The other morning, I did a strange thing. I got up as normal and had my breakfast. I made myself a packed lunch, just like always. I went outside to begin my cycle to work, but when I
got to my bike, in the back garden of New Earth: instead of unlocking it and riding to work, I locked it up.
Then, I had to unlock it again so that I could ride it.
Why did this happen? It happened because my brain has clearly made the association that my daily routine includes “toggling my bike lock” as part of it’s actions, rather than “unlocking
my bike lock”. It’s become ingrained that I have to “change the state” of my bike lock (from locked to unlocked, or vice-versa) before I can go to work… so when I forgot to lock my bike
up the previous night, it threw off my morning as I began the day by locking it up, rather than unlocking it.
A Kryptonite New York lock, like the one I use. It weighs about a ton but it's pretty-much bombproof.
Back when I had my concussion last May, I did a similar thing, swapping the
contents of two cupboards that we’d already swapped. I couldn’t remember why they were being exchanged, just that they were, so I swapped them over.
It’d be nice to think that I only engage in this kind of “toggling” behaviour when I’m sleepy, perhaps, or when I’ve suffered a head injury. But sadly, that turns out not to be the
case:
Over the River Thames near Friar’s Wharf, there’s a footbridge that forms a part of the National Cycle Network. It’s part of my usual ride to work. A few months ago, I spent my workday running training sessions in an office on the other side of
the river, and so I didn’t need to cross it to get home. But when I was cycling home, along the towpath, and reached the bridge, I started to cross it! I got half-way over before I
realised that I was now heading exactly the wrong way and turned back. Again: my brain clearly has a short-circuit there, in that when I come to that bridge during a journey, I feel
that I need to cross it. What’s the deal, brain?
This phenomenon seems to be related to muscle memory and the so-called “driving trance”: the same thing that traps you when you plan to run an errand on your way somewhere and somehow
reach the other end of your journey having completely forgotten to run the errand. “I walked right past the post box with the letter in my hand! Why would
I do that?”
I wonder how others experience “toggling”. Do you “toggle” things when you’re on autopilot?
Something I’ve been thinking about, recently; presented in three parts, for clarity:
Part One – Polyamory and Negotiations
There’s a widely-understood guideline in nonmonogamous relationships that you should always be willing to ask for what you want, not what you think you can get away with.
To me, it feels to be a particularly valuable maxim. Like the majority of suggestions touted by the polyamorous community, it’s a tip that holds value for both monogamous and
nonmonogamous relationships… but is naturally of more importance to those which are nonmonogamous because these have a tendency to depend more-heavily on honest and open negotiation.
I’m sure I don’t have to spell out to you why asking for what you want (rather than what you think you can get away with) is important. But just in case I do, here’s the three top
reasons, as far as I see it:
When you ask for what you want, there’s a chance that you’ll get it. When you ask for anything else, getting what you want is a lucky coincidence. Don’t you want the chance of
getting what you want?
Being honest about what you want and how important it is to you – and listening to what’s your partners want and how important those things are to them – you’re in the best possible
position to come to the fairest possible compromise, if the things that you want are not completely compatible. Don’t you want the best for you, your partner(s), and your
relationship(s)?
Being open about what you’re looking for is an important part of being honest. Don’t you want to be honest with your lover?
Polyamory networks can grow quite large, and the management of this requires honest, open communication even more than a monogamous relationship does.
There are times that it’s okay not to ask for what you want, too, though. Sometimes it’s hard to be sure what you want; and it’s fine to say you need time to think about it. Sometimes
we change our minds (shocking, I know!), and it’s more-admirable to be honest than consistent. Sometimes there are more important things to deal with. There’s no rush.
But it works. The more specific you can be – even to the point of “too much information” – the better this kind of communication can work, because the better your partner understands
you, the better you both can negotiate. As ‘dirty surface’ writes, “I’d like to get my butt caned by a professional Dom while you
watch once every six months or so” represents a very different commitment of time, money and emotional energy than what someone might picture when you say “Let’s hire and share a sex
worker regularly.”
Part Two – The Anchoring Effect
There’s a known psychological phenomenon called the
anchoring effect. In order to demonstrate it, I’m going to plagiarise an example used in this article – if you want to see the effect in action; don’t click that link yet! Just
follow the instructions below:
Now: without checking – do you think that Venezuela has a higher or a lower population than that country?
Finally, in millions, what do you estimate that the population of Venezuela is?
You’ll get the answer a little further down the page. But first, it’s time to come clean about something: when you clicked that link to WolframAlpha, you’ll have gone to one of two
different pages. There’s a 50% chance that you’ll have found yourself looking at the population data of the United Kingdom (about 62 million), and a 50% chance that you’ll have found
yourself looking at the population data of Switzerland (about 7½ million).
If you originally saw the United Kingdom and you guessed lower, or you originally saw Switzerland and guessed higher, you were right: the population of Venezuela
is somewhere between the two. But if we took all of the guesses by all of the people who correctly guessed lower than the United Kingdom, and all the people who correctly
guessed higher than Switzerland, then – statistically speaking – we’d probably see that the people who looked at the United Kingdom first would make higher guesses as to
the population of Venezuela than those people who looked at Switzerland first.
The population of Venezuela’s about 29 million people. What did you guess? And what country were you shown first, when you clicked the link? Leave me a comment and let me know…
The anchoring effect is explored in detail by Ariely, Loewenstein, and Prelec 2004, in which studies are performed on groups of people who are
told a (randomly-determined) price for some goods, and then asked to state how much they’d be willing to pay for them: those people who are given higher random values will consistently
offer more money for the goods than those who were told a lower value.
It’s not a new idea. For hundreds of years, at least, salespeople have practiced the not-dissimilar door-in-the-face technique (sort-of the opposite of the more well-known foot-in-the-door technique), in which an
unsatisfactory offer is made first in order to make the second offer – which is actually what the salesperson wants to sell – seem more desirable than it actually is.
Part Three – Hey, But That Means…
Taking the two previous parts of this article at face value can quickly lead to an unwelcome conclusion: we’re more likely to get what we want when we ask for more than what we
want – and then back down to a false compromise position. A greedy but carefully-deployed “salesman” approach has been shown to work wonders when you’re negotiating for a pay rise,
selling a product, motivating volunteers, or getting people to under- or over-estimate the value of goods and services. Surely it’d work when negotiating in a relationship, too?
“Hey, honey: it’d really mean a lot to me if I could could have a threesome with you and your mother…”
“What? No way! That’s disgusting.”
“Okay, okay, then… I suppose I could make do with having sex with your sister.”
Despite the extremity of the example above, the answer is that for the individual, this strategy can work: I’ve known people who’ve fallen victim to exactly this
kind of con. Worse yet, I suspect that there are perpetrators of this kind of strategy who don’t even realise that they’re doing it: they’re just responding in the Pavlovian style to
the “rewards” that they’re getting by continuing to act in what it – let’s face it – an unscrupulous and unethical manner.
Does it work, then? Yes, more’s the pity. But everything it gets for you is something that it’s taking away from your partner, or from your relationship. And maybe that’s the kind of
strain that the relationship can take, but there are always limits.
Me? I’ll stick to what I believe in: so far as I can, putting my hand on the table and saying, “Here’s what I’m playing with: what’ve you got?” It’s a trusting and diplomatic
strategy, but it’s the best solution to finding the best middle-ground for everyone. There are those who find that it makes them feel too vulnerable – at too much risk of their openness
being used against them – to try to say what they want so openly. And to them, I say: if you don’t trust your lover with the way that you feel, then working on that
trust that should be your first priority.
Here’s an idea: what if bills came with a sweet treat, like a lollipop or something. Or perhaps if the bill itself was printed on editle paper, like ricepaper, using a food dye-based
ink. Aside from the improved biodegradability of the paper, it’d also make you look forward to opening your bills and nibbling at them. Better yet, it’d encourage you to pay them,
because then you wouldn’t need the paper copy any more and could eat them.
It’d certainly make large bills easier to swallow, anyway.
Psychologically speaking, it’d play upon the Reciprocity Norm, an observed phenomenon in which people who are given something are more likely to give something in return: when
charities give you a free pen in the envelope they send you, or when Hari Krishnas give you a flower at an airport “as a gift” and then ask for a donation, they’re playing upon this
principle. Would sucking on candy delivered to you as a “gift” from your electricity company make you feel guilty for putting off paying the bill for a few days longer than you should?
“Asking about suicidal feelings cannot ‘put the idea into a caller’s head.'” If you’ve ever worked in a listening organisation that will openly talk about suicidal feelings,
like a branch of Samaritans or a university Nightline, you’re likely to have heard this said. In virtually every training group to which talking about suicide is first mentioned, a
trainee will ask “But if they’re not actively suicidal, might mentioning it give them it as an idea?” And the answer is no.
This is an important part of the work of these – and similar – organisations. While their manifesto may already state that they are there to talk about whatever feelings are on the mind
of their caller, it’s still seen as necessary, sometimes, to remind the caller that yes, it’s really okay to talk about anything at all… even about ending their own life. Showing that
it’s okay can open the door to really exploring the caller’s feelings and can make all the difference to somebody in a state of suicidal despair.
What I’d like to share with you is the evolution of a certain subset thoughts about suicide.
Talking About Suicide – A Revelation
(or How I Proved Myself Wrong Twice But Still Got The Right Answer)
Up to as recently as five or six years ago I was of the opinion that certain anti-suicide measures were pointless. I’m talking about building anti-suicide fences on bridges (like the
Memorial
Bridge in Maine), the installation of platform-edge doors on London’s Jubilee Line (mentioned in this article and shown in this video), and the restriction of the number of analgesics like paracetamol and aspirin that can be bought in one transaction,
since 1998. I could not understand that this
could possibly work. Suicide is almost invariably a pre-meditated act, and so access is removed to one means of doing away with oneself, you’ll simply use another – and there’s no shortage of ways to take your life.
Then, one day, I discovered that it doesn’t necessarily work like that.
Anti-suicide fences can be statistically proven to reduce not only the frequency of suicides at the site at which they are installed, but throughout the region – if suicide
were, as I had believed, unaffected by availability of any one particular means of committing the act – then I would anticipate that a comparable, perhaps only slightly fewer, number of
suicides would take place. Switching coal gas to natural gas in Britain in the 1960s was linked to a reduction in suicides on the whole (Kreitman, 1976), and only a smaller increase in suicide
rates by other means. Similar studies in the US have shown that reducing the availability of firearms reduces suicide rates more than would be expected if the “saved” would simply
switch to a different method.
So it turned out I was wrong. Reducing the availability of means of suicide really can have an impact on suicide rates, as if suicide really were a spontaneous thing (“I’m feeling
so low… I could just – hey, look, a rope just hanging there; that’s convenient – well, go on then…”). But those who commit suicide often seem to have planned the act for some time
before. Some have been known to have repeatedly visited what would eventually become the site of their death for months or even years before eventually taking their lives. Those who
throw themselves under trains sometimes keep visiting their station of choice – unnoticed by staff as they mingle in with the commuter crowd – in order to determine where trains travel
the fastest and which trains don’t stop at all. This fact has since been used to provide training to station staff in spotting these people in advance – another suicide prevention strategy.
What does this mean for talking to callers about suicide? When I learnt about these kinds of studies, I started to question what I “knew.” After all, if it’s true that passing a
particularly high bridge can be sufficient to push a suicidally depressed person over the edge, so to speak, how could I possibly argue that it wasn’t the case that encouraging that
same person to talk about their suicidal feelings would have the same effect. After all, aren’t both the same thing: making suicide seem like an acceptable option by making it more
approachable – physically, in the case of the bridge, and more mentally paletable in the case of a caring ear who does not disapprove of your right to terminate your own life. This
caused me a significant amount of cognitive dissonance (thanks, Changing Minds!) and I had to put a hold on my volunteer work in this area while I resolved
it. As I put it at the time, I had “lost my faith” in the process I promoted.
And that could have been the end of the story. But I’m not a fan of unanswered questions in my mind, and I put a great deal of thought into suicide prevention and into talking about
suicide.
Eventually I was able to resolve it. For a while, this resolution was simply based on “what felt right”: I came to the conclusion that seeing a bridge and talking about suicidal
thoughts and feeling are actually quite distinct: the former is about the means to perform the action, whereas the latter is about the space to express the feeling.
This was enough to put me back on track and, ultimately, make me far more comfortable. Later, I came across psychological studies that backed up that belief, like those referenced by
the impressively-titled Scientific Foundations of Cognitive Theory and Therapy of Depression, by David A. Clak, Aaron Beck, and Brad A. Alford.
But for a while there, I wondered.
Further Reading
If I haven’t made you do so already, take a look at chapter 4 of Influence: Science and Practice, by Robert B. Cialdini, which I reviewed some time ago. I’m currently reading The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by
Malcolm Gladwell. Both of these books go into great deal about social proof and contagion and how what happens around us can have a huge effect on how we behave as a society, even
leading to streaks of suicide or violent crime. For serious psychology in an easy-to-read and enjoyable format, I thoroughly recommend the Changing Minds website. And if you’re still interested, follow some of my links, above – many of them, combined with a little Google-fu or Wikipedia-surfing, are
great starting points for further research.
Maths in the morning. How is it that the first lesson in a new module always makes so much more sense than any other one? Went home for lunch in my three-hour break, returning for
Psychology. Watched a video on “Eyewitness Testimony”. We’ve seen the same one three times now. Alecia took the second half of the lesson to preach to us – usally the kind of
activity for Monday’s Psychology lessons – and persuaded Richard and me to come with her to church on Sunday. Promised I’d go, and I think I’ve persuaded Rik too, as well (even though
he let her down on the Carol Service). “You can’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” I told him, with my usual democratic tact.
Couldn’t sleep again tonight – same as last night – watched TV until about 4:30am…
