines. Precisely, the kind of tasks, in other words, that modern economies get robots to do, and robots have no need for intrinsic motivation.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
A cynical view of humankind laid the foundations for capitalism. ‘What workers want most from their employers, beyond anything else is high wages,’ asserted one of the world’s first business consultants, Frederick Taylor some hundred years ago. Taylor made his name as the inventor of scientific management, a method premised on the notion that performance must be measured with the greatest possible precision in order to make factories as efficient as possible. Managers had to be stationed at every production line, stopwatch at the ready, to record how long it took to tighten a screw or pack a box. Taylor himself likened the ideal employee to be a brainless robot: ‘so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more closely resembles an ox.’
With this cheery message, Frederick Taylor grew to become one of the most renowned management scientists ever. In the early twentieth century, the whole world was giddy with his ideas—communists, fascists, and capitalists alike. From Lenin to Mussolini, from Renault to Siemens—Taylor’s management philosophy continued to spread. In the words of his biographer, Taylorism ‘adapts the way a virus does, fitting in almost everywhere.’
Of course, a lot has changed since Taylor’s day. You’ll now find plenty of start-ups where you can show up at the office wearing flip flops. And many workers these days have the flexibility to set their own hours. But Taylor’s view of humanity, and the conviction that only carrots and sticks get people moving, is as pervasive as ever. Taylorism lives on in timesheets, billable hours, and KPIs, in doctor pay for performance programmes and in warehouse staff whose very move is monitored by CCTV.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Jos de Blok has built a highly successful home health care organization, Buurtzorg, that employs over fourteen thousand people. He’s been voted Employer of the Year in the Netherlands five times. Consider the following interview:
Interviewer: Is there anything you do to motivate yourself? Steve Jobs reportedly asked himself in the mirror each morning: What would I do if this were my last day?
Jos: I read his book too, and I don’t believe a word of it.
Interviewer: Do you ever attend networking sessions?
Jos: At most of those things, nothing happens aside from everybody affirming everybody else’s opinions. That’s not for me.
Interviewer: How do you motivate your employees?
Jos: I don’t. Seems patronizing.
Interviewer: What’s your speck on the horizon, Jos—that distant goal that inspires you and your team?
Jos: I don’t have distant goals. Not all that inspired by specks.
Unlikely as it may sound, this is also a man who’s received the prestigious Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts in London, ranking him with the likes of Tim Berners-Lee, the brain behind the World Wide Web; Francis Crick, who unravelled the structure of DNA; and the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking. In November 2014, it was Jos de Blok from small-town Holland who received the honor and the cream of British academia turned out to attend his keynote speech. In broken English, de Blok confessed that at first it was a joke.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
The flip side of the Pygmalion Effect is the Golem Effect. It is named after the Jewish legend in which a creature meant to protect the citizens of Prague instead turns into a monster. These effects have been described in previous posts. The Golem Effect is ubiquitous. When we have negative expectations about someone, we don’t look at them as often. We distance ourselves from them. We don’t smile at them as much. Basically we do exactly what Rosenthal’s students did when they released the ‘stupid’ rats into the maze.
Research on the Golem effect is scant, which is not surprising, given ethical objections to subjecting people to negative expectations. But we do know is shocking. Take the study done by the psychologist Wendell Johnson in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939. He split twenty orphans into two groups, telling one group they were good articulate speakers, and the other they were destined to become stutterers. Now infamously known as ‘The Monster Study”, this experiment left multiple individuals with lifelong speech impediments.
The Golem Effect is a type of nocebo: a nocebo that causes poor students to fall further behind, the homeless to lose hope, and isolated teenagers to radicalize. It is also one of the insidious mechanisms behind racism, because when you’re subjected to low expectations, you won’t perform at your best, which further diminishes others’ expectations and thus further undermines your performance. There’s also evidence to suggest that the Golem Effect and its vicious cycle of mounting negative expectations can run entire organizations into the ground.
If this post seems to closely resemble previous posts it is important to again present these results that are not nearly as well known as the Pygmalion Effect.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Fifty years on the Pygmalion Effect remains an important finding in psychological research. It’s been tested by hundreds of tests in the army, at universities, in courtrooms, in families, in nursing homes and within organizations. True, the effect isn’t always as strong as Rosenthal originally thought, especially when it comes to how children perform on intelligence tests. Nonetheless, a critical review study in 2005 concluded that ‘the abundant naturalistic and experimental evidence shows that teacher expectations clearly do influence students—at least sometimes. High expectations can be a powerful tool. When wielded by managers, employees perform better. When wielded by officers, soldiers fight harder. When wielded by nurses, patients recover faster.
Despite this, Rosenthal’s discovery didn’t spark the revolution he and his team had hoped for. ‘The Pygmalion is great science that is undersupplied,’ an Israeli psychologist lamented. ‘It hasn’t made the difference it should have in the world, and that’s very disappointing.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
This test was a common IQ test. Rosenthal and his group gave the IQ test and then tested the results aside. They tossed a coin to decide which kids they would tell teachers were ‘high potentials.’ The power of expectation worked its magic. Teachers gave the group of ‘smart’ pupils more attention, more encouragement, and more praise. This changed how these students thought of themselves. The effect was clearest among the youngest kids, whose scores increased by twenty-seven in a single year. The largest gains were among boys who looked Latino, a group typically subject to the lowest expectations in California.
This was the previously mentioned Pygmalion Effect. And, as was mentioned before, the Pygmalion Effect resembles the placebo effect, instead, of benefiting oneself, these are exceptions benefitting others.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
William James is regarded as the father of American psychology. He served as a mentor of Theodore Roosevelt, Gertrude Stein, W. E. B. Du Bois, and many other leading lights of American history. He was a beloved figure. According to Bertrand Russell, who’d met him, James was full of the warmth of human kindness.
“Yet Russell was less enamored of James’ ideas. In 1896 he delivered a talk not about the will to doubt, but ‘The Will to Believe.’ James professed that some things just have to be taken on faith, even we can’t prove they’re true.
Take friendship. If you go around for ever doubting other people, you’ll behave in ways guaranteed to make you disliked. Things like friendship, love, trust, and loyalty become true precisely because we believe in them. While James allowed that one’s belief could be proved wrong, he argued that ‘dupery through hope’ was preferable to ‘dupery through fear.’
Bertrand didn’t go in for this type of mental gymnastics. Much as he liked the man himself, he disliked James’ philosophy. The truth, he said, doesn’t deal in wishful thinking. For many years that was my motto too—until I began to doubt doubt itself.
The year is 1963, four years after Russell’s interview with the BBC.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the young psychologist Bob Rosenthal decides to try an experiment at his Harvard University lab. Beside two rat cages, he posts different signs identifying the rodents as specially trained intelligent species or dull or dimwitted rodents.
Later that day Rosenthal instructs his students to put the rats in a maze and record how long it takes each one to find its way out of the maze. What he doesn’t tell the students is that in fact none of the rats is special in any way, they are just ordinary rats.
But then something peculiar happens. The rats that students believe to be brighter and faster actually do perform better. It’s like magic. The ‘bright’ rats, though no different than their ‘dull’ counterparts, perform twice as well.
At first, no one believed Rosenthal. ‘I was having trouble publishing any of this,’ he recalled decades later. Even he had trouble understanding that there were no mysterious forces at play, and that there is a perfectly rational explanation. What Rosenthal came to realize is that his students handled the ‘bright’ rats more warmly and gently than the ‘dull’ rats. This treatment changed the rats’ behavior and enhanced their performance.
Rosenthal published an article in the American Scientist that it should not be too farfetched to think that children could become brighter when expected to by their teachers.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
…research shows that the effects of pluralistic ignorance can be disastrous—even fatal. Consider binge drinking. Survey college students on their own, and most will say that drinking themselves into oblivion isn’t their favorite pastime. But because they assume other students they try to keep up and everyone ends up puking in the gutter.
Researchers have compiled reams of data demonstrating that this kind of negative spiral also factors into deeper societal evils like racism, gang rape, honor killings, support for terrorists and dictatorial regimes, even genocide. While condemning these acts in their own minds, perpetrators fear they are alone and therefore decide to go with the flow. After all, if there’s one thing Homo puppi struggles with is standing up to the group. We prefer a pound of the worst kind of misery over a few ounces of shame or social discomfort.
This led me to wonder: what if our negative ideas about human nature are actually a form of pluralistic ignorance? Could our fear that most people are out to maximize their own gain be for the assumption that that’s what others think? And then when we adapt a cynical view when, deep down, most of us are yearning for a life of more kindness and solidarity?
I’m reminded sometimes of how ants can get trapped crawling in circles. Ants are programmed to follow each other’s pheromone trails. This usually results in a neat trail of ants, but occasionally a group will get sidetracked and wind up ‘traveling’ in a continuous circle. Tens of thousands of ants can get trapped rotating in circles hundreds of feet wide. Blindly they carry on, until they succumb to exhaustion and lack of food and die.
Every now and then families, organizations, even entire countries seem to get caught in these kinds of spirals. We keep going around in circles, assuming the worst about each other. Few of us move to resist and so we march to our own downfall.
It’s been fifty years since Bob Rosenthal’s career began, and to this day he still wants to figure out how we can use the power of expectation to our advantage. Because he knows that, like hatred, trust can also be contagious.
Trust often when someone dares to go against the flow—someone who’s initially seen as unrealistic, even naive. In the next part of this book, I want to introduce you to several such individuals. Managers who have total faith in their staff. Teachers who give kids free rein to play. And elected officials, who treat their constituents as creative, engaged individuals.
These are people fueled by what William James, the Father of American Psychology called ‘the Will to Believe.’ People who recreate the world in their own image.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Take economic bubbles. John Maynard Keynes concluded that there was a striking parallel between financial markets and beauty pageants. Imagine you’re presented with a hundred contestants, but, rather than picking your own favorite you have to indicate which one others will prefer. In this kind of situation, our inclination is to guess what other people will think. Likewise if everyone thinks everybody else thinks that the value of a share will go up, then the share value goes up. This can go on for a long time, but eventually the bubble bursts. That happened, for example, when tulip mania hit Holland in January 1637, and a single tulip bulb briefly sold for more than ten times the annual wage of a skilled craftsman, only to become worthless a few days later.
Bubbles of this kind are not isolated to the financial world. They’re everywhere. Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University, once gave a brilliant demonstration during a college lecture. To explain his field of behavioral economics, he provided the class with what sounded like an extremely technical definition. Unbeknown to the students, however, all the terms were cobbled together in a series of random words and sentences to produce gibberish about ‘dialectic enigmatic theory’ and ‘neodeconstructive rationalism.’
Ariely’s students —at one of the world’s top universities— listened with rapt attention to this linguistic mash-up. Minutes ticked by. No one laughed. No one raised their hand. No one gave any sign that that did not understand.
‘And this brings us to the big question…’Ariely finally concluded. ‘Why has no one asked me what the #$? @!I’m talking about?
In psychology circles, what happened in that classroom is known as pluralistic ignorance—and, no, this isn’t a term generated by a machine. Individually, Ariely’s students found his narrative impossible to follow, but because they saw their classmates listening attentively, they assumed the problem was themselves. (This phenomenon is no doubt familiar to readers who have attended conferences on topics like ‘disruptive co-creation in the network society’.)
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
The Pygmalion and Golem Effects are woven into the fabric of our world. Every day we make each other smarter or stupider, stronger or weaker, faster or slower. We can’t help leaking expectations, through our gazes, our body language and our voices. My expectations about you define my attitude towards you, and the way I behave towards you in turn influences your expectations and therefore your behavior towards me. If you think about it, this gets to the very crux of the human condition. Homo puppy is like an antenna, constantly attuned to other people. Somebody else’s finger gets trapped in the door and you flinch. A tightrope walker balances on a thin cord and you feel your stomach lurch. Someone yawns and it’s almost impossible for you not to yawn as well. We’re hardwired to mirror one another.
Most of the time this mirroring works well. It fosters connections and good vibes, as when everyones grooving together on the dance floor. Our natural instinct to mirror others tends to be seen in a positive light for precisely this reason, but the instinct works two ways. We also mirror negative emotions such as hatred, envy, and greed. And when we adopt another’s bad ideas—thinking them to be ideas everybody else holds—the results can be downright dangerous.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“The Pygmalion Effect is great science that is undersupplied,” an Israeli psychologist lamented. ‘It hasn’t made the difference it should have in the world, and that’s very disappointing.’ The flip side of the Pygmalion Effect is the Golem Effect, named after the Jewish legend in which a creature meant to protect the citizens of Prague instead turns into a monster. Like the Pygmalion Effect the Golem Effect is ubiquitous. When we have negative expectations about someone, we don’t look at them as often. We distance ourselves from them. Basically we do exactly what Rosenthal’s students did when they released the ‘stupid’ rats into the maze.
Research on the Golem effect is scant, which is not surprising, given ethical objections to subjecting people to negative expectations. But we do know is shocking. Take the study done by the psychologist Wendell Johnson in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939. He split twenty orphans into two groups, telling one group they were good articulate speakers, and the other they were destined to become stutterers. Now infamously known as ‘The Monster Study”, this experiment left multiple individuals with lifelong speech impediments.
The Golem Effect is a type of nocebo: a nocebo that causes poor students to fall further behind, the homeless to lose hope, and isolated teenagers to radicalize. It is also one of the insidious mechanisms because racism, because when you’re subjected to low expectations, you won’t perform at your best, which further diminishes others’ expectations and thus further undermines your performance. There’s also evidence to suggest that the Golem Effect and it vicious cycle of mounting negative expectations can run entire organizations into the ground.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
The Psychologist Bob Rosenthal ran an experiment in which he had two rat cages. One cage had a sign identifying the rats as being specially trained intelligent specimens, and the other cage identified its rats as being dull and dimwitted. Later that day Rosenthal instructed his students to put the rats in a maze and record how long it takes each one to find the way out. What he doesn’t tell his students is that in fact none of the animals is special in any way—they’re all just ordinary lab rats.
But then something peculiar happened. The rats that the students believe to be brighter and faster really do perform better. It’s like magic. The ‘bright’ rats, though no different than their ‘dull’ counterparts, perform twice as well. Rosenthal came to realize that his students handled the ‘bright’ rats—the ones for which they had higher expectations more warmly and gently. This treatment changed the rats’ behavior and enhanced their performance.
The obvious question was, could a similar effect be found for the school children. At Spruce Elementary school, a test was administered to the students to see who would make the greatest strides during the school year. This was a common IQ test and Rosenthal and his staff cast them all aside. They tossed a coin to decide which students they would tell the teachers were ‘high-potential.’ The students were told nothing at all.
The power of expectation swiftly began to show its magic. Teachers gave these students more attention, more encouragement, and more praise, thus also changing how the students thought of themselves. The effect was clearest among the youngest students, whose IQ scores increased by an average of 27 points in a single year. The largest gains among the students were the Latino males, a group which typically had the lowest expectations.
Rosenthal dubbed this discovery the Pygmalion Effect, after the mythological sculptor who fell so hard for one of his own creations that the gods decided to bring the sculpture to life! The author notes that this Pygmalion Effect resembles the placebo effect, except, instead of benefitting oneself, these are expectations that benefit others.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Influential rationalists like Smith and Hume made a point of emphasizing the vast capacity humans show for empathy and altruism. Why then, if all these philosophers were so attuned to our admirable qualities, were their institutions (democracy, trade, and industry) so often premised on pessimism? Why did they continue to cultivate a negative view of human nature?
We can trace the answer in one of David Hume’s books, in which the Scottish philosopher articulates precisely this contradiction in enlightenment thought: ‘It is therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave: though at the same time it seems somewhat strange, that a maxim must be true in politics, which is false in fact.’
In other words, Hume believed that we should act as though people have a selfish nature, even though we know they don’t. When I realized this, a single word flashed through my mind: nocebo. Could this be the the thing that the Enlightenment—and, by extension, our modern society gets wrong? That we continually operate on a mistaken view of human nature?
Some things can become true merely because we believe in them—that pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When modern economists assumed that people are innately selfish, they advocate policies that fostered self-serving behavior. When politicians convinced themselves that politics is a cynical game, that’s exactly what it became.
Can we use our heads and harness rationality to design new institutions? Institutions that operate on a completely different view of human nature? What if schools and businesses, cities and nations expect the best of people instead of assuming the worst?
This post is taken from an article by Anahad O’’Connor, Aaron Steckelberg, & Garland Potts in the Health & Science Section of the 11 October 2022 issue of The Washington Post.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Lakeasha Sullivan in the Health 7 Science section of the 11 October 2022 issue of The Washington Post. It is based on the work of Steven C. Hayes, the foundation professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Reno, and co-developer of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
‘Befriend you inner critic. Rather than trying to suppress negative thoughts, learning to live with the inner critic is an essential skill that we can learn, Here are some strategies that can help.
Name your critic: Many of my patients name their inner critic and create a fictional backstory for it. The inner circle may be a disgruntled relative or a scared child. ‘What are the benefits of it? Figure out is it tapping into parts of your history,’ Hayes says
This strategy involves changing your perspective about the inner critic. The subtle shift of ‘third personing’ the inner critic can be liberating. ‘Make friends with it. Dialogue with it. Be curious,’ Steele suggests.
Offer counterevidence: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches us how to counter negative self-talk. This empirically validated approach capitalizes on holes in the inner critic’s logic. For instance, if your inner voice says, ‘You’re such a failure,’ you should cite examples of success. ‘I know I’m not a failure. I’m good at my job.’
Be open to painful thoughts and emotions: A recent study by Hayes and others found that being open to painful thoughts and emotions is an important therapeutic tool that accounts for significant change among patients in therapy. ‘What if you could take a magic pill and erase all of your pain? But you also had to remove the wisdom and values you learned from it?’ Hayes asks. ‘I’ve never had a client who wants to make that bargain.’
Stay mindful: Mindfulness is another powerful distancing technique. ‘When we hear the inner critic being harsh, we could notice it, recognize it, thank it for trying to help, remind ourselves that we would never say things like that to someone we care about and see if we can be a little more kind to ourselves,’ writes Ruth Baer, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky who specializes in mindfulness.
‘Practicing mindfulness is like mental exercise,’ says Baer, who compares it to physical exercise. ‘It’s not always fun or comfortable and just doing it a few times won’t have much impact.’ But with regular practice, you can reap the benefits. ‘We learn to respond more skillfully to difficult experiences, and that can lead to a greater sense of peace and calm,’ Baer says.
I have recommended such apps such as Headspace to my patients a starting point, and Baer agrees. She also recommends exploring mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) courses. Many centers offer evidence-based courses and free resources online, such as the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion and the Mindfulness and Health Institute.
Use the inner critic for growth: Once understood, the inner critic can be useful. It can, for instance, help us lead a values-driven life. Chronically late people, for example, often experience a harsh inner critic who scolds them for looking back in front of others and being immature. But if the patients values reliability, they can thank the inner critic for reminding them of this value and start applying time-management skills. In this and other cases, the inner critic brings something important to our attention, and we can use this experience to align our actions with our values.
The title of this post is identical to the title of an article by Richard Sima in the Health 7 Science section of the 11 October 2022 issue of The Washington Post.
“How to be better at boredom. We are most likely to be bored at work or in school—situations where we are afforded less autonomy and fewer options to do something about it. In a sample of nearly 4,000 American adults, 63% reported experiencing boredom at leas once over the course of 10 days.
The problem with boredom is that while it tells us something is wrongs, it does not tell us what to do about it. Finding healthy ways through boredom is up to us.
When the unsettling feeling of boredom hits us, it’s easy to be reactive and reflexively reach for the closest thing at hand: our smartphones.
But such a reaction can set off a ‘vicious cycle,’ Danckert told me. Time on your phone is not particularly meaningful, which means that you’ll likely to be bored again.
Instead of being reactive to boredom, try to be more mindful about the signal it is sending you. Take the opportunity boredom is giving you to rest, reflect on or reframe your priorities.
What other options are more meaningful? What are your goals, big and small? And why does what you are doing matter even if it does no appear that way?
And take heart that boredom, and our search to find relief, is essential to our human experience.
‘I think boredom gets a bad rap that is not deserved,’ Westgate said. Boredom is ‘linked to a lot of what most of us want out of life, like living a rich, fulfilling, interesting, meaningful life. Boredom is just one sort of helpful signal—maybe unwanted signal—that helps us get there.’”
The title of this post is identical to the first part of a title of an article by Richard Sima in the Brain Mattters Section of the in the Health & Science section of the 4 October ’22 issue of The Washington Post. The remainder of the title is mountaineering, and other hard things.
“Our brains constantly conduct cost-benefit analyses on choices and actions. When we are hard at work, the anterior cingulate cortex near the front of our brain tracks our efforts and its neural activity appears to be associated with how bad the exertion feels. These effort signals help our brain evaluate whether it’s worth it to keep trying or do something else.
Historically, the field of cognitive neuroscience has focused on the very intuitive notion that making an effort is tough along with the time. When presented with the choice of two cognitive tasks, people clearly prefer to do the easier one and are willing to accept fewer rewards to avoid having to try harder. One recent study found that people are willing to accept physical pain to avoid cognitive demanding tasks.
Mental effort also exact a physical toll: Our fight-or flight sympathetic nervous systems activate, our pupils dilate, and our hearts beat harder.
Effort just feels bad and we tend to avoid it. That’s why it’s costly said Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Yet at the same time, there’s something about pushing yourself that seems to be valuable and enjoyable as well.
One obvious reason we make an effort is for the end product, be it a championship trophy, personal record or end-of-year bonus. Generally, in the real world, the harder you work, the more rewards you tend to get, Inzlicht said.
Neuroimaging shows that the ventral striatum, a brain region that plays a key role in processing rewarding outcomes, is more strongly activated when we achieve something through higher effort than lower effort.
The more effort something takes, the more we tend to value it.
People are willing to pay more for an object they built themselves that the same object built by experts—a phenomena aptly named the Ikea effect.
But why do we value effort that feels bad? Why do maintainers and other outdoors thrill seekers search for ‘Type II fun’ even when the exertion itself feels terrible at the moment.
One study suggest that the answer may lie in the effort.
Researchers found that rewarding effort—and not the outcome—prompted people to seek out more difficult tasks later, even if they didn’t get additional rewards.
In the first experiment, 121 people were outfitted with electrodes to monitor their cardiovascular activity as a physical measure of how hard their brains were working on a standard memory task.
One group of participants was rewarded based on how much effort they exerted. Another group was rewarded with random amounts of money regardless of their effort.
Despite this lack of extrinsic reward, the participants who were previously rewarded for their efforts decided to tackle more difficult math problems compared with the participants who got random rewards.
The second set of experiments conducted online with almost 1,500 participants found a similar result: Again, participants who were previously rewarded for exerting more cognitive effort chose to do more demanding math problems for free.
The study suggests we can learn to enjoy the journey, regardless of the destination. The effort itself can be rewarding.
While the effects are relatively small, the results are exciting given that the training sessions were only about 1 minute, said Veronica Job, a professor of motivation psychology at the University of Vienna and an author of the study.
‘How we value effort is determined by what we experience in everyday life. We have this whole learning history’ in schools and work that tends to reward outcomes and achievements more than the effort we put in, Job said. Yet a short stint in the lab was able to make participants appreciate the intrinsic value of mental labor more.
The new study is just a starting point to figuring out how to train oneself to be more effortful.
This doesn’t mean going full throttle in all domains of your life all the time: Overexertion, burnout, and injury are not healthy or desirable outcomes.
But being able to try hard is a useful skill for achieving goals that you value. In one preprint study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, Inzlicht and his colleagues found that people who find meaning in their efforts tend to report higher life satisfaction and meaning as well.
Finding the value in effort is why we are able to climb mountains and find that hidden reserve of strength during a race or near a deadline.
For her part, Job has applied her findings to how she runs her lab. Celebrations now harden when grand applications are submitted, not just whey they are accepted, so ‘it’s connected and more contingent on the actual effort,’ she said.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Most revolutions ultimately fail, though. No sooner is one despot brought down than a new leader stands up and develops an insatiable lust for power. After the French Revolutions, there was Napoleon. After the Russian Revolution it was Lenin and Stalin. Egypt, too, has reverted to yet another dictator. Sociologists call this the ‘iron law of oligarchy’: even sociologists and communists, for all their vaunted ideals of liberty and equality, are far from immune to the corrupting influence of too much power.
Some societies have coped with this by engineering a system of distributed power—otherwise known as ‘democracy.’ Although the word suggests it is the people who govern (in ancient Greek demos means ‘people’ and kratos ‘power, it usually doesn’t work out that way.
Rosuseau already observed that this form of government is more accurately an ‘elective aristocracy’, because the people are not in power at all. Instead we’re allowed to elect who holds power over us. It’s also important to realize this model was originally designed to exclude society’s rank and file. Take the American Constitution: historians agree it ‘was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic tendencies of the period. It was never the American Founding Fathers’ intention for the general populace to play an active role in politics. Even now, though any citizen can run for public office, it’s tough to win an election without access to an aristocratic networks and lobbyists. It’s not surprising that American ‘democracy’ exhibits dynastic tendencies—think of the Kennedy’s, the Clintons, the Bushes.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a section of an article by Eve Glicksman in the Health & Science section of the 4 October ’22 issue of The Washington Post titled Is it possible to time the moment of your death.
“‘It’s impossible to know, let alone prove of disprove,” says Sam Parnia, about whether we can influence our time of death. Parnia is an expert in the scientific study of cardia arrest and death and an associate professor of critical care medicine at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
What Parnia is sure about from his research is that death is not a fixed moment and that it is not well understood. Parnia has studied thousands of testimonies from people who were resuscitated after being considered dead. They consistently described feeling conscious, lucid and aware of what was going on after their heart stopped.
‘Calling the time of death when the heart stops beating and the body and brain stop functioning reflects social convention rather than the science of what is happening to the body biologically,’ Parnia says. ‘Studies have shown categorically that our brain cells do not die for many hours after we die.’
Von Gunten advises people to behave around the dying the same as always—not being afraid they will break if you hold them, for example.
‘You don’t have to keep children quiet and lights don’t have to be dimmed,’ he says. ‘Whispering outside the door is the worst thing you can do if that person always wants to know everything.’
Ideally, the dying person will have talked to family and friends about their end-of-life wishes beforehand, Caswell says. Who do you want at your bedside, or do you prefer solitude? Do you want to listen to a cherished symphony during your last hours or have someone read a favorite poem? It’s a hard conversation to have but everyone benefits from that openness, Caswell says.
Dying is the last thing you do in life. Why shouldn’t it be exactly as you want it, and maybe even the moment you want it.”
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“For millennia, we picked to put the nice guys in charge. We were well aware, even in our prehistoric days that power corrupts, so we also leveraged of shaming and peer pressure to keep group members in check.
But 10,000 years ago it became more difficult to unseat the powerful. As we settled down in seats and states and our rulers gained command over whole armies, a little gossip or a well-aimed spear were no longer enough. Kings simply didn’t allow themselves to be dethroned. Presidents were not brought down by taunts and jeers.
Some historians suspect that we’re now actually dependent on inequality. Yuval Noah Harari, for example, writes that ‘complex human societies seem to require imagined hierarchies and unjust discrimination.’
But what fascinates me is that people around the world have continued to find ways to tame their leaders, even after the advent of chieftains and kings. One obvious method is revolution. Every revolution, whether the French (1789), the Russian (1917), or the Arab Spring (2011) is fueled by the same dynamic. The masses try to overthrow a tyrant.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“For millennia, we could afford to be skeptical about the stories we were told. IF some loudmouth stood up announcing he had been singled out by the hand of God, you could shrug it off. If that person became a nuisance, sooner or later that person would get an arrow in the backside. Homo puppy was friendly, not naive.
It wasn’t until the emergence of armies and their commanders that all this changed. Just try standing up to a strongman who has all opposition skinned, burned alive, or drawn and quartered. Your criticism would not seem so urgent. ‘This is the reason,’ Machiavelli wrote, ‘why all armed prophets have triumphed and all unarmed prophets have fallen.’
From this point on, gods and kings were no longer so easily ousted. Not backing a myth could now prove fatal. If you believed in the wrong god, you kept it to yourself. If you believed the nation state was a foolish illusion, it could cost you your head. ‘It is useful,’ advised Machiavelli, ‘to arrange matters so that when they no longer believe, they can made to believe by force.’
You might think that violence isn’t part of the equation any more—at least not in tidy democracies with their boring bureaucracy. But make no mistake: the threat of violence is still very much present, and it’s pervasive. It’s the reasons families with children can be kicked out of their homes for defaulting on mortgage payments. It’s the reason why immigrants can’t simply cross the border in the fictions we call ‘Europe’ and ‘the United States.’ And it’s also the reason we continue to believe in money.
Just consider: why would people hole up in cages we know as ‘offices’ for forty hours of week in exchange for bits of metal and paper or a few digits added to their bank accounts? Is it because we’re been won over by the power of propaganda of the powers that be? And, if so, why are there virtually no dissenters? Why does no one walk up to the tax authorities and say, ‘Hey mister I just read an interesting book about the power of myths and realized that money is a fiction, so I’m skipping taxes this year.’
The reason is self-evident. If you ignore a bill or don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined or locked up. If you don’t willingly comply, the authorities will come after you. Money may be a fiction, but it’s enforced by very real violence.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“It ignores 95% of human history.
As it happens, our nomadic ancestors had already exceeded that magic threshold of one hundred and fifty friends. Sure, we hunted and gathered in small groups, but groups also regularly swapped members, making us part of an immense network of cross-pollinating Homo puppies. We saw this with with tribes like Ache’ in Paraguay and the Hadza in Tanzania, whose member meet more than a thousand people in the course of their lifetimes.
What’s more, prehistoric people had rich imaginations too. We’ve always spun ingenious myths that we passed down to each other and that greased the wheels of cooperation among multitudes. The world’s earliest temple at Gobekli Tempe in modern day Turkey is a case in point, built through the concerted efforts of thousands.
The only difference was that in prehistory those myths were less stable. In the words of two anthropologists:
Rather than idling in some primordial innocence, until the genie of inequality was somehow uncorked, our prehistoric ancestors seemed to have opened and shut the bottle on a regular basis, confining inequality to ritual costume dramas, constructing gods and kingdoms as they did their monuments, then cheerfully disassembling them once again.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“When we began living together in larger groups alongside thousands of strangers, everything changed. We lost sight of each other. There’s no way to make eye contact with with thousands or tens of thousands, or a million people, so our mutual distrust began to grow. Increasingly, people started to suspect others of sponging off the community; that while they were breaking their backs all those others were putting their feet up. And so rulers needed some one to keep tabs on the masses. Someone who heard everything and saw everything. An all-seeing Eye. God.
It’s no accident that that new deities were vengeful types. God became a super-Leviathan, spying on everyone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Not even your thoughts were safe. ‘Even the hairs on your head are all numbered, the Bible tells us in Mathew 10:30. It was this omniscient that from now on kept watch from the heavens, supervising, surveilling, and -when necessary-striking.
Myths were key to helping the human race and our leaders do something no other species had done before. They enabled us to work together on a massive scale with millions of strangers. Furthermore, this theory goes on to say, it was from these great powers of fabrication that great civilizations arose. Judaism, Islam, nationalism and capitalism—all are properties of our imagination. ‘It also revolved around telling stories, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in his book Sapiens (2011), and convincing people to believe them.
This is a captivating theory, but it has one drawback. (Which will be revealed in the following post.)
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Some historians say it’s because we’re naive and that just might be our superpower as a species. Simply put, the story goes like this: if you want to get thousands of strangers to work as a team, you need something to hold things together. This glue has to be stronger than friendliness, because also Homo puppy’s social network is the biggest of all primates, it isn’t nearly large enough to forge cities or states.
Typically our social circles number no more than one hundred and fifty people. Scientists arrive at this limit in the 1990s when two American researchers asked a group of volunteers to list all friends and family to whom they sent Christmas cards. The average was sixty-eight households, comprising one hundred and fifty individuals.
When you start looking, this number turns up everywhere. From Roman legions to devout colonists and from corporate divisions to our real friends on Facebook, this magic threshold pops up all over the place and suggests the human brain is not equipped to juggle more than a hundred and fifty meaningful relationships.
The problem is that a hundred and fifty guests make a great party, it’s no where near enough to build a pyramid or send a rocket to the moon. Projects on that scale call for cooperation in much larger groups, so leaders need to incentivize us.
How? With myths. We learn to imagine kinship with people we would never meet. Religions, states, companies, nations—all of them only exist in our minds, in the narratives our leaders we ourselves tell. No one has ever met ‘France’ or shaken hands with the Holy Catholic Church. But that doesn’t matter if we sign on for the fiction.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“With the advent of the first settlements and growth in inequality, chieftains and kings had to start legitimizing why they enjoyed more privileges than their subjects. In other words, they began engaging in propaganda. Where the chiefs of nomadic tribes had been modest, now leaders began putting on airs. Kings declared that they ruled by divine right or that they themselves were gods.
Of course, propaganda of power is more subtle these days, but that’s not to say we no longer design ingenious ideologies to justify why some individuals ‘deserve’ more authority, status, or wealth than others. We do. In capitalist societies, we tend to use arguments of merit. But how does society decide who has the most merit? How do you determine who contributes most to society? Bankers or brain men? Nurses or the so-called disruptors who’re always thinking outside the box? The better the story you spin for yourself, the bigger your piece of the pie. In fact, you could look at the entire evolution of civilization as a history of rulers who continually devised new justifications for their privileges.
But something strange is going on here. Why do we believe the stories our leaders tell us?
Some historians say it is because we’re naive and that might just be our superpower as a species. Simply put, the theory goes like this: if you want to get thousands of strangers to work as a team, you need something to hold things together. This glue has to be something stronger than friendliness, because although Homo puppy’s social network is the biggest of all primates, it is not nearly large enough to forge cities or states.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Humans are clearly not bonobos. Still a growing body of research suggests that we have a lot more in common with these sociable apes than we do with Machiavellian chimpanzees. For starters for most of human history our political systems much more closely reasonable those of bonobos. Just recall the the tactics of !Kung tribe members: ‘We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle.’
In an analysis of forty-eight studies on hunter gatherer societies, an American anthropologist determined that Machiavellianism has almost always been a recipe for disaster. To illustrate this, here are some traits that, according to this scientist were needed to get you elected in prehistory:
Leadership was temporary among hunter-gatherers and decisions were made by the group. Anyone foolish enough to act as Machiavelli later prescribed was risking their life. The selfish and the greedy would get booted out of the tribe and faced likely starvation. After all, no one wanted to share food with those who were full of themselves.
A further indication that human behavior is more closely those of bonobos than chimpanzees is our innate aversion to inequality. Do a search for ‘inequality aversion’ in Google Scholar and you’ll find more than ten thousand scientific articles about this primordial instinct. Children as young as three divide a cake out equally and at six would rather thrown a slice away than let one person have a larger portion. Like bonobos, humans share both fanatically and equally.
That said, we also shouldn’t exaggerate such findings. Homo puppy is not a natural born communist. We’re fine with a little inequality, psychologists emphasize, if we think it’s justified. As long as things seem fair.If you can convince the masses that you’re smarter or better or holier, then it makes sense that you’re in charge, and you won’t have to fear opposition.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“Scientists have known for decades that we share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. In 1995 this inspired Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the House of Representatives, to hand out dozens of copies of de Waal’s book to his colleagues. The US congress was, to his mind, not much different from a chimpanzee colony. At best, its members exercised a little more effort to hide their instincts.
What was not yet widely known at that time is that humans have another close primate relative that shares 99% of our DNA, the bonobo. The first time Franz de Waal saw one was back in the early seventies, when they were still known as ‘pygmy chimpanzees.’ For a long time chimps and bonobos were thought to be the even same species.
In reality, bonobos are an altogether different species. These apes have domesticated themselves, just like Homo puppy. The females of the species seems to have been key to this process, because, while not as strong as the males, they close ranks any time one of their sex gets harassed by the opposite sex. If necessary, they bite his penis in half. Thanks to this balance of power, bonobo females can pick and choose their own mates, and the nicest guys usually finish first.
(If you think all this emancipation makes for a dull sex life, think again: ‘Bonobos behave as if they have read the Kama Sutra,’ writes de Waal ‘performing every position and variation one can imagine.’ When two groups of bonobos meet for the first time, it Otten ends in an orgy.)
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“The more I found out about the psychology of power, the more I understood that power is like a drug—one with a whole catalog of side effects. ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.’ British historian Lord Acton famously remarked back in the nineteenth century. There are few statements on which psychologists, sociologists, and historians unanimously agree.
Dacher Keltner calls this the ‘power paradox’. Scores of studies show that we pick the most modest and kind-hearted individuals to lead us. But once they arrive at the top , the power often goes straight to their heads—and good luck unseating them after that.
We need only look at our gorilla and chimpanzee cousins to see how difficult toppling a leader can be. In gorilla groups there’s a single silverback dictator who makes all the decisions and has exclusive access to a harem of females. Chimp leaders also go to great lengths to stay on top, a position with the male who’s the strongest and most adept at forming coalitions.
‘Entire passages of Machiavelli seem to be directly applicable to chimpanzee behavior,’ biologist Frans de Waal noted in his book Chimpanzee Politics, published in the early eighties. The alpha male—the prince—struts around like a he-man and manipulates the others into doing his bidding. His deputies help him hold the reins but just as easily stab him in the back.”
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
…”is it any wonder they also tend to be more cynical? One of the effects of power, myriad studies show, is that it makes you see others in a negative light. If you’re powerful it’s more likely to think most people are lazy and unreliable. That they need to be supervised and monitored, managed and regulated, censored, and told what to do. And because power makes you feel superior to other people, you’ll believe all this monitoring should be entrusted to you.
Tragically not having power has exactly the opposite effect. Psychological research shows that people who feel powerless also feel far less confident. They’re hesitant to voice an opinion. In groups, they make themselves feel smaller, and they underestimate their own intelligence.
Such feelings of uncertainty are convenient for those in power, as self-doubt makes it unlikely to strike back. Censorship becomes unnecessary, because people who lack confidence silence themselves. Here we see a nocebo in action: treat people as if they’re stupid and they’ll start to feel stupid, leading rulers to reason that the masses are too dim to think for themselves and hence they—with their vision and insight—should take charge.
But isn’t it precisely the other way around? Isn’t it power that makes us short-sighted? Once you arrive at the top, there’s less of an impetus to see things from other perspectives. There’s no imperative for empathy, because anyone you find irrational or irritating, can simply be ignored, sanctioned, locked up, or worse. Powerful people don’t have to justify their actions and therefore can afford a blinkered view.
That might also help explain why women tend to score higher than men on empathy tests. A large study at Cambridge University in 2018 found no genetic basis for this divergence, and instead attributed it to what scientists call socialization. Due to the way power has traditionally been distributed, it’s mostly be up to women to understand men. Those persistent ideas about a superior female intuition are probably rooted in the same imbalance—that women are expected to see things from a male perspective, and rarely the other way around.”
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Professor Dacher Keltner is the leading expert on applied Machiavellism. When he started his research he found that everybody believed Machiavelli was right, but almost nobody had done the science to back it up.
In his ‘natural state’ experiments he infiltrated a succession of settings where humans freely vie for dominion, from dorm rooms to summer camps. It was precisely these kinds of places, where people meet for the first time, that he expected to see Machiavelli’s timeless wisdom on display.
He was disappointed. Behave as The Prince prescribes, Keltner discovered, and you’ll be run right out of camp. Much as in prehistoric times, these mini—societies don’t put up with arrogance. People assume you’re a jerk and shut you out. The individuals who rise to positions of power, Keltner found, are the friendliest and most empathic. It’s survival of the friendliest.
Now, you may be thinking: this professor guy should swing by the office and meet my boss—that’ll cure him of his little theory about nice leaders.
But hold on, there’s more to this story. Keltner also studied the effects of power once people have it. This time he arrived at an altogether different conclusion. Perhaps most entertaining is his Cookie Monster study, named for the furry blue muppet from Sesame Street. In1998, Keltner and his team had small groups of three volunteers come into their lab. One was randomly assigned to become group leader, and they were all given a dull task to complete. Presently, an assistant brought in a plate containing five cookies for the group to share. All groups left one cookie on the plate (a golden rule of etiquette), but in almost every case the fourth cookie was scarfed down by the leader. What’s more, one of Keltner’s doctoral students noticed that the leaders also seemed to be messier eaters. Repalying the video it became clear that these ‘cookie monsters’ more often ate with their mouths open, ate more noisily and sprayed more crumbs on their shirts.
Keltner did another experiment with cars. Here the first set of subjects were put behind the wheel of a beat-up Mitsubishi or Ford Pinto and sent in the direction of a Crosswalk where a pedestrian was just stepping of a curb. All the drivers stopped as the law required.
But in part two of the study, subjects got to drive a snazzy Mercedes. This time, 45% failed to stop for the pedestrian. The more expensive the car, the rudder the road manners. BMW drivers were the worst. This study has been replicated two times with the same results.
Observing how the drivers behaved, Keltner eventually remembered what it reminded him of. The medical term is ‘acquired sociopathy.:’ a nonhereditary personality disorder, first diagnosed by psychologists in the nineteenth century. It arises after a blow to the head damages key regions of the brain and can turn the nicest people into the worst kind of Machiavilian.
It transpires that people in power display the same tendencies. They literally act like someone with brain damage. Not only are they more impulsive, self-centered, reckless, arrogant, and rude than average, they are more likely to cheat on their spouses, are less attentive to other people, and less interested in others’ perspective. They’re also more shameless, often failing to manifest that one facial phenomenon that makes human beings unique among primates.
They don’t blush.
Power appears to work like an anesthetic that makes you insensate to other people. In a 2014 study, three American neurologists used a ‘transcranial magnetic stimulation machine’ to test the cognitive functioning of powerful and less powerful people. They discovered that a sense of power disrupts what is known as mirroring, a mental process which plays a key role in empathy. Ordinarily we mirror all the time. Someone else laughs, you laugh, too; someone yawns and so do you. But powerful individuals mirror much less. It is almost as if they don’t feel connected to their fellow human beings. As if they’ve become unplugged.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
Machiavelli was a down-and-out city clerk who wrote a pamphlet he titled The Prince It became one of the most influential works in western history. The Prince wound up on the bedside tables of Emperor Charles V, King Louis XIV, and General Secretary Stalin. The German Chancellor Otto van Bismarck had a copy as did Churchill, Mussolini and Hitler. It was even found in Napoleon’s carriage after his defeat at Waterloo.
The big advantage of Niccolo Machiavelli’s philosophy is that it is doable. If you want power, he wrote, you have to grab it. You must be shameless, unfettered by principals or morals. The ends justify the means. And if you don’t look out for yourself, people will waltz right over you. According to Machiavelli, ‘it can be said about men in general that they are ungrateful, fickle, dissembling, hypocritical, cowardly, and greedy. If someone does you a good turn, don’t be fooled: it’s a sham, for ‘men never do anything good except out of necessity.’
There are many self-help books devoted to his philosophy, from Machiavelli for Managers to Machiavelli for Moms, or watch any number of plays, movies, and TV series inspired by his ideas. The Godfather, House of Cards, Game of Thrones—all are basically footnotes to this sixteenth century Italian.
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
The title of this post is identical to the title of a section in the book. The lead in to this section follows:
“If Homo puppy is such an innate friendly creature, why do egomaniacs and opportunists, narcissists and sociopaths keep coming out on top? How can it be that we humans—one of the only species to blush—somehow allow ourselves who are ruled by specimens who are utterly shameless?
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