If you were on a jury and found an individual guilty of a crime, would you recommend the same punishment if the person looked like you, versus if they were of another race? Would the punishment you recommend be unaffected by what else was going on in your life?

Most people automatically say "yes." In her book A Mind of its Own, Cordelia Fine suggests that is not the case.

Fine describes a research study conducted with two groups of people. One group watched a particularly brutal film in which a young boy was beaten. The other group watched a film in which colorful shapes moved across the screen. Then, in an experiment that they were told was unrelated to the first, they were asked to review the facts of a series of tort cases and recommend the appropriate award for an individual who was injured as a result of another’s negligence. You guessed it; the people who watched the violent film awarded much greater damages than the people who had watched the colorful shapes. In some of the cases, there were mitigating circumstances that might have reduced the award, but the people who watched the violent film were in no mood to consider these factors.

I am personally trying to be aware of these types of influences in my own thinking. Recently, one of my favorite restaurants was sold to a new owner. The restaurant is in a trendy part of Richmond, and I thought this would be a great place for a book signing, so I made a point to go back and talk to the new owner.

When I returned to the restaurant the second time, I saw the new owner did not look like me at all. Her whole body was covered in tattoos and piercings. I ordered from the menu, and told the waitress I'd like to speak to the owner. The restaurant was not especially busy and the waitress told me she would be right out. I waited for almost half an hour before the waitress told me the owner would not be able to speak to me that day. I said this was no problem, and left my contact information and a copy of my book jacket with a note saying I was eager to speak to her about doing an event at her restaurant.

I never heard back from her. I wear a suit and tie every day. My initial concern was in wanting to make certain I was tolerant and accepting of someone very different from me. I never thought about the possibility that the owner might not want to work with someone who looked and dressed as **I** did. As I thought about this, I could not help but wonder if the restaurant owner was reluctant to do business with people that look like me.

Decision-Making Best Practice #4: Try to think about things from the other person's perspective. If they look very different from you, it is quite possble that their values and the way they think will be quite different from your values and thinking.

Labels: cordelia fine, perception

Continuing with the "Emotional Brain" from my previous post, Cordelia Fine explains that researchers cannot tell the physiological difference between when a person is either excited, afraid or angry.

She gives us this formula: Emotion = Arousal + Emotional Thought.

So when a person hits a 100 to 1 shot at the race track, or discovers his brand new car has been vandalized, or runs into an old flame who tells him she is available, that person has the same physiological reaction. The racing heart and the increased breathing are no different. What is different are the person's emotional thoughts.

This can cause some rather strange results. Cordelia points out a study in which a group of young men were told to do some strenuous exercise and then watch an erotic film. Some of the men watched the film immediately after exercising; others after a brief rest and still others after an extended break. The men who watched the film after only a brief rest reported the film was much more stimulating than the other two groups.

Researchers theorized that the men who had watched immediately after exercising attributed their racing hearts and accelerated breathing to the exercise. Those who had an extended rest had time for their heart rates and breathing to return to normal prior to watching the film. But those with just a brief rest actually confused the physical arousal from the exercise with their thoughts about the film.

As I read this chapter from Cordelia's book A Mind of its Own, I couldn't help but think of Abraham Lincoln and the letter he wrote to General Meade after the battle of Gettysburg. The defeated Confederate Army had retreated, but when they reached the Potomac River, they had to stop and wait for the river, swollen from the rains, to subside before they could cross. Demoralized and their supplies depleted, the Army of Northern Virginia could have been routed had Meade pressed them. But instead he hesitated and Lee escaped. Lincoln was furious with Meade for what he thought was an opportunity to crush Lee’s Army and end the war immediately. He wrote Meade a letter dated July 14, 1863 in which he severely chastised Meade for his inaction. But President Lincoln never sent the letter. It was found in his office after his death. Lincoln ultimately found the General who could get the job done.

Decision-Making Best Practice #3 (similar to #2): Learn from Lincoln. Avoid making important decisions when you are upset or angry. High emotions can only confuse or cloud your decision-making.

Labels: cordelia fine, emotions

Injecting emotion into the decision-making process hardly ever leads to the best result. But surprisingly, Cordelia Fine suggests emotions play a huge role in human decision-making in subtle ways that few people understand.

Labels: cordelia fine, emotions

In my last blog, I commented on the amusing bumper sticker that read, "Don't believe everything you think." This bumper sticker was not just amusing, it was is also incredibly profound.

Researchers continue to find evidence that shows our thinking is affected by a multitude of subtle factors. These factors often cause us to make suboptimal or even poor decisions.

Cordelia Fine, a psychologist at University of Melbourne in Australia, has written a brilliant book titled A Mind of Its Own that summarizes much of the current research on how our brains trick us into thinking we are smarter, kinder, and better looking than we really are. For the next few blog posts, I am going to review her book.

In the first chapter titled "The Vain Brain," Cordelia documents how we are preconditioned to process facts in ways that allow us to see ourselves in the most positive light. Sometimes, the brain acts as a circus mirror to distort our view of our self. But unlike the circus mirror that makes us fatter or shorter, this mirror only acts to make us more beautiful, more intelligent, and nicer than we really are.

For example, as Cordelia recounts in her book, psychologists gave a group of test subjects a series of puzzles to solve. After the puzzle-solving sessions, the subjects were given the test results. Some subjects were told they had done extraordinarily well and were in the very top percentiles of all puzzle solvers. Other people were told they had done surprisingly poorly.

After the test, the subjects were asked about the relationship between puzzle-solving and overall intelligence. Guess what? The subjects who were told they had done extraordinarily well felt puzzle-solving ability was a very good indicator of overall intelligence. Those who did poorly dismissed puzzle-solving ability as an arcane, irrelevant skill often practiced by people who had too much time on their hands.

Selective memory is one of the vain brain's greatest assets. Working like an unscrupulous prosecuting attorney, the vain brain does everything it can to bring facts to our consciousness that supports the idea that we are a good person, and ignores ideas contrary to what we want to believe.

When reading this chapter, I could not help but think of Lauren Cleari, the young woman who destroyed her marriage and crushed her husband on the FOX game show "The Moment of Truth." Lauren went on national television and admitted she had committed adultery.

But she didn't stop there. She told the interviewer she had married the wrong man and should have married her ex-boyfriend.

It is no surprise that marriages sometimes end, but the way Lauren ended hers was cruel and humiliating for her husband. The amazing thing is, after she did this shameless act, Lauren told the show's host she honestly believed she was (still) a good person.

How did her brain do that? She simply remembered some of the good things she had done in the past and ignored the devastatingly heartless thing she had just done.

Decision-Making Best Practice #1: There is a little of Lauren Cleri in all of us. Always remember, our own brain is a master of rationalization and selective memory. We tend to judge others much more harshly than we judge ourself.

Labels: cordelia fine, rationalization, selective memory