THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 12

How did the mayor of New York City attempt to get his citizens to think more rationally by banning the Big Gulp?

Subject: Prefrontal Cortex - Bloomberg’s Ban

Event:  New York City’s soda ban takes effect, 2013

On this day in 2013, New York City’s soda ban went into effect.  The ban enacted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration forbade the sale of sweetened drinks in quantities over 16 fluid ounces.

The ban made national news, and many decried it as a quintessential example of government overreach.  A second look at the ban from a psychological perspective reveals that it might just be an example of how government legislation might be successful in nudging citizens toward more thoughtful, conscious decisions.

                                                    Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay 

Writing for Psychology Today, Meg Selig points out that the ban really did not limit anyone’s freedom; after all, someone who wanted to drink 32 ounces of soda was free to buy a second 16-ounce drink.  The key, however, is that the ban requires the consumer to pause and contemplate their purchase.  This pause increases an individual’s willpower by activating the brain’s executive branch, the part of the brain that makes conscious decisions rather than reacting in ways 

that are instinctive or emotional.  Instead of mindlessly chugging 32 ounces of sugary soda, there’s at least a chance that a person might consciously choose to drink more moderately.  In Seig’s words, “. . . you’ve strengthened your willpower because you’ve activated your higher brain, the prefrontal cortex (PFC).  This pause truly is ‘the pause that refreshes'” (1).

A 2006 study showed how much a container can influence the amount of food we consume.  At an ice cream social, 85 partygoers were randomly given either a 17 oz bowl or a 34 oz bowl.  To scoop the ice cream, individuals were given either a 2 oz. scooper or a 3 oz. scooper.  The results revealed that those with larger bowls ate 30% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls; likewise, the participants with larger scoopers ate 14% more than those with smaller 

scoopers.  The people who had both the larger bowl and the larger scooper ate 50% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls and scoopers.  These results are even more surprising when you consider the fact that all participants in the study were nutrition experts.  Clearly, anyone can engage in mindless eating, and a smaller bowl and or spoon can serve as a useful intervention or nudge to help people eat less (2).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How would a psychologist describe how Bloomberg's soda ban nudges citizens in a positive way? In the ice cream study, how much more ice cream did people with a large bowl and large scooper eat?

Challenge - Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge:  Do some research on nudges to see how they are being tested and employed in the real world.  Report on one specific example.

Sources:

1-Selig, Meg. “Attention, Soda Junkies! Bloomberg's Ban on Over-Sized Sodas Could Increase Your Willpower.” Psychology Today 25 June 2012.

2-”Use Smaller Plates for a Smaller Waist” Stanford University

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 11

What can the man who arranged the secret marriage ceremony of Romeo and Juliet teach us about our own distorted thinking patterns?

Subject:  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Friar Lawrence Talks Romeo Off the ledge.

Event:  Marriage of Romeo and Juliet, 1302

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them.  It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretations of their significance. -Epictetus

On this day in 1302, according to legend, the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet were married.  Although we will probably never know whether or not the two lovers actually lived, we, nevertheless, can imagine them as real people because of the genius of Shakespeare’s language.  

                                                   WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - Image by Mikes-Photography from Pixabay 

In the play, the wedding occurs at the end of Act II. It’s performed in secret by Romeo’s confidant Friar Lawrence, who hopes that the union of the couple will end the feud between their families.  Unfortunately, from the moment they are married, the events of the play turn darker and more tragic.  Immediately after the wedding, Romeo is involved in a street brawl where his friend Mercutio is killed and where Romeo takes revenge by killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt.  As a result of his actions, Romeo is banished.  

When Friar Lawrence informs Romeo of his banishment, Romeo sees no hope

and draws his sword to commit suicide.  Stopping him, Friar Lawrence councils Romeo, challenging him to change his focus from the seeming hopelessness of 

his situation to a reality that is much more hopeful: his wife, the love of his life, is alive; his enemy, the man who tried to kill him, is dead.  Furthermore, rather than being convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he has been allowed to live in exile.

In the following excerpt from Friar Lawrence’s pep talk in Act 3, Scene 3, notice how he tries to help Romeo reframe his circumstances, encouraging him to choose reason over emotional rashness:

What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,

For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;

There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,

But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:

The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend

And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:

A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;

Happiness courts thee in her best array;

But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,

Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,

Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:

But look thou stay not till the watch be set,

For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;

Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time

To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,

Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back

With twenty hundred thousand times more joy

Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.

Although Shakespeare wrote his play in the 1600s, the Friar’s words of council parallel the approach of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), a method developed in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck.  The goal of CBT is to help the subject identify his or her distorted and self-critical thought  processes.  Rather than leaving the subject wallowing in a negative feedback loop, CBT helps a person break the negative cycle by changing their thinking.  CBT teaches subjects to identify the distortions of thinking and to counter them with more realistic, accurate ways of thinking (1).  Romeo, for example, catastrophizes his situation, seeing only the worst and exaggerating his plight.  His bleak outlook gives him no hope for the future and leads him to the brink of suicide.  The Friar’s council, however, breaks him out of his negative spiral and allows him to see a rational alternative to suicide.  By pointing to facts and evidence that runs counter to Romeo’s distorted thinking, The Friar is able -- at least temporarily -- to help Romeo see the true nature of reality.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  How did Friar Lawrence reframe Romeo's negative thinking to give him hope? How does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) help people?

Challenge - Cognitive Behavior Therapy:  Do some research on CBT.  What are its benefits, and what kind of people would benefit from it?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

-March 11, 105 A.D.:  On this day, Tsai Lun, a eunuch, presented his revolutionary invention -- paper -- to the Han emperor of China.  

Source:

1-Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis. Basic Books, 2006. 

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 10

Socrates was not a contemporary of Alexander Graham Bell, but if he were, why would he be a fan of Bell?

Subject:  Dialogue - Socratic Method 

Event:  Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, 1876

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.  -Alexander Graham Bell

On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell uttered the first words ever spoken on the telephone.

                            Alexander Graham Bell - Image by Graham Hobster from Pixabay 

Born in Scotland, Bell emigrated first to Canada and then to Boston, Massachusetts, where he opened a school for teachers of the deaf.  Long-distance communication became a reality in the 1830s with the invention of the telegraph, but messages could only be transmitted in Morse code.  Bell’s vision was to transmit the human voice over a wire. To help make his vision a reality, Bell hired Thomas Watson, an electrical designer and mechanic.

While working on a transmitter in his laboratory on March 10, 1876, Bell spilled battery acid on his clothes.  He called out: “Mr. Watson, come here! I want you!” Watson rushed excitedly from the other room, reporting that he heard Bell’s voice coming from the transmitter.  Without realizing it, Bell had just made the first telephone call.

Bell offered to sell his invention to Western Union for $100,000.  Western Union’s president, however, failed to see how Bell’s invention could ever become more popular than the telegraph.  Within two years the telephone was worth 

more than $25 million, and Alexander launched his Bell Telephone Company, which would become one of the world’s largest corporations (1).

Today when we make a telephone call, we take for granted that the person on the other end of the line will answer with “hello.”  The truth is, however, that when the first telephones were put into service, people were not sure what to say to initiate the conversation.  Bell suggested the nautical greeting “Ahoy,” the word he used for the rest of his life. His rival, Thomas Edison, who made improvements on Bell’s invention, suggested “hello,” a word that previously had 

been used more as an exclamation of surprise rather than a synonym for “hi.”  Edison won the war of words in the long run, primarily because the first telephone books suggested “hello” as the officially sanctioned greeting (2).

In addition to the telephone, Bell is also credited with another noteworthy invention, the metal detector.  After President James A. Garfield was shot by an assassin on July 2, 1881, Bell invented a metal detector to help doctors locate the bullet.  Unfortunately, the bullet was never found because the metal springs from Garfield’s bed rendered Bell’s metal detector useless. Garfield died from an infection from his wound on September 19, 1881.

The invention of the telephone for the first time in history allowed two people who were not in the same location to hold a spoken conversation.  Dialogue, dating back to Socrates, has been an essential method for employing reason to discover the truth. The Socratic method -- also known as the ‘method of elenchus’ or ‘method of interrogation’ -- is a process where people come together, not for small talk, but to discuss big issues and to cooperatively exchange views and objections with the purpose of reasoning together to arrive at the truth.

Rather than argue with people, Socrates' approach was to ask probing questions, the kind of questions that forced his interlocutor to examine and test his or her own beliefs.  Socrates was not afraid of asking questions that made people uncomfortable, nor was he condescending or arrogant; his main interest was finding the truth.  Socrates’ mother had been a midwife, and he used this profession as a metaphor for his style of teaching:  rather than fill others with ideas, his goal was to draw them out of his students.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What circumstances prompted the first telephone call? What is the Socratic Method?

Challenge - Dial Up the Dialectic:  Socrates' method of dialogue is alive and well in the 21st century.  Many have begun to practice Street Epistemology, reasoned conversations that help people reflect and reexamine their deeply-held beliefs.  Do a bit of research on Street Epistemology to see who is doing it and how it works.

Sources:

1-“10th March 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell makes the first ever phone call.”  This Day Then Blog.

2-Krulwich, Robert. “A (Shockingly) Short History Of 'Hello'” NPR 17 Feb. 2011.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 9

How can the training of hunting dogs teach us about a powerful debate tactic?

Subject: Logical Fallacies - Ronald Reagan’s Red Herring 

Event:  Birthday of William Cobbett, 1763

It would be a very good thing if every trick could receive some short and obviously appropriate name, so that when a man used this or that particular trick, he could at once be reproved for it. —Arthur Schopenhauer

The tricks of argumentation that Schopenhauer is referring to are generally known as logical fallacies -- that is, specific examples of faulty or invalid reasoning used either accidentally or intentionally.  

One specific logical fallacy is known by the short and appropriate name red herring. It comes under the category “Fallacies of Relevance,” where one party in a debate attempts to distract the other side by appealing to something that is not relevant to the argument at hand. 

Of all days of the year, the red herring is “relevant” today, because it is the birthday of the man who gave it its name, the English journalist and Member of Parliament William Cobbett, born in 1763.

In 1807, Cobbett recounted a childhood memory where he used the pungent aroma of a fish, specifically a red herring, to distract hounds that were hunting a hare.  The purpose of Cobbett’s anecdote was to criticize the British press, which had falsely reported the defeat of Napoleon and been distracted from reporting on more relevant domestic issues: 

When I was a boy, we used, in order to draw oft' the harriers from the trail of a hare that we had set down as our own private property, get to her haunt early in the morning, and drag a red-herring, tied to a string, four or five miles over hedges and ditches, across fields and through coppices, till we got to a point, whence we were pretty sure the hunters would not return to the spot where they had thrown off; and, though I would, by no means, be understood, as comparing the editors and proprietors of the London daily press to animals half so sagacious and so faithful as hounds, I cannot help thinking, that, in the case to which we are referring, they must have been misled, at first, by some political deceiver.

A classic example of a deft use of the red herring was in the second presidential debate on October 21, 1984, between President Ronald Reagan and his Democrat challenger, Walter Mondale.  One issue in the race was 

Reagan’s age; at the time he was the oldest president to have ever served.  Age was not, however,  an issue for Mondale, Reagan’s opponent; he was 56 years old and was both an experienced legislator and former vice president, under Jimmy Carter.

                                President Ronald Reagan - Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

About thirty minutes into the debate, Reagan fielded a question about his age:

You already are the oldest president in history. . . . I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?

Reagan responded with the following answer, one of the most memorable answers given in any presidential debate:

. . . I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth, and inexperience.

Reagan’s response made everyone, including his opponent laugh, but more importantly, it allowed him to divert everyone’s attention from the issue at hand.  Rather than directly answer the question about his age and ability to perform, Reagan shifted the subject to his opponent’s “youth and inexperience.”  Reagan then added another quip by appealing to the wisdom of the ancients: 

. . . I might add that it was Seneca, or it was Cicero, I don't know which, that said, ‘If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.’ (2)

Reagan’s red herring ended the issue of age in the race. He went on to win the 1984 election in a landslide, carrying 49 of 50 states.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What is the origin of the red herring fallacy? How did Ronald Reagan use the red herring fallacy in his debate with Walter Mondale?

Challenge - Find A Fallacy:  Research some other logical fallacies.  Select one that you think is important for people to know.  Define the fallacy, and give some examples of how it might be used.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

-March 9, 1776:  On this day, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published his magnum opus An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a book that paved the way for modern capitalism. See THINKER’S ALMANAC - June 5.

 -March 9, 1836: Daniel Peter, an innovative and adaptive thinker, was born on this day in 1836.  Peter began his career in Switzerland as a candle-stick maker, but the invention of oil lamps decreased the demand for his candles. Being a flexible thinker, Peter decided to adapt his candle molds by filling them with chocolate rather than wax.  The problem, however, was that chocolate, at that time, was too bitter to be eaten in bar form.  The solution came in 1875 when Peter joined forces with a neighbor named Henri Nestle, who helped Peter combine his chocolate with condensed milk and sugar to create the delicious confection we know today as milk chocolate. In 1879, Nestle and Peter formed the Nestle Company, making Swiss milk chocolate an internationally popular product.  

-March 9, 1862:  On this day the Monitor and the Merrimack met at the Battle of Hampton Roads in history’s first duel between ironclad ships. 

March 9, 2018:  In 1710, the British writer Jonathan Swift said, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect… '' More than 300 years later a study published on this day by MIT researchers confirmed Swift’s insight by analyzing the way true and false rumors were spread online.  The researchers reported that “It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people” (3).  

Sources:

1-”The Lure of the Red Herring.”  World Wide Words

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/herring.htm

2-Glass, Andrew. “Reagan recovers in second debate.” Politico.com  21 Oct. 2118.

3. Rauch, Jonathan. The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2021: 133.

THINKER'S ALMANAC - March 8

What can cooking a ham teach us about challenging the status quo?

Subject:  Status Quo Bias - The Ham Butt Problem

Event:  Lexicographer Erin McKean presents a TED talk, 2007

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status. -Laurence J. Peter

Often we go on doing things the way they have always been done.  If the old way works and is efficient, this really is not a problem.  However, sometimes we do something the old way without consciously thinking about why we are doing it this way or about how we might do it more efficiently and effectively.  Psychologists call this cognitive error the status quo bias.

A perfect illustration of the problem with the status quo bias was provided by Lexicographer Erin McKean in a TED Talk she presented on this day in 2007.  McKean called it the Ham Butt Problem:

 A woman's making a ham for a big, family dinner. She goes to cut the butt off the ham and throw it away, and she looks at this piece of ham and she's like, "This is a perfectly good piece of ham. Why am I throwing this away?" She thought, "Well, my mom always did this." So she calls up mom, and she says, "Mom, why'd you cut the butt off the ham, when you're making a ham?" She says, "I don't know, my mom always did it!" So they call grandma, and grandma says, "My pan was too small!" (1)

                                                                Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay 

As a lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, McKean was using the ham butt anecdote to illustrate the way that online dictionaries should change our thinking about dictionaries.  Before the internet, paper dictionaries limited our ability to capture words and their definitions.  Like the pan, we needed to abridge the English lexicon to make it fit between the pages.  With the internet, however, we no longer need to limit our language; instead, we are free to capture all the words and definitions and publish them.

In broader terms, the Ham Butt Problem should remind us that when it comes to thinking, our default is to “go with what we know” rather than to question the way we have always done something or thought about something.  To make life more interesting and to live more creatively, we should question the status quo.  This doesn’t mean you always need to change; it just means you’ll be more conscious and more confident about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  Gold medalist Dick Fosbury, for example, might have continued to do the high jump the way others did it:  the traditional straddle-style or scissor method. One day, however, he paused and considered a different way to propel his body over the bar.  His thinking resulted in the Fosbury Flop, a status quo-busting new method that all high jumpers use today.  On October 20, 1968, Fosbury set an Olympic record jumping 7 feet 4 ¼ inches at the Mexico City Games.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What part of the Ham Butt Problem reveals the Status Quo Bias? What is the Status Quo Bias?

Challenge - Status Quo? No!:   The writer Salman Rushdie said, “Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.”  The term “Iconoclast” describes a person who attacks the status quo.  Instead of sticking with cherished beliefs, traditional thinking, or established institutions, an iconoclast looks for new ways to think and new ways to do things.  Do some research on people who shed the status quo bias and earned the title iconoclast. Who is one person you would hold up as the quintessential iconoclast?

ALSO ON THIS DAY:

March 8, 1841:  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was born on this day in Boston, Massachusetts.  Holmes, a true iconoclast, served as a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932.  He said, "A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." 

March 8, 2013:  On this day The New York Times published a story that illustrates what some call the “intelligence trap.”  In other words, just because a person has a high IQ or an advanced degree, this is no guarantee that his or her behavior will reflect that intelligence.  In 2011, Paul Frampton, a brilliant University of North Carolina physicist, fell victim to an online dating scam.  Fraudsters, posing online as a bikini model, duped Frampton into traveling to  Bolivia and transporting two kilograms of cocaine to the U.S. in a locked suitcase (2).

Sources:

1-McKean, Erin. “The Joy of Lexicography.” TED 2007.

2-Robson, David.  The Intelligence Trap:  Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes. New York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2019: 50.