Worthwhile Sentences on Feelings

From Justin Landwehr: "The evil twins of humility are narcissism and shyness."

From Larry Summers: "I think you have to decide whether achievement is the route to self-esteem or whether self-esteem is the route to achievement."

From Dan Ariely's blog: "Being given the option to determine the time of our own death can transform patients from powerless victims of their illness to willing survivors of it."

From Maya Angelou: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

From James Geary: "When in doubt, remain in doubt." (via Justin Wehr).

Blogging is Hard in the Real World

This has been one of the hardest months of my life. In two weeks, on June 25th, my wife and I are officially moving back to our hometown Greenville, SC. There are so many good reasons to move home. Both of our entire families are there (except for those overseas). I can't commute an hour to work anymore. As our plans for kids get closer, grandparents and aunts/uncles get more valuable. But the move is bittersweet.

I've come to love North Carolina. I've created friendships that will be hard to leave. A teaching job I originally took mostly because it was offered has been great place of growth and opportunity. I will be currently moving without a job to a state with a worse overall economy. I'm going to miss the improv teaching and performing opportunities I've gotten at DSI. Also, the stress of deciding to move and the actual process of moving is difficult for any relationship. At least in the short run, by many measures, my life will be worse. No job, less friends, and less career and artistic possibilities.

This explains why this blog has been silent for the last couple of weeks. I've been so focused on what my life will look like if what I've been working on for 8 years (improv and teaching) isn't immediately available. What am I if I lose some of my labels? It's very difficult to write about the difference between humans or animals or the stimulus package when my life is being turned upside down. In fact, I feel like I've been pushed down Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

Look back at most of my recent posts. They were questions of morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and changing my beliefs based on facts. One of my main blogging goals is to slowly improve myself in hopes of reaching my personal potential. But when my wife and I finally decided to officially move, that desire got taken over by more basic desires. Leaving my teaching position at my high school and at my improv theater makes me question my personal esteem and sense of belonging. Leaving my current home and pay check makes me question my safety and if worst comes to worst my physiological needs.

However, it's been nice to look back and remember that even the unemployed in America are relatively rich (physiological need, check). That poverty isn't a lack of employment, but a lack of relationships (safety need, check). That my family is big and supportive (belonging, check). That my esteem is not self-esteem gained from being a good teacher or good performer. It comes from being a connected to a good God who only requires we recognize that. I'm optimistic my spirits will improve. And I hope that this will make me more empathetic to my future students, wherever they may be on the pyramid.

Poverty Is Not a Lack of Stuff

If America is rich, then what does it mean to be poor?

They don't need our money, they need our relationships and connections. From local minister (and recent Mister Diplomat guest) Hugh Hollowell.

Imaginary Friends May Make Children More Moral

It's obvious that we are less likely to cheat when people are watching. But it's also true if false eyes are watching:

conducted a field experiment demonstrating that merely hanging up posters of staring human eyes is enough to significantly change people’s behavior. Over the course of 32 days, the scientists spent many hours recording customer’s “littering behavior” in their university’s main cafeteria, counting the number of people that cleaned up after themselves after they had finished their meals. In their study, the researchers determined the effect of the eyes on individual behavior by controlling for several conditions (e.g. posters with a corresponding verbal text, without any text, male versus female faces, posters of something unrelated like flowers, etc). The posters were hung at eye-level and every day the location of each poster was randomly determined. The researchers found that during periods when the posters of eyes, instead of flowers, overlooked the diners, twice as many people cleaned up after themselves.

Similarly, in children, it works if invisible eyes are watching:

Two child groups (5–6 and 8–9 years of age) participated in a challenging rule-following task while they were (a) told that they were in the presence of a watchful invisible person (“Princess Alice”), (b) observed by a real adult, or (c) unsupervised. Children were covertly videotaped performing the task in the experimenter’s absence. Older children had an easier time at following the rules but engaged in equal levels of purposeful cheating as the younger children. Importantly, children’s expressed belief in the invisible person significantly determined their cheating latency, and this was true even after controlling for individual differences in temperament.

Brookie Dictionary: Complaintment

com-plaint-ment [kəm-ˈplānt-mənt] (n) - an expression of respect, affection, or admiration; which also contains an expression of grief, pain, or dissatisfaction

Example: "Thanks for doing the dishes, you haven't done that in a long time!"


Here's my first Brookie Dictionary word, Treason.

Only You Can Improve Your Relationships

We all have relationship problems. I've talked about a lack of dedication, giving too much (or too little),  focusing too much on the short-run, sharing too much (or too little), or fostering anger instead of resolving conflict. The pattern in all of those previous posts is what I can do, not what the other person can do. Here's why:

This research examined the consequences of targeting the self versus the partner when trying to improve intimate relationships. As predicted, when participants (N = 160) focused their relationship improvement attempts on changing the partner, individuals reported more negative improvement strategies, lower improvement success, and, in turn, more negative relationship evaluations. Self-focused improvement attempts and participants’ own self-regulation efforts, however, were not associated with more positive relationship evaluations or improvement. Instead, individuals reported more improvement and greater relationship quality when partners were perceived to be engaging in successful self-regulation efforts. The results suggest that targeting the partner may do more harm than good despite that relationship evaluations pivot on whether the partner produces change.

To clarify, trying to change your partner only makes it worse. Trying to change yourself doesn't improve it for you, but it does for your partner. So we should always focus on self improvement and find others who do the same. If you can understand each other, you can love each other.

(Belated) Birthday Wishes for Empathy

A dangerous coping mechanism I learned early in life was to not need people. If you don't need others, they can't let you down. Not only was this self-destructive, I began to assume that because I seemingly didn't need people, others didn't need me. This lack of empathy had me at times wonder if I had psychopathic (abnormal lack of empathy) tendencies. Even today, I have to make a conscious effort to not fall back on that. Birthdays are one of those times. It's the one time a year where everyone is culturally obligated to celebrate you. So when my birthday came last Friday, I was reminded of my uneasy expectations. This is one of the reasons why I don't have a Facebook wall. Why I don't advertise my birthday. And why I'm infamously bad at others' birthdays. I want this to change.

This year, I was flooded by appreciation from those around me. My AP US History class threw a little surprise party (complete with "Brookie's Cookie Cake" and presidential finger puppets). My sister and her husband surprised me with a visit. And my wife surprised me by telling stories at my weekly improv show, Mister Diplomat, followed by an after party at the theater. As much as I try to remind myself how important social praise is, I was still taken back at how much these surprises meant to me. Even after my history class, I noticed a change in my attitude. I was more appreciative of the good interactions and more able to deal with the bad interactions.

This got me thinking what inspires people to do such nice things. Part of it is obligation, but to go above and beyond requires something more. That extra something is empathy. So I decided to find a way to measure my own empathy and came across this test. It gives 60 statements and asks how strongly you agree or disagree with it. Here's the scale:

0 -32 = low (people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33-52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53-63 is above average
64-80 is very high

I scored a 19. Well below average and within the "disorder" category. I was especially alarmed when I read this article trying to redefine evil as a lack of empathy. The article discusses several facets I'd never considered. Like how more testosterone (even in the womb), usually results in less empathy. This may help explain why women are commonly regarded as more caring. However, a person's environment also matters. Children who have insecure attachment to their caretakers (abusive households, foster children, etc) often has less empathy. For me this shows how empathy multiplies empathy, especially for young people. Which shows me my role, as a teacher, in the cycle of empathy. It's even got me thinking of ways to directly focus on growing in our sensitivity to others (through public schools, through improv, through personal relationships).

The problem of empathy is bigger than just face to face interactions. There has been a fairly agreed upon assumption that empathy levels have decreased in America. I'm skeptical, but some blame this on conservatives. This could explain why political conservatives are seen as less willing to pay for the poor or why they focus more on security (from other less empathetic people). Either way I think this character trait is important for our political leaders. Perhaps an empathy test could be added to economist Alex Tabarrok's So You Think You Can Be President? game show idea.

So I am empathy deficient and it's clearly important. What I am to do? First, I need to learn from my ultra-sensitive wife, who scored a 56 on the empathy test. Part of marriage is carrying around another perspective of life. I can already see how her thoughts have improved mine. I also need to remember that even though it's difficult to change your own empathy, it's not impossible. Even knowing that I err on the side of less empathetic can help me override my default.

And finally, I think we should all have the goal of expanding our empathy circle. There's no reason not to include people in other cities, states, or countries. It certainly means putting more burden on you, but giving as much as we can to others may be what separates humans from animals. A main source of conflict is a lack on empathy. If we could implant a chip in our brain that made us feel others' pain as much as we feel ours, the world would be a much nicer place to live (though perhaps not a happier place). Until then, read the personal stories of others who lack empathy, have pity on us, and love us. You can start by commenting on this post.

Comedy Makes You More Attractive

For men at least:

Producing humor might function as a fitness indicator associated with greater desirability during dating selection. A male confederate in a bar was instructed to tell (or not tell) funny jokes to two other male confederates. A few minutes later, when the second of two male confederates left, the first male confederate asked a female who was near his table and who had heard the funny jokes for her phone number. The previous expression of humor was associated with greater compliance with the male confederate's request and with a higher positive evaluation.

And don't forget, doing improv also makes you smarter, happier, friendlier, supportive, adventurous, and more able to learn.

Economics of Charity

I have my share of skepticism about altruism, like in my earlier post on not giving money to panhandlers. But perhaps some selflessness results in less work and more production:

The researchers videotaped people approaching and passing through the door of a university building. The tapes were analyzed for the relationships among several behaviors: Did the first person hold the door for a follower or followers and for how long? How did the likelihood of holding the door depend on the distance between the first person at the door and whomever followed? 

“The most important result,” Rosenbaum said, “was that when someone reached the door and two people followed, the first person at the door held the door longer than if only one person followed. The internal calculation on the part of the first arriver was, ‘My altruism will benefit more people, so I’ll hold the door longer.’” 

Another finding: the followers who noticed the door-holder hastened their steps, helping to “fulfill the implicit pact” between themselves and the opener “to keep their joint effort below the sum of their individual door-opening efforts,” the authors write.

This is a very simple example, but perhaps it could be a measure of whether a charity is worth it.

Relationship Currency

Yesterday I shared a link to Justin Wehr's new blog about exposing 99 embarrassing truths. It wasn't until after that I realized he'd taken the blog down. Here was his explanation:

Vulnerabilities are the currency of relationships

I'm not sure that's exactly true, but it's more true than I realized last week.

Background: Last week I started a Tumblr where I intended to publish in the public abyss 99 things that I’m embarrassed about in hopes of nudging myself in the direction of openness and comfort-in-skin. I made it up to 19 before quitting. (It's gone, you can't find it anymore, I deleted it.) I didn't quit because I ran out of things to say -- far from it, I barely said anything deserving of an eyebrow raise. I quit because I realized there was something wrong with my premises.

I still believe openness and comfort-in-skin are good things, but only up to a point. Last week I was operating under the unconscious assumption that embarrassing secrets are bad things that we should try to purge from our otherwise pure selves. Now it seems to me that vulnerabilities are better thought of as resources to be spent carefully.

The more widely you distribute it, the less it's worth. The harder it is to say, the more it's worth. The longer you hold it in, the more it's worth. But unless you let it out, it's worthless.

By this theory, there are two types of people who are relationship poor: (1) people without embarrassing secrets, and (2) people who refuse to ever "spend" their secrets.

Vulnerabilities are different from financial resources in at least one important way: Vulnerabilities are not a cha-ching money-in-the-bank kind of resource. You don't invest in them as you would a 401K. The goal is not to accrue as many vulnerabilities as possible.

But like any other resource, it is scarce, and it ought to be spent wisely.

I couldn't agree more. I've tried really hard to figure out what makes relationships successful. Balance, resolved conflict, dedication and thinking long term are all important for healthy relationships. But I think there is something very important in the above quote I'd never thought of. Intimacy is only intimate if it's private. The more people you bring into the circle of vulnerability the less it matters to you and to them.

If you're not already reading Justin's personal blog I highly recommend it. Here's two more recent posts from him worth reading: 1) we need more punctuation and 2) wisdom is being bad at trivia.

Thinking About Relationships Long Term

I've boasted regularly about the new blog and book, Spousonomics. Whether it's date night, conflict, or marriage in general, economics has a lot to say about marriage. The authors recently requested questions on the Freakonomics blog, and mine got accepted. Here the question and answer:

Q. How do you avoid the counting-favors game? -Harrison Brookie

A. Or put another way, how to stop score-keeping? An excellent question and one that applies to virtually every couple, partnership and business relationship on planet earth. Research on incentives shows that counting favors is a double-edged sword. Say you’re trying to construct an agreement for how to pay an employee (or spouse). You could count every little thing he or she does or doesn't do, and pay for or punish each one. But this signals a lack of trust: Why else would you have to keep such close score? Evidence has shown that when a partner feels a lack of trust, he or she is more likely to cheat the system and less likely to volunteer to do something on his or her own. This is called “crowding out” of intrinsic motivation.

There are clear benefits to counting favors, you get the other to do more. But I'd never considered the costs. Like Dan Ariely stated in his book, there two different kinds of exchanges, market and social. When you treat a relationship like a system of platonic exchanges, the intrinsic desire to help disappears. If you plan on being in a relationship long term, which I certainly do, it's probably better for you to stop keeping count.

Conditioned For Marriage

There's been a lot of chatter on the web recently about "the end of marriage". Unsurprisingly, I'm skeptical. Here's some evidence that humanity is trained for committed relationships:

Single, male subjects rated a woman the most attractive at the peak of her ovulation, scientists found, which is to be expected since that's when she's the most fertile. On the other hand, male subjects in a committed relationship behaved the opposite by giving the woman lower attractive marks during her fertility peak.

Here's why:

The authors hypothesize that people in relationships are more likely to subconsciously reduce thoughts of temptation. Researchers call these tendencies "relationship maintenance strategies," where we downplay the attractiveness of others we might be tempted by.

My Career and Hobby Advice

Get really good at something specific and get paid for it (ex: teaching high school economics). Then spend the rest of your time getting good at everything else (ex: improv, blogging, relationships) and it will probably make you even better at your original thing.

Difference Between Humans and Animals, Part XIX

Valentines relationship edition:

Female wild Bechstein's bats prefer to literally hang out with certain friends while they also keep loose ties to the rest of their colony. Lead author Gerald Kerth told Discovery News that these bat buddies mirror human ones. Despite all of their "daily chaos, the bats are able to maintain long-term relationships," he said.

Okay, so that's a similarity, what about this:

Male bats of this species are solitary, but females roost together in bat boxes and tree cavities. They preferred certain companions over the years.

Yikes. Surely they just appreciate the familiarity and that's it:

consultant for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, pointed out that female bats even sometimes serve as midwives.

In one documented case, a pregnant fruit bat in Florida was attended by an unrelated female fruit bat, according to Balcombe, who is author of the book "Second Nature." The helper bat repeatedly groomed and hugged the pregnant bat during the birthing process.

"Following birth, the helper groomed the pup, and she and a third female fanned the mother with her wings," added Balcombe.

Dang that's surprising. So what can we do for Valentines Day that animals can't? Justin Beiber.

Don't Give Money to Panhandlers

Finally, a newspaper confirming what so many already know. From The Guardian:

But Thames Reach is citing "overwhelming evidence that people who beg on the street do so to buy hard drugs, particularly crack cocaine and heroin". Outreach team members estimate 80% of people begging do so to support a drug habit. The research is corroborated by the results of drug tests by the police on a group of people arrested for begging in Westminster; 70% tested positive for crack cocaine or heroin.

"Giving to people who beg is not a benign act without consequences," said Mike Nicholas, a spokesman for Thames Reach. "As an organisation that has worked with people on the street for over 30 years, we have seen many lives damaged by hard drugs and alcohol misuse. We have even lost people through overdoses in situations where a significant portion of the money they spent on drugs came from members of the public giving loose change."

Thames Reach is a London-based charity that works with the homeless. Here's how they help:

She escaped her addiction when Mark Smith, an outreach worker, persuaded her to stop living rough and get medical help. It was a huge breakthrough for someone whose life was a cycle of begging, prostitution and addiction and who had spent almost two decades living in office cupboards, a tent on marshland and in a cardboard box under a railway bridge.

"Mark won my trust, he didn't talk down to me," she said. "He was very patient and I used to look forward to seeing him, sharing his fags and having a burger."

After Mark had asked her "14 or 15 times" to think about coming off the streets, Tracy relented and is now off heroin and on methadone.

I'm certainly not trying to encourage you to not be generous with your time or your money. I simply want good intentions to be met with good results. We all desire to do good, but don't let the guilt of not giving lead you to donate to the detriment of the receiver. Here are some suggestions I've gathered:

1. The goal in helping is to move the needy towards less need.
2. Don't give cash, gifts, or even groceries (anything can be traded).
3. Relationships are the best and hardest way to change.
4. I'm afraid often we pay beggars not out of mercy, but so they will leave us alone.
5. Work is inherently good for society and the worker. Finding them a job can be a great place begin for them and your relationship.
6. Know your neighborhood so well that you know what it needs and can decipher between hustlers and the needy.
7. Donate these organizations that help the homeless. Won't make you as warm and fuzzy, but they have a better track record at making others feel warm and fuzzy (or at least warm).
8. Find the local resources in your area (churches, charities, government services). Keep their card and contact information on you.
9. If your area doesn't have a satisfactory resource, make one. 
10. Live in a neighborhood that allows you to help your neighbors. Remember we need to live with those we help.

These suggestions scare me because they require more of me than I am currently giving. Most people agree that we are at least partially responsible for those around us. Starting with family, then community, and so on. We are not only responsible for how and how much we give. Like in the personal example above described, change is hard, change is exhausting, but positive change is worthwhile.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of WikiLeaks

In the last month Julian Assange, has gone from journalist to lightning rod. Recently his organization, WikiLeaks, released 250,000 US diplomatic cables (essentially emails from diplomats that are called cables because they were once sent via telegraph). Although most of the documents weren't classified, they were written with the understanding they would be private. They have given the world a never before seen look inside American diplomat discussions.  The impact of this can be seen in Assange's victory in the online poll for Time Magazine's Person of the Year (though Time actually gave Mark Zuckerburg the award).

That certainly doesn't mean he's well loved. After all, Hitler won person of the year in 1938. In fact, several groups have separated themselves from Wikileaks since the cable leaks. The site lost it's domain name just days after Amazon dropped the site from its web servers. PayPal froze the account of the foundation accepting donations or the site. Visa and MasterCard have reportedly stopped transactions for those trying to donate money to the organization. The Swiss bank PostFinance has put a hold on the legal defense funds of the founder who was recently arrested on separate, but very controversial, rape charges. He was released on bail yesterday thanks to support from none other than Michael Moore. Assange's home nation of Australia has even threatened to cancel his passport. In response, many of these organizations have themselves been attacked online by "hacktivists" from the pseudo-organization Anonymous.

Although I don't agree with the illegal hacks against these companies, I don't feel much sympathy for them. World governments are understandably upset about their secrets being exposed, but for these companies to jump the gun before any rulings have been made is, in my opinion, cowardice. To understand the strong reactions to these cables it's important to understand what exactly is in them. Clarifying the information is difficult, because it's history's largest classified information release. One of the main things revealed is how American diplomats see and describe foreign leaders. One of the five newspapers given the documents, Der Spiegel, even put summaries of each on the cover. Let me warn you, they're not flattering.

here are the translations

Another uncomfortable revelation was that American diplomats have been asked to spy on other members of the United Nations. Also, it was revealed that the Chinese government hacked into Google, the computers of US officials, and the Dalai Lama. China is also apparently more ready to abandon their ally, and all around troublemaker, North Korea than previously thought. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have all asked the US to attack Iran. It revealed that American officials do not have much respect for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's new kind of authoritarianism. Even going as far as to say the current president “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman”. There was even evidence of Afghanistan's top down corruption, a secret military action in Pakistan, and missile strikes in Yemen.

As shocking as these cables are, they aren't the first controversial releases from WikiLeaks. Earlier this year they released a video of an event in Baghdad nicknamed Collateral Murder. Later this year, but before the most recent release, Afghan War documents and Iraq War documents were both leaked. Assange has also hinted at his next target to expose, the banking industry. These major releases have made this organization globally infamous. There have been calls for Julian Assange's arrest and assassination from several world leaders. That's why I'd like to take a chance on this tiny part of the internet to discuss this overwhelming issue. So here are what I see as the good, the bad, and the ugly of WikiLeaks:

The Good: Exposing truth, like sunlight, is often the best disinfectant. Most of what I have learned from the leaks have been information that either should not have happened or when it happened the world should have been informed about it. I don't want my government doing things they don't want me to know. It's also important to know that WikiLeaks is just a conduit for the released information. They were not the ones who actually removed it and have a journalistic obligation to publish what is brought to them. Best of all, even the existence of this organization and the threat it brings improves transparency and diplomatic professionalism. Currently there is too much secrecy, so any movement away is positive. These complex relationships show just our complicated our interventionist foreign policy is. If our government could no longer keep such damaging secrets about what it’s doing abroad, then it would have to change what it's doing abroad.

The Bad: These releases have the potential to create great instability in the world. It's been been a political and diplomatic disaster for the United States. It's made at least a dozen world leaders look deceitful, inept, or worse. It will make it that much more difficult to deal with controversial nations like Russia, China, Yemen, etc. There has also been fake documents released. The Pakistani media published fabricated cables claiming the Indian generals are genocidal. For two nations with so much tension, and nuclear weapons, these could have been disastrous. The recent controversy has put a damper on the general support for government openness. For example, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2010, which is ten years in the making, was expected to pass through Congress this month. Instead it has been halted by politicians worried by the new WikiLeaks controversy.

The Ugly: The released documents will probably result in more information being labeled classified. One of the least mentioned things about the cable leaks is that the information was already available to millions of military and government employees. It's alleged that a simple army private gave the information to WikiLeaks. That's actually pretty open. The recent controversy will only make that less so. It might also decrease the connectivity between the offices of government made ten years ago in response to 9/11. Perhaps the biggest impact these leaks will have is that honest international discussion will be harder. When you observe anything, it changes, simply because of your presence. Like CSPAN did for the American Congress, these leaks may hinder conversation because no one wants to talk directly anymore. If every conversation becomes public, then every conservation becomes political. Less diplomatic and more pandering. Professionalism has a cost, real valuable conversation. These complicated negotiations can't work if there is no privacy at the negotiation table.

WikiLeaks' actual negotiation table in Stockholm, Sweden

It's certainly embarrassing. There are clear short term problems created. But that doesn't tell us if it's good in the long run. The most important thing to remember is that what is being exposed to the American people is what is being done in the name of the American people. We have a right to know what is being done in our name. I can understand privacy at the negotiation table, but we should know they are at the table. Many claim that this information puts lives at risk, yet I haven't heard any concrete examples. A better question is whether more Americans are at risk if these types of secrets are never revealed? Perhaps our foreign policy would be less complicated and less intrusive. There will certainly be a backlash of privacy, but Julian Assange predicts American secret expansion will only be temporary.

The conversation isn't about Julian Assange or even WikiLeaks. It's about the entire idea of releasing this kind of information to the public. With or without WikiLeaks, the technology now exists to allow copycats to leak documents while maintaining anonymity. Like the Xerox for the Pentagon Papers, the hero or villain isn't a person, but a thumb drive and the internet. I would certainly like to see more information revealed about truly dangerous and corrupt governments. But even when the focus is on the US I think on net it is good (and so does the original whistleblower from the Pentagon Papers). It's possible that WikiLeak-type organizations should be restrained. There are certain things that deserve at least temporary secrecy. That's what American court cases about media leaks are for, deciding on the details. Though according to polls, it doesn't look good for Julian Assange from the perspective of the average American opinion. But I'm often more comfortable not agreeing with average Americans.

If you'd like to read more here is the WikiLeaks' new url. Here's their Wikipedia page. Here's how they've mostly been making public comments, their Twitter page.

Limits of Human Progress and the Power of Prayer

Earlier this year I posted C.S. Lewis' fictional description of hell, a world without scarcity. Before that I had confessed that a world without death be very challenging to my understand of Christianity. Recently, my good friend Justin posted a great interview with Christian and renowned scientist, Francis Collins. Although the entire conservation is worth reading, I especially enjoyed his response to the question of scientific innovation removing suffering from our world:

In spite of the fact that we have achieved all these wonderful medical advances and made it possible to live longer and eradicate diseases, we will probably still figure out ways to argue with each other and sometimes to kill each other, out of our self-righteousness and our determination that we have to be on top. So the death rate will continue to be one per person, whatever the means. We may understand a lot about biology, we may understand a lot about how to prevent illness, and we may understand the life span. But I don't think we'll ever figure out how to stop humans from doing bad things to each other. That will always be our greatest and most distressing experience here on this planet, and that will make us long the most for something more.

Mankind has come far, but we still have a long way to go. One way to do that is through prayer. Again, Francis Collins:

Also, prayer for me is not a way to manipulate God into doing what we want him to do. Prayer for me is much more a sense of trying to get into fellowship with God. I'm trying to figure out what I should be doing rather than telling Almighty God what he should be doing. Look at the Lord's Prayer. It says, "Thy will be done." It wasn't, "Our Father who art in Heaven, please get me a parking space."

This idea of prayer influencing the prayer isn't just theological, it's measurable:

the participants were randomly assigned to one of four daily activities: praying for the well-being of their partner, engaging in undirected prayer, thinking about positive aspects of their partner or reflecting upon their day. Participants did as they were asked for four weeks, and kept written logs of what they were praying (or thinking). At the end of this period, the team again measured infidelity and how sacred the participants felt their romantic relationships were.

Dr Fincham and his colleagues report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that although all participants had similar infidelity ratings, averaging 3.5, to start with, at the end those ratings varied considerably between the four groups. People who had prayed for their partners averaged 2.4, significantly lower than their initial scores, whereas those who thought positively about their partners or considered their day both showed ratings of 3.9—significantly higher.

[...]

Scores reflecting participants’ views of how sacred their romantic relationships were changed during the four-week period as well. Values at the start of the study were much the same among all participants, averaging 3.2. However, by the end of the study, those who had prayed for their partners showed stronger beliefs that their relationships were sacred than those who had just had positive thoughts about their partners, with average scores of 3.7 and 2.8 respectively. Dr Fincham suspects that the act of praying about romantic partners leads people to view their relationship as something sacred and not to be damaged. This, he argues, is the force that is reducing infidelity in the study.

Though that data is self-reported, it was confirmed by unbiased observers giving their own assumptions about changes in fidelity.

Preference Bidding

In any relationship there is always give and take. Some more than others. To form a lasting friendship you must be willing to do things you don't want to because it pleases the person you care about. Whether it's washing dishes or forfeiting your vote for a movie choice, resolving conflict is important for intimacy. However, when sacrifice is needed, who should make it? If we care about efficiency, which we do, then costs should be minimized. My brother-in-law, who recently wrote a guest post, once told me he and his wife would rank, one to ten, how much cared about the decision. The person with the larger number got their way. The only problem with this system is that the incentive to strategically inflate my preference, even unknowingly, is too strong. Instead, I suggest something more technical, a preference bid.

In a preference bid (my terminology) each side will make an offer of a favor to the other in exchange for getting their way. I'll let you pick the movie, if you buy the popcorn. I'll wash dishes, if you take out the trash. And so on. This will ensure they are backing up what they say. This is done all the time. Unless of course, you combine the two ideas I've mentioned. Instead of letting your friend rank how much they care with a unprovable number, offer them a favor exchange. Be sure to offer something that would signal they care more than you. If they accept, then go with their preference. Now here's the twist. Don't actually make them do what they agreed to. It wasn't about exchanging favors, it was about determining how much they cared. Now you know, so there is no reason to go any further.

In repeated games there may be an incentive to cheat, now knowing they won't actually have to do what they offered. To prevent this you could randomly make them do the favor offered. By say calling a coin flip or rolling a die and seeing if it lands on the month they were born. That should be enough for them to bid properly, but not actually have to do you favors (which like money exchanges could ruin friendships). The other obvious option is to always sacrifice your own preferences for those you care about. My concern is that passion fatigue may actually ruin a relationships more than not getting your way. Perhaps a balance of the two is ideal.

Emptying the Bottle: Mid-September '10 Links

Here is a list of the worthwhile sites I've Bookmarked recently:

• Business is more about being organized and managing than it is about ideas.
• To pay for a WWII today, it would cost the government $20 trillion.
• How an economist gets his kids to sleep in the car.
• There may be different kinds of smart, but learning style assessments are useless.
• Desire for exercise may be genetic (earlier).
• Alcohol is good for your health because of the relaxation and relationships.
• The oddity that is government owned liquor monopolies.
• The best anti-penny rant ever [video].
• Crazy campaign speech or pro wrestler [video].
• Reserve your name at About.Me.
• Europe and the United States described as a third world country.
• Students who drank at home reported more heavy drinking early in college.

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Healthy Healthy Relationships

I've mentioned before how I think resolved conflict and dedication lead to rich relationships. But here's some evidence on the health benefits to them:

The benefit of friends, family and even colleagues turns out to be just as good for long-term survival as giving up a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking  habit. And by the study's numbers, interpersonal social networks are more crucial to physical health than exercising or beating obesity.

Here's why:

Social relationships are thought to help improve health either by buffering individuals from stressful situations or creating a norm of healthful behaviors.

"There's a pretty large literature linking social relationships to a variety of physiological processes that are linked to disease risk," Holt-Lunstad says. Social support has been linked to lower blood pressure, and a diverse collection of contacts is associated with better immune system functioning.

It seems the more healthy relationships you can foster, the better off you are (barring passion fatigue). So skip the gym today and go grab a smoke with a friend. And it's worth noting, although therapy is helpful, it isn't a replacement for real relationship.