Learning from mistakes

A recent MIT study found that people are far more likely to repeat mistakes rather than learn from them - and that it is our successes that we seem to gain the most insight from. Really interesting and somewhat counterintuitive. I think we assume or like to think that we'd learn from failure but apparently that is much harder to do!

In this blog post, addiction specialist Stanton Peele discusses the failure of programs like Scared Straight (where kids are exposed to hardened criminals in prison environments) to actually result in behavior modification. Again...as adults we assume that this would work - that a kid would not want that life. But, it doesn't.

It just demonstrates how important empirical data in the design of educational programs, and how lacking this is from our approach to teaching and learning.

Bifurcated Decision Making

The Dana Foundation today published an interesting and illuminating review of the book How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer.

The book, obviously, is all about how we make decisions and the emotional vs. rational processes that go into decision making. Mr. Lehrer apparently spends time discussing the different centers of the brain that are responsible for processing information that goes into decision making. Scott Heuttel's (the reviewer's) response to this is essentially, "Wait a minute - it's not so simple." His point is that recent research has indicated that rational thought is not eliminated when the prefrontal cortex is taken out of the decision making chain.

This is where I am lucky, in a way, not to have the PhD after my name. While I have to strike a balance between keeping things simple and not blowing up the science, I'm not expected to have the same background in neurology of these gentlemen. That said, I do discuss in detail the bifurcated decision making that happens in all of us - but my point of view if more focused on the genetic and instinctual vs. cognitive/rationale processes. And I'm not going to try and slice up which part of the brain handles each process - that's above my pay grade!

The Disease of Hatred

Wow two weeks since my last post, bad writer, bad!

As many people have, I have been following the latest media brouhaha about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates by the Cambridge police and the ensuing allegations of racism, which President Obama inadvertently (and dumbly) fueled in his press conference remarks.

The talking heads have been talking about this "disease of racism" which continues to scourge us. I would suggest - and this is to be explored at length in the book - that the disease isn't racism, that is a symptom. The disease is hatred - a trait that can be used with great destructive force.

I'm not talking about the kind of hatred of certain foods that stops you from eating them - or even the kind of hatred we might feel towards someone who has hurt us. The destructive disease of hatred comes from our human desire to destroy a group that is different and therefore perceived as threatening to our survival. It's the hatred of immigrants. It's the hatred of gay people. It's the hatred of Muslims.

These all come from the same place - that emotionally charged fear of the "other" - the other tribe which may encroach upon our territory. Human's are inherently afraid of those that are different and it causes us to hate them...which enables us to lose our empathy...which makes it easier to harm them. It's a pretty vicious cycle.

Video blog - A Marketer's Take

Thought vs. Action

I was going to do a video post today but I am on this new medication and it's making me a bit loopy! Not sure I would be entirely coherent on video. Hopefully the two cups of coffee and iced chai I've consumed will help me along in writing this...

I've spent the last few days transcribing my interview with Rabbi David Gelfand (yes I know it was 2 months ago!). While my book is a secular look at the seven deadly sins, I can't ignore the religious context nor the role of people's faith in guiding their morality.

On that topic I think the Rabbi made an important distinction between Christianity and Judaism which may be obvious to others but which lit up a lightbulb for me. Gelfand explained that one of the core differences between the two religions is in how they adress human sin. Christianity, he explained, believes that people at their core are sinful and that they must change their heart in order to act virtuously. Judaim, on the other hand, believes that people must act virtuously first in order to change themselves.

So, while a Christian can be guilty of sin just for thinking about it, a Jew isn't guilty unless they act sinfully - and it's changing how we act that can change how we think. The action comes first, rather than the character change.

The Jewish perspective on this really resonates with me...I do believe this discussion will make it into the book.

Current Events and the sin-traits

It's kind of amazing to watch the hoopla every time a politician is busted having an affair. The news this week of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford running off to Argentina to spend time with his lover is the latest in many, many scandals involving political figures and the lust trait.

Why does a church going guy like Sanford cheat? Why does a super-intelligent guy like Bill Clinton get caught with his pants down? It's this powerful sin-trait - this lust that drives intelligent, good people to do damaging things. I'm not excusing it - but my book will explain it.

In other recent new take the horrible crises happening in Iran right now. I, like many, was shocked when Ahmadinejad was reelected for President of Iran...and I had my doubts about the veracity of the election. I couldn't help but wonder if his desire for power - driven by the vanity trait - caused him and Khamenei to ignore the real count and announce his win. History is littered with examples of narcissistic sociopaths abusing the will of the people to serve their own needs. My interview with Steven Pinker highlighted some examples and the psychology behind this type of behavior.

The seven sin traits so affect what happens in society and do so much damage. I'm hoping that my book will shed a little more light on the subject and provide some useful actions we can all take to mitigate this damage.

Neurotic reality

I am reading Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death, a fascinating examination of human existence which one the Pulitzer's in 1974 (sadlly, two months after he died of cancer).

It's not an easy read - I've been picking it up and putting it down for a few months, actually. Just about every page could require a days thought if you were to let the mind dwell. I'm sorry this guy is no longer with us, he really has some amazing insights. Thankfully there is a foundation dedicated to his work.

One of my favorite areas of the book is Becker's analysis of human neurosis. He basically says (and cites many sources, his favorite being Otto Rank) that people develop neurotic tics and behaviors so that they can focus their attention away from the big questions of life and death and meaning and the terrible realities of human existence. He paraphrases a great Sigmund Freud quote where Freud essentially says, "when you cure the neurotic of their neuroses they are then faced with the far more terrifying prospect of dealing with reality."

I think there's a lot of truth in that.