Week 10 - Reflection

This week's mindtool was about stress. The text took the position that stress is negative, although in our class we seem to be incorporating both "eustress" and "distress" concepts -- the notion that stress can enhance or detract from our performance, happiness, etc. I found the 'Wheel of Life' exercise to be useful; it's a tool similar to things I've used before, but I can see it being beneficial if done multiple times. I'm putting it into my calendar as a monthly recurring item; it'll be interesting to review the collection as it evolves over time -- maybe after 6 months or so, I'll look back over the set. Overall, I was pleased to find that my life right now is not very stressful. I would have answered many of the questions much differently six months ago, but the changes I've made to my path seem to be working; I'm healing nicely and moving forward. It feels very good! The list of "think on your feet" strategies was a nice summary of what seems like "common sense" -- although that may be my hindsight bias talking! At any rate, I appreciated having them all collected for reference.

One area I'd like to improve on, and learn more about, is relaxation techniques. I definitely do not have a relaxation practice of any sort, and it would probably help me a great deal. The list in the text was friendly and not challenging; I also appreciated that it's not pseudoscience or new-age-y.

The readings this week were journal articles which explored people's beliefs about themselves and about human nature, and how these beliefs seem to impact performance -- including intelligence, ability to resist temptation, and so on. What I keep returning is the fact that these beliefs are likely at least somewhat correct, but they're not particularly useful. This is a very interesting notion to me, the idea that knowing the truth, or at least focusing your outlook on that truth, can actually be detrimental. I suppose focusing on the positive side of things is what helps humans keep going at any rate -- if we thought about all the things that can kill or hurt us in the world, we might never get out of bed (which would give us obesity and blood clots and depression, and also kill us). I think my latter framing of the seeming contradiction -- that focusing your outlook on things you can't change is not useful -- is the key takeaway. I suppose it's something like eating fruit from the tree of knowledge and becoming enlightened as to the nature of good and evil; once you see it, you can't un-see it, even if it harms you.

What I wonder about is whether knowing this would ever show up properly on experimental studies. Given the prediliction psychologists have for studying college students -- and even college psychology students -- it seems like people's performance on these tests would be skewed over time, or skewed by prevailing psychology theories. It seems like a more precise instrument is needed, one which distinguishes between "facts I think are true" and "attitudes that shape how I live my life day to day". Believing that intelligence is not infinitely malleable does not stop me from working hard to learn, and to teach every child in front of me -- confronted with a question as to whether intelligence is infinitely malleable, which way should I go? With the attitude that reality seems to predict, or with the value/guiding principle that shapes my actions? The other question to investigate further is whether training had an impact -- i.e. are we looking at innate or at least semi-fixed attitudinal traits, or will people readily adopt a different view after some training? CPS training was shown to be highly effective; what about willpower training?

I'd like to see the other side of the research -- in terms of limitations in willpower, how past behavior predicts future behavior, or the "fixed" nature of intelligence -- since right now we have only read the arguments that knock down these ideas. I know that there are a great many economic studies that show how one's birth circumstances tend to predict the path of one's life. I have no doubt that people can get smarter or be more creative, but I'm not sure I can give up all idea of limits, innate tendencies, and so on.

I did find it disappointing that the researchers factored in "unhealthy foods" as being sweets or salty snacks, since these items are reasonable in moderation. I think it would have been reasonable to ask about "overeating" of these items (like 'overspending').

It would be interesting to know if the studies have corrected for the possibility that the reason some people see capacities as unlimited is because they themselves have higher/less limited capacities, while those who see limits in part see them because they actually have them, or experience them.

I've seen studies that showed how a good teacher could make a letter-grade worth of difference to a child -- which is great. But the other 80% of their outcome was dependent on what they walked into school with, what they did themselves while there, and what they went home to. Children of poverty tend to be poor when they grow up; the "brightsiding" argument might tell us that they ought to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, stick out their chin, and go succeed -- and if they don't, it's their own darn fault, and we ought not subsidize them in their laziness.

Severe poverty which makes everything a struggle, or even the poverty of the working poor in the United States, seems like a huge burden on one's willpower -- by contrast, having a really big problem set due (the "severe stress" in the stress study) doesn't even show up when graphed against stresses that are at the bottom of the Maslow needs hierarchy.

Even for the same task -- the stress and willpower required to get a kid out the door in clean clothing every day -- the cost in time and effort seems much greater for people of lower means. For an upper-class family, perhaps someone comes in and helps with the laundry and the clean-up, or a transportation company comes to the door. For a middle class family, someone at home has to do the laundry, but the machine is probably right there in the house, or down in a laundry room, and either the mini-van is parked out front or the school bus drives past the house. For a poor or working-class family, that laundry might mean a 4-hour commitment on a Sunday (when the other families might be out playing, or shopping, or resting), and getting to school on time might mean a long walk or a prolonged trip on public transit.

The other element I didn't see incorporated is how the cycle of willpower expenditure and revival functions in the face of setbacks. I suspect that having to work very hard for very low results over time would sap one's overall ability to recover.

The study about children judging certain traits as fixed is an indicator that good information about human potential should be taught at all ages. Children need to know that they can change and improve themselves, and that hard work will have a reward. That said, it seems to me that beliefs about sociomoral stability are very reasonable and evolutionarily advantageous in the short term -- the kid who bullied you for three days straight is heading your way, you probably don't want to stick around to see if he's softened up overnight, the berries that were poison yesterday are probably still poisonous today. It seems like it would take substantial education to help people to categorize traits as mutable. Children in particular do not have the experience of a long life in order to take things into perspective or understand how substantial change can happen over time. Asking children to assess whether someone will change over time may not be particularly fair, unless you have a method to gauge someone's sense of protracted time.