Nathan Taylor

Swimmer Nick D’Arcy knows what it is like to give in to his primal brain. He confessed to police moments after giving in to his base instincts, saying “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess it doesn’t though now.”

The failure of judgement resulted in D’Arcy receiving a suspended jail sentence of 14 months and 12 days and placed on a conditional good behaviour bond n 2009 after pleading guilty to recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm. He also lost his place on the Olympic swimming team for the 2008 Beijing games and was excluded from Australia’s world championship swimming team in 2009.

The consequences were even worse for the victim of D’Arcy’s moment of madness. D’Arcy has been convicted of assault for king hitting fellow swimmer Simon Cowley in a Sydney bar called The Loft in the early hours of March 30, 2008.

Cowley has had a number of operations in the three years since, the latest being a jaw alignment correction, had been in June last year, and he required plates in his face. Cowley’s lawyers claim he has spent $40,000 on medical expenses and had been forced to leave his job with WPS financial services because of the attack.

When your passions are high, it pays to take a deep breath and think again. And potentially again!

In a case of exquisite timing, the Australia ran an opinion piece where the commentator lamented that the gay marriage debate:

“is not just about rights but about the contestation of values and attitudes.”

The essence of Frank Furidie’s opinion piece was an objection to the ‘self righteousness’ that he perceived in proponents for same-sex marriage. His position is summed up by the quote:

“In the Anglo-American world, gay marriage has become one of those causes through which the cosmopolitan cultural elites define themselves and construct a moral contrast between themselves and ordinary folk. What’s really important for them is the sense of superiority experienced through the conviction that “we” are not like them.”

OH MY GOD!

I love the fact that Furidie’s principle argument is based on perceived ‘intolerance’ of his views. All I can say to him is “man up.” No one is actively discriminating against you. You suffer no negative consequences other than mild social condemnation. In contrast, those who seek to perpetuate discrimination do so from a personal belief in their own morality. They certainly do not have valid arguments to support their case.

Will Furdie’s next opinion piece be about all those poor maligned racists? They have strong views about the values and systems that should underpin Western societies. Perhaps he might argue for greater tolerance of misogynists? Not likely!

His conclusion about gay marriage:

“In such circumstances elite-sanctioned snobbish intolerance is no more acceptable than anti-gay prejudice.”

Actually there is a massive difference. Institutionalised bigotry has a profound impact on the mental and emotional health of those discriminated against. Check out my blog here. In contrast, being frowned at during a dinner party is, potentially, an opportunity to reassess your belief systems

The timing is fantastically ironic because on the same day that his op ed piece was published, the most populous state in the US (New York) passed marriage equality through its Republican controlled legislator. Check out this great post on the topic by Andrew Sullivan.

Personally, I don’t care about your views just don’t enshrine them in legislation. Or come to my dinner party!

Don’t sit there feeling bad, turn that frown upside down! So goes the inane adage that just might have a core of truth.

To test how blocking a frown might affect comprehension of language related to emotions, Psychologist David Havas asked the participants to read written statements, before and then two weeks after Botox treatment. The statements were angry (“The pushy telemarketer won’t let you return to your dinner“), sad (“You open your e-mail in-box on your birthday to find no new e-mails“) or happy (“The water park is refreshing on the hot summer day.”).

Havas gauged the ability to understand these sentences according to how quickly the subject pressed a button to indicate they had finished reading it. “We periodically checked that the readers were understanding the sentences, not just pressing the button,” says Havas.

The results showed no change in the time needed to understand the happy sentences. But after Botox treatment, the subjects took more time to read the angry and sad sentences. Although the time difference was small, it was significant, he adds. Moreover, the changes in reading time couldn’t be attributed to changes in participants’ mood.

The reason for the difference? Tiny applications of the powerful nerve poison Botox were used on 40 study participants to deactivate muscles in the forehead that cause frowning.

UW-Madison professor emeritus of psychology Arthur Glenberg described the findings as:

“Normally, the brain would be sending signals to the periphery to frown, and the extent of the frown would be sent back to the brain. But here, that loop is disrupted, and the intensity of the emotion and of our ability to understand it when embodied in language is disrupted.”

Glenberg went on to say:

“Even though it’s a small effect, in conversation, people respond to fast, subtle cues about each other’s understanding, intention and empathy. If you are slightly slower reacting as I tell you about something made me really angry, that could signal to me that you did not pick up my message.”

Not sure a few shots of botox will make much of a difference in his life…But it couldn’t hurt!

We like the sensation of warmth. We associate it with pro-social tendencies in others.

But why? The reason, like so many, comes down to breasts. Or at least the promise of nourishment.

Harry Harlow’s classic study into maternal-infant bonding in non-human primates found that macaque monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth surrogate mother rather than a wire mother. It was cutting edge stuff. This preference held even when the wire mother was the infant’s source of food (a bottle being attached to the wire) and the cloth mother was not.

Tellingly, the cloth and wire mothers differed in one important respect. The cloth (but not the wire) mother was a source of warmth as a 100 Watt light was placed in the cloth mom.

Harlow concluded that contact with the mom was a very important factor to the infant monkey, over and above her meeting nourishment needs. Furthermore, monkeys raised by the warm cloth mother showed relatively normal social development as adults, in stark contrast to the infants left alone with the wire monkey.

There is an important neurological component to the connection between warmth and pro-social tendencies. The insular cortex is implicated in processing both the physical and the psychological versions of warmth information (2008). First, the dorsal posterior insula is active during both temperature and touch sensation. For example, activity in the right anterior insular cortex was strongly correlated with normal participants’ reported perceptions of the thermal intensity of stimuli and warm thermal stimulation with a fomentation pack (as compared to neutral thermal stimulation) produced an increase in activation of the contralateral insular cortex, among other regions (2007). 

The insula is also involved in feelings of trust, empathy and social emotions of guilt and embarrassment. The insula is more highly activated after social exclusion or rejection than after social inclusion and acceptance and heightened activity in the region is associated with the rejection of unfair offers in an economic trust game (2003).

Recently, the severe mental illness of borderline personality disorder, characterized by a profound inability to cooperate with others, has been linked to a lack of differential responsiveness in the anterior insula to trustworthy versus untrustworthy behavior in economic game partners.

Basically, our brain is wired, from the breast, to perceive warmth as a defining characteristic of a positive person who will help us achieve our goals.

Reference

Harlow, H., Am Psychol. 13, 673 (1958).

Meyer-Lingenberg, A., Science 321, 778 (2008)

Sung, E. J. et al Int J Neurosci., 117, 1011 (2007)

N Eisenberger, M Lieberman, K Williams, Science, 302, 290 (2003)

Warmth engenders strong emotions in humans. Attachment theorists believe that the sensation of warmth is strongly associated with early caregivers in humans and other animals. As a consequence, a key criteria of our assessment of others will be the amount of ‘warmth’ that we associated with them.

Ever since Solomon Asch (1946) found that people form rapid impressions of someone’s perceived ‘warmth’ or ‘coldness’ it has been an area extensively studied. The study of social perception has found that people quickly assess whether someone is warm/cold and then proceed to assess their level of perceived ‘competency.’ (Cuddy et al 2008).

Research suggests that the ‘warmth/coldness’ assessment is an initial cognitive pass at seeing if someone can be trusted as a friend, or at least a non-foe.

The study by Lawrence E Williams and John A Bargh (2008) involved a cunning way of testing the influence of physical warmth on test subjects. They recruited 41 undergraduate white female students (with an average age of 18.5 years). Participants were assigned to one of two temperature priming conditions (ie they would be tested hot or cold.)

To test the study participants, a confederate bling to the study’s hypotheses met participants in the lobby of the psychology building, carrying a cup of coffee, a clipboard and two textbooks. During the elevator ride to the fourth-floor laboratory, the confederate casually asked participants if they could hold the coffee cup for a second while she recorded their name and the time of their participation. After the confederate wrote down the information, she took back the coffee cup. The temperature of the coffee cup (with hot coffee or a cup of iced coffee) was the only difference between subject manipulation.

When participants arrived at the experimental room, they received a packet containing a personality impression questionnaire.

People who briefly held the coffee cup were more likely to judge the individual as being warm (mean = 4.7 where 1 = cold and 7 = warm) than those who held the iced coffee (mean = 4.25). The coffee manipulation did not affect ratings on traits unrelated to the warm-cold dimension. The effect was specific to feelings of interpersonal warmth and was not a general mood or ‘halo’ effect.

The participants in the study showed no awareness of the influence of the warm/cold coffee on their judgments.

To ensure that the confederate did not influence the study (since she was aware of the different parameters of the experiment she may have treated participants differently) a second study was undertaken.

So the confederate was eliminated.

The second study involved 53 participants being asked to briefly hold either a hot or cold therapeutic pad under the guise of a product evaluation. After the study participants rated the effectiveness of either the hot or cold pad, they were given a choice of reward for participating in the study. The reward choice was the variable of the study.

The reward in the study constituted either a Snapple beverage or a $1 gift certificate to a local ice cream shop. These rewards were framed either as a prosocial gift to “treat a friend,” or as a personal reward for the participants themselves. The framing condition (ie which they would get and which they would give) was varied so that half of the participants got to chose between a Snapple reward for themselves and a gift certificate reward for a friend, and the other half chose between a Snapple reward for a friend and a gift certificate reward for themselves.

The theory was that those who ‘evaluated’ the hot pad would be more pro-social.

The result supported this hypotheses. Regardless of the type of gift, participants primed with physical coldness were more likely to choose the gift for themselves (75%) than the gift for a friend. Whereas those primed with physical warmth were more likely to choose the gift for a friend (54%) than the gift for themselves (46%0. There were no main effects of either temperature condition or framing condition on gift preference.

References

Asch, S. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 41, 258 (1946)

A J C Cuddy, S T Fiske and P Glick, Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol, 40, 61 (2008)

What happens to our bodies influences our thinking and understanding of the world around us. As I mentioned before, on one level this is blindingly obvious, but it is also surprising the exact degree to which it does influence thinking.

Holding a warm drink in your hand will make you assess someone else’s personality as being more sociable than holding a cold drink, other things being equal. A study at Yale University, conducted by Lawrence Williams, involved recruiting 41 college students and having them hold either a cup of coffee – either hot or iced – for 10 to 25 seconds. These students were then given a description of a person – Person A. This fictitious description included terms such as industrious, cautious and determined. The researchers then asked the participants to rate various qualities about the fictional person, including sociability and generosity.

Those who were holding hot beverage were more likely to perceive that person as more emotionally “warm” good-natured and in a positive light. In contrast, those who held an ice-cold beverage rated that same person as more unfriendly, selfish and antisocial.

In both cases the same false description was given yet the physical environment influenced evaluation of equivalent information.

“Participants who held the hot coffee cup rated this Person A as more generous, more social, happier, better- natured,” than those who held the iced coffee cup, Williams said.

So next time we catch up, let’s go for a coffee rather than a beer. I promise to be a nicer person!

This outcome is part of the research into embedded cognition, a growing field of study into the interactions between the mind and the body.

Just had to add a short note to the last post. There were some more quotes that were far too good to not post. They are:

Future plans? He has them:

I have a whole series of shows planned in my head. I will pull an airplane with my teeth, and I will pull an airplane with my hair. I will also be run over by an airplane. In between each of these acts, there will be lion battles.

How about training regime. Got that covered:

Al-Masry: How are you training for this specific event?

Essawy: By doing a series of mental exercises. Nothing physical, just brain-training. I visualize the fight for two hours at a time. I visualize the lion, and all the possible ways it could attack. Will it go for the head, or will it grab me by the feet? I ask myself these questions and visualize how I will dodge these attacks.

You may have heard about Man versus wild but here is something infinitely better. Man versus lion. I was crying when I read this interview.

For context, an Egyptian is being interviewed about his attempt to promote the tourism trade in his country. In particular, the journalist is interested in his notion that fighting a lion in a cage will boost tourism.

Here are some of the best quotes (out of many many more):

Al-Masry Al-Youm: When, and more importantly, how did you come up with this idea?

Al-Sayed al-Essawy: I discovered my incredible strength at the age of 13, and, almost immediately afterwards, promised myself that, one of these days, I would fight a lion. Since then, I’ve been thinking about the best way to go about it, and, after the revolution, with the economy the way it is, I’ve been given the perfect opportunity to realize my dream.

Al-Masry: You claim this event will revive the tourism industry. What makes you think anyone on earth would want to see this fight, let alone travel specifically for it?

Essawy: If America, or any other country, had a man with the ability to combat the strongest creature on the planet, they would properly promote him, and use his strength to their advantage. He would become a worldwide phenomenon, and people would come from their countries just to see him. This is what I want to do for my country. Do you understand what an amazing spectacle this will be? It will appeal to everyone. The Gulfis will watch and laugh, the Arabs will be entertained, and the Americans will be fascinated, from a scientific point of view. They will marvel at a truly unprecedented feat. This show will have something for everyone.

To prove the gentleman is not an intellectual genius, consider the following exchange:

-Masry: So, you’re not going to kill the lion?

Essawy: No. Unless it’s a matter of life or death, in which case I will be forced to kill it.

Al-Masry: When is fighting a lion not a matter of life or death?

Essawy: It’s up to the lion. If he chooses to withdraw, or surrender, and lets me tie him up, then I will not kill him and the fight will end.

But it is not just about the glory. It is also about Israel. Check out this exchange:

Al-Masry: What message are you trying to send?

Essawy: When I defeat the lion – which I will – I will pull an Israeli flag out of my pocket, and drape it over the lion, and put my foot on it. Israel led me to this, through all their atrocities which, as a child, I grew up watching on television. The message is that even though Israel and America may be as strong as a lion – the strongest creature on the planet – they too can be defeated.

Al-Masry: By you?

Essawy: By the Arab youth, which is about to explode. Soon, they will be ready to take on the mightiest foe.

Al-Masry: But, technically, the lion’s only fighting because you’re forcing it to.

Essawy: Yes. It’s a caged fight, so there will be nowhere for the lion to run. I have challenged the lion, and I will defeat it.

God it is a wonderful world!

Ouch my head hurts! I hate it when serious people attack straw men and then pretend they have made a concrete argument.

In the report How Many Jobs is 23,510 Really? Professor Chapman attempts to put into perspective a claim by the Minerals Council of Australia that a carbon price would cut the number of people employed in the mining industry by about 24,000.

Professor Bruce Chapman is the president of the Economic Society of Australia and director of policy at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Government, and stated:

“… the carbon price debate should have nothing to do with job-loss figures. The labour market issue should be seen to be irrelevant. It is not interesting, it is not something we should spend any further effort analyzing.”

The problem is that the issue of mining sector jobs is pretty trivial in the first place. The mining sector is experiencing the best terms of trade in over 100 years. Of course there will be a relatively trivial impact on its export competitiveness. Furthermore, the construction sector is where many of the ‘mining’ jobs are located – it takes more people to build infrastructure for mining projects than it takes miners to dig stuff out of the ground.

In contrast, other sectors of the Australian economy, notably manufacturing and tourism, are already struggling to be competitive. They are far more human capital intensive than the resources sector and will shed far more jobs than the mining sector if Australia adopts poorly designed carbon mitigation policies.

Which is what we are set to do.

This post is based on Chapman’s comments in the Age. I will follow up after reading the full report. If I can bring myself to read it!

The brain is housed in the body. An obvious statement, but one that bears repeating as it is very easy to underestimate the subtle, but powerful, influence that our physical condition has on our decision making.

Friendliness can be associated with the physical sensation of warmth. Take, for instance, the saying that someone has a ‘warm’ personality, by which we mean they are friendly and outgoing.

Metaphor-enriched social cognition is the academic term given to the way in which physical encoding of experience is a two way street. That is to say, we may call someone ‘warm’ if they are friendly but we will also judge someone as being friendly if we are warm. Academics Williams and Bargh, 2008, found that holding a warm cup of coffee made the subjects assess their conversation partners as being more friendly.

This is just the beginning. Merely priming participants with words related to cleanliness (eg pure) led them to make harsher moral judgements (Schnall, Benton and Harvey, 2008). Merely asking participants to first recall past transgressions led them to request antiseptic wipes (Zhong and Liljenquist, 2006). Merely inducing participants to think of stock markets as active agents (eg climbing) led them to think of price trends would continue (Morris, Sheldon, Ames, and Young, 2007).

These studies suggest that once a metaphor is activated, through embodiment, priming or something else it can influence the thinking of the people involved.

The academics Lawrence Sanna, Edward Chang, Paul Miceli, and Kristjen Lundberg (2011) examined the influence of ‘elevated height’ and ‘prosociality’. That is, will being on a high level induce greater levels of socialability? The reason is that they theorized that height conceptually represents ‘enhanced virtue’  across many cultures. This is why God is in heaven, which is in the heavens, whereas the devil is in hell – far beneath. Reincarnation involves being born into higher or lower levels of existence.

There are four studies they used to assess the impact of height on how people made decisions. More on those next!