Tag Archives: REBT

61. Punching above your weight, with Britney.

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Robot Archie is a comic strip character waiting for a revival. He was amazingly strong and intelligent, but he had one career limiting weakness – he had a control panel that was clearly visible to others. This made him vulnerable to assailants creeping up behind him and pressing the clearly labelled off switch. Nevertheless, having labelled buttons, or even dials to control aspects of oneself would be a huge asset for humans.

Imagine setting your mood state or attitudes with a mode switch, like the ‘Dynamic’ button on Toshiba televisions, which gives an altered visual experience similar to hallucinogens.

One control we really need, besides air con, is a self-confidence dial. Most people set their level a bit too high, much like the heating on trains. The average person is over-optimistic about life in general. Psychologists have identified a cognitive bias towards overestimating things like how intelligent and attractive we are, whether our predictions will come true and how long it takes to get served at Costa. It has been argued that all trade works on this basis, where both parties in a deal overestimate the value of the item they are exchanging.

One peculiar exception to this rule seems to be life expectancy – people, including experts like actuaries, are underestimating how long they will live, which is a major nuisance for the pension funds. Another exception is people suffering from Depression, who tend towards pessimism, as well as a negative evaluation of past events.

Setting the confidence level a bit high is viewed as a defence mechanism against life’s upsets and affronts. But there are certain situations where it’s an issue, such as medical training. It is well recognised that the worst type of doctor is the overconfident one. The sort of person who thinks ‘see one, do one, teach one’ should read the other way round. The sort of person who says loudly, ‘bypass grafting – how hard can it really be?’ on his way into the operating theatre. Trainers recognise that the overconfident doctor is the most difficult one to put right. It looks as though overconfidence or even arrogance is relatively impermeable to feedback, which is perhaps why it’s such a good defence against self-loathing.

Another aspect of the overconfidence debate is whether doctors should give a completely accurate account of the likely benefits of treatment, or apply a little positive spin. Surveys have shown that service users appreciate an upbeat attitude, as well as honesty.

Modern life has removed some of the old certainties, such as how long we will live, or whether the older professions are the best careers. The employment market has too many graduates and not enough artisans. Large companies like Tesco and Microsoft, which we assumed would carry on for hundreds of years, like the Roman empire, seem to be on the decline. This has led to a situation where people change career more frequently.  Many candidates for jobs think of themselves as overqualified. And the orthodoxy within firms is not to hire the overqualified person on the basis that they will become disgruntled quickly.

That leaves a serious self-calibration problem, in the absence of a human dashboard. To an extent, CBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in particular) is an attempt to assign the correct emotional value to aspects of oneself. Otherwise it’s clear that people are just all over the place when it comes to self-evaluation.

Take a look at these small ads for instance, which illustrate some form of extreme cognitive bias – the disorder usually known as ‘Ron Hopeful syndrome’:

Elderly gentleman, heavy smoker, slightly racist, seeks supermodel for company, trips to garden centre, kinky sex and possibly more.

Nissan Micra, 1997, beige, some damage to interior due to poorly cat, looking to exchange for holiday villa in Cornwall or Devon. No time wasters.

Senior scientist wanted, PhD or post doc, nanotechnologist preferred, fluent Russian desirable, for general warehouse duties.

Wanted: chief executive officer for large healthcare organisation, should have English Language GCSE or equivalent, shovel and forklift training provided

General Medical Council seeks lay member. Performance artist preferred, e.g George Formby impersonator; street theatre, statue man, juggling etc desirable. Ukelele provided.

Crime fighting robot from 1960s available for general do-gooding and big society fieldwork, unpredictable at times. Good with dogs.

Historical footnote – contrary to my first impression, a little research shows that Robot Archie has already made a number of career comebacks. According to Wikipedia:

‘In Zenith, he was a burned out 1960’s acid casualty (renaming himself Acid Archie). Archie is apparently killed by Ruby Fox in Phase IV when she short circuits him whilst he is trying to rip off her head. Archie also appears in zzzenith.com in the special Prog 2001 edition of 2000AD. Zenith explains that rust in the brain-pan has caused Archie’s personality to change from anarchist Acid-House aficionado into a vigilante, hunting down sex offenders with a lethal vigour. He is last seen in the story escaping on a bus in a false beard after sexually assaulting pop star Britney Spears’.

It’s also possible that he gained weight with age so that he wasn’t able to reach his own controls any more, located as they are in the middle of his back. As a literal ‘locus of control’ problem, this was probably what gave Julian Rotter the idea in the first place.

To some extent, he never learned to push his own buttons properly. Like most fictional robots, his downfall was caused by getting too human to control himself.

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12. Grappling with the wrong trousers.

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What the well dressed tree is wearing this year.

A procession of girls moves jauntily down Oxford Street. Each girl carries an identical Gap carrier bag and wears brightly coloured skinny trousers. The legwear ranges through many colours and materials – there are 23 different types in the shop.

It took me a while to realise it was an advertising event. Initially I just assumed that ‘Jeggings’ had really taken London by storm, either that or Mayor Boris had passed a new bye-law banning big trousers.

How tempting was it to join that line? So called ‘modelling’ is one of the strongest determinants of human behaviour. But by the time I had got into those trousers the line would have reached Tottenham Court Road and disappeared.

Some animals are hard-wired to behave exactly the same as their neighbour, making possible formations like shoals of fish and flocks of starlings. Someone explained to me that starlings and fish do not need to be particularly clever to pull off this trick. All they need is the instruction ‘do the same as the one next to you’.

Humans like to create this effect too, in Busby Berkely movies for instance or the Red Arrows air display team.

We are used to seeing similarly clad people in other contexts, such as children in school uniform and North Koreans in boiler suits. We like to be wearing the right things.

A demonstration of modelling behaviour is one of many attractions to be found in the local shopping centre. Since social services closed all the day care facilities, shopping malls and libraries are the best places to hang out to keep warm.

Compared with the library, the shopping centre is quieter and more studious in atmosphere. Also there are more books to read.

This part is vital – before you visit the shopping centre – establish the goal. On this occasion the target is: 1.To experience the sensation of being out of place; 2. Not to respond to this sensation by buying something.

For your day out, start by re-framing the shopping centre as a kind of art gallery.

All the familiar shops / exhibits are there (not you Woolworths). There are lots of things you can do free: try out the mattresses in John Lewis, try on lots of jeggings, use the computers in PC world to look up reviews on the same model you are trying, so you can spurn the attentions of the salesperson, use the cameras to take pictures of other people testing cameras on you, try on tester perfumes and marvel at their interesting names.

Or go into Superdrug, and ask for a super drug, such as beta interferon. Ask why they call themselves Superdrug when the best drug they have is ibuprofen.

My hypothesis is that shopping behaviour is a sublimated form of hunting, or at least gathering. The important thing to remember is that all the fun is in the hunt, and once the quarry is cornered then the fun is over. It is all about the expectation of reward – pulling the trigger on a purchase is entirely unnecessary.

Buying something is like coming home from a day’s fishing with a small trout you could have bought in Morrison’s for £3. The trout’s dead eyes communicate to you: So what?

You should have thrown it back in.

Things are not always what they seem, and shopping malls allegedly have a purpose beyond amusement or art.

Shopping malls are meant to part people with their money, rather than act as a recreational facility for escaped psychiatrists. The architects and designers have put in some subtle influences to work on your mind.

One of these is the so-called ‘Gruen Transfer’. This is a place, within the centre, that is designed to disorientate people, by using a combination of unusual shapes and textures and lighting, often accompanied by Muzak.

Apparently the effect is similar to a unit of alcohol or other anxiolytic. People slow down through the Transfer, and co-incidentally this is where the higher priced items are located.

I am not convinced that there is a strong evidence base for the Gruen Transfer, or other devices perpetrated by the advertising industry. Certain low budget shops seem to generate the same emotional disruption.

The oddly named B and M store, sometimes sub-headed ‘Bargain Madness’ can induce such profound despair that it could probably be used as a testing lab for possible new antidepressant compounds. Here the store has been less discreet about its use of disorientation – the clue perhaps is in the word ‘madness’.

Agoraphobics, who tend to have panic attacks in shops, seem to dislike places where there is no clear sightline to the exit. The entrapment induces a sense of doom. Though Morrison’s have an excellent range of vegetables, the way they are laid out can set a person on edge.

Individually, fruit and veg items are not threatening, but when they gang up like this, piled high on all sides, it creates a kind of jungle effect reminiscent of Apocalypse Now.

Another piece of (probably bogus) psychology I have read, relating to supermarkets, is that people have an ‘innate tendency’ to gravitate anti – clockwise. This led to supermarkets placing their main entrances on the right hand side of the shop.

If it was on the left, people would just drift further leftwards into the vegetables section and beach themselves in the courgettes.

Staff would come out to spin customers into the next section, like fairground attendants on a waltzer.

I wonder if it is different in the southern hemisphere, or for the left handed?

It is perhaps a little frightening to think that someone has manipulated the environment in such a way that you have unwittingly bought yourself an expensive, weirdly named perfume.

I am not just referring to ‘Obsession’. What about ‘Hypnotic Poison’, ‘Crazy in Love’ and ‘Thallium’? The internet tells me there is a perfume called M-75, which is the name of the rocket Hamas fires into Israel.

Perfumes, like the Gruen transfer, and the clockwise supermarket, are designed to create an altered state, but what exactly is the state of mind called? In the case of perfume, if it isn’t the name, it is probably solvent intoxication.

Or perhaps it is the feeling of being out of one’s element, or out of step with others. A warning that you are on unfamiliar territory.

Behaviourally, it is supposed to trigger a purchase decision.

The purchase decision is a learned behaviour that creates comfort, possibly by stimulating the ‘anticipation of reward’ section of the mind. The unsettled feeling is briefly quelled, only to be replaced by regret that you have suddenly become poorer and the shop richer.

How comforting is it to be in a herd of people all dressed appropriately and behaving in the same way? Enough people must love formations of soldiers to make it worthwhile dressing thousands of people this way and arranging them in large city parks. Everyone seemed to love the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Lots of people like to be in queues, and will probably join the end of any queue if they find one. If other people are after something, instinct says there is probably something there to have.

There is often not much to be found at the end of a motorway queue, which is formed by the pulsatile dynamics of traffic flow rather than obstacles, but the queuing instinct has evolved over the lengthy period of human history before tarmac and has not yet abated.

The instinct to behave like the person to the left of you is deeply rooted and possibly imprinted at an early age. Experiencing the feeling of being in the wrong place or in the wrong outfit is deeply discomforting.

Many people hate the moment in a restaurant when they have to set out to find the toilets. The fear is not that they will never find the toilet, but rather they will make them-self look foolish to others by dithering round the restaurant.

That is why I think it is a very tall order for CBT to try and get people to fight the idea that it matters a lot what other people think of you.

In the golden era of CBT, pioneers tried to attack this set of cognitions using grand behavioural tasks.

Albert Ellis, pioneer of CBT and our hero, in his list of the top 12 Irrational Ideas, included this as number one:

‘the idea that it is a dire necessity for an adult human being to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in his community’

Loved? Maybe not. Approved? Maybe not? But thought to be wearing the wrong trousers? I’m afraid it’s a deal breaker.

Maybe it shouldn’t matter. Maybe not as much. Certainly try and test how much it matters. Certainly try and get it back into proportion.

But it just does.

That leaves us with a burning question. If it is so important to blend in with everyone, why do certain people do everything they can to attract attention to themselves? For instance by dying their hair a florescent colour?

This is perhaps the exception that proves the rule, since these people are relatively few in number, especially in professional groups like accountants or dentists.

Several answers to this – you choose the one you like best:

So that they are visible in traffic?

Reaction to feeling left out or insecure?

Mating ritual?

Group or gang identity?

Genuine lack of insight about how they look?

They are doing a CBT assignment to reduce the irrational cognition that it matters what people think about them?

9. The Optional Illusion.

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Facing my inquiry panel.

It is bank holiday weekend and I am waiting for the news to show the usual rioting in Brighton, as rival gangs of philosophers – down from ‘the smoke’ – fight each other with motorcycle chains. The battle between Positivists and Constructivists continues more ferociously than ever.

It’s all to do with the way you like to see Reality. The R word is an issue for mental health specialists, since mental disorders are loosely defined as a breakdown in reality testing. Positivists like to measure reality with a ruler, whereas Constructivists like to feel it through their sensory experiences.

Positivists are quite certain you have a dining room table made of wood, whereas Constructivists aren’t even certain they are in your house at all.

Having watched the Matrix, there has to be a chance that we are all just brains in buckets being fed information via the higher number Sky channels.

There are times when Positivism is essential, like measuring the dose of insulin and checking the blood sugar level, or flying a jumbo jet. When it comes to appreciating a restaurant or a book, it is probably better to judge the overall experience than rate it with a star scale.

Consider this experience: a car goes past you. There is a large dog sitting in the passenger seat, facing forwards. The dog has the window slightly open and a serious look on its face.

Why is that funny?

The humour is at the expense of the dog. It thinks its a human. It probably thinks it is driving the car. Sadly, the dog probably does not possess ‘theory of mind’. It is happily oblivious to its station in life, which is having no rights whatsoever and certainly no vote, not even for the European parliament.

Pets are big business in the UK. How much of the supermarket is devoted to pet food? How much greenhouse gas is produced by pet related activity?

What are pets actually for, if we exclude working sheepdogs and guide dogs?

OK, horses are arguably a form of transport. And I believe ferrets play a vital role in carrying cables through underground pipes. I think there are mites that play a role in cheese production, oh yes, and the little worm that goes in Tequila, though I’m not sure what it does.

I ask just to get some comments from pet owners and tequila experts.

If the answer is ‘for company’ then I’m thinking do pet owners display the same kind of obliviousness as the dog in the passenger seat?

Treating dogs and cats as people is a strange distortion of what animals really are. But in a way, we are all like the dog in the passenger seat. We construct a view of the world, but the view has many blind spots, illusions and distortions.

If the world was presented to the senses in a completely clear and unfiltered stream, it would probably seem unbearably harsh. Nature can appear very cruel if we don’t give it a bit of positive PR, which is when it becomes all things bright and beautiful.

You would like more friends so you create an imaginary friend in the shape of a grey cat. It has a droopy moustache and its name is  Zorro.

How many movies, how much merchandising, has gone into ‘anthropomorphism’ – projecting human characteristics on to animals?

The brain seems to have a tendency to attribute human like characteristics to natural phenomena and even inanimate objects such as steam engines and curling tongs, so its not surprising that creatures with two eyes and four limbs are treated as though they had finer feelings.

How much are you really empathising with a dog if you regard it as your loyal friend?

By now you have guessed that I just don’t ‘get’ animals as pets, and not much really as food. Some time soon I hope the genetic engineers will be able to make fillet steak from cell culture on a giant loom in Milton Keynes, and our cows (and horses) can relax again.

Animals have a key role in the eco system and they are incredible in how they can look and behave. They are magnificent creatures. I nearly said they are magnificent pieces of machinery (they are). I love Disney films, and Tom and Jerry, but I think I have placed these firmly in the Fiction section.

I just don’t think Toads can really buy motor cars and get put in jail for dangerous driving. Not even in Hartlepool, where they allegedly hanged a monkey having mistaken it for a French spy.

Just to leave the pet lovers alone for a while, let us turn our attention to motorcycles. From a positivist perspective we find that these accelerate very fast in a straight line. They are very cold and noisy, don’t really go round corners as fast as cars, use more petrol and tyres than cars, and are quite dangerous.

That’s if you actually ride them outside their safe operating radius of one mile from Cafe Nero. As a form of transport they get only one star.

But to counteract this, using a constructivist method, we temper our initial experience of noise, cold and danger with a range of romanticised imagery borrowed from Marlon Brando, Bruce Springsteen and Ewan McGregor, that sets motorcycling into a grainy black and white arts movie with a working class hero.

So Pets. And Motorcycles. The fantasy does not match the reality. We use ‘sentimentalisation’ to reduce the discord between the ways things are and the way they really ought to be. War has probably been sentimentalised more than pets, and slightly more dangerously.

And luckily, there is an absolutely huge industry whose job it is to help us not see things correctly, spanning politics, advertising and business. Advertisers construct chains of feel good imagery and attach them to our perceptions. Yogurt and Skiing, for instance.

In the motor industry engineers try to reduce what they call ‘NVH’, noise vibration and harshness. Sentimentalism is a defence against NVH in the personal environment. It’s a cosy room with cats and cuddly toys, where Liberace plays Candle in the Wind.

Consider this statistic:

Of the 26.4 million households currently in the UK, 7.6 million – or 29% – are made up of only one person, with the growth in single occupant households owned by the middle aged creating extra demand for homes.

There are many reasons for this social trend, but it seems we are becoming increasingly intolerant of living with other people. This trend has also been termed ‘schizoid society’, where we all inhabit a little bubble, and our only contact with others is as spectators.

Such a process was well anticipated and described by Isaac Asimov, in his novels about the planet Solaria. People, in proximity, just cause too much NVH. People – most people – just wouldn’t fit in the yogurt commercial.

Some of the most attractive, well thought out and effective types of therapy have devoted themselves to seeing the world more carefully and sensibly. Some nice examples include rational emotive therapy, now called REBT; personal construct psychotherapy, and Karl Rogers’ person centred therapy.

Interestingly these were all developed in the 1960s and 70s. Sadly none of them are really available much now, not in a pure form at least, though they continue mainly through strands of CBT and counselling.

I don’t think anyone has invented an anti-sentimentality tablet. Nor can I find a sentimentality rating scale to measure its effects. The lifestyle advice is relatively simple however.

Avoid sending cards for anything apart from birthdays and Christmas. Better still, avoid sending cards at all. Avoid most of Steven Spielberg’s output, and anything with James Stewart in it. Rationalise your yogurt buying to the 1000g ‘Eridanous’ pots from Lidl.

Sentimentalism is a kind of emotional clutter. There is a lot written about ‘decluttering’ your house, most of it rather obvious. First order a skip, then rescue ten things you really need.

Not you Tiddles.