Author: ken

Finding Matches On the Internet

We don’t really understand how love happens in life, but dating services on the internet keep trying to help us out.  Now, eHarmony is exploring a “new” approach.

Utilizing “predictive software,” such as used by Netflex and Amazon, they are trying to find the algorithms that will “optimize love connections,” according to Fortune.  (See, “The Algorithm of Love,” in the September 27^th issue)  With the aid of behavioral data, they hope to expedite the matching process by highlighting common interests and similar activities.

Psychologists have long tried to add up the bits of human behavior into a meaningful whole, the traits, the habits and interests that collectively explain who we are.  But it usually doesn’t work.  The whole has a consistency and inner logic you just can’t get at through addition.  Human beings are not assembled out of parts.

Computers have no choice in the matter.  Bits are all they have to work with.  But to get a sense of a human whole you need some feeling for the motives that drive a person, what he fears, what excites her, the why and wherefore of how it all fits together.  Sharing a common interest in basketball or cooking may be useful in breaking the ice and starting a conversation, but if doesn’t tell us anything about where the conversation is likely to go.

The answer to that is likely to be found in earlier relationships. As a psychologist, I get a feel for the course of future relationships based on post-mortems of the past.  Knowing more about very early relationship with parents and siblings helps even more.  I get to see the deeper fears that animate the search, key illusions he or she may be susceptible to, the challenges and problems that attract them both, the energies that turn them on – or off.  That understanding is far from infallible, but it is a more reliable indicator.

I have no idea how a computer could gain access to such data – and I’m not even sure it should.  The information I get is offered in trust and guarded by confidentiality.  Moreover, since those who confide in me often don’t fully understand themselves the patterns they disclose, it’s also murky.

And, then, there is the element of mystery.  People often behave in unexpected ways.  They surprise themselves – and us – in what they dare to do, the hints they pick up, the intuitions they are willing to follow.

Perhaps, after all, it’s best to leave the whole dating game to chance.  What do you all think?  Can the internet do more than provide information and suggest topics for beginning conversations?  Should just leave it at that?

How Much Money Does it Take?

It’s $75,000 a year – according to the Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper reported on a study that set out to measure the relationship between income and happiness:  “As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness.”

According to the study, happiness or “emotional well-being” is somewhat different from “satisfaction with one’s place in the world.”  That is, ambition and pride may demand that you earn many times that amount to stand apart from your neighbors or to satisfy a childhood dream.  That craving might take millions to satisfy.  But for just living your life, the study suggests, $75,000 is enough.  (See, “The Perfect Salary for Happiness: $75,000.”)

Economist Angus Deaton reached this conclusion with psychologist Daniel Kahneman after reviewing survey data from Gallup polls in 2008 and 2009.  Details about the study were not included in The Journal’s account, but the authors seemed to rely on what people said, not on observed behavior.

The Journal’s reporter wondered if this figure held true in different cities where rents can skyrocket and the cost of living can vary dramatically.  I wonder, on the other hand, if people really know what they need or want, especially when it comes to a topic as highly charged and abstract as money?  Self-reports are likely to reflect what people want to believe, not what they actually think or feel.  $75,000 is somewhat above the median, and many of those responding to the survey might well have thought it would be enough to make them happy.  Or they may have wanted to believe it.

Deaton added: “As an economist I tend to think money is good for you, and am pleased to find some evidence for that.”  That’s a case in point.  He found evidence for something he admits he wants to believe.

We all have things about ourselves we want to believe.  But do we really know?  And would we admit to what we really think?

And How We Keep It Going

We have had a lot of it recently, much of it directed at Muslims.  I think it fair to say that bigoted minds are made up and closed.  But how does that happen?

Nicholas Kristof reminded us last Sunday how much a part of American history it has been:  “Screeds against Catholics from the 19th century sounded just like the invective today against the Not-at-Ground-Zero Mosque.”  And there have been similar attacks against Germans, Italians, Chinese and other immigrants.

“During World War I, rumors spread that German-Americans were poisoning food, and Theodore Roosevelt warned that ‘Germanized socialists’ were ‘more mischievous than bubonic plague.’”  The public was  “warned that Jews were plotting to destroy the United States. . . .  A 1940 survey found that 17 percent of Americans considered Jews to be a ‘menace to America.’”

“Chinese in America were denounced, persecuted and lynched, while the head of a United States government commission publicly urged in 1945 ‘the extermination of the Japanese in toto.’”

Kristof adds a vital insight about the motives of bigotry:  “The starting point isn’t hatred but fear: an alarm among patriots that newcomers don’t share their values, don’t believe in democracy, and may harm innocent Americans.”  (See, “America’s History of Fear.”)

Kristof’s point is important.  We tend get angry at those who frighten us, and if the threat continues we want to get rid of those who cause it.  But that’s not all.  Ignorance about the other is required.  Some fears are not founded, some threats not real.  Almost by definition, bigotry is directed against those we fear but have no substantial reason to fear, as Kristof’s examples illustrate.  Otherwise, we are seeing real dangers, real enemies.

This takes us to a crucial question: how does ignorance about others take hold and thrive?  To begin with, it is far easier to fear those who have different customs and beliefs.  Their very differences can cause us to be suspicious.  But ignorance gets a considerable assist from bystanders who know better but don’t speak up.  It gets support from a kind of group consensus that thrives when those who have exposure to information and knowledge are silenced.

That is much of the problem now.  One motive for keeping silent is timidity, fear of challenging prevailing opinions.  It is now well known, for example, that bullies thrive when bystanders don’t want to get involved.  Another motive for silence is self-interest.  Historically bigotry has thrived when jobs were threatened.  New votes will eventually change the balance of political power.

So we might be asking ourselves right now: what do some of us stand to gain by not speaking up about the misinformation and distortions being spread about Muslims?   Why might we prefer to stand on the sidelines and watch this bigotry grow?

Hated often starts from fear, as Kristof points out.  But what do we have to gain from letting it run its course?

Keeping Your Mind – and Your Money

Our financial roller coaster has offered many opportunities to observe people thinking about their financial situations under stress – or not.  A new book offers some good examples of how businessmen and investors can keep their cool.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers two years ago, the owner of a real estate firm specializing in high-end luxury sales obviously faced a serious threat to his business.  That event sent shock waves through his potential customers.  They stopped spending.  How to survive?  But, first, how to think clearly about his options?

The book’s author, Paul Sullivan, tells the story in the business section of today’s New York Times.  In this case, the real estate broker had to get past his pride, and face unpleasant facts.  His CFO told him the risk, and suggested closing some offices to cut costs, but the broker wanted to wait before acting.

Sullivan commented:  “Under financial pressure, most people do not and cannot think dispassionately until it is too late. They choke because they wait too long to sell, thinking their situation will improve. When it does not, they have burned through their reserve funds and are still going to lose what they were struggling to keep.”  (See, “The Art of Thinking Clearly Under Great Pressure.”)

He makes some sensible suggestions, the most important of which is focusing on the problem.  In other words:  keep it in mind, don’t distract yourself, don’t succumb to overly optimistic projections.  But how do you do that?  How do you overcame what the real estate broker called his “pride,” the embarrassment and disappointment he faced in cutting back his business.

The story suggests three critical factors in becoming focused.  The first is getting clear about the financial facts:  the business was over-extended and it faced hard times.  The other two are more subtle.  He found someone to talk it over with, someone to whom he could listen who was not filled up with his own emotions.  Finally, he gave himself the opportunity to reflect.  He went for a long walk.

That may seem simple, but it was the key.  He created the inner space he needed to review the facts, to think clearly on his own, to help himself shake free of the anxiety and pressure that beset him.  If he didn’t have the facts or the advice, it’s unlikely the walk would have done him much good.  He would most likely have just circled around and around the problem that worried him.  But with those elements in his mind, he could let the conclusions he needed to reach settle into a clear course of action.

As usual, we need information and we need help to face our problems.  But we can only arrive at the solutions by ourselves.  The trick is giving our minds the space they need.

A Common Humanity — Or A Different Species?

Palestinian suicide bombers blowing up Jewish shoppers, Sunni insurgents killing Shia police, Christian fundamentalists murdering abortion doctors, Hindu mobs attaching worshippers at Muslim shrines . . . .   So much of the intolerance and hatred in the world seems to spring from religious differences.

And yet religions give us the largest possible overview of mankind.  They focus on our relationship with the god who created us, or the ultimate reality that lies behind all appearances.  They ask of us to think about our lives from the perspective of eternity.

A story today in The New York Times tells about the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine, where members of different religions come together to prepare free meals that are available to all.  Somehow, they leave behind their antagonisms, work together and eat together in a remarkable enterprise, going back to the sixteenth century, that serves up to 80,000 people a day.

Many Hindus at the shrine’s kitchen are able to suspend awareness of the rigid differences of their caste system.  They prepare food, clean floors, and join in with others with whom social interaction is normally proscribed.

According to The Times: “Ashok Kumar, a Hindu who used to be a bookbinder, has been coming to the kitchen for the past five years — all day, almost every day — to work as a volunteer. ‘It is my service,’ he explained, after reluctantly taking a very brief break from his syncopated tray sorting.

“’I feel happy here,’ he said when asked why he had given up his old life.  Indians of all faiths come here to find a measure of peace largely unavailable in the cacophony of the nation’s 1.2 billion people.”  (See, “A Sikh Temple Where All May Eat, and Pitch In.”)

The achievement is extraordinary but the idea is quite simple:  this “service” gives them the chance of feel their connection with others.  The basic function of feeding links them together in a common human activity based in a universal need.  Religion can bring people together in this way.

On the other hand, it can also divide.  It can split the human species into those believers who have truth, who have the proper genes, who obey the correct laws or subscribe to the right doctrine — and those apostates who do not deserve to live.  The others, losing their humanity, no longer matter.  Their death is no loss.

It’s not about God so much as it is about being human.  The ability to feel one’s common humanity is not exclusive to religion.  And, of course, hatred and contempt to not require sectarian differences and religious conflict to thrive.

But the sense of belonging to a common species is one of the crucial ideas at the heart of religion.  It is what we celebrate together, when we do.  And what we suffer from, when we don’t.