Author: Johnathan Haidt
Notes:
- Human thinking depends on metaphor → We understand new or complex things based on what we know
- How we think?
- Historically: Divided self
- Buddhism: Mind as a wild elephant
- Plato: Rational mind has reins on chariot
- Freud: Ego, Superego and ID
- Author (Haidt): Rider on an elephant
- Rider and Elephant have own intellgence
- Don't always work together!
- Emotionally intelligent person has skilled rider who can distract and coax elephant, not a contest of wills
- Minds are a loose confederation of parts but we pay too much attention to the conscious verbal thinking
- Ways we are divided
- Mind vs Body
- Diff parts of body have their own agenda
- Gut brain - high degree of autonomy and functions seperately
- Left vs Right
- Left: Language processing and analytics
- Right: Patterns in space
- Study shows we will confabulate (make up reasons) for own behaviour, shown in split brain tests
- New vs Old
- Evolution of diff parts of brain over time
- Promethean script: Ancestors received divine gift of reason (which makes rationality new to us and unmastered)
- BUT - Human rationality depends critically on emotionality
- Controlled vs Automatic
- Example of automatic → Priming effect (fluency)
- Automatic: Can be controlled by stimulus control (behaviourist model)
- Controlled allows people to think LT goals over temptation
- But, has little power to cause behaviour
- How to change your mind?
- Pop Psych: Control your interpretation → Control your world
- But, the rider can't just decide to change and order the elephant to go along
- Requires retraining of elephant
- Elephant reacts before rider even sees snake on path
- Nature and nurture work together to explain personality, but Nature > Nurture
- Genes are recipes for producing a person over years
- Tactics for changing mind
- Meditation
- Cognitive Therapy (recognise, name, alternative)
- Medication
- Relationships & Society
- Vengeance and gratitude support larger and more cooperative social groups
- Brain size proportional to log of group size → Humans are made to be social
- Gossip is about moral and social violations in groups
- Good stories: Bad stories ~ 10:1
- Reciprocity is a way to trigger the built in social rules
- Relationships grow best by balance of give and take - gifts, favours, attention, self-disclosure
- Mimicking helps perception of helpful and agreeable-ness
- Bias
- Each of us thinks we see the world directly, as it really is
- Our inner lawyer ensures we do not blame ourselves (or group) for selfist and shortsighted acts → Rationalisation and bias → Self virtue vs Pure evil
- Pure evil myth: self-serving bias and naive realism
- Steps to handle bias
- See it as a game, stop taking so seriously
- Control judgement → Meditation, Cognitive Therapy
- Find fault with yourself
- Happiness
- Pleasure of getting what you want is fleeting → Hedonic Adaptation
- The elephant gets pleasure when it takes a step in the right direction → Progress Principle
- Happy people grow rich faster because they are more appealing to others and commit to projects more → Reverse correlation to happiness
- Happiness Hypothesis
- Buddha & Epictetus → Happiness comes from within, cannot make world conform to desires
- Genes explain more than we think but not as a set point → Potential Range or Prob Distribution
- H = S + C + V
- Happiness
- Set Point (biologically)
- Conditions of life
- Voluntary activities
- Important conditions (C) to happiness (from studies)
- Noise (esp intermittent and variable)
- Commuting
- Lack of Control
- (Reduction of) Shame
- Relationships
- Activities (V) that contribute to happiness
- Flow: State of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to abilities → In the zone
- Keys to flow
- Clear and engaging challenge
- Requisite skills to meet challenge
- Immediate feedback at each step
- Happiness can be increased by using strengths, esp to strengthen connections
- Issues with obtaining happiness → Misguided Pursuits
- Behaviours make sense only as products of moral emotions formed through evolution
- Conspicuous consumption follows different psychological rules → Arms race, Zero sum game
- Experiences give more happiness because they have greater social value, often done with others
- The elephant cares about prestige, not happiness → Looks to others for its goals and values
- Love
- Attachment Theory → Love > Fear
- Two needs of safety and exploration are opposed
- These 2 needs are regulated by a thermostat that monitors ambient levels of safety
- Healthy children should be given a secure base to explore (eg. hold, hug, cuddle, love)
- Modern myth of true love: True love is passionate and never fades
- Love can be divided into Passionate and Companionate
- Two separate processes with different time courses
- Social relationships can predict happiness
- Adversity
- Suffering is usually mixed of good and bad
- Most beneficial in late teens and twenties
- Wisdom is tacit → require life experiences
- Key: moral and spiritual development
- Benefits
- Rising to challenge reveals hidden abilities and changes your self-concept
- Filters and strengthens relationships
- Changes priorities and philosophies towards the present and others
- Understanding change to personality
- 3 Levels of personality
- Basic Traits
- Characteristic Adaptation (goals, coping mechanism, values, life-stage concerns)
- Life story
- Life story is a work of historical fiction; dramatizing, interpreting and connecting events
- Tragedy and adversity knocks you off hedonic/automatic treadmill → Create decision point of continuing or reassessing
- Adversity can lead to more interesting Life Story material
- We need coherence in all 3 levels of personality
- Key: Try to change cognitive style (therapy, meditation), cherish and build support network, make sense through faith and practice, rewrite your life story
- Virtue
- Aristotle: Good life is developing strengths, realising potential and being in line with your nature
- Virtue Hypothesis: Cultivating virtue will make you happy
- Historically culture
- Western development
- Positive Psychology
- When community standards are enforced, there is constraint and cooperation. When everyone minds their own business, there is freedom and anomie → Tension between independence and interdependence
- Divinity
- What is happiness?