Hog Heaven

Kahneman and Tversky published a series of influential psychology articles in the 1970s about heuristics--the mental shortcuts that we all take when processing the constant bombardment of information that is inflicted on us during every waking moment. One of these is the availability heuristic, which, according to the Wikipedia entry, is a cognitive bias "in which people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion of the population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind." I've been lecturing about the availability heuristic for years in my social psychology courses. One example I always mention was how a friend of mine in graduate school refused to fly on DC-10s after just one high-profile crash in Iowa, even though DC-10s at the time had one of the best safety records of all aircraft.

Well, right now I'm suffering from the power of the availability heuristic as it pertains to the swine flu "pandemic." And I'm not the only one--emergency rooms in New York City are full of people who think they have the swine flu:  “The consensus among these physicians,” said Dr. Steven J. Davidson, the chairman of the hospital’s emergency medicine department, “is that the influenza is mild but the patients are unusually scared.”  Here in Australia the frequency of swine flu stories in the news has noticeably increased in the past week.  Some newspapers give daily Australian "swine flu tolls," as if they were counting deaths from the flu, although no one here has actually died in the over 170 cases that have been reported. Today's Courier-Mail included several pages of coverage to the swine flu, which included a major story about a cruise ship that has been sort of quarantined at the Great Barrier Reef (but the passengers continue to "party on," as one Brisbane bloke told a reporter). Another story was about the fact that the state and federal governments are now requiring that all children who travel to countries with high rates of swine flu (e.g., the United States) must stay at home for seven days when they return to Oz.

Why is this causing me a problem? Well, we are scheduled to leave next Thursday for the U.S. with our 3-year-old in tow (who looked very much like that boy in the picture above when he was younger!). V. and I have thought seriously about cancelling our trip, and waiting until next year to try to travel again.  We would lose lots of money if we did so, and we (and my family members) would be very disappointed.  But, you know, it's our son that we're talking about here.

But, alas, we have decided to stick to the facts. The fatality rate from the swine flu is about the same as any strain of influenza, and, our chances of getting the flu (of any strain) are probably no greater when going to the U.S. now than staying around here where it seems our colleagues and friends are coming down with all sorts of viruses (remember, the flu season has just begun in the southern hemisphere).  I had a flu "jab" a few weeks ago that is supposed to inoculate me from both Brisbane strands of the virus (dubbed last year as "more deadly than any seen in the past two decades in Britain"). 

Damn you, availability heuristic, I'm going to stick to the facts this time when estimating the probability...

Time Zones

Phil Zimbardo was in Brisbane yesterday to give a talk to customers of his textbook publisher.  You have probably heard of him if you know anything about the Stanford Prison Experiment.  This was the 1971 study in which subjects were assigned to play the role of a prisoner or a guard in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University.  All sorts of interesting things happened, which you can read about here, but the experiment led Zimbardo to study many related issues over the next 35 years.  Yesterday's talk was not about those issues nor did he promote his best seller, The Lucifer Effect (although he did sign my copy!).  Instead, his 75 minute presentation was about time--a topic that I have written about before in this blog.

Zimbardo has developed and validated a research questionnaire that measures five main dimensions of a person's time orientation.  He argues that most people are not aware of where they lie on these dimensions, but these 'time zones' strongly influence what we do at any given moment.  Here's a brief description of a high score in each zone:

• past positive:  someone who frequently thinks about their past in a positive way; strong ties to family and friends; likes traditions; particularly resistant to new things
  
• past negative: someone who frequently thinks about their past, but in a negative way; tends to think of themselves as a victim of abuse, neglect, bad circumstances; strongly associated with depression
  
• present fatalistic: someone who thinks only about today, but largely from a "how am I going to survive today?"; believes there is little they can do to control their futures, so they tend to be reactive rather than proactive; more common in people with impoverished lives
  
• present hedonistic: someone who lives in the moment, trying to maximise their pleasure and minimise pain; they tend not to carry watches, schedule appointments, and are frequently late; strongly associated with addiction; most likely to enjoy sex; little no or concern about the consequences of their actions
  
• future: these are people who are most likely to think about the consequences before taking action; they tend to have highly scheduled, busy lives; tend to be most successful of the five time zones; experience more anxiety but less depression; more socially isolated; fewer sensual pleasures

It's an interesting framework to think about many personal and societal problems, and Zimbardo has about 20 years of research on all of this.  For example, he finds that Stanford students who score high on Future do better in all their classes, whereas Present Hedonists only do well if it's a class they like.  Minority students from impoverished backgrounds tend to be Present-oriented, which puts them at a disadvantage in school because they don't tend to think about the probabilities of different outcomes.  Societies with many people in Past-Positive (think of Sarah Palin and her friends at the Republican Convention!) tend to be slow to change, and will likely have more problems with increasing globalisation.  The closer one is to the equator, the more you find Present oriented people, probably because they don't have to worry about the change of seasons.

According to Zimbardo, it's best to have a mix of the time zones to offset the negatives of each.  The optimal profile is to be high in Past-Positive, mid-high in Future, and mid in Present-Hedonist.  That is, have rich positive connections to your past with a good dose (but not too high) of a future orientation and ample enjoyment of the moment.  Reaching such an optimal balance can be challenging, however, depending on where you live, what you're up against, and your life experiences.  Here's a link to his book, if you want more info.  He also spoke about some trends in American society, a country that is probably overloaded with Future people.  A USA Today poll in 1987 found that 59% of respondents had a family dinner each day, whereas today it's 20% that do.  More than 50% of today's respondents say they are busier this year than last year.  What did they tend to sacrifice to make up the time?  Friends, family, and fun.  What would they do if they had an extra day in the week?  Most said they would use it to catch up with work.  

I found this talk highly stimulating.  Interestingly, Zimbardo rarely refers to biological processes in his work (he's a strong environmentalist).  I'm thinking that social neuroscience could help flesh out some of the details.

A Whole of Lot BIRGing Going On

One of the many strategies we all have to boost and maintain our self-esteem is Basking in the Reflected Glory of others, or, as it's known in social psychology, BIRGing. We can do this on an individual level ("my friend just won a gold medal") or as part of the group ("my football team won this weekend!"). One of the puzzling aspects of this phenomenon is that the person doing the BIRGing has usually done nothing to assist the other person with the success or good fortune, but somehow finds pleasure in knowing that they are connected to this successful person in some way. By the way, the opposite of BIRGing is CORFing (cutting off reflected failure). One famous social psychology study found that Ohio State students were much more likely than normal to wear their OSU apparel on Mondays following a win by their football team, but they were also less likely to wear such clothes on Mondays following a loss. Both BIRGing and CORFing have a very public element associated with them--our friend (or team's) success (or failure) has special value when it is broadcast to others. Well, what follows is a bit of such broadcasting, but I am going to stick to BIRGing for now...

Over the years I have been guilty of BIRGing along two general categories--my friends' connections to the famous and my friend's noteworthy successes. As examples of the former category, my friends have included (a) a relative of Allen Ginsburg, (b) the target of a pick-up by Tori Spelling (my friend refused her advances, btw), (c) someone who was employed to be a "friend" of the daughter of a famous billionaire, (d) the daughter of a Hollywood film director, and (e) someone who lives in Kevin Bacon's building (which gives me all sort of "six degrees" connections!). The other BIRG category is probably more impressive, as they include a friend who is a successful TV and film actor, the bass guitarist for a great '80s/'90s band, many highly productive academics, a top journalist, a successful artist, and several friends who are now department chairs or deans. Today I can add another high school classmate to the list--Dan Gesmer, who runs a successful skateboard business and is a performance artist. Dan invented a style of freestyle skateboarding that you can see in this video. What's more, he was recently asked by Cirque de Soleil to become part of their winter show, Wintuk, in New York City. This is the first Cirque show to feature skateboarding, and it looks like they specifically recruited Dan to perform based on some of the videos he has made.

Wow! I know someone who has performed with Cirque de Soleil!! I'm on BIRG overload today!!

Incompetent and Unaware

One of my favourite articles published in social psychology in the last 10 years is Justin Kruger and David Dunning's (1999) "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," which was published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1121-1134.  Across four studies, different participants were tested on their sense of humor, logical reasoning, and grammar. They were also asked to indicate what they perceived their abilities in these areas to be, relative to other people. Across the four studies, participants always believed they were better than average--sometimes dubbed in the literature as the "Lake Wobegon" effect, after Garrison Keillor's mythical Minnesota town, where all the children are "above average."  The problem, of course, is that everyone can't be above average.  In fact, half of the people are in the bottom 50% of scores on whatever ability we're talking about!  Thus, it turns out that the people who are most incompetent on a task are also the people who are most unaware of how incompetent they are.  You can see this pattern in one of the figures that appears in the Kruger and Dunning article:

In the years since this article was published, I'll admit that I have been prone to make occasional observations about other people whom I believed were unaware of how entirely incompetent they were, whether they were salespeople, clerical staff, students, or even other academics.  Interestingly, and predictably, I never really wondered about myself with respect to this article.  That is, as an academic (for example), I like to think of myself in the 3rd or Top Quartile in terms of teaching ability, creativity, writing ability, logical reasoning, etc.  But, of course, on any or all of these dimensions I am likely inflating my own competence.  In my defense, I should point out that in my occupation there are few objective measures of these talents. Regardless, the past month at work has been very challenging for me--which has caused me to re-evaluate my general competence as an academic.  On top of that, yesterday one of my manuscripts, which had been under review since December, was flat out rejected from one of the most prestigious journals in my field.  The reviewers' comments were somewhat harsh, such as, "one wonders what the point of this study is," and "who would want to read this article?"  I can't help (today) feeling a bit like I'm "unskilled and unaware of it."  To keep touch with reality, perhaps I should post the following amended figure above my desk:

Thinking About 'Racism' at 2 in the Morning

I woke up wide awake at 2 am, and can't get back to sleep because it's so terribly quiet. Even with the windows open, I could hear absolutely nothing--not a car, a cricket, nor a gecko. This is in sharp contrast to the usual chirping and squawking one hears all day from the many birds around our place. I guess even those obnoxious crows have to sleep sometime.

Well, it seems to be a good time to write about the following story of the firing of an Aussie television news journalist, which my American readers may find interesting as a cultural contrast. It appeared in the The Australian last week:

Nine to Challenge Spiteri Claim
April 16, 2008

THE Nine Network will ask a judge to throw out a breach of contract case brought by reporter Christine Spiteri.

In the Federal Court in Sydney today, Justice Richard Edmonds set Nine's application down for hearing on May 23.

Ms Spiteri, 40, is seeking damages of more than $500,000 under the Trade Practices Act after she was told her contract with the network would expire in March this year.

In her statement of claim, she says she was racially and sexually discriminated against.

She alleged Nine's news director John Westacott told her: "You should work for SBS, you certainly have the name for it."

She also alleged Mr Westacott told female journalists "to make it in this industry, you gotta have f***ability. To make it in this game, women have to be f***able".

The basis for the claim of sexual discrimination should be obvious from the last paragraph. In fact, this article is consistent with a string of stories about the Nine television network that has established a consistent pattern of sexism, especially in the newsroom. But notice that this lawsuit also includes a charge of 'racism,' which is supposed to be supported by the alleged quote from the news director that Spiteri should work for SBS, a public television channel that includes the rebroadcasts of news programs from around the world. When I first read this quote, I thought I was missing something. Why should the suggestion that someone work for a more multi-cultural network connote underlying racism?

Finding this picture of Spiteri didn't help answer the question. Her ethnic background appears to have a European origin, just like that of her former news director, John Westacott. And, according to a Google search, Christine's surname is shared by a few significant people from Malta, so I am assuming that her ancestors immigrated to Australia from Malta or Italy. So, I was still left wondering why this could be considered a case of racism.

I think the answer to this question lies in two ways (among many others) that Australia differs from the United States. First, many Australians consider their country to be culturally "diverse" as a result of the many non-British immigrants who ended up coming here in the latter part of the 20th century. For at least 100 years Australian immigration was comprised of a high proportion of immigrants from Britain and Ireland. In fact, an official Australian government program ran from the 1950s through the 1970s that encouraged Brits to immigrate to Australia for just 10 pounds--the rest of the cost was subsidised by the Australian government. As I understand it, Australians were greatly concerned after WWII that they desperately needed to increase their population to avoid a future threat of invasion from their Asian neighbours. During this same period, however, many other Europeans, particularly from Greece and Italy, also came to this country, under the guise of a "White-only" Australia policy, which also had atrocious consequences for the indigenous population. This all changed in the 1970s when the Australian government finally began to allow greater emigration from Asian countries. It is primarily this mix of Greeks, Italians, and Asians that I think people are referring to when they speak of Australia's diversity. Consistent with this, the suggestion that Christine Spiteri should work for the SBS probably reflected the perception of a descendant of British immigrants (Westacott) that Spiteri is a descendant of Italian (or Maltese) immigrants.

In addition, the charge of "racism" here reflects a different use of the word than I am accustomed to in the United States. I remember reading not too long ago a story in the Australian press about British People Against Racial Discrimination. It sounds like this would be a group concerned about promoting better interracial relations, doesn't it? Well, it turns out that BPARD were only concerned about a specific issue--banning a Toohey's beer commercial that depicted British people as whinging (complaining), warm-beer-drinking, wimps. A member of this group was even quoted as saying that the ad constituted a "racial slur" against the British by Australians. Although that example borders on the ridiculous, I am left thinking that any instance of prejudice involving a person based on their ethnicity or nationality can be called "racism" in Australia. Thus, the term isn't limited to just instances of expressed antipathy based on a person's "race," as it would be in the United States. And that also probably explains why Spiteri considered her news director's SBS comment to be racist.

I'll have to keep all of this in mind the next time an Aussie makes fun of my love of Reese's peanut butter cups. Now it's time to go back to sleep...

Idle Idol

I'm off to Wellington, New Zealand for a social psychology conference for the next few days. Unfortunately, Will and V. won't be coming along this time. As you can see in this picture, however, V. will have plenty of entertainment to keep her occupied. I'll try to post once or twice while I'm in NZ. I have never been there before, so there's much to anticipate. And I'm also looking forward to cooler weather...

Sowing His Oats

From the BBC website on 2 July 2006 (I must have missed this one when it was first reported):

21-year-old fathers seventh child

A 21-year-old who fathered his first child at 13 is about to become a dad for the seventh time.

Keith Macdonald, from Washington, Tyne and Wear has been branded a "reckless Romeo" after it emerged that all his children are by different women.

He is reported to be living apart from the mother-to-be.

As he is unemployed he does not support his children financially, but Mr Macdonald says he has no plans to father any more children

The north east has a high rate of teenage pregnancies, with 52 girls per 1,000 under 18 becoming pregnant, as opposed to an England average of 42.

Condom manufacturers also report low sales in the region.

Mr Macdonald said he did not want to have any more children and that his mother has strong views about the situation.

He said: "My mum's not happy about all these kids.

"She tells me to pack it in and keep it in my trousers."

I know some Evolutionary Social Psychologists who would enjoy meeting this guy.

A Career in Prejudice

I know it's hard to believe, but research is a major part of my 'portfolio' as a social neuroscientist at the University of Queensland.  In fact, I have spent nearly 30 hours in just the past week writing a manuscript about 'social categoriz(s)ation' and attention, which I really, really want to send away as soon as possible.  Anyway, one of my research themes is the emotional underpinnings of prejudice.  In fact, it would  be fair to say that my career has been built on my attempts to understand prejudice.  When I lived in Atlanta, it was easy to figure out which social groups to look at-- the stormy relationship between Blacks and Whites remains one of the major social problems facing the United States.  Here in Oz, however, finding prejudice in situ to study is a bit trickier.  Of course, the Europeans' horrible treatment of indigenous Australians rivals their treatment of the indigenous people in North America, and there are many, many lingering issues yet to deal with because of that past (in fact, the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, plans to issue an official apology to the Aboriginal people soon).  Still, the very low number of Aborigines on the UQ campus makes this a difficult group to study in relation to the White population.  I am tempted to examine prejudice towards Asians, as there is a large international student body here.  But, this sleazy story out of New South Wales last week is making me consider a different intergroup dynamic:

Fake Muslim flyer row flares in Australia election
By Rob Taylor

Reuters

Wednesday, November 21, 2007; 7:36 PM

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A fake letter linking Muslim extremists to Australia's opposition Labor Party and blamed on conservative supporters on Thursday entangled Prime Minister John Howard in a damaging row two days before a national election. The flyer, purporting to come from a non-existent Islamic Australia Federation, was dropped in letterboxes in a key Sydney seat and painted Labor as sympathizers of three men on death row in Indonesia over bombings in the tourist island of Bali in 2002. Howard's Liberal Party said it had suspended two unidentified members over the hoax. Both parties referred it to Australia's electoral commission.
"I condemn it, I dissociate myself from it. It is no part of my campaign and the party has acted promptly to deal with it," Howard told local radio.
The furor follows controversy about small numbers of Islamic extremists in Australia's Muslim community. Far right politician Pauline Hanson, who a decade ago called for an Asian immigration ban, is campaigning this time for a freeze on Muslim migrants.
"My first reaction was 'oh no, not again, not the Muslims again'," Australian Federation of Islamic Councils President Ikebal Patel said.  "At such a late stage in the election process to bring something like this up in a fake flyer going around is really quite despicable," he said, demanding a police investigation.
The minority Australian Democrats accused the government of resorting to "bigotry and fear-mongering" to stave off defeat and peg back a year-long lead by Labor in opinion polls.
"Instead of standing up against prejudice and ignorance, the Liberals have regularly turned a blind eye or given knowing winks to dog-whistling that plays on fear regarding Muslim Australians," Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett said.  The bogus pamphlet applauded Labor for supporting bombers "unjustly" sentenced to death and praised the party for allowing a controversial Muslim sheikh, who compared immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat, to live in Australia.
"We gratefully acknowledge Labors (sic) support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings. Ala Akba (sic)," or God is Great, it said. The damaging row looked likely to overshadow a televised address to the nation by Howard later on Thursday.  Howard said the flyer was "wrong, unfair and dishonest," and it was "outrageous" to link Labor to the Bali bombers, blamed for the deaths of 88 Australians among 202 victims.
"I knew nothing about this until I was informed that it had occurred and can I say that the Liberal Party organization has acted with lightning speed," he said.
The western Sydney seat is held by retiring conservative MP Jackie Kelly, a former minister and close confidante of Howard, who condemned the flyer and said she knew nothing about it.
"I think its intent is to be a send-up, but it obviously hasn't worked," Kelly told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Note: It turned out that the husband of the Liberal candidate for that electorate was the one behind the flyer.  The Liberals ended up losing the seat, and the candidate and her husband are now separated.

 

Coffee Break

It's Day 8, and we are still struggling to recover from our cold/flu/lurgy. V. and I were able to go out last night for a dinner and a movie ("No Reservations," a pleasant but forgettable film that wasn't as good as the original, "Mostly Martha") in Southbank. However, after we went to bed Will woke up a few times during the night from congestion and coughing. So far today he's managed no more than 30 minutes of sleep in a row. V. has dosed him up with Dimetapp, so I hope he gets some relief now.

Yesterday I attended an interesting talk by one of my new colleagues at UQ, Blake McKimmie. Blake is a social psychologist interested in the impact of psychological factors on the legal system. I learned a bit about the Australian legal system. It appears to be more similar to the one in the U.K. than the one in the States. And only the State of Queensland requires unanimous jury decisions. In the other states, a simple majority is required for most kinds of cases. I was also surprised to learn more about the infamous McDonald's coffee case. You know the story: in 1994 an old lady was burned by a cup of coffee she bought in the drive-thru. The U.S. jury in that case awarded her $2.9 million, although that was reduced to $640,000 by the trial judge, and even settled for less than that in the end. It is often brought up as a horrendous example of frivolous litigation, and did a lot to damage the reputation of the legal system. But here are some additional facts that Blake mentioned in his talk:

• All McDonald's coffee at the time of that incident was served at about 190 degrees F (88 degrees C), whereas most other restaurants never served coffee hotter than 160.
• The woman spent 8 days in the hospital and required skin grafts for the 3rd-degree burns she received covering 6% of her body, including her legs and groin region.
• McDonald's had received over 700 complaints about its hot coffee and resulting burns BEFORE this case, but had always settled such complaints out-of-court without adjusting the temperature of the coffee.
• The reason given by the jury members for awarding the large amount was that $2.9 million was equivalent to two days' worth of coffee sales for McDonald's in the U.S., and such an amount would send a message to McDonald's that it needed to deal with the problem once and for all.
• After this case, McDonald's indeed lowered the temperature of its coffee to no more than 160 degrees F, and added warnings to the cups.

For more information, there's a great Wikipedia entry about the case.

I don't remember hearing any of this back in the day. Isn't it interesting how what we do hear (via the news) can affect our attitudes about things for such a long time, even if they are based on incomplete information? Or should I say, isn't it scary?