1. It shows the audience you disagree as the earliest possible moment, and that casts some measure of additional doubt on everything that comes next. It also does it in a way that doesn’t make the audience hate you. It’s not as bad as Al Gore muttering or John Kerry calling Bush a “disreputable Commie equivocator” (wait, that second one never happened.)
2. It distracts the audience from what your opponent is saying. It may not be perceptible, but when your brain notices that Santorum is writing, it devotes less attention to Romney’s words. At the margin, that makes it less likely you’ll follow what Romney is saying.
3. It distracts your opponent from what he is saying. Sure, everybody is an experienced politician, but if I was speaking on a stage and could choose to have the guy next to me stand still or write vigorously, I would prefer he stand still. Again, it might make a difference at the margins.

I do think we are close to “peak note-taking.” At some point a viral satire/critique of the practice will emerge, and nobody will ever be able to do it again.

That said, one area where homeschooling could potentially have a big impact is a child’s creativity. In an excerpt from his new book, Jonah Lehrer discusses how forcing humans together leads to creative sparks.

The lesson of Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant—not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism—that doesn’t mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.

Having more classmates means more interactions and more opportunities for creativity. Lehrer does point out that creativity doesn’t always magically result from group formation. There must also be diversity of opinions, debate, and criticism.

A new study led by psychologist Simone Ritter digs even deeper into the basis of creativity. While past research has linked creativity with unusual or unexpected experiences, Ritter’s team found that these “diversifying experiences” don’t merely increase performance on various creativity assessments, they also increase cognitive flexibility.

In the first experiment, participants experienced complex unusual and unexpected events happening in a virtual reality. In the second experiment, participants were confronted with schema-violations. In both experiments, comparisons with various control groups showed that a diversifying experience—defined as the active (but not vicarious) involvement in an unusual event—increased cognitive flexibility more than active (or vicarious) involvement in normal experiences. Our findings bridge several lines of research and shed light on a basic cognitive mechanism responsible for creativity.

However likely it seems, there is still no guarantee that a generic public school will provide more of these “diversifying experiences.” We’ve all experienced the daily monotony and routine that allows our massive education system to remain stable.

Homeschooling could also do a lot to promote creativity. Some homeschooled children might take weekly field trips to museums, concerts, or legislative sessions. And let’s not forget about the archetype of a loner child who spends all day playing Dungeons & Dragons with his anthropomorphized stuffed animals. It’s possible that extreme loneliness could enhance creativity.

In the end, I don’t think one can conclusively say whether or not homeschooling is good or bad for creativity. (And it would be poor form for me to do so given my above screed against blanket statements on educational choices.) However, if it was my decision, I would want my kid’s brain out there colliding with as many other brains as possible.

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Ritter, S., Damian, R., Simonton, D., van Baaren, R., Strick, M., Derks, J., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2012). Diversifying Experiences Enhance Cognitive Flexibility Journal of Experimental Social Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.02.009

Kevin is the Senior VP of the department. He’s powerful, confident, and in control. However, you know research shows that power can lead to aggressive tendencies by increasing risk taking and the perception that one can do “whatever they want.”

So, who should you be more afraid of? According to a new paper, the answer is…the guy who’s a winner.

In Studies 1 and 2, participants were told that they did worse or better than an ostensible partner on a first task. Then they aggressed against this partner on a second task using loud, painful noise blasts. Results showed that participants aggressed more against someone they outperformed (the loser) than against someone who outperformed them (the winner).

A few quickie implications that jump to mind:

1.The “stand up to bullies” mantra taught by sitcoms from the 80′s may actually hold water. Show the bully he’s not truly “outperforming you,” and his aggressiveness may decrease.

2. American foreign policy over the last 97 years is finally explained. “We’re better than you? Great! We’ll kick your ass!”

3. Those in power are a greater threat to peace than those they rule over.

4. Maybe all those people we locked up for non-violent drug crimes (who are “losers” not “winners”) aren’t as big a threat to society as some would have you think.

What else can you extrapolate from the study?
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Muller, D., Bushman, B., Subra, B., & Ceaux, E. (2012). Are People More Aggressive When They Are Worse Off or Better Off Than Others? Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550612436984

Crafting an answer to that question is a little like designing a crazy concept car that you steer with a joystick and an eye-tracker – it’s not practical at the moment, but it’s worth thinking about. Even though incremental change is all we can hope for in the short-term, at some point it would be nice to make progress toward big picture reform.

One idea that’s starting to get attention is replacing student loans with a system where colleges take a percentage of students’ future earnings. That would be a good start, but it still wouldn’t fully change the fundamental structure of higher education. The reason college is so expensive is that a scarce number of college acceptances are treated as the desired commodity. If we want to create a system that really puts students first we need something where the student (in the form of future earnings, donations, or alumni glory) is the desired commodity.

How would a system like that work? Probably not too different from how it is now. At the moment you send a school an application, and if you’re accepted you get an offer: “You may pay us $160,000 in exchange for an education.” However, to change that dynamic all we need is for schools to send every student a uniquely tailored offer involving no up-front payments. “Pay 10% of annual income for 15 years. Maximum payment of $150,00.” “Pay 2% of annual income for 30 years. No cap.” “Receive $20,000 for successfully earning a diploma. Pay 20% of annual income for 3 years.” “Pay 4% of annual income until cap of $300,000 is reached.” Colleges would need teams of actuaries and lawyers working on this full time. (Look, my plan is also a job creator!)

More options should make every student better off. The kid who could never afford to go to college will have better odds of finding somebody to take a chance on him (albeit, at a high future cost.) The absence of an upfront cost will also spur people to go to college who otherwise might have made a bad decision to not go. Economically speaking, taking out a $100k loan and owing $100k in future real income aren’t all that different, but the psychological difference should have an effect.

What about the kid on the other end of the spectrum, the valedictorian who can go anywhere? Right now he essentially has two choices: Pay full tuition at Harvard/Yale/Princeton, or stay home and get a full scholarship to the local Big Ten or ACC school. In a world where colleges make unique offers, his choices will open up. Maybe Penn will offer a full scholarship or Yale will offer a much better deal than Harvard or Princeton. Maybe some college will want him so badly they’ll pay five figures. All of these benefits will go to average and weak students too. Whatever happens, there will be more choices, and that will allow students to not only have a say in where they go to college, but in the conditions under which they go to college.

A system of uniquely tailored offers will also make it easier for at-risk students to go to the same colleges as their friends (See: Posse Foundation for why this can be important.) A student could get into a smarter friend’s more selective college by taking a less favorable offer, or the smart friend could take a more lucrative offer at a less selective school. The additional choices allow students to capture more of the gains from trade (the trade being money for education/prestige.)  Creating ways for universities to transfer more value to students is the key to any higher education solution. It doesn’t matter if it’s through cheaper education, better education, or some other channel.

As far as I can tell, there are two big downsides to this type of system. Each of these unique contracts will act as a tax on future earnings, and that will discourage graduates from earning money. However, the difference between earning money and doing something with social value is rapidly increasing. Although graduates will choose to earn less money, that could entail deciding to be an entrepreneur or a volunteer instead of heading straight to law school or Goldman Sachs.

The bigger problem relates to university budgets. Schools would need a lot of help during the 5-10 year period in which their revenue stream transitions from up-front payments to deferred payments. Once the transition was complete, schools would also bring in less revenue, and I think we’ll figure out a tuition-free way to fund every college for 10 years before we’ll see schools allow their financial systems to be jeopardized.

If this system of hyper-specific offers seems crazy, remember that it’s closer to the way higher education works at the graduate level. If we want to make higher education a better value for students, we need to build a system where students have real bargaining power.

Johnson and Fujita tested their hypothesis by giving subjects an anecdote about freshman orientation at Ohio State. Some subjects read about a student who generated support for changes in orientation activities and eventually succeeded in bringing about change. Other subjects read about a student who generated support for changes, but was unable to actually bring about change. After reading the story subjects had a chance to view positive or negative information about Ohio State.

As expected, subjects in the low-changeability condition were less likely to choose to see negative information about their school. Because they felt stuck in their system, their reactions were motivated by system-justification. Meanwhile, subjects in the high-changeability condition were more likely to choose to see the negative information. The sense that change was possible made them react with what Johnson and Fujita call “system-change motivation.”

On a broad level, the study could help explain the contagious nature of revolutions around the world. When people see that an entrenched government can be overthrown, they’ll be more willing to seek out negative information about their own government because that negativity will seem less permanent. This creates a positive feedback loop as more political change leads to more knowledge that seeds the desire for political change.

Another thing the study brings to mind is how important it is for non-incumbent politicians to convince people they have a chance to win. For example, imagine you’re a challenger (e.g Rick Santorum) taking on an incumbent or system representative (e.g. Mitt Romney). If voters believe they are stuck with the current system (Romney), they’ll ignore your negative ads because they’ll be motivated by system-justification. However, if you convince voters that change is a real possibility, system-change motivation will take over and voters will be more open to hearing negative information about the current system. (All of this rests on the assumption that an elected official can be conceptualized as a system, but I think it works in the sense that Harry Reid is the current system of Nevada citizen representation in the Senate.)
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Johnson, I., & Fujita, K. (2012). Change We Can Believe In: Using Perceptions of Changeability to Promote System-Change Motives Over System-Justification Motives in Information Search Psychological Science, 23 (2), 133-140 DOI: 10.1177/0956797611423670

The aging relics hold a certain romance for many, and interest is growing in numerous states in saving or at least documenting the rickety barns before they become victims of age and urban sprawl, the cost of maintenance too high when they no longer have a practical purpose.

[...]

“We figured if we’ve got a lot, we’ve got a lot to lose,” said Bill Hart, the field representative for the Columbia-based Missouri Preservation, a statewide nonprofit that was instrumental in the formation of the barn group. He added that the band of preservationists “pushed the panic button.”

The aversion to giving up anything that was once part of our lives is commonplace in American society. It’s the reason we mourn the loss of a Borders franchise that was providing no value, and it’s the reason 25 years from now people of my generation will mourn the loss of useless suburban malls. The question is, why is it so hard to let go?

One answer is our affinity for nostalgia and anything that produces it. A conclusive body of research, much of it led by nostalgia expert Clay Routledge, demonstrates that we use nostalgia to bolster a sense of meaning in life. Routledge explains:

In Western culture, it is regarded as unwise to be “living in the past.” Of course, a past-oriented state can be problematic, if it interferes extensively with living in the present and planning for the future. However, as the present research indicates, the past can also be a vital resource on which one might draw to maintain and enhance a sense of meaning. The present research broadens the functional landscape of nostalgia by demonstrating that this emotion serves a pivotal existential function.

The good news is that the seemingly arbitrary refusal to allow the past to die clearly serves an important purpose. The bad news is that if there are good ways and bad ways to increase “life-meaning,” preserving things that produce nostalgia falls into the latter category.

There are a number of reasons to be relatively anti-nostalgia. First, meaning derived from nostalgia seems unlikely to be particularly long-lasting or dependable. Seeing an old barn may raise your spirits, but it’s unlikely to make you feel good about life if you’re 75 and can’t think of anything important you’ve done. Second, nostalgia has little social value compared to “meaning-producing” things like helping people, creating something substantive, or building relationships. Third, because young people derive little benefit from nostalgia-driven preservation, any time these efforts involve public money or resources it’s essentially a transfer of value from the young to the elderly. That’s something there is already too much of in America.

The lesson is that although it may be hard, we should fight the urge to preserve, particularly in situations where there are high social costs (e.g. when it harms urban planning.) This will allow younger members of society to avoid a cost that brings them no benefits, and it will push older members of society to find meaning in life through more productive channels.
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Routledge, C., Arndt, J., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Hart, C., Juhl, J., Vingerhoets, A., & Schlotz, W. (2011). The past makes the present meaningful: Nostalgia as an existential resource. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101 (3), 638-652 DOI: 10.1037/a0024292

Unfortunately, some new research shows that there are drawbacks to downplaying a situation’s negativity too much. When you attempt to show a situation is not as bad as a person thinks, the implied message is that the person’s level of sadness is beyond what’s socially acceptable. After all, if the person should be this sad, you wouldn’t be telling them to cheer up. It turns out that perceived societal expectations about when a person should be sad play a big role in making negative emotions worse. Specifically, when people feel sad, but think that others don’t expect them to feel sad, their negative emotions are amplified.

Our perception of how others expect us to feel has significant implications for our emotional functioning. Across 4 studies the authors demonstrate that when people think others expect them not to feel negative emotions (i.e., sadness) they experience more negative emotion and reduced well-being. The authors show that perceived social expectancies predict these differences in emotion and well-being both more consistently than—and independently of—personal expectancies and that they do so by promoting negative self-evaluation when experiencing negative emotion.

The takeaway is that it may be good to occasionally remind somebody why they should feel bad. Obviously you shouldn’t try and make sad people feel worse, but rehashing certain negatives could be helpful if it shows the person their sadness is expected. For example, if a friend totals his car, remind him of the good times he had in the car. This is essentially how we deal with sadness after a person dies. When mourners talk about how great the deceased was, it works to legitimize their feelings. That may make them feel as though their extreme sadness is not out of line with what society expects, and in the long run that will help them feel better.
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Bastian, B., Kuppens, P., Hornsey, M., Park, J., Koval, P., & Uchida, Y. (2012). Feeling bad about being sad: The role of social expectancies in amplifying negative mood. Emotion, 12 (1), 69-80 DOI: 10.1037/a0024755

Some new research by Christof Wecker gets at the answer to these questions. Wecker compared the amount of information retained from a variety of different presentations and found that 1) the retention of oral information is lower with regular (i.e. not concise) slides than with no slides, 2) in presentations with regular slides, the retention of oral information was lower than the retention of information on the slides, and 3) the suppression of oral information disappears when concise slides are used instead of regular slides. The lesson is that if your slides aren’t brief, you better not forget to put everything important on them.

The more intriguing part of Wecker’s study is what he found about the reason that slides can interfere with oral information. Wecker examined the cognitive load of subjects to determine whether or not there was a “redundancy effect” — i.e. a tendency for less learning to occur when the same information is given orally and in writing. He found no such effect existed. Instead, Wecker found that the suppression of oral information was correlated with the subjective importance a person placed on slides. In other words, slides interfere with the retention of oral information because people often judge information on slides to be more important.  The generalizability of this finding is debatable because all the participants were university students, but I think it’s fair to say that college kids are a good stand-in for your average Powerpoint consumer.

The interesting question is why people are biased toward the written information. One explanation is that it’s some combination of laziness and an affinity for what’s known and controllable. The words on a slide are there, we can see them, and so why not take the easy way out and tell ourselves the slides are the most important thing. A more charitable explanation is that we learn better from slides because we can proceed through the information at our own pace. Perhaps we have unconsciously learned this lesson, and therefore we place more importance on slides because it’s a more efficient way of learning.
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Wecker, C. (2012). Slide presentations as speech suppressors: When and why learners miss oral information Computers & Education DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.01.013

We propose that social comparisons with better-off others trigger an impulsive envious response that entails a behavioral tendency to strive for their superior good. However, given that the experience of envy is painful, self-threatening, and met with social disapproval, people typically attempt to control their envious reactions. Doing so requires self-control capacities, so that envious reactions may only become apparent if self-control is taxed. In line with these predictions, four experiments show that only when self-control resources are taxed, upward comparisons elicit envy paired with an increased willingness to pay for, to spontaneously purchase and to impulsively approach the superior good.

We often overlook how much of our daily life is driven by psychological processes that evolved to serve our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, and envy is a good example of this. When a neanderthal’s only goal in life was to improve his chances of reproduction by becoming an alpha male, envy helped keep his focus on that goal. Unfortunately, nowadays envy is only useful when is motivates you to specifically achieve something positive that would not have otherwise been achieved.

This study also tickles my futurist bone. One of the medium/long term questions about the future of humanity is how successful we’ll be in identifying and eliminating the maladaptive psychological mechanisms we’ve developed through millions of years of evolution. Imagine if you could instantly eliminate envy in situations where it’s likely to be unproductive (“that guy has a prettier girlfriend than me”), and let in linger in situations where it has the potential to be productive (“Joe is getting more playing time than me.”) I think in the long run — say anywhere between 50 and 200 years from now — our formal education systems will be focused on teaching these psychological tricks.
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Crusius, J., & Mussweiler, T. (2012). When people want what others have: The impulsive side of envious desire. Emotion, 12 (1), 142-153 DOI: 10.1037/a0023523

Researchers initially asked subjects to recall an experience that was shameful, neutral, or anxiety-producing. Subjects then played a real money game in which they could choose one of three options: Receive $50 (New Taiwanese Dollars – about $1.50) and have the other player get $10, receive $56 and have the other player get $30, or receive $49 and have the other player also get $49. The first option maximized the difference between the two players, the second option maximized the subject’s money, and the third option maximized the combined money. In the end, subjects who recalled shameful experiences were more likely than those who recalled anxiety-producing or neutral experiences to act in a self-interested manner.

Although the subjects in the study could only lift self-worth by being miserly, in a different situation a person might respond to shame by doing something positive (e.g. working extra hours.) The authors conclude:

The current research provides the first reported evidence to show that people experiencing shame tend to engage in self-enhancement to amend the threatened social self by maximizing their own and relative economic resources.

Unless you’re a bundler of shady mortgage-backed securities, your methods of  maximizing economic resources will often lead to outcomes that are personally and socially beneficial.

The key problem is that it’s hard to know how somebody will respond to changes in self-worth. They could work longer hours or do better on a test, or they could become anti-social and risk-averse. Ideally, one day we’ll have a concrete and widely applicable idea of what it is about people and types of changes in self-worth that induces a positive or negative response. We can then engineer situations, whether it be a 4th grade math test or a visit to the doctor, where a loss in self-worth leads to less unproductive behavior.
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Wang,C., Chen, Y., Chiou, W., & Kung, C. (2012). Shame for money: Shame enhances the incentive value of economic resources Judgment and Decision Making, 7 (1), 77-85