Our Hidden Self

Are we consciously aware of why we make the decisions we make?

                              

You’re sitting in the doctors office wondering which will take longer – the wait or the actual appointment – when a new patient walks in and drops their planner right in front of you, scattering numerous papers across the floor. You then make a choice: should I help pick up those papers or not.

Something like this has happened to everyone, so why did we choose the action (or inaction) that we choose in that moment?

If asked we’d confidently respond that the person reminded us of so and so, or that the boredom of waiting made you want to do anything other than just sit there, morals compelled you, you were in the middle of texting and didn’t want to lose the thought, etc, etc, etc.

These are all reasonable answers and would quickly settle the matter – clearly I made a conscious decision for reasons I’m well aware of.

However, cognitive scientists are a clever bunch, and when they did a similar experiment they had a trick up their sleeve.

In this same situation – sitting in a waiting room – experimenters would have an assistant walk into the room and “accidentally” drop a cup of pencils. For each person the environment was identical; same room, same chair placement, same person dropping pencils in the same spot. Identical down to the number of pencils, lighting, and even clothing and hairdo.

There was one single difference – on one side of the room was a computer monitor with a screensaver image. This image was either a picture of fish in an aquarium, a black screen, or a picture of money.

                    

Would the simple presence of these images affect our decision to pick up some dropped pencils?

After thousands of trials, the results of the black screen and the fish screen were statistically identical. They were a wash, they had zero impact on people. This is what we’d expect if subtle feng shui environment changes had no effect whatsoever on our decisions. So far so good…

Here’s where it gets weird.

When the money screensaver was displayed participants were significantly less likely to help pick up the pencils.

The money screensaver wasn’t just having an effect, it was THE reason, the only reason, some participants were deciding to help. In statistics “significantly” means that the variation of the data could not be explained by randomness or noise. A screensaver of money prevented people from helping who otherwise would have helped.

                     

In the most literal of ways, this seemingly meaningless part of their environment made their decision for them; they did not have a choice in the matter.

When participants were asked WHY they did what they did, they gave the “reasons” you or I would cite: they had exams earlier, work, weather, who they’d “run into” earlier, what the secretary looked like, etc. Never, out of thousands of trials, did they EVER cite the screensaver as even a having any influence on their decision.

This effect – where a subtle cue in your environment controls your behaviors and feelings in a completely unconscious way – is called “priming”. It affects you, me, your co-workers, family, EVERYONE, every moment of every day.

A second, but slightly varied, experiment led to the same results.

Using the same screensavers participants were told that they would be getting acquainted with a colleague, and told to pull up two chairs for them to sit on. The average distance that participants chose to separate the chairs was: fish (32 in), blank (33 in), money (45 in).

Again, the fish and blank screensaver were statistically identical, but the money screen caused highly divergent results. Without our awareness the concept of money causes us to act in a more defensive fashion.

The conclusion is best summarized by Daniel Kahneman in his encyclopedic psychology book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” (2011):

“The idea you should focus on, however, is that disbelief is not an option. The results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes. You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true. More important, you must accept that they are true about you… You do not believe that these results apply to you because they don’t correspond to your conscious experience, but your conscious experience is largely a narrative manufactured after the fact by your System 2 “.

“Do these experiments demonstrate that we are completely at the mercy of whatever primes the environment provides at the moment? Of course not. The effects of primes are robust but not necessarily large. Among one hundred voters, only a few whose initial preferences were uncertain will vote differently if their precinct is located in a school rather than a church- but a few percent could tip an election [he’s referring to an experiment I didn’t cover here].”

50 Shades of Strange

 

When you look at this image how do you feel?

Take a moment to feel your reaction. Without analyzing it ask yourself, do I like this image? Does it creep me out? Does it have a “vibe” to it? Is that vibe one you want to hug, or be cautious of?

Chances are your instinctual response to this photo is starkly different from, say, looking at a picture of a luscious green meadow with open blue skies.

Take a real moment to stop and observe: What does this image FEEL like.

The pattern this plant produces is generally rated as “not cuddly”, and 16% of the human population will become viscerally upset. You know that feeling when you just feel like gagging out of nowhere? Well 1 out of 6 people will get that feeling, or something similar, as an instinctual response to this image.

This reaction is innate, and not related to cultural upbringing. It is something that exists deep inside us. Even if you are not that 1 out of 6 people there is a strong chance that this image makes you moderately uncomfortable. At the very least your initial gut reaction was something along the lines of “weeeeeeird”.

After intense research it was discovered that the pattern of “clustered dots” in this image is what awakens this reflexive response. This effect has been called trypophobia because we humans can’t help but give everything a name. The 1 in 6 people who have a strong negative reaction to this image were found to show an identical reaction toward images of other organisms and images that presented a pattern of clustered dots.

Seems pretty random? Well the other organisms that display this same pattern are also classified as being among the most poisonous and venomous in the world, go figure!

As it turns out, we have embedded in us an instinctive aversion to this pattern. The hypothesized reason is that this pattern has high contrast, and therefore easily catches the eye in natural settings. This makes the deadly creature more visible from a distance, which alerts you long before you get close. This is great for your survival: it prevents you from dying.

However, it is also great for the deadly thing: it not only prevents it from dying in conflict with you, but also ensures that the creature can save energy and resources going at a casual “fuel efficient” pace through environments that are full of hungry animals.

Even though it benefits both parties, it benefits the deadly thing more. You have to waste energy taking a less preferred “detour” route to your destination while the deadly thing essentially gets to use the carpool lane everywhere it goes.

Those who had an urge to hug such creatures were less likely to pass on their genes. Those that had a gut sickening aversion were at a genetic advantage since they were less likely to perish before having offspring. This pattern is displayed by poisonous creatures throughout the globe, and our gut disgust is a trait we likely share with many other carnivorous animals.

This begs the question: how much of who you are is your choice, and how much is at least mildly determined by our genetic heritage? If you were to walk into a room with an artificially rendered poster displaying this pattern your behavior would change. You would be more skittish, your body language would trend toward a “closed” protective stance – limbs held close to the body, arms crossed, legs together – and you would have no idea you were even doing it, much less WHY you were doing it. This is true for you, me, everyone.

There is a fascinating experiment where this exact effect is confirmed in a very amusing way, but that must be saved for another time.

Infrasound: Lions, And Volcanoes, And Tsunamis Oh My!

If you blast a person with infrasound (sound just below our hearing threshold) they will become fearful, anxious, uneasy, nervous, feel chills in their spine, pressure in the chest, and extreme sorrow.

Sound waves in this range also resonate with our eyes natural vibrations creating undistinguishable and imaginary shapes in our peripheral vision. Most major scientific discoveries are complete accidents, and the story behind this discovery is no different.

In a lab, experimenters kept experiencing a gray shape sitting next to their desk in a specific area of the room. They also consistently felt feelings of dread, depression, anxiety, and feelings of someone watching them in that area.

They eventually discovered that a “silent” exhaust fan was emitting sound waves of 18.9Hz (infrasound). The fan was fixed and the mysterious gray shape and strange emotional experiences ended.

Stunned by the implications, this clever scientist went to a well regarded haunted cellar in a local home. People who entered the cellar often reported feelings of fear, nausea, nervousness, chills, seeing apparitions, and feeling apparitions watching them. It was found that the cellar had a particular resonant structure that created infrasound waves at, you guessed it, 18.9Hz.

Why do humans feel these sensations when these “silent” sound waves hit our ears?

Lions, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, large ocean waves, elephants, and other dangerous things produce sounds in the infrasound range. It is the hypothesized reason that many animals know ahead of time about tsunamis and earthquakes. In fact, if humans weren’t so caught up in our own thoughts (detached from our bodily intuition), we’d probably be able to sense these events too. The sensations created are an evolutionary adaptation that intuitively says “Don’t be here! Get somewhere else NOW!”.

 

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Thirst for more on this subject? click here

 

Mirror, Mirror: Appearance Matters More Than Talent

I’ll start by discussing people, self-appearance, and how it affects our lives.

A major study in 2013 revealed that when rating a musicians performance visual information reigns supreme over the music itself. When attending a concert presenting classical music humans rate the performance not by what they HEAR, but by what they SEE. This was found to be true for both novices and professional musicians. Even the experts unknowingly judge music by sight instead of sound. Incredible.

If we unknowingly rate musical performance through appearance, then it is a safe bet that appearance affects the way we evaluate EVERYTHING.

The mind is constantly on the lookout for identifying and assimilating patterns. Everyone unconsciously evaluates how I dress, my hair style, my vehicle, how I walk, if I mirror another’s body language, and an array of other non-verbal cues.

All this non-verbal information becomes the foundation of others perceptions of us. Our verbal communication and behaviors have impact, but only as a scaffolding built upon the foundation of appearance. This is because our words and actions are evaluated in the context of our non-verbal cues.

Put more bluntly, our non-verbal cues anchor peoples perceptions of us. Our words and actions allow those perceptions to shift, but only a certain distance from the anchor point.

This does not just concern initial impressions, but is a lasting effect that very slowly loosens over time. Once a perception is anchored all incoming information is judged relative to that anchor. Two people can behave identically, but be judged radically differently because judgments are always made relative to the anchor point.

If Mother Teresa volunteers at a soup kitchen she would be perceived as a caring individual due to her anchor point. If a person you don’t like does this the mind will quickly conclude it is for self-serving reasons.

This is why when making a radical life change it is useful to change jobs, locations, or friends. The people we regularly interact with have a set anchor of who we are, and the way they act reinforces that perception. People treat us according to how they see us, and the way we perceive ourselves is strongly affected by how others behave toward us.

I hold in my head the notion that any person, on any given day, can choose to change themselves. I am not the same person I was 5 years ago; no one is. This allows my to loosen my instinctual desire to evaluate someone today based on who I decided they were 1 year ago.

Even more profoundly, if you reinforce through language the idea that a specific person is noble and moral, they will begin seeing it in themselves and reflecting that. This psychological effect is called “priming”, and it is a significant driver of our daily actions and perceptions. If you continuously communicate to someone how that they’re not to be trusted they will in time begin reflecting that idea.

We frame other peoples realities every day, and most of the time we do it unconsciously by acting in a way that validates how we perceive them. Take control of your mind and your perceptions of others. Speak the good you see in them, and they’ll begin acting in accord with that evaluation.

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Red Lobster Revolution

In the 1800s lobster was considered so disgusting that it was served only to servants and prisoners.

 

Lobster was considered such a revolting dish that it led to a servant rebellion – the servants felt they were force fed this wretched concoction too often.

 

This rebellion caused Massachusetts to pass a law stating that lobster could be fed to servants and prisoners no more than twice a week – to eat lobster more often was legally defined as cruel and unusual punishment!

 A Great Article On This Subject

People once found this food revolting because their culture and society told them it was. Today we find it to be an expensive delicacy, mostly because our culture and society tell us it is.

 

History is littered with examples of fads that are considered high brow in one place or time, and laughable in the next.

 

The amazing thing is that these influences are so strong it can make a “delicacy” like lobster taste utterly revolting. When you eat lobster the same flavor molecules that led to rebellion hit your tongue’s palette.

 

On an absolute level the flavor is precisely the same, but our mental evaluation is starkly different depending on how our culture told us to experience it. If this is true with something as easy to evaluate as “does this taste good?” then it is true of nearly EVERYTHING in your life.

 

Now that’s some food for thought.

 

Hot Streaks Are Hot Air

There is no such thing as a “hot streak” in basketball (or any sport), even though 91% of fans believe in “hot streaks”.

Someone with entirely too much time on their hands did a gruelling and all inclusive statistical analysis, which revealed that after making several shots in a row players are actually slightly LESS likely to make the next shot.

The reason for this is a phenomenon known as “reversion to the mean” where performance after a particularly good run (or bad run) reverts toward the average. This effect of probability explains the “Sports Illustrated jinx” where players featured on the cover perform more poorly the next season.

Your favorite football team had an unusually good season? Sorry to say, but reversion to the mean dictates that they’re likely to perform closer to the average next season. On the other hand, you can actually make large sums of money by betting on the fact that 91% of sports fans falsely believe in hot streaks. It leads to overconfidence, and a willingness to make larger bets when the laws of probability are against them.

It’s also the reasoning behind Warren Buffet’s motto to buy stocks when everyone is fearful, and sell when everyone is exuberant. Partly by using the law of reversion to the mean Warren Buffett has become the 4th wealthiest person in the world.

Coaches used to believe that praising excellent performance lead to poor performance, and scolding bad performance improved results. They were accurately assessing what was happening, but wrong about what caused the change in performance.

What they didn’t realize was that they were merely experiencing regression to the mean. Excellent performance would lead to poor performance regardless of praise or punishment. Humans are keen at noticing patterns, and we naturally assume some agent is creating those patterns, but in many instances simple laws of probability are the root cause.