Sharks in the Water

It is true that correlation (or association between two variables) is not a sufficient reason for concluding that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the correlated variables. However, it is one necessary condition. In other words, you can have correlated variables that are not causally related, but you can’t have causally related variables that are not correlated! For example, it is probably the case that the number of people wearing bathing suits is correlated with the number of shark attacks in a given year. However, this does not mean that wearing bathing suits causes shark attacks, or that shark attacks cause people to wear bathing suits. We can easily come up with a plausible reason: Summer weather causes both a greater number of people wearing bathing suits and a greater number of people in the water to be attacked by sharks. However, if summer weather does indeed cause more people to wear bathing suits, those two variables should be correlated with each other. Part of having a cause-and-effect relationship means that a change in the cause is associated with a change in the effect.¹

Scientists and philosophers have thus come up with some general criteria for establishing that a cause-and-effect relationship exists:²

1. Covariation (or correlation) between the presumed cause and effect
2. Temporal precedence of the cause (i.e., the cause must precede the effect)
3. Lack of plausible alternative explanations for the covariation

I think the first two criteria are fairly straight-forward, but I will discuss the third in a little more detail a bit later. The point here is that correlation is an essential part of establishing the existence of cause and effect. It is just not sufficient by itself to establish this.

Refined Design

Experimental design

So if correlational studies aren’t able to prove cause and effect, why do scientists use them? Well, scientists have a broad range of research designs available to them to answer questions about the world. In broad strokes, the major distinction is between correlational and experimental designs. A correlational design measures two variables and determines whether they are related. An experimental design requires two things: manipulating a variable (the presumed cause), and randomly assigning observations to either a treatment or control group. In the treatment group, the variable is changed in some way, whereas in the control group it is left alone.³ For example, if I am running a psychological study on whether ice cream makes people happy, I might randomly assign participants to either be given ice cream (experimental group) or nothing at all (control group), and then ask them how happy they are on a scale from 1 to 10. This type of design has a number of advantages over a correlational design, but the one that is most relevant is the random assignment. By randomly assigning participants to the two groups, I can make sure that any differences between the two groups that are not related to the ice cream variable are due to chance. This offers scientists a great deal of control, to ensure that the presumed cause is the only thing being changed between the two groups. If I were to simply ask people how much ice cream they ate in the past day and then measure their happiness, I don’t have that level of control. Perhaps people who eat more ice cream also eat more brownies, and it’s actually brownies that lead to greater happiness!

In theory, these two types of research designs are easy to distinguish. However, in practice, scientists often end up with a mixture of the two. This could be for practical, financial, or ethical reasons. A variable that is presumed to be the cause might be impossible or impractical to manipulate directly (it is hard to make a star go supernova to study its effects, for example), or unethical (when studying the effects of the death of a spouse on people’s well-being, an ethics review board would probably frown on a study design that involved randomly assigning spouses to be killed). It is also often the case that a scientist has one primary variable they wish to manipulate, but they also want to take a look at the influence of other variables that they then measure. For instance, I can manipulate whether people receive positive or negative feedback, but I can’t manipulate (for practical and ethical reasons) their self-esteem. If I want to study how people with low self-esteem react to negative feedback, then, I need to use a mixed design. This all makes the scientific process very complicated, since there is a mix of manipulated and measured variables that each offer more or less control.

Great Explanations

What enables scientists to talk about causal explanations, then, is to place less emphasis on the design of the study (though that is, of course, important) to show whether causal explanations are possible, and instead talk about alternative explanations. If you remember the three criteria above, the third criterion is a lack of plausible alternative explanations. And this is the true engine of scientific advancement and debate. In order to critique a particular scientific study, it is not enough to say, “Well, it was a correlational study, so it doesn’t really say anything about causal relationships.” Instead, scientists need to come up with an alternative explanation that is more plausible than the one offered by the original researchers, and then test it (or suggest it for someone else to test).

Cross-lagged correlational design

Let’s take one step backward. Before a particular study even gets to the point of being critiqued by others, the scientists conducting it take great care (ideally) to create a study that rules out as many alternative explanations as possible. This is why experimental designs are so preferable, because they are often much better at ruling out many alternative explanations for the results. If I have truly changed only one thing between two otherwise identical groups, and I then find that those two groups differ on some important variable, I have extremely good evidence of cause and effect. Correlational designs, while generally not as good at ruling out alternatives, can still offer  relatively strong evidence if done properly. More advanced correlational techniques like cross-lagged designs can help to establish temporal precedence (criterion #2) by showing that the link between variable A at time 1 and variable B at time 2 is stronger than the link between variable B at time 1 and variable A at time 2. And of course, depending on the variables one is studying, it can be relatively easy to rule out some alternative explanations. For example, one study has shown that violent crime rates increase as temperature rises (leading to more crime in summer months).⁴ While there could perhaps be other variables that affect both temperature and crime rates, one explanation that does not seem plausible is that crime itself actually increases the outside temperature. The nature of the variables being studied can make some explanations wildly implausible, leading to a stronger case for a certain interpretation.

In Conclusion

What this all means, then, is that in the end it is not so much the type of study design one uses (correlational, experimental, or a mix of both) that determines the strength of a study, but instead how well it rules out alternative explanations. A well-designed correlational study that measures the right variables in the right way can be a very convincing study indeed. And a poorly-designed experimental study can still leave plenty of alternative explanations (known in the business as “confounds”) that severely undermine the case the researchers are trying to make. Understanding the role of plausible alternative explanations is the key to understanding how science works.

So the next time someone says to you, “Correlation does not equal causation,” you can now say, “Well, actually…” and provide them with a deeper understanding of scientific research methods. Correlation may not tell you everything about cause-and-effect relationships, but it can be a good indicator that something might be there. It’s a valuable tool of science, and when used properly it can tell us much about what variables may cause other variables to change. By ruling out alternative explanations, we can find our way toward a better understanding of how the world works.

Notes:

1. Having said this, not being able to detect a correlation between two variables does not necessarily mean that the two are not causally related. Sometimes, there can be other variables that suppress the relationship between a cause and effect, making it appear that they are unrelated. For example, gravity is causally acting on airplanes all the time, yet they are able to fly through the air because other forces counteract the force of gravity. It’s only when you remove those other forces (e.g., break off the wings, turn off the engine) that you see the causal relationship! Thus, it is most accurate to say that detecting a correlation is a necessary condition of inferring causality in the absence of countervailing forces. Thanks to Daniel Nadolny for this correction.
2. I am greatly simplifying the debate that exists regarding the nature of causality, especially among philosophers of science. The rules I am listing here come from Cook, T. D. & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-experimentation: Design and analysis for field settings. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. For those interested in learning more about the debate, the book has a good overview of the major philosophical traditions and their historical development. You can also check out Bradford Hill’s criteria for causation, which list more criteria, but I think agree reasonably well with Cook and Campbell.
3. It should be noted that not all experimental designs use strict “control groups”. For instance, some research might compare one treatment to another, where the purpose is just to find out whether treatment A works better than existing treatment B. However, it’s also important to understand that using a control group doesn’t necessarily mean “doing nothing”. In medical research, for instance, the usual control group involves giving participants a placebo—something is still being “done” to participants in this group, but good experimental designs try to make the treatment and control groups as absolutely similar as possible. In a placebo design, the only difference (ideally) is the active ingredient of the drug being tested. Using the placebo group holds constant other factors, like the act of taking a pill and the psychological influence involved in taking medication.
4. Anderson, C. A. (1989). Temperature and aggression: Ubiquitous effects of heat on occurrence of human violence. Psychological Bulletin, 106(1), 74-96.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Correlation and Causation

Obviously, there is nothing taboo about valuing honesty. As the old adage says, “Honesty is the best policy.” But I am drawn to a type of honesty that goes beyond simply not telling lies. It has its roots in something more integral to the self. It is not quite “authenticity”, for that implies being one’s “true self,” whatever that means. The honesty I look for has more to do with a simple sincerity of heart: a degree of integrity. It involves defining one’s purposes and making them plain to everyone. It involves finding one’s identities and being true to them. It is akin to the existentialists’ idea of “good faith,” living a life without self-deception.

I am generally open about most areas of my life. I don’t hold many secrets, nor do I shy away from making my opinions known. I find this an effective strategy for getting to know others; by sharing myself, I encourage others to share themselves with me. But when I find someone who is willing to put down pretenses and be honest, I am irresistibly drawn to them. Finding these people can be difficult. Being honest means being vulnerable. And I readily admit that often I am not as honest as I could or should be. But such honesty and vulnerability shines like a beacon in the dark when it occurs. When others stumble and fall over the obstacles they place to avoid revealing themselves to others, these honest people guide them to a surer path. In the process comes intimacy, developed through true human connection rather than pretense.

Being an honest person requires more than making true statements. It requires a total commitment of the core of who you are.¹ Being honest means uncovering the mysteries of your own soul, finding what drives you and what supports you. It means being true to your identities, whether they are “father” or “lesbian” or “model train builder” or “custodian.” (This list is clearly far from exhaustive.) Then it means sharing those identities with the people around you. Such identities reveal the passions that make you who you are, and sharing those passions allows you to share true social connections with others. In contrast, to fail to reveal one’s passions makes it impossible to find connection with others. Pretense and posturing often rule our social interactions, but the honest person sets these aside to share their passions and discover the passions of others.

Honesty, however, can also mean shedding the identities, values, and history by which you no longer wish to define yourself. Such a process helps to distill the self down to what is most passionate, most affirming, most excellent. The history we all carry can be a tool to drive us or a weight to drag us down. But it can be excised. Your history will always exist, but it need not define you. The path toward an honest self is to take charge of one’s own identities instead of allowing the past to have control.

I believe that in this process of becoming honest, a certain type of person will emerge. This person finds a measure of good in the people around them. They make the best of situations and hope for a better future. They do not allow themselves to be lost in the fantasy of a perfect world—for they must be honest with the world as it is—but they also do not resign themselves to the impossibility of improvement. The honest person inevitably will find themselves facing life (and death) with confidence, for their strength wells up from within, from the distilled passions of their soul. The honest person will find good in the world and cultivate it, recognizing that a world of pain and sorrow is a world all the more fertile for good. And cultivating such goodness will be an act that comes from the deepest part of their heart, purely for the pleasure of seeing goodness thrive.

Why do I say such passions are inevitable? Could not a person find their identities to be evil, and push toward such ends? Perhaps, but I am of the belief that evil rarely if ever comes from the deepest part of who a person is, but from the surface-level concerns that push us toward selfish ends. We are creatures that understand the pain of others, and the more a person understands their own self, the more they also come to understand others. Such knowledge (if done in good faith) pushes the honest self toward compassion and kindness rather than destruction. This connection to others is important, and separates simple inward-flowing introspection from outward-flowing honesty.

Anyone can be honest. I say this not as someone who has achieved perfect honesty myself, but as one who is on the journey and confident of the destination. Some may find it difficult, and indeed, the process could hardly be anything less than difficult. To avoid being honest with oneself and with others is easy; distractions serve to direct thoughts elsewhere, and many social strategies can serve to avoid intimacy with others. And of course, some have spent longer developing these avoidant strategies, leading to a thick layer of weeds that choke out the eager sapling. But effort, time, and patience will clear out even the most overgrown garden, and allow space for the honest self to sprout, and bud, and blossom. The results will be well worth it. For like the Giving Tree, an honest self can give shade to those around it, offering peace and solace. And for the truly honest self, this benevolence comes at no cost, for it emerges from the very core of who they are.

I believe we could all use a little more honesty. We could all be more compassionate to those around us. We could all open up the door just an inch further to let someone in to see who we are. We could all take time to ponder over the passions  and identities that make us who we are. We could all allow the tree to grow just a little bit more. So go tell someone in your life that you care about and appreciate them. Go share a secret with a trusted friend. Go tell someone what your deepest passion in life is. Just…be honest.

Notes:

1. When I use this phrase, I don’t mean to imply that there is some fundamental, unchangeable core to who one is. I merely mean that some aspects of the self are more “central” than others, and thus play a greater role in forming one’s identities and actions.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: The Honest Self

[googlead=no]The story is, of course, a trove of material for journalists and columnists, debating about gun control and mental health and assault rifles and pointing blame. I don’t have much I could add to this. I don’t have much I would want to add to it, to be honest. There will be more words written about this incident than should be written, and finding my own place in debating public policy at a time like this is not something I want to do.

But as the reality of death (and death so young!) has been on my mind, I realized that these sorts of events, more than anything else, make me wish for an afterlife. I don’t really fear my own death much. I never really have. But when someone dies “before their time”, it makes me wish that an afterlife was something I believed in. As an atheist, I think about what I could possibly say to someone who just lost their son or daughter that would bring them any morsel of comfort. I wish I could offer them the thought that their child is not truly gone, and that their life has just found a different form, and that the parents will one day be reunited with them. I wish I could say that, and it’s at times like these where I truly hope that I am entirely mistaken about God and heaven and eternal bliss. I truly do. I see what comfort such beliefs can bring in such a painful time, and I wish I could believe them myself and offer them to others.

But I don’t. So how does an atheist deal with death? How do I come to terms with my own end, and how do I offer comfort to others? These are questions that have no easy answer. There is no possible way to come up with a belief that is as comforting as eternal bliss, to be sure, but can’t there be something? Isn’t there some reassurance even in a world where death truly is the final end? I believe there is.

When I lost my own faith in God, I feared the loneliness that my religious leaders told me accompanied such a loss. I feared that without God, the meaninglessness of life would swallow me whole. I feared that I would be lost in a lonely world where the only possible source of meaning (God, of course) was not present. But I decided that such fears must give way to truth, and I desired to follow truth even in the midst of dread. What I found, however, was not what I had feared. Instead of being lost in loneliness, I found a kinship in humanity. Humans may indeed live in a universe which offers them no intrinsic purpose, but we are all here together. We share the world we live in, and we share the human condition we find ourselves thrust into. We share the sunlight and the darkness, the excitement of birth and the tragedy of death. The story of the universe binds us all together as one. We can share in the struggles of those even thousands of miles away, because their struggles are human struggles. More broadly, we can share in the labours of all life, for the struggles of animals and even plants are our own as well: survival, interdependence, and flourishing. In short, when I lost my faith in God, I found my faith in the human condition. We are all in this together, in a very real sense.

So how is this reality a comfort to those in times of grief? It provides its comfort in several ways. First, death binds us all. Although such words mean little in a time when death has come to those so young, such time cut short should spur us on to make more of the time we have ourselves. The death of these little ones can encourage us to find life ourselves. In this sense, these children’s lives are not lost to us; instead, their lives ripple outward, spreading love, compassion, warmth, encouragement, the sharing of grief, the call from a friend, the kind word of a loved one. Failing to make our lives meaningful through those around us would dishonour the lives of these victims and yield a second tragedy.

More tangibly, the reality of the human condition reminds us that the tragedies we face are not ours to bear alone. As the families of these victims mourn, the world mourns with them. We all understand the meaning of loss, and we share that loss together through the empathy we have for others. And when we share that loss, we strengthen the bonds of affiliation between us. It is often noted how a community “comes together” after a tragedy; this effect is born of a necessity to share the weight of the loss. Through sorrow, we find those who are there to comfort us, and we find that the grief of others shares striking resemblance to our own. No, we have not all known the pain of losing a child, but we can share some piece of that sorrow and find our common humanity in that. Making these connections can make even the deepest pain bearable.

Finally, the reality of the human condition places our own lives in perspective. In daily life, the pursuit of pleasure, of money, or prestige makes it easy to forget that our lives are not made meaningful by these achievements. In a universe which offers no objective meaning, it is up to us as meaning-making machines to provide meaning for ourselves and others. And this meaning and purpose chiefly arises through our relationships with others. The bonds we form with those around us, and the impact we have on others, are the measures of a life well lived. And though in such an incident where death came to those so young, we know that their memories will be cherished by their families, and by every connection those families have made with others, and by every connection those others have made, extending ever-outward. How much more we can do with the lives that we have! We can spread love and goodness to others, and accept love and goodness back from them. This goodwill is a contribution to the course of humanity, even though one’s life seems infinitesimal amongst the throngs of humankind. It is forming relationships with others that makes the world better and that makes our lives more meaningful.

These are the reassurances I have as an atheist. I cannot in good faith reassure someone that their child will live on in eternal bliss. But while the road ahead will be hard for these families, the relationships they have formed can support them and draw them inward. And I can reassure them that their children’s lives can serve as a catalyst for sharing love, compassion, and goodwill with others. No, not all people understand this. Some perform terrible acts and rip apart lives with little thought for the devastation they create. But in the end, such acts will not be overcome with gun control or discussing mental health issues (though of course, these can be good too). Inhuman acts must be overcome with acts of humanity—love, compassion, drawing others closer together. This is the way forward. And this is how the memories of children’s lives can be cherished in the face of loss.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: The Way Forward

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait

What is the “self”? Such a question has had a multitude of answers from philosophers and psychologists throughout history. Although there is an immediate understanding of what I refer to when I say “I”, upon reflection that clarity vanishes. Do I refer to my physical body? That changes over the course of my life as my cells are replaced one by one. (If I have my arm amputated, am I still the same person?) Is it my consciousness? Then I am conceivably a different person when asleep or drunk then when awake or sober. Is it my memories and experiences? Psychology has demonstrated that recalled memories are largely a reconstruction of the brain rather than a true recollection. And what happens if I get amnesia or Alzheimer’s?

All these questions make it difficult to truly pin down what the self entails. We have some sense of continuity over time, but that continuity can be easily broken. So I’d like to take some time to examine, from a psychological perspective, just what it means to have a “self” and to have a sense of self-identity. In the process, I’d like to advance a theory of the self that suggests that at least some of the continuity we experience is illusory. Instead of being a coherent structure, the self is constantly being assembled and reassembled by our minds. So with that said, hang on to your hats, and let’s begin.

Culture and Connection

Diagram for independent and interdependent self-schemas (click to enlarge)

The first thing to acknowledge is that there are cultural differences in the way the self is felt. In other words, not everyone has the same sense of self-identity that you do. There are (at least) two patterns of how the self can be organized: independent and interdependent.¹ When an independent sense of self exists, the primary referent is the individual’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions. The self is seen as fundamentally distinct or separate from other individuals, and is derived from a sense of stable internal attributes. This pattern is most common in Western cultures. In contrast, when an interdependent sense of self exists, the primary referent is the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others with whom the individual is in relationship. The self is seen as fundamentally connected with and related to others, and is thus contingent on the individual’s position relative to others. This pattern is most common in Eastern cultures (and indeed, in much of the world).

Note that when I say that the self is distinct from others or connected to others, I don’t mean to say that Western people are just “selfish”. Rather, the nature of how one acts selfishly can differ in an independent context. A Westerner would be selfish by acting in his or her own interest at the expense of other individuals. An Easterner would be selfish by acting in the interest of his or her family or work group at the expense of other individuals outside the group. For an interdependent self, the line between the individual and others is blurred—it is not just that the individual is more kind to others or more giving to those around him or her. Independent and interdependent selves are composed in fundamentally different ways.

The fact that the self can be construed in these very distinct ways means that one’s own sense of self is a product of the culture one lives in. What is most interesting is that these patterns of self-organization are stable; both independent and interdependent selves are able to exist and thrive, and there seems to be no obvious advantage favouring one over the other (besides cultural fit).

The Permanence of Personality

Change Over Time

Another way that the self might be conceptualized is as a system of enduring traits collectively making up one’s personality. It is important to note that this, in itself, is a very independent idea of the self (based on internal attributes rather than external relationships). Nevertheless, people generally have some sense that their patterns of behaviour remain relatively stable over time, and this constitutes their personality. Given this idea, one can ask the question, “Just how stable is personality?”

Numerous psychologists have attempted to answer this question by giving people personality scales at more than one time interval (longitudinal, in other words) and looking for changes. However, what makes it more difficult is that there are multiple methods to assess changes in personality. One method, rank-order stability, looks at whether individuals maintain their relative placement to each other on different traits over time. In other words, if I am the most extroverted person in a group of people, do I stay at #1 or do I shift downward?

One influential meta-analysis (combining the results of 152 other studies) found that rank-order stability peaked at age 50-59, and then leveled off.² More specifically, it increased in a steplike pattern at three different points in time: between infancy/toddlerhood (0-2.9) and preschool (3-5.9), between college (18-21.9) and early adulthood (22-29), and between early middle age (40-49) and later middle age (50-59). In addition to this, the peak point at age 50-59 was still well below complete consistency (r = .75), indicating that there was substantial consistency but that personality traits did not stop changing even into middle age. This study and others have also found that the greater the time interval between personality tests, the less rank-order stability is found.

Personality change across the lifespan (click to enlarge)

In contrast to rank-order stability, however, is mean-level change. This method looks at whether traits in groups of individuals increase or decrease over time. There have been numerous studies using this approach, but one excellent one in particular examined a German sample of 14,718 participants (representative of the German population), ranging from ages 16 to 82 and assessed twice over four years.³ This study found that all five factors of the well-validated Big Five personality scale showed mean-level changes over the four years, and four of these changes were influenced by age: older people were more likely to decrease in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, with no influences of age on emotional stability.⁴ They also found evidence for a reciprocal relationship between personality and life events. Some personality traits made an individual more likely to experience a life event: for example, highly extraverted people were more likely to move in with their partner during the four years between testing. Life events, however, also made individuals more likely to shift in personality: for example, individuals became more conscientious after getting divorced and less conscientious both after having a baby and after retiring. Given the relatively short testing period of four years, of course, it is possible that people who experience important life events only temporarily shift in personality. However, given that the average time between the life event and the second testing time would likely be about two years, this still means that these events can be associated with significant changes in personality that persist for at least that long.

Given this evidence using both rank-order and mean-level methods of assessing change in personality, we can arrive at three conclusions:

1. personality is generally stable yet still malleable, even in adulthood;
2. personality is affected by age (or time between testing, more generally) such that general trends in personality change can be found for individuals across the lifespan; and
3. significant life events can cause (and be the cause of) changes in personality.

Change Across Situations

But more broad than the idea of personality changing over time is the question of whether personality is more fluid than researchers typically believe. Certainly, people generally have some sense of continuity in what the “self” consists of over time and across situations. Then again, people often remember things in ways that are consistent with their preconceived beliefs about how things are “supposed” to be. Do we really have a consistent personality across situations? One relevant factor here is that of independence or interdependence, as mentioned above. Individuals with an interdependent sense of self feel less of a need to act consistently from situation to situation. Their behaviour is more dependent on the context and the roles in which they are placed than on a sense of internal traits or attributes that guide their actions. Thus, we might expect that interdependent people taking a personality test at work and at home might show greater differences than independent people.

However, this idea reveals a bias in the way personality is conceptualized to begin with. By and large, most research in personality is done using trait-based measures, which is based on quite a Westernized view of the self. Personality traits are defined as inherently stable dispositions. One psychologist, Steven Quackenbush, has argued that personality research assumes traits are “transcontextual,” being stable across a variety of situations.⁵ Based on this assumption, failure to find high levels of stability in personality must be viewed as measurement error of the personality tests themselves rather than an indication of meaningful differences. Indeed, personality tests themselves are often phrased in terms that imply transcendence of context: How does one answer their agreement or disagreement with the item “I see myself as someone who is full of energy” when one’s level of energy depends on the situation, on the people one is with, on the level of sleep one has had the night before, and so on? Personality tests like these force individuals to think in broad terms that ignore contextual differences, and thus can at best only serve as a general average of one’s behaviour across a large variety of situations.

We all have such experiences that come to mind readily. We act differently around our friends than we do around our grandmothers. We understand that people’s behaviours change in interpretable ways as a result of life events: “Since her boyfriend broke up with her, Sandra has been rather withdrawn.” And psychologists know that by reminding individuals of characteristics that they hold, they can change how they act. Something as simple as reminding people of a value they hold strongly can have a meaningful effect on their ability to buffer against failure and negative feedback, on their persistence at difficult tasks, and on their willingness to change negative behaviours such as smoking and unsafe sex.⁶ Given these details, it is evident that our personality is much more fluid than most of us would care to admit. That is not to say that there is no consistency, but rather that most of the consistency in our personality may instead come from consistency in the situations we are in (same job, same school, same family) rather than from the attributes inside us.

 The “Grab Bag Self”

So what has all this discussion about culture and personality been leading up to? My theory is that the self is a fluid construct that dynamically shapes itself and recreates itself throughout time. It is not a solid construction made of stable attributes that express themselves across situations and time. Instead, it is a collection of bits and pieces: characteristics, identity statements, roles, theories, expectations, and so on. These bits and pieces are continually assembled and reassembled as the self continues through life, depending on what is most salient in the environment at the time. When the situation indicates that it is time to study hard for a test, the self musters up its bits and pieces regarding academic goals, learning strategies, identity statements about being a “good student”, and so on. (Alternately, it might decide that eating chocolate is actually the more salient concern and instead pull out all the eating-related characteristics so that you end up sitting on the couch eating Reese’s Pieces. It will also pull out the “expert procrastinator” identity to match.) It assembles the self according to what is needed at the time based on its own theories and expectations about how the world operates. But more interestingly, these theories and goals and identities need not be internally consistent with each other. When studying we might think about how being a “good student” is central to who we are, but after failing the test we might reassure ourselves by thinking about how school is not really important to us and instead emphasize the centrality of our friends and family to our lives.

I call this the “grab bag self”. It’s a description that probably does not line up with the lived experiences of most people. Again, people generally have a sense of internal consistency over time, but I am arguing that this sense is largely an illusion. However, I believe that this description of the self I advocate lines up quite well with the things that psychology has come to understand about how the human mind works. Humans are simply not the rational, consistent creatures that philosophers and economists have long considered us to be. Instead, we are creatures that operate using heuristics providing us with a reasonably good method for navigating through the world. But these heuristics are not internally consistent (just think of the equally popular sayings, “birds of a feather flock together” and “opposites attract”), and only get activated in situations in which they seem relevant. This means that we use whatever strategies and theories seem to work best in the situation, and at the same time the ones that don’t work get inhibited.

How does this work in practice? Well, since we were infants, we have been developing implicit (largely unconscious) theories about how the world works, how people are supposed to behave, and so on.⁷ These theories are sometimes modified by new experiences, and sometimes the theories themselves shape how new experiences are perceived. As we grow, our theories become more complex, and we develop ideas about who we are (identities) and how we should think and act (personality). Both these theories and the demands of the environment lead us to develop goals to survive and thrive. But crucially, given that our environments are typically variable and complex, we can begin to hold inconsistent ideas about the self at the same time. When reminded of the clothes on the floor in our room, we say, “I’m such a disorganized person!” On a separate occasion, when reminded of our colour-coded calendar at work, we say, “I’m such an organized person!” The different contexts elicit different theories of the self, and pull for different behaviours and goals. This is not a bad thing; it helps us to adapt to changing environments and switch between different roles when necessary. But crucially, when we are thinking about ourselves as disorganized, we are not as likely to remember the cases that would suggest the opposite!⁸ This is what allows us to generally live what feels to us to be an internally consistent life. The theory of the self that is active at the time also activates a whole host of beliefs, goals, memories, identities, and characteristics that are relatively consistent with that theory.

With this said, of course, it is true that some theories and identities are more chronically active than others. This could be the case for a variety of reasons: continual reminders from the environment (a woman engineer may be more aware of her gender when continually being surrounded by men), more consistent situations (like a son who works on the family farm vs. a son who works in the city), less complex situations (fewer roles to juggle), greater consistency of past experiences, and so on. There is also the issue that some theories are so strongly ingrained that most or all situations are interpreted in light of that theory, leading to a feedback loop that leads to chronic activation. But in general, I am willing to argue that the consistency of self that we experience is, to a larger portion than most would expect, illusory. It’s just that when we recollect our past experiences, we are also interpreting them in terms of whatever theories and identities are activated at the current time. Of course things seem more consistent with our theories when we interpret them according to those same theories!

The Importance of Being Incremental

So why is this important? Why does it matter whether the self is an established, consistent construct or a fluid, dynamic system of bits and pieces? Well, these concepts in themselves can become implicit theories about how the self is “supposed” to operate. And when that happens, it can affect how well we are able to adapt to our changing environment. Carol Dweck and others have identified two common implicit theories that people can have about intelligence: an entity theory, which views intelligence as a fixed quantity that cannot be changed much by learning and effort, and an incremental theory, which views intelligence as malleable and expandable. Although these theories are commonly framed in terms of intelligence, I believe they can be fruitfully expanded to cover theories of the self more broadly. Some people view the self as largely unchangeable, defined by static internal qualities; and other people view the self as dynamic and changeable through effort.

Research on these two implicit theories has shown numerous benefits for an incremental view of intelligence. Robins and Pals (2002) found that college students with an entity view were more likely to set performance goals (e.g., “get good grades”) while those with an incremental view were more likely to set learning goals (e.g., “understand and be able to apply the material”).⁹ Students with an entity view were also more likely to respond in a helpless way after failure (attributing failure to lack of ability; being ashamed, distressed, and upset; and giving up), whereas students with an incremental view were more likely to respond with a mastery-oriented pattern (feeling determined, excited, and inspired; and trying even harder). Nussbaum and Dweck (2008) did similar research, where students were given a difficult comprehension task on which they did poorly and then were given the chance to examine the strategies that other students (representing a range of scores) used on the task.¹⁰ They found that students with an entity view were more likely to defensively repair their self-esteem by examining the strategies of others who did more poorly than they did (downward social comparison), whereas students with an incremental view who did poorly were more likely to opt for self-improvement by examining the strategies of others who did better than they did (upward social comparison). And these implicit theories can affect those around us, as well. Rattan, Good, and Dweck (2012) found that teachers who held an entity theory of math intelligence (vs. an incremental theory) were more likely to try to comfort a student who did poorly on the first test by using strategies that could reduce engagement (e.g., explaining that not everyone is a “math person”, assigning less homework, talking about them dropping the class).¹¹ They found that these attempts to comfort students communicated entity views to them, and in turn lowered their own motivation and expectations for their performance in the class.

Given these findings and others, it is evident that an entity view of intelligence can have detrimental effects for thriving in the world. People with such views react poorly to failure because they believe they do not have, and are incapable of attaining, the proper skills for achieving success. Those who have an incremental view of intelligence, however, are able to understand that flexibly expending effort and adapting to the task at hand can produce mastery and success. This provides them with incredible motivation to achieve those tasks which are most important to them.

The process should work quite similarly for theories about the self in general. An entity view can serve to “reify” the self, turning it into a concrete entity and emphasizing its stability over time. As long as a person’s environment stays consistent, this strategy can be successful. However, given that virtually no one has a completely consistent environment (especially in a modern society that is getting more and more complex), an incremental view of the self can lead to more flexible adaptation and shifting of resources to navigate the current situation. Accepting that one need not always act consistently, especially if the situation calls for something different, can be of huge benefit. It can lead to greater feelings of success and a better sense of “fit” in a wider variety of situations. More than this, an incremental view of the self can help develop a better understanding of how the self truly operates (as a “grab bag” of bits and pieces assembled and reassembled). Knowledge of how the self operates allows us to wield it more effectively. It’s not that people with an entity view can’t be successful and satisfied, but an incremental view allows us to cope with whatever life throws at us. That, to me at least, seems like a beneficial thing.

Conclusion

So let me wrap this up. My argument is that the self is a dynamic system that assembles and reassembles itself according to current goals and cues from the environment. This argument is rooted in basic facts about the psychology of the human mind, and reveals itself in cultural differences and in the changes in personality that people can undergo over time and across situations. Most importantly, holding such a view about the self should have positive benefits for flexibly adapting to situations in their innumerable and beautiful diversity. What can hold us back is not our inability to change, but our existing beliefs about whether change is possible.

Notes:

1. Markus, H.R., & Kitayama, S. (2010). Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(4), 420-430. The article is available here.
2. Roberts, B.W., & DelVecchio, W.F. (2000). The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantitative review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 126(1), 3-25. The article is available here.
3. Specht, J., Egloff, B., & Schmukle, S.C. (2011). Stability and change of personality across the life course: The impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 862-882. The article is available here.
4. Please note that the names of some of these personality traits are used differently by psychologists than by the general public. To understand more precisely what is meant by these trait names, the Wikipedia page on the Big Five provides a good overview.
5. Quackenbush, S.W. (2001). Trait stability as a noncontingent truth: A pre-empirical critique of McCrae and Costa’s stability thesis. Theory & Psychology, 11(6), 818-836. The article is available here.
6. What I am describing here is self-affirmation, a technique that has been used by social psychologists in a variety of domains with incredible results. But more broadly, half the work that social and cognitive psychologists do involves priming people with certain concepts, thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, and then seeing how that impacts their behaviour. Often these effects are short-lived (which is important in a research context if the primed thought is negative!), but if a priming effect creates a feedback loop that changes how people interpret future events, it can result in meaningful, long-lasting change. In one prominent example, a 15-minute writing exercise about a personally important value was able to reduce the academic gap between seventh-grade White and Black students by 40% up to two years later (Cohen, Garcia, Purdie-Vaughns, Apfel, & Brzustowski, 2009).
7. Note that some of these may have an evolutionary basis and thus be relatively hard-coded in the brain. For the purposes of this article, however, the origin of the implicit theories is not really important.
8. This is called confirmation bias; our mind seeks to confirm, rather than disconfirm, theories.
9. Robins, R.W., & Pals, J.L. (2002). Implicit self-theories in the academic domain: Implications for goal orientation, attributions, affect, and self-esteem change. Self and Identity, 1, 313-336. The article is available here.
10. Nussbaum, A.D., & Dweck, C.S. (2008). Defensiveness versus remediation: Self-theories and modes of self-esteem maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(5), 599-612. The article is available here.
11. Rattan, A., Good, C., & Dweck, C.S. (2012). “It’s ok — Not everyone can be good at math”: Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 731-737. The article is available here.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: The Grab Bag Self

I believe this was a mistake. In order to produce healthy moral citizens, children must be taught to navigate the world of moral values. And this is better done earlier in a child’s education rather than later. They must be taught to analyze everyday situations in terms of morally relevant characteristics and make judgments on what behaviours are appropriate for themselves and others. Otherwise, children will grow into adults who divorce moral considerations from their own lives. Do I need to spell out the problems this may cause?

Of course, the difficulty is that in a multicultural and multifaith society, there are a diversity of values that people hold, some of which may be incompatible with each other. How can a school teach anything about moral values without advocating one set of values as better than another? I believe there is a middle path between supporting one set of values and teaching no values at all. This path both respects cultural diversity and acknowledges (or at least allows for the possibility) that moral values may be relative and not fundamentally grounded as an objective property of the universe. Instead of advocating particular values, it teaches children to weigh and apply values. So I’d like to outline this approach in a little more detail to show you what it might look like.

A Values Approach

Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist who studies morality and politics. In his research, he sought to uncover what were the fundamental moral dimensions upon which people (cross-culturally) judge events and actions. He identified six of these dimensions: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Not all individuals use all of these dimensions, but Haidt argued that judgments people considered “moral” were based on at least one or more of these dimensions. Whether or not you agree with this theorizing, this approach attempts to understand morality from a descriptive values approach: What do people value, and how does that affect their choices and behaviour?

This approach is somewhat in contrast to the philosophical tradition of ethics, which attempted to ground morality in a rational principle or set of principles. Philosophers have traditionally tried to reach back to first principles to establish morality, typically drawing on one principle to do so: Immanuel Kant had the categorical imperative, John Stuart Mill had the greatest-happiness principle, and John Rawls had the “veil of ignorance.” These principles were then extended outward to determine the moral implications that followed.

I believe there is much to be gained by studying morality (and society in general) from the perspective of values. The philosophical tradition, in a sense, can be seen as answering the question, “What should we value?” The values approach, however, asks, “Given that this is what we value, how do we resolve conflicting values and make decisions in line with our values?” And when teaching practical ethics, this is the more relevant question to answer. Taking this descriptive approach to values, I believe, makes it both easier to teach ethics in a multicultural context and allows for the possibility that moral values can be relative without any degradation in the process itself.

Conflicts and Dilemmas

A second aspect to my proposed approach is to clarify the concept of a “moral dilemma”. Commonly, this is used to refer to situations where self-interest conflicts with the needs of others. For example, should I call in sick even though I know my coworker needs help today? But really, this is a trivial case of a moral dilemma, if it is one at all. Such situations might be better classified as “self-control dilemmas”. In these cases, you know what the right choice is, but don’t want to choose it. Much more important to consider are moral dilemmas that pit two conflicting, strongly-held moral values against each other. In these cases, it is not immediately clear which choice is best. Determining this takes a process of deliberation where the relevant values are carefully weighed, and the various choices for actions closely examined for their probable outcomes.

Let’s take an example that is always sure to spark heated debate: abortion. Those who identify as pro-choice may point to values such as bodily autonomy (the right to decide what happens with one’s own body); the need for safe, medical procedures to mitigate harm; and compassion for pregnant women in unfortunate or traumatic circumstances. Those who identify as pro-life may emphasize values such as protecting life; acknowledging the role of God’s will in one’s circumstances; and harm or pain to the fetus. What is important to note here is that these values can be shared by both parties: pro-choice people may acknowledge that valuing life is generally a good thing, and pro-life people might acknowledge that bodily autonomy is generally preferable to a lack of bodily autonomy.² This means that in some cases, the debate surrounding abortion does not involve completely separate values, but rather the different importance or weight assigned to each value. This is true both on a societal scale (should abortion be legal?) as well as on a personal scale (should I get an abortion?). For a woman considering an abortion, these values must all be considered and weighted to determine what her decision should be.

In one sense, this sounds trivial. Of course we must figure out what is important in order to make moral decisions! But I believe that teaching the skills necessary to analyze and resolve moral dilemmas is crucial to producing mature moral citizens. It is easy for people to overlook or intentionally ignore values that drastically change the outcome of a moral decision. It is only through careful and (as much as possible) unbiased deliberation that such oversights can be corrected. What is tragic is that often such deliberation never happens. When such is the case, people often fall back on their own pre-existing biases, or whatever value is most salient at the moment (typically something self-interested, I should point out), or what others tell them to do, or whatever is most convenient for them. These methods lead to poor results, and can end up causing significant harm to others and, in some cases, to society as a whole.

Outlining the Process

The process of resolving a moral dilemma is fairly straight-forward (though actually going through the process, of course, can be difficult). There are five steps:

1. Identify the values that are relevant for the situation.
2. Determine whether any of these values are in conflict with each other.
3. Weight these values as to their importance.
4. Identify the possible actions that could be taken and the outcomes that they are likely to produce.
5. Determine which action will produce outcomes that best fulfill the weighted values identified above.

Of course, each of these steps could be broken down in more detail. How should one identify the values that are relevant? How should these values be weighed? Such details are important, but beyond the scope of this article. I’m not developing a curriculum, only outlining a broad theory for teaching moral decision-making. But hopefully these steps will offer enough opportunity for further thought.

Biased Results

In addition to learning the process, a good moral education involves an understanding of how our own biases and psychological limitations can distort the process. For example, people are excellent at rationalizing behaviour that is favourable towards themselves. We also make poor decisions when we are “involved” in the outcome; when we take a step back and view the problem from a distance, often we find new and better solutions. It is also important to stress that moral decisions where two strongly-held values are in conflict often do not lead to emotionally satisfying conclusions. When we are forced to make trade-offs or compromises, expecting to feel entirely comfortable with the result is a mistake. And finally, often decisions must be made under time pressure, which only amplifies the influence that our biases have on our decision. All these things are important to teach children so that they can learn to think rationally about situations with a moral component and make the best choice.

Returning to Value-Based Education

It’s no secret that much of our everyday lives involves values and beliefs. Values affect where we work, who we form relationships with, how we act, how we form our identity, what we purchase, and how we vote. Learning to navigate the world of values is crucial to function properly in a complex society such as our own. And since ethics is applicable in every domain of life, we must learn to incorporate moral values as we make the major and minor decisions our lives. Teaching children this skill helps them to become mature moral agents. And I believe it is possible to teach them moral decision-making without elevating any particular set of values over any other. We can take a descriptive approach that uses the values already on the table to weigh and apply them. Finding this middle path may be difficult, but I believe the investment will yield great dividends in the health of our society.

Notes:

1. Of course, there are still values that are transmitted in school. Dominant cultural values such as the importance of education, the necessity of the state and of the current economic system, etc. are certainly still imparted to children. But these commonly-accepted values tend to fly under the radar.
2. Of course, some values might not be shared—non-religious people probably won’t find the role of God’s will to be a relevant concern.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Moral Education in a Multicultural Environment

We are little boys and girls
Playing house, tea for two
We act out grown-up roles
Though we are already grown

White picket fence
Two kids and a dog
Like June and Ward Cleaver
Nostalgia for life never lived

We dress to impress
We dress for success
Painted face, false charm
A doll’s painted smile

Somehow growing up means
Being serious, knowing all
Briefcases and suits
Just a role we play

I am but a child
In a grown-up’s body
I act, I play house
I work, I save, I spend

I pretend my life makes sense
I pretend it is under control
But deep down inside
I am just a frightened child.

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This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Playing House

Of course, these are not new questions for psychology to deal with. Making the case for psychology as a science has been a continual process over the years, and psychology to some extent still suffers from the impression that has remained from the psychoanalytic tradition of Freud. The psychoanalysts loved to sit people on couches and talk about dreams and repressed childhood memories and so on. But we’re past Freud. Honest.

However, given the recent scrutiny, I thought it appropriate to take the time to address the question again and argue that yes, psychology is indeed a science. I come from the perspective of a graduate student in social psychology—traditionally the most “suspect” of the areas in psychology—and as such, most of my experience and examples come from that area. I approach this question from the “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck” approach (see, I’m using the scientific method already!). I would like to argue that psychology operates very similarly to other fields of science that are not in dispute—the so-called “hard sciences”. So let me outline just a few of the ways in which psychology parallels these fields.

1. Psychology makes observations that lead to numeric data that can be analyzed statistically.

Dealing with the human mind is a difficult subject. It’s complex (the most complex thing in the universe that we’ve ever discovered), it’s situated in a complex system of social and cultural forces, and its hardware, the brain, is a complex organ that we are still trying to understand. As such, with all the complexity involved, one might expect psychologists to throw up their hands and resign themselves to leaving the human mind a mystery. But despite this, they have come up with methods for making observations that lead to quantifiable data that can be analyzed using established statistical methods. Much of these data are observed through actual behaviour of participants: How far away does the White person sit from the Black person? How long do they spend working on this task? How many cookies vs. veggies do they eat? These behaviours can provide inferences into people’s motivations (e.g., prejudice, persistence, dieting) as well as the thought networks that exist in their heads. Psychologists also use lots of self-report surveys asking people questions about what they think or feel about things. They are, of course, well aware of the drawbacks to self-report. Psychologists are the ones who discovered the biases people have when reporting their own attitudes and beliefs, after all! That’s why psychologists have also developed methods to subtly get around these explicit self-reporting biases. But self-report, behavioural, implicit, and physiological measures can all be combined to give us a rich understanding of how people think and act. We can compare groups statistically to determine if differences that are found are actually real or just due to chance. These methods are just the same as what other scientific fields use (though self-report is generally limited to psychology—physicists have a hard time asking protons and neutrons what they think).

2. Psychology uses experimental study designs that include random assignment and controlled manipulations.

The birth of the controlled scientific experiment was an enormous leap forward in people’s ability to draw conclusions about cause and effect the world. Two key components of an experiment lead to its importance: manipulation of variables and random assignment. The first, manipulation, ensures that we compare two or more groups that have one important difference between them. For instance, we could give one group of people a drug and another no drug and then measure the differences.¹ The second component, random assignment, ensures that any differences that might still exist between the two groups (other than the effects of the drug) would only be due to chance. In other words, it makes sure that the two groups are the same in all other respects, so we know that any differences are due to the drug. It is a powerful design that rules out many alternative explanations. And psychologists use them all the time. Certainly there are other methods that psychologists and other scientists use (correlational studies and quasi-experimental designs, to name a couple), but psychologists love using experiments just as much as any chemist or physicist does.

3. There is a peer review process within psychology.

All the major psychology journals use the same peer review process that is found in other scientific fields. How it works is that when an manuscript gets submitted to a journal, the journal editor will send it out to two or three other researchers that also study the topic at hand. They take a look at the manuscript and give a review that assesses how much of a contribution the research makes, and how rigorous the methodology is. They send these reviews back to the editor, who makes a decision about whether to accept or reject the paper (or ask for revisions).

More importantly, however, psychology’s real peer review comes when the article actually gets published. Then, everyone is able to read it, discuss it, make critiques of it, and develop new research to test it further. This is, of course, how science is done! It’s a cumulative process that involves the field as a whole.

4. Psychology has both strong theoretical and strong empirical emphasis.

Psychology is fairly well-known for its theories. Freud had his interesting (though incorrect) ideas about repressed childhood memories, virtually everyone has seen Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at some point, and Pavlov’s work on classical conditioning has led to the common expression, “hungry as a salivating dog in a lab experiment.” (Okay, I just made that up.) Psychology has since moved from an emphasis on broad, overarching theories that attempt to explain everything, to smaller theories that try to explain more specific human behaviour. But it has retained a strong emphasis on theory as a driver of scientific advance in the field.

At the same time, however, psychology in more recent years has tended to stay very “close” to the data. Theories are formulated, but they must be tested, and the data must confirm the theory. A psychological theory without empirical support tends not to have a long shelf life. This emphasis on empiricism is in line with the “hard” sciences, and in contrast to some of the other social sciences, which often have a very strong theoretical tradition, but less emphasis on data. It is my opinion that both theory and data are crucial for making a field scientific.

5. Psychology builds on previous research and also sometimes overturns past theories.

Psychology is a dynamic field that is constantly in flux with regard to the understanding of phenomena. As mentioned, psychologists often build off each others’ research and develop new tests of theories or new directions and applications for a theory. But this also sometimes involves the disconfirmation of theory. In some cases, theories are tested numerous times, in numerous ways, and found not to have empirical support. Thus they lose credibility and fade out of the picture.

With that said, the complexity of psychology as a field does lead to a multiplicity of theories covering the vast range of human thoughts, attitudes, and behaviour. This is in contrast to some of the other “hard” sciences that often have an overarching framework within which most research is done (e.g., the standard model in physics, evolution in biology). The complexity of the human mind and of human societies means that there are often theories which gain initial support, but the results cannot be replicated or are found to be limited to certain situations or populations. Because there are always new situations to be found and new ways of interpreting situations, it does lead to a bias toward generating theories and a bias against falsifying them. However, this problem is not disastrous as long as there is enough research done to find theories which apply over a broad range of situations and populations. As this sort of research is carried out, the more widely applicable theories generally rise to the top, even if other theories are not strictly “falsified”. Since the primary purpose of a theory is to offer a useful explanation of a phenomenon that offers new predictions, what is more important is that useful theories stick around. Psychology operates like any other science in this regard.

6. Psychology aims to make the world a better place.

This, I would argue, is one of the main purposes of science: to make the world a better place. Often science does this indirectly, through a better understanding of how the world works that only later develops into concrete methods for improving our lives. But all in all, science is about increasing knowledge and, in so doing, making life better. Psychology certainly aims to do this as well. Research on well-being has focused on finding variables that a) contribute greatly to individual well-being and b) are malleable. Research on stereotype threat has identified one reason why women and minority group members are underrepresented in academics, math and science in particular, politics, and upper management. Political psychology has attempted to find ways for liberals and conservatives to find common ground based on shared values. All these areas of research and more have had a great impact (and will continue to have greater impact as we uncover more knowledge) on society. How could it not? Finding out how people work puts us in a better position to make our environment better suited to human flourishing.

But more importantly, I think, is that psychology has changed how we conceptualize ourselves as human beings. Past ideas about human nature have presumed that humans are ultimately rational, are fundamentally good (or bad), and are born as “blank slates”. Psychology has shown us that our intuitive understanding of who we are is wrong. Humans are guided by emotions and intuitions with a thin slice of rationality on top; we all have a capacity for great good and great evil, but the extent to which we are one or the other is often a matter of the situation and the context; and we are born “hard-wired” with functions to capture meaning from the world in certain ways. Psychology has changed how we see ourselves, bringing us a more accurate and nuanced understanding of how we think and behave.

A Few Caveats

I think that the above points demonstrate fairly clearly that psychology is indeed a science. Of course, it is not a perfect science, and there are issues with how psychology is performed and represented to the public. Here are a few reasons why that is the case.

1. Science journalism sucks, and psychology is often misrepresented.

It’s no secret that science journalism is often not very good. With news organizations having to make cuts, dedicated science journalists are often the first to go, leaving journalists who do not really understand the research to write news items about it that mislead the public. It’s difficult to say just which science gets misreported most often, but psychology is certainly not immune to misreporting. The problem is twofold: a) journalists look for a catchy story, not necessarily the correct story, and b) journalists make little distinction between preliminary studies and more well-established research. Psychology tends to be affected quite a bit by the first aspect, because psychology research is inherently “catchy”. Journalists look for a way to apply the research to a general audience, and psychology is relevant to anyone who has a brain and lives on earth. Thus, reporting on psychology research can end up taking a very early, preliminary study on a select population and trying to apply it to everyone in the world. I’m sure you can see why a study asking participants in a speed dating event one question about who they liked best does not determine the factors that all men and women find attractive in others. Journalists have a tendency to extrapolate far further than is warranted by the actual research. But this leads to the impression that psychology itself is doing bad science and just making stuff up.

2. There are bad psychologists out there, just as there are bad physicists and bad biologists.

Of course, not all psychologists are doing good science. Psychologists are people too, and some of them are guilty of having their own pet theories that they advocate regardless of the data, or engaging in petty squabbles with other researchers, or using inappropriate statistics or methods in their research, or even fabricating data outright. These things happen, but they happen in every scientific field.  With the enormous number of scientists out there, every field will end up with some scientists who just do bad research. So even though there are several psychologists that have recently been caught manipulating or fabricating data, the fact that they were caught and forced to resign testifies that a) the field has standards that are enforced and b) the majority of the field cares that these standards are followed. I think that is ultimately a positive message.

3. The problems in psychology are active topics of discussion within the field.

Within the field, there has recently been an enormous amount of discussion about several of the problems with how psychological research is done. Problems with lack of proper replication, lack of transparency with data and statistics, laxity with standards on how to report data that have been dropped from a study, the use of non-representative samples to make generalizations about “people in general”—all these are issues that have been topics of active discussion and debate. But while it is troubling that these issues exist, it is encouraging that they are openly acknowledged as problems that need to be resolved. Some of these problems exist in other fields of science, and some have promising solutions that other fields have generated and put into practice. But the point is that these problems are not being swept under the rug. Psychology is full of scientists who disagree on a great many things, but who still care about doing good science. And that is ultimately the important point. Science is an imperfect and inexact process, since it is run by imperfect and inexact human beings. But psychology, along with other scientific fields, is continually on the road toward fixing the problems that exist in order to more accurately understand the world around us, and the world inside our minds.

Notes:

1. Ideally, of course, we would want to compare the drug condition to a placebo group that was given something they thought was a drug. I’m just trying to keep the explanation simple. But psychologists use placebos too.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Is Psychology a Science?

The answer is at once simple and complex: autonomy.

Gender norms, roles, and stereotypes typically end up putting men at the top of the social dogpile. Men are taught to be ambitious, assertive, direct, active, and strong. This leads to obvious advantages, especially when society is based on competition. Business, politics, and academics all favour those with a competitive advantage, and masculine traits often lead to just such an advantage. In contrast, women are taught to be passive, agreeable, delicate, and indirect. These qualities may help in times when cooperation is necessary, or when one needs to support and nurture another, but these domains are generally on the sideline. Great mothers are important, but one hardly becomes rich or powerful from raising children.

This is not to say that all men have an advantage over all women. Not all people fit neatly into the discrete categories of gender that society has created, and not all men have personalities that fit with the masculine traits above. But to the extent that people embrace their socialization and fit into the gender box as best as they can, men have a social advantage over women. A woman who tries to express masculine traits is generally disliked and derided (slurs about being a lesbian are common). For instance, women managers often face particular challenges: if they are stereotypically “feminine”, they are not seen as fit for managerial duty, but if they are stereotypically “masculine”, they are disliked for being aggressive and domineering.

As I see it, it is thus important to push for autonomy. Autonomy is an issue about which I’ve thought about much in the past while. It describes a capacity to be a causal agent of one’s own life —to be able to act in harmony with oneself rather than have one’s life imposed on by external forces.¹ It doesn’t mean that someone is completely independent of others or is free to do whatever they want, but rather that they have the capability of organizing their life so that they “fit” comfortably within the world.

Women who are told that they must be agreeable and passive are robbed of their autonomy. They are told that they cannot be active agents in the world, but must accept what comes their way. We see similar issues with other groups of people. People with disabilities are often portrayed as helpless victims, not able to care for themselves or act meaningfully in the world. Overweight people are shown as lacking self-control, unable to deny the temptation of food (and laziness). People in poverty are alternately portrayed as victims or as being lazy. All these groups are forced into a place where the world acts upon them, rather than them acting upon the world. Such a state can rob people of their dignity as human beings, not to mention their motivation to succeed.

I am committed to doing everything in my power to allow the autonomy of others to flourish. I cannot give autonomy to others (because agency is not something that can be given, only developed), but I can help to remove the barriers that restrict its growth. Part of this involves fighting for equal rights, to level the playing field. Another part involves breaking down or changing social norms that restrict others’ progress. Yet another part involves backing off at times to allow others to take charge. And a final part involves communicating the importance of autonomy to others (coincidentally, what I’m doing right now).

There is no reason why certain groups should enjoy more autonomy than others. Autonomy and interdependence can co-exist peacefully, such that my need to order my life does not impede your right to order your own. The fact that certain social groups are stifled in their autonomy means that society misses out on the wonderful contributions that members of these groups can make. Women can be valuable CEOs and politicians. People with disabilities can be valuable newscasters and public figures. People in poverty have ideas waiting to be put into action. And though the struggle for autonomy is theirs (since the struggle brings autonomy in and of itself), I see no reason for me not to stand with them, and to join them in their efforts. Encouraging the autonomy of others: This is how the world becomes a better place.

Notes:

1. This definition is taken from Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Advancing Autonomy

During my own investigations into economic and political systems, I came across the idea of worker co-operatives. These are businesses which are collectively owned by their workers and democratically managed. When I first learned about these, I was stunned at how brilliant of an idea it seemed to be. It was something of a hybrid between a corporation and a partnership. As I investigated other issues, I kept coming back time and time again to this alluring concept that had never been taught to me in my classes on business or economics. It seemed to be an excellent idea, worthy of my support. And in the end, I based some of my own ideas on politics and economics around this concept. So in order to do what I can to support these co-ops, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the benefits this form of business can have. I’ve divided the benefits into three main areas (though there is some overlap): economic, personal/social, and ethical. But first, let me describe in a little more detail what a worker co-op is.

What is a Worker Co-operative?

As mentioned above, a co-op is a business collectively owned by its workers. Instead of having outside shareholders, the capital of the business (land, buildings, machinery, etc.) is owned by the employees. In addition, co-ops almost always have a democratic management structure. It can take many forms: each worker may take part in every decision made, or there may be managers which are democratically elected, or there may be non-decision-making committees and work groups formed by the collective to handle specific issues. There may even be a combination of more than one of these. However, fundamentally, co-ops are run in a democratic fashion, with each worker having an equal say in the decisions that are made and the direction in which the business goes.

So what is so advantageous about a worker co-operative? Why do I like them so much better than traditional forms of business? Let me describe the benefits.

Economic Benefits

The literature is a little sparse on co-ops. This is partially because they tend to be smaller than regular firms; are fewer in number than their capitalist counterparts; and are also not as popular in the US where, of course, most research is done. So, some of what I mention here will be a little speculative, based on what seems reasonable given the nature of co-ops, but I’ve tried to back it up with research where I could.

1. Lower Unemployment

Co-ops typically experience less employee turnover than ordinary businesses.¹ This makes sense, since people who are in control of their own business are less likely to fire themselves, or to make decisions that put their own employment on the line. Instead, the general trend of co-ops is to adjust wages during periods of low profits, rather than to lay off workers. Evidently, people will typically choose a lower-paying job over no job at all.² What this means, then, is that if co-ops increased in market share, this could reasonably have the effect of lowering unemployment. Obviously this is not the only (or perhaps even the best) solution to unemployment, but it would certainly avoid the all-too-familiar massive layoffs that one sees in large corporations. At the very least, it would provide more stable employment, which is a benefit in itself.

2. Greater Equality of Wealth

Generally, the difference between the highest earner and the lowest earner in a co-op is much, much smaller than in a capitalist enterprise. After all, when everyone gets to vote on wages, things tend to remain fairly equitable. The CEO may earn more, but will not earn outrageously more—and the bonuses (if there are any) will be handed out more fairly as well. Moreover, when the workers are the owners of the firm, this means that the extra profit goes straight into the pockets of the owner-workers. In a corporation, that money would be handed out through dividends to the shareholders, who generally don’t work at the company or have any real stake in the business (apart from their investment, of course). Co-ops put more money in the hands of the people who actually do the work, instead of in the hands of the disconnected people who provided some capital at some point or another. Both of these aspects would quite clearly lead to a greater equality of wealth between the richest and poorest members of society. If co-ops increased in their market share, the rich and the poor would be pulled together—without any need for government intervention. There would be less of a need for forced redistribution of wealth. Instead, it would be handed out more fairly to begin with, right at the source (the workplace).

3. Ability to Compete with Capitalist Firms

This one is not so much a “benefit” but rather a necessity of co-ops. If a worker co-operative is not able to compete with capitalist firms, it seems doomed to failure. We have much experience with corporations, and we are comfortable with them—why switch to something else if it makes our bottom line worse off? Of course, I would argue that even if co-ops did decrease productivity or profits,³ it would still be beneficial for the other reasons I am outlining here. But still, the concern is an important one. So can co-ops compete? One can point to several examples of success. For example, Mondragón in Spain is a federation of co-operatives that includes a leading manufacturer of kitchen appliances; the largest tool-and-die maker in Spain; and much, much more. It even has its own co-operatively owned community bank, funds a pension and health-care system, and finances a co-operative school system.⁴ Another example is the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, which now organizes almost a million women into local co-operatives. It offers its own bank which provides start-up capital, and has been held up by the World Bank as a model to be replicated. Or there is Kantega, a Norwegian software company that has been recognized on several occasions as one of the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe. There are others that could be named, but these examples make it clear that it is possible for co-ops to succeed. Certainly not all co-ops do (nor do all capitalist businesses), but a well-organized co-op does not seem to be at any inherent disadvantage to a well-organized corporation.⁵

Personal/Social Benefits

In addition to monetary concerns, one also needs to consider the impact that co-ops have on the workers within them, and in conjunction, the broader social impact that co-ops have on society.

1. Reduced Alienation of Workers

"Alienation Nightmare" by Sabu

Forgive me for the Marxist terminology here, but I think it’s appropriate. Marx talked about the alienation of workers from the means of production (roughly speaking, capital), as well as from the profits of their labour. Co-ops decrease both of these. The means of production are the land, the building, the machinery, etc. which are necessary for production to take place. In a corporation, these are owned by outside shareholders. And even a worker who has operated a machine for 50 years has come no closer to owning one piece of that machine than when he/she started. In a co-op, on the other hand, the capital is owned by the workers themselves. They have ownership of, and therefore control over, the means of production. And since having access to such capital is a necessity for their own well-being, this also gives them a measure of control over their own lives.

In addition to this, co-ops reduce the alienation from the profits of the workers’ labour. Let me illustrate with an example. Imagine a worker in a capitalist firm. He manufactures shoes every day. When he creates a pair of shoes, let’s say that it costs the business two dollars—one dollar for the materials to make the shoes, and one dollar to pay the worker. After the shoes are made, they are shipped off and sold for $80. Of this amount, the person who actually spent time and energy creating the shoes receives $1, and the other $78 (after the cost of materials) goes into the hands of the people who own the business. There’s some good old-fashioned alienation right there. The person putting in the work gets a tiny cut of the profits from his labour. In a co-op, however, the worker is the owner. When a pair of shoes is created, the profits will be distributed to the people who actually spent the energy making them. And that means that workers receive the fruit of their own labour.

2. Democracy in the Workplace

One of the most fundamental philosophies of the Western world is the need for democracy—the right of individuals to have a say in the matters which affect them. This is a right that Westerners fought long and hard to achieve, and is something they generally still desire today. Citizens demand that their views be heard by the government. Many take great pride in the right to vote. And yet, when it comes to the workplace, these same citizens seem all too willing to be a “cog in the machine” that has no influence over the direction their company takes. Most corporations have an authoritarian structure with decisions flowing down the hierarchy from top to bottom.⁶ What is praised as a virtue in the political realm is suddenly seen as unnecessary in the economic realm. Doesn’t this seem a little bit strange?

Co-operatives allow workers to make democratic decisions about the place at which they spend so much of their time and effort. The ability to have an influence over the decisions that affect one’s own livelihood creates an empowering atmosphere. It is an acknowledgement that the worker is capable of more than just inside-the-job-description thinking. In addition, the democratic style, which provides one vote for each worker, affords a great degree of equality. In a co-op, despite differences in seniority, experience, position, salary, etc., each person still contribute to decisions in an equal measure. For someone who advocates democracy in politics, the extension of these principles into the workplace should seem unquestionably obvious.

3. Higher Morale and Commitment

Common sense would suggest that a workplace that allows greater input into decision-making would lead to higher morale. Indeed, research has shown that co-operatives can lead to higher job satisfaction.⁷ And this, of course, would naturally lead to higher commitment and workplace loyalty.⁸ After all, who wants to leave a company that provides you with satisfaction? Of course, with more people involved in decisions, there is greater potential for disputes to arise, but I would argue that this can be a benefit as well, rather than a drawback. Greater participation can provide more diverse perspectives, which can enhance the level of input to decisions. As long as the company has a good dispute resolution process, co-operatives are not at a disadvantage. Instead, they are more likely to experience meaningful debate, discussion, and as a result, group cohesion. When everyone is involved in something, everyone feels a part of the group, and that plays a large part in fostering loyalty. Co-operatives are not just about protecting one’s self-interest, but standing together to benefit both self-interests and group interests. Workplace loyalty is an attribute that corporations try their hardest to create, but with co-operatives it is basically included as part of the package.

4. Support for Psychological Needs

In the 1980s, two psychologists named Deci and Ryan developed a model of psychological needs known as self-determination theory.⁹ It suggests three fundamental psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Competence is the need to feel effective in dealing with one’s environment; relatedness is the need to interact and feel connected to others; and autonomy is the need to be a “causal agent” of one’s own life and act in an integrated way. Deci and Ryan suggested that satisfaction of these three needs leads to optimal function and growth as a human being. I would argue that, although both co-operatives and capitalist firms fulfill these needs to an extent, co-operatives fulfill them much better than capitalist businesses do.

Competence is experienced in the workplace all the time, and is a sense of mastery over the actions one takes. Although this is affected by a number of different factors, the decreased alienation from one’s own work is a natural result of co-operatives and can thus fulfill this need much better. When people feel connected to their work, it is easier for them to see themselves as competent individuals who are capable of completing the task. Relatedness is also better served by co-operatives. Although capitalist businesses certainly provide outlets for socializing with colleagues, co-operatives provide this to a greater extent. The joint decision-making process allows for more connectedness with one’s fellow workers, as there is a greater sense of common goals and shared interests. Finally, autonomy is best served in a co-operative, which is seen in the greater influence each worker has in the decisions which affect his or her life. By having a say in these decisions, it is easier to feel like a causal agent, whose actions have an effect on the world.

Ethical Benefits

The ethical benefits that result from worker co-operatives come out of the benefits which have already been mentioned above. I would like to argue that co-ops allow for the creation of a more just and equitable society, one that lines up with moral concerns that we as human beings find important.

1. Justice in the Workplace

In a co-op, profits are distributed to the people who actually expended the effort to create the product, instead of to those who simply own the capital. While there may be a role for private ownership in society, it still seems more just to give the money that is earned at the expense of someone’s labour to the person who laboured. The idea of capital ownership goes back at least to the feudal system, where lords would provide land for serfs to grow food in exchange for a certain percentage of that food. This broad type of ownership system has been challenged by some as unfair, who argue that use rights should trump ownership rights.¹⁰ While this is a separate debate which I don’t wish to get into at the moment, worker co-operatives solve the problem by making the owners and the users one and the same. Thus, the people who labour gain the maximum amount of the profits, even under a system which favours capital ownership.

2. Equality of Opportunity

Many who argue for “equality” argue for equality of opportunity. They do not believe that everyone should necessarily have the same amount of money, but rather that everyone should have equal opportunities to gain a reasonable amount of money. This goal, however, can be thwarted by privately-owned capital. To return to the example with the shoe manufacturer, it is clear that no matter how many shoes the worker makes, and how much money he earns as a result from that effort, the capitalist owners will always make more. In my fictional example, they will make 78 times more than he does. Capitalism allows people to make money off of money, which has the result of creating a feedback loop where the rich (who typically own capital through investments, etc.) get progressively richer. The money a non-owner earns will always be dwarfed by the money that a capital owner earns as a result of that non-owner’s labour. Thus, the only way to really ensure some measure of equality of opportunity is to allow better access to capital ownership. Co-operatives do just that.¹¹ They allow workers to pool their resources and co-operatively own property which they can combine with their labour to earn meaningful profits. Certainly this is not the only way to decrease the barriers between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, but it can play a meaningful role in that process.

3. Self-Management

I’ve already touched on this from several angles, but I believe self-management to hold ethical value as well. The ability to have a say in the decisions which affect oneself is something I consider a fundamental right. Both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the US Declaration of Independence declare the right to life and liberty. Self-management finds itself in the legal system as the right to represent oneself in a court of law, as well as the right to legal representation. It is implicit within the concept of informed consent. And of course, it is found in ideal government democracy, where one has the ability to vote for representatives which carry out the will of the people.¹² In short, representation in decisions which affect us is something which already is valued in society, and I would argue that self-management (which perhaps encompasses a little more than just representation) upholds ethical principles which respect the dignity of the person. Co-ops allow for self-management in this sense.

4. Respect for One’s Best Interest

Co-ops allow for a very flexible structure. Each can operate differently, according to the needs of the members which comprise it, and according to how the principles which they then agree upon. For instance, a co-operative might decide to create a pay scale based on seniority, or by amount of labour, or by individual need, or by merit. There is no inherently “right way” to do this, but the fact that co-ops rely on self-management means that this flexibility is possible. It is up to workers to decide what is in their (collective) best interest and create their system according to that. I would argue that an ethical system needs to be flexible enough to allow for differences in individual needs, and so a workplace which provides this flexibility lines up well with this ethical principle. The recognition that an individual is most likely to be aware of what is in his or her best interest is at least a reasonable principle to hold within the framework of an ethical system.¹³ Instead of forcing individuals or groups to conform to a rigid set of rules, it is best in most cases to allow them the freedom to make choices about the best way to allocate their resources and achieve their goals. And co-ops allow this to happen.

Conclusion

In summary, then, worker co-operatives allow for numerous economic, personal, social, and ethical advantages which are more beneficial than the current situation provided by traditional capitalist businesses. My support for co-ops is a result of this recognition, and I would encourage others to support co-ops as well. While they are not as popular here in North America, there are still co-ops which are popping up every day in the most unusual of places. If you are in the market for an organization to do business with, pay special attention to co-operative enterprises. If you are thinking of starting a business, get some friends in on it and start a co-op. Or at the very least, spend some more time investigating co-ops and then tell others about them! This is a real, tangible way of making the world a better place.

Notes:

1. Pencavel, J., Pistaferri, L., & Schivardi, F. (2006). Wages, employment, and capital in capitalist and worker-owned firms. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(1), 23-44. The article is available here. See also Burdín, G., & Dean, A. (2009). New evidence on wages and employment in worker cooperatives compared with capitalist firms. Journal of Comparative Economics, 37, 517-533. The article is available here.
2. And the difference in pay is not extraordinarily large. According to Pencavel, Pistaferri, and Schivardi (2006), co-op wages were about 14% lower than capitalist wages.
3. Note that there is no evidence to suggest that co-operatives lead to a decrease in productivity. In fact, research by Levin (2006) suggests just the opposite: co-operatives can lead to higher job satisfaction, which in turn can lead to higher productivity. See Levin, H. (2006). Worker democracy and worker productivity. Social Justice Research, 19(1), 109-121. The article is available here.
4. This example, as well as the following example, comes from the following article: Rothschild, J. (2009). Workers’ cooperatives and social enterprise: A forgotten route to social equity and democracy. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(7), 1023-1041. The article is available here.
5. Let’s also remember another advantage of co-ops: no time lost to union strikes. When the employers and the employees are one and the same, there’s no need to negotiate using methods which waste time and money.
6. Of course, some more progressive corporations allow room for their employees to exercise a degree of autonomy and have some say in decisions, but this still falls far short of democratic management.
7. Levin, 2006.
8. Hoffman, E.A. (2006). Exit and voice: Organizational loyalty and dispute resolution strategies. Social Forces, 84(4), 2313-2330. The article is available here.
9. Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1995). Human autonomy: The basis for true self-esteem. In M. Kernis (Ed.), Efficacy, agency, and self-esteem (pp. 3149). New York: Plenum.
10. In other words, a serf who uses the land can claim ownership of the amount he/she uses, and cannot be forced to pay someone else for the use of it.
11. Theoretically, of course, there are methods for lower-class people to gain capital. They could forgo food or clothing for the month and invest their money in the stock market. But this is hardly a realistic opportunity. Poor people need ways to make money that have a low level of risk, low investment input (they can’t necessarily purchase $1000 deposit certificates), and that don’t have extra costs like the services of a stock broker. For most people living in poverty, capital ownership is far removed from their access.
12. Of course, whether this is indeed the case in practical terms is another matter entirely.
13. There are, of course, situations where an individual is not necessarily aware of what is in their best interest. Children, the mentally challenged, the intoxicated, etc. are exceptions to the rule. But the presence of exceptions does not invalidate the general rule.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Worker Co-operatives

White people (and people of privilege, more generally) often walk a fine line when it comes to aid and development. Surely ethics do not allow us to turn a blind eye to clear wrongdoing and tragedy. If we do not help, we are branded as selfish and uncaring, apathetic to the plight of the disadvantaged. But if we step in to help, we are taking part in the rich history of White people playing saviour to the world. This is not a plea to have pity on the White man’s burden. But at times it can seem as though we are trapped in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Is there a middle path? Is there a way to help people who truly face tragedy and trauma without inserting one’s nose where it doesn’t belong? Is there a way to offer assistance without imposing a hierarchical “rescuer and victim” construction on the situation?¹

Helping and Harming

Of course, the critical ingredient involves a healthy deal of respect for the autonomy of others. Those of us in Western society do an excellent job of embracing our own autonomy with our rugged individualism, yet we often fail to offer it to others. This has resulted in all manner of atrocities both locally and abroad—from residential schools foisted on Native peoples to puppet dictators propped up in African nations. Even in the interest of “helping”, we often do more harm than good. Like sending free food to foreign countries, which ends up driving local farmers out of business, unable to compete. Like closing sweatshops, which eliminates even the meager wages that workers had with which to sustain themselves and their families. Like distributing thousands of bed nets without checking to see whether people actually understood how to use them properly or if they would use them at all. We, as the “civilized society” we are, are notorious for supporting short-sighted missions that appeal to our efforts to reduce our own guilt at the expense of actually making a positive difference for others. In light of this, doesn’t it seem better to just take our hands out of the matter entirely and leave people to resolve their own issues?

And yet, such a course of action would neglect our ethical duties as people with abundance. To turn a blind eye to tragedy and trauma, or even to watch passively as they occur, would be a terrible wrong. It is just crucially important to realize this: Just as neglecting to help others in need is an egregious moral transgression, an equally egregious transgression is neglecting to do our due diligence in understanding the problem first before helping. Our ethical responsibilities require us to refrain from helping until we adequately understand the problem, and only then to support solutions which actually address the problem with the purpose of eliminating it. To do otherwise is to risk having a detrimental impact on others rather than benefiting them—and I shouldn’t have to explain why that is unethical.

Expertise and Autonomy

Pictured here: Not experts on poverty.

But of course, such a strategy is a tall order. It would be impossible to truly understand every social issue that exists in the world today. So of course, we must rely to some extent on experts who have devoted the time and effort to understanding such issues. Such a tactic is eminently reasonable, and yet there is one important caveat: In most cases, the experts of any given social issue are not likely to be White men who sit comfortably in their armchairs, or even White men who fly to a country to survey the problem—the experts are going to be the people who live within and experience the social issue themselves. The true experts of poverty, of discrimination, of violence are the poor, the stigmatized, and the victims of violence. Even a researcher who takes years to study an issue cannot compete with a community of people who grew up and live within the issue. To do one’s ethical due diligence regarding social issues involves listening to these people. It involves eliciting their solutions.

Of course, there are some cases where the input of privileged people can be useful. Sometimes we can offer best practices. For instance, when establishing a distribution network for medicine in a developing nation, it may be helpful to draw from past research and experience developing similar networks in other regions. However, such practices must be offered as input to be integrated with local customs and practices. Many an attempt to help has fallen victim to local situations that were incompatible with the way the attempt was implemented, which would have been obvious had the “helpers” bothered to listen to the people who were intimately aware of the way things worked. The most valuable way to help is to offer input which respects the autonomy of the people that one is trying to help.

There are many ways to respect autonomy, and many ways to disrespect it, but the crucial aspect is that assistance is not a trickle-down phenomenon. There is no appropriate way to help others in a hierarchical fashion, with helpers positioned above the “victims”. Autonomy is about sharing solutions as a network of equals, while keeping in mind that an individual is always the best expert on his or her own life. Alongside this, it is also crucial to remember that a solution is not a solution unless the people being helped are on board with it (consent). These principles more generally form the basis of relating to others in a way which respects their right to govern the situations which affect their own lives. It is clear from the way that Western societies value “freedom” and “liberty” that we place a high priority on our own autonomy, and as such it seems imperative that the same level of autonomy be afforded to others in equal measure.

In the Interest of Investment

So what is the proper role for the Western world to play in terms of solving the real problems that exist? Primarily, it is one of providing resources. Virtually every community plagued by poverty, starvation, disease, or discrimination has nascent leaders with viable solutions to raise up their community, yet these leaders are (sometimes) stifled by lack of resources. We, as the rich ones (relative to the rest of the world) have those resources—and much more than our fair share of them, I might add. Our job, then, is not to impose our own solutions on others, but to offer support for those solutions that are welling up from even the deepest springs. We must take a hands-off approach, without making a fuss about “waste” or “abuse”. Certainly that doesn’t mean that we just throw money around, but we must not provide our resources with conditions about how exactly the money must be used. Such conditions are merely an excuse to ensure that our solutions take precedence—because we can accept it when we make mistakes about funding projects, but we can’t accept it when poor people make mistakes with our money.

It is a fact of life that respecting autonomy comes with a great risk. When we cede control over other people’s lives, these people may make decisions with which we do not agree. This can be frightening, especially when we still feel as though our donations are “ours”. But such a risk is a necessary one, both for ethical and practical reasons. Ethically, we should offer others autonomy, as I’ve mentioned. But practically speaking, as I’ve also mentioned, assistance which respects autonomy is the only way to have assistance which actually works. Not every project started by those within the community will be a good one, but investing some money in projects with a chance of success and some without is still much better in the long run than investing a lot of money in projects with no chance of success (and which only fuel Western imperialism). For those who want a chance to feel a sense of superiority, or an opportunity to appease their guilt, the second option is a wise investment. Respecting the autonomy of others is not necessary when one’s concern for others is only instrumental to one’s concern for oneself. And indeed, investing in projects which take a lot of time, money, and effort but don’t meaningfully change the status of under-privileged groups simply ensures that future opportunities for guilt-reduction will always be available. But for those of us who truly wish to find ways to reduce human suffering (and I hope that most of us have this wish), respecting autonomy is the only way to meaningfully do this over the long term.

A Way Forward

Such respect for autonomy should include, at the very least, these properties:

1. Recognition of the lived experiences of individuals and communities that one is trying to help;
2. A meaningful sense of collaboration and integrating solutions, not just “taking suggestions;”
3. Cognizance of the structural factors that create and maintain inequality and human suffering;
4. A hands-off approach, providing support and resources for local leaders and networks to establish local solutions; and
5. Seeking and ensuring that the consent of those one is trying to help is established before taking action.

This list is likely far from comprehensive, but it provides a starting point for meaningful change in a non-hierarchical “saviour and victim” framework. And yes, it means that more time and effort must be taken to assess the qualities of the charities one wishes to support. More than assessing short-term effectiveness (e.g., “10,000 children fed this year!”), we as resource-holders must determine the degree to which a given organization respects the local community. How valued are their opinions? How well are local leaders and local solutions being supported? How much effort is being targeted at structural factors that will produce meaningful, long-term change, and how much effort is being spent on window-dressing? These are difficult questions to answer, especially from afar. But remember that it is our ethical duty to be informed before intervening. To dismiss this as irrelevant would suggest that one is less interested in helping and more interested in feeling as though one is helping. One produces change. The other produces only comfort for the already-comfortable.

Notes:

1. As with most of the content on this blog, what I have to say here is nothing that has not been said before by others. My lack of references here is a result of my source amnesia, not my originality. However, in general, the thoughts presented here draw haphazardly from feminist ideas about consent, Deci & Ryan’s theory regarding autonomy as part of self-determination, and anarchist ideas about hierarchy and self-government, among other sources.

This is a post from Disjointed Thinking.
The original can be found here: Helping without Hierarchy