I am reading a book called "You are now less dumb" by David McRaney. Like Incognito, it is a brilliant work on the inner workings of the brain. It is so filled with Aha! moments that I am having Ahagasms. Repeatedly.
Take for instance, the section on subjective optimization. A couple of psychologists set up this study where a bunch of students enroll for a photography course. The instructor tells the students to take pictures of what they find the most memorable and beautiful moments of their university life and to showcase two of the best pictures from the lot. This is before the time of widespread use of digital cameras, smartphones, Instagram, etc. The students develop film rolls (you remember those things from the ancient past?). And this is where the scientists come with a twist. They split the students into two groups. One group is asked to choose one of the two photos which will be printed out and given to the students as souvenir. The other photo will be left behind with the instructors (and they will have no copy of it). Essentially, the student has to pick photo A or photo B then and there and he or she gets to keep the picture they chose and not the other which is lost forever.
With the other group, the scientist offers the same choice between photo A and B but they get to take their time and even reverse their decision once it has been made.
A little whiles later, the two groups are asked about their choice. The group that was forced to make a pick instantly across the board expressed happiness about their pick. The lost photo was forgotten. They had settled for one and it was the right one. On the other hand, the group that was allowed time to choose were more likely to be unhappy about their choice and were filled with regret. Maybe they should have picked the other one. They wished that they could go back in time and change their choices.
As McRaney puts it, "Getting locked into a situation with no hope of escape activates subjective optimization", i.e. "seeing life as it is as being the best that it could be" . This great tool of the psychological immune system makes what you get stuck with seem better than that which you no longer can obtain. Scientists find that it is relatively very easy to induce subjective optimization in a lab setting; offer the participant a series of possible outcomes and rig the system to ensure that they get a crappy outcome and observe how that suddenly changes to a desirable outcome as if by magic.
The book further explores this topic with another study on song choices and I am sure there are plenty of research papers in this field. But the Aha! moment for me was that this explains the relative success of arranged marriages. The strictly confined choice of partner allows the mind to make metaphorical lemonade out of lemons. They are more likely to be happy with the person they are stuck with than a system where people are free to choose their partners (and change their minds). Folks who marry someone out of their volition will be more likely to rue their choice and wonder if they made a mistake by not choosing this girl or that guy from their past. That is not to argue for or against arranged marriage but one more piece of the puzzle falls into place. I understand it better.
Take for instance, the section on subjective optimization. A couple of psychologists set up this study where a bunch of students enroll for a photography course. The instructor tells the students to take pictures of what they find the most memorable and beautiful moments of their university life and to showcase two of the best pictures from the lot. This is before the time of widespread use of digital cameras, smartphones, Instagram, etc. The students develop film rolls (you remember those things from the ancient past?). And this is where the scientists come with a twist. They split the students into two groups. One group is asked to choose one of the two photos which will be printed out and given to the students as souvenir. The other photo will be left behind with the instructors (and they will have no copy of it). Essentially, the student has to pick photo A or photo B then and there and he or she gets to keep the picture they chose and not the other which is lost forever.
With the other group, the scientist offers the same choice between photo A and B but they get to take their time and even reverse their decision once it has been made.
A little whiles later, the two groups are asked about their choice. The group that was forced to make a pick instantly across the board expressed happiness about their pick. The lost photo was forgotten. They had settled for one and it was the right one. On the other hand, the group that was allowed time to choose were more likely to be unhappy about their choice and were filled with regret. Maybe they should have picked the other one. They wished that they could go back in time and change their choices.
As McRaney puts it, "Getting locked into a situation with no hope of escape activates subjective optimization", i.e. "seeing life as it is as being the best that it could be" . This great tool of the psychological immune system makes what you get stuck with seem better than that which you no longer can obtain. Scientists find that it is relatively very easy to induce subjective optimization in a lab setting; offer the participant a series of possible outcomes and rig the system to ensure that they get a crappy outcome and observe how that suddenly changes to a desirable outcome as if by magic.
The book further explores this topic with another study on song choices and I am sure there are plenty of research papers in this field. But the Aha! moment for me was that this explains the relative success of arranged marriages. The strictly confined choice of partner allows the mind to make metaphorical lemonade out of lemons. They are more likely to be happy with the person they are stuck with than a system where people are free to choose their partners (and change their minds). Folks who marry someone out of their volition will be more likely to rue their choice and wonder if they made a mistake by not choosing this girl or that guy from their past. That is not to argue for or against arranged marriage but one more piece of the puzzle falls into place. I understand it better.
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