Monday, May 19, 2014

Language changes distance and mood


We all know that thinking about happy memories can make you happy, while thinking about sad events from the past can make you sad.  This relationship is so well-established that it is often used as a manipulation of people’s mood in experiments.
Presumably, this happens, because thinking about a positive event brings you mentally closer to that happy time in your past, and being close to something happy makes you happy.  Likewise, thinking about negative events brings you mentally closer to sad events.
An interesting paper in the January, 2013 issue of Psychological Science by William Hart examined this question of mental closeness using language.
The complex grammar of language allows us to take all kinds of vantage points on events.  We are all familiar with basic components of grammar like tense.  We can talk about events that happened in the past as well as events that will happen in the future.  
Another (and less obvious) element of grammar is aspect.  Aspect allows us to describe an action as if it is extended in time or as an action that has a clear endpoint.  The imperfective aspect describes events that extend over time (I was shopping for a shirt).  The perfective aspect marks that the event has ended (I shopped for a shirt).  
Hart suggests that when people talk about an event as if it is extended in time (using the imperfective aspect), then they will feel mentally nearer to that event than if they describe it as completed (using the perfective aspect).  That mental nearness can influence mood.  So, when thinking about a positive past event, people should be happier when they describe it using the imperfective aspect (which brings them mentally closer to it) than when using the perfective aspect.  When thinking about a negative past event, people should be sadder when they describe it using the imperfective aspect (which brings them mentally nearer to it) than when using the perfective aspect.
In one study, people were asked to describe a past event that was either negative or neutral (neither positive or negative).  They were cued to talk about the event either in the imperfective aspect (What was happening?) or in the perfective aspect (What happened?). After describing the event, people also rated their mood.  
People who described a neutral event were not affected by the aspect they used to describe the event, meaning that particular grammatical forms do not influence mood on their own.  However, those who described a negative event were sadder when they used the imperfective aspect than when they used the perfective aspect.  That is, when the language made people feel close to the event, they were sadder than when it made them feel further away.
In a second study, people did either an easy or frustrating task.  The easy task involved solving simple anagrams (unscramble the letters LGRAE into LARGE).  The difficult task involved some difficult anagrams and some that were actually impossible.
After doing this task, people were asked to describe it.  As before, they were prompted to use either the imperfective or perfective aspect when describing what they did.  Finally, people rated how happy they were feeling.  
Those who did the easy task felt positively about it. When they described the task using the imperfective aspect (which made them feel close to the event), they rated themselves as happier than when they described it using the perfective aspect.  Those who did the hard task felt negatively about it.  When they described the task, using the imperfective aspect, they rated themselves as sadder than when they described it using the perfective aspect.
This research is fascinating, because it demonstrates how the language we use affects our sense of closeness to the past.  Simply by describing events as extended in time we can bring ourselves closer to the past.  This effect happens, even though most of us are not explicitly aware of these elements of our grammar. 

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Believing the mind and body are the same promotes healthy behavior


Minds are strange things.  Our conscious experience of the world feels separate from the body that we inhabit.  That is why it is so easy to believe both in ghosts (minds with no physical body) and zombies (bodies with no conscious mind).  Discussions about the relationship between mind and body happen both in college dorms and in the philosophical literature. 

But does this discussion really matter?  That is, are there aspects of the way people live their life that are influenced by their beliefs about the relationship between mind and body?

This issue was explored in an interesting paper in the October, 2012 issue of Psychological Science by Matthias Forstmann, Pascal Burgmer, and Thomas Mussweiler.  They were interested in the relationship between people’s beliefs about mind and body and their health-related behaviors. 

The authors reasoned that people who believe that the mind and body are separate may be less prone to do healthy things to protect the body than people who believe that the mind and body are one and the same. 

In one set of studies, participants read one of two essays.  One essay promoted the idea that the mind and body are separate (a philosophical position called dualism).  The other essay promoted the idea that the mind and body are one (a position called physicalism).  After reading the essay, people rated their own belief about the relationship between mind and body by looking at a series of seven pairs of circles that overlapped to different degrees.  They were asked to select the degree of overlap between the circles that reflected their belief about the relationship between mind and body.  Finally, participants answered a series of questions about health-related behaviors (like going to the gym and washing hands after using the bathroom). 

As you might expect, people who read an essay promoting dualism rated the mind and body as more separate than those who read an essay promoting physicalism.  Participants who read about dualism also stated that they engage in fewer health-related behaviors than those who read about physicalism. 

Of course, studies about attitudes may not reflect people’s behavior in the world.  In another study, participants were approached before eating lunch at a cafeteria.  They read an essay about either dualism or physicalism and to do the start of a memory task.  People were asked to eat lunch and then to return to complete the memory task.  After they returned, participants were asked about what they ate and also rated how healthy their lunch had been.  Participants who read about dualism ate a less healthy meal than those who read about physicalism. 

Another study in this series had people select from among a set of cookbooks after reading about either dualism or physicalism.  Some cookbooks gave recipes for unhealthy food (barbecue or desserts) others gave recipes for healthy food (vegetarian or organic food).  People were more likely to select a cookbook with recipes for healthy food after reading about physicalism than after reading about dualism.

Putting this all together, then, your belief about the relationship between mind and body affects your behavior.  The more that you see the mind and body as a unit, the more respect you show your body. 

So, the next time you are faced with an opportunity to do something unhealthy, just remember that your body is deeply connected to your mind.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Creating attitude change by influencing values


A lot of political discussion in the US examines policies as well as the values related to those policies.  Discussions about increasing the minimum wage, for example, explore both the logistics of wage increases as well as the values that are signaled by these policies (such as reducing poverty or promoting the health of businesses). 
Suppose you were trying to influence people’s opinion about particular policies.  Would it be better to talk about the specific policy, or is it more effective to focus on the values related to that policy?
This question was addressed by Kevin Blankenship, Duane Wegener, and Renee Murray in a paper in the October, 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  They argued that people have a lot of experience defending their views on particular behaviors or policies.  So, if you try to argue someone out of their belief on a policy, they will resist the argument and generate counterarguments.  Those counterarguments protect their belief about the policy.
People have less experience arguing about values, though.  When someone argues against a value, it does not trigger as many counterarguments.  The arguments that they hear about their values undermine their belief on those values, which can then influence their opinion about policies related to the value.
To test this possibility, the researchers focused on undermining students’ belief in fair pay laws.  Most college students are in favor of laws that mandate fair pay, and so it provides an opportunity to influence the students’ beliefs.  Participants were asked about their attitudes toward fair pay laws prior to the study.
Some students read an essay that they were told was written by a professor who aimed to attack fair pay laws, arguing that they reduce productivity and can bankrupt companies.  Other students read the identical essay, but were told that it was written by a professor who aimed to attack the idea of equality in society.  So, the arguments that people read were identical, only the target (a particular policy versus a value) was different.  After reading these essays, participants once again rated their support of fair pay laws.
Participant who read an essay attacking fair pay laws were relatively unaffected by what they read.  Their attitude toward these laws was roughly the same before and after reading the essay.  Those who read an essay attacking the idea of equality, however, were more strongly influenced.  Their attitude toward fair pay laws went down substantially after reading the essay.
Other studies in this series expanded on the results in two ways.  First, studies demonstrated that attacking a value undermined people’s confidence in that value, which ultimately led them to feel worse about policies related to that value.  Second, two studies found that attacking a value influenced beliefs about policies related to that value, but not policies related to other values.  So, attacking the value of equality made people feel worse about policies like affirmative action and civil rights, but not policies like letting the CIA read emails of private citizens (which is related to the value of freedom) or nuclear power as a source of energy (which is related to the value of the environment). 
This effect of arguing about values rather than policies reflects that people find it easier to construct arguments around policies than to construct arguments around values.  If policy makers start to focus their arguments on values, though, people will become more adept at making arguments about values.  So, while the strategy of arguing against values may be effective now, it is not clear whether it will continue to work in the long run.