Psychology Today Blogs - Cultural Animal

Languages Are Vanishing: So What?

Roy F. Baumeister — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:03:03 -0800

Most of the world's seven thousand languages will no longer be spoken by the end of this century. So what? Should we moan, resist, or say "Good riddance!"?

This post was stimulated by a recent story in the news magazine The Economist on the extinction of languages. It notes that 200 African languages have recently died and another 300 are endangered. In Southeast Asia, another 145 are on the verge of disappearing. And so forth.

(For the original article, see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1....)

Any loss can seem threatening, and so the knee-jerk reaction to warnings about languages is an urge to conserve them. The Economist article editorialized liberally, such as by saying the acceleration in the rate of language extinction is "alarming."

But what's to be alarmed about? The disappearance of a language is not like, say, a local crop failure that augurs starvation. In other words, if some obscure language ceases to be spoken, it is not as if millions or even dozens of people will be unable to talk. All it means is that the people who would have spoken that language will speak a different language.

I can readily understand alarm about overfishing and the extinction of various fish species. The disappearance of varieties of fish is linked to a disappearance of fish, period. It bespeaks a genuine danger that future generations will not be able to find, see, enjoy, or eat fish.

But there is no danger that we will end up with zero languages.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment here. Maybe we should celebrate the disappearance of obscure languages. Wouldn't there be considerable positive value if everyone in the world spoke the same language? Imagine how easy it would be to communicate with everyone else.

I am not the only one to see linguistic diversity as more trouble than it's worth. As one distinguished precedent for this point of view, the Bible depicts the emergence of multiple languages as a punishment God inflicted on people. In that story, life was better for all when everyone spoke the same language. The creation of linguistic diversity was a curse and punishment visited upon us, so that we could not understand each other as well.

Americans may find it especially difficult to appreciate the value of a universal language, because thanks to a variety of lucky breaks, much of the world now speaks English. Americans can travel almost anywhere without spending six months learning the local language. They can trust that when they get there, they will be able to communicate - because someone there will speak English to them. But this is a bit rude of us. In effect, we expect the rest of the world to learn our language so that we don't have to learn theirs. We get the benefits of a world language by being fortunate enough to be born in the country whose native language is also a world language. It would be considerate of us to want to extend those benefits to the rest of the world.

Let me comment further on the Economist article, not because it was unusual, but rather because I think it is fairly typical of how the media and the scholarly world have treated the topic. It seems to assume that the disappearance of languages is a bad thing, though it fails to present much in the way of actual harm that has come. Indeed, and to the magazine's credit, the article does acknowledge that "plenty of languages - among them Akkadian, Etruscan, Tangut, and Chibcha - have gone the way of the dodo, without causing much trouble over posterity." But then it goes on with the handwringing, alarmist tone.

Toward the end, the article says there are ostensibly "strong arguments" in favor of linguistic diversity. As examples, there are three. If these are strong arguments, I don't know what lame ones would be.

First argument: a claim that multilingual children do better than monolingual ones. Is this worth spending billions of dollars in a futile effort to keep various obscure tongues alive? Even if the data on children are correct - and I can imagine they are confounded by having smarter children or more sophisticated parents - the world only needs 2 or 3 languages, not seven thousand. In fact, the future I foresee is that there would be two or three world languages, such as English and Chinese (Mandarin), and every child would learn both. Hence everyone would be multilingual. Getting rid of the other languages would just facilitate this process.

Second argument: rejects the argument that a common tongue helps to avoid war, citing examples of Rwanda, Bosnia, and Vietnam. Citing counterexamples is no substitute for statistics. Have more wars been fought between groups that share a language than between different language groups? Besides, even if language is irrelevant to war, so what? That's not the argument for having a common language.

The third argument is even more absurd. The article notes that an Australian turtle was recently found to have two varieties, and a local language had two different words for the two types. I don't see how that is relevant to anything. It is easy enough to make a new word for the new type of turtle; one hardly needs a separate language. The argument that this links preserving languages to "protection of endangered species" is utterly illogical.

The purpose of language is communication. Communication requires mutual understanding. A language only works if speaker and hearer both understand it. Sharedness is the essence of language. The more widely shared, the more effective. Hence a single world language facilitates communication.

There are those who care about language, and I am one of them. Putting this into practice by preserving near-dead languages on some kind of technologically boosted life support is of dubious value. Instead, we should work to conserve the effectiveness of language to communicate. This means respecting grammar, syntax, writing style, and other hallmarks of a strong, useful language, because they contribute to clarity and precision of communication.

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Why I Don’t Vote

Roy F. Baumeister — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 13:17:38 -0800

People are usually surprised to hear I don't vote. I think many have an initial reaction of curiosity and disapproval. People who vote are often self-righteous. I have heard instructors say they give their students extra points if they vote in the election. On voting day, those who say they voted are often congratulated and praised, as if they had donated blood or something.
That seems silly to me. Voting is a privilege, not a duty or an obligation. Getting more people to vote does not produce any obvious improvement in the wisdom of the outcome. The presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 set all-time records for voting, but those were hardly the best decisions ever made in the history of our republic.
But I digress. My reasons for not voting differ from those of the typical nonvoter, whose inaction may be motivated by apathy, laziness, or preoccupation. I do care about having good government.
I refrain from voting in order to do my work better. I am a social scientist, specifically a social psychologist. I also want to understand the big picture, how all the specific facts we study and research fit together. Political allegiances make it harder to be open-minded in seeking the truth.
When growing up, I was exposed to very intelligent, morally sensitive people at both ends of the political spectrum. I realized during college that many of the political views I had been taught were wrong, but some were right (so I couldn't just reject everything). Early in my college studies I encountered facts that challenged many of my most important beliefs and values. I started looking for them.
I decided then that what I wanted most was to know the truth, whatever it might turn out to be. This has often meant parting with cherished beliefs. It still does. I had to take the view that none of my beliefs or opinions was sacred. Everything was in play.
Over the years, I came to lose my attachment to my opinions. So many have bitten the dust in the face of facts that it hardly seems worth getting attached to them any more. I like knowing the facts. I just want to know what the current best evidence favors. Toward that end, it's best not to get sentimentally attached to particular views. Having feelings that favor some political opinion makes you reluctant to give it up when the facts go against it.
Most people I know, including very smart people, look mainly for facts that fit their preferred political views. As a result, they can give a very persuasive, fact-based, well-reasoned argument in favor of their position. But most haven't really tried to make the best case for the opposite view. It's hard to do that, when you care about the issues. It's fine for them to care. But I just want to know, so I'd prefer not to care.
Many of my colleagues fight for their ideas and their ideals. When someone brings up contrary arguments, they pull out their best ammunition to defend what they believe. I don't. At least I try not to. I prefer to listen to their side and see what their facts are. I don't want to be a sucker who changes to agree with whoever is talking to me. But I want to consider both sides, both sympathetically and critically (these are usually separate steps), and then try to choose as might one who had no stake or interest in the matter. A referee, an alien from outer space, a robot.
Voting, and everything that goes with it, requires you to want one side to be better. Wanting introduces bias. My goal is to see the truth without bias, and toward that end, it is best not to want. It is helpful not to take sides.
I want to know the truth more than I want to change the world. At bottom I am not out to change the world - I am just intensely curious. The way I look at it, life is too short for me to waste any time clinging to opinions once they are shown to be wrong.
My goal would be to do research without any preference at all for how the data will turn out. It is best not to want a winner.
But you can't vote in an election without wanting one side to win. At least I can't.
I can foresee that some of my colleagues could be angry at my saying that voting introduces bias into our work. They want to vote and not be suspected of bias. Among social scientists, saying that someone has bias is a dirty word, a strong insult. Let me say straight out, therefore, that I am not saying that others should do as I do.
My reasons for not voting and for not wanting to take sides on political issues, would not apply to a great many researchers. Many people study highly specific questions and problems, and political issues are often not relevant. For others, their work may have some political implications, but again focused on one narrow issue.
Unlike most social psychologists, I am a generalist. I want to understand the big picture. I want to see how everything fits together. Hence political concerns interfere over and over, in many ways.
My curiosity is another reason I loathe political correctness, even though I respect many of the ideals, values, and positive sentiments that motivate it. Political correctness designates many ideas, theories, hypotheses, perspectives as off-limits - not allowed to be considered. To me, political correctness means I probably can't find out what is the truth there. The battle of ideas and evidence is not a fair fight if there are political pressures. Maybe the politically correct conclusions are right, and maybe they aren't. We'll never know.
John Maynard Keynes, the influential economist, was once reproached for changing his view on something. He responded, "When the facts change, I change my opinions. What do you do, sir?" This is more than a clever retort or justification. As I see it, that expresses a way of life, an attitude. It's a useful stance for a generalist in the social sciences.

Prejudice and the Election

Roy F. Baumeister — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:29:26 -0700

Social psychologists interested in prejudice might usefully turn their attention to a rampant and destructive set of prejudices, namely the way Republicans and Democrats regard each other.

Prejudice is one of the most widely studied phenomena in my field of social psychology. But I think my colleagues are missing the boat, at least if their goal is to understand the nature and operation of prejudice. They spend huge amounts of time and effort studying anti-black prejudice among American whites. This, surely, is one of the least typical prejudices in the history of the world, overlaid as it is by conflict, denial, guilt, political correctness, and other compromising pressures.

In contrast, if they want to understand prejudice, may I suggest that an ideal venue would be to study how Democrats and Republicans feel about each other?

As a nonpartisan observer of American politics, I find it alternately shocking and depressing to listen to how Democrats and Republicans speak of each other. Both seem intent on seeing each other in the worst possible light. They take gleeful pleasure in the failures and scandals of the other side. They find the worst examples of behavior by the other and hold them up as if they were typical.

Political party prejudice seems not to have any of the ambivalence or conflict or reticence that characterizes American racial prejudice. People who would shudder at the thought that any comment, even based on solid facts, might be interpreted to contain the slightest criticism of someone of another race will cheerfully and openly attribute all sorts of terrible traits to members of the political opposition.

In my impression, political prejudice has gotten progressively worse in recent years. For a long time, I thought I had listened to enough Democrats and Republicans talking about the other to discern the main themes. Republicans regarded Democrats as stupid. Democrats regarded Republicans as evil. This made sense in terms of the traditional way that American politics operated. From my perspective, politics is mostly about tradeoffs between high ideals of taking care of everybody and pragmatic concern with taking care of the economy so wealth is created. The Democrats tended to come down on the side of ideals and taking care of people, even if that meant spending too much, which is why Republicans thought them stupid. The Republicans tended to concentrate on protecting business and the economy, even at the expense of letting people suffer, which is why the Democrats thought them evil.

To be sure, that simple formula no longer applies. The recent Republican administration was not fiscally prudent, and it did embrace some ideals, though not ones that the Democrats recognize. Hence Bush and his group are seen by their detractors as stupid as well as evil. It looks like we are about to see the Democrats take charge, and I suspect their detractors will soon find reasons to reproach them as both stupid and evil too.

Studying this brand of prejudice would yield knowledge about prejudice that is probably far more typical than studying white anti-black prejudice. Throughout world history, most prejudices have probably been open and avid, seizing any negative trait that can plausibly be pinned on the target. How about it, anyone? Time for research?

Single Sex Schools?

Roy F. Baumeister — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:21:39 -0700

This year my research on gender got me invited to speak at the annual conference of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (NASSPE). I had not heard of this organization previously, but I attended with an open mind. I must say it was all rather inspiring.

Nobody there is saying we should require kids to be in same-sex classrooms. They are merely in favor of choice. I also support choice, so this resonated with me.

America's schools have many problems, and there is no one solution. But if there is one suggestion that is likely to yield solutions, it is to allow experiments. Let's have coed schools and single-sex schools and see which works best. Most likely, one will work best for some kids, the other for other kids. In that case, society will function best if we offer both opportunities and let the students choose.

In the opening address, Leonard Sax told the story of a boy whose older sister had been a star student in coed schools but who himself was getting bad grades. In particular, he hated writing assignments and would either do them reluctantly (and poorly) or not at all. His parents tried transferring him to a boys-only school. His first writing assignment was one that probably would never be assigned at a coed school: Imagine you are a gladiator who must go into the arena tomorrow, and write how you would prepare today. The boy's mother found him in his room that night at 10 o'clock, still eagerly writing down ideas. The boy went on to become one of the top writers at the school.

How typical are such cases? In a sense it doesn't matter. It's very possible that some boys will do worse at a boys-only school than at a coed school. But let's offer both options. If one option consistently works best, parents will choose it, and the other will be discarded. More likely, both options will find their market niche, and parents will move their children among them according to which option is best suited to their individual needs and talents.

One theme I heard repeatedly and appreciated was that the differences between boys and girls probably have more to do with motivation than ability. The case for single-sex schools does not depend on believing that boys and girls are naturally talented at different things. My own reading of research on gender suggests that ability differences are in fact generally quite small. (This case has been made in impressive scholarly works by Janet Shibley Hyde and, earlier, by Elizabeth Aries.) But the differences in motivation can often be big.

Effective teaching of children often depends on getting them engaged and excited about learning the material. And for that, the teacher has to work with the children's motivations, including interests and preferences. If those differ by gender, then same-sex classrooms can sometimes be more effective than coed ones.

Look again at the example I quoted from Dr. Sax's talk. It wasn't because of ability that switching schools helped the boy. Motivation was the key. The boys-only school did better for him because it engaged his interests. The teachers at the coed school probably never gave a writing assignment about preparing to fight in the gladiatorial arena. Such an assignment may well be less than suitable for girl students, most of whom are probably not fascinated by thoughts of deadly hand-to-hand combat. If a teacher in a coed school did make such an assignment, he or she would risk being accused of sexism. But the girl-friendly assignments of the coed school did not work so well with this particular boy.

Many boys and girls do fine with coed schools. But some do better in same-sex schools. Society can benefit from choice and diversity. Let's offer both coed and same-sex schools.

Because She’s a Woman: Glass Ceilings, Female Politicians, and Hate Speech

Roy F. Baumeister — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 09:35:06 -0700

Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin referred to their candidacies as breaking glass ceilings. Must we regard such remarks as male-bashing hate speech?

Now that both major parties have fielded major female candidates, this nonpartisan blog can say a few words about common concerns. One is sexism.

There has been talk of sexism by both parties and campaigns. The general thrust seems to be that if you vote against a female candidate, you may be a sexist. Or at least that sexism mainly operates to the detriment of the female politicians.

For the record, I have neither read nor heard any remark by any man saying that either candidate should be opposed because she is a woman.

In contrast, some of the enduring images from the primaries consist of various female voters saying right out on television that they supported Hillary Clinton for president "because she is a woman." (Hence the title of this blog.) I have not yet heard the same about Palin, but that may be because she has just started her time in the spotlight. In any case, such remarks suggest that sexist bias operates in favor of female politicians. In other words, we have explicit statements that people voted for Hillary, but no such evidence they voted against her, based on her gender. Thus, the only thing we know for certain about sexist bias is that she benefited from it.

Supporting a candidate based on his or her gender is sexist, by definition. I don't see any way around that, unless you can concoct some bizarre definition of sexism that only refers to one sex. In other words, voting for Clinton because she is a woman is sexist, just as voting against her because she's a woman is sexist.

To be sure, it is entirely possible that some men (or women, for that matter) voted against Clinton and will vote against Palin because she's a woman and that they merely keep these motivations secret. Still, open statements are one strong form of evidence, and so far, they point to pro-female rather than anti-female bias. If people readily admit to pro-female sexism but conceal anti-female sexism, what does that say about our society and culture?

A relevant question is whether those who supported Hillary "because she is a woman" will vote for Palin for the same reason. Both candidates are women, obviously. So voting for someone "because she is a woman" should cause voters to switch from the Democrat to the Republican ticket. (I suspect the hope to pick up such votes was one strategic reason that McCain chose Palin as his running mate.) If women decline to switch from Democrat to Republican voters, perhaps they weren't as sexist as the media coverage led us to believe.

My focus today is on talk of glass ceilings. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have spoken of their mission to smash through glass ceilings. How shall we evaluate such rhetoric?

The term "glass ceiling" was originally coined to refer to the lack of women in the top levels of corporate management. The glass ceiling explanation was that there was some objective barrier that prevents women from rising to the top. That barrier was an example of the dastardly workings of patriarchy, which is to say the system that men supposedly have set up to give themselves unfair advantages over women.

I have asked quite a few people what the phrase "glass ceiling" means to them. Some say that it refers explicitly to a conspiracy by men to hold women down. Others say that it may have some broader, vaguer meaning about unknown obstacles that hold women back. They acknowledge that a patriarchal conspiracy is one interpretation, but there might be others.

They were unfortunately rather vague about the other meanings. One person said it might be blocks in women themselves, such as lack of ambition or lack of confidence or simply just complacent laziness. I doubt that this is a common interpretation. When Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin spoke of "shattering the glass ceiling," do you think they meant overcoming their own laziness and complacency? Indeed, if the glass ceiling is understood as referring to factors within women themselves - unlikely, because the glass ceiling metaphor refers to an external obstacle that holds the woman down, not a flaw in herself that prevents her from rising - then alluding to it could be considered sexist bias against women.

Thus, one clear meaning of the glass ceiling is that men are conspiring together against women. This has been one of the themes of feminist rhetoric: Evil men oppress women. In order for women to rise to the top, they not only need to achieve like men do, but they also need to overcome the unfair efforts by men to hold them back.

In that interpretation, to say there is a glass ceiling is to accuse men of doing wicked things: of conspiring against women to keep them down. If men are actually engaged in such a conspiracy, then talking about it is a valid way of protesting injustice and promoting liberty. But if men are not conspiring and oppressing, then talk of glass ceilings is irresponsible accusation. It can even be regarded hate-mongering, in that it inspires negative feelings toward men, and unfairly so. At least, such speech is an attack on men, unless one has clear proof. Candidates (and others) who use the term "glass ceiling" should be required to furnish persuasive proof that men are indeed engaged in such a conspiracy.

Speaking of proof, the absence of women in top management and in other top positions is not itself proof of anything. As several of my colleagues have pointed out, there are multiple ways of understanding the lack of women at the top.

The question this blog asks is whether loose talk of glass ceilings should normally be considered a form of male-bashing or even hate speech. Is there a way we can understand mentions of glass ceilings wthat doesn't entail accusing men, perhaps unfairly, of wicked conspiracies? Should accusers such as Palin and Clinton be asked to provide proof to back up their allegations against men in general? Should men stand up for their own integrity by opposing politicians who make such irresponsible accusations and whose speech may inspire hatred toward men?

Also, it is clear that at least some people (both men and women) do understand the term "glass ceiling" in that hostile conspiracy, anti-male accusing sense. Do the candidates know this when they use the term? In today's American identity politics, the rules are usually that if anyone is offended by your speech, then you are assumed guilty of prejudice until you prove yourself innocent. Even saying that you meant no offense is often not enough, though if combined with a sincere apology and a promise not to repeat, it can sometimes be forgiven. So if female candidates speak of breaking glass ceilings and some people are offended, should the candidates be held responsible, or at least asked to explain themselves?

My own view is that throughout history, men and women have been more partners than enemies. Accusing one gender of evil, hostile actions and conspiracies is divisive. I wish both genders would be nicer to each other.

I am most interested in alternative interpretations. Readers, please say what the term "glass ceiling" means to you. Is there a plausible way to understand how people (including Palin and Clinton) can use the term "glass ceiling" without meaning to attack men or to criticize women? Either way, the term seems to contain sexist bias. Let me know how you understand it.

Now that both major parties have fielded major female candidates, this nonpartisan blog can say a few words about common concerns. One is sexism.

For the record, I have neither read nor heard any remark by any man saying that either candidate should be opposed because she is a woman.

My focus today is on talk of glass ceilings. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin have spoken of their mission to smash through glass ceilings. How shall we evaluate such rhetoric?

Sex and Politicians

Roy F. Baumeister — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:56:30 -0700

Last week John Edwards became the latest major politician to admit to having a sexual affair while married. Edwards is a Senator, was a candidate for Vice President, and was a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for President this year. With a bit more luck, even better timing, he might have been President.

Obviously Edwards is far from unique. Over the past decade we have seen plenty of politicians of both major parties caught in sex scandals. These scandals, and the associated legal and public repercussions, helped cost the Republicans the control of Congress, and before that they impaired the effectiveness (and nearly caused the downfall) of a Democratic presidency. Thus, both major political parties have suffered from sex scandals.

My thesis is that the American people and their chances for good government are the ones most harmed by these scandals. In fact, I recommend that we should stop considering sexual behavior as a qualification for political office.

Everyone complains about politicians. Regardless of your political views, most likely you wish and hope that our country could elect candidates who would do better jobs at governing. The best hope to do this, I believe, is to enlarge the pool of qualified candidates. One good way to do this would be to stop disqualifying people on the basis of things that have nothing to do with governing.

Put simply, there is probably a limited supply of people who are willing to go through all the risk, stress, and hassle required to seek major public office. The ones who will govern well is a subset of those. If we lose some of those good ones because they had extramarital sex, our chances of getting good government are further reduced.

The problem is most likely far more severe than we recognize. Running for national office subjects a person to intense media scrutiny. If sexual misconduct will disqualify you, then anyone who has had an affair will think twice about running. We probably lose quite a few potential candidates, including some who would be wise, honest officeholders, before the process even starts.

Over the years, surveys have given different numbers, but something like half of America's married men eventually have extramarital sex. If that disqualifies them from major public office, we automatically rule out half the male population. Or at least, only those who think they will never get found out will take the chance. Note that the risk is severe. It is much worse to have one's affair found out when one is a nationally prominent politician, and the odds of being found out are much greater, than when one is, say, a lawyer in private practice.

Crucially, too, the odds of extramarital sex are almost certainly much higher among politicians than among the population at large. Politics is a high-risk, high-payoff career, and as such it attracts men with high-testosterone personalities: ambitious, competitive, adventurous, willing to take chances. And yes, sexually motivated. High testosterone does not promote sexual fidelity. It makes men want to have more different partners. On top of the self-selection of adultery-prone men into politics, the opportunities probably increase for a successful politician.

Indeed, part of the attraction of a political career, at least for some men, may be the promise of more women to bed. Evolutionary data back this up. Linda Betzig's research on powerful men throughout history found that they often had many sex partners and many children. To an evolutionary psychologist, that is the pudding in which lies the proof, the goal lurking behind all other behavior. To chuck men out of office for having multiple sex partners is thus a quixotic, paradoxical quirk of modern society, for whether they realize it or not, many men are drawn to seek that office in the first place by the sexual dimension of political ambition. It would be a bit like disqualifying swimming champions because they like to get their hair wet.

I can imagine people objecting that sexual decision making reveals a man's character. (I refer specifically to men here, because so far only men have had their political careers ruined by sex scandals.) This argument seems lame to me. A much better and more relevant test of character would involve how the person has managed his money. Has he always paid his bills on time? If the answer is no, that is much more reason to question his suitability for public office than an occasional bit of unsanctioned sex.

I do concede one argument for disqualifying some politicians for sexual misbehavior, and that would be misbehavior that is illegal. Politicians are responsible for making and upholding laws, and so if they break laws, perhaps they should be punished. Still, adultery is not illegal. I can appreciate the sentiment that someone who is guilty of a serious sex crime such as rape should be deemed unfit for office. Even with legal aspects, however, the lines blur. Remember, in the end no one thought President Clinton should be forced out of office, even though his perjury did break the law. (Had the pressures on sexual behavior been less intense, however, he might not have committed the perjury, which was all about denying under oath that he had engaged in extramarital sex.)

Edwards denied his affair at first and now has admitted it. As has become standard, he had to claim it was a "mistake." The mistake line always seems funny to me, as if the man were aiming at one vagina and missed, somehow accidentally entering the wrong one. ("Well, the room was dark...") Do people really ever have sex by mistake? Can you still call it a mistake if you did it over and over?

In our diverse and pluralistic society, it is necessary to recognize that there are many different attitudes about extramarital sex. To some it is severely wrong ("cheating"), while to others it is an unfortunate fact of life, and to yet others it is a positive celebration of the human condition. As a social scientist, I think all we can say is that it is likely to continue happening, especially among politicians, and that whether someone does it or not - likewise whether he gets caught or not - is a poor basis for judging someone's ability to perform the duties of an elected official. We are not so oversupplied with brilliant, wonderful, effective politicians that we can afford to disqualify a substantial number of them based on something as irrelevant as a bit of wild oats.

Will Companies Discriminate Against Children of Single Parents?

Roy F. Baumeister — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:09:00 -0700

Not too long ago, it was fashionable and politically correct to assert that it was perfectly fine for parents to get a divorce and that children raised by single parents turned out fine. The stigma of illegitimate birth, which had haunted the lives of so-called bastards for centuries, was mostly erased.

More recently, however, increasing numbers of experts are saying that it is better for a child to have two parents, and they point to a growing list of studies indicating that children turn out better if they were raised by two married parents than if they were raised by a single parent. I have yet to see a study that showed children of single parents performingg better than those who were raised by a married couple, even though one might speculate that having fewer parents should contribute to greater demands for maturity and other competencies.

The march of these ominous statistics about children of single parents has picked up pace recently. One begins to wonder how the statistics will be used, and by whom. This column is devoted to considering the possibility that employers and perhaps other organizations might begin to take them into account. This could amount effectively to discriminating against people who were raised by single parents.

Undoubtedly there are moral and political issues at stake in the prospect of discriminating against such individuals, who in many cases have already had to endure some hardship and deprivation as a result of the absence of one parent. I have nothing to say about the moral and political issues. This column simply will look at the scientific perspectives that psychology research can contribute.

Take a simple case. Suppose you are reviewing applicants for a job or a position in graduate or medical school or whatever. Suppose you have two candidates who seem alike in most respects. In many such situations, you really do not have extensive information, so the two applicants may be quite different, but you don't have any proof. Their test scores are similar and pretty good. They both have fine letters of recommendation (though in general all letters of recommendation are very positive, so they are not very helpful). In brief interviews, both gave standard, acceptable answers to the questions, with something impressive here or there, but overall just fine.

The only difference between the two of them in your limited information is that one of them was raised by a single parent, while the other was raised by two parents who were married to each other.

Based on aggregate data from large numbers of people, the general tendency is that children of single parents do worse than others at a great many things. These differences range from their being more likely to commit a crime or have a substance abuse problem, to having lower grades in math and being less likely to go to college. Whether we look at social relationships, behavioral problems, or achievement in school and work, the weight of the data go against the offspring of single parents. Based on these findings that pull together data from large numbers of people, the odds are, then, that the child of the single parent might just perform worse in some way at your job. Should you use that general fact as a basis for hiring the person who had two parents?

Of course, those are only odds. It might well turn out that this particular person would end up performing magnificently, heroically, at your job despite having had only one parent. This particular other person, who had two married parents from birth till twenty-one, might be a scoundrel, a loser, an incompetent, a fraud. To judge people based on categories is to deny them the chance to be judged as individuals. That is why America's founding fathers emphasized individuality. Then again, one might argue that judging people based on test scores or where they went to college is also making a judgment based on a category. The only way to find out how they will perform at your job, really, is to hire them both and see how they do over a long period of tie. But that's not practical. You have to hire one of them, and only one, now.

Apart from the American impulse to treat everyone as a unique individual, it must be acknowledged that the odds will bear out in the long run. To a large employer who will hire large numbers of people, the company will probably end up being more successful in the long run if it were in general to hire the children of married parents. In a highly competitive business, it might make the difference between becoming a big success and going under, thus costing all members of the organization their jobs. True, the practice of favoring such people over the offspring of single parents may lead occasionally to hiring the less effective person. And sometimes it will make no difference. But more often than not, it will benefit the company.

Let us consider the broader social impact of such discrimination. We should look carefully at both benefits and harms, for such things normally involve tradeoffs.

Allowing such discrimination, especially if it became overt, would be discouraging to many individuals. Our society has many people who cannot help the fact that they had only one parent. To tell them that their chances will always be reduced by this fact might affect their career choices and other behaviors. Some might respond by working harder to educate and prove themselves, whereas others might give up and fail to achieve up to their potential in life. The latter would contain a significant cost to society.

Discrimination would contribute to what some writers have called for, namely reviving the stigma of illegitimacy. (Indeed, it was reading such a call in another blog that prompted me to write this column.) This might put pressure on people who are not married to each other to avoid having children. Hence some people might not be born, which is a cost (certainly to those individuals, who never live), though in terms of benefiting society it could be regarded as good in two ways. First, just reducing the population growth is of value to societies as the world faces overpopulation. Second, one could argue that the next generation might become more successful overall if a higher proportion of its members were raised by two parents. Discrimination might promote arrangements in which children have two parents, which seem to be a beneficial thing for children. That would then be a net plus to society: There is no apparent downside to having more of its children raised by more parents.

Obviously I do not have a strong recommendation on this issue. I can merely foresee that it will come up and that there will be pressures and arguments on both sides. If companies and other organizations really can benefit from hiring people who were raised by more than one parent, economic competition in the marketplace will eventually lead some of them to discover this fact and use it to their advantage. If we as a society decide we want to prohibit such discrimination, we need to act proactively to prevent it.

If we do not approve of such discrimination, should the government (legislature) make and enforce laws against such discrimination? Should it thus in fact compel organizations to hire more people from broken homes than they really want to, more than it is in their best interests to hire?

Another issue that a scientist must raise is that discriminating among people based on categories effectively sorts them into two types divided by a sharp line, but in practice the lines are often not so sharp and the categories may mix very different types of people.

Although research can use broad categories such as children from two-parent families versus children from single-parent families, it is important to note that, scientifically, the boundary lines are not clear, nor are the groups necessarily homogeneous. Some people may grow up in a single-parent household because one of the parents (or both, for that matter) was a drug addict or criminal. Another may do so because a parent died serving his country in war or as a police officer or firefighter.

These mixtures of categories become more complex and relevant as we try to say just why children from single parent households do worse. The two main types of explanation would be environmental and genetic. The last time I tried to figure out which was more important in accounting for the effects on children, there were weak signs in both directions, and the mass of data was utterly inconclusive.

Environmental explanations focus on how the child is raised. The argument would in general be that two parents can do a better job than one alone. As to why, there are many different possible processes. Two parents presumably earn more money than one, so the child will have better care, better food, better opportunities. Two parents also have more time than one, so they can watch over the child more of the time, which turns out to be important not just in caring and protecting the child but also in promoting good behavior and keeping the child out of trouble. The most pressing needs of the child are to be fed and clothed and cared for, and the first parent may be fully busy trying to take care of these. The second parent can perhaps concentrate on discipline and continuity and other things that build self-control and other aspects of character.

Thus, without the second parent, the child may lack the learning of rules and other socially desirable values. I bring this up to ward off any suggestion that one should blame single parents for doing a bad job. Some do bad jobs, I suppose, but others do heroic jobs. (And probably plenty of married parents do bad jobs also!) Even if the first parent does his or her very best, however, there are likely to be some things that cannot be done as well as they could with a partner. If one difference is in teaching rules and building self-control, well, that could account for the breadth of the problems and deficits found among children of single parents. My own research into self-control has surprised me with how pervasively important it is for success in a broad range of life activities.

To the extent that environment is crucial, it becomes scientifically sloppy to put all children of single parents in the same category. Obviously, many children have now grown up with two married parents for some years and then only a single parent later on. If companies want to discriminate on the presumption that two parents are better than one, they would probably need to come up with some kind of weighted score for these in-between children to indicate what portion of upbringing was spent with two parents. And even that is not simple. Which years are most important for having two children? Does attending boarding school help make up for the lack of a parent, at least perhaps reducing the environmental deprivation?

Genetic explanations see the causes of behavior in innate, biological tendencies. At first blush it seems quite unfair to blame the child because one parent ran off and abandoned the family. But that child carries the genes of that wayward parent, and insofar as genes contribute to behavior, that child may grow up to be an adult with similar tendencies to be impulsive and irresponsible (if that was what the adult was). Here, obviously, one must make a sharp distinction between the children who had only one parent because the other was irresponsible and children who had only parent because the other parent, say, died in service of country. But adding more cases blurs that distinction: What about parents who died in traffic accidents? Do those children carry the genes of someone who was a reckless or inattentive driver, or merely of someone who happened to be a wholly innocent victim of someone else's poor driving?

I see no easy answers to these questions. Please furnish your thoughts and comments.

That's Just Fkingly Great: If "Fking" Is an Adjective, What Is the Adverb?

Roy F. Baumeister — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:09:45 -0700

"F**king brilliant." "F**king awesome." "F**king awful." "F**king ridiculous." How often have we heard such usages?

To be sure, I am old enough to remember when use of the F-word was taboo in polite company. How and why it has spread through society is an interesting sociological question (or cluster of questions). There are still arguments and rules restricting its use. (I'm probably getting in trouble with the nice people at Psychology Today by using the word on their blog site; but my post is precisely about the word, so no substitute is possible.) My purpose is not to debate the propriety of its usage at all, however, but its grammatical correctness.

Still, let us review the grammatical rules here. One takes a verb (e.g., love, laugh, f**k) and by adding the -ing suffix creates a word that can be used as an adjective (loving, laughing, f**king). These -ing words are themselves verbs, but to use them as adjectives is permissible. As I recall from junior high school grammar class, such usages are called gerunds.

Adjectives modify nouns, however, and only nouns. If you want to modify a verb or adjective, you need an adverb. In English, adjectives are usually converted to adverbs by adding the -ly suffix. "Quiet" becomes "quietly." And with gerunds, "loving" becomes "lovingly."

Therefore, shouldn't the adverb form be "f**kingly?" As in, "that was f**kingly ridiculous."

Obviously (note the suffix ‘-ly'), that's not how people talk. But perhaps they should.

One argument in favor of such revisionist scruples is that the usage of "f**king" as an adjective has not been promulgated by the segments of society who are most concerned with linguistic purity and correctness. My friend John Bargh, professor of psychology at Yale, contends that use of profanity is often perceived as a signal of lower-class background. That is how people react to it, at least. If that is correct - and one does associate coarse language more with working classes than with the aristocracy - that could be a reason that educated and sophisticated individuals should not simply adopt such uncouth and ungrammatical uses.

We may surmise that people from lower class backgrounds are less punctilious about niceties of grammar than people from the higher classes, and so they may be relatively indifferent to traditional conventions about the proper construction of adverbs. Obviously, they may speak however they wish, but if the more educated and sophisticated level of society wish to adopt the terms and meanings pioneered by the lower classes, they may need to recognize that grammatical corners have been cut, and they may wish to adjust and correct their usages accordingly.

Drinking alcohol also leads to increases in saying swear words, not just because drunk people are clumsy and thereby discover or create more occasions to swear, but also because they become less inhibited against saying things that might be inappropriate. (Alcohol makes you less aware of yourself and of whether you measure up to various rules, ideals, expectations.) That might also have contributed to carelessness about grammar. A drunken person might skip the "ly" adjective ending, as in "Hey baby, you look real nice." This is all the more reason that sober people ought to be extra careful to promote proper usage, at least by example, rather than follow the lead and thereby adopt the norms of speech stemming from intoxication.

Let us turn now from form to content. What is the meaning of the adverb "f**king" or, by extension, "f**kingly?" Just how does something that is "f**king great" or "f**kingly ridiculous" differ from things that are great or ridiculous without reference to fornication? The dictionary on my laptop offers no definition, nor does its thesaurus have a synonym. Anecdotal impression suggests that it is often used as a synonym for "very." Something that is f**king ridiculous is somehow more ridiculous than something that is merely ridiculous, correct?

If that is it, however, let me suggest that that usage seems colossally wasteful. F**king refers to one of the most fundamental, universal, desired activities that is essential to the survival of the species and also regarded by many as a precious, coveted pleasure. For some it looms as the supreme goal lurking behind many activities, such that men strive for success in the belief that it will afford them more opportunities to f**k. People risk much in order to f**k, and some people harm or kill others based on f**king. The intense desire to f**k is complemented by its ugly obverse, such that unwanted f**king is regarded in many circles as among the worst outrages and most vicious crimes.

My point is that f**king is inherently fraught with oodles and layers of meaning. To use such a richly meaningful word to denote something as pedestrian as "very" is to squander a cultural resource. It could be compared to any huge squandering of a natural resource, such as draining a lake and wildlife refuge in order to provide water for watering lawns.

The question of what is not meant by "f**king" and "f**kingly" raises the question of what its antonym would be and, indeed, whether it would have a derivative form. If something is ridiculous but not f**kingly ridiculous, and this were to be worth pointing out, would one say "unf**kingly" or perhaps "nonf**kingly?"

Note that the pseudo-word "unf**king" sounds familiar, but that is probably based on the briefly popular usage of "un-f**king-believable," an expression of intense skepticism. The "un" in that usage was of course from "unbelievable," and so it should not be taken as an indication of what prefix would negate "f**kingly." One could also propose other forms, such as "f**kless" to be the opposite of "f**king."

As to what its meaning would be, if "f**kingly" means "very," then the opposite of very is slightly ("not very"). Another line of interpretation would be that "f**king" and "f**kingly" are essentially pejorative statements, and so "nonf**king" and "nonf**kingly" would essentially convey positive value judgments. Thus, if "f**kingly ridiculous" meant ridiculous in a bad way, then "nonf**kingly ridiculous" (or "f**klessly ridiculous") would signify being ridiculous in some positive way.

It is the responsibility of those of us who are about the language and its value to the culture to preserve grammatical correctness. Language is our best tool for communicating and for working with information. To allow our language's communicative efficacy to deteriorate would be f**kingly stupid.

The Evolution of Economic Rationality: Do Monkeys Understand Money?

Roy F. Baumeister — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:11:30 -0700

(This post was coauthored with Kathleen D. Vohs.)

Money is a powerful force in human life and affairs. Its very power gives pause to those who look to evolution for full explanations of human behavior, because money has not existed long enough to have influenced evolution. By some estimates, money only goes back a couple thousand years, which is too short even to have influenced human evolution.

Still, one can get some clues as to how evolution prepared us for money from the burgeoning research that seeks to present animals with economic choices. To gain perspective on human financial decisions, one may ask, what would monkeys do?

Keith Chen and Marc Hauser at Yale University taught monkeys about resources that bear a strong resemblance to money. Monkeys don't care about money, per se, but they do care about marshmallows. (This already is a difference of gigantic proportions in that monkeys must learn about resource-exchange using something that is already a primary reinforcer - food - whereas humans can extend the range of their motivations to secondary reinforcers.) A resource (marshmallows) exchange task was introduced whereby pressing a lever would give another monkey a marshmallow; hence this was a task that involved a bit of altruism. Not only were monkeys taught about the game. Two specific monkeys were conditioned (entrained), such that one always pulled the lever for his monkey partner (thus being a very generous partner) and the other never pulled the lever for his partner (stingy). Then they let these conditioned monkeys play the game with other monkeys. Monkeys that played with the highly generous monkey figured it out and quickly took advantage of him. Monkeys that played with the stingy monkey also figured it out quickly and subsequently shunned or were aggressive toward him.

Thus, monkeys can at least understand and respond effectively to the difference between a generous provider and a tightwad. Still, the fact that these differences had to be done with marshmallows instead of a more abstract representation of value (which is what money is) suggests a limited capacity to use or understand money.

Other studies have shown that monkeys take any handout above zero that is offered to them in a version of what, in humans, is called the Ultimatum Game. In the Ultimatum Game, one person is designated the Proposer (who thus offers the ultimatum) and the other becomes the Responder (who decides whether to take it or leave it). The Proposer offers an amount of money to the Responder out of a total amount that the Proposer has been given by the experimenter - usually this is $10. The whole game involves the Proposer offering the Responder an amount, which the Responder has the option to accept or reject. Accept the split and both sides get what was offered; reject it and both sides get no money at all. This obviously not an evenly matched game. The Proposer has the power to make the ultimatum. All the Responder can do is either take whatever is offered or say no, which is costly to both players.

When humans play this game, the Responders will sometimes refuse offers that they deem too low. Depending on the person and the circumstances, people tend to refuse offers below 20% of the total. Monkeys, however, have no such scruples, and will take anything above zero.

You can look at the monkeys' responses in different ways. One way is that they are not bothered with issues of pride, self-esteem, and fairness. After all, a human is humiliated to accept a tiny share, especially if he or she expected an equal split. They know that the other person could have divided the pay equally and perhaps should have - but chose instead to claim the lion's share for self and offer only a measly sop. Monkeys apparently either do not understand that they should be embarrassed, or they do not care.

Yet another way of looking at it is to suggest that monkeys are actually pretty smart. Economists continue to scratch their heads at the results of studies with the Ultimatum game. They assume that people are basically oriented to maximize their own profits. If you and someone else worked equally to earn $100, and that person has the power to divide it and chooses to offer you only one dollar while keeping $99 for himself, well, you are still better off with one dollar than with nothing. Hence economic rationalists find it slightly scandalous that people ever refuse any offer. Economists think that if people were true to financial logic, they would act more like monkeys.

Thus, when monkeys play, they behave as economists would have humans do - they accept any offer above zero. This means that, although rational (they have more when they leave the game than when they entered), monkeys are not sensitive to issues of fairness. Humans most certainly are. Humans feel all kinds of self-conscious emotions when they receive more than they think they ought to receive. Not always, of course, but it happens.

Other work suggests that monkeys do not have a fully developed sense of fairness. There are signs that they are acutely sensitive to getting less than their fair share, such as if they see another monkey getting more than they get. If you have two dogs and give one a biscuit treat, the other will look at you with a mixture of expectancy and indignation. Getting less than your fair share is called being underbenefited, and many animals seem to have that.

But a fully developed sense of fairness means that you are uncomfortable with being overbenefited as well. That is, it bothers you to get more than your fair share. Here is where humans seem to part company with other creatures.

What happens when monkeys overbenefit from an exchange - do they experience guilt, embarrassment, shame, or try to rectify the situation? Apparently not.

This may be why humans embraced money: because it allows for trade of resources on the basis of equity, which is subject to exchange rates. That is, imagine that I ask you to paint my living room walls; then by the virtue of the fact that I wanted you to paint my walls, I may not be skilled at or want to paint your walls. But I can repay you in another currency, namely money. In this way, humans can correct overbenefits in a manner that is separate from the original payment (in this case, wall painting).

Humans' emphasis on fairness can be seen in other instances as well. One important study showed that people will spend their own money to punish others who do wrong. In these studies, even at a cost to themselves, people were willing to inflict harm on those who took advantage of others.

So maybe Adam Smith, that seer of economic truths, was right after all when he wrote, "Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that."

Narcissism and Celebrity Relationships

Roy F. Baumeister — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:55:32 -0700

(This column was coauthored with W. Keith Campbell.)

A recent blog post by Anne Ishikawa asked "Can celebrity relationships really survive?"

She listed several factors that weaken celebrity marriages, such as publicity and temptation. These are good insights. But psychology has another to contribute: narcissism.

Narcissism is a personality trait that involves regarding yourself as a superior being. It brings with it a sense of entitlement ("I deserve the best"), a tendency to put self first and disregard the needs and wants of others, and an overabundance of self-esteem.

Celebrities have high levels of the trait of narcissism. Researchers Mark Young and Drew Pinsky conducted a remarkable study in which they gave the narcissistic personality inventory to 200 celebrities who appeared on Dr. Pinsky's radio program.

They found that celebrities had higher narcissism scores than the average population. This was especially true for female celebrities and reality TV stars. These researchers did not find that narcissism was related to how long someone had been a celebrity, which might suggest that narcissistic individuals are drawn to the celebrity lifestyle (rather than the celebrity lifestyle gradually turning celebrities into narcissists). Other experts, however, have argued that celebrity status also increases narcissism. Psychiatrist Robert Millman, for example, has used the label acquired situational narcissism to describe an inflated sense of entitlement and superiority that comes from being a celebrity. Very possibly the causal arrow points both ways: Narcissists strive to become celebrities, and the lifestyle increases their narcissism. Whatever the case, the data point to high levels of narcissism in celebrities.

So, assuming celebrities have higher levels of narcissism, what does that mean for their romantic relationships? In general, narcissism is good for starting relationships. Narcissistic individuals can be charming, exciting and socially confident.

But narcissism is not so good for making relationships work in the long term. We know from a large body of research that narcissism leads to a range of problems in relationships, including infidelity, game-playing, materialism, overcontrol, dishonesty, conflict and even aggression (see the book When You Love a Man Who Loves Himself for an in-depth treatment of this issue.

A particular problem for narcissists is that they tend always to be looking to upgrade their partners. To a narcissist, a relationship is a way of glorifying the self. They may like to show off their partners, but if a new partner becomes available, especially an even more glamorous one, narcissists are tempted to go after the new one. Plus, to a narcissist, more is generally better, so new partners (even if they aren't necessarily better than the current partner) offer yet another stroke to the ego and another sign of how wonderful they are.

What makes the trait of narcissism even more potentially damaging for celebrity relationships is that celebrities are constantly surrounded by available partners. Celebrities are, on average, more attractive, higher in status, more wealthy, and lead more exciting lives than the average person - people are lining up to become romantic involved with them. Basically, being a celebrity leaves you in a sea of temptation, and, if you happen to be of a more narcissistic type, you have a high probability of hooking up with someone other than your actual partner.

Being a celebrity goes with thinking you are a superior being. When two such big egos fall in love with each other, it may be great at first, because they congratulate themselves and each other on such a star-studded match. But as weeks turn into years and maintaining a relationship starts to require accommodation, compromise, and occasional self-sacrifice, narcissists start to see other options as more appealing.