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Muggle Psychology: Connecting With Wizards
I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aloud to my youngest son, when he was about nine years old. We read every morning on the couch in the family room, while we waited for the school bus to arrive. I can recall watching his face as I narrated the young wizard’s adventures—and wondering how he was experiencing the magical world of Hogwarts. I wanted him to get lost in the world of wizardry, to feel Harry’s sense of wonder and fear the menacing Lord Voldemort’s power. Being transported away to fictional worlds is one of the joys of life, an experience so common that we rarely stop to ask why it’s so. Why do we even have this kind of other-worldly experience?
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How Americans Think About Wealth
OK, so I confess I woke myself up at 3:45 AM to watch the royal wedding, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Who doesn’t like a good fairy tale? But in order to savor the spectacle, I had to temporarily suppress my discomfort in the face of such opulence. Behind the fairy tale is some of the most obscene wealth inequality in the world. And it’s not just England. Wealth inequality is at historic highs in the U.S. as well—with some estimates suggesting that 1 percent of Americans control nearly half the nation’s wealth. Or to put it in starker terms, the bottom 20 percent of Americans hold a measly one-tenth of 1 percent of everything—real estate, stocks, bonds, art, anything of value.
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The Perils of Comparative Thinking
“I wept because I had no Porsche, and then I saw a man who had no BMW.” That’s an ancient proverb, slightly doctored for modern American sensibilities. The point is that, regardless of our life circumstances, we derive our happiness and our disappointment from comparisons with others’ fortunes. Indeed, the human brain seems to be perversely wired for relative judgments, even when the comparisons sabotage our well-being. Is there any way to avoid the comparison trap? It should be obvious that my successes or failures in life have nothing to do with you, nor do your troubles or good fortunes reflect on me. How can we make meaningful and helpful comparisons, while avoiding maladaptive ones?
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The Hazards of Teamwork: Does Group Study Disrupt Learning?
The classic 1973 film The Paper Chase explores the challenges of first-year law students at Harvard, focusing on a handful who come together to form a study group. These groups are formed to manage the vast amount of learning that 1-L students are expected to absorb, on everything from contracts to property to the Constitution—but in this case the collaboration is a disaster. A combination of stress and competitiveness and pettiness sabotages the group effort, leaving the individual students on their own as they face the rigors of final exams. Study groups are very popular—and not only in law school.
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Quicksilver message: How to send a public health warning
When I was a smoker, I paid no attention to the constant health warnings about tobacco. It’s not that I was unaware that cigarettes posed serious risks. They were spelled out in black-and-white, right there on my pack of Camels. I just put them out of my mind—for future consideration. I quit smoking long ago. The years have made me more averse to health risks in general, and I take precautions when I can. For example, I’ve seriously cut back on canned tuna in my diet, based on what I’ve read about mercury risks. The idea of quicksilver in my tuna fish sandwich makes me uneasy. Mine are the kinds of decisions that drive public health officials crazy.
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How People Lose 100 Pounds
I am in awe of people who make a decision to lose a huge amount of weight—75 pounds, 100, even more—and then do it. I’m not talking about The Biggest Loser contestants, who do it for money and fame. I mean those who, privately and without fanfare, commit themselves to diet and exercise, set a distant goal, and then slowly chip away—one difficult pound after another difficult pound after another. The payoff is so far away. How do they stay motivated for the long haul? How do they even get started? Classical theories of motivation fail to explain such long-range commitment.
