I Believe I Can Fly

September 29, 2011 By vorjack 35 Comments

Back in April, Pamela Gerloff posted something on her Psychology Today blog that was pure secular New Thought: You Mean Anything Is Possible? Subtitle: “How to radically expand beyond the limits of your mind.”

She starts, naturally, with an anecdote: a professor of hers named Lester managed to think his way out of a heart condition by “systematically let[ting] go of every negative emotion he was experiencing.” And of course, “after he had attained this state he found that he could heal people and fix objects, such as broken TVs, merely by ‘seeing them as perfect.’”

Stephen Law recently felt compelled to comment:

Are you actually suggesting that if we really, really believe we can fly by flapping our arms, and jump of the roof, then we will fly? Surely this takes the “power of positive thinking” too far?! [...]

One danger of this sort of nonsense is that it leads to blaming people for their own illnesses. If you’re ill, it’s your own fault! Banish those bad thoughts. You just need to *think* your way to health.

Gerloff’s response was largely unhelpful, and ended with the statement: “By the way #2, if people can levitate–as has been demonstrated–then why shouldn’t they be able to fly?”

Walk away, Stephen. Just walk away.

Filed Under: Psychology, Weird 35 Comments

Top Ten Underapreciated Aspects of Human Nature

October 6, 2010 By vorjack 21 Comments

Kevin Drum is trying to list the top ten aspects of human nature that are important but that most people don’t recognize or don’t think about. He’s starting with two:

1. Loss aversion: people really, really hate to lose something they already have and will forego even favorable risks to avoid it.

2. Regression to the mean: an especially strong performance is likely to be followed by a weaker performance and vice versa.

Off the top of my head, I’d add Confirmation Bias and the tendency for humans to project themselves onto their environment. Any other ideas?

Filed Under: Psychology, Questions 21 Comments

Myth of Monogomy

July 7, 2010 By vorjack 45 Comments

by VorJack

Psychiatrists Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá have a new book out entitled Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. Ryan blogs about its thesis over at Psychology Today:

Biologists distinguish sexual monogamy from social monogamy. As DNA testing has grown cheaper in recent years, we’ve learned that most species formerly classified as “monogamous” (primarily birds) are socially monogamous, but not sexually so. In other words, they form pairs that cooperatively care for that season’s brood of young, but the male may well not be the biological father.

Most of this is not new. My first encounter with these arguments was in 2001′s The Myth of Monogamy, which is a popularization of much of the science involved. Basically, female animals frequently have more control over mate choice than was previously believed, and will frequently exercise that control before going on to choose a mate to raise offspring with.

But Ryan and Jethá take it a step farther:

Applied to humans, we argue that a more flexible approach to sexual fidelity can increase marital stability and thus lead to greater social and family stability.

I’m always worried when we start trying to tie evolution to modern morality. Perhaps, as the authors point out, we’re as sexually rambunctious as the bonobos. But we’ve surrounded ourselves with a very complex culture, and we’re just as much social and cultural beings as we are sexual ones.

I’ll admit, I’m defensive. I’ve just celebrated ten years of monogamy. Of course, the authors don’t do much to help. Consider this analogy for accepting the costs of going against our polygamous nature:

For example, you might happily choose to work the night shift, but the resulting disruption of your circadian clock will increase your risk of cancer, cardio-vascular disease, gastric disorders, and so on no matter how committed you are to your decision. Similarly, we can choose to wear tight corsets, or ill-fitting shoes, or to live on chili-dogs and ice cream, but because all these behaviors run counter to our evolved nature they will cost us over time.

Gosh, thanks.

I believe that the authors are correct that our evolution has given us instincts that leave us more suited for serial monogamy. But I think it would be wrong to conclude that we’re all that beholden to those instincts.

Humans are varied and flexible creatures, and each of us will deal with our instincts in our own way. Some will ignore them, some will go with them, and some will subvert them. While I agree its best to be aware of them, I suspect that we shouldn’t be drawing too many conclusions from our evolutionary past about our current behavior.

Filed Under: Books, Psychology, Sexuality 45 Comments

Quote of the Moment: Religious Cheesecake

May 26, 2010 By vorjack 5 Comments

From this perspective, religion is not innate, but rather a cultural development that we might call “cognitive-emotional cheesecake”. I adapt this metaphor from Steven Pinker’s claim that music is not innate, but rather amounts to “auditory cheesecake”. A preference for cheesecake is not innate, since cheesecake did not exist during the early stages of human development. But preferences for sugar and fat are innate, and cheesecake cleverly combines them in an appealing way. Similarly, I conjecture, religion is appealing because it combines the psychological needs for explanations and emotional reassurance.

Paul Thagard, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo.

There’s just something about the phrase “cognitive-emotional cheesecake” …

Filed Under: Psychology, Quotes, Religion 5 Comments

Help Yourself

February 19, 2010 By vorjack 3 Comments

by VorJack

xray

… to these books about self-help. Self-help is a multi billion dollar industry in America, selling millions of books. Here are a few that take a look at the movement from the outside.

Legacy of the Occult

Pullquote: ”The leaders in [New Thought] have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes as such, in the conquering efficacy of courage, hope, and trust, and a correlative contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously precautionary states of mind.”
William James

In his work Occult America, Mitch Horowitz traces the origins of “self-help” back to one Phineas Quimby. Quimby was a clockmaker suffering from tuberculosis in 1830′s New England. He noticed that carriage rides in the country side both lightened his spirits to relieved his symptoms. He became convinced that the two were connected: our thoughts and emotions affect our physical state. He developed this idea into what is now called the “new thought” movement.

Horowitz thesis is that certain “occult” ideas were influential in American history and have been absorbed by mainstream culture. Quimby fits in this loosely, since he was influenced by Mesmerism and Swedenborgianism, but his ideas don’t seem to connect to them directly and don’t seem particularly “occult”. One of Quimby’s accomplishments was to mentor Mary Baker Eddy, who went on to form the Christian Science movement. However, after Quimby died Eddy cut all ties to his memory.

Occult America is largely anecdotal, and sometimes seems to be a string of biographies rather than a history of intellectual influence. Still, in one long chapter Horowitz follows the proponents of New Thought from Quimby to Norman Vincent Peale, and shows how the New Thought idea that positive thoughts magically create positive outcomes has become the backbone of the American self-help market.

Positive Thinking Conquers the World

Pullquote: I didn’t mind dying, but the idea that I should do so while clutching a teddy and with a sweet little smile on my face – well, no amount of philosophy had prepared me for that.
Barbara Ehrenreich

Picking up where Horowitz leaves off is Barbara Ehrenreich, with her new book Bright-Sided. Ehrenreich agrees that the modern self-help movement is rooted in Quimby’s New Thought ideas. However, her primary goal is to show just how far the self-help movement has spread into modern American culture.

Ehrenreich first encountered the influence of the Self-help movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ehrenreich describes how she was bombarded with pink ribbons and positive messages, all supposedly to promote positive outcomes. Ehrenreich, who actually has a Ph.D. In cellular biology, did some research of her own. She found that the positive thinking crowd was on very shaky grounds, medically speaking.

Ehrenreich goes on to show how deeply rooted self-help philosophy has become in American business and religion. Particularly disturbing is how deeply self-help has merged with corporate management philosophy, producing huge profits for those scientists and “scientists” who offer dubious advice that accords with New Thought.

A journalist, Ehrenreich does a good job with reporting and wry observations, and her biology degree gives her chapter on breast cancer an interesting clinical touch. Bright Sided is an excellent overview of the full scope of the self-help movement.

Incidentally, if you really want to get a deeper understanding of the ideas in the movement, I’d recommend Robert M. Price’s Top Secret. Price deconstructs the major books of modern pop psychology, religion and self-help.

I need self-esteem, quick!

Pullquote: Fantasizing about heaven on earth may bring a smile to your face, but it is unlikely to help transform your dreams into reality.
Richard Wiseman

Completely different in its way is Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds. Wiseman is a skeptic and a frequent guest of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, so he’s quick to criticize most of the works in the self-help genre. In their place, he offers a number of quick lessons drawn from current research that have proven helpful in promoting happiness, boosting creativity and reducing stress.

It turns out that sharing your problems with a sympathetic ear is actually less helpful that writing them down. Brainstorming is less effective that coming up with ideas beforehand. To relieve stress, get a pet. 59 Seconds reads like a combination of a science popularization and a self-help book, which is what it is. But it’s self-help based on current psychological research, rather that the thoughts of a 19th century clockmaker.

There. Three books that I trust you won’t find on Oprah’s reading list. Enjoy.

Filed Under: Books, History, Psychology 3 Comments
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