Frans de Waal was recently interviewed by Stephen J. Dubner in the Freakonomics blog of the NYT. Dubner co-authored Freakonomics with Steven D. Levitt. De Waal and Dubner discussed the ramifications of an experiment where capuchin monkeys received either a grape or a piece of cucumber in return for a…
Philosophy majors are not getting rich, but they're able to buy enough food to allow them to sit around and ponder things. Truth be told, philosophy majors are at the bottom of the list in starting salaries. As someone who majored in philosophy, I found these statistics to be of interest. In…
Nor is it primarily the result of a rational choice (i.e., a systematic analysis of facts) that liberals become liberals.
We’d like to believe that we adopt our political views rationally, only after careful consideration of the “facts.” That’s a pipe dream, however. Jay Dixit’s article, “The Ideological Animal,” (published by Psychology Today) demonstrates that our political persuasion takes root well before the cerebrum kicks fully into gear. There are deep triggers that lead individuals to crave one political ideology over the other. For many of us, rational thought is post-facto justification. As David Hume famously argued,
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
Dixit’s arguments dovetail with Hume’s beliefs. As Dixit argues,
We tend to believe our political views evolve as a result of rational thought, in that we consider arguments, weigh evidence, and draw conclusions. But the truth is more complicated. Our political preferences are equally the result of factors we’re not aware of—such as how educated we are, how scary the world seems at a given moment, and personality traits that are first apparent in early childhood. Among the most potent motivators, it turns out, is fear.
What else correlates with political leaning? You won’t be surprised at some of these differences:
…conservatives and liberals boast markedly different home and office decor. Liberals are messier than conservatives, their rooms have more clutter and more color, and
Psyblog presents a handy summary of ten of the most famous social psychology studies. The post is a succinct review of each of the following studies, along with thoughtful commentary. The social psychological studies include the following: 1. The Halo Effect - Nisbett 2. Cognitive Dissonance - Festinger 3. Robbers Cave…
I often jump at the chance to report on new well-written articles regarding happiness, especially when they are based upon science rather than mere anecdotes.
Last year, I started a subscription to Scientific American Mind It’s a well-written magazine that addresses lively and timely topics. Be February-March 2007 issue contains an article entitled “Why It’s so Hard to Be Happy.”
Why is it so hard? After all (as the article points out), the buying power of average Americans has tripled since 1950, though we are not three times happier. In fact, our children are more anxious. Is happiness about achieving goals, for instance? Apparently not. The growing field of “positive psychology” shows that happiness
Is not something that can be achieved by hard work or good luck. The happiest people seem to be those who are fully engaged in the present, rather than focused on future goals.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that humans have inherited “a remarkable capacity to habituate to, or become accustomed to, the status quo.” While this is great when we are facing adverse conditions, it causes ongoing pleasant experiences to fade in the consciousness. In fact, we seem to be especially well-tuned to notice dangers much more than pleasures. “The natural human condition is to take positive experiences for granted and to focus on the bothersome aspects of life.” The article suggests that humans who were never satisfied had an survival advantage over their easily-satisfied peers.
A twin study from 1996 indicates that 80% of the variation …