Feeling like you're an expert can make you closed-minded

"Not listening ..."
What happens to us as we accrue knowledge and experience, as we become experts in a field? Competence follows. Effortlessness follows (pdf). But certain downsides can follow too. We reported recently on how experts are vulnerable to anoverclaiming error – falsely feeling familiar with things that seem true of a domain but aren’t. Now anew paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology explores how feelings of expertise can lead us to be more dogmatic towards new ideas.


Victor Ottati at Loyola University and his colleagues manipulated their participants (US residents, average age in their 30s) to feel relative experts or novices in a chosen field, through easy questions like “Who is the current President of the United States?” or tough ones like “Who was Nixon's initial Vice-President?” and through providing feedback to enforce the participants’ feelings of knowledge or ignorance. Those participants manipulated to feel more expert subsequently acted less open-minded toward the same topic, as judged by their responses to items such as “I am open to considering other political viewpoints.”


People’s perceptions of their all-round expertise – provoked in the participants via an easy rather than a hard trivia quiz – also led them to display a close-mindedness in general, even though it was the participants who took the hard quiz who failed more, and reported feeling more insecure, irritable and negative – ingredients that are normally associated with close-mindedness. This isn’t to say that these emotional states didn’t have any effect, just that any effect was swamped by perceptions of expertise.


These findings are somewhat counterintuitive because there are good reasons to have expected the opposite results. Firstly, real-life experts take a long road that involves acquiring and synthesising new information, at times requiring them to flip their way of thinking about things – for instance, a chemist might recall how atoms operated one way in early grade science, only for later schooling to reveal a very different picture. As such, dogmatism is an obstacle to true expertise. Secondly, research on stress and emotion tells us that feeling relaxed and successful – as you might expect an expert to feel more than a novice – encourages open-mindedness.


But Ottati and his colleagues point out that open-mindedness doesn’t exist in a vacuum - it ebbs and flows according to the social situation. It’s not as acceptable to pooh-pooh the content of a university lecture the same way you might do the street demagogue’s patter. The researchers argued too that as well as the situation, your own social role matters, and the "expert" is a social role that gives you permission to opt-out of open-mindedness.


How do we know the closed-mindedness associated with feeling expert was driven by assumptions the participants were making about the social role of expert, and not the effect of some other psychological state? For example, an alternative explanation could be that the participants made to feel expert were overwhelmed by a sense of power, something past research has shown to make contributions from others appear less relevant. We know it must be about social role because the effect was maintained when participants didn’t themselves feel special at all. In another experiment, the researchers asked their participants whether it was justified for someone to ignore the political opinions of other people at a party, when the individual in question was more expert than, more novice than, or similar to the other guests. The hypothetical was framed in two ways: “you are at a party where…” or “John is at a party where…” – in both cases, the participants considered an expert was justified in acting dogmatic.


Taken altogether, how robust are these findings? On the main effect itself (linking feelings of expertise with close-mindedness), note that the sample sizes were quite small – there were only 30-60 participants per experiment. However the effect was uncovered using slightly different methods across six experiments, giving us faith that there’s something real here. However we need to be cautious in how we interpret these results. The study shows us the effect of the social role of expertise, manipulated independently from the true possession of expertise. In other words, the path of acquiring knowledge, and being wrong a lot along the way, may produce countervailing positive influences upon open-mindedness, something not examined in this study. This means we can conclude from this research a narrow but important point: that thinking of yourself as "being the expert" can be an obstacle to open-mindedness.
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SOURCE:

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/10/feeling-like-youre-expert-can-make-you.html(accessed 15.11.15)

Ottati, V., Price, E., Wilson, C., & Sumaktoyo, N. (2015). When self-perceptions of expertise increase closed-minded cognition: The earned dogmatism effect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 61, 131-138 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.08.003

Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

Religious belief appears to have negative influence on children’s altruism and judgments of others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’


Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.


Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.

They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.


“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology.

“More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that secularisation of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness – in fact, it will do just the opposite.”

Almost 1,200 children, aged between five and 12, in the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa participated in the study. Almost 24% were Christian, 43% Muslim, and 27.6% non-religious. The numbers of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and other children were too small to be statistically valid.


They were asked to choose stickers and then told there were not enough to go round for all children in their school, to see if they would share. They were also shown film of children pushing and bumping one another to gauge their responses.


The findings “robustly demonstrate that children from households identifying as either of the two major world religions (Christianity and Islam) were less altruistic than children from non-religious households”.

Older children, usually those with a longer exposure to religion, “exhibit[ed] the greatest negative relations”.


The study also found that “religiosity affects children’s punitive tendencies”. Children from religious households “frequently appear to be more judgmental of others’ actions”, it said.

Muslim children judged “interpersonal harm as more mean” than children from Christian families, with non-religious children the least judgmental. Muslim children demanded harsher punishment than those from Christian or non-religious homes.


At the same time, the report said that religious parents were more likely than others to consider their children to be “more empathetic and more sensitive to the plight of others”.



Young Americans shifting US towards becoming less religious nation


The report pointed out that 5.8 billion humans, representing 84% of the worldwide population, identify as religious. “While it is generally accepted that religion contours people’s moral judgments and pro-social behaviour, the relation between religion and morality is a contentious one,” it said.


The report was “a welcome antidote to the presumption that religion is a prerequisite of morality”, said Keith Porteus Wood of the UK National Secular Society.

“It would be interesting to see further research in this area, but we hope this goes some way to undoing the idea that religious ethics are innately superior to the secular outlook. We suspect that people of all faiths and none share similar ethical principles in their day to day lives, albeit may express them differently depending on their worldview.”

According to the respected Pew Research Center, which examines attitudes toward and practices of faith, most people around the world think it is necessary to believe in God to be a moral person. In the US, 53% of adults think that faith in God is necessary to morality, a figure which rose to seven of 10 adults in the Middle East and three-quarters of adults in six African countries surveyed by Pew.

SOURCE:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-altruistic-secular-kids-study(accessed 9.11.15)

People prefer food that comes in sexist packaging

Putting unhealthy food in macho masculine packaging, or healthy food in feminine-themed packaging, makes it taste nicer, and people are willing to pay more for it. That's according to a new study published in Social Psychology which finds that, at least in the US, cultural beliefs about gender and food are so entrenched that people actually prefer food that's packaged in an apparently sexist way.

While there is in fact some evidence that men on average do prefer naughtier dinner options like red meat and that women more often prefer fruit and veg, it is of course ridiculously presumptuous to assume that all men prefer fattening food and that all women prefer slimming food. And yet on some level, this new research suggests food packaged according to gender stereotypes is more appealing, possibly because it fits our implicit understanding of the world, which makes it easier for us to process it mentally (other related research has shown that we prefer things that we can process fluently, even down to easier-to-read font).

Luke Zhu and his colleagues made their finding by asking participants (58 men and 82 women) at a local fair to taste-test a blueberry muffin. Every participant tasted the exact same kind of muffin, but it was packaged in different ways for different participants. When it was labelled as a "Mega Muffin" (supposedly conveying an unhealthy variety) and its packaging was masculine (depicting men playing football) both men and women tended to rate the muffin as tastier, and they were willing to pay more for it, as compared with when the Mega Muffin was in stereotypically feminine packaging, with a woman ballet dancer depicted in the background. Similarly, participants' ratings of the muffin were more positive if it was labelled as a Health Muffin and its packaging was feminine as opposed to masculine.

If you're thinking that there's something ridiculously retro about the implied sexism in these findings, you'll be heartened to know that in another experiment the researchers showed that if the genderered packaging was taken too far, the results actually switched. With the Mega Muffin labelled as "The Muffin For Real Men" alongside the same football imagery used previously, participants were on average willing to pay less for it than when the packaging contained the football imagery only.

In another experiment, Zhu and his team changed tack to look at whether reminders of gender could affect people's food preferences in line with the gender stereotypes around food. Participants completed a word puzzle task that involved descrambling seven lists of words into coherent sentences. When the word lists each contained a word pertaining to masculinity (such as men or hunting) male and female participants subsequently expressed food preferences that were more stereotypically male (for example, they said they'd prefer fried chicken over baked chicken) and said that they had weaker intentions to eat more healthily in the future. When the word lists contained a feminine-related word, the effects worked in the other direction, prompting a preference for healthy food and plans to eat more healthily in the future.

The researchers said they'd shown the "power of cultural stereotypes to implicitly shape food preferences" and they believe their findings have real-life implications for public health policy. The idea of pandering to gender stereotypes may make some people uncomfortable, but if these effects can be replicated in future research, the implication, at least in the short term, is that healthy food products are likely to appeal to more people, whether male or female, if they are packaged in a "feminine" way. Longer term of course, it seems we need to find a way to shift our collective attitudes to see healthy eating as something all sensible people are into, regardless of their gender.

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SOURCE:

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/10/people-prefer-food-that-comes-in-sexist.html(accessed 9.11.15)

Zhu, L., Brescoll, V., Newman, G., & Uhlmann, E. (2015). Macho Nachos Social Psychology, 46 (4), 182-196 DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000226

«Προφυλακτικό, γιατί επιλέγω να είμαι υγιής γυναίκα που χαίρεται τον έρωτα και το σεξ!»

Όλες μας γνωρίζουμε σήμερα (άλλες λιγότερο, άλλες περισσότερο) για τους τρόπους προφύλαξης από τα σεξουαλικά μεταδιδόμενα νοσήματα, καθώς και για την αποφυγή μιας ανεπιθύμητης εγκυμοσύνης: ΠΡΟΦΥΛΑΚΤΙΚΟ!!!

Πόσες όμως το χρησιμοποιούμε; Πόσες από εμάς το ζητάμε από τον σύντροφό μας; Και το πιο σημαντικό, πόσες από εμάς το ζητάμε από τον ευκαιριακό ερωτικό σύντροφο ή στη δημιουργία μιας νέας σχέσης; Πηγαίνουμε διακοπές, έχουμε πιο ανοιχτή διάθεση, φλερτάρουμε… φτάνουμε και στο σεξ. Είμαστε σίγουρες ότι εκείνος «προσέχει» και ότι δεν έχει κάποιο νόσημα; Μάλλον ούτε και εκείνος γνωρίζει αν πραγματικά αυτό που λέει είναι η αλήθεια! Γιατί με την ευκολία που έρχεται μαζί μας για μία σεξουαλική συνεύρεση, με την ίδια ευκολία θα έχει πάει στο παρελθόν και με άλλες γυναίκες χωρίς την χρήση προφύλαξης. Πως λοιπόν ξέρει ότι δεν θα μας μολύνει; Ή ακόμη ότι δεν θα τον μολύνουμε εμείς; Επειδή έτσι τόσο απλά και εύκολα λέμε ότι δεν έχουμε τίποτα;

Όπως λοιπόν καταλαβαίνουμε, δεν αρκεί η «ομολογία» του «είμαι καλά» για να συνεχίσουμε και εμείς να είμαστε καλά. Δεν είναι τυχαίο που στις μέρες μας παρόλη την ενημέρωση έχουν αυξηθεί τα ποσοστά των σεξουαλικά μεταδιδόμενων νοσημάτων – και δεν αναφέρομαι μόνο στο aids– τα κονδυλώματα έχουν πάρει αυξητικούς ρυθμούς, η σύφιλη το ίδιο, υπάρχουν και οι ηπατίτιδες…

Ένας λοιπόν είναι ο τρόπος προφύλαξης: η χρήση προφυλακτικού και μόνο. Θα με ρωτήσετε τώρα «τι να κάνω όμως που εκείνος δεν θέλει να το χρησιμοποιήσει; λέει ότι δεν νιώθει το ίδιο, ότι χάνεται η αίσθηση, ότι δεν απολαμβάνει το σεξ…» Αρκετοί άνδρες μάλιστα το αποφεύγουν, φοβούμενοι ότι μπορεί να χάσουν τη στύση τους.

Στην πραγματικότητα, το προφυλακτικό δεν στερεί τίποτα από την ηδονή στη σεξουαλική ευχαρίστηση. Άλλωστε σήμερα είναι φτιαγμένο τόσο λεπτό που σχεδόν θα λέγαμε ότι δεν το καταλαβαίνει. Κάθε άνθρωπος που θέλει να σέβεται πρώτα τον εαυτό του και μετά τους άλλους βέβαια, θα πρέπει να κάνει χρήση προφυλακτικού όταν αυτό χρειάζεται – σε μη μόνιμους συντρόφους. Έτσι λοιπόν, αν θέλουμε να μας σέβεται ο σύντροφός μας, θα χρειαστεί αν εκείνος δεν το θεωρεί απαραίτητο να του το μάθουμε εμείς, Θα ζητήσουμε την χρήση του, θα του εξηγήσουμε ότι θα νιώσουμε πιο ωραία και οι δύο την ώρα της σεξουαλικής συνεύρεσης, ότι θα είμαστε πιο καλά συγκεντρωμένοι και οι δύο στη σεξουαλική πράξη και θα απολαύσουμε καλύτερα ο ένας τον άλλον όταν δεν υπάρχει η υποψία του να «αρπάξουμε» κάποιο νόσημα. Δεν τον προσβάλλουμε με αυτόν τον τρόπο, το αντίθετο μάλιστα!

Αν εκείνος δεν το δεχτεί, σημαίνει ότι μάλλον δεν είναι «αρκετός» για εμάς, εφόσον δεν υπάρχει καθόλου σεβασμός σε αυτό που λογικά ζητάμε. Αν μας πει ότι δεν θέλει να συνευρεθεί μαζί μας και μας βάζει να διαλέξουμε, τότε η επιλογή είναι μία: «Επιλέγω να είμαι υγιής έστω και μακριά σου!» Αν δεν δέχεται κάτι τόσο εύκολο και απλό γιατί να δεχτεί καθώς προχωράει μία σχέση και άλλα πράγματα που ευνόητα θα χρειαστεί να υπάρξουν; Πως θα δεχτεί τις επιθυμίες μας, τα συναισθήματα μας;

Καλό είναι να έχουμε πάντα μαζί μας προφυλακτικά, είναι μύθος το ότι μόνο ο άνδρας πρέπει να τα έχει, να τα έχουμε σε σημείο που προφυλάσσονται από τη ζέστη, καθώς και να είναι σε σημείο τέτοιο που δεν θα χρειαστεί στη διάρκεια της σεξουαλικής πράξης να σηκωθούμε για να πάμε να τα φέρουμε. Αν λοιπόν εκείνη την ώρα του το προσφέρουμε και εκείνος αρνηθεί να το φορέσει, τότε εξαρτάται από εμάς η συνέχεια…

ΠΗΓΗ:

http://www.askitis.gr/monthly/view/prophilaktiko_giati_epilego_na_eimai_igiis_ginaika_poi_chairetai_ton_erota(accessed 1.11.15)

How The Brain Forgets Things To Conserve Energy

A fascinating new explanation of why our brains forget some things we’ve learned.

The brain may forget in order to save energy, a new study suggests.

So, our brains contain mechanisms that help us erase unnecessary learning.

Now scientists have uncovered how this may happen at the cellular level.


The results come from a strange finding about how we learn.

You may know the story of Pavlov’s dogs, who were taught to salivate at the ringing of a bell because they associated it with being fed.

Similarly, both humans and animals can learn to link a certain tone with a puff of air to the eyes.

This, of course, causes people to blink — it’s an automatic response.

However, you can remove the actual puff of air to the eyes and people will blink at just the sound of the tone.


They have learned to link the tone to the puff of air so they blink — even when there’s no puff.



When you add the puff of air back in, paradoxically people’s learning getsworse.

It’s like the extra stimulus is actually causing forgetting.

Professor Germund Hesslow, who led the new research said:


“Two stimuli therfore achieve worse results than just one.

It seems contrary to common sense, but we believe that the reason for it is that the brain wants to save energy.”

What seems to be happening is that when we’ve successfully learned a link, a neuronal braking mechanism activates.

Professor Hesslow continued:

“You could say that the part of the brain that learned the association (a part of the brain called the cerebellum) is telling its ‘teacher’: ‘I know this now, please be quiet’.

When the brain has learnt two associations, the brake becomes much more powerful.

That is why it results in forgetting, usually only temporarily, however.”

The new research describes how the nerve cells learn and forget.

Professor Hesslow said:

“Obviously, it should be important for teachers to know the mechanisms by which the brain erases the things it considers unnecessary.

You do not want to accidentally activate these mechanisms.”

SOURCE:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/10/the-reason-the-brain-forgets-things.php(accessed 1.11.15)