Archive for May, 2012

I have been reading “Confessions” by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the great thinkers ever to walk the earth. He also wrote “The Social Contract,” which laid a foundation for government by the people. In “Confessions,” Rousseau spilled his guts about various misdeeds. As a teen, he traveled about and stole small things, much like the main character in “On the Road” by Jack Kerouak. While working for an old woman who died, he stole a ribbon of hers. When a higher-up found the ribbon in Rousseau’s room, Rousseau claimed that a servant girl had stolen it and given it to him. The poor girl was fired and probably ruined for life. Rousseau never got over feeling guilty about that dastardly deed. Later Rousseau exposed himself to women he did not know and was soon seized by a sword. Think of the possible field justice that might have occurred! Rousseau made up a nonsense story and the man let him go. I haven’t finished the book, so I don’t know to what else Rousseau will confess. He wrote the book to educate others about what the real life of a person is like, he said.

Lots of people confess their crimes and other transgressions. Some confess to ease their conscience or create a chance to enter heaven. Police interrogators prey on that urge to obtain confessions. Good thing, because many more criminals would go free without confessions.

A mentally ill man in the New York area recently confessed to the murder of a little boy over 30 years ago. The boy was one of the first missing children whose photo was put on milk cartons. Police department receive many false confessions regarding high-publicity crimes. Only when the confessing person can prove that he committed the crime, e.g., by providing information known only to the police and the killer, do the police take the person seriously. In the New York case, the police arrested the man. Why do people falsely confess to these crimes? They may have a desire for fame (really infamy).

Does confessing help malefactors feel better and do better? A true confession may, even with negative practical consequences that can result. Confession can give a person a chance to start again. The Catholic Church and other religions are big on confession as a way of wiping away sin.

There are other ways to start again though, such as by making amends, if possible, to the person harmed or to society in general, and by never repeating the bad act.

I have enjoyed Rousseau’s book because it shows that a first-class jerk can develop into a highly productive individual. Maybe there is hope for me yet…

Have you confessed something? With what result?

John Malouff, PhD
Assoc Prof of Psychology

Yesterday at a staff meeting I pitched the idea of our setting goals for our psychology education programs. My argument, in a nutshell: Goals lead to plans, which lead to focused behavior, which leads to achievement. I mentioned that I set goals with my psychotherapy clients and I set goals for the courses I teach. Goals are good, I argued.

The best goals are measurable ones. With a client, the goal might be that she moves into the normal range with regard to level of social anxiety. With teaching a university class, the goal might be to earn student ratings at a certain numerical level. For research the goal might be to publish a malouff’s dozen papers in a year. You may have heard of a Baker’s dozen, which equals 13 — the bakers show how nice they are. A malouff’s dozen equals 11 — on the theory that I always give people a little less than they would expect. That digression is my joke for this blog entry. All these goals are measurable. So I can tell how I am doing and make adjustments as needed.

Not everyone likes goals. Some individuals worry that they might not achieve their goals. That risk, of course, is part of what makes goals fun and motivating. Setting realistic goals creates a fair chance of achieving the goals — with the needed effort. Other individuals say live in the moment — seek nothing and you will find much. I like this sentiment. I often feel totally in the moment when I exercise or read. Perhaps it is best to set goals at times and to live in the moment at times — that could be part of a life of moderation.

What goals have you set in recent years? Which have you reached? How does goal setting help you? What are your goals now?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Associate Professor of Psychology

I just watched an Australian 60 Minutes TV episode about parents spanking (“smacking”) their children. I watched a mother hit her children as hard as she could on the rear. The mother seemed to spank the kids every day, for every misbehavior.

The show host indicated that some countries ban spanking, as recommended by psychologists and other experts. Australia and the U.S. do not.

Why do psychologists oppose spanking?  Below are several reasons. Spanking:

1. Sets a bad model: Getting your way thru using violence against someone smaller and less powerful. This is especially a danger when the parent shows anger when spanking.

2. Can lead children to act more violently.

3. Can make the parent a conditioned punisher, so that the child feels punished whenever the parent is present.

4. Can harm the parent-child relationship.

5. Can lead to strong negative emotions in a child — essentially a stress reaction.

6. Can lead to the development of undesirable avoidance behaviors, such as lying.

7. Is so reinforcing for some parents that they use it more and more to the point of emotionally or physically abusing their child.

8. Looks and sounds inhumane, especially when accompanied by angry speech and facial expressions.

To these arguments, parents usually say that there is no good alternative. But there are! Parents can control child behavior by encouraging specific good behavior, setting rules, explaining the purpose of the rules, reinforcing (e.g., praising) good behavior, modeling good behavior, creating engaging activities for children so that they stay out of trouble, and using nonviolent forms of punishment, such as time out from reinforcement (go sit on the stairs) and response cost (e.g., no TV for an hour).

Trying to convince parents to replace spanking with other parenting methods is very tough. What do you think about spanking? Ought there to be a law against it?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology

Humans have long thought that they are smarter than other animals, although that could depend on one’s perspective. A New Scientist article on this topic quoted Douglas Adams: ‘Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for preciesely the same reasons.”

Rather than join the debate about the relative intelligence of humans and other animals, I want to explore a related but new topic: Do humans have better personalities than other animals? Let’s use the Big 5 personality characteristics to boil down personality to conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience, and emotional stability and say that high levels of these characteristics are good.

On conscientiousness, we lose to social insects such as bees. No bee ever claims to be as busy as a human. Lions, however, sleep about 20 hours a day and in the other few hours do little other than eat and procreate. So let’s call conscientiousness a draw.

Wolves seem more agreeable with each other than humans are with each other. Tasmanian devils, however, act like devils with each other. Another draw.

Magpies seem quite extraverted compared to humans; butterflies and dolphins too. Put the platypus and the mole in the introvert category. A third draw.

Animals don’t seem much interested in the arts or pleasure travel or learning for the sake of learning. Chalk openness up for humans.

Animals can have low emotional stability. If they are cooped up (by humans), they may become distressed and bite themselves. Humans show similar reactions to being cooped up. In their natural state, humans, however, also show many other negative emotions that are rare in animals — jealousy, envy, disappointment, rage, embarrassment, shame, etc. So give this one to animals.

So we end with humans and animals tied for best personality. But we have combined many species in the animal category. What if we picked one single species to represent animals?

Let’s choose chipmunks — because they are cute. Chipmunks — hiding those nuts for winter — seem more conscientious than humans. Chipmunks don’t seem as agreeable — chipmunks do their own thing. Chipmunks seem extraverted — but no more than humans. Chipmunks show no interest in music or literature — we have the edge in openness. Humans are ahead going into the category of emotional stability. There we lose again — chipmunks are happy-go-luck creatures. So no matter what way you cut it, humans have personalities on a whole that are no better or worse than animals.

At least, that is my conclusion. What do you think?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology