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psychology

Here are articles on psychology

Are people good or bad? It’s literally a self-fulfilling expectation.

I’ve noticed that underlying a lot of political discussions is a fundamental belief about human nature. Some people believe people are fundamentally self-interested. They won’t work unless paid, and helping the downtrodden is something one does to impress one’s friends. The other side believes people are fundamentally generous. They help each other and will sacrifice their own good for the sake of others.

My recent theory is that both of these viewpoints are true. Literally, they’re both true. There are psychological mechanisms that make each of these a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-interest usually manifests in turning everything into a transaction, monetizing as much as possible, and tracking things closely. It turns out that when you introduce money into a conversation or transaction, literally the brain areas involved in altruism, helping, and asking for help all shut down. So if you expect everyone to treat you as if they only want transactions from you, you’ll mention money or exchanges or act in ways you would act when putting together a transaction. Those actions will then actually trigger the same impulse in others. You mention money and the people you’re dealing with become more self-interested and less likely to be collaborative. So a world view where everyone looks out for themselves and everyone is greedy becomes self-fulfilling to the person who holds it.

Similarly, the social psychology reciprocity principle shows that when you give a gift that someone perceives as freely given, they feel obliged to respond by giving back, often in greater amounts than the original gift. So giving provides a self-fulfilling mechanism such that the person who gives freely and believes others are generous will trigger exactly those impulses in others.

What’s important to note is that this isn’t just psychological blinders, where both people interpret the same events differently. This is literally a self-fulfilling principle that plays out in behavior. If you act as if people are greedy, you’ll do things that prime their greedy impulses. If you act as if people are generous and worthy of help, you’ll actually activate reciprocal behavior on their part.

Be careful the world you wish for. You just might get it.

Richard St. John’s TED Talk on Success. Is it nothing but delusion?

I was just watching a TED talk by Richard St. John on the 8 Rules of Success. Richard interviewed 500 TED attendees to distill down eight principles. His recommendations are depressingly trite: have passion, work hard, yada, yada, yada. You can see the talk here: http://bit.ly/6VxMaC

REVISION: October 25, 2012: I may have found the recommendations trite, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true and rigorous. I wrote this article originally making several incorrect assumptions about Richard’s methodology. My bad. My very, very bad. I inappropriately dinged him on research methodology when I, myself, wasn’t doing my own homework vis-a-vis verifying that my points were correct.

Richard writes: Hey Stever – Just so you know, I did also interview unsuccessful people and homeless people as a control group and they DIDN’T follow any of the 8 Traits that are necessary for success. They didn’t love what they do, they didn’t work hard, etc. As for the Halo Effect, many of the most successful people couldn’t articulate why they were successful. They’d say “I don’t know.” So I’d look for examples of what they’d actually “done.” I’d ask, “How often do you take vacations?” A lot would say “I don’t take vacations.” I’d ask, “Why not?” They’d say, “I’d rather work.” I’d ask, “Why?” They’d say, “I like it” or “It’s fun.” So it wasn’t like they automatically blurted out the 8 Success Traits. I had to find them through examples. And by the way, I’m not saying everyone has to be a big success. I’m just saying is if you want to succeed at something this is how you’ll get there.
Richard St. John

What follows is the bulk of my original article. I’ve edited it to remove specific examples to Richard’s situation, since it does not apply to his work. It does, however, apply to a lot of what passes for “how to succeed” literature, so the points are still useful to keep in mind.

It’s not his fault his results are trite, however. As discussed at great length in The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig, when you interview someone after-the-fact about why something was successful or a failure, you always get the same answers.

That means, sadly, that such answers are meaningless. If you ask someone who’s a known success how they got that way, they’ll say it was vision, passion, hard work, etc. If you ask their friends, the friends will say vision, passion, hard work, etc. If you ask someone who’s a failure how they got that way, you’ll also get the same stories over and over. Humans seem to have built-in explanations for such things.

Most success talks miss the point by not interviewing people who had vision, passion, and worked hard, and failed. Why? Because most success studies start by identifying successful people who have already achieved success and interview them. It may be that for every 100 people who have vision, passion, and work hard, 99 of them end up burned out, divorced, and miserable, and only one goes on to be successful. But if you select only the successful ones to interview, it’s easy to conclude that those traits correlate with success.

A simpler example: every successful person in the world drank either mother’s milk or formula as a baby. Does that mean that drinking mother’s milk or formula leads to success? Not at all. It just means that pretty much everyone drinks those things as babies.

I know some very rich finance people. Their vision? Nil. Really Nil. Like, no imagination whatsoever. Their passion? To show off and impress the neighbors. Their hard work? Signing checks. It’s tough if it’s not special 24-bond paper made for smooth writing. And then all that waiting and waiting! Years of playing golf, waiting while thousands of people work their butts off so the providers of capital can walk off with the profits (that’s what “capitalism” means–providers of capital get the rewards). In short, I know many example of people who don’t have all those nice, feel-good attributes, and are even more successful than many who do.

Since Richard St. John is giving his talks to high school students, he is in the perfect position to do a real experiment to find out what leads to success. Have half of the students he talks to do the things he recommends. Have them work hard, have vision, and so on. The other half? Have them slack off and meander through life. In twenty year’s we’ll be able to see whether or not there’s a real correlation between his recommendations and subsequent success.

What are some rules and beliefs of organizational life?

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Hi! For my book, I would like to gather a set of beliefs that govern how people operate in organizations. I’m especially looking for beliefs that really drive people’s behavior, decision-making, etc. Contradictions and alternate viewpoints welcome and encouraged. For example:

  • Never help out a colleague too much, because they’re just competition for the top spot.
  • Always help your colleagues, because when we work together, we accomplish more than when we work alone.
  • Our competitors will never be able to produce a product as good as ours.
  • Management is stupid and doesn’t know what they’re doing.

I will be using these in my book. By submitting them here, you give me permission to do so. I would like to list everyone who contributes in the acknowledgements section. If you wish to be acknowledged, just sign your comment with your desired name (first name, full name, etc.).

Thanks!

Be Thankful; It’s All in Your Mind

Be Thankful; It’s All in Your Mind

(A Financial Tailspin sucks! Don’t compound it.)

We’re going through some … interesting … times, financially. People feel insecure, established institutions are in desperate need of bailout (funny how attractive socialism becomes when you’re the one who needs the handout) and the world economy seems to be teetering on the brink. Now’s a great time to realize: it’s all in our minds.

I mean this quite literally. Have you seen “Money as Debt?” It’s an excellent 47-minute video on where money comes from. It tells how our current system came to be. It highlights flaws in the system and offers some alternatives, all with a tasty dose of conspiracy theory thrown in here and there(*). You can watch the video here: https://www.steverrobbins.com/r/moneyasdebt

Money is literally nothing more than an idea. It’s a promise we make to deliver a good, a service, or more money at a later date. Why is Bill Gates a billionaire? Because the rest of us agree that he is. We also agree to give him our stuff if he gives us enough money. But it’s all an agreement. Because it’s an agreement, we take action on it, and it’s our actions that have real-world consequences.

“Don’t worry, be happy.”

Bobby McFerrin’s song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” is right on the money. At any given moment, you may or may not be able to control what’s actually happening around you. But you can always choose your attitude about it.

I was in a meeting earlier this year, discussing a key feature of entrepreneurship: the ability to see opportunity where others see problems. Just for jollies, I decided to try spending a week deliberately asking, “Where’s the opportunity here?” every time a problem cropped up. Every single time I asked the question, I was able to find an answer. Often, in mere seconds.

The housing bubble gave many time in an elevated lifestyle

Then I asked, “What’s the upside of the financial crisis?” You know, one answer is this: millions have had the chance to live far beyond their means for many years. While we don’t much care for the consequences, at least they got to enjoy a standard of living they couldn’t have otherwise afforded. I’m serious about this, by the way. Of course it’s natural to be upset when losing your job, your credit, your home, or your car. But being upset won’t change anything. It will just make you feel bad. You can also choose to feel thankful that you had those things to begin with.

Be a Thanksgiving Gratitude Geek

Are there problems in the financial world right now? Yup. And we can live through those problems giving all our attention to the downside or giving all our attention to the opportunities and the upside.

My suggestion to you: spend this Thanksgiving dwelling on the upside. Ask yourself, “what do I have to be thankful for?” and make a big long list. Help everyone around you do the same thing. They say what we need is more optimism in the economy. Optimism isn’t something “out there,” it’s one of the few things we have control over. So let’s exercise that control and see the glass as 10% full, not 90% empty. Because we can’t always change the outside reality, but we can certainly choose our inner reality.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Here are some of the things I’m thankful for:

  • Friends and community
  • Hot running showers
  • Democracy
  • My four-year-old iPod that still works great
  • The chance to teach high school students at an after-school program
  • Zipcar
  • My podcast
  • Friends and community

(*) I love conspiracy theories! I always like to remind myself that just because someone’s paranoid doesn’t mean the conspiracy doesn’t truly exist.

How we explain success may be different from what really causes it.

I was reading Steve Salerno’s “anti-SHAM” blog as he was commenting on Hillary’s speech at the DNC last night. He didn’t think much of her story. She told a story of her success, he said, that may have been a tad… biased.

That got me thinking about how much our own stories do and don’t have anything to do with actual events. Certainly the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)” by Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson documents thoroughly how we distort our own memories to tell a story consistent with how we’d rather view ourselves.

This is my response to Steve:

Check out “The Halo Effect” by Phil Rosenzweig. In it, he basically discredits 99% of popular business books and research by pointing out that after-the-fact explanations where the outcome is known always come out the same, regardless of actual circumstances. The “halo” of known success (or failure) causes all the players to remember the past in a very specific way.

For example, ask people why XYZ Co. was successful and they’ll always talk about a visionary leader, good teamwork, flexibility, etc. You can predict those explanations with such certainty, apparently, that any research based on after-the-fact explanations is virtually worthless. (Because if you can predict in advance what people will say, then it obviously can’t be based on the actual situation.)

To avoid the halo effect, you would have to approach people in companies before success is known. Then ask them to describe the current environment. Then 10 years later (or whenever), see if their in-the-moment descriptions correlated with later business performance.

Though Rosenzweig limits his discussion to company success, I believe we also have a halo effect with successful people. We love the rags-to-riches, hard-work-and-skill-wins stories. No matter the truth of a situation, those are the stories we use to explain known success.

(Why is Bill Gates so extraordinarily successful? You’ll hear about strategy, ruthlessness, etc., etc. All the standard after-the-fact explanations. But that misses the point. There are lots of strategically brilliant, ruthless people who didn’t dominate the computer industry. In Bill’s case, mommy was on a board with the chairman of IBM, the head of Digital Research missed the chance to produce DOS so Bill was the 2nd choice, and IBM was stupid enough to let Gates keep all the rights to the software. Without those factors, all outside his control, he might have been just another 2-bit software developer. But that isn’t a story that we like to tell.)

When I look as objectively as I can at my successes and those of my friends (and many of my Harvard MBA friends have been very successful), I notice that hard work and skill seem far, far less important than, say, choosing the right industry, negotiating a compensation structure based on someone else’s work (e.g. paid as percentage of someone else’s transaction), and being lucky in your timing. Finance and entrepreneurship fit the bill.

But no one likes the story, “I made $100 million because I was frickin lucky.” That raises the question of whether the person deserves it, etc., etc., etc. We don’t want to challenge whether Gates deserves it because deep in our hearts, we hope we can make it big and don’t want to question whether or not we deserve it.

I’m sure Hillary frames her life as hard work, ambition, etc. And I can’t blame her. I suspect anyone in that position would frame their life that way. In part because of the halo effect, and in part because saying, “our achievements owe as much to luck as to skill” isn’t something many of us are willing to admit to ourselves.

Your little voice may give you better advice than you know.

Have you ever wondered how certain corrupt businesspeople can keep spouting great, moral words while doing the exact opposite in their behavior? You wonder how they can wax eloquent about the need to give customers high-quality products while they happily substitute inferior quality raw materials to save costs. You wonder: are they insane? Probably not. Yes, they hear voices in their head. But we all do that. The problem is that they’re listening to the wrong ones.

In a New York Times article today, John Tierney discusses the science behind hypocrisy and how we fool ourselves. It seems when we distract our conscious mind, we listen mainly to our “gut” (or our “heart,” depending on how poetic an image you prefer), and we know when we’re doing The Wrong Thing. When our conscious minds are free, however, we use them—to self-justify. When we engage in hypocritical or anti-social behavior, our conscious mind goes to work creating justifications so we believe we’re doing the right thing, even when we aren’t.

In the past several years, I’ve become more aware of my own “heart voice.” When I have a troubling decision to make, or strong ambivalence about a situation, I sit quietly. Actually, my brain is usually shrieking gibberish about how unfair I’m being treated, or about how I don’t deserve what’s happening, or about how I’m an utter and complete failure at life because I missed “9 Down” in today’s New York Times crossword puzzle. So here’s this Shrieking Monster in my head, and I let it rant while putting attention on the middle of my chest. Then when the Shrieking Monster stops to take a breath, I quickly ask, “What should I do in this situation?”

Then I sit. After a few minutes, beneath the Monster comes a little, quiet voice. It’s barely even in words. And it has an answer.

The moment the answer comes, I know it’s the right one for me. It’s almost always the moral thing, the ethical thing, the loving thing, the passionate thing. In some weird way, it’s the answer I already knew was right, but just wouldn’t admit to myself. It took a chat with the Little Voice to bring it to the place where it could be heard over the Shrieking Monster voice.

The Shrieking Monster is the one that usually pushes me to do stupid things. It goads me to yell at people when I’m frustrated, to get petulant and childish when I could be forging alliances, and to beat myself up when I don’t do well, even if I did my best. The Little Voice, though, is my own internal Dear Abby: its advice is excellent, even if its hairstyle could stand some updating.

If you’ve never tried this, give it a shot. Ponder a decision that’s giving you angst. Maybe it’s a word decision. Maybe it involves your Sweetie. Choose a really, really important decision, like: should I pick up the socks myself, or continue screaming at my sweetie for another eight months to pick them up? Sit quietly with the situation. Your Shrieking Monster will helpfully point out how unfair it is that you have to pick up the socks, how much you deserve to have the socks picked up for you, and how you really should break up because of the socks. Then sit quietly and listen to the Little Voice behind the shrieking monster. It just might have some good advice. If it seems reasonable, give it a shot. You might find yourself acting more ethically, more morally, more lovingly, and more happily. In other words, you just may find your little voice is the key to acting as—not just aspiring to be—your Very Best Self.

Find the article on hypocrisy at http://r.steverrobbins.com/hypocrisyarticle.

The key to ethical, sane behavior: the *little* voice.

Have you ever wondered how certain corrupt businesspeople can keep spouting great, moral words while doing the exact opposite in their behavior? You wonder how they can wax eloquent about the need to give customers high-quality products while they happily substitute inferior quality raw materials to save costs. You wonder: are they insane? Probably not. Yes, they hear voices in their head. But we all do that. The problem is that they’re listening to the wrong ones.

In a New York Times article today, John Tierney discusses the science behind hypocrisy and how we fool ourselves. It seems when we distract our conscious mind, we listen mainly to our “gut” (or our “heart,” depending on how poetic an image you prefer), and we know when we’re doing The Wrong Thing. When our conscious minds are free, however, we use them—to self-justify. When we engage in hypocritical or anti-social behavior, our conscious mind goes to work creating justifications so we believe we’re doing the right thing, even when we aren’t.

In the past several years, I’ve become more aware of my own “heart voice.” When I have a troubling decision to make, or strong ambivalence about a situation, I sit quietly. Actually, my brain is usually shrieking gibberish about how unfair I’m being treated, or about how I don’t deserve what’s happening, or about how I’m an utter and complete failure at life because I missed “9 Down” in today’s New York Times crossword puzzle. So here’s this Shrieking Monster in my head, and I let it rant while putting attention on the middle of my chest. Then when the Shrieking Monster stops to take a breath, I quickly ask, “What should I do in this situation?”

Then I sit. After a few minutes, beneath the Monster comes a little, quiet voice. It’s barely even in words. And it has an answer.

The moment the answer comes, I know it’s the right one for me. It’s almost always the moral thing, the ethical thing, the loving thing, the passionate thing. In some weird way, it’s the answer I already knew was right, but just wouldn’t admit to myself. It took a chat with the Little Voice to bring it to the place where it could be heard over the Shrieking Monster voice.

The Shrieking Monster is the one that usually pushes me to do stupid things. It goads me to yell at people when I’m frustrated, to get petulant and childish when I could be forging alliances, and to beat myself up when I don’t do well, even if I did my best. The Little Voice, though, is my own internal Dear Abby: its advice is excellent, even if its hairstyle could stand some updating.

If you’ve never tried this, give it a shot. Ponder a decision that’s giving you angst. Maybe it’s an ethical quandry, or an issue with a co-worker, or that persistent fantasy about wrapping your boss in duct tape upside down, hanging from the ceiling. Choose something really, really important, like: is it fair that I always have to spend the 3 minutes to type up action items after a meeting?

Sit quietly with the situation. Your Shrieking Monster will helpfully point out how unfair it is that you have to type those action items, how your fingers ache, how it’s probably carpel tunnel syndrome and you’ll be crippled for life, and how you really deserve to be the boss and are just not deeply appreciated. Then sit quietly and listen to the Little Voice behind the shrieking monster. It just might have some good advice.

If it seems reasonable, give it a shot. You might find yourself acting more ethically, more morally, more professionally, and more happily. In other words, you just may find your little voice is the key to acting as—not just aspiring to be—your Very Best Self.

Find the article on hypocrisy at http://r.steverrobbins.com/hypocrisyarticle.

Is the Net changing the way YOU think? Sure has, me.

I just read this article in the Atlantic about how the Net has changed the way the article’s author thinks. He’s wondering what the larger, societal effects will be. Being The Atlantic, he’s also savvy enough to realize there may be unintended good consequences that can’t be predicted, in addition to the negatives he highlights.

The article gave me pause. Upon reflection, I believe he’s right. Ten years ago, usability expert Jakob Neilson was doing studies that showed people skim online, they don’t read in depth. And it’s pretty clear from anyone who’s spent five minutes in a browser that we jump from topic to topic pretty quickly.

I know that my own writing has changed. I used to love writing longhand in a lined pad, and now can barely form a sentence without having a text editor where I can cut and paste. And as for reading? My tolerance for reading long non-fiction books went away years ago. I inch my way through them now. So do I absorb complicated new information that requires Thought and Contemplation? Er, not nearly as much. Maybe it’s simply that I’m older and busier, but it’s true that the Net has habituated me to sound-bite style reading.

That’s one big worry for my upcoming Get-it-Done Guy book, in fact. Part of the reason it is organized as many, many small micro-chapters is that I don’t believe anyone’s going to read a 200-page book straight through. And if I want to give readers value, it has to come in a form they can use.

How about you?

Who’s surprised by compact car sales? Spotting trends. In advance.

The New York Times reported that sales of smaller compacts and subcompacts are on the rise, now that we’re in a gas crunch. Industry analysts (who are young enough that they don’t remember the 70s) are calling this “a first.”

I tried to tell a friend that we’ve had cars that got 50-60 mpg for at least 30 years. When I was a teenager buying my first car, in the middle of the gas crisis of the 1970s, I was looking at a Honda Civic that was rated at over 50 mpg city. Once the oil shock was over, we went right back to huge, hulking contraptions that get gallons-per-mile instead of miles-per-gallon.

Is there anyone who didn’t see this coming? If so, you’ve never had a milkshake through a straw.

When you’re drinking a milkshake, you’re drinking faster than the milkshake can be replenished. Eventually, no matter what, you’ll get to the end of the milkshake and start slurping noisily. Sadness and despair, no more milkshake. If you knew how fast you were sipping and how much the cup held, you could predict exactly when you’d run out of tasty dairy mouth treat.

The story with oil is a bit more complicated. We don’t know how big the cup is, so we don’t know when we’ll hit bottom. And while one problem is how big the cup is, another problem is that more and more people are trying to suck on the straw at once, and we haven’t known how fast they would all start wanting some of our milkshake. (Warning: metaphor breakdown imminent.)

But the trend is utterly, completely, unambigiously predictable.

Because we don’t know the specific numbers, we can’t predict when oil will become expensive. But we know that it will, and there’s simply no doubt about it. If you jump off the top of a building, you’ll fall. How long you’ll fall depends on the height of the building. If you jump from a very tall building, you might even have enough time to pretend that the ride will go on forever. But eventually, you’ll land. That’s pretty much guaranteed. And you might even survive the landing (heck, Michael Holmes fell from 12,000+ feet without a chute and survived). It seems like a pretty stupid thing to do on purpose, though.

The sub-prime banking crisis was also predictable. All these analysts saying no one could have predicted it should be out of a job. The trends were obvious in a single news article last year. I—a non-finance guy—even blogged about it.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have been watching the rise of complex financial derivatives for years, noting that their accounting conventions allow people to get rich when there’s actually nothing supporting the underlying assets. They’re pretty sure (and I agree) that the derivatives market is headed for a meltdown. We can’t predict when, but we can predict that markets are very good at eventually bringing assets back down to their underlying value.

Humans seem hell-bent on believing what we want to believe and ignoring unambiguous trends until they actually become crisis. There’s a whole field called “system dynamics” that deals with the behavior of complex systems, and more importantly, with the ways people seem to be hard-wired to misunderstand complex systems.

We’re living in an era of complex systems. Growth (and melting ice caps) happens faster than we project. Every year. On the surface, it appears things change, but the underlying trends are remarkably constant.

What are the trends you can predict now, but don’t want to? What are the underlying forces shaping your industry, country, or family that will come home to roost? You may not be able to predict specifics of when, where, or how, but you can predict with near-certainty that they will. And when they do, life will be … interesting.

Some interesting trends with highly uncertain timing, and highly certain momentum:

  • The interest payments on the national debt will continue to grow as a percentage of the national budget. (Think: compounding interest on variable rate loans.)
  • Wealth will continue to concentrate in the hands of a small number of people. (With the tax rate on capital gains less than the tax rate on income, even if everyone makes 10% more each year, the rich will get taxed at a lower rate and keep a greater percentage of the overall pie.
  • We’ll have increasing demand for energy of all forms. (Whether or not our total supply will increase at the same rate or faster seems to be unknown.)
  • We have a generation of people in our workforce pipeline of whom somewhere between a quarter and 40% don’t even have a high school diploma. There are serious societal implications there…
  • Precious and non-precious metals are being steadily mined at a rate greater than the rate at which they’re replaced. (For example, Copper may be finished in 61 years, within the lifetime of some of you reading this article.)

So go out and buy a subcompact. And while you’re planning for retirement, consider that the world may be very different then than it is now. Those differences will be driven by our actions today (and our actions of the last 40 years, when it comes to climate change). Are you taking action today that will set up the trends you want in your old age?