Tag: psychology

Music = dye

~ Mark

I’ve been listening to more Indian classical music lately, so I was reading about ragas, these traditional musical forms that guide how you play and develop a piece. Instructions for creating a mood, if I can semi-ignorantly generalize. And take a look at the etymology…

Raga. 1788, from Sanskrit raga-s “harmony, melody, mode in music,” literally “color, mood,” related to rajyati “it is dyed.”

I like this idea of music as a “dye” for the mind.

Sexual Politics of Dancing: The Secrets of Looking Good on the Dance Floor

~ Mark

This whole article is great. (via)

The largest degree of satisfaction can be found in girls under the age of 16. “They see dance as something fun, not as part of mating behavior,” says Lovatt. That changes around the age of 16. “Between 16 and 20, dance confidence among girls falls markedly,” says Lovatt. “Girls begin to see dance as a social act rather than a way of expressing themselves. They begin to worry about how they look and start searching for a boyfriend.”

But once young women have come to terms with their lost dancing innocence, the satisfaction ratings start rising again. From the age of 20 onwards, their opinion of their own dance floor competence starts to improve and keeps increasing until the age of 35. After that it hits a plateau, however, as satisfaction levels stagnate. From 55 onwards, the value even drops. “That coincides with the menopause,” says Lovatt. And it doesn’t get any better: “Dance confidence remains low for the rest of a woman’s life.”

The pattern is somewhat different among men. Their dance confidence levels keep rising until the mid 30s. It then stagnates before starting to sink from the age of 55 onwards. But then, surprisingly, men get a second wind. From 65 on, they start to once again see themselves as pretty smooth operators on the dance floor.

Sexual Politics of Dancing: The Secrets of Looking Good on the Dance Floor

The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases

~ Mark

Do more, buy less…

We found that participants were less satisfied with their material purchases because they were more likely to ruminate about unchosen options (Study 1); that participants tended to maximize when selecting material goods and satisfice when selecting experiences (Study 2); that participants examined unchosen material purchases more than unchosen experiential purchases (Study 3); and that, relative to experiences, participants’ satisfaction with their material possessions was undermined more by comparisons to other available options (Studies 4 and 5A), to the same option at a different price (Studies 5B and 6), and to the purchases of other individuals (Study 5C). Our results suggest that experiential purchase decisions are easier to make and more conducive to well-being.

More here [pdf]. (via)
The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases

What is good music?

~ Mark

A review of Roger Scruton’s new book, Understanding Music. I like this analogy, where he uses Wittgenstein’s idea that music is like a facial expression:

Just as facial expressions do not communicate something that can be understood so much as enjoin us to imagine what it feels like when we ourselves make such an expression, so too, according to Scruton, does some elemental aspect of musical experience enjoin us to engage our imagining in similar fashion. In this way, and because the experience of music is not, at least not typically, heard as a single expression, the imagination is forced to grapple with the musical shapes and forms as they unfold over time, following its movement as it echoes in, or is anticipated by, the movements of our body and rational imagination.

It is in this aspect of “enjoinment” – of the way we join with the music – that is the key to Scruton’s conception not only of musical understanding but also of its wider cultural and social value. Just as a grimace demands that we imagine the complex of unpleasant feelings and thoughts behind that particular belligerent facial expression, so too music may require us to identify with a world of sensibilities which happens to sit ill with us.

What is good music?

Marshmallows and time preference

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

You probably recall Jonah Lehrer’s New Yorker article about the kids who were told not to eat the marshmallow. Those who were able to hold out were better behaved, higher achievers later in life.

Low delayers, the children who rang the bell quickly, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.

When I was reading it, it reminded me of some ideas that have been around for in economics for a couple centuries or so: time preference and intertemporal choice. Someone with high time preference will tend to consume sooner rather than later. People with low time preference are the savers—the ones who can hold out. The same applies to social groups or societies. For example, married folks or people who have children (or expect them) tend to have lower time preference and set aside more for the future. And they tend to display fewer risky behaviors, so they can actually see the eventual benefits of their saving. It’s the opposite for the single, childless, young. This relates to why single males in their 20s tend to have high car insurance, lots of cool electronics stuff, and little in their IRAs. Consume more now, have less later.

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

A New York Times article about boredom reframes it as an opportunity rather than an unavoidable state:

The brain is highly active when disengaged, consuming only about 5 percent less energy in its resting ‚Äúdefault state‚Äù than when involved in routine tasks… That slight reduction can make a big difference in terms of time perception. The seconds usually seem to pass more slowly when the brain is idling than when it is absorbed. And those stretched seconds are not the live-in-the-moment, meditative variety, either. They are frustrated, restless moments. That combination, psychologists argue, makes boredom a state that demands relief—if not from a catnap or a conversation, then from some mental game.

Some evidence for this can be seen in semiconscious behaviors, like doodling during a dull class, braiding strands of hair, folding notebook paper into odd shapes. Daydreaming too can be a kind of constructive self-entertainment, psychologists say, especially if the mind is turning over a problem. In experiments in the 1970s, psychiatrists showed that participants completing word-association tasks quickly tired of the job once obvious answers were given; granted more time, they began trying much more creative solutions, as if the boredom ‚Äúhad the power to exert pressure on individuals to stretch their inventive capacity.”

~ Mark ~ Leave a comment

It is upsetting when we have to conclude that someone is “simply a bastard.” Partly, we are upset because of the initial offense that led us to conclude that. But we are also upset because, as tolerant, educated, broad-minded, empathetic people, we want to have a better explanation. We want to be able to attribute people’s behavior to legitimate differences in philosophies, perspectives, cultures, priorities. When we cannot, we feel that we have failed, and we are angry at having been put into such a narrow-minded, thoughtlessly reactive position.

Against Happiness (review: 2.5/5)

~ Mark ~ 2 Comments

Eric Wilson‘s book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy “challenges the recent happiness trend and celebrates the meditative virtues of melancholy.” He’s most successful when talking about the meditative virtues. The argument is simple: acknowledging the tragic, the struggle, the rain, and the inevitable decline of all things makes joy, success, the sun, and livelihood all the richer in the here and now.
Our manic urge to avoid mere discomfort keeps us from exploring these fuzzy edges, keeps us from knowing the whole. At our most important and emotional events like birth, death, and marriage, these edges become painfully, joyfully clear:

The tiny body quickly follows the head. A baby appears. You who have been watching are torn between weeping and laughing. You lament this infant’s tragic fall into the pain of time; you celebrate new life. While the baby cries in lamentation and celebration, you join it, with your tears washing over your ridiculous grin. You at this moment are two and one at once, melancholy and joyful, sorrowful and ebullient. You realize that the riches moments in life are these junctures where we realize, in our sinews, what is true all the time: the cosmos is a danced of joggled opposites, a jolted waltz.

The first quarter of the book, on challenging the happiness trend, should have been either much abridged or much expanded. It falls back on some tired excoriations of modern America (hitting all the right buzzwords: SUV, suburbs, McDonald’s, Botox, etc.), and ends up a little too thin and editorial. But later he does have some pretty interesting discussions of specific people, talking about the struggles of Colerige, Beethoven, and Keats, among others. On Beethoven:

Even though he clearly hates his inherited troubles—his melancholia, his gastric disorders, his hearing loss—he also acknowledges, though indirectly, that these very constraints are his muse. In rebelling against his “fate” by creating vital music, he actually transforms this same fate into an inspiration.

There are some funny parts, too, like talking about the strangeness of American Protestantism as a feel-good “happiness companies,” with “Jesus as some sort of blissed-out savior”.

Lastly, here are some works that Wilson referenced in his book that I also liked:

The Tipping Point (review: 2/5)

~ Mark ~ 2 Comments

I’d seen this book pop so often recently I figured it was some sort of sign. I have to say, The Tipping Point was about as disappointing as Malcolm Gladwell‘s more recent book, Blink. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it was bad, just disappointing.
The topic is the “tipping point,” that mysterious fulcrum where obscure flips to famous, niche products turn to commodities, where just a nudge can cause dramatic changes.

What I was really interested in was the tipping point itself. I wanted Gladwell to really dig in to that moment, that place of change–what I actually read was mostly about popularity and influence in general. I think the book suffers from too few examples explored too deeply–e.g., 40 pages on strategies for children’s television production. Perhaps more disappointing is that, like Blink, this is something of a “feel-good” book, even though it still feels journalistic. I didn’t perceive much passion or much challenge. The book ended up feeling less like an well-constructed argument than a guided tour.

On the upside, I can appreciate that Gladwell is perceptive enough to come up with this idea, to identify some tipping influences, and show how this arises in everyday life. As in Blink, he does a great job of digging up those obscure little psychology and sociology studies and expanding on them, not to mention some great interviews. Like always, Gladwell’s writing is very accessible, and it only takes a couple hours to breeze through. Take it or leave it.