Greg Proffit Writing

Category: Psychology

  • We Don’t All Value The Same Things

    Every direction on the internal compass points toward what is valued…

    One of the most intriguing verses in the Bible is this:

    Every man’s way is right in his own eyes… ~ Proverbs 21:2 NASB

    This is a statement, in scripture, that confirmation bias and self-enhancement fallacies are universal. It is not a positive affirmation that whatever you think, and whatever you do, is right! It is a statement declaring that every person believes themselves and the conduct of their lives to be right.

    Clearly, everyone’s ways are not right.

    This raises two puzzling questions: What is right? Who determines what is right?

    Now, I am not making an appeal to you, dear Reader, that you believe the verse is true by using the authority bias and appealing to a scripture that you may hold no truck with whatsoever, which is, of course, your prerogative. I just find it fascinating for such a clear declaration of a linked set of universal biases to be sitting in the middle of sacred texts. 

    Rather, my appeal as to the veracity of the text is to the evidence of your own life. Do you make decisions and take actions because you believe yourself to be wrong? Or, do you do what you do, believing yourself to be right, at least right for you?

    The outworking suggested by the verse has been true for me, and I suspect, has also been true for you. One effect is that it causes us to project our own set of values, norms, and beliefs onto others. We will have a tendency to judge others by standards we hold to be true for ourselves. We may deceive ourselves into thinking that everyone shares the same value hierarchy that we ourselves hold. We may think everyone prefers and is pursuing the same thing. This is not the case.

    We don’t all value the same things. Even long-time couples, whose lives are intertwined in a myriad of ways so that they end up more as one thing, than two separate things, may have different values, different preferences and pursuits. They may entertain different goals and hopes. Enough difference between ultimate ends and there is a problem.

    If we all shared the same values, we could easily produce an algorithm that would assure us of using the appropriate means to achieve the goals we seek. The only debate would be about means, not about ends, since those would all be universally shared and agreed upon. Everything from dietary choices to politics would be easy. 

    But we don’t all value the same things. It is a plausible argument that we should, but most of us are too myopic to look down the road far enough to see what true value looks like, that state (I posit here that true value consists in states of being, not in things possessed) in which you say, ”This is a good as it gets. I am content. I am satisfied. I could ask for no more.”

    In the political realm (which by extension affects the social aspects of Americans, at least), Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence inked in some values. These were well thought out by the political philosophers of his day, vis. ”all men are created equal”, and the idea that each of us has been endowed with some inalienable rights, among which are ”life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. 

    These Rights, these Values, are a package deal

    These are value statements. If like me, you’re American, you will give hearty assent that these are valuable ends, worthy of pursuing and protecting. But Dear Reader, consider; what is life to a man who has no liberty? What is liberty to a man who is not treated equally? How can either pursue happiness?

    These values are interconnected, they fall apart if pursued singularly, with a willy-nilly disregard for their interlocking nature. Which, of course, is why Governments are instituted among men. (The sentence immediately following the enumeration of inalienable rights above). Inherent in the very idea of government is the individual’s sacrifice of unrestrained liberty.

    Yet to some, having not well considered these things, and believing their ways to be right, Liberty is the highest value. And so they have proven they are willing to use their liberty to jeopardize their neighbors lives during a pandemic. To them, the pursuit of happiness is more important than either equality, or life. But I submit that unrestrained liberty is as equally devoid of true value as unrestrained pursuit of happiness. And is as equally un-American as it is inhumane.

    The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel. ~ Proverbs 12:15

  • Independent Thought & Individualism – Myths of a Kind

    Looks easy but may be the hardest thing of all for any of us to do…Think for ourselves.

    Is it possible that the most difficult thing for a human is to have an independent thought?

    It has been said that everyone is the unconscious exponent of some dead philosopher or other. In other words, we’re all drinking somebody’s Kool-Aid. Every idea you have has been borrowed. Every belief inculcated. From birth, each new idea is absorbed brick by brick from the people around you. This continues on into school, high school, college, books you choose, media you consume.

    If true, then what we Americans like to think of as individualism is just a certain species of social confirmation theory. In other words, we reinforce (and are reinforced by) the ideas we and our adoptive tribe subscribe to. In too many ways we are automatons, conditioned  to thinking, saying, and doing what we’ve been reinforced by our preferred social group to think, say, and do. (In the military for instance, independent thought is not a value, it is rebellion.) What would your friends think, or your ”followers” if you happen to voice an idea outside the accepted orthodoxy of your circle? So you don’t. You want to be accepted. You want to fit. You want to belong.

    To push that idea further, that means there are no true individuals in the classical sense; that being who is truly independent, non-reliant, un-attached, un-molded, un-shaped and unique.

    Certainly not you if you’re reading this. You’re dependent on someone even for the ability to read. Somebody else, long ago, turned these squiggles into a language that you were taught to speak and read. Your brain sees the squiggles and with no effort on your part, converts the shapes to meaning. You didn’t do ANY of that for yourself. 

    And the squiggles appear on magical virtual paper in front of your eyes. They aren’t carved in stone, or painted onto papyrus, or inscribed on vellum, or scratched into bark. Unless you developed the technology to display abstract language on a screen using only ones and zeroes, some silicon, glass, and light supplied by electricity. You are dependent on those who did. You are this moment dependent upon those who keep the electricity flowing to your device of choice for reading this. Mic drop. 

    It is very difficult to escape ethnocentrism. We believe the culture we are born into is the best one. This is probably not unique to Americans, but it may afflict us to a worse degree. America’s greatest export by volume, is our culture, or at least the pop-Art aspects of it. But is one’s birth culture really the ”best” one? Or is it merely familiar? 

    But wait, Americans aren’t satisfied with being simply American, are we? You need a jersey to wear. Red, or blue for you? And you need a code to follow. We divide along dogma and credo down to the granular level. And be mindful not to step on the cracks of separation, or you’ll get labeled, ”other”. 

    It fascinates me that in Japanese there is no word for ”individualism”. A deeper dive removes some surprise since they have a culture shaped by Shintoism with its profound veneration and appreciation for ancestors. A Japanese citizen is not too proud to acknowledge the help they’ve received to become what they have become. To think they’d done so on their own would be a sacrilege.

    In America, individualism is a religion in its own right. I am more convinced than ever, that it is a form of cult-like psychosis. There is a willful denial of the interwoven, inter-dependent nature of our lives. What a particularly Orwellian brand of ”group-think”, in which the adherents ludicrously claim ”individualism”, while parroting the same words, wearing the same clothes, supporting the same issues, flying the same flags. Oh, right, individuals…I see. 

    I find ironic humor in the fact that so many professors of independence and individualism make their claims via the megaphone of billion-member social networking platforms. Kinda belies the claim, doesn’t it? 

    Americans have arrived at a cultural, social, and political inflection point at which we must determine if we are flexible enough to allow for a plurality of viewpoints. Are we going to continue to splinter and fragment? Are we going to wage the RL version of Battle Royale against one another? Is your group so sure of its righteousness that it is willing to go to war with a differing group? Even a war of words using the weapons of vilification, condescension, and ridicule is counter-productive and mutually destructive. Are you that certain you can do without them?

    The idea of America is quite literally coming apart at the seams. I’m not unique in believing this house is too divided to stand. Can we recover? Maybe. If we’re willing to embrace the ideals that the country was founded upon. If we adamantly reject all disinformation from whatever the source. If we hold crooked and lying politicians on both sides accountable. If we look more for similarities than for differences in one another.

    I think in the next few decades, not just in America, but globally, it will take all of us, working together, pulling together, mutually dependent, and mutually benefitting to stay alive on this planet and help it recover before we go extinct ourselves.

    This planet we ride on can do just fine without any of us, and it will recover speedily once we are gone. It doesn’t need us. Consider that.

    I have seasonal allergies. My body responds to pollen as a pathogen. It attacks it as harmful and invasive. Pollen is certainly not a pathogen. It is the substance of fecundity and life. There is something wrong with me, not the pollen, or the trees, and other flora producing it.

    Just because this stuff attacks me, doesn’t mean its bad and I should attack it. It’s doing its job, the problem is mine.

    In our melting pot society, different cultures and ideas have always melded and blended, and coalesced and cooperated. Our cross-pollination is what makes us unique among the roster of nations. Differences of opinion, experience, history, and perspective should not be treated as pathogens! They shouldn’t be attacked, but embraced, understood, mined for truth, and winnowed for better ideas. 

    The differences between us are the pollen of a society fertilized and pregnant with possibility. If you’re allergic, it’s likely there is something wrong with you.

    Americans by nature are allergic to concepts that challenge “rugged individualism”, but we can grow up now. It’s ok. There’s plenty of Kleenex to go around.

    And we might as well start with the idea that none of us is really all that independent. None of us is really as individualistic as we might puff ourselves up to be. Lean in. Here’s a tissue.

  • In Remembrance of the Boulder of My Youth

    This is Boulder from up in the mountain park. This view is as close as I could find, but it isn’t as beautiful and it definitely needs a hawk. Still…

    I have the fondest memories of my brief time spent in Boulder, Colorado in the summer of 1985. I was 20 years old and On The Road. 

    I remember seeing the first Ashrams I’d ever come across. Though unusual in my limited experience, their presence gave me a cosmopolitan sense of security and serenity. There were several here with mystically-odd-sounding Eastern names, like Way of the Lotus, or Green Mountain Enlightenment Center. They were perched on street corners like watching sentinels, the way the First Baptists and Third Presbyterians are in towns back on the East Coast where I’m from. 

    At almost any time of day, I would notice little knots of 10-12 orange-arrayed buddhist practitioners moving together through the streetscape like bright, humming basketballs rolling through the kaleidoscope of pedestrians. Especially so on the weekends when the normally serene downtown park, usually frequented only by frisbee throwing tie-dyed hippies, became a veritable street fair. From the right vantage point, you could monitor three or four orange balls of slightly different hues; the distinctive robes signifying disciples from different ashrams. They moved along in the crowds like competing characters in a PacMan game, gliding as single entities pausing only to sell flowers to passers-by.

    Throngs of happy people crowded in, and the aromas of food trucks, and music on the air, reminded me of the Stumptown Festival of my boyhood in my hometown of Matthews. The park at something and Broadway with idyllic Boulder Creek running through it (every Western town I visited had a downtown park at something and Broadway) became Central Park West. Those scenes of living innocence, peace and safety, and harmony, and happiness, and good vibes, will forever live in my mind.

    On my last Sunday in town, I was invited to attend the wedding of a giddy young couple who were friends of friends. Mind you, having been there less than a month, everyone was a ”new friend” to me, but as hippies and DeadHeads, we were instant family in a way I’ve never experienced as part of any other community. 

    Early in the morning, maybe twenty of us attended the ceremony high up on the scenic overlook above the town. The Native American who performed the ceremony deemed it a ”good match” and a ”good omen” when a hawk flew out, gliding lazily into view over the backdrop of the sleepy town on the prairie floor, just as he pronounced the lovestruck pair man and wife.

    That was a good omen. That was a good day.

    That’s the Boulder of my youth. Lovers kissing on a mountain with a hawk circling overhead in approval. That’s the Boulder that I’ll remember, even though the image of peaceful, hippy town was murdered yesterday along with the poor people and policeman who lost their lives to a deranged gunman. 

    My God. May the people of Boulder lift their eyes up unto the Mountains, from whence their help comes. There is no help but in You, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

  • The Availability Heuristic

     I recently bumped into a fascinating term with which I was quite familiar by practice, but not by name. It is called the Availability Heuristic. The link will go to a wiki page with a more precise definition and some examples of how the phenomenon applies in various categories of life. 

    In short, the availability heuristic is a mental phenomenon in which a person relies upon the recall of  information that can be brought easily to mind to form the basis for opinions and decisions. (The word heuristic is a fancy term for ”problem-solving” or ”decision-making”.)

    If something can be easily recalled, it is available to the mind to serve for ”facts”, and there is a tendency (bias) to give it more weight and credence. 

    If you spend a week watching Shark Week on television and then are invited to swim in the ocean, your exposure to all of the gruesome shark attacks during the past week will be readily available when you decide whether or not to venture into the water. 

    Nah, there’s nothing to see here.

    The availability heuristic predicts that you will feel a higher probability of a shark encounter than had you not watched all those shows. The actual statistical probability of being attacked does not change a fraction based upon your television habits or your ability to recall the frightening scenes. Meanwhile, you remain blissfully ignorant of the much higher statistical probability of being involved in a serious car accident on the way to the beach.

    Immersion in any pool of information makes it seem more true and more predominant than it may actually be. 

    This bias is exactly what gives rise to social media ”Echo Chambers” regarding political, social, and cultural views. 

    Exposure shapes opinion. Opinion shapes worldview. Be careful out there.

  • What is A…?

    If posed with the question, ‘what is a Christian?’ would you have a ready answer?

    How about, ‘what is a Muslim’?

    And if asked, ‘what is a Republican?’ do you know what the answer is?

    Now, the million dollar question, ‘what is an American’?

    Your brain has already provided you with immediate conceptions as you read them. You may not have been ready to articulate your answers, but you have general ideas, nonetheless. Did you notice whether you thought first of what is (the positive, inclusive attributes), or what isn’t (those attributes that exclude). That may be revelatory to you. 

    With regard to at least one of them, perhaps your instinctive response is ”I don’t know.” 

    Kudos to you, if you’re that honest.

    Upon reflection, you will no doubt consult your experiences and familiarity with each of the designations. You may have definitions in mind for each of them that are accurate and factual, gleaned from study, observation, and participation. You may have answers that are based on hearsay, or bias. Your opinions may be entirely formed by what you’ve heard others say about Christians, Muslims, and Republicans, and Americans, and you’ve adopted those views as your own.

    Regardless of what your answers are, can you be confident that your answer would be agreed upon by any member of each of the groups in question? 

    In other words, when you answer ‘what is a Christian?’, can you be certain that all persons who identify as Christians would agree with you? If not, does that reveal anything about:

    A) the accuracy of your answer? and, 

    B) the definability of the terms?

    What about your answer regarding Muslims? Republicans? Americans?

    It is very conceivable that there are no objectively correct answers for any of the three questions you’re asked to consider in this brief essay. You no doubt have an answer. It may differ wildly from someone else’s. And even if you self-identify as a member of one or more of the groups above, others within that same group may have drastically different ideas and answers for what a member of the group is.

    Generalities differ from specific cases, as Greatest Common Factors differ from Least Common Denominators, by being more inclusive. 

    Are there any objective facts about the groups that can be established and agreed upon? Not once we go too granular.

    We are living in an age of heightened and aggravated political and cultural tribalism. We seek the emotional comfort of ideological kin. Even if it is the false-comfort of lies. We are willing to factor out one another based on least common denominators, creating such a climate of disinformation, distrust and division, that objectivity may be ready for the grave.

    If you believe it’s important to think about things; if it’s important to have reasons as a basis for your beliefs; if it’s important to abandon ”Absolutism” to God alone, with everyone else, including yourself, being prone to error and ignorance, then you and I are agreed.

  • Happy Place

    “Daddy, how much longer ’til we get there???”

    Henry David Thoreau famously said, 

    “That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”

    Thoreau had economics in mind, but I think his aphorism is equally applicable to emotional riches.

    Consider the common phrase, ”Happy Place”.

    As in, I’m going to my happy place, or I’m at my happy place.

    I looked it up. This phrase first appeared in the 1990’s in the Ottawa Citizen. But it really didn’t become part of the vernacular until the mid-2000’s.

    Now, this phrase permeates the jargon of even those who fancy themselves to be ”mindful”, or see themselves as ”aware”, or as practicing ”zen”.

    I have a question for you. If you claim to have a happy place, or there’s only one place where you can feel happy, what does that make all other places?

    I understand and agree with the idea of having a ”mental” or ”psychic” happy place as a state of mind in which one practices reflective gratitude and meditative calm. A mental sanctuary that can calm the nerves, and that feels restorative is a healthy mental space to carve out.

    Even the Urban Dictionary definition of ”Happy Place” is ”a place in your mind that is all happy.”

    But if someone needs a physical place to go in order to feel these things, they’re missing the point, right?

    In that case, I’m calling bullshit.

    Now, granted, there are places you can visit that come with beauty and other amenities that aren’t the norm. But most of those places ain’t cheap. So, I’ll refer you back to Henry above.

  • Is Feeling Good A Choice?

    Rise and Shine…or something like that.

    Do you wake up in the morning and decide to feel bad? Ever?

    And, to be specific, I’m talking about emotions here, not physical ailments. Though, no one wakes up wanting to feel sick, either. It’s certainly true that our emotional selves live at the mercy of our physical selves. There’s no denying the physical constitution dictates a measure of mental and emotional well-being.

    But emotionally speaking, in general terms, and in the absence of pathology, bad feelings show up because you’ve invited them. You don’t have to explicitly ask them in for coffee, they just barge in as the plus-one of your thoughts. 

    No, most of us don’t choose to feel bad. At least not in a way we’re consciously aware of.

    But, without a doubt, there are things you can do to guarantee you’ll feel bad, right? Try to go through your day noticing every single thing that is wrong with the world. Think about everything in your life that isn’t how you want it to be. If that doesn’t do the trick, think of the things that are okay and see what you can do today to spoil them rather than nurture them.

    What about feeling good? Can you decide to feel good? I think you can. You probably can’t guarantee good feelings the same way you can guarantee bad ones, but you can certainly choose what to focus on. You can direct your attention. 

    Here’s a way to give yourself a chance to feel good about things today.

    First, think of how you can guarantee feeling bad. 

    Now, do the opposite.

  • Thirty

    I’m calling this one thirty because this is my thirtieth straight day of creating a blog post.

    I committed to create 30 posts in 30 days as a challenge to myself. It was an idea I picked up from another source, and was only supposed to be micro-blogging. The thirty essays were only to be 250 words. Most of mine are many times longer. That doesn’t mean they’re many times better for the overabundance of verbiage, but I’ve learned that I finally have some things to write that I’m going to write, damn it. If my writing is read, wonderful. If not…I’m writing. My heartfelt thanks to any of you who have read each one. Wow! Really!

    Thirty of something is not a lot. 

    If you’re looking backward.

    I remember my thirtieth birthday. I couldn’t believe it. But sure enough, that was the number on the cake in front of me. Looking backward seemed like I’d blinked once, sped through my teens, blinked a second time, blew through my early 20’s, got married, became a dad (three times over), and was leaning over to blow out birthday candles.

    I’m on the uphill climb to summit the second set of thirty years since that day. I’ve accumulated 4 more kids in this second batch, and then, halfway into them, my marriage failed. The fallout from that tried to contaminate everything with blame and shame and the ”whys” of bitterness. But, I reconnected with my high school dream girl and the love of my life a dozen years ago. And thanks to God and her, my heart, though bruised, is healed and whole, and better than it ever was. And unbelievably, I’ve got a few more years to go to hit sixty. I’m looking forward to all that they will unveil.

    I can tell you, looking forward from here, trying to bite off thirty more seems pretty daunting. But God willing, I’m pretty sure I can make it. 

    When it comes to writing on purpose, I’ve shamefully waited and wasted a lot of years…a slave to my fears. 

    Not good enough.

    Who do you think you are?

    You have no credentials!

    You’re too old now, you let all the creative years slip away.

    Those and many other thoughts chained me up in a prison I built to keep from trying. I still have those thoughts. They haven’t gone anywhere, but they aren’t going to have the final word.

    Thirty years from now, I won’t look back and regret this effort. I’d be hella heartsick if I never made the attempt.

    I intend that the accomplishment of this 30 in 30 blog posts be only the first of a never-ending string.

    I’ve proved something to myself. It’s a psychological victory. Those are really the only kind that matter.

    Tomorrow, I’ll start on my next 30 day streak. 

    What are some things you want to do in the next 30 days? Can you go ahead and commit?

    Start today. Thirty feels like a lot looking forward, but sitting here this morning, looking back, it’s not so hard. It would have been much harder to deal with more self-regret. I don’t know where this is gonna go, but I’m gonna go for it, for sure!

  • The Ultimatum Game

    How many of these could you win?

    There are two basic motivators for humans. These are fear of loss and hope of gain. This dynamic animates every choice we make. There is overlap. There is some vicissitude from one decision to the next, but most people will generally align themselves into one camp or the other over their lifetimes. ”Fear of gain” and ”hope of loss” do not exist as motivators, but the way people perceive gain and loss, are relative. The concept of value comes into play. And human interaction, with its perceived value, has an impact. The two basic motivators then, nudge people toward what they value. 

    Interesting studies show that in general, persons place a higher value on things they possess or think they are owed, than they value the very same things if they were trying to obtain them. Your used car, or your house is worth more to you as the owner/seller than the same car or house would be if you were trying to buy them.

    A study on the psychology of economics (Neuroeconomics) called the Ultimatum game presents some interesting findings. First developed in 1982, it has been repeated many times, across many different cultures and countries, and with many variations. There is an abundance of information online if you care to indulge yourself further.

    The typical format for the basic version of the Ultimatum game groups participants into pairs; a proposer, and a responder. They are endowed with a sum of money. Both the proposer and the responder know the amount of money being gifted. The proposer is told to make a single, one-time proposal on a split of the money between the participants.  If the proposal is accepted, the pair will each receive the amount of the proposed split. If the proposal is rejected, they each receive nothing.

    What is being studied is whether or not the participants will make rational decisions enabling them to agree on a proposed ratio and pocket their cut of the provided money. If not, what other considerations are at work?

    Example: Al and Barbara are given $10 in ones to split between themselves. Al has to make a proposed split that Barbara will accept, otherwise, neither of them takes home any of the free money. Al can make only one offer. Barbara knows there are ten dollars on the table. What does Al propose? What do you propose if you are Al? What are you willing to accept if you’re Barbara?

    Pure rationality, expressed as the expected utility theory of economics, dictates that the responder should accept any proposed split, even if it is only $1. Any amount is more than zero, comes at no cost, and is more than the participant entered the study with. In actual results, any offer of less than 20% of the total amount is rejected more than 50% of the time. Offers of only $1 are rejected almost all the time. Offers of between 30% and 40% are accepted almost all the time by responders, albeit, the further from 50%, the more reluctant the responder is to accept, and the less happy they feel about their share.

    Why is this? Researchers in economics are puzzled by these findings since they defy rational behavior, and therefore don’t fit neatly into economic theory. Psychologists dig deeper and discover that an emotional component exists in humans that causes perceived unfairness to be rejected. But it goes further than just rejection of an unfair proposal for one’s cut of ten bucks.

    Interesting fMRI findings show that some respondents declining to receive an offer they feel to be unfair, prefer to punish the proposer, causing both themselves and the proposer to receive nothing. The part of the brain that is stimulated to release dopamine as a pleasure response can be triggered by the rejection of the offer, specifically because it punishes the proposer for his unfairness. Let me say that again: The research shows that there is pleasure derived from punishing the unfair actor. 

    Turning down an unfair offer, induces physiochemical and psychological gains to the responder greater than free money in their pocket would provide. They are willing to punish themselves financially, forfeiting the purely financial gain, because it literally feels better to them to walk away with zero, rather than to walk away with a gratuitous dollar and be treated unfairly.

    Researchers surmise that since the responder knows the total amount of the endowment (which in some experiments is significant, totaling $100 or more), they calculate that ”fair” would be a 50/50 split of the pot. They proceed to take mental and emotional ownership of that 50% portion. Any proposal offering less than that amount, even though it is a positive gain in terms of money, feels like a loss in contrast to the 50% portion emotionally banked in the responder’s mind. Though fictitious, having no basis in reality or rationality, this is a loss that many responders are not willing to bear.

    In such cases, the feeling one receives from punishing an unfair partner is greater than the feeling one has from walking away with money on the house. The punisher is placing a much higher value on the amount of money they believe they are ”losing” by accepting an unfair offer, than the value they place on the non-zero amount they could have by accepting whatever offer is made. And…they get some dopamine as a bonus for punishing the unfair partner guaranteeing that they will get zero as the wages of their perceived greed.

    These findings are skewed to a statistically predictable significance when factors such as ”pro-social” or ”individualistic” personality types are factored in for comparison. Surprisingly, researchers find that the more a participant identifies as individualistic, the more they are willing to accept the most unfair of offers. The flip side is that pro-social participants will more often reject offers even at the 30% range to ”teach a lesson” to the unfair proposer. Pro-social persons value cooperation and fair play. They exemplify a ”win/win” attitude. 

    Individualists, on the other hand, do not expect fairness, are not surprised or angered when unfair offers are made, and they are not out to correct the unfair proposer’s future behavior by giving them a ”lesson”. To the individualist, there are winners and losers, and that’s that.

    Remember, there is no negotiating in the basic version of the Ultimatum game. Reciprocity is not a factor. It is a one-time, take-it-or-leave it proposal. The proposer has an incentive to be fair if she wants to walk away with anything, but the selfish greed of human nature dictates that even when an 80–20 split is proposed, it’s still accepted about half the time; and the proposer gets to keep 80% of the endowed amount.

    I find it fascinating and a bit counter-intuitive that individualists are more willing to be treated unfairly and not feel bad about it, at least in purely economic transactions. Especially in light of the fact that researchers have found that there is a correlation between behaviors in the Ultimatum game and other aspects of life that are not purely economic. 

    Sociologists study these kinds of psychological tests and their results to determine people’s ability to recognize, and willingness to tolerate, social injustices and economic inequalities. Apparently, self-declared individualists would rather be taken advantage of than have to suffer the indignities of cooperation and teamwork. At least according to the Ultimatum Game results.

    I don’t know anyone who relishes being treated unfairly, but then I suppose some people will sell themselves cheaply if they don’t have the kind of wealth or principles that are more valuable than what can be bought with a dollar. Especially if they can pocket that dollar and still cling to their illusion of self-reliance. Maybe to such a one, that feels like being a winner. After all, a dollar is a dollar, and self-respect won’t buy a cold beer.

  • Reality Can Be Limited By Perspective

    One of my favorite lines in a Grateful Dead song comes from the tune, Scarlet Begonias.

    “Once in a while you can get shown the light,

    In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

    This has been true for me. All that it sometimes takes to see a previously hidden truth is my own willingness to look at the subject a different way. 

    This act of taking another look at something is what is colloquially referred to as ”open-mindedness”. I find a lot of people are afraid of this term. I find they are afraid of it because they misunderstand it. Being ”open-minded” doesn’t mean abandoning anchors of belief, or intellectual boundaries, putting you in danger that your brain will fall out. It means accepting the possibility that there may be more than one valid viewpoint to a particular issue.

    Ideally, this would be a universally applied truth. But, before any truth can be applied, it must first be known. Here then, is my attempt to say, 

    ”Hey, here’s something cool. There’s more than one way to see a lot of issues. Have you tried looking at it from another perspective? Have you tried putting yourself in the other guy’s shoes, for instance?”

    A few months ago, I was sitting on the front porch with my seventeen year old. We were discussing a problem he was facing. His ability to solve the problem was limited by two things. One, he had only seventeen years of experience to draw from. Two, this lack of experience forced him in to a very narrow perspective, which blew the problem out of all proportion.

    I was sitting in my normal spot on the front porch. It is wide enough to accommodate my frame. He was sitting in a chair to my left. A cloud moved in the sky, the sun peered from behind it, illuminating a perfectly crafted and quite large spider web just as I glanced up to notice it. The web had been there the whole time we had been talking, but I couldn’t see it against the gray overcast. It took the light hitting it just right for it to come into view. What had been real the whole morning, was now real to me.

    I asked my son, sitting to my left at the end of the porch and at an acute angle to the web, if he could see it. He shook his head. Interesting, I thought. Nature has provided the perfect metaphor. 

    ”Come look at this,” I said.

    He got up, came over a few steps and looked up at the intricate web. 

    ”Wow!” he said. He was amazed by both the intricacy of the web, and that something so large had been completely hidden from view.

    All he had to do was look at it right.