Endings matter. That’s the consistent lesson of experiments that track people’s memories of pain. Imagine yourself in one such experiment led by psychologist Daniel Kahneman (later a Nobel laureate for founding behavioral economics). You immerse a hand in painfully cold water for one minute. You then repeat the painful experience with the other hand, which gets an additional 30 seconds in not-quite-so-cold water, which allows your discomfort to diminish somewhat. Question: Which experience would you later recall as the more painful? Although the 90-second experience exposed you to more net pain, you would—if you were like the experiment’s participants—recall it as less painful. Moreover, you would choose to repeat it over the shorter experience that ended with greater pain. This curious phenomenon—that people discount the duration of a painful experience, and instead judge it by its ending (and peak) moments of pain—has been repeatedly confirmed . After a painful medical procedure or childbirth , people overlook the pain’s duration and instead recall what is most cognitively available—the peak and end moments. Recognizing that endings matter, some physicians have applied the finding by lengthening an uncomfortable experience with gradual lessening of the pain. How ironic: If a doctor or dentist, having completed a procedure, asks if you’d like to leave now or to bear a few more minutes of diminishing discomfort, there’s a case to be made for agreeing to the tapered hurt. Although the time scale of a medical procedure and a presidency differ, the Trump era will forever be remembered by its end—when, as the Senate and House convened to ratify the 2020 electoral votes, Trump encouraged his followers to flock to D.C. for a time that “Will be wild!”; reassured them that “We will stop the steal!”; admonished them that “You will never take back our country with weakness”; directed them to “Walk down to the Capitol”; and, after they had violently stormed the Capitol building and halted proceedings, took to Twitter to reiterate his claims of election fraud and tell the rioters “We love you. You’re very special.” The resulting insurrectionist assault on the nation’s democratic house—horrifying Republicans and Democrats alike—will surely color people’s future recollections of the Trump presidency and its enablers. Psychologically speaking, the assault was a double whammy that subjected America to peak pain at the presidency’s end. The vivid scenes of rampage will be imprinted in people’s minds, lingering as the most cognitively available basis for judging the Trump era, and for comparing it to the Biden era to follow. Endings matter. ... View more

Red and blue partisans alike are aghast at what others revere. As one incredulous friend recently said of his family, “I can't believe that I personally know people who are so foolish.” This divided family is not alone. The percentage of both Republicans and Democrats who “hate” the other party soared from 20 percent in 2000 to near 50 percent in 2016. Would you be unhappy if your child married someone from the other party? From 1960 to 2019, the percent of folks answering “yes” shot up from 4 to 40 percent. What psychological forces are driving and sustaining our great and growing divide? As I’ve mentioned in prior essays, belief perseverance solidifies ideas when personal explanations of why they might be true outlast the discrediting of evidence that inspired them. Motivated reasoning justifies what we already believe or want to believe. And c onfirmation bias sustains our beliefs as we seek belief-confirming evidence. There is also a powerful fourth phenomenon at work: group polarization, which further amplifies the shared views of like-minded folks. When like minds discuss, their attitudes often become more extreme. Long ago, George Bishop and I invited high-prejudice students to discuss racial issues with others (who, unknown to them, were of like mind). We did the same with low-prejudice students. As we reported in Science , the result was group polarization: The divide between the two groups grew. Separation + conversation = polarization (see Figure 1). The phenomenon can work for good—as peacemakers, hunger advocates, and Black Lives Matter activists gain strength from connecting with kindred spirits. Or it can be toxic, as like minds amplify bigotry, intensify conspiracy paranoia, and inspire terrorism. People have long gained conviction from the meeting of like minds. But three more recent cultural changes provide fertile soil for extreme group polarization: The internet. One, obviously, is 21st-century social media. Trump supporters connect with fellow Trump supporters in disparaging those whom they despise. Progressives friend progressives who similarly affirm their shared views. The end result? Differences escalate to demonization. Partisanship becomes tribalism. Partisan cable TV. But the internet is far from the whole story, because polarization has deepened even among those least likely to use it. The soil that nourishes polarization also includes today’s politicized cable television options. In the past, a handful of mainstream news sources fed us all. Today, we can choose like-minded news—think Fox and MSNBC evening talk shows, and the recently Trump-championed Newsmax and OAN—that reinforces our existing views. The geography of division. There is also a third and less obvious social phenomenon at work. In a contest between proverbs—do “opposites attract,” or do “birds of a feather flock together”?—one of social psychology’s oldest and most firmly established principles is that similarity attracts. Opposites attracting can make for a good story: think Frog and Toad. Or: “ I’m Aquarius—decisive. He’s Libra—indecisive. We complement each other with so little conflict, because he’s happy when I make the arrangements.” But in reality, people are drawn to those with whom they share attitudes, beliefs, interests, age, religion, education, intelligence, economic status . . . the list goes on. We could wish it were otherwise, because there are benefits to diversity in neighborhoods and work teams. Yet birds who flock together—rich birds, tall birds, pretty birds, smoker birds, evangelical birds—typically are of a feather. Likeness leads to liking. Similarity breeds content. And that helps explain why, in an age of increased mobility (we more often live at some distance from our original home), our internet/TV social bubbles are compounded by geographic bubbles, where people live among other like-minded folks. Blue counties have become a deeper blue, and red counties a brighter red. As Philip Bump reports, the Democratic presidential candidate’s margin in Democratic-voting counties increased from an average 15 percent in 2000 to 23 percent in 2020, while the average Republican candidate’s margin in Republican-voting counties increased from 26 to 43 percent. Whether you live in rural Wyoming or in central Seattle, just about everyone you meet likely thinks like you do. This increasing geographical segregation of like minds helps explain the astounding result of a September, 2020, Pew survey : Four in ten Biden and Trump supporters said they did “not have a single close friend” who supported the other candidate. As I am, so are my friends. When COVID-19 is defeated, our world will be left with mammoth challenges: preventing a climate apocalypse, reducing systemic racism and hyper-inequality, and also building bridges of understanding across our partisan chasm. For better and for worse, the internet, cable television, and geographic mobility will endure. So how might we depolarize? Technologists can surely help, by prioritizing Mark Zuckerberg’s original vision of “a more connected world.” By flagging demonstrable untruths, creating forums for “ deliberative democracy ,” and linking people across boundaries, future technologies can work at increasing shared understandings. Citizen initiatives can engage dialogue. Nonprofit organizations working to depolarize America include Living Room Conversation , the Civil Conversations Project , the Depolarization Project , and Braver Angels , which is bringing red and blue together “to understand the other side’s point of view . . . to look for common ground . . . and to support principles that bring us together rather than divide us.” For some specific policies, such as higher taxes on the super-rich, net neutrality , and a $15 minimum wage , there already is bipartisan supermajority support. Educators can advance understanding. One overarching purpose of education is to counter the power of repeated misinformation and “anecdata” by teaching evidence-based critical thinking. Education can also work at enabling people, even when disagreeing, to understand others’ perspectives. It can train intellectual humility (“What’s the weakest part of my argument? What’s the strongest part of my opponent’s argument?”). And, with our attention so often drawn to how we differ, educators can teach listening skills that enable us to appreciate our shared concerns and values. For superb, evidence-based, ready-to-use online pedagogy, see www.OpenMindPlatform.org .   The utopian goal is not a Nineteen Eighty-Four-like uniformity of public opinion. Rather, our challenge is to affirm both our diversity and our unifying ideals, and so to renew the founding idea of America: diversity within unity. E pluribus unum: Out of many, one. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com; follow him on Twitter: @DavidGMyers.) ... View more

The conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat spoke for many in being astounded by “the sheer scale of the belief among conservatives that the [2020 presidential] election was really stolen,” which he attributed partly to “A strong belief [spurring] people to go out in search of evidence” for what they suppose. Douthat alluded to confirmation bias—our well-established tendency, when assessing our beliefs, to seek information that supports rather than challenges them. What’s the basis for this big idea, which has become one of social psychology’s gifts to public awareness? And should appreciating its power to sustain false beliefs cause us to doubt our own core beliefs? In a pioneering study that explored our greater eagerness to seek evidence for rather than against our ideas, psychologist Peter Wason gave British university students a set of three numbers (2-4-6) and told them that the series illustrated a rule. Their task was to discover the rule by generating their own three-number sequences, which Wason would confirm either did or didn’t conform to the rule. After the students tested enough to feel certain they had the rule, they were to announce it. Imagine being one of Wason’s study participants. What might you suppose the rule to be, and what number strings might you offer to test it? The outcome? Most participants, though seldom right, were never in doubt. Typically, they would form a wrong idea (such as “counting by twos?”) and then test it by searching for confirming evidence: “4-6-8?” “Yes, that conforms.” “20-22-24?” “Yes.” “200-202-204?” “Yes again.” “Got it. It’s counting by twos.” To discover Wason’s actual rule (any three ascending numbers), the participants should also have attempted to disconfirm their hunch by imagining and testing alternative ideas. Confirmation bias also affects our social beliefs. In several experiments , researchers Mark Snyder and William Swann tasked participants with posing questions to someone that would reveal whether that person was extraverted. The participants’ typical strategy was to seek information that would confirm extraversion. They would more likely ask “What would you do if you wanted to liven things up at a party?” than “What factors make it hard for you to really open up to people?” Vice versa for those assessing introversion. Thus, participants typically would detect in a person whatever trait they were assessing. Seek and ye shall find. In everyday life, too, once having formed a belief—that vaccines cause autism, that people can choose or change their sexual orientation, that the election was rigged—we prefer and seek information that verifies our belief. The phenomenon is politically bipartisan. Across various issues, both conservatives and liberals avoid learning the other side’s arguments about topics such as climate change, guns, and same-sex marriage. If we believe that systemic racism is (or is not) rampant, we will gravitate toward news sources, Facebook friends, and evidence that confirms our view, and away from sources that do not. Robert Browning understood: “As is your sort of mind, / So is your sort of search: you’ll find / What you desire.” Confirmation bias supplements another idea from social psychology—belief perseverance, a sister sort of motivated reasoning. In one provocative experiment, a Stanford research team led by Craig Anderson invited students to consider whether risk-takers make good or bad firefighters. Half viewed cases of a venturesome person succeeding as a firefighter, and a cautious person not succeeding; the other half viewed the reverse. After the students formed their conclusion, the researchers asked them to explain it. “Of course,” one group reflected, “risk-takers are braver.” To the other group, the opposite explanation seemed equally obvious: “Cautious people have fewer accidents.” When informed that the cases they’d viewed were fake news made up for the experiment, did the students now return to their pre-experiment neutrality? No—because after the fake information was discredited, the students were left with their self-generated explanations of why their initial conclusion might be true. Their new beliefs, having grown supporting legs, thus survived the discrediting. As the researchers concluded, “People often cling to their beliefs to a considerably greater extent than is logically or normatively warranted.” So, does confirmation bias + belief perseverance preclude teaching an old dogma new tricks? Does pondering our beliefs, and considering why they might be true, close us to dissonant truths? Mindful of the self-confirming persistence of our beliefs (whether true or false), should we therefore doubt everything? Once formed, it does take more compelling persuasion to change a belief (“election fraud was rampant”) than it did to create it. But there are at least two reasons we need not succumb to a nihilistic belief in nothing. First, evidence-based critical thinking works. Some evidence will change our thinking. If I believe that Reno is east of Los Angeles, that Atlanta is east of Detroit, and that Rome is south of New York, a look at a globe will persuade me that I am wrong, wrong, and wrong. I may once have supposed that child-rearing techniques shape children’s personalities, that the crime rate has been rising for years, or that traumatic experiences get repressed, but evidence has shown me otherwise. Recognizing that none of us are infallible little gods, we all, thankfully, have at least some amount of intellectual humility. Moreover, seeking evidence that might disconfirm our convictions sometimes strengthens them. I once believed that close, supportive relationships predict happiness, that aerobic exercise boosts mental health, and that wisdom and emotional stability grow with age—and the evidence now enables me to believe these things with even greater confidence. Curiosity is not the enemy of conviction. Second, explaining a belief does not explain it away. Knowing why you believe something needn’t tell us anything about your belief’s truth or falsity. Consider: If the psychology of belief causes us to question our own beliefs, it can also cause others to question their opposing beliefs, which are themselves prone to confirmation bias and belief perseverance. Psychological science, for example, offers both a psychology of religion and a “psychology of unbelief” (an actual book title). If both fully complete their work—by successfully explaining both religion and irreligion—that leaves open the question of whether theism or atheism is true. Archbishop William Temple recognized the distinction between explaining a belief and explaining it away when he was challenged after an Oxford address: “Well, of course, Archbishop, the point is that you believe what you believe because of the way you were brought up.” To which the archbishop replied, “That is as it may be. But the fact remains that you believe that I believe what I believe because of the way I was brought up, because of the way you were brought up.” Finally, let’s remember: If we are left with uncertainty after welcoming both confirming and disconfirming evidence, we can still venture a commitment. As French author Albert Camus reportedly said, sometimes life beckons us to make a 100 percent commitment to something about which we are 51 percent sure—to a cause worth embracing, or even to a belief system that helps make sense of the universe, gives meaning to life, connects us in supportive communities, provides a mandate for morality and selflessness, and offers hope in the face of adversity and death. So yes, belief perseverance solidifies newly formed ideas as invented rationales outlast the evidence that inspired them. And c onfirmation bias then sustains our beliefs as we seek belief-confirming evidence. Nevertheless, evidence-based thinking can strengthen true beliefs, or at least give us courage, amid lingering doubt, to make a reasoned leap of faith. As St. Paul advised , “Test everything; hold fast to what is good.” (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com ; follow him on Twitter: @DavidGMyers.) ... View more

A powerful psychological phenomenon is deflecting public approval of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, a phenomenon that is surfacing in polls and may influence the outcome of Georgia’s special Senate election. Social psychologists have repeatedly observed our human tendency to assume that we live in a just world, a world where people get what they deserve—where good is rewarded and evil is punished. Things happen for a reason, we surmise. From this “just-world” assumption it is but a short leap to assume that those who succeed must be good and those who suffer must be bad. The rich, we may think, have earned their wealth, even as the poor’s misfortune is similarly deserved. Those who viewed Donald Trump as an exceptionally successful business person would, in a just world, naturally assume that he possessed exceptional business acumen and leadership skills. At the other extreme, American slaveholders tended to view enslaved people as lazy and irresponsible—as having the very traits that justified their slavery. In both cases, folks presumed, people deserved what they got. The just-world phenomenon has played out in experiments . For example, people who were randomly assigned to receive supposed electric shocks for wrong answers on a memory test were later perceived as somehow deserving their fate. Juvenal, the Roman satirist, observed the phenomenon: “The Roman mob follows after Fortune . . . and hates those who have been condemned.” In other experiments people who read about a man and woman’s interaction judged the woman differently depending on whether the story ends with a happy ending or a rape—even when in both cases her behavior was the same. Thus the phenomenon can blind us to injustice, as people presume rape victims must have been seductive, battered spouses may have elicited their beating, and sick people as responsible for what ails them. “You reap what you sew.” So it happened in the Old Testament story of the undeserved suffering Job, whose friends judged that he must have merited his lot. Linking fortune with virtue and misfortune with moral failure sustains injustice. It enables the fortunate to feel pride in their just rewards and to avoid responsibility for the unfortunate. Just-world thinking is enabled by after-the-face narratives that explain victory or defeat. When a basketball game ends with a winning shot that rolls around the rim and falls in, fans and commentators explain the brilliant play and smart coaching that enabled the victory. Let the shot roll off, and everything remains the same—except now, the Monday morning narrative itemizes the player mistakes and coaching failures. Already we see the phenomenon operating writ large, with the expected post-election analyses of Mr. Trump’s flaws and Mr. Biden’s virtues. Losers we devalue. Winners we admire. Runoff and special elections historically have elicited more Republican turnout. This seemingly is reflected in the betting markets, which, as I write, estimate a 73 percent chance that Republicans will retain control of the Senate by winning at least one of the Georgia seats. Moreover, notes election modeler Nate Silver , “It’s easy to imagine Republicans being more motivated to turn out than Democrats, who may feel like they’ve done their duty.” But surely there is an alternative scenario: In this interim before the January 5th Georgia Senate runoff elections involving two Trump-supporting Republicans, we can anticipate further decline in Donald Trump’s public approval, which will be mirrored by rising approval of Joe Biden. If it’s a just world, both got what they deserved. And sure enough: A new Gallup Poll finds Biden’s favorability rating up six points six the election and Trump’s down three. Trump’s absence from the January ballot and his falling approval will likely weigh on the Trump-associated Senators Perdue and Loeffler. Moreover, if Mr. Biden’s public esteem rises, if the election becomes issue-focused (on allowing Biden to legislate majority-supported livable wages, climate protection, and affordable health care), and if Democratic voters are more motivated to enable Biden to govern than are dispirited Republicans motivated to block his initiatives, then the results may surprise us. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com or follow him on Twitter: @DavidGMyers.)   ... View more

Today, even while wishing President-elect Biden a happy birthday, some wonder: At age 78, does he have—and will he sustain for four years—the energy, mental acuity, and drive to excel in his new role? Or, as he approaches 80, will he embody his opponent’s caricature of “Sleepy Joe”—as someone not to be trusted with the cognitive demands of national and world leadership? Mr. President-elect, I empathize. I, too, turned 78 this fall. So on behalf of you and all of us late-70s folks, let me shine the light of psychological science on our capacities. First, people should understand that the more we age, the less age predicts our abilities. Knowing that James is 8 and Jamal is 18 tells us much about their differences. Not so with two adults who similarly differ by a decade. Many a 78-year-old can outrun and outthink a 68-year-old neighbor. It’s true that we late-70s folks have some diminishing abilities. Like you, Mr. President-elect, I can still jog—but not as fast or far. The stairs we once bounded up have gotten steeper, the newsprint smaller, others’ voices fainter. And in the molasses of our brain, memories bubble more slowly to the surface: We more often experience brain freezes as we try to retrieve someone’s name or the next point we were about to make. Yet with a lifetime’s accumulation of antibodies, we also suffer fewer common colds and flus than do our grandchildren. Physical exercise, which you and I regularly do, not only sustains our muscles, bones, and hearts; it also stimulates neurogenesis, the birth of new brain cells and neural connections. The result, when compared with sedentary folks like your predecessor, is better memory, sharper judgment, and minimized cognitive decline. Moreover, we either retain or grow three important strengths: Crystallized intelligence. We can admit to experiencing what researchers document: Our fluid intelligence—our ability to reason and react speedily—isn’t what it used to be. We don’t solve math problems as quickly or learn new technologies as readily, and we’re no match for our grandkids at video games. But the better news is that our crystallized intelligence—our accumulated knowledge and the ability to apply it—crests later in life. No wonder many historians, philosophers, and artists have produced their most noteworthy work later in life than have mathematicians and scientists. Anna Mary Robertson Moses (“Grandma Moses”) took up painting in her 70s. At age 89, Frank Lloyd Wright designed New York City’s Guggenheim Museum. At age 94, my psychologist colleague Albert Bandura has just co-authored yet another article. Perhaps our most important work is also yet ahead? Wisdom. With maturity, people’s social skills often increase. They become better able to take multiple perspectives, to offer helpful sagacity amid conflicts, and to appreciate the limits of their knowledge. The wisdom to know when we know a thing and when we do not is born of experience. Working at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute, psychologist Paul Baltes and his colleagues developed wisdom tests that assess people’s life knowledge and judgments about how to conduct themselves in complex circumstances. Wisdom “is one domain in which some older individuals excel,” they report .  “In youth we learn, in age we understand,” observed the 19th-century novelist Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach. Stable emotionality. As the years go by, our feelings mellow. Unlike teens, who tend to rebound up from gloom or down from elation within an hour, our highs are less high and our lows less low. As we age, we find ourselves less often feeling excited or elated. But our lives are also less often disrupted by depression. We late-70s people are better able to look beyond the moment. Compliments produce less elation; criticisms, less despair. At the outset of my career, praise and criticism would inflate and deflate my head. A publication might have me thinking I was God’s new gift to my profession, while a rejection led me to ponder moving home to join the family business. With experience, both acclaim and reproach become mere iotas of additional feedback atop a mountain of commentary. Thus, when responding to the day’s slings and arrows, we can better take a big-picture, long-term perspective. Mr. President-elect, I understand these things, as I suspect you do, too. When in my 60s, I assumed—wrongly—that by age 78, I would no longer have the energy to read, to think, to write. Instead, I take joy in daily entering my office at a place called Hope. I relish each day learning something new. I find delight in making words march up a screen. And I’m mellower, as it takes more to make me feel either ecstatic or despondent. And you? Will you, as a newly minted 78-year-old, show your age? Yes, that jog up to the podium will surely slow. You will likely more often misspeak or forget a point. Your sleep will be more interrupted. But you will also benefit from the crystallized intelligence that comes with your lifetime’s experience. You can harness the wisdom that comes with age. And you can give us the gift of emotional maturity that will enable you, better than most, to navigate, as you have said, the “battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses.” (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com  or follow him on Twitter @DavidGMyers). ... View more

In a pre-election essay, I contrasted the prognostications of poll-influenced prediction models with the wisdom of the betting crowd. I suspected that bettors—many of whom believed their candidate would win—were overly influenced by the false consensus effect (the presumption that most others see the world as we do). But score this round for the wisdom of the betting crowd, which better anticipated the election closeness, including Trump’s Florida victory. That’s a contrast with Britain’s Brexit vote, where polls indicated a toss-up (a half percent edge for “Remain”) while the betting markets wrongly estimated a 90+ percent Remain chance. The U.S. polls had a rougher-than-usual year, with the final Biden margin likely near 4.5 percent rather than the predicted 8 percent. The pollsters also struggled in key states. On election eve, the average poll gave Trump a 0.8 percent edge in Ohio; he won by 8 percent. In Florida, the polls gave Biden a 2.5 percent edge; he lost by about 3 percent. In Wisconsin, the polls favored Biden by 8.4 percent; he won by less than a percent. With so few people now responding to pollster calls and texts, precision is increasing a challenge (even with pollster adjusting results to match the voting demographics). But lest we dismiss the polls and sophisticated forecasters, let’s grant them three points. First, they got many of the specifics right. FiveThirtyEight, for example, correctly anticipated 48 of the 50 presumed state outcomes. Some of its correct predictions even surprised its creator: Second, polls, as Silver has said , could be worse and they would still greatly exceed conventional seat-of-the-pants wisdom. In a University of Michigan national survey in September, 4 in 5 Republicans incorrectly anticipated a Trump victory. Third, although the models missed on some details, credit them with the big picture. “Biden’s Favored in Our Final Presidential Forecast, but It’s a Fine Line Between a Landslide and a Nail-Biter,” headlined FiveThirtyEight in its final election forecast. And Biden did win. As I write, though, the betting markets —mindful of fraud allegations and legal challenges—still give Donald Trump a 12 percent chance of victory. But this, says Silver , “ is basically a market saying there's a 12% chance that the sky isn't blue.” Consider, say the media analysts who have called the election: How would widespread voter fraud account for Donald Trump’s doing much better than predicted by the historically reliable polls (and for down ballot Republicans doing better yet)? And how could that be so across America in countless local municipalities, including those with Republican-elected officials? Take my community—Holland, Michigan, a historically Republican town where Betsy DeVos grew up and has a home just a bike ride from my own. With a changing demography that now closely mirrors the nation, our last three presidential elections have been razor close, with Donald Trump narrowly edging Hillary Clinton in 2016 . . . but with Biden defeating Trump by 11 percent. Likewise, our surrounding county—one of the nation’s most reliably Republican counties—voted Trump by 30.2 percent in 2016 but only 21.5 percent in 2020. Neighboring Kent County, also leans Republican and is the home of Republican-turned-Libertarian Congressman Justin Amash, gave Biden 50,000 more votes than Clinton received four years ago. Is it conceivable that the Republican-friendly voting officials in countless such places across the U.S. consistently committed Biden-supporting fraud? All in all, it was not the best of years for pollsters and modelers, though it was a worse year for John and Joan Q. Public’s expectations of their candidate’s triumphant success. Winston Churchill once called democracy “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms.” To borrow his sentiment, polls and models are the worst forms of prediction, except for all the other forms. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more

To many observers, the election was a clash of two Americas—a war between two increasingly partisan identities, each of which is incredulous at what the other supports. As the Pew Research Center documents , the gulf between them is enormous. For example, 74 percent of Biden supporters told the Pew Research Center that “it is a lot more difficult” to be a Black person in this country than to be a White person, a view shared by a mere 9% of Trump supporters. Likewise, 68 percent of Biden supporters said climate change was important to their vote—as was the case for but 11 percent of Trump supporters (who scored this last among 12 issues of possible concern). Many Republicans, having believed Donald Trump would win, are aghast at the defeat of their pro-life, law-and-order supporting, free-enterprise-buttressing, patriotic values-embracing leader. Democrats had hoped the massive turnout heralded a massive blue wave repudiation of Trump’s bigotry, divisiveness, and climate unfriendly actions. Thus, many are stunned that all this barely moved the needle—from a 2016 electoral vote margin of 2.1 percent to about 5 percent—despite improved Democratic party demographics, increased fund-raising, and a better-liked candidate. In Why We’re Polarized , journalist Ezra Klein draws on social science research to document how Americans now view politics through the lens of their strongly held partisan identities—who “we” are versus who “they” are. Klein describes how our political tribal identities engage what we psychologists call “motivated reasoning.” Whatever our party and its leaders do—even when it clashes with what we formerly believed—we rationalize. Even morality and religion have become subservient to politics. In the latest issue of Science , an interdisciplinary team of 15 scholars, led by social psychologist Eli Finkel, further describe today’s “political sectarianism” and the rise of out-party hate. They document the growing contempt that today’s partisans feel for the other party, which greatly exceeds the love they have for their own. Recall, too, the power of the availability heuristic—our tendency to estimate the commonality of events based on their mental availability. Whatever information pops readily into mind—often vivid images—can hijack our thinking. Thus, potent memes (“defund the police”) and scenes (rampaging protesters) can define those we associate with them, even if the meme represents no political party and the scene represents an infinitesimal proportion of otherwise peaceful demonstrators. In the post-Trump era to come, both parties will be debating and massaging their brand identities in hopes of drawing more people in while retaining their base. Partisans on both sides could, methinks, benefit from a reading of Peter Wehner’s prescient The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump —a guidebook to seeking a more perfect union (a book acclaimed, remarkably, by both Democratic strategist David Axelrod and Republican strategist Karl Rove). (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more

I see you. My psychic powers enable me, from a great distance, to peer into your heart and to sense your unease. Regardless of your political leanings, you understand the upcoming U.S. election to be momentous, world-changing, the most important of your lifetime. Part of you is hopeful, but a larger part of you is feeling tense. Anxious. Fearing a future that would follow the outcome you dread. Hungering for indications of the likely outcome, you read the latest commentary and devour the latest polls. You may even glean insight from the betting markets (here and here) , which offer “the wisdom of the crowd.” They are akin to stock markets, in which people place bets on future stock values, with the current market value—the midpoint between those expecting a stock to rise and those expecting it to fall—representing the distillation of all available information and insight. As stock market booms and busts remind us, the crowd sometimes displays an irrational exuberance or despair. Yet, as Princeton economist Burton Malkiel has repeatedly demonstrated , no individual stock picker (or mutual fund) has had the smarts to consistently outguess the efficient marketplace. You may also, if you are a political geek, have welcomed clues to the election outcome from prediction models ( here and here ) that combine historical information, demographics, and poll results to forecast the result. But this year, the betting and prediction markets differ sharply. The betting markets see a 34 percent chance of a Trump victory, while the prediction models see but a 5 to 10 percent chance. So who should we believe? Skeptics scoff that the poll-influenced prediction models erred in 2016. FiveThirtyEight’s final election forecast gave Donald Trump only a 28 percent chance of winning. So, was it wrong? Consider a simple prediction model that predicted a baseball player’s chance of a hit based on the player’s batting average. If a .280 hitter came to the plate and got a hit, would we discount our model? Of course not, because we understand the model’s prediction that sometimes (28% of the time, in this case), the less likely outcome will happen. (If it never does, the model errs.) But why do the current betting markets diverge from the prediction models? FiveThirtyEight modeler Nate Silver has an idea: The Dunning-Kruger effect, as psychology students know, is the repeated finding that incompetence tends not to recognize itself. As one person explained to those unfamiliar with Silver’s allusion: Others noted that the presidential betting markets, unlike the stock markets, are drawing on limited (once every four years) information—with people betting only small amounts on their hunches, and without the sophisticated appraisal that informs stock investing. And what are their hunches? Surely, these are informed by the false consensus effect—our tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our views. Thus, in the University of Michigan’s July Survey of Consumers, 83 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of Republicans predicted that voters would elect their party’s presidential candidate. Ergo, bettors are surely, to some extent, drawing on their own preferences, which—thanks to the false consensus effect—inform their predictions. What we are, we see in others. So, if I were a betting person, I would wager based on the prediction models. Usually, there is wisdom to the crowd. But sometimes . . . we shall soon see . . . the crowd is led astray by the whispers of its own inner voices. ----- P.S. At 10:30 a.m. on election day, the Economist model projects a 78 percent chance of a Biden Florida victory, FiveThirtyEight.com projects a Biden Florida victory with a 2.5 percent vote margin, and electionbettingodds.com betting market average estimates a 62% chance of a Trump Florida victory. Who's right--the models or the bettors? Stay tuned! P.S.S. on November 4: Mea culpa. I was wrong. Although the models--like weather forecasts estimating the percent change of rain--allow for unlikely possibilities, the wisdom of the betting crowd won this round--both in Florida and in foreseeing a closer-than-expected election. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .)   ... View more

On most days, one great pleasure of my job (reading and reporting on psychological science) is learning something new. As Michelangelo said at age 85, “I am still learning.” A recent example is social psychologist Jean Twenge’s remarkable reports ( here and here ) of teens’ resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparing national teen surveys from 2018 and 2020, she found that “Teens’ mental health did not collectively suffer during the pandemic.” In fact, “the percentage of teens who were depressed or lonely was actually lower in 2020.” Does this surprise you, as it did me? After all, for the past seven months, reports of pandemic-related mental stress have proliferated. “Coronavirus is harming the mental health of tens of millions of people in U.S.,” headlined The Washington Post . Indeed, as the pandemic struck, Gallup surveys found U.S. adults’ quality of life evaluations plummeting, and their worry sharply rising. The Census Bureau reported that a third of Americans were experiencing clinical anxiety or depression. And The Lancet described a similar mental health decline in the U.K. Moreover, multiple surveys found that those most afflicted were young adults. Mental distress , loneliness , and suicidal ideation rose most sharply among 18- to 29-year-olds. For those who have come to view depression and other disorders as biologically influenced—as syndromes that occur even in happy-seeming environments—the pandemic’s “ massive mental health impact ” is a reminder of the power of the situation. Significant stresses, and a thwarting of the human need to belong, can be emotionally toxic. The toll on young adults also reminds us of the importance of face-to-face relationships, especially for younger adults with their many friendships. As Nathan DeWall and I report in Psychology, 13th Edition, older adults “tend to have a smaller social network, with fewer friendships.” So what gives? Why might teens—pulled from school, separated from friends, so close in age to those struggling young adults—exhibit not only stable, but improved mental health during these trying times? One factor is more sleep. We know that a full night’s sleep contributes to health and well-being, and that high school teens are commonly sleep-deprived. In the 2018 survey, only 55 percent of American teens reported sleeping 7+ hours per night. In 2020, while homebound during the pandemic—and without needing to rise so early to go to school—84 percent of teens reported getting 7+ nightly hours. A second seeming factor is family. During the pandemic, 56 percent of teens reported “spending more time talking with their parents,” 54 percent “said their family now ate dinner together more often,” and 68 percent “said their families had become closer during the pandemic.” So, while the pandemic has taken a huge toll on our lives and livelihoods, the news from teen-world offers a reminder: Sleep and close relationships are vital components of a flourishing life. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com.) ... View more

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities In my circle of friends—yours, too?—there is palpable anxiety bordering on despair. They see relationships and health disrupted by a plague with no end in sight, and politics that have descended into warring tribes and broken pledges. Progressives bemoan betting markets that give better than a 40 percent reelection chance to a U.S. president who lampoons mask-wearing, foments racism, threatens democracy, dodges taxes, and rejects climate science, and a future Supreme Court that’s likely to advance right-wing priorities for a generation to come. Conservatives lament the arc of history trending away from them as the nation becomes increasingly diverse, secular, and progressive—making their current ascendance “the dying spasms of a political movement.” My friends are not alone in their angst. In a September, 2020 Gallup Poll , 85 percent reported being dissatisfied “with the way things are going in the United States.” Other U.S. surveys similarly find that a decided majority perceive things as on “the wrong track,” “headed in the wrong direction,” or going “badly.” An internet meme captures the sentiment: “Goodnight moon. Goodnight Zoom. Goodnight impending sense of doom.” If you—from either side of the political spectrum—share some of this anxiety and anguish, and for good reasons, might I point you to three evidence-based information sources that could complement your malaise with a splash of longer-term optimism? First, those on Twitter can sign up for the daily good news fact from Beautiful News Daily . An example: Second, read my psychologist colleague Steven Pinker. In The Better Angels of Our Nature he cogently documents the long-term decline of all forms of violence, including wars, genocide, and murders. That includes the U.S., where violent as well as property crime—and hostility toward women and LGBTQ folks—have sharply declined since the early 1990s. Pinker’s newer Enlightenment Now documents many other ways—from the environment to life expectancy to human rights to quality of life—in which the world is getting better. Bill Gates lauds that latest Pinker book as “the most inspiring book I’ve ever read,” and also praises Hans Rosling’s kindred-spirited Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things are Better Than You Think as “one of the most important books I’ve ever read.” I know, I know: We must not look past lingering systemic racism, the looming climate crisis, or the world’s recent increase in human suffering . The current situation gives us reason for gloom. Climate change, especially, looms as a future weapon of mass destruction. Nevertheless, Rosling, along with his coauthors Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Ronnlund, offer an antidote for utter despair. My eyes were opened as Factfulness compared a) people’s gloomy perceptions of long-term trends with b) factual long-term trends, such as those below. [i]  (For more such information, visit their Gapminder.org .) There are justifications for today’s anxiety and angst. Yet even amid our epoch of incredulity and winter of despair, let us also retain sight of the light and the enduring spring of hope. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) [i] I share these figures with the permission of Rosling’s American editor and publisher who, in a happy coincidence, are also the editor and publisher of a forthcoming book in which I will shine the light of psychological science on the hidden wonders of our lives. ... View more

Since 1991, through its school-based surveys of 4.9 million high school students, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has monitored the health and well-being of America’s youth. Its Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System monitors trends in adolescent risky behaviors, sexuality, mental health, drug and alcohol use, exercise, and diet. The 2019 survey, released in late August of 2020, includes these findings of possible interest to teachers, counselors, parents, and others who support or nurture America’s youth: Sexual identity. Two percent of boys and 3 percent of girls report being gay or lesbian. But more report being bisexual or unsure. This is especially so for girls: Nearly 20 percent identify as neither straight nor gay, which accords with other studies that find women’s sexual identity less fixed than men’s. Sexual identity and victimization. It’s often presumed that gay and lesbian teens are vulnerable to becoming victims of antisocial acts, and the CDC survey confirms that presumption. Gay and lesbian youth are twice as likely as straight youth to report feeling unsafe, being bullied, and experiencing violence directed against them. They also are 3.6 times more likely to report experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 4.5 times more likely to have “seriously considered attempting suicide” in the past 12 months. Sexual activity. The long-term decline in teen sexual intercourse has continued. Psychologist Jean Twenge, also following this trend, has attributed it to the smartphone generation’s diminishing face-to-face relationships. Of those sexually active, 23 percent reported using oral contraceptives and 54 percent reported using condoms during their last sexual intercourse, with 9 percent using both (or some other accompanying birth control device). Suicidal thoughts and attempts. High school students’ contemplating or attempting suicide has increased since 2009. Moreover, both depression and suicide attempts are twice as likely among teen girls compared with teen boys. The rising depression rates coincide with another government national youth survey that reported a marked increase in teen rates of major depressive disorder since 2010. In this 2018 survey, too, the percent of teens feeling “sad or hopeless” had increased from 26 to 37 percent since 2009. Might the concurrent rise of smartphones and social media be contributing to these increasing rates? For my quick synopsis of the pertinent evidence see here. Drug and alcohol use. Since 2009, teens’ marijuana use has been stable—though with an uptick from 20 to 22 percent since 2017, coincident with widespread legalization in the United States. Daily cigarette smoking has dramatically declined, to the point of becoming gauche: But vaping has replaced cigarette use, with one-third reporting having vaped at least once in the past month, and 1 in 10 doing so most days. (In a separate survey of college age people, both  nicotine and marijuana vaping increased from 2017 to 2019.) However, a brand new government report indicates that, thanks to health warnings, youth vaping dropped by 30 percent in 2020. Other tidbits from the CDC survey: TV. In the age of internet and social media, teen TV watching has plummeted—from the 43 percent who watched three or more hours per day in 1999 to 20 percent in 2019. Video games and computer use. Flip-flopping with TV watching was the corresponding increase in 3+ daily hours of video game playing and other computer use, from 22 percent in 2003 to 46 percent in 2019. Obesity. Youth having obesity (defined by body mass index) increased from 11 percent in 1999 to 16 percent in 2019. School safety. The percent of students carrying a weapon (gun, knife, or club) to school decreased from 12 percent in 1993 to 3 percent in 2019. Those reporting being in a physical fight in the last year also decreased—from 43 percent in 1991 to 22 percent in 2019. To view and capture simple graphs on these and other health indicators—and perhaps to create a quiz that challenges your students to guess the answers—visit here . (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more

At a May 26 Rose Garden press conference, President Trump asked a face-masked reporter: “Can you take it off, because I cannot hear you.” On this matter, I can empathize with our president. At a recent dental appointment, I could understand but half my hygienist’s and dentist’s spoken words. Despite being a person with hearing loss, I normally hear them both with ease, thanks to our proximity. But when muffled by their masks and face shields, their words became indistinct. One speech researcher explains that the thicker fabrics of many home-made masks are especially likely to “significantly block the airstream, diminishing the acoustic energy.” Although I wouldn’t have it otherwise—they and other caregivers are protecting their patients, and protecting themselves from their patients—masks do impede accessibility. More than we realize, we are all natural lip readers. Even a normal-hearing friend, visiting an ice cream shop, could not make out the masked clerk’s words: “Cup or cone”? Another acquaintance, during a hospital ER visit, reporting understanding only about half of what the masked nurses and doctors said to her. In the fully masked classrooms of my campus, colleagues tell me that, for example, “I have found myself asking students to repeat their questions.” Another colleague says “I am using my outside voice,” which takes more energy (and which other colleagues report leaves them drained). Another reports that “It is frustrating to continue to ask a student to repeat something and I fear it will shut down discussion and make most classes a lecture performance—in which case I might as well go completely online.” Another has, while the weather allows, taken his class outdoors where, socially distanced, they can see facial expressions and lip-read one another, mask-free. The essential lesson: There is more to hearing than meets the ears. What our eyes see influences what our brain hears. That phenomenon, which you can experience here , is called the McGurk effect. Moreover, thanks to our powers of instantly reading facial expressions, much of our communication is nonverbal. We share our emotions through our words but also through our smiles, our tight lips, our gaping mouths. Even our emojis vary the mouth: :- ( and :- ) . One colleague explains: “It adds a barrier that feels formal and inaccessible when you can't shake someone's hand, and then you can't smile at them to say ‘but I still want to get to know you.’” Cut off from facial expression, our communication is hampered. So is face recognition. With students’ faces masked, colleagues report becoming partially face-blind. They’re not only having more difficultly immediately knowing which student is speaking, but also recognizing their obscured faces: “I cannot call on a familiar student by name, because I can't tell who anyone is.” Add to this the depletion of normal emotional display and mimicry and the natural result will be weakened social bonds, including those between teacher and student, argues German psychiatrist and psychologist Manfred Spitzer. Given that masks—and also face shields in health care—are essential to controlling the pandemic, how can we salvage hearing accessibility in a masked world? Clear hearing is helpful to everyone—our minds wander less when little cognitive effort is required--but especially for those with hearing loss. In retail contexts, where a transaction occurs with a masked person behind a clear plastic screen, a simple solution can serve most people with hearing aids. Given a microphone and an installed hearing loop , a clerk’s voice will magnetically transmit to the telecoil sensor in most aids and all cochlear implants. As I can vouch , the system also works beautifully in other venues, including auditoriums, airports, and places of worship . With the mere push of a button, my hearing aids can become in-the-ear speakers that receive PA sound and customize it for my hearing needs. But what about classrooms, where campus face-mask mandates will require teachers and students to wear mutually protective masks—and in some cases (including the classrooms of my own campus) also to speak from behind a plastic barrier? What can schools and colleges do to enable hearing accessibility while also supporting public health? Admonish clarity. Schools can admonish instructors to be mindful that their audience is experiencing some muffling of sound, without supportive lip reading. Health care workers can likewise be coached to speak more deliberately and distinctly: “Your patients, especially your older patients, are having more trouble hearing you than you suppose.” That, alas, will be only a modestly effective solution, because we soon revert to our natural speaking styles. When one experimenter asked people to act as expressive or inhibited as possible while stating opinions, the naturally expressive people—even when feigning inhibition—were less inhibited than naturally inhibited people. And inexpressive people, when feigning expressiveness, were less expressive than naturally expressive folks. It’s hard to be, for any length of time, someone you’re not. Your speaking speed and style is, once your self-consciousness subsides, irrepressible. Transparent face masks. A second solution is to equip instructors with a face mask or shield that allows people to read lips and facial expressions. One example, used by some on my campus (such as the colleague below, at left) is the ClearMask. (An alternative, germ-filtering transparent Swiss surgical mask to be available in 2021 from hmcare.ch is shown at right.) Mindful of the face’s role in communication, one colleague is hoping, with appropriate permissions, to equip all his students with face shields. Two other colleagues have, however, told me of being bothered both by breathing issues with a clear mask, and also by the altered sound of their own voice (a familiar distraction to new hearing aid wearers). Define safe distance. A third solution is to specify a safe distance at which an instructor may lower the mask while lecturing. Imagine two very different classrooms. In a small seminar, colleges would surely mandate a professor's mask wearing when seated around a table with students. When lecturing while alone as a sage on the stage of a large auditorium, the professor would be sufficiently physically distanced to make a mask superfluous. In the gradations of classrooms in between, could colleges define a minimum safe distance at which a mask could be lowered while teaching? Add PA systems. A fourth solution is to add PA systems to intermediate-size rooms. An instructor’s head-mounted mic could transmit to a class through newly installed speakers. Live captioning. Google Meet’s captioning illustrates the potential for instant, accurate captioning that rivals the speed and precision of human captioner. Not only is it, therefore, a preferred video conferencing technology for accessibility (Zoom, take note), the visual information display aids anyone whose mind has momentarily wandered. Might classrooms be similarly equipped with open captioned displays of instructors’ remarks? Hearing loops. Finally, schools could employ hearing technology. Such ranges from personal assistive technology—in which an instructor wears a mic that transmits to individual hard-of-hearing students with special receivers—to class and auditorium hearing loops that transmit to most of today’s hearing aids and cochlear implants (as I illustrate here from my Hope College campus). We want to stay healthy. And we want to hear. Let those planning for in-person, under-the-pandemic instruction aim for both—a health-protecting accessibility. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more

“As we pull down controversial statues and reassess historical figures” let’s also examine our own moral blind spots, urges Nicholas Kristof . Although our moral failings may not be on the horrific scale of those who enslaved their fellow humans, we likely still have what Kristof calls “moral myopia.” Kristof suggests three possible contenders for such blind spots: the animal cruelty of factory farming, indifference to suffering in impoverished countries, and climate change. He anticipates that a century from now, future generations may judge our actions in these areas as “bewilderingly immoral.” Many of us can already look back on events in our own lives with embarrassment.  I recall reveling, with other Pacific Northwesterners 55 years ago, in the first killer whale captures. Today we understand those captures as a brutal separation of orcas from their family and a contribution to the endangered status of our region’s beloved 72 Southern Resident orcas. And might morally enlightened future people want to remove my name from something for attitudes or actions I have more recently embraced—perhaps for eating the flesh of factory-farmed animals, or for flying on climate-destroying flights? Perhaps even for attitudes and behaviors I am now too short-sighted to imagine as problematic to my descendants? When judging the speck in someone else’s eye, do I fail to notice what is in my own? An oft-demonstrated truth is that most of us have a great reputation with ourselves and therefore may miss the large specks in our own lives. Psychologists call this the self-serving bias. We accept more responsibility for our good deeds than for our bad. And we tend to see ourselves as better than average—as, for example, better-than-average drivers, voters, and employees. The better-than-average phenomenon extends to people’s feelings of moral superiority: Virtues. In the Netherlands, most high school students have rated themselves as more honest, persistent, original, friendly, and reliable than the average high school student. Prosocial behavior. Most people report that they are more likely than others to give to a charity, donate blood, and give up their bus seat to a pregnant woman. Ethics. Most businesspeople perceive themselves as more ethical than the average businessperson. Morals and values. When asked in a national survey , “How would you rate your own morals and values on a scale from 1 to 100 (100 being perfect)?” 50 percent rated themselves at 90 or above. This self-serving bias can lead us to view ourselves as morally superior to others, including our ancestors. We presume that, had we stood in their shoes, we would have behaved differently. We are like the people who—when told about experiments in which people have conformed to falsehoods, followed orders to administer painful shocks, or failed to help someone—predict that they would have acted more truthfully and courageously. But psychology’s experiments have indicated otherwise. Princeton legal scholar Robert George recently tweeted that he sometimes asks students “ what their position on slavery would have been had they been White and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it. ” But this is “nonsense,” he adds. Had we been White Southerners, embedded in that time and culture’s systemic racism, most of us would likely have been, to a lesser or greater extent, complicit. He challenges those who think they would have been the exception to tell him how they have, in their current life, done something similarly unpopular with their peers, causing them to be abandoned by friends and “loathed and ridiculed by powerful, influential individuals and institutions.” Of course, a brave minority in the South did join the abolitionist cause and enabled the underground railway. Under Hitler a few brave souls did protest and suffer, including Pastor Martin Niemöller, who, after seven years in Nazi concentration camps, famously spoke for many: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” But such heroes are heroes because they are the exception. Experiments ( here and here ) show that most people do err when confidently predicting that they would intervene where others have not if witnessing a sexist or racist slur. T. S. Elliot anticipated as much: “Between the idea and the reality . . . Falls the Shadow.” So, should we and can we advocate for a more just world while also being mindful that we may similarly be judged by our descendants? As Steven Pinker documents in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, w e have made moral progress. Wars, genocide, murders, blatant racism, homophobia, and sexism, as well as illiteracy, ignorance, and lethal diseases, have all, over time, been on the decline. So, amid today’s hatreds and chaos, there is hope for continued progress. Perhaps the ancient prophetic admonition can be our guide: Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more

Our minds overflow with images of evil . . . of senseless killings of innocent people; of white supremacist marchers; of conspiracy theories and barefaced lies spreading from on high. And we are uplifted by images of goodness . . . of national heartache and empathy for the targets of racism; of volunteers sewing face masks and staffing food banks; of health care workers risking their own health to care for those alone near death’s door. In his 1665 Maxims, French moralist François La Rochefoucauld noted that our “natures are like most houses—many sided; some aspects are pleasant and some not.” So it is with humans. We are capable of such vile hatred and brutal violence, and of such compassionate altruism and self-giving love. But which, in our core, predominates? Deep in our hearts, are we, as the Psalmist said, “little lower than the angels”? Or did psychologist Donald Campbell rightly argue in his 1975 American Psychological Association presidential address that “original sin” better describes us—that selfishness-predisposing genes won the evolutionary competition? (Campbell anticipated Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene.) Photo: Colonel/E+/Getty Images Are the selfish behaviors of the marooned boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies an apt image of our human nature? One possible answer surfaced in a recent Guardian report of an actual group of teen boys from Tonga who, for 15 months, were marooned on an uninhabited island: “The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty.” The six Tonga boys cooperatively created a food garden, carved out tree trunks for water storage, improvised recreational facilities, and kept a permanent fire going, until being rescued by an Australian boat captain who noticed the fire. “Their days began and ended with song and prayer,” and problems were solved with a “time out.” But offsetting that heartwarming true-life story is another, told in Langdon Gilkey's 1966 book, The Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure. Gilkey, who later became a University of Chicago theologian, was one of 1800 foreigners sent to a Japanese internment camp in North China’s Shantung Province during World War II. Businesspeople, missionaries, doctors, professors, junkies, and prostitutes—crowded into a former mission station no bigger than two football fields—were subjected to privation but not torture, malnutrition but not starvation. Before long, conflicts and selfishness ruled: The “fundamental bent of the total self in all of us was inward, toward our own welfare,” observed Gilkey, with abundant examples. “And so immersed were we in it that we hardly seemed able to see this in ourselves.” Two natural social experiments, with two different results. And so it is with the similarly mixed pictures of human nature emerging from Americans’ recent national experience—and from psychological science research. One mountain of research explores the self-centered behaviors that prevailed in the Shantung Compound. We have demonstrations galore of self-serving biases, of selfish behavior in social dilemma experiments, and of evil situations overwhelming benevolent intentions, inducing people to conform to falsehoods or capitulate to cruelty. Nice guys often don’t finish nice. Dozens of other experiments reveal how group influences can exacerbate our worst tendencies. Social psychological phenomena such as “deindividuation,” “groupthink,” and “group polarization” accentuate our sins. Police brutality, lynchings, wars, genocides, and looting are things people do in groups. Terrorism springs from like-minded people reverberating off one another. Disliking inflates to despising. Self-serving perceptions swell into collective pride, leading racists, sexists, and nationalists to perceive the superiority of their group—their race, sex, or country. Lewis Thomas, whose essays helped inspire my own, offered a dismal conclusion: “For total greed, rapacity, heartlessness, and irresponsibility there is nothing to match a nation.” All that is true. But there is another mountain of research that testifies to our potential for goodness. Humanistic and positive psychology explore our capacity for growth and gratitude, humility and hope. Evolutionary psychology explains the roots of our caring for kin and our care for others; groups composed of mutually supportive altruists survive to spread their group-serving genes. Social and developmental psychologists also document our capacity for empathy from early childhood onward. When observing another’s suffering, we wince and then we often help — even when our helping is anonymous. We give blood, donate money, protest injustice, and volunteer time to people we will never see. Genuine “empathy-induced altruism is part of human nature,” concluded Daniel Batson, after conducting 25 experiments. We are self-giving social animals. Moreover, if groups inflame our worst tendencies, they also amplify the flickers of our compassion, faith, and hope. In groups, runners run faster, audiences laugh louder, and givers become more generous. In support groups, people strengthen their resolve to stop drinking, lose weight, and study harder. In kindred-spirited groups, people expand their spiritual consciousness and dream of a better world. In The War for Kindness , social neuroscientist Jamil Zaki explores our human capacity for empathy and prosociality. Only a cold heart could view the knee upon George Floyd’s neck and not feel empathy and pain. Zaki also argues that the current pandemic has unleashed “ catastrophe compassion .” From food-sharing to mask-wearing, people are giving mutual aid and experiencing “social connection, solidarity, and shared resilience.” Langdon Gilkey found a glimmer of such compassion in the self-giving presence of Eric Liddell, a ray of light piercing the Shantung Compound’s self-centeredness. Thanks to the Oscar-winning 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, Liddell is best known as the Scottish runner so committed to his Christian principles that he accepted reproach for declining to participate in the 1924 Olympics 100-meter dash, being held on a Sunday. He instead ran the 400-meter, for which he had not trained, and won the Olympic gold. Although Liddell returned home a national hero, his greater heroism began where the movie ended, as he walked away from fame, fortune, and the next Olympics to teach chemistry and English as a missionary in rural China. Shortly before Japan entered World War II, Liddell’s pregnant wife and two daughters left China for the safety of home. Liddell stayed behind and in 1943 he found himself in the Shantung Compound, where he would die shortly before the camp’s liberation.  While at the Camp, he organized games and worship, taught science to the children, and offered to sell his Olympic gold watch to buy them sports equipment. One Russian prostitute, for whom he put up shelves, said he was the only man who did anything for her without wanting to be repaid. As Gilkey explained: It is rare indeed that a person has the good fortune to meet a saint, but he came as close to it as anyone I have ever known. Often in an evening of that last year I (headed for some pleasant rendezvous with my girlfriend) would pass the games room and peer in to see what the missionaries had cooking for the teenagers. As often as not Eric … would be bent over a chessboard or a model boat, or directing some sort of square dance—absorbed, warm and interested, pouring all of himself into this effort to capture the minds and imaginations of those penned-up youths. … He was aided by others, to be sure. But it was Eric's enthusiasm and charm that carried the day with the whole effort. So, are humans basically bad? Or good? Yes, and yes. As physicist Niels Bohr reminded us, sometimes “the opposite of a deep truth is also true.” Like a house, our human nature is many sided. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .)   ... View more

In the aftermath of now-iconic images of senseless police cruelty, public opinion has taken a left turn. In a Monmouth University poll , the number of Americans agreeing that police are more likely to use excessive force against a Black person increased from 34 percent in 2016 to 57 percent today. People responding to a CBS News survey concurred, with 57 percent now perceiving that police in most communities “treat Whites better than Blacks.” But we err, says Attorney General William Barr. “There are instances of bad cops,” he grants. Despite those supposed few bad apples, he disputes the idea “that the law enforcement system is systemically racist.” He has many kindred spirits, with Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Chad Wolf, and Wall Street Journal commentator Heather Mac Donald all arguing that systemic police racism is a myth. Are they right? Biased by the availability heuristic—the compelling power of a readily available image—have our emotions been hijacked by unforgettable but unrepresentative images of police cruelty? Alas, the data suggest that America’s tragic history of racism survives, and not just within police departments: Police killings. From 2012 through 2018, Black men’s mortality risk from police killings has been, relative to their population size, triple that of White men—a difference that has continued through the past year . Police physical force. In Minneapolis , the 20 percent of the population that is Black has reportedly been the recipient of nearly 60 percent of police use of physical force. For broader data see here. Traffic stops. Studies ( here , here , here , here, and here, among many more) have found Black drivers more likely to be stopped, searched, and subjected to physical force. Perceived discrimination. Black Americans, Pew Research reports , “are about five times as likely as Whites to say they’ve been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity (44% vs. 9%).” Pew also reports that “Nearly two-thirds of Black adults (65%) say they’ve been in situations where people acted as if they were suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity, while only a quarter of White adults [and a third of Asian and Hispanic adults] say that’s happened to them.” Perceived unfairness may be somewhat over reported: People who think they look different (for example, when wrongly believing they’ve been given a disfiguring theatrical facial scar) misperceive others as treating them differently. But there is more than a grain of truth to these perceptions—race-influenced policing is reality. Everyday discrimination. In experiments ( here , here , and here ), people seeking employment interviews, Airbnb reservations, and Uber and Lyft pickups have received better treatment when applying with a name like John rather than Jamal, or Emily rather than Lakisha. Automatic perceptions and reactions. Modern prejudice is also substantially implicit. In experiments, participants have more often perceived an ambiguous object, when held by a Black person, as a gun rather than a bottle. And, when reacting in simulations, untrained participants also shot more quickly. One other finding for us to ponder: Two experiments ( here and here ) show that most folks predict they would be upset and would intervene if witnessing a sexist or racist slur, yet respond with indifference when actually experiencing such. In one study, only 5 percent expected they’d say nothing. But faced with the actual situation, 55 percent stayed silent. Good intentions exceed courageous actions. T. S. Elliot understood: “Between the idea and the reality . . . Falls the Shadow.” So, is there any hope for progress? Are efforts to create a better future pointless? Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous quoting of a nineteenth century abolitionist was optimistic: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Today, we can take heart that twentieth century civil rights efforts bent the arc. Acceptance of racial integration, interracial marriage, and Black presidential candidates—all once supported by few—are now supported by 9 in 10 people or more. “Decades ago,” notes astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson , “unarmed Black people getting beaten or killed by the police barely merited the local news. But now it’s national news–even breaking news–no matter where in the country it occurs.” Even implicit racism has been declining . These historic advances are, however, offset—since 2016—by some regression. By modeling divisiveness, the President’s bullying and racist tweets and retweets have contributed to a more polarized and toxic culture. For example, hate groups are more numerous . And the FBI reports that hate crimes increased from 5,850 in 2015 to 7,120 in 2018. The bottom line: In the last six decades, overt racism, violent crime, sexism, homophobia, and other ills have substantially declined . So there is reason for hope. Our efforts can bear fruit. Yet prejudice persists. Systemic racism endures. To reach full justice, the moral arc needs to bend much further. If 2020 is to be an inflection point, there is work to be done on the barrel that can make apples go bad. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com .) ... View more