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Precision Decision

I know it is April but this article is about March. James March, to be precise!

He is a professor of political science at Stanford University. He said people make choices and decisions using one of two ways: Consequence Model or Identity Model.

Students of economics know about the Consequence Model. When we have a decision to make, we weigh the costs and benefits of our options and make the choice that maximizes our satisfaction. It is a rational and analytical approach to decision-making.

In the identity model of decision making, we make choices that align with our own perceived identity. The costs and benefits don’t really factor in our decision. We ask ourselves three questions when we have a decision to make.

  1. Who am I?
  2. What kind of situation is this?
  3. What would someone like me do in this situation?

Identity encompasses not only traits like religion, region, caste or creed but also identities that we aspire to, like being a faithful spouse, loving parent, dear friend, patriotic citizen, hard-working staff, caring boss etc.

As we develop and grow in that identity, it becomes an increasingly important part of our self-image and triggers the kind of decision making that March describes.

If you consider yourself patriotic and someone gives you a flag on Independence Day, no matter how new your shirt is, you don’t mind pinning the flag on it. You just ask yourself, ‘What would a patriotic guy like me do in this situation’?

It also explains the way most Indians vote, for instance.

So, if you wish to make someone do something, a smart way is to make that change a matter of identity rather than a matter of consequence!

A classic study in psychology shows how you can begin with simple steps. Two Stanford University psychologists went door-to-door in an upscale neighbourhood, claiming to be from an NGO and asked homeowners to display a big and ugly signboard in their lawn advising passer-by to drive safely. 17% agreed. It’s surprising anyone even agreed to put up such a lousy-looking board in their lawn.

The researchers then repeated the experiment but this this time with a difference. They went around first asking people to display a 3-inch sticker carrying the same message. Almost all homeowners agreed.

A few weeks later the researchers returned and asked the homeowners to have the big and ugly signboard in their lawn. This time 76% of them agreed to have the lousy-looking signboards in their lawns.

Researchers call this strategy ‘foot in the door’ technique. Accepting the tiny driver-safety sign greatly increased the likelihood that the home owners would accept the big driver-safety sign!

The third part of the experiment offered even stranger results. Researchers met a third group of home owners with a different request. They were asked to sign a petition – ‘Keep California Beautiful’. Almost everyone complied.

Two weeks later, the petition-signers were approached about hosting the big and ugly signboard. Guess what happened?

Half of them said YES and put up those eyesore signboards in their lawns!

Even a simple activity like petition-signing had sparked a shift in the home owner’s own sense of identity. When a bigger request was made, they asked themselves the three identity questions. It made them feel they were concerned citizens and thus they felt obligated to put up the board in their lawn.

Next time you want someone to do something, just cultivate the relevant identity in them. And watch them happily wag their tails and heed to your request!

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Lack self-control? Join the club!

‘I say no to alcohol but it just doesn’t listen’ said someone who tried quitting the habit.

Are you one too? Do you think you lack self-control?

Don’t be harsh on yourself. Apparently, our self-control is much like our muscles. Just like our muscles get tired doing physical work, our self-control gets tired while doing daily things leaving us with little power to change ourselves. Here’s proof. Courtesy an interesting experiment done by psychologists.

Some college students were called for a food perception study. Or, at least, that’s what they were told. They were specifically asked to come hungry for the experiment.

They were made to sit in a room with two bowls on the table in front of them. One was filled with freshly-baked yummy chocolate-chip cookies. The other had a bunch of radishes – the ones we don’t find appetizing but rabbits love to munch.

Half of the students were asked to eat the cookies but not the radishes. The other half were asked to eat radishes but not the cookies. After instructing, the researchers left the room.

Needless to say, those who were asked to eat the cookies obliged by gorging on them with glee. The poor souls who were asked to eat radishes nibbled on them while looking longingly at the bowl of cookies and cursing their bad luck.

The researchers came back and collected the bowls and said the taste study was over. Another set of researchers entered the room for a second supposedly unrelated study. They told the students that they were studying human behaviour solving problems.

The students were presented with a series of puzzles and were asked to a complete a geometric shape without retracing any lines and without lifting their pencils from the paper. Truth be told, the puzzles were designed to be virtually unsolvable.

The researchers wanted to see how long the students would persist in a difficult, frustrating task before they finally gave up.

The students who were asked to eat chocolate cookies spent an average of 19 minutes on the problem. Remember, these were the un-tempted ones who didn’t need to resist the cookies.

But the radish eaters gave up after just 8 minutes. Why did they quit so easily?

Psychologists say they ran out of self-control. Self-control is an exhaustible resource. The radish eaters had drained their self-control by resisting the cookies!

The cookie eaters, on the other hand, had a fresh untaxed mind and were able to persevere for 19 minutes.

It’s almost like doing push-ups. The first few times is easy since our muscles are fresh. As we do push-ups, we burn our strength and after a point of time we just can’t any more.

Just like physical muscles get tired when we exercise, we also exhaust the mental muscles while trying to exercise self-control.

When do we burn self-control? This is where it gets interesting.

Research shows that we burn up self-control in a wide variety of everyday life’s situations. Like while managing the impression we are making on others, coping with fears, controlling our spending, talking to someone, trying to focus on what we are doing and many such ordinary things.

This is why we find it hard to change ourselves. We are not lazy or resistant to change. Change is hard coz we wear ourselves out. What looks like laziness is actually exhaustion!

In another study, some people were asked to restrain their emotions while watching a sad movie. Later, they exhibited less physical endurance than others who had let the tears flow freely while watching the same movie.

So, stop blaming yourself next time you find it hard to say no to alcohol. Just raise a toast to your exhaustion and gulp another round.

Cheers!

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To Flirt With A Stranger, Press 1

Philosophy says we are what we wish to be. Psychology says we are what others wish us to be!

When others mark us or brand us in a certain way, we take on those characteristics ourselves, say psychologists. In other words, we start to mirror their expectations and begin to personify their diagnosis. It’s termed the Pygmalion Effect.

If random strangers think that you would be sociable, poised, humorous and socially adept, it is likely that you will portray yourself that way. On the contrary, if they don’t think you’re going to fit those characteristics, you probably won’t.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Not after reading about a fascinating experiment conducted by psychologists.

Researchers gathered 51 women who were told they were part of a study on communication. They were told they would have a short telephone conversation with a randomly selected man who would be calling them.

The men on the other end of the line were also told they were part of a study on communication. But unlike the women, the men were given a brief write-up about the woman they were going to talk to and also their photograph.

What the men and women didn’t know was that the study had nothing to do with communication and they were just rats in a psychological experiment.

The write-ups about women were accurate. Their photographs were not. Half of the men were given photographs of pretty women while the rest received photographs of average-looking women.

The women, on the other hand, had no idea that the men had been shown pictures of them – real or otherwise.

After looking at the photograph and reading the write-up about the women, they were asked to fill a questionnaire – Impression Formation Questionnaire – which asked them to rate their expectations of the women they were supposed to speak to.

Regardless of what the write-ups said, men who saw pictures of pretty women expected to interact with sociable, poised, humorous and socially adept women.

The other group of men – the ones who thought they would be talking to less attractive partners thought the women would be unsociable, awkward, serious and socially inept.

After filling the questionnaire, the men called and spoke to the women. This is when the experiment really began!

When men called, the women simply engaged in casual chitchat. What was interesting was not what they spoke about. But the biases the men brought into their phone conversations.

The researchers recorded each of the calls and then edited out the men’s side of the conversations. The resulting clips, containing only the women’s voices, were played to a third, independent group of twelve ordinary people who knew nothing at all about the study and had never met any of the other participants.

These twelve people were asked to evaluate each woman, after listening to their side of the conversation, using the same Impression Formation Questionnaire the men had filled out earlier.

Guess what they wrote?

They attributed the same traits to the women based on their voices alone that the men had attributed to them based on their fake photographs.

Do you realize what’s happening?

Once men formed an opinion about the women they were going to speak to, it affected the way they spoke with the women. If the men felt the women were attractive, he sounded more energetic, listened more intently and immersed himself more in the conversation.

And the women on the other end of the line couldn’t help but react in the same manner. They didn’t realize it but they were taking on the very characteristics that the men were expecting them to have.

Being thought of as beautiful made the women actually think of themselves as beautiful and exhibit beauty in their conversations. And vice versa!

What had initially been reality in the minds of the men had now become reality in the behaviour of the women! Imagine how wonderful the world would be if only teachers see students this way. Bosses see their staff in this manner. And spouses see each other in this regard!

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A girl. Two bridges. A little anxiety. Lots of adrenaline!

Physiology – the scientific study of how living things function and psychology – the scientific study of how we behave, are inextricably coupled, say scientists. A study done in Capilano Canyon near Vancouver will throw some light on this.

Across a serene river in the woods, just 10 feet off the ground, is a small but sturdy wooden bridge with enough guardrails and adequate safety that allows visitors a peaceful stroll across it.

Go up the hills another 250 feet and you will find the infamous Capilano suspension bridge. Built in the nineteenth century, it’s a shaky rope structure and spans 450 feet. It’s not a bridge for the faint-hearted. As one walks across the bridge, the whole thing shakes and one can’t help go weak on their knees.

Researchers chose the two contrasting bridges for this study. They had a young girl wait at the end of the two bridges on different days. She accosted young men who stepped off either of the bridges and introduced herself as a psychology student doing a study on how exposure of scenic attractions affected creative expression.

She gave a questionnaire and asked the young men to fill. She also offered to explain the findings later and gave her number to whoever was interested.

Researchers also sent a young male student on other days to the same two bridges and he did the same.

A week later, only three men called him.

Yes, you are right, the girl’s phone didn’t stop ringing. Men would be men!

It didn’t take a researcher to know men would call a young girl if she offers to give her phone number. What they were interested in knowing which of the men caller her more. Was it the men who crossed the safe and sturdy bridge or the ones who walked the old and shaky one.

Of the 16 men who crossed the safe and wooden bridge, only two called her.

But of the 18 men who crossed the old and shaky bridge, more than half called her.

Did the young girl’s face become more prettier at 250 feet than it did at 10 feet? Why did more men who walked the old and swaying bridge call her more?

The answer lay in how shaky the bridge was!

Physiologically speaking, when you walk on a shaky and swaying bridge at 250 feet, you feel a surge of adrenaline rushing through you. Scientists say it is the same as the sense of excitement you feel when you develop a crush on a girl.

When men walked the shaky bridge, they experienced a surge of adrenaline and it remained high when they met the girl. Anxiety and adrenaline combined to form a dreamy cocktail and heightened their romantic interest and they decided then they were going to call her.

But for the men who crossed the safe and sturdy bridge, nothing surged inside them other than the calmness of the surrounding nature and they weren’t interested in the same girl.

Remember, when the same experiment was done with a male student, men weren’t too keen to call him. Just 3 did. Maybe they were LGBT.

Researchers did a subsequent experiment wherein the same girl met young men who just walked off the old and shaky bridge but a good 10 minutes later. Very few men called the girl now. Why?

The anxiety had subsided and their adrenaline levels had come down. Along with it came down their romantic interests as well.

So, is romance not as much a thing of the heart as it is about the adrenaline rush and hormonal excitement inside our bodies?

Let’s cross the bridge when we come to it!

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