Watch this fantastic short clip by the great (Israeli) Daniel Kahneman to see what insights Psychology can offer into the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Looking at the issue from the point of view of Israel, Professor Kahneman says that peace is difficult – very difficult. Here is why:
Power imbalance [1:07]: A power imbalance makes the powerful look down on the powerless (indeed, according to N. Epley (Epley 2014, Ch. 3), it often leads us to dehumanize our powerless adversaries), they are less empathetic, prone to contempt and they have a sense of entitlement. Israel is by far the more powerful party. Habituation [2:53]: We very easily ‘habituate’ to a certain state of affairs – thinking that it is going to last forever. Israel enjoys a number of privileges it would have to give up in order to attain peace. It is very hard to do that. Loss aversion [4:45]: Losses (esp certain and immediate losses) loom larger than benefits (esp uncertain, future benefits). If Israel struck a deal now, it would have to give up a number of things (not least territory it has occupied, not to mention the settlements) and hope that this might translate into peace and good-neighbourliness in the future. The right to self-defence [6:20]: Whenever there is a conflict, we perceive ourselves as the injured party, simply responding to aggression, insults etc. It is never the other way round. Not once has any of the two sides admitted that they were the initiators.
Disproportional retaliation: Another great Jew (E. Aronson) quotes research showing that it is all but impossible to restrain our tendency for excessive retaliation (Tavris & Aronson 2007 – p. 192). Time and again, our brain magnifies the other party’s offences and our own deeds seem insignificant by comparison. Attribution [7:38]: We act in the way we act because of the circumstances; the other side however acts the way they do because of their nature – because they cannot help it (e.g. ‘Because they are anti-semites’ etc. – Palestinians also perceive Israelis as racists). This is such a common phenomenon, there is a special term for it: the Fundamental Attribution Error. Mistrust [8:05]: Psychologically, we don’t mind so much if we miss an opportunity (e.g. to achieve peace). We do mind an awful lot however if we choose to trust the other party, we take a step towards reconciliation (e.g. by dismantling a settlement or releasing prisoners) and then we feel that this is turned against us (instead of appreciated).
So – what is to be done? Professor Kahneman says there is little hope in trusting that there will be a gradual change of attitudes among the Israeli people (or the Palestinians come to that). What is needed here is leadership – someone who will help steer the nation in the direction of peace. Will the Israelis manage this? The best answer perhaps is a Hebrew word from the Old Testament: ‘timshel’ ( = thou mayest).
References
Epley, N. “Mindwise” Allen Lane 2014
Tavris, C. & Aronson, E. “Mistakes were Made (But not by Me)” Pinter and Martin 2008
Look at this graph. I have to say, when I first saw it, it completely blew my mind. OK, I had read about these things before, but the elegance and conciseness of the diagram is amazing!
There are 4 key elements worth noting: a) the way we see the future is NOT realistic – on average, we assume things will pan out better than they will b) people who see reality as it is, are classified as clinically depressed! c) on average, men’s perception of the future is substantially more optimistic than that of women; d) (some) leaders are even more extreme cases – they are borderline ‘delusional’!
a) This is one of the 3 key ‘positive illusions’ *. On average, we tend to think that things are likely to improve in the future. It seems that there is an evolutionary explanation behind this. If you are (slightly over-) confident, you try harder and you take chances because you believe you are going to be successful – it seems that ‘optimists’ out-reproduced ‘realists’ in the past.
b) It may be that the Eeyores of this world are actually the realists! But, you may say, now that we know this, aren’t we going to become depressed as well? Fortunately, the answer is ‘No’. It seems that the ‘rose-tinted’ spectacles with which we gaze at the future are riveted in place and cannot be removed; think of the Muller – Lyer optical illusion: does the fact that you know the lines are of equal length help you see them differently?
c) Study after study has shown that men tend to take greater risks than women – clearly, overconfidence has a lot to do with it. That is why men are over-represented in extreme sports and in high-risk jobs (e.g. stockbrokers). This also explains why women (on average) tend to prefer the security that state jobs offer. (It does NOT explain why they still get less money than men for the same work…) Again, Evolutionary Psychology seems to provide a good account of why this should be so. According to R. Baumeister, historically, men have been under greater selection pressures than women. To put it another way, compared to women, fewer men were proportionally a lot more reproductively successful. So, to succeed, a man had to take greater risks and to have an (often unjustified) faith in himself (Baumeister 2010 – p. )
d) As Leslie points out (2011 – p. 222) leaders seem to possess this trait to an even higher degree. This makes sense of course; presumably a leader has the self-confidence to put himself through the grueling process which is the political ‘cursus’ (‘climbing the greasy pole’) in the first place and, to become a leader, they have to have some successes under their belt, which may also go to their head. This could potentially be dangerous; it seems that confidence is like wine; in moderation it can be good, but in excess it can lead to disaster – and in the case of leaders, they may drag whole nations along (see the extreme end of the graph…)
* The other two are that we think we have more control over reality than we actually do, and that (of course) we are ‘better than average’ in just about everything! 🙂 (Sarot 2012).
Have you ever seen a girl do a wheelie? If you do, please let me know… 🙂 Although this question may seem unrelated to this article, this is far from being the case. The connection first struck me while I was looking at the list of speakers at the TESOL 2009 Convention – it occurred to me that in a female-dominated field, the male speakers were rather numerous – in fact the ratio was almost 50 – 50%. And when it came to the Plenary Speakers, the ratio was 3:2 – 3 men to 2 women that is!! So here is the answer to the original question: Men are far better than women at showing off! And chances are, they will always be! 🙂 Here is Professor Alice Roberts before we return to ELT:
What do the figures show? As everyone knows, in the field of ELT men [M] are an endangered species and TESOL Greece membership reflects this. Apparently 85% of our members are women [W] while only 15% are M. When it comes to speakers however, things are not like that at all; over the past few years the speaker ratio at TESOL Greece Conventions was roughly 50 – 50% while for the plenary speakers the figures were 52% M to 48% W. Information I got from TESOL Macedonia – Thrace paints a slightly different picture: during the past 15 years there have been 35 W Plenary Speakers compared to 69 M! Whatever the case, it is obvious that there is a huge discrepancy between the ratio of members and speakers. And the question is – ‘Why’?
Why does this happen? [1]: Ask anyone who has been inculcated with the central belief of the Standard Social Sciences Model (Crawford & Krebs 2008) that any observable difference between M and W is attributable to the environment, and they will come up with an impressive array of plausible-sounding answers: W are held back by the demands of their second ‘career’ at home / there is a ‘glass ceiling’ even in ELT / W are socialised to be less ambitious than M etc. No doubt there is an element of truth in all of these – particularly the first one. However I believe this is only a small part of the answer (for a brilliant and most informative book on the subject see Browne 2002).
Why does this happen? [2]: So let us now turn to the real reason: M are programmed by evolution to show off. In the vast majority of higher life forms (e.g. reptiles, birds and mammals), the female is the investing sex when it comes to reproduction and W are no exception. Because of this, it is the males who display (e.g. peacocks, bower birds etc.) and the females who choose (Forsyth 2001). So, the males need to stand out. What is more, in very many species the few successful males mate with most of the females (ibid.) while the fate of the others is genetic oblivion – hence the need to stand out becomes even more imperative!
The animal world: Do males display in the animal world? Of course they do! And I am not just talking about mating displays aimed directly at females like the spectacular ones by some birds of paradise; male animals display in more subtle ways too. Male chimpanzees hunt monkeys, but they tend to do so even more when fertile females are present! (Miller 2001) Zahavi (1997) has discovered that among Arabian babblers (a species of bird) males actually fight each other for the right to do guard duty for the community! This task is highly ‘altruistic’ since it means both that they cannot feed and that they are more at risk from predators – but of course it also results in higher status and therefore more ‘girls’! M too are far more likely to perform ‘heroic deeds’ for others and not because they are great altruists! (Winston 2002)
Men, Women and ELT [1]: Let us go back to the ‘Why?’ in our initial ‘mini-research’. Is it that M in ELT and better than W? Of course not * – if anything it is the other way round! (Pinker 2002) But the motivation is different. When a W decides to give a talk, it may be because she thinks it will promote her career, or because she is excited about something and wants to share her ideas and enthusiasm with other colleagues. With M it is all this plus something much more important; every female in the audience is a potential mate! The M may be unaware of this factor, but it is there all the same. And this is reflected in their delivery too. Compare the straightforward, sensible style of someone like, say, Olha Madylus with the brilliant flamboyance of someone like Cliff Parry!
Men, Women and ELT [2]: Nor is this male desire to stand out manifest only in the relative number of speakers. Men constantly seek positions of high status in all fields (Vugt & Ahuja 2010) and ELT is no exception**: Consider this: out of 41 State School Advisors 10 are M! And what about the private sector? 15 out of the 41 local PALSO Associations are headed by M! The ratios are 25% and 36% respectively. You want further proof? Go to your bookcase. Take out any Teacher’s Handbook you want. Now look at the ‘Other Titles’ list and count the names of the authors. I did this for two books published in 2009. Here are the results: OUP: 24 M vs 20 W – CUP: 34 M vs 12 W. I rest my case…
Other examples: Everyday instances of M showing off abound. Take language for instance: Who tells the most jokes in groups? – M do! Who were the greater orators in the past – and who are the greatest rappers of today? – M naturally! (Miller 2001). It is no accident that verbal ability is the feature most strongly predictive of leadership potential (Vugt & Ahuja 2010). And what do M talk about? – themselves of course! (65% of the time while for W the figure is 42% – Dunbar 2004). Interestingly, M also tend to talk about more intellectual topics – when W are present! (ibid. – any resemblance to chimps is purely coincidental! 🙂 )
By now you must have figured out why it is boys who do wheelies and not girls… Here is the reason in a nutshell: M show off to W because evolution has designed the former to be aggressive sexual advertisers, while the latter comparison shoppers! (Barash 2001). This is also the reason why M talk and talk and talk – preferably in public! And if some of them do not even know what they are talking about, this only goes to show that ‘the reach of their display often exceeds their grasp’! (Miller 2001) [ Hmmm… I’m not quite sure I like this last bit… I think I’d better stop here…. 🙂 ]
* But we think we are – and not just in language either! 73% of American M but only 57% of W think they are better than average in terms of intelligence (Chabris & Simons 2010).
**For an amazing debate as to why M are over-represented at the highest levels in academia (and other fields) you simply must watch Pinker vs Spelke (just click here).
References
Barash, D. & Lipton, J.E. “The Myth of Monogamy” Freeman 2001
Browne, K. “Biology at Work” Rutgers University Press 2002
Chabris, C. & Simons, D. “The Invisible Gorilla” Harper Collins 2010
Crawford, C. & Krebs, D. [eds.] “Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology” Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 2008
Dunbar, R. “Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language” Faber & Faber 2004
Forsyth, A. “A Natural History of Sex” Firefly 2001
Miller, G. “The Mating Mind” Vintage 2001
Pinker vs Spelke 2005 [www.edge.org]
Pinker, S. “The Blank Slate” Penguin 2002
Vugt, M. & Ahuja, A. “Selected” Profile Books 2010
Winston, R. “Human Instinct” Bantam Books 2002
Zahavi, A. & Zahavi, A. “The Handicap Principle” Oxford 1997
Why Questions?: One of the problems with teaching Grammar is that all too often the only thing we do in class is simply language manipulation activities. Students do not get the chance to actually use the new language forms in any meaningful way. Yet another problem is that we tend to focus on one structure at a time, whereas in real life we very rarely encounter, say, the Third Conditional or the Passive Voice in isolation. On top of that, and more importantly perhaps, students very rarely get to practice asking questions (Qs) as in most exam situations they find themselves being questioned – or rather interrogated! The following activities should improve the situation somewhat…
The Yes-No Game: This is one of my favourite games! The idea is very simple: students work in pairs. One of them bombards their partner with questions (most of them of the ‘Yes/No’ type, but they also throw in some ‘Wh- Qs’ as well). The other person has to reply immediately, but they cannot say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. If they do so, they lose. The whole process lasts one minute. For the students to get a taste of the game, it is best if they get a demonstration first – so just play the clip below:
Questions – Questions: [See the ‘Sample Materials’ file at the bottom of the post] The initial appeal of this activity is the challenge to find the Qs hidden as they are in the ‘paragraph’. Having identified them, students then have to match them to the answers below. This is a necessary step as they then have to ask each other these Qs by looking at the answers alone – which means they have to construct the Qs themselves! An added bonus is that these are personal Qs, which means this is an excellent ice-breaker for the beginning of the year. [Adapted from Kay & Jones 2000 – p. 1C]
Spot the Differences:[See the ‘Sample Materials’ file at the bottom of the post] This is an information-gap activity. Here students have to spot the differences between two near-identical tests by asking Qs (they cannot look at each other’s text). Once again students have to formulate these Qs themselves (e.g. ‘When was A. Scott born?’ [see sample materials below]). By varying the text we can focus on a different GR point – e.g. in this text it is the Q form of Past Tenses. The fact that all the Qs relate to the same thing (in this case the life history of A. Scott) lends coherence to the whole activity. [Adapted from Watcyn-Jones 1995 – p. 90]
Ask the Right Question: [See the ‘Sample Materials’ file at the bottom of the post] Students simply love this game – perhaps because it reverses the normal course of things, as normally we start with the Q in order to get an answer! Again, this is an information-gap activity. The idea is this: student A has a set of words/expressions. They have to ask Qs in such a way as to elicit these specific items (e.g. A: [has the word ‘tennis’] ‘Which sport is Federer great at?’ [see sample materials below]). The more such words/phrases they get their partner to come up with in a certain amount of time (say 1 min) the more points they score. The diverse nature of the words / expressions means that students are forced to come up with a great range of different Q types and its brisk pace ensures high student involvement. [Adapted from Watcyn-Jones 1995 – p. 70]
Last Words: These activities can be used independently or as one complete lesson. Notice that all four of them are actually ‘Tasks’ in the sense that the object is not language manipulation; the students’ aim is ‘extra-linguistic’ (e.g. to spot the differences or to score more points than their partner). This has huge motivational value. Setting this aside however, I believe an additional benefit is the psychological one – helping students feel more comfortable about asking Qs, especially since research shows that this is something non-native speakers are reluctant to do in NS – NNS interactions. But perhaps the greatest benefit is to make students realise that the word ‘Grammar’ need not be a synonym of the word ‘boredom’! 🙂
Kay, S. & Jones, V. “Inside Out – Resource Pack [Intermediate]” Macmillan 2000.
Watcyn-Jones, P. “Grammar Games and Activities for Teachers” Penguin Books 1995.
Do you think a woman’s place is in the home? Do you think gay marriage is an offence against both nature and God? Do you think all immigrants should be deported pronto? Whatever it is we happen to believe – however silly – we are of course convinced we are right. Not only that however; it turns out we also think most other share our views!
Professor Nicholas Epley carries out the same fascinating study every year with his MBA students. He gives them a list of ‘Ethically Questionable Practices’ (see table below) and asks them to say whether they think they are morally ok or not. Most people think they are not. But there is a twist in the study; students are also asked to estimate what percentage of people share their views. Most people who think these practices are unacceptable believe (correctly) that most others share their views. But here is where it gets interesting: the others, the students who are actually in the minority, also believe that most people agree with them! Look at the last column in the table; while only 6% of students think it is ok to pirate software from work and install it on your home PC, these people actually think that most others (56%) share their view! Epley concludes that our natural tendency is to assume others interpret the world as we do [Epley, N. “Mindwise” – Allen Lane 2014, p. 101].
[You can see why this may be a problem here on FB for instance. Say you are the moderator of a particular FB page and you have come to the conclusion that a particular policy is the best for the group. Of course you could ask what other people think about it, but why go to all that trouble? Clearly most people can see that your decision is the best… 🙂 After all, if people object they are free to express their views later. But here is the thing: in most cases, they won’t. This is where another phenomenon (‘Pluralistic Ignorance’) kicks in. Most people may actually disagree with your decision, but they think along the lines of ‘Well, perhaps most others agree with the moderators… After all, nobody has said anything…’ And so it goes… The combination of these two factors can help explain an awful lot about how minorities often come to dominate the public debate – and why, very often, there simply isn’t any public debate at all…]
The study design was amazing: subjects (both M and W) were invited to the lab. They worked individually. The instructions were simple – ‘You just sit in front of a computer and you solve mazes’. Subjects were divided into two groups; one was paid $1 for every maze they solved, but with the other group the deal was different; the task was the same, but there was a competitive incentive. You had to compete with another participant. If you solved, say, 10 mazes and they solved 15, they got proportionally more money (e.g. they got $20 and you only got $5). The Q was this: would M in the competitive situation solve more mazes than M in the non-competitive one? And what about W?
No answers yet… 🙂 The researchers then posed another interesting Q: let us say that M perform better in the competitive condition. Is this because of ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’? To find out they ran similar studies * in one of the most patriarchal cultures of the world (the Masai in Africa) and in one of the very few cultures (the Khasi in India) which is in some ways female-dominated. The Khasi society is matrilinear and inheritance flows through mothers to the younger daughters. Would the results turn out to be different? They were. You can see them in the chart below.
Here is the researchers’ conclusion: ‘Our study suggests that given the right culture, women are as competitively inclined as men, and even more so in many situations. Competitiveness, then, is not only set by evolutionary forces that dictate that men are naturally more so inclined than women. The average woman will compete more than the average man if the right cultural incentives are in place’. [Gneezy, U. & List, J. “The Why Axis” Random House 2013 – pp. 52-53]
( * The task used in Africa and India was a different one [throwing tennis balls into a bucket from a distance of 3m, but this is not relevant; what is important is the difference in performance in the two experimental conditions).
Why do we do what we do? Well, a number of answers spring to mind ‘Because it is the right thing to do’ or ‘Because we like it’ or ‘Because we have to’. All these explanations are reasonable of course, but what if there is another one? What if the reason we do something is that we just happened to do it at some point in the past?!?
Imagine this scenario: you are walking down the street, you are a bit tired, you are in a bit of a hurry – you are also badly in need of caffeine. Normally you have coffee at ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’, but this is a few blocks away and you happen to walk past this place you have never been to before – ‘Starbucks’… I will let the great Ariely continue the story…
This simple observation is one of the most profound discoveries in the field of Social Psychology: Our brain is lazy; we don’t want to seriously sit down and think about each and everything we do every day. Instead, we rely on heuristics. One of the most potent heuristics is this: ‘What did I do last time?’ Never mind that last time I was in a hurry and ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’ happened to be away; we don’t remember these things – instead we remember what we did. And then what do we do? We ‘line up behind ourselves’ and do the same thing!
Not only that; according to Psychologist Daryl Bem, we also change our beliefs and attitudes so that they are consistent with our new behaviour pattern! ‘For many things, our attitudes come from actions, that led to observations, that led to explanations, that led to beliefs’ (McRaney 2013 – p. 60). Common sense says the chain of causation is: ‘I like films = I go to the cinema’; Bem says: ‘I go to the cinema = I must like films!’
This of course has huge implications for us: if we can get our students to act in certain ways (e.g. be responsible, punctual, participate actively, behave in a pro-social way) initially, chances are they are going to carry on acting in the same manner and they are going to adjust their self-perception accordingly!
Consider the following study which is a classic in its simplicity: Psychologist Jack Brehm asked a number of children to rate how much they liked a long list of vegetables. He then told them that he wanted to see whether they might think differently after they had eaten them. So he asked them to eat, say, broccoli three times a week for the next few weeks. Each child was served with the particular vegetable which they had listed as the one they hated the most. A month later, Brehm again asked the same children to rate the items on the original list. Sure enough, the ‘despised’ veggies had moved up in the students’ preferences! Cognitive dissonance theory allows us to reconstruct what might have gone on inside the children’s head ‘Here I am, regularly eating this stuff – without being forced. Either I am a fool, or it’s not actually so bad’. Which of the two options would be the more appealing to them?
In fact, there are countless studies which show we all tend to act consistently across time – regardless of how carefully we considered our original action was (e.g. Ariely 2010 – Ch. 10). So here is the Moral: ‘If social psychology has taught us anything is that not only do we think ourselves into a way of acting, but also we act ourselves into a way of thinking’ (D. Myers) Brilliant!
References
Ariely, D. “The Upside of Irrationality” HarperCollins 2010.
Brehm, J. W. (1960) “Attitudinal Consequences of Commitment to Unpleasant Behaviour” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 60, 370-383.
McRaney, D. “You can Beat your Brain” Oneworld 2013.
‘Banu Akrod (aged 23) delivered the best Plenary of the Convention’. That’s a straightforward remark, isn’t it? But wait – do I really mean it, or am I being sarcastic? Of course when I write something I know what my intention is, but what about the recipients of the message?
In a fascinating study, Professor Nicholas Epley et al asked some volunteers to write two sentences about some ordinary topics, such as food, cars, dating etc. One of them had to be sincere and the other one sarcastic. The subjects were then asked to convey these messages to another one of the participants. In some cases they were to do this over the phone and in another by e-mail. Would the recipients ‘get’ the right message? Does it make a difference which medium is used?
Crucially, the senders were asked to predict whether they thought their message would be properly understood. The recipients were also asked to predict in how many of the cases they would correctly gauge the sender’s intention.
The results can be seen in the graph below. Regardless of the medium, the senders were optimistic: they thought recipients would understand their intended meaning in about 80% of the cases. Recipients were even more optimistic – they thought they would ‘get it’ in 9 cases out of 10. Of course, they were both wrong…
The first thing which can immediately be seen from the graph is an ‘optimism bias’ – expectations exceeded the actual results in all cases. But whereas the senders were quite close in figuring out how many would understand what they really meant when this was conveyed over the phone (73.1%) they were very wrong when it came to online communication. The recipients got it right a little more than 56% of the time – that’s little better than chance! The difference between 56% and 78% is huge (and that between 56% and 89% is huger still! 🙂 )
The Moral: Prosodic features convey a wealth of information which is lost when you put something in writing. The likelihood of misunderstandings in online communication is very, very high. [Epley, N. “Mindwise” – Allen Lane 2014, p. 108].
[Look at any thread on FB where there is a divergence of opinion. Very often what starts as a polite disagreement quickly escalates into a proper punch-up (the well-known phenomenon of ‘flaming’). Epley’s findings can go a long way towards explaining why this happens, as does the fact that our brain has a built-in ‘negativity bias’. Not only do we focus excessively on negative incidents and slights, we tend to ‘overperceive’ them and remember them more.]
Fancy a pint? How would you like a glass of beer? It’s tasty, well-chilled, refreshing and, perhaps more importantly – free! (To quote Plato – ‘If you have to pay for your pleasure, then what kind of pleasure is that?’) In addition, you are also going to be given a choice! You can choose between beer A or beer B. Beer B, the ‘MIT brew’, is special and it contains a secret ingredient! You can taste them both and make your choice. Now think: would it make any difference if you knew in advance that this secret ingredient was in fact a drop of balsamic vinegar? Over to Professor Ariely now – just watch the video…
So what is the moral? Here it is: ‘Expectations Colour Experience’. How we perceive something depends on what we expect it to be like. And this doesn’t just have to do with food and drink…
How do we perceive people? Imagine you are a university student. You are waiting for the first session of ‘Introductory Economics 70’ to begin. Then somebody comes in and says that something has happened to the professor who normally teaches the course, so a stand-in instructor will deliver the lecture. The only thing is that, because the department would like some feedback, the students will be asked to fill in an evaluation form afterwards. By way of introduction, each student is given a slip of paper with some information about this lecturer. Naturally (as this was in fact a Psychology experiment – although students did not know it) there were two versions of this short bio. Here they are. Can you spot the difference?
A: “Mr Long is a graduate student in the Department of Economics and Social Science here at MIT. He has had three semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. This is his first semester teaching Ec 70. He is 26 years old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a very warm person, industrious, critical, practical and determined”.
B: “Mr Long is a graduate student in the Department of Economics and Social Science here at MIT. He has had three semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. This is his first semester teaching Ec 70. He is 26 years old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical and determined”.
That’s right. The only difference is two words: ‘very warm’ as opposed to ‘rather cold’. Would that tiny detail make a difference? Of course it did. Students who had received bio A were much more positive in their evaluations later; they described the lecturer as ‘considerate’, ‘popular’ and ‘humorous’; it was as if the other students had seen a different person! They described him as ‘unsociable’, ‘irritable’ and ‘self-centred’. So much for independent thinking… 🙂 But that wasn’t all; this prejudice also affected the students’ level of participation. Among the former students two-thirds participated actively; among the latter, only one third made any contribution during the session! Apparently, two little words lost in a longish paragraph can nevertheless have a huge impact… Here is Professor Bloom explaining why this happens along with the very interesting concept of ‘Confirmation Bias’:
Expectations and ELT: So what does all this mean for teaching and ELT? It is clear then that as Professor Ariely says, very often what we expect to get is what we actually get. That means that we have a great tool at our disposal – we can influence students’ experiences before they happen! Here are four simple tips:
‘Sell’ your activities to your students: ‘And now, we are going to play an amazing game – this is one of my absolute favourites!’
Do NOT predispose your students negatively: ‘OK, I know most of you are not going to like this, but we have to do it because…’
Get your DOS or somebody else to ‘sell’ you to your new class: ‘OK guys, I am very proud to introduce you to Nick. Nick has …’ Do not do it yourself; research shows that it is far more persuasive if done by somebody else (have you noticed what happens before any speaker takes the podium in any great event? – see also: Goldstein, Martin & Cialdini 2007 – p. 81).
‘Sell’ your students to the next teacher: You may have the best intentions when you say ‘OK, Mary is a bit of a problem; she is weak and disruptive’ but in fact, this acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rosenthal & Jacobson 1968). Instead, you can stress her positive points.
How about another drink? Expectations are extremely potent. In an unbelievable field experiment, students in a bar were given blue and red badges to wear on their wrists. Then they were given memory, reflexes and balance tests. Of course they did well as they were all sober. Towards the end of the evening, things were different however – people could remember less, their reflexes were slower and their sense of balance impaired. It was the same for both groups. The only thing is – unbeknownst to them, the blue group had been drinking non-alcoholic drinks throughout the evening! Yet they were just as ‘drunk’ as the others… 🙂 (Wiseman 2010 – p. 199).
References
Goldstein, N., Martin, S. & Cialdini, R. “Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion” Profile Books 2007
Lee, L., Frederick, S. & Ariely, D. (2006) “Try it, You’ll Like It: The Influence of Expectations, Consumption and Revelation on Preferences for Beer” Psychological Science 17(12):1054-8.
Kelley, H. H. (1950) “The Warm-Cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons” Journal of Personality, 18, 431-439.
Rosenthal, R.; Jacobson, L. 1968. Pygmalion in the classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Well said J. L. Lewis!: In ‘Chantilly Lace’ J. L. Lewis sings ‘There ain’t nothing in the world like a big-eyed girl / to make me act so funny make me spend my money / Make me feel real loose like a long necked goose / Like a girl oh baby that’s what I like’! J. L. Lewis could not have put it better if he had been an Evolutionary Psychologist! He was spot-on about the effects of Women [W] on Men [M] – more of that in another article. What he failed to point out however is that apart from all the other effects, the presence of ‘a big-eyed girl’ may well release the artist in a guy…
‘The Science of Lust’: What happens in this experiment is very revealing: One by one, a group of guys are led into a waiting room where they are kept waiting for some time and then taken to another room where they asked to express themselves on a canvas. Then the same thing happens with a second group, only this time there is a difference. As each man is led to the waiting room, he is introduced to Kate, a young, sexy girl in a figure-hugging top and hot pants… (Kate may or may not be a ‘big-eyed’ girl… I never seem to be able to focus on her eyes… 🙂 ) Kate flirts with him a little and only then is the man taken to the room and asked to paint. A picture is worth a thousand words – a video, even more:
The results: …So the question is this: Does ‘romantic priming’ make any difference to the quality of the work the M produce? The answer is a resounding ‘YES’! An art expert is called in to assess it and the work of the two groups is displayed in two rows. Even an ignoramus such as myself can easily see that the work of the second group is far more exciting. Obviously the ‘excitement’ the M felt after their short session with Kate was channeled into their creations!
Another experiment: Here is another one: Professor Kenrick (Kenrick 2011) got together two groups of M. The M of the first group were ‘romantically primed’ by looking at pictures of highly attractive girls, choosing one and imagining what a first date with her would be like. The men of the second (control) group were asked to imagine walking down a street and looking at the windows. Both groups were then asked to write a paragraph about an abstract painting or a picture of two friends chatting together at a café. The paragraphs were then shown to a third group of people who rated them independently for such traits as ‘creativity’ / ‘originality’ etc. He then repeated the process with two groups of W – again, there was the control group and the one where the girls were ‘primed’ with pictures of handsome guys.
The results: So – would there be a difference? Once again, the M outdid themselves after imagining a date with the likes of Megan Fox or Beyonce Knowles. In a different study it was found that such M also scored highly in standard creativity tests. But what about W? No! Fantasising about a date with Antonio Banderas or Brad Pitt obviously failed to bring out the artist in them… (ibid.)
So what can we make of all this?: Natural Selection goes for sensible designs and has a sense of proportion. The adaptations we have in order to survive are practical, no-nonsense ones. And then you get the peacock’s tail – there is no way such a thing aids survival. It is clearly meant to impress the peahens! Whenever one sees ‘extravagance’ and ‘waste’ in nature, the culprit is almost certainly Sexual Selection (Miller 2001). It is all about the struggle of males (in 95% of the cases) to impress females. Creativity is a good case in point – the amount of effort, dedication and energy that people are willing to invest in order to give an outlet to their artistic urges defies all calculation!
But why should it be so? Well, it is the W’s preferences which determine what trait M will develop! And studies have shown that creativity and originality are highly valued by the fair sex (Buss 2009). Not only that; research has also shown that during their fertile days W’s preferences shift – they prefer better-looking guys, dominant guys AND guys who are more creative! (Thornhill & Gangestad 2008). Another study focusing on traits W find attractive found that during the luteal (infertile) phase of the month 40% of W asked found ‘wealth’ appealing, while only 8% went for creativity; on their fertile days however, this preference was reversed! (5% and 30% respectively! (Miller, G. ‘Sex, Mutations & Marketing’ YouTube) There is no doubt about it; W find artistically-inclined M sexy…
The Godfather connection: Now if creativity is connected to mating effort, then we would expect it to decline with the years. And this is exactly what we find! Kanazawa looked at the lives of 280 top scientists and found that 68% of them made their greatest contributions before their mid-30s! Not only that, but there was a clear decline in the originality of their output once they had got married! (Fisher 2004) As Kurzban points out (2012) different modules in our brain kick in at different stages in our lives. Having children reconfigures our brain (Brizendine 2010) and we switch from mating to parental mode. What is truly astonishing is that the male creativity curve coincides almost exactly with the male criminality curve!! (Miller & Kanazawa 2008) According to this view, they both represent different ways males employ to acquire resources and/or status… in order to impress W! Once they have settled down, the tendency towards both criminality and creativity fades…
What about Women? We saw earlier that the prospect of dating Johnny Depp does not create in W an irresistible urge to try their hand at sonnet-writing. Yet it does have an effect on them. Remember what we said earlier? The two sexes have co-evolved and like good business people both M and W are prepared to offer their would-be significant other what the latter wants. Now this would normally mean that romantically-primed W would change physically to look more like Kate – alas that is a little too difficult. But there is something that M want in a long-term partner, that W can offer: kindness. In the same programme Vlad Griskevicius conducts another experiment where after flirting with a handsome guy, W become exceptionally helpful to strangers – even though the M is no longer present! Here is what happened:
Now you know…: So if you ever need to send male creativity soaring, you know what to do… Imagine for instance you are a teacher, you have an all-boy class and you would like them to enter the ‘Creative Essay’ competition; no problem! Just invite that sexy teaching assistant from the other building to join you in your next lesson… that should do the trick… In a more professional context, say you are working for an advertising agency and you again have an all-male team… All you need to do is hire some pretty girls for the promo clip… (mind you, judging by the output of advertising agencies, I think they already know this!! 🙂 )
References:
Brizendine, L. “The Male Brain” Bantam Books 2010
Buss, D. “Evolutionary Psychology – The New Science of the Mind” Pearson 2009
Fisher, H. “Why We Love” Holt 2004
Griskevicius, V. “The Science of Lust” YouTube
Kenrick, D. “Sex, Murder and the Meaning of Life” Basic Books 2011
Miller, A. & Kanazawa, S. “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters” Pedigree 2008
Miller, G. “The Mating Mind” Vintage 2001
Miller, G. “Sex, Mutations & Marketing” YouTube
Thornhill, R. & Gangestad, S. “The Evolutionary Biology of Human Female Sexuality” Oxford 2008
![Psychology for Educators [And More]](https://s2.wp.com/wp-content/themes/pub/chateau/images/chateau-default.jpg "Psychology for Educators [And More]")
Psychology for Educators [And More] 