Being A Terrible Boyfriend in the Name of Love

Norms and convention guide us. In many contexts we internalise what other people are doing, what seems ‘normal’ and then behave accordingly. Forever changing fashion trends highlight this seemingly inherent part of our nature. Just as quickly as a look or style can become popular, as soon as others denounce it as being ‘so last year’ we move onto something else. It soon becomes forgotten and rarely seen. Although a good example of how we behave in line with norms and conventions, fashion trends probably aren’t too much of a serious issue. Yet, an issue arises when norms and convention cause us problems or stop us from living as well as we might do. Often following convention works out for us pretty well – sleep about 8 hours a day, look after your children, avoid going out on a school night and so forth. But it is an error of reasoning to take from this that convention and norms will always ‘work for us’. Relationships are no exception. I suggest that in some instances, following how convention tells us to behave in relationships isn’t a very good idea.

If you are in a relationship, generally speaking, you want it to work well. The benefits are obvious. But how should I behave in a relationship? What should I be doing? How should we be living? These are probably the kind of questions we should be asking ourselves if we care about our relationships. Our primary source of information is to look at what everyone else in a relationship tends to do. If we dig further, we might peruse women’s magazines and agony aunt columns. The problem with what is ‘normal’ and the contents of women’s magazines is that they aren’t necessarily right. Convention isn’t always worth following. When we think about accomplished chefs and scientists – they ask questions of convention and achieve excellence through defiance. Through trial and error they learn what conventions can be broken and dispensed with. So how does this relate to relationships? It suggests that there are likely to be some long established conventions we should drop and in doing so, improve our relationships. Backed by psychology I think I have found some. We shouldn’t be afraid of defying convention if such defiance can work for us. In contrast to what is expected of us in relationships, dependent on your disposition the good/bad news is that we should:

Avoid sharing our passions with partners

Avoid spending time with our partners all together

Watch our partners like hawks

Stop sleeping with our partners

Why shouldn’t we include our partners in our own passions? We shouldn’t because they might end up ruining them. Based entirely on gender stereotypes, it is likely that boyfriends accept getting dragged shopping and girlfriends put up with getting dragged to the football. But they shouldn’t be putting up with this at all. It is bad for everyone involved. We are all different: arty films, Chinese food and karaoke bring about diverse reactions, negative and positive. Having to do something you don’t enjoy (even if it is with your partner) is the first problem. I am all for trying new things, but if you are sure you don’t like something, you should avoid doing it. The other problem is that merely being there has the potential to ruin it for your partner also. Research by Raghunathan and Corfman (2006) has examined how sharing experiences can have a down side. Across a series of studies, in conditions of their experiments the researchers examined how enjoyment, of a film for example, can be influenced by how much your viewing partner likes or dislikes the experience. The good news is that engaging in an experience with a person who likes it as much as you do makes it more enjoyable than watching it alone. The bad news is that the presence of another person liking it less than you do drags your enjoyment down. Why does this occur? Seeing our partner having a more negative experience can do two things –1) make you question how similar and close you are - 2) cause you to question our your own views and integrate your partners negatives evaluations into our own. What about in the unlikely event that you partner is extremely considerate/a push over and suffers in silence? It may still be a problem because of mood contagion, whereby without knowing; the moods of our partners bring ours down too. Ramanathan & McGill have shown that our partner’s unconscious facial reactions have a rippling effect and influence us unconsciously too. The outcome being that our enjoyment is shaped by others enjoyment.

Thus, although shared joys seem like a good idea, sharing experiences that one partner doesn’t enjoy doesn’t work well for either party. This is also good news as putting an end to this will enable you to spend less time with your partner. After 10 years of marriage boredom can kick in (which works well for friendsreunited.com). People habituate to things and get bored of them over time. Food is a good example, the first bite of a meal is great but the last isn’t as good. Our reaction to a newly released song is the same. Listening to it for a while can bring about euphoria, but after having downloaded it and played it to death on repeat, we get bored of it a day or two later. What does this mean for relationships? In order to enjoy our partners more we should think about how often and when we see them. Studying habituation, Epstein and colleagues (2011) show that if we are exposed to something repeatedly we enjoy it less. However, if we partition and have a day off for example, habituation ‘resets’ and enjoyment is back where it started. Of course we shouldn’t stop seeing our partners (they’d get quite annoyed), but maybe we should be planning our time to help prevent monotony, pursuing activities and passions that can be enjoyed separately. A slightly more romantic spin on what is effectively systematic avoidance is that such planning would also allow us some time to enjoy looking forward to seeing our partner. Perhaps this could even help us appreciate them more (it has of course been suggested that absence can make the heart grow fonder).

Checking up on your partner’s whereabouts, reading text messages and questioning all of their plans isn’t a good idea. In this sense watching partners like a hawk is not advised. But we should be more hawkish in terms of paying more attention to how our partners behave, in order to work out who they are and what they do and don’t like. Research by Luo & Sneider (2009) suggests that investing time in properly getting to know our significant others is likely to be good for all. Examining different predictors of relationship satisfaction the researchers had sets of partners rate aspects of their personality and temperament, as well as rating what they believed about their partner’s personality traits. The extent to which couples were accurate and knew their partners well was important. It significantly predicted relationship satisfaction. Partners that knew each other well were happier with their relationships. How? I don’t know as the study didn’t examine this, but there is probably lots of interesting stuff going on. Knowing what others are like, what they do and don’t like and how they will react to different situations can make us more considerate and caring for their needs. In addition, if your partner can’t think what you would want for a birthdays or consistently gets you wrong, this would breed discontent in even the fairest. Paying attention to and asking questions about our partner’s wishes, aspirations and behaviour seems like something we should be doing anyway, but this research is suggestive that it may have tangible benefits too.

Perhaps the most common relationship norm of all is the sharing of a bed. Sleep is more important than you’d think. If an individual has a lack of it, or consistent prolonged poor quality sleep, they are more likely to suffer from adverse health consequences and research suggests perhaps even an earlier death. Does sleeping with a partner improve your sleep? No, definitely not. Does it make it worse? Yes, quite possibly, especially if you are a light sleeper. Cognitive ability and concentration is also hampered by lack of sleep, which can make for an unpleasant and unproductive day at work. If you aren’t a light sleeper and are extremely selfish you might be wondering why any of this applies to you. Well, lack of sleep also increases risk of weight gain, so if you prefer a slimmer build on your partners you might be out of luck too. Could tiredness and exhaustion also contribute to arguments and bickering? I would guess so. Should we be moving convention away from sleeping together and towards sleeping alone? This I am not sure of, but at the very least it underlines how most norms and conventions need to be poked and probed to assess their credentials.

What to do?

Avoid loved ones from time to time.

Tell your boyfriend to get bent next time he tries to make you watch football with him.

Pay more attention to your partner, they might do something interesting.

Give your girlfriend a blanket and show her where the couch is.

I am Afraid of Death

CS, 2008

sometimes i am really afraid of death and wonder if i will get to fullfill all my dreams in life… i know you will probably say this is normal but can anybody here make me feel better about it?

Response from Just a Woman that wants answers, 2008

Wow Im the same way, and when something really good happens, or I receive something I really like I think "well it wont last forever because i'll die at some point"

Hannah g, 2007

I am afraid that once you die .. where do you go? What if their isnt heaven? I think about the feeling day by day when you die you never come back to this earth ever ever ever. I just cant help it ... I dont know if Im crazy or not. Help me.

Response from Elias, 2007

There is no death. Pray to ask God for some answers, He loves you and will listen to you.

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Few things in life are a given or a sure bet. Death is. It looms around the corner and waits for us all. The thought of dying, ceasing to exist and fading into nothingness isn’t particularly pleasant. Indeed, in terms of our overarching need for survival, being afraid of the prospect of death make sense. We avoid and fear threats in order to go forth and multiply. Death is quite the threat. Suggesting we are all gripped by this intense fear would be bordering on sensationalism, but as the above online pleas for help suggest; some of us worry and struggle to live with the thought of death. Hannah g seems to worry about what will happen when she dies and Just a woman that wants answers concerns lay with all her actions becoming forgotten and meaningless in time. Elias suggests that there is no such thing as death and God will sort this all out, so there is little to worry about. Although Elias’s beliefs may be widespread, if Hannah g doesn’t buy into religion or a higher transcendence they mean very little to her. So how else can we think about or deal with death? And why are worries about death a problem?

Fearing death is very much a problem in itself. Anything that worries me, results in sleepless nights, or provokes anxiety, is problematic enough for it to raise some concern. In reviewing research examining the fear of death, psychologist Robert Neimeyer and colleagues (2005) cite numerous studies that show fear of death is associated with anxiety like symptoms. Cause and effect is difficult to entangle, but assuming that worrying about death can make one feel anxious and upset in the long term isn’t too difficult to infer. Similarly, Neimeyer and colleagues also cite evidence linking elevated fear of death with lower life satisfaction. Fearing death is far from ideal. Furthermore, there may also be some other intriguing consequences too.

Organ donation. Organ donors save lives and generally, although many people say they like the idea of donating their organs once they’ve gone, we are short on donors in the UK. Waiting lists for transplant surgery are testament to this. Why don’t people donate? One factor may be underlying fears and discomfort concerning death. In an interesting study by Lester (2005), the author reports data from 144 students showing that positive attitudes towards organ donation are significantly reduced by death fears. Whereby the more that one fears death, the less likely one is to get on board with the idea of organ donation. Organ donation makes us think about the inevitable, so perhaps those that fear the inevitable shy away from anything that promotes such thoughts; the thought of being stripped open and having our internal organs removed is a pretty good example. A final concern is also whether in some cases a fear of death might stop us from living the way we should. It might keep us inside or away from what constitutes living. Furthermore, time spent fretting about something we have zero control over seems like time wasted. Death will eventually stop us from living, but trying to ensure this only happens when ones heart stops and body shuts down, seems sensible.

So what can help quell fear of death? One potential answer is Cryogenics. Some US organisations (it would have to be) can offer me eternal life by freezing my body shortly after the time of death, with the plan to resurrect me when medical science has worked out a safe way to do so. Fool proof. One problem is that there isn’t any evidence of this working, not even on a dog or a monkey, never mind a human. The second problem is that even on the standard service package provided by a run of the mill cryogenics institute, it is going to put me back $45,000. The final problem is that this whole idea is plain ridiculous. Another way of answering the question of what can help to quell death concerns is to look at what psychological strategies or ideas seem as though they might work. For this we first turn to religion.

Does religious belief buffer against the fear of death? The answer appears to be yes, providing you are quite into it. Amongst other studies, Wink and Scott (2005) have examined the relationship between religion and the fear of death in a large sample of US citizens across their life. Starting in the 1920’s and finishing at the turn of the century, the researchers tracked fear of death and religious practices from early adulthood through to old age. As is the case with other studies in the literature, the researchers found an interesting pattern. Highly religious individuals, who have firm beliefs and regularly practice, have a reduced fear of death compared to their non believing counterparts. Believing that there is a bigger picture and that there will be an afterlife (potentially involving sitting on a cloud with the “Big Man”, whilst listening to harps being played by small chubby children), looks as though it may ease fears of dying. In line with these ideas, research by Meyersburg and McNally (2011) also shows that individuals reporting memories of a ‘past life’ also have a reduced fear of death. As well as presumably being borderline insane, because of their beliefs in multiple lives these individuals probably also believe that death isn’t the end of it all.

What is also interesting from the Wink and Scott study is that individuals with only mild religious belief and practices were actually more afraid of death than non believers. Wink and Scott suggest two possible explanation. Whether this is caused by the ambiguity of whether there will be an afterlife or concerns of burning in the fiery pits of hell, alongside Satan and people who boxercise or shop on the Sabbath, mildly religious seem to fear death more than their non believing and ultra believing counterparts. Regardless of the exact causes, it would seem that it is all or nothing on the religious front when it comes to thinking about death.

One exceptionally one dimensional and not particularly practical solution to the problem of death and existential woes would simply be to really get into religion. Really go for it. But what about those who just don’t buy religion and the afterlife– what use is this to me? The big bang, fossils, Jurassic park, evolutionary theory and the abundance of bizarre and inaccurate religious claims have completely removed my glimmer of hope of an afterlife. Even if several religions came close to hitting the nail on the head, which one should I choose? If I end up with the wrong one I will make the right one jealous and although it is often the case that unavailable guys/girls are somehow more attractive, I don’t think Allah, God, Jesus, John the Baptist or Dumbledore will understand. I keep seeing people dying and subsequently rotting in the ground. Furthermore, I don’t believe I was the Earl of Sussex in a previous life. I don’t think religion is for me and don’t think much goes on when my body stops working.

So if religion isn’t for me, what else might help? Psychology might be able to. When asking friends and colleagues about their thoughts on coping with death, simple thought experiments seemed to pop up a lot. ‘You didn’t exist prior to birth and that wasn’t a problem for you’ or ‘You won’t exist so it won’t hurt or be anything to worry about’. Nice enough, but they seem to miss the mark a little and focus on the end product and ignore the feelings and concerns we have as we live. The concept of ‘Rippling’ might be more relevant. Although having appeared in many forms and names from other psychologists and philosophers, psychotherapist Irvin Yalom of Stanford University has written about its merits in some detail. An expert in death anxiety and having worked closely with both young healthy patients and end of life cancer sufferers, Yalom suggests the idea of ‘Rippling’; that every action and choice we make has the potential to positively affect those around us and their futures. This in turn can provide individuals with a sense of immortality and importance in how they live their lives, alleviating concerns of death and feelings of meaningless in life.

As the masses of psychology studies show, every action we take and the way we behave can have profound effects on others. Every action has a reaction, so to speak. Similar thoughts have been shared elsewhere. Legendary psychoanalyist Carl Jung talks in detail about man’s need for immortality and suggested several ways in which this need can be achieved. Here we will turn to two types. Biological immortality can refer to the immortality we feel as a result of parenting a child, who in turn will probably parent a further child and so on. Creative immortality is different in the sense that instead of passing our genes or ‘biology’ on, the actions we take can have profound effects elsewhere: how we shape the way that a student or colleague thinks about the world, actions we can take to improve the lives of others and the environment we live in.

Similarly, father of the study of behavioural psychology, B.F Skinner, suggested that as it is only society and the collective that continues after our death, the collectivist who has attempted to positively ‘ripple’ for the good of others and the environment surrounding them, has far less to worry about than the individual. The collectivist can take solace from the thought that others will outlive him, the contribution he has tried to make and resulting ripples. This stance on life might be a useful way to think for Just a woman to alleviate her worries and fears that everything will fade into nothingness. Our lives will eventually end, but how we exist can serve to influence how others will exist and the world we leave behind.

A final approach would be to examine why highly religious persons have a lesser fear of death. Research is still touching on this, but one interesting idea is the role of death acceptance. When reviewing the literature, Neiymeyer and colleagues suggest that accepting that death is an inevitable and important part of life should result in us being be able to view death with more meaning. Religious beliefs about the afterlife and a higher calling in life would seem to fit this criterion well, in the sense that they may reduce death anxiety by providing an overarching context for it and acceptance of its occurrence.

So perhaps adopting a similar stance on life and trying to view and accept death as a key part to living is an approach that should be taken. In support of this general idea, studies show a correlation between degree of acceptance and fear of death; whereby the extent to which death and dying are accepted is associated with fewer worries and less death fear. By definition things have to come to an end. So often in life this is the case and we learn to view them in an accepting away without too much fuss; films, holidays, days and nights. A holiday wouldn’t have context or any meaning if it were to be infinite. When viewed from this slightly different angle, death is crucial to life having any meaning at all. Death provides us with limited time and therefore provides meaning and importance to how we use this time. Of course we can’t just decide that we accept death over night, but how we view death as being part of a bigger picture may at least help a little. Maybe.

If all else fails and you are still struck with dread, you may be happier to know that time appears to be somewhat of a healer. Research by psychologists Thorson and Powell in the late eighties (and several other studies) suggests that as we approach old age the anxiety around death starts to ease. So although with age you are several steps closer to exactly what you’ve been dreading, you probably won’t care quite so much anyway – hoorah!

If this, rippling, or changing the way we think about the meaning that we attach to our lives and the dying process, does not soften the blow of your impending death then I am out of ideas.

Application

Find meaning in life and dying. Ripple

Hannah g - please spend less time worrying about death and more time punctuating.

Keeping up Appearances

Impression management is something we all do and in simplified terms, it is how we portray and present ourselves to those around us. The way we style our hair, the clothes one chooses and many lifestyle choices we make, can all be influenced by the impression or image that we want people to infer. Fashion trends are testament to this. Students are a good example; flip flops/ug boots, sweat pants, gillets, beanie hat. In themselves, none of these are essential or help a student study harder, but wearing them portrays an image that clearly says 'I'm a student'. To me it also says I'm quite annoying and used to play rugby/ride horses, but this is off topic. We see something that is 'cool', we want others to see us as 'cool', we therefore project ourselves to others in a way that is similar to this 'cool' prototype. Impression management isn't exclusive to clothes and hairstyles, it is all around us, in the choices we make and the way we act.

Leary & Kowalski (1990) have reviewed research on impression management and suggest that both social reward and self esteem concerns are causes of the use of impression management tactics. To a large extent this makes sense. When in a job interview it is critical we manage the impression we give off. If we are good enough we will be rewarded (getting the job). In addition, being liked by others is good for our self esteem. If we are able to manage our impressions to increase liking and so on, then it is beneficial. For the sake of this blog we will group these two causes of impression management together as 'social acceptance needs'. The idea we project ourselves to others to fulfil this type of need is supported by research that shows impression management tactics tend to increase when we feel we have failed or are embarrassed ('my self esteem is in need of a boost') and when competition for a job is implied to be tough.

Is impression management a good idea? In an ideal world where honesty and abstract fuzzy concepts like 'being who you are' matter, one would say it doesn't really matter. Yet, in the real world it probably does. If we take something as simple as eating and food, research shows we are judged by others to a worrying extent. For example, Vartanian (2000) presented participants with a video of a young female eating a meal. Participants either saw the female eating a small or relatively large amount. Seeing a young women eat more resulted in participants judging her to be more manly. Presumably this is a stereotype some women would want to avoid, so if you wish to avoid such judgements, some might argue that impression management is a good idea in some instances.

Similarly, Harris et al. (1984) gave participants written descriptions of fictional students and under the pretence that these were real people; participants rated perceived characteristics such as intelligence, successfulness, athleticism and conscientiousness. When participants were led to believe the characters were overweight perceptions changed dramatically. They were less intelligent, less successful, less athletic and less conscientious. When one thinks about how such findings are likely to be driven in part by our societies portrayal of thin = good, and how this might relate to disordered eating, then impression management starts to feel as though it may have bigger ramifications than just clothes and hair.As the impression management hypothesis would dictate – in some instances people change their behaviour to avoid these negative appraisals. In line with negative overeating stereotypes, in a 1987 study, Chaiken and colleagues showed that in a study that involved a 'get acquainted session', being paired with an attractive male resulted in young female participants eating far less snack food during the session. The authors suggest that the women ate less in order to portray themselves positively to the guy she was eating with.

Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, we all make snap judgements about people and we all form stereotypes about certain behaviours and appearances. The studies just covered underline this. Indeed, if you knew that others would judge you as less feminine/more manly, less intelligent and so on, it would be difficult not to impression manage. Some of the time others judgements matter, so impression management rears its head. How do people feel about impression management? In job interviews and similar scenarios I would guess that most think it is OK. Bending the truth or portraying oneself in a certain way to get a job seems alright as everybody else will be doing it. It almost seems the norm.

But what about in everyday life? Should we walk around and behave in a certain way to impress those around us? I suggest this shouldn't be a major concern in life. Consciously controlling how we present ourselves feels as though it has connotations with vanity and generally society seems to value; a) the truth and, b) interpersonal independence. We like to know who/what we are dealing with and like the idea of making choices and decisions for ourselves – doing what is best for you. Over zealous impression management challenges both of these things. It potentially results in a person defining themselves by what others deem important. As what others deem important won't always be best for us, we have a problem on our hands.

As well as living for the benefit of others (which is surely bad in itself), impression management can be dangerous to your health. Tanning and smoking/drug use are all strongly driven by impression management and these aren't very good for us. A good tan = a good look. On the downside a good tan can also = skin cancer. Indeed, work by Leary and Jones (1993) indicated that the extent to which one is concerned with others impressions of themselves strongly predicts the likelihood that they will adopt risky behaviours that will increase the likelihood of skin cancer (no sun cream, long hours, sun beds etc.).

Disappointingly a fair amount of people also see smoking = 'cool'. Yet, smoking also = lung cancer. When a smoker tried there first cigarette it is done with others and rarely alone. In part, it is caused by social pressures. Substance abusers tend to score higher on measures of self presentation concerns (Lindquist et al. 1979). Social smoking is perhaps one of the best examples of impression management at its worse. For the first time smoker – it is a nasty experience. Furthermore, social smokers tend to be fair weather smokers, and they smoke only in public, only when the eyes of others are on them. These are but a few examples of where impression management goes wrong, but it doesn't just stop at health – impression management concerns could influence who we do and don't hang around with, the money we spend and careers we choose.

Whether we should worry about what others think isn't an easy question to answer. One cannot impression mange all the time, sooner or later the mask slips. Perhaps this is no coincidence that a lot of relationships fail a week or two in. One thing for sure is that we can't avoid the fact that others around us make judgements and these can matter. An obvious question is whether those we manage impressions for matter? Often we interact with people that really don't impact on our lives. Bad service in a restaurant, but worried what staff would think of you if you don't tip. Why tip? You won't be seeing them any time soon.

Finally, if we can see that we are behaving to portray, then evaluating the cost-weight of such behaviour would seem a sensible place to start. In the case of job interviews, we probably should continue to impression manage. Maybe even celebrities should they might be out of a career otherwise. Yet, exercise – is an increased risk of heart disease less important than the occasional feeling of self consciousness in the gym? Tanning: is skin cancer less of a worry than not getting complimentary comments about how your skin is glowing? You would hope the answers to both these questions should be 'no'.

Application

On a boring night out but don't want to come across as a goon and be the first to leave? Forget looking good, look like a goon and go home to your warm bed.

Couples that take photos together with a raised camera looking down when holidaying abroad: the impression you are producing here is not that you are close and in love, it is that you have little idea what to take photos of whilst on holiday.

Hanging on or Giving up

'Little dival' from sofeminine.co.uk Discussion Boards 01/07

“I've been with my boyfriend nearly two years. Everything was perfect for the first year, he treated me like a princess, we didn't argue and he was so considerate of me. I thought I'd found someone I would spend the rest of my life with. Until last July. I came back off a holiday with my friends and he told me he wasn't sure if he wanted to be with me anymore.... He treats me like dirt, overnight he completely changed. He now makes plans with me and drops me at the very last minute. I cry about it everyday but I love him so much I just can't let go.

'Frances' from answers.yahoo.com 07/011

“I love modelling but lately its been getting harder and harder to go for it ... I have a lil girl .. just need advise .. should I give up??”

Answerer 1: “NEVER EVER GIVE UP! It's something you want, why not try to achieve it! If you can dream it, you CAN do it and girl, all you need is determination and hard work.”

Answerer 2: “Nope. Never. If you do, you’re just letting yourself down and you will regret for the rest of your life.”

The above extracts from online help forums are good examples of when a situation arises that makes us question whether we should drop something, give it up and cut our losses. Of course, whether this would be a good idea in either or both of these examples is unanswerable, as we only have a snippet of information. Although these extracts can't answer that specific question, what they do tell us is that it seems apparent that a lot of the time we are averse to letting go of something and giving up on it. We seem too often to be very protective and avoidant of losing something and moving on; relationships, career aspirations, financial investments. 'Little dival' can't seem to accept her relationship is a lost cause and neither 'answerer ' 1 or 2 seem willing to tell 'Frances' she should accept defeat and move on. This blog discusses our tendency to 'hang on' and not accept a loss when it is staring us in the face.

A major reason for this tendency to opt to stick in things is that we are naturally loss averse. We really don't like the idea of losing. Whether this has arisen from an inherited behavioural trait that has somehow proven to be adaptive in the past, or a learnt norm from those around us, a loss is something we are biased to avoid. The simplest way to test whether we avoid losses is to offer individuals monetary gambles. In these types of experiments participants are given a small sum of money and then asked to decide if they are happy to gamble on an offer/ bet (e.g. if you accept this bet you will have a 50% chance of doubling your money, but also a 50% chance of losing). Rationally speaking, if we weren't biased towards avoiding loss, we should be fairly happy to take the above offer. The odds are equal and the probability of a loss is exactly the same as a gain – it is a level playing field.

But data collected by Gachter et al. 2010, from 360 members of the public using similar tasks, shows we aren't happy to. Even if you swing it in the favour of the participant (60% chance of doubling your money and 40% chance of losing), loss aversion kicks in and a lot of participants won't accept the offer. It appears as though we possess a systematic bias to be wary of losses and when even the whiff of a potential loss starts to loom we avoid it like the plague. We daren't risk loss even when the odds are in our favour.

A classic study that underlines the power of loss aversion is reported by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues. Also known for showing what has been termed 'the endowment effect', these studies show that once we feel as though we own something, we value it highly and parting with it becomes a lot more difficult. As part of the study half of participants were given a coffee mug as a gift by the researcher (the mug condition) and half were not (no mug condition). Handing mugs out allowed the researchers to examine whether having owned a pretty crappy mug for just even a few moments would result in participants wanting to avoid losing it. After receiving the mug participants in the mug condition were asked what was the absolute minimum amount of money they would accept to part with the mug. In the no mug condition participants were instead shown that very same mug and asked how much they thought it was worth.

The studies show a big difference between the two groups’ valuations of the mug. The mug condition now valued the mug at over $7, as opposed to the no mug conditions value of $2.80. These findings are explained through a loss aversion account, whereby the thought of losing something as simple as a mug causes participants to pump up it's value. Once we have something the thought of losing it is powerful and we don't like it. These experiments show that losses and gains, even when exactly the same in terms of what is on offer (a mug), have different weighting in our judgements. The value and importance of a loss looms much larger than a similar gain.

The effect has also been replicated with all sorts of other objects and belongings. Furthermore, other studies by Saqib et al. (2010) have suggested that the more committed we are to something, the greater the loss aversion we display. Similarly, risk aversion also appears to vary with time, whereby the longer we have owned something, the stronger the risk aversion we express towards losing it. Having dedicated many hours to a failing project can make pulling the plug on it very difficult.

We have all experienced this kind of thing. I recently spent a fair few hours working on writing up an experiment. During this it became apparent there were weaknesses with the experiment and that the write up was a bad idea. Yet, it was tough to accept I had lost those hours and I then spent even longer considering whether I should go back to the drawing board. Perhaps if the weaknesses had become apparent earlier on the decision would have been easier. This is where the problem with psychological investment and loss aversion lies; whether I spotted the weaknesses before or after many hours of writing, they exist and are just as damaging to the experiment. But because of how invested I felt in the project, cutting loose and accepting a loss was probably that bit harder.

Aside from my fairly dull example and queries typed up onto internet help forums, loss aversion can explain numerous examples of bad and irrational decision making. Loss looms large and the deeper we get in, the less likely we are to accept that cutting our losses and throwing the towel in might be a good thing. Gamblers who continue to try and win back their losses in casinos, so they don't have to leave on a loss. Poor investments that are falling in value. Staying far too long in a war that can't be won. Continuing to believe in a project that although you have invested much time in, just isn't working. All of these are examples in which accepting a loss in the present is far better for the future. Yet, we often don't, as we try and avoid having to call in a loss in the near future. Ironically, by doing this we are often delaying the inevitable and in some cases setting ourselves up for a much bigger loss further along the line.

An interesting question is how this bias can take a hold of us. Quite often we see this irrational behaviour in others, but we seem blind to it in ourselves. Two lines of research provide some explanation. Research suggests that when imagining how bad one will feel after a loss, we have a tendency to overestimate. In a 2006 study, Kermer et al. had participants take part in a gambling task and controlled whether participants won or lost $5 from money that they had been given at the start of the session. Prior to gambling some participants were asked how they would feel if they lost and then after losing the majority of their money (naughty experimenters) they rated how they felt.

Participants’ predictions were significantly worse than how they actually felt. The authors suggest this can happen because we underestimate how resilient we really are and how easily we can get over losses and move on. If we can start to realise that a loss is unlikely to be the end of the world, maybe we would be more willing to pull the plug when needed.

A final study underlines how becoming invested in something can skew the way we think about it and encourage us not to change plans. Knox and Inkster (1968) report a clever experiment in which they approached gamblers at a horse racing event. They showed that having made a bet on a horse altered perceptions of how likely the horse would be to win. Compared to patrons that were about to bet on a horse, those that had recently invested in their horse were far more confident of it bringing home the money.

What does this mean outside of horses and gambling? It appears to suggest that the more we psychologically or financially invest in something, the more we believe it will turn out alright. It looks as though we can end up ignoring damming evidence. That being said, removing oneself from psychological investment in something and trying to objectively assess whether we are being biased and unnecessarily loss averse may be a lot easier said than done. Although, awareness of these factors might at least help us check we are thinking things through sensibly and making decisions as rationally as possible. Who knows? You've got to hope reading this blog was of some benefit; otherwise you've just lost 15 minutes of your life reading this and will never get it back.

Application

Think rationally.

Rats deserting sinking ships are clever.

Make loss aversion work for you. Sign up to internet sites that fine you money if you fail to achieve a goal or aim you have set yourself. The thought of a loss might be enough to help you make something of your life.

Not enjoying a film or date? Cut your losses and bail on it half way through. It is for the best.

Not Doing Very Much

knittedbreast Mon 06-Jun-11 12:13:18

"I can’t be the only one who has a list the length of my arm for things I really need to do but just haven’t done.... am I the only one?What’s on your list?"

Taken from one of the many internet discussion boards, the above extract probably sounds quite familiar (aside from the name perhaps). Most of us have a set of goals and aims in life that we at least say we want to achieve and themajority of the time I would guess we really do mean what we say. Weight loss, revision, exercise, healthier eating, charity work, redecorating. Rationally speaking we can and should be able to achieve the majority of the goals we set ourselves. Examples of others doing much more than losing a few pounds, exercising or redecorating the second bathroom are in abundance. An inspection of some of the bizarre and endurance based records that have been set in the Guinness Book of World Records underlines this. Furthermore, we all personally know people who have lost a few pounds, exercise regularly or have a well decorated second bathroom.

Why is it then that we sometimes find we don't we ever get round to achieving these important goals? Very occasionally the goals or challenges we set ourselves are ridiculous and we fail epically because they are past our means (http://failblog.org/2008/12/08/coconut-breaking-fail/), but looking over the usual candidates on New Year’s resolution lists, most seem more than do-able. Yet, most turn out to be beyond us. Is there something that can be done? Can psychological research help us?

I believe so. One reason we don't achieve what we desire is that we can fall into a tendency of believing that merely wanting to do something and having some vague idea about when ('sometime next week') and how ('I will look it up beforehand') things will happen is enough to facilitate change. We devise very basic and open ended plans (or don't plan at all) and although we might have intentions to keep to them, this doesn't seem to be enough. If one doesn't have concrete plans set out, with specifics such as what, where, when and how, it is very easy to put things off or find yourself not doing it. A body of research underlines this in psychology; 'Implementation Intentions' (we will call them II's).

An unnecessarily long winded and unclear name, II's basically mean the practise of ensuring one creates extremely specific plans. At the start of the week, if you have set aside a specific day, time and have planned a location and activity that is in fitting with your goal, this makes doing this a whole lot easier. There are lots of convincing sounding reasons as to why this should work; the process should make sure you remember to do it, ensures you have set aside the appropriate resources (time) and thought about the practicalities. In addition, having spent some time planning and having these hand written plans on your wall or desk, reminds you of how much you want the goal and probably makes ducking out just a little more embarrassing to oneself.

A study by Luszczynska and colleagues (2007) shows the power of the II. Here researchers visited a Weight Watchers group and assigned half of the group to receive a very short amount of training and guidance from a researcher about how to use II's and were given some nice looking sheets on which to make their II's for the next 8 weeks. For weight loss, one II might be something along the lines of (Aerobic exercise – body pump class, 7pm – 8pm, Monday night, Munroe Sports Centre, getting there by car, leaving at 6.45, meeting friend Lucy at 6.55 outside, have done this class before, is challenging but I can do an hour). The other half carried on with their weight loss programme as usual without receiving any training about II's. At 2 months the control group had lost 2.1kg (just short of 5 pounds). A truimph for Weight Watchers.

But it is of course the II group we are more interested in. They had lost 2 times the amount the control group lost (4.2 kg). This is quite a finding, as the participants in the control condition were actively trying to lose weight also. They just lacked the power of foresight and strategic planning through II's. Furthermore, the more participants had taken to the programme and made II's frequently the more weight was lost. The power of planning ahead through some careful consideration at the start of a week is impressive.

A further reason why we might have the best intentions at new years but have little to show come March time is because of a tendency to view our future selves in an overly optimistically light. Often you will hear friends saying that they will start next week, do it in a fortnight or next month 'will the big one'. A series of studies have shown how time can change our perceptions of our abilities. When an exam is several weeks in the future people tend to be overly optimistic about their performance and are probably not too worried. However, move the time point when you ask them about how hard they think the test will be and how well they will do, to a day or two before the exam and you get different results.

What this might suggest is that when things are far off in the future it is very easy to think about them abstractly and with rose tinted glasses. Hence, when people are putting plans off till next week or next month, there is likely to be a genuine belief they will do them. But they are more often than not kidding themselves. They don't know their future selves very well. If you haven't done any exercise this week, what is going to happen next month that makes your future self so keen to hit the gym? Of course, you might find excuses for why you didn't do it this week or attribute your failings elsewhere (we like doing this a lot – http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/11/im-great-fact.html), but as creatures of habit, the best predictor of what you'll be doing next week is what you’re doing this week. To stop looking hopefully into the future and make plans in the present would seem to be a sensible idea.

A final consideration as to why we often don't achieve what we hope to is our fear of hard work. Sometimes we believe what we have to do (i.e. exercise, eat healthily) won't be particularly enjoyable. However, a lot of studies have shown that we aren't particularly great at knowing what we will and won't enjoy. A recent study by Ruby et al. (2011) examined how this might influence intentions to exercise. Using all sorts of different exercise classes (Pilates to Yoga to Weight training) and all sorts of work out difficulty levels, the researchers asked members of these classes to estimate how enjoyable these activities would be, as well as measuring how enjoyable they actually were when they were partaken in.

Participants tended to significantly under-estimate how enjoyable the exercise would be. This is especially interesting as the participants they sampled were often regular exercisers, so if they don't know how good it is, what chance do those without such experience stand?The authors also argued that this misprediction occurs because people naturally focus on the early difficult stages of an exercise session which can often be uncomfortable, but once you’re over this hill, the rest of a work out is often enjoyable. Furthermore, the feel good factor of having exercised is likely to stretch for hours after the session. Indeed, the researchers also showed that reducing this bias of focusing on the negative parts increases individuals intentions to do more exercise.

Similarly, in a number of studies my research group have recently published, we showed that getting participants to recall a pleasant memory of eating a healthy food not only increases their expected enjoyment of eating that food, but also results in them eating a lot more of it when later making food choices (Robinson et al. 2011). More often than not what we have to do in life isn't all that bad, but we might not necessarily realise this. There are enjoyable parts to most things. Trying to take a more optimistic and rounded view of the good as well as the bad should help us make that exercise class, revision session or opt for the salad rather than burger. Knowing you need to do something is one thing, but knowing it will have pretty enjoyable aspects of it might be the difference.

It is worrying how many short cuts and biases we possess that enable us to slack off, but awareness and harnessing alternative strategies should be helpful. Here are some useful and useless thoughts:

Start looking at the facts and making honest appraisals of how many hours you've put in and whether you really should be excusing yourself.

Deciding what I do and don't like

We are inherently social creatures and spend most of our time in the presence of others. Population growth, working environments, telephones and social networking all result in us being exposed to the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of a lot of people. This of course must have some effect on us. The idea that one behaves as a 'lone' decision maker, impervious to the influence of others around us, is naïve. Of course we know of people who like to think of themselves as unique and embed this idea of 'going it alone' and not being influenced by those around them into their identity, but on the whole they are probably misguided. One reason we can be strongly influenced by those around us is a need to belong or to be liked by others. A blog here discusses it http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-cant-be-alone.html. To some extent this isn't such a bad thing, as sometimes to get along in life we need to be liked by others and adapting our behaviour to fulfil this need is sensible. Sometimes you have to grin and bear things to please others.

This consideration aside, the following blog discusses another side of social influence, which I have aptly named; 'informational social influence'. The main idea being that we will often use information others provide us with as evidence about our own reality. Such influence may be particularly strong when a situation is ambiguous or when we are uncertain about something. In general, although the idea of conforming or being influenced by others has somewhat negative connotations (probably due to a current over emphasis and implicit liking of individualism).This kind of influence definitely isn't always a bad thing. However, there will be times when it is and isn't in our best interests to be guided by informational social influence. This blog uses some existing research to attempt to think about when such informational social influence may be advantageous and very useful to us, and under what circumstances it may be more of a hindrance than a help.

When thinking about an event in the future we haven't experienced before, one might have a tendency to think we know best about what we will and won't like. A friend who won't try a new food you have been raving about is a simple enough example. 'Nobody knows me better than I do, so I should go with my instincts.' But this perhaps isn't such a wise stance to take; as those around us can provide us with valuable information we haven't had access to. In fact, observing how others react to experiences or 'vicarious learning' is thought to be a key mechanism by which we learn about the world. In line with this, developmental psychologist Leann Birch and colleagues show that a child’s likelihood of trying a novel or unfamiliar food is greatly increased once they have seen somebody else eat it, presumably because this tells us the food is safe to eat. For example, Addessi et al. (2005) examined this in 2-5 year olds and showed that the kids would be far more likely to try some semolina if they observed an adult eating that food, rather than eating something slightly different. Knowing that somebody else has eaten something and it hasn't been unpleasant or perhaps has even been enjoyable is valuable information.

Wilson et al. (2010) report a study that shows this kind of idea in more of a real 'grown up' world scenario. Here psychology undergraduates were invited to take part in a speed dating event. Each lucky girl would get the opportunity to go on a mystery date with a male undergraduate student and shortly afterwards rate how much they enjoyed themselves. However, prior to the date, participants were given some pretty interesting information. In one condition the females were given background information, such as course, hobbies etc. about their up and coming date. In another, the females got something slightly different. They were given information about how much the previous participant enjoyed their date with the bloke awaiting them. Both groups then predicted how much they thought they would enjoy the date.

The main analysis of interest was whether knowing how much another enjoyed the date resulted in participants being more accurate in their predictions of enjoyment, or whether 'non social' information (such as hobbies and interests; that you might suggest reveals a lot about a person) was more useful. Participants were far more accurate in working out how enjoyable the date would be after having been given access to others accounts of their dates. One might like to view oneself as having very individual tastes and therefore right to ignore others accounts of experiences. Yet, as we all have a fair deal of similarity in what we do and don't like, what this kind of study suggests is that we would be wise to spend time listening to others experiences if we really want insight into what we will and won't like in life when we haven't had first hand experience of it our self. This of course poses another question. What about when we have had first hand experience of something our self? Should we be so keen to be led by the voices and behaviours of others?

I would argue that this is when we really should be extremely wary of the information others are giving us. A classic study by psychologist Solomon Asch underlines this well. Here participants attended a study in which they sat with others in a room whilst looking at some images of lines that varied in length (yes, an exciting study for all). In front of them would be two lines, their simple task was to judge which was longer. Viewing this experiment from the outside, it would seem as though the correct answers were painstakingly obvious. However, the other 'participants' sat with them were not real participants at all. They were actors who were working with the experimenter to examine whether answering incorrectly would cause the real participant to follow suit. The results are interesting and show a strong account of social influence in action; knowing others beliefs about the correct and incorrect answers strongly influenced participants and caused a high proportion to answer incorrectly. A follow up study also showed that when participants answered questions out of sight and in private (and thus under little influence to please the other group members,but still after hearing others incorrect responses), the impact of the others incorrect responses still remained. Thus, others can skew our perceptions of reality and influence us, even when we have first hand experience of what is going on in front of us.

A suggested limitation of Asch like studies is that they don't tell us much about the real world. The line judgement task isn't representative of a situation in which we might be influenced by others. The good news is that I have an experiment that I have done that very much is. Here we had participants come to our lab and eat a snack food. We then slightly mislead participants and told them the study was about whether other peoples eating habits and preferences can tell us anything about their personalities. So, we gave participants some answers one of our 'previous participants' had given us regarding their eating preferences and dieting habits. Our previous participants had also happened to have eaten the same snack food that our participant had eaten earlier in the session and written their thoughts about it. In one condition of the experiment our previous participants really didn't like the snack food, in another condition (a control condition), they thought it was OK, average, nice enough. Twenty minutes later we then asked our participant to think back to eating the snack food and rate how enjoyable it was. Being exposed to negative views about the snack food had a big impact on how much participants thought they enjoyed the food; it dropped significantly. Furthermore, I have data from a different study which suggests that hearing others positive views can have a similar effect and this then has a knock on effect on how keen participants are to eat the food again.

In the above case, we would perhaps be best to rely on our own opinions. If we didn't enjoy a film or food the first time round, it is unlikely to change that much the second. There are of course exceptions to every rule – sometimes friends might be able to point out something that we missed or we may have tried something and it has now changed. Yet, a problem arises when we already have first hand evidence that we don't particularly like something, but after a word in our ear we then find ourselves doing it again. Those around us are a rich source of information and when we have very little experience or expertise of something we should be taking in as much 'social information' as possible, as this is likely to improve how accurate we are in second guessing whether something will be enjoyable or for us in life. Yet, first hand experience is probably even more compelling evidence and when we have this we should think carefully about how others might be influencing our perceptions and opinions of what we do and don't like.

Application

The general application is very much spelt out in the blog.

Tell your friends you couldn't care less how much they like things that you don't.

Use IMDB more.

Poor Me (boo hoo)

Feeling sorry for oneself every now and again is common, as every now again circumstances or situations fall against us and we feel the need to moan about it. Such expressions of discomfort or disappointment are normally directed at others and to some extent, this may be a good idea, as in some circumstances those around us may be able to help in some way. But what about if this occasional tendency starts to become more of a regular occurrence? Everyone has friends who are forever wearing their upset hearts on their sleeves on facebook, or have colleagues they avoid getting stuck in a conversation with for the sake of losing the will to live. At certain periods in life we may even be guilty of it ourselves – life seems so unfair at times.

However, over the last 50 years or so medicine, poverty and life expectancy have all improved dramatically. Furthermore, for the majority of us, life is very kind – we are born into middle class backgrounds, we are well educated and rarely face real adversity in the grand scheme of things. This blog first discusses some literature that suggests a “poor me” mentality of dwelling on our slights is likely to be a bad idea and then starts to think about what factors might be contributing to the 'poor me' mindset and how we might combat succumbing to it too often.

So why is the 'poor me' mentality a bad thing? I think it is bad on many levels. Perhaps most importantly, it may be bad for our well being. An extremely large collection of literature that has relevance to the 'poor me' mentality we will discuss is the psychological effects of 'rumination'. Rumination can be described as a tendency to focus ones thought on aspects of ones life that are distressing and to do so in a fairly repetitive manner. Furthermore, such thinking isn't done in a way that is conducive to problem solving, it is more akin to becoming fixated on the problem and why it is bad, rather than doing something about.

In a large scale review Noelen-Hoeksema et al. (2008) discuss a number of problems with this 'mind set'. Studies show that rumination can cause depressed mood and is frequently shown to be associated with the onset of depression. Furthermore, it predicts the onset of a number of other psychological problems and is commonly associated with a lower sense of satisfaction with life. In addition, there is some suggestion that ruminating about past slights and problems may be problematic as it serves to 'rehearse' these memories, so that in the future we continue to view ourselves as hard done by in life.

An interesting study by Baumeister and colleagues (1990) can help in starting to shed some light on why it seems so natural for us to feel our circumstances are worse than they are. The researchers asked participants to recall occasions when they had been angered by someone else (victim narrative) or angered someone else (perpetrator narrative) and describe the story behind each event. The researchers then had judges blindly rate the descriptions for several qualities, including amongst others; how negative the consequences of the act were, how immoral the act was and whether it was unavoidable. As you might expect, when participants described an act that was perpetrated against them (victim), the content was very different to when they themselves committed that act against another. When they fell foul of the act , participants tended to think that the consequences of it were much worse. Furthermore, they judged the act to be more immoral and deliberately hurtful, compared to when they were the force behind the act of annoyance (perpetrator).

This suggests that we might be biased in our interpretation of personal injustice, in a way that results in us overplaying the importance and significance of bad things that happen to us. When bad things happen to us (someone angering us) we can believe it is much worse than when it is happening to someone else (us annoying someone else). Yet, if everybody is thinking like this, then somebody must be wrong. What this might result in is us starting to see ourselves as worse off than others, when we may well not be.

A further study by Jackson et al. (2006) builds on this idea of self vs other differences. Amongst other tasks, in this study participants viewed images of individuals in painful or non painful situations and then imagined how much pain would be experienced from one of two perspectives; either if it were themselves experiencing the pain (self condition) or another person (other condition). When individuals imagined themselves in the scenario they imagined a greater amount of pain would be experienced than if it were someone else. Thus, it is not only social injustice that we view in a biased way, but pain too. It appears as though we might have a tendency to believe the world is a worse off and more painful place for ourselves than others around us.

Another potential reason why we can find ourselves moaning and stuck in self pity is a tendency for us to believe in a 'just world', otherwise known as the 'just world belief hypothesis', suggested by Lerner & Miller (1978). Through the use of experimental studies and observations, there is fairly strong evidence that we tend to believe that the world is fundamentally 'just' and fair. “What goes around comes around”. People get what they deserve, and so forth. Thus, if a set of circumstances arise that are detrimental to ourselves then this can come as quite a shock. 'How could something like this happen to somebody like me”? “I don't deserve this”. We struggle to come to terms with what feels like injustice (i.e. someone dents our car, or our mail is lost in the post). It is understandable if it happens to others, 'but me”? “I definitely don't deserve this.” Yet, injustices happen. Perhaps what would be more realistic is to recognise and remind oneself that the world doesn't balance itself out perfectly, sometimes bad things happen to undeserving people. Dwelling on seemingly unjust circumstances that we can do little about is probably best avoided. Bad things do happen, whether we deserve it or not.

A final factor that may make us feel let down by life is how we compare ourselves to others in the world. A slightly depressing, but realistic thought is the realisation that there is always likely to be people 'above us' in the world. Earning more, working more convenient hours, whose work is more highly regard by others, in better physical shape, more attractive, a quicker runner – the list could go on forever. Comparing oneself to those 'above us' may leave one feeling disappointed. What perhaps might be more positive is to make comparisons in the opposite direction; downwards. Realising there are others in less positive situations than us and what we possess is pretty good compared to others might perhaps make the world seem like a better place. We are lucky.

For example, in a study by Buunk et al. (2001) the researchers were examining how adjusting how people compare themselves to others might effect relationship satisfaction. Participants either wrote down reasons why they believed there relationship was better than others (downward comparisons) or just listed reasons why there relationship was good (control condition). The researchers found that comparing oneself to others had a striking effect on satisfaction, with these participants rating their relationship satisfaction far higher than the other group. One explanation as to why we see this effect is that by comparing ourselves to others who haven't quite got what we have, we adjust our bench mark for what we expect a 'good' relationship to be.

The question that arises from findings of downward comparisons is, under what circumstances upward comparisons might actually be good for us. In some circumstances they may well be – setting targets and goals based on what others have achieved may well be motivational and useful; increasing productivity at work or attempting to improve a running time. Yet, realising there are many who don't quite have what we do, as well as those 'above' us, who have more, would seem a healthy stance that may put our slights and grievances with life into some perspective. Further research, here - http://psychologyshared.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-can-make-me-feel-good.html suggests that a more gratuitous attitude may be rewarding in the long term too.

Finally, perhaps we should also consider taking our lives slightly less seriously. Although we sometimes do have trials and tribulations in life, one wonders whether at times our own sense of self importance (or need for a dramatic narrative to life) can result in us making bigger dramas out of inconveniences than we really need to. Indeed, there may almost be a slight perverse enjoyment of finding ourselves with reason to complain, as to some extent, it may provide us with moments of significance amongst otherwise dull days. This must at least explain the joy of self importance elderly neighbours exude when complaining and moaning about the appearance of a 7 or 8 yr olds boys football on their lawn once or twice a week.

Application

Letting go and accepting unjust circumstances rather than focusing too much on slights and inconveniences may be wise in life. The majority of annoyances and disappointments seem trivial with time and when we think about what else is going rather well.