The "Antidote" to positive thinking

I just finished reading Oliver Burkeman's book "The Antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking."  I recommend starting with an interview like this one, and then go for the book if you want more.  Hopefully, this post will give you all the "more" you need.

The basic message is simple, especially if you have been reading my blog or have studied human factors.  Life is relative.  We evaluate everything based on what we expect and have experienced in the past.  So people in really poor communities are often very happy because they focus on things that are good, like family.  Or they can compare their lives to reasonable expectations and have things come out just fine in comparison.  Similarly, wealthy people are often unhappy because they compare themselves to people who are even more wealthy or create extremely high expectations that they can't live up to (at least not on a regular basis).

This follows the principle of hedonic adaptation.  Hedonic adaptation is when a good thing becomes the norm and we start expecting it.  So we stop appreciating just how good it is.  It is essentially habituation to positive outcomes. 

Now consider this in light of the basic premise of positive thinking.  For any action there are a few possible outcomes.  If you visualize the one you want the most and expect it to happen, there are two possible results.  Either you get it, in which case you are happy but will eventually habituate to it.  Or you don't get it, and fail in comparison to your expectation - leading to self-identity dissonance (which I have blogged before as an unhappy state). 

If you are really visualizing the fantastic results that many positive psychologists recommend, then your odds are not very good in this game.  You will experience failure more often than success.  This can become a real burden on your self-identity and self-esteem.

His investigation for an alternative covers a variety of philosophies, ranging from Zen Buddhism to Stoicism.  He proposes focusing on means rather than outcomes.  Consider all of the actions you can take at the moment.  Whichever one is likely to have the best result, and only an acceptable downside for failure, is the one you should do.  And then whatever happens, it is the best outcome that was actually possible at that time.  Then start the process over again.  This not only means that you are very likely to have a good outcome, and therefore a positive experience and self-identity resonance, but it also helps you experience the moment because you are focusing on very short term goals. 

So the "antidote" to positive thinking is not negative thinking.  It is thinking about actions rather than outcomes.  And setting reasonable expectations (or no expectations at all if you can pull that off).  And if you need goals, make them short term and attainable. 

What I liked about the book is that he bases his arguments on some real research that is well footnoted.  What I didn't like is that he also uses a lot of anecdotes, which are just as much outliers and the positive psychology results he criticizes.

Self-identity resonance, primary and secondary skills, and commitment.

I really want to be good at Skill A (e.g. basketball or public speaking).  It is part of how I see myself.  It is part of my self-identity, which as I have discussed before (for example here and here) is powerful in driving behavior.  Behaviors that support your true self-identity are much easier to stick to, even when they are hard. 

But most skills require you to also develop secondary skills that on their own are pretty boring.  To be a good basketball player, you might have to practice free throws – shooting 100 per day and focusing on the boring mechanics that will lead to expertise.  To be good at public speaking you may need to build slide templates or practice where to put your hands.  These secondary skills are not part of your self-identity, so they are hard to commit to.  It is easy to take short cuts.  To quit early and do something else. To convince yourself that you have done enough already.  That developing this sub-skill is not really that important. 

So we know we want to be good at the primary task and are willing to dedicate ourselves to practicing.  But to develop expertise requires a lot of practice (10,000 hours is now the bestselling benchmark) and includes a deliberate and concentrated focus on the secondary skills as well.  How do you keep at it?  I have to admit, this is a personal weakness of mine.  There are a lot of skills I want to get better at, some of them important to my career or personal life.  But those secondary skills get in the way.  I haven’t figured out the secret of dedicating the mental concentration needed to build expertise in the boring parts.  If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Nature v nurture in intelligence

My previous post looked at cognitive training.  The main point was that training is effective, but of course only at improving tasks that are fundamentally based on the cognitive skill.  It is unrealistic to think that training on a specific cognitive skill would magically improve activities across the board.

This post is related, but perhaps even more important. 

There is a general finding that there is a strong genetic component inherent in the kinds of intelligence measured by IQ, SATs and similar tests.  But some recent research findings summarized in an April 8 Scientific American blog written by Scott Kaufman, especially a study by Nandagopal, Roring and Taylor, find that there is a powerful mediation from learning strategies.  Essentially, genetics has a strong impact on the strategies and techniques that people use to learn - and it is these strategies that have the strong effect on IQ and SAT performance.

Why this is important is quite simple.  If it was genetics that makes you smart (or not), then there wouldn't be much you could do about it.  Either you had it or you didn't. 

On the other hand, if genetics pushes some genetically endowed children to instinctively use particular learning strategies, which is what makes them perform well on IQ and SAT tests, then we have an alternative pathway.  We can teach all children to use these strategies and give them all the same advantages as those genetically endowed with the instinct.  All children become equally capable at developing their intelligence - at least the kinds measured by IQ and SAT tests.

The strategies that were identified by Nandagopal et al are not too complicated either.  Active learning strategies, making connections between new material and pre-existing schema, seeking help when needed, studying early (rather than cramming at the last minute) - these are not too complicated or earth shattering ideas. 

Pretty cool if you ask me.  These results suggest that we can level the playing field pretty easily with the right intervention.

Cognitive training and brain games

There has been a lot of controversy lately about the impact of cognitive training on tangible improvements in performance.  Specifically, I am referring to Gareth Cook’srecent piece in the New Yorker, Scott Kaufman’s article in Scientific American, and many heated debates in social media communities that cover this area. 

On one hand, there is a lot of evidence that many “brain games” are just marketing hype that sell electronic toys to parents for their kids in the hopes of developing the next Einstein and sell games to the typical consumer hoping to get a leg up in the workplace by improving their abilities.  Many of these games don’t really improve anything except the vendor’s bottom line.

On another hand, Scott Kaufman’s article cites many thorough, peer-reviewed studies that show specific benefits of cognitive training on performance.  Targeted training in working memory capacity really does improve working memory capacity.  So does this lead to tangible improvement in the real world?  Only for activities that rely on working memory.  But it turns out that high level reasoning does use working memory.  It takes good working memory to keep several hypotheses in mind, which is a key component of effective high level reasoning.  It is not a panacea to all cognitive activities but who would expect it to be?  Training your bicep muscle will make you stronger at some things, but is not going to improve your long distance running skills. 

Clearly, this is a rich area for future research and more work is necessary.  It demonstrates what we all should already know – that there are no shortcuts.  Getting better at something requires work.  Getting better at something that is multi-dimensional takes multi-dimensional (and thus a lot more) work. 

It also demonstrates something else we should all know.  When a company wants to sell you something, it may not work as well as advertised.  But that doesn’t mean the approach is fundamentally flawed.  Just because the brain games currently on the market don’t work all that well doesn’t mean that cognitive training is a failure across the board. 

So in the future, let’s take an honest approach to evaluating domains such as cognitive training and cognitive ability.  Don’t fall for the hype, but don’t disregard the positive results just because the hype is wrong. 

Posts on Ergonomics in Design

Sorry I haven't been posting much here, but it is because some of my latest have gone up at Ergonomics in Design - the applied journal published by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.  Here are links to that last few:

User Experience of Prosthetics:  http://ergonomicsindesign.hfes.org:8080/wordpress/user-experience-of-prosthetics.

Self Identity Resonance and Apologizing: http://ergonomicsindesign.hfes.org:8080/wordpress/self-identity-resonance-and-apologizing

Virtual Entitlement - License to Indulge:  http://ergonomicsindesign.hfes.org:8080/wordpress/virtue-entitlement-license-to-indulge.

In group out group biases

·         Babies (presocialization) have it with food preferences. Funny study – puppets that preferred the same food they liked (compared to another food) got helped or harmed by second puppet.  They liked the helper, not the harmer.  But the opposite happened when the first puppet preferred the other food better. They liked the harmer.  Studies show they notice/prefer same language to other language.  They notice gender but no research on prefer.  They don’t even notice race (yeah!).

·         Adults have it for race, gender, age, obesity – all the stereotypes.

·         Add UX Tribal Sides paper

There is an unconscious bias that can significantly impact how people interact with other people and how they interact with even modestly anthropomorphized UIs.  It is the in-group/out-group bias. 

·         When the other person/UI shares some attribute with us, we have a natural, unconscious affinity for them. 

·         When the other person/UI differs from us on this attribute, we have a natural, unconscious bias against them.  At the extremes this leads to racism, sexism, and other explicit, conscious, and even institutionalized and systemic prejudice, but that isn’t what I am talking about here.  I am talking about these subtle influences that we don’t even realize is impacting our thinking, but can impact our decisions and our behavior under the radar. 

At the most basic level, the in-group/out-group bias is adaptive because when we share attributes with someone, we are more likely to share basic values and preferences with them and will be better able to predict their behavior and interact with them more effectively.  So it makes evolutionary sense for us to gravitate towards entities who resemble us in ways that are somehow related to values, preferences, and behaviors.   And if they don’t share our values or preferences, watch out! But since we don’t really know what attributes about a person are relevant, this becomes a more general phenomenon – applying to any attribute that is salient.  You like the same music that I do – you must be OK. 

Then if you go out another degree of freedom, do you care how that person is treated?  If they are similar to you, and you instinctively like them, maybe you will also like a third or fourth person who treats that similar person nicely.  And perhaps you would instinctively like someone who treats the similar person poorly – maybe schadenfreude and maybe “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”   Or a combination.

So this brings me to a recent study by Kiley Hamlin and colleagues.  She looked at infants (9-month and 14-month) so the in-group/out-group biases that they show would have emerged before culture and socialization had a chance to influence what they found salient and considered relevant.  She wanted to see what bias we were born with.  She figured they would like similar and dislike dissimilar people, or in this case rabbit-looking puppets.  But what would they think of some dog-looking puppets that either stole a ball the rabbit puppet was playing with (the mean dog puppet), or helped them retrieve it and gave it back (the nice dog puppet). 

She started the study by determining which of two foods the infant preferred.  About half preferred a cracker and half preferred a green bean.  She then showed them a rabbit -looking puppet.   In one condition, the rabbit -looking puppet preferred the same food as the infant.  In the second condition, the rabbit -looking puppet preferred the other food.  This is not a huge difference, and certainly not something that should drive an instinctive in-group/out-group bias.  But what else do infants know about?

The dog puppet was then either nice to the rabbit puppet (giving the ball back) or mean (running away with the ball).    When the rabbit puppet had preferred the same food as the infant, the infant liked the nice dog puppet more than they liked the mean dog puppet, even though the nice or mean behavior was towards the rabbit - puppet, not them.  

But the results were reversed when the rabbit puppet preferred the other food.  In this case, the infant liked the mean dog puppet better.  If you take away the food preference part of the study, you would imagine that babies would like nice dog puppets and dislike or at least like less the mean dog puppets.  But for this “out-group” rabbit puppet (what a loser – he prefers THAT food !!), they already show a prejudice – liking it when a dog puppet steals hill ball. 

The effect was larger for the 14-month old infants, so it is something that culture teaches us.  But if it is ALL cultural, then somehow it starts earlier than 9-months old.  

Visibility

Visibility is often an important criterion for users to effectively interact with products and systems.  There are several categories:

Architecture: At the most basic level, architecture tells the user what the system can do and where to find different kinds of functionality and content.  It is important that the architecture is visible both literally (it can be seen) and semantically (the meanings of words, graphics, and images are straightforward).

Controls: Controls are how the user interacts with the system functionality.  As with architecture, controls need both kinds of visibility.


Content: There are many subcategories of content, but basically content is the information that users need to do effectively use functions, make decisions, and otherwise satisfy their objectives for using the system.

Today I just want to focus on the content.  With the proliferation of mobile devices we now have access to many more kinds of information in many more locations, often where traditional user interfaces are not appropriate.  And because our eyes are much bigger than our brains (figuratively), we always want more, potentially overwhelming our capability to process it.

But on the positive side, sometimes this access opens up new sources of value.  In the medical domain, InTouch Health is launching its RP Vita telepresence robot for use in hospitals.  The robot travels around the hospital and transmits information about patients to the controlling doctor.  In emergency response, the Kopin Golden-i Wireless Headset leverages the same kind of technology used in Google Glasses to give police, firefighters, and paramedics access to information in the field without disturbing their primary life-saving activities. 

But my favorites are the low tech products being developed for the general consumer.  I am drawn to this domain because doctors and emergency responders are willing to sit through training and exert some effort to use tech if it gives them useful functions.  Maybe not too much, but at least some.

But consumers are ruthless.  There is usually another option available if their first choice proves difficult.  Or they can just save their money.  So designers need to figure out exactly what information their target user will find useful and deliver it in a way that facilitates seamless decision making, ease of use, and user experience.

Many of you may know I am a diehard foodie.  Watching food network, inventing new concoctions, cooking, and eating.  One of my biggest grievances when I go out to eat is that the meal I get never resembles what the menu describes.  I have heard others with this same complaint.  Even if the food is good, when it doesn't meet expectations it is a disappointment.  If there is a photo on the menu, it is artistically "enhanced."  So I was particularly delighted to see the new Livmenu tablet application that allows users to see live versions of the food before ordering.  In theory, the app could be expanded to allow the diner to watch their meal being prepared.  This would help set expectations a little closer to what they are going to receive.

Thinking, concluding, and the magical diplomat.

It amazes me how often debaters think they are arguing about fundamental differences of opinion or values but really they are using different thought processes.  If they understood better the mechanisms behind their thinking, they might be better able at agreeing or coming to consensus rather than agreeing to disagree or even staying in constant conflict.  Lately, I see this in the debate between science and religion, climate change, the federal budget, gun control, and on and on.

So I am going to blog today about what these mechanisms are and hopefully help others (although probably not Congress) improve their debating and arguing skills. 

First, let’s talk about the three kinds of analysis.  These are orthogonal, which means they are fundamentally different.  If two people are using different analytical mechanisms, they might legitimately and correctly come to completely different answers to the same question.   

Empirical thinking:  This is the scientific method.  You start with a hypothesis, test it (using valid, reliable and sensitive research methods – which is a topic for another post), and your conclusions depend on a statistical analysis of the results.  You need to start out by operationalizing your variables; the nature of your test limits how generalizable your results are; and you are never 100% sure of anything.  The purpose of empirical thinking is usually to try to disprove your hypothesis rather than to prove them.  If you repeatedly fail to disprove it, you can have some confidence that it is true.

Logical thinking: This is what philosophers and mathematicians often use, but so do we all.  “If X then Y” is the starting point.  You start out with a premise or set of premises that you assume to be true.  Then based on those, and a series of logical operators like AND, OR, NOT, etc, you expand and extend the premises into conclusions.  If the premises are true and the logic is sound, the conclusions are necessarily true.  But if not, then the conclusions are not either.

Faith thinking:  This is where religion comes in, but also where a lot of logical premises and scientific generalizations start out as well.    Mathematicians and scientists often pooh pooh it as an equal mechanism to the others, but I have also read some pretty good exegesis that convinced me that it is.  Essentially, faith thinking is developing a conclusion based on something you KNOW is true deep down.  This is how logicians generate their premises and how scientists generate their hypotheses.  The difference is that faith thinking does this with the conclusions.  But since a logical argument fails when its premises are false and a scientific method fails when its hypothesis is false, a faith-based belief fails when it is false.  Why is that any different? 

OK, so if different analytical mechanisms can validly come to different conclusions, how do we resolve these differences?  There are two ways of combining conclusions.

Integrative Thinking:  Is there a way we can combine the two conclusions so that the sum is true?  Logic tells me that the more calories I eat, the more I will weigh.  But the latest endocrinology scientific findings say that it is much more complicated than this.  If we put them together, we can conclude that all other things being equal, eating more equals weighing more.  But if you eat more protein and monounsaturated fat and a little less processes sugar, you can lose weight because of chemical processes in the liver.  A really cold winter would logically tell me that climate change is not occurring yet, but longitudinal science tells me that it is.  If we put them together, we can conclude that the average temperature of any given winter goes up and down up to 5 degrees in any given year/location, so if the worldwide temperature is on a 0.5 degree per year increasing trend, it would be masked by the variance.

Dialectic Thinking:  Sometimes we can’t, or don’t want to, integrate two conflicting conclusions.  Faith tells me that there is an omniscient, omnipotent deity but science and logic tell me that there is not.  Personally, integrating the two would devalue them both.  What makes my personal belief in G-d meaningful is exactly the fact that I can’t prove it.  It is the faithful belief that makes it valuable.  So instead, I can believe in G-d when I need motivation, faith, and inspiration.  And when I am in the secular environs, I can believe that everything that happens in the world has a scientific explanation based on basic physics, chemistry, and the occasional social science phenomenon.   Because these are incompatible, I can’t apply them at the same time to the same situation I find myself dealing with.  But why should I be forced to do that?

Perhaps I can believe fundamentally that people have the right to bear arms.  But I can also believe that the world would be a safer place if we pass scientifically-tested limits on gun ownership.  I can suspend my faith based belief to produce a better society, while still believing that it is fundamentally true.  This is dialectic.

I can have plenty of scientific and logical evidence that a certain tax and spending formulation would lead to faster economic growth and eventually lift all boats.  But I can also believe that in the short term, we can’t let people starve while they are waiting for their tide to come in.  So I am willing to sacrifice some growth now to prevent these consequences, accepting that society will be worse off as a whole thirty years from now.  This is integrative.

Just for fun, next time you hear a talking heads debate in the news or around your dinner table where the debaters (combatants) can’t come to any agreement – see if you can use this framework to figure out why and play the role of miraculous diplomat who magically figures out an answer that makes everyone happy.    

And post them in the comments.

The low-tech smart home

We can always count on my buddy Piers Fawkes at psfk.com to draw out some great ideas.  He blogged about some LifeEdited design ideas that got me thinking. These ideas are not from his blog, but are based on what zipped through my mind as I was reading it. 

The main point of the blog is that many of us are living in smaller spaces, so leveraging that space is really important.  Many people these days automatically gravitate towards technology solutions, but LifeEdited is looking at modularizing the space using the standard hardware – walls, furniture, appliances – but in creative ways. 

Let’s start with the walls.  The example from LifeEdited is to have a sliding wall separating the living room/den and the guest bedroom.  So when you all go to sleep, you can slide the wall and make more bed/less den space.  If the bed is integrated into the sliding wall Murphy Bed style, you can really take this to extremes.  If you have some wardrobe/cabinet space also integrated into the sliding wall, you can slide the wall almost to the end when the room is not in use.  Huge difference in living space during the 350 days a year and 16 hours a day you don’t need it.

Let’s think even more broadly.  What if you could move the walls that separate apartments?  The logistical challenges of negotiating this might be too much in general, but for those new buildings that cities are envisioning that are only 300-600 square feet, this could be useful.  When I want to entertain, I can slide the wall over and take up half of my next door neighbor’s space and vice versa.  After all, I don’t really use that much of my den space on most days.  I am either at work, out, chlling on the couch watching TV, or something else that could easily use a smaller size than even a normally small den.  You could prevent fights by having an on-line negotiation agent system (lots of other blogs on this so I will leave it out – but think of a reservation system with an auction facility for popular days and if ever both people insist on their space, you just leave the wall in the normal position). 

OK, now let’s move on to furniture.  I mentioned already the idea of folding furniture down from the walls Murphy Bed style.  What else can we do in this regard?  You could easily fold down a table desk, even in your bedroom.  Drawers can be hinged so they are accessible in folded up and folded down modes.   The kitchen table is another no-brainer for this one. 

Then there is the slide in drawer model.  You could slide a table top out of the wall or other infrastructure instead of folding it up.  This could give you modular counter space, extra table leaves, or desktop space.  You could also move the “stuff” that most apartments keep outside into a pull-out system that you only pull out when you want to display it or access it.  You could integrate a spice rack into a cabinet and slide it out when you are cooking.  You could integrate a desktop office supply dispenser and slide it out when you are working. 

What about a stackability model?  You could use stackable chairs to save a lot of space normally wasted around a dining room table or even living room.  You would need to create nicer designs than current stackables that are kind of cheesy-looking, but the engineering part is not too complicated.

Finally, let’s move on to appliances.  Admittedly, using some of these ideas might reduce the quality of the cooking capabilities, but they are at least places to start.  The blog post suggests using portable burners instead of a stove.  You pull out the burners when you need to cook and put them in the closet to get more counter or table space.  How about a long, thin fridge that can be integrated into a wall when not in use? 

One other topic that Piers relates is a public/private idea.  You could use this to share space with your neighbors or if you host AirBnB/Couchsurfing kinds of activities.  Within your guest room, you could have a combination of locked and open closets/drawers/cabinets that allows you to give some guests access and others not.  In a shared hallway you could have cabinets and storage spaces that you trade off with your neighbors as needed by trading a key or using a web-based password entry with the same reservation system I mentioned above.  Lots of possible ideas here.

So what do you think?  Are you ready to go live in a 200 square foot studio in downtown Manhattan to save some serious money (rent or mortgage)?  If it is designed effectively, I think it would work.  But in this case, effectively is not about the engineering, but in understanding the wide variety of user scenarios and cases that would HAVE to be supported.  As soon as an important social, business, or personal event delivers a disappointing experience you lose.  

But on the positive side, these ideas reduce the required space, energy, materials, and more that you need to live in any living space but most importantly for cities where real estate is expensive.