Procrastinating? Maybe You Should Read This Later

April 1st, 2011 by Sheena

There is a Post-It note on my desk that has been glaring at me daily for the better part of the year.  It has been trying to urge me to “Schedule Dentist Appt.”  Poor little Post-It note, despite all of your quiet persistence, you are no match for the raw power that is my ability to procrastinate.

In my defense, I’m not the world’s worst procrastinator.  I’ve met people who could probably watch their house burn down and still find a way to put off calling the fire department.  But there is no question that my life could be more productive and fulfilling-  and certainly less stressed- if I could just start “doing it now” instead of finding reasons to “do it later.”  My teeth would be sparkling clean and I could finally throw away this dust-covered Post-It note, for one.  The bottom of my closet would no longer be a wasteland of mismatched socks and shoes I will never wear.  This blog would have more than one entry every six months (oops.)

So what is procrastination, exactly? Procrastination guru Dr. Timothy Pychyl presents the notion that it is to intentionally delay doing something that needs to be done. This differs from situations in which you don’t do something because of outside obstacles or just plain laziness, because it involves weighing the pros and cons of postponing action and then making the conscious decision to procrastinate.  And because it is a choice, we are all perfectly capable of controlling the behavior and correcting it. No one is doomed to a lifetime of half-finished projects and missed deadlines.

The first step is to identify the reasons why you procrastinate, and you can do so using this helpful little quiz from PsychWisdom:

1.   Do you have difficulty completing a project because your own high standards have not been met?
2.   Do you get preoccupied with details, rules, or schedules that others don’t seem to care much about?
3.   Do you think a lot about things you want to accomplish, but rarely get them off the ground?
4.   Do you wait for opportunities to drop into your lap rather than take an active, “go get “’em” approach?
5.   Do you paralyze yourself before starting a project, worrying so much about the ‘what ifs” that you are too anxious to do the task?
6.   Do you hesitate to leave your comfort zone, avoiding situations that might cause stress or anxiety?
7.   Do you become sulky, irritable or argumentative when asked to do a task that you don’t want to do?
8.   Do you take offense at suggestions from others regarding how you could be more productive?
9.   Do you ignore deadlines, then at the last minute work frantically to get things done?
10. Do you enjoy, or take pride in, taking risks or living on the edge?
11. Do you have difficulty saying ‘no’ to other’s requests, then feel resentful when it’s time to do them?
12. Do you run around doing things, without really feeling that you’re accomplishing very much?

The questions to which you answered “yes” help to reveal the underlying thoughts and beliefs you hold that may be fueling your procrastination and preventing you from taking action.

  • Perfectionists (questions 1 & 2) procrastinate because they want everything to be perfect. Nothing is ever good enough, and so nothing can ever be fully completed.
  • Dreamers (questions 3 & 4) procrastinate because they hate dealing with all those bothersome details.  They head straight to the finish line and skip over all of the necessary steps necessary to get there.
  • Worriers (questions 5 & 6)  procrastinate because they are afraid of change and worry about ‘what if?’  Their ability to take action is hindered by their negative and anxious thinking.
  • Defiers (questions 7 & 8 ) procrastinate because their difficulty with authority makes them resent and resist taking responsibility and completing tasks.
  • Crisis-Makers (questions 9 & 10) procrastinate because they love living on the edge and only get motivated at the last minute.
  • Overdoers (questions 11 & 12) procrastinate because they have too much on their plate and don’t prioritize well, then have difficulty getting everything done.

My own procrastination is a combination of several of those types, but I can most relate to the overdoer procrastinator.  I am always overestimating my own time and energy and taking on far more than one sane person could possibly handle, only to end up too exhausted and frazzled to do anything but put on my fuzzy leopard slippers and flop on my couch.

Just as there are several different types of procrastinators, there are a variety of strategies for addressing and overcoming the underlying sources of your procrastination (see this for practical tips or this to better understand the deep-seated roots of procrastinating.)  But there’s one course of action, recommended by the vast majority of professionals, that is effective for all breeds of procrastinator:  change your way of thinking. Try to maintain balance rather than viewing life as all-or-nothing, learn to appreciate each step that gets you closer to achieving a goal, and  choose to focus on the positive rather than allowing fear or resentment to stall you.

Now there’s something to add to your next to-do list.

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Who Needs Reality TV When We’ve Got Politics?

September 23rd, 2010 by Sheena

I have a love/hate relationship with election season. I love the sense of social progress, the anticipation of improvement and positive change, the opportunity to expand upon what went right and remedy what went wrong. But I hate the nastiness that arises when people begin to think of public policies as extensions of themselves, rather than extensions of the community we all share. It’s the time of year when differences in opinion are treated as personal attacks.

And for the candidates, that’s what election season is all about! Oh, the juicy scandals, the catty drama, the clever and thinly-shrouded insults! It’s not a reality TV show starring spoiled East Coast brats or desperate housewives; it’s real life starring our future state representatives and world leaders.

What makes these ads insulting is that they treat voters like blathering idiots who can’t be trusted to form educated opinions of our own, like we can’t even pay attention to anything longer than 30 seconds if it isn’t gossipy and sensationalized. What makes them scary is that they actually work.

A study by Kosloff and colleagues during the 2008 Presidential election measured the degree to which voter perceptions were swayed by ads suggesting McCain’s age and Obama’s race as points of weakness. Not only did they find that repeated exposure to a smear ad produced increasingly negative feelings toward the candidate being smeared, but the viewers even took it one step further by drawing their own conclusions- which were far more inaccurate and inflammatory than anything they’d seen in the ad. For instance, those who repeatedly watched the anti-Obama ad became more and more certain that he is an extremist Muslim, while viewers of the anti-McCain ad expressed their belief that he is clinically senile and could die within the first year of being elected.

These findings can mostly be explained by a simple formula in social psychology: the more negative things you hear about someone, the more you will personally dislike that person. This doesn’t mean that we’re actually blathering idiots, of course, but it does highlight that we are more vulnerable to skewed information than we think we are.

The good news is that we have a choice in what we believe, so long as we take the time to sort through the clutter and only hold onto the useful and the relevant. Or if that’s too much work, just write in Jerry Springer on the ballot. That’s the joy of freedom, after all.

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How To Raise A Criminal

September 23rd, 2010 by Sheena

The world loves outrageous acts that defy reason.  Serial killers, bizarre celebrity outbursts, 19-year-old boys who steal airplanes; we give them book and movie deals, put them on talk shows and gossip about them with our friends.  We’re fascinated because, as normal people, we can never even imagine attempting to behave in such a way. There is something that stops normal people from actually carrying out such acts-  call it conscience, morality or whatever you like-  but at the most fundamental level, we are drawn to those who do what we won’t.

Deviants are a dream and a nightmare to the social observer.  On the one hand, they make a mess out of our carefully-constructed theories about human behavior, but they’re also a rare opportunity to get creative as we try to find an explanation why some people turn out so differently than everyone else. And since his arrest, there’s been an explosion of personalized hypotheses as to how or why a baby-faced kid named Colton Harris-Moore could grow up to be the Barefoot Bandit.

There appears to be strong evidence that Harris-Moore has a mental disorder, possibly autism (an inability to develop social skills and feel connected to other people) or bipolar disorder (severe mood swings involving intense impulsivity and grandiose delusions.)  Not only has he amassed a mountain of criminal charges, but he seems bizarrely bored with the whole situation and has reacted with indifference to his capture and return to Washington as well as the onslaught of billion-dollar movie and book deals he’s received.

Then there’s Mama Bandit, Pam Kohler, who came charging out of the woodwork after her son’s arrest and couldn’t be more enthusiastic to soak up the spotlight and share her own questionable morals with the world.  As it turns out, a glimpse into Harris-Moore’s past reveals a childhood riddled with alcoholism and verbal and physical abuse, to the extent that as a 12-year-old he begged a social worker to make his mom stop drinking and keep some food in the house. It’s sad, yes, but far from surprising; the link between child abuse and adult criminality has been widely-researched for decades, and findings like Currie & Tekin’s consistently show that child maltreatment greatly increases the risk a person will commit a crime in the future.

All of this makes sense, of course, but the problem is that there are far too many exceptions.  Having a mental disorder does not make you a felon and not all felons have a disorder, just as there are plenty of child abuse victims who lead perfectly honest lives and plenty of criminals who had perfectly normal childhoods.  Not to mention that the abuse-crime connection only allows for broad generalizations; given Harris-Moore’s past, we can say it’s highly probable that he will commit a crime as an adult. There’s no way anyone could have predicted that he’d teach himself to fly and spend several years traveling the continent, stealing and destroying billions of dollars in airplanes, cars, boats and property.

That’s the real catch: the Barefoot Bandit isn’t just your everyday delinquent holding up a 7-Eleven in a ski mask and dirty sweatshirt.  There’s a third ingredient that separates the infamous from the common criminal, and it occurred to me while reading a description of Harris-Moore’s troubled youth.  More specifically, it’s the fact that social workers and child protective services officials made at least a dozen documented visits to his home by the time he was 15 to investigate numerous reports that his mother’s foremost hobbies were boozin’ and child-beatin’.  Yet, Kohler was never prosecuted (she actually has a squeaky-clean record) and Harris-Moore was never taken out of her care, not even temporarily.

I think that this is the most significant piece in the Barefoot Bandit puzzle.  He endured a personal hell and nothing ever happened. He must have intrinsically known that it is wrong for a mother to treat her child this way, and yet he didn’t see any outside evidence to support the idea that it matters whether a person is “right” or “wrong” anyway.  Basically, Harris-Moore learned from a very early age that you can do whatever you want and get away with it. He learned that authority means nothing-  it can be avoided, lied to, or just plain ignored.  If you break a law there’s supposedly a consequence for doing so, but he’s never seen them. He probably began to doubt that consequences even existed.  And this may allow for a more accurate explanation for his listless behavior after his arrest:  maybe he isn’t bored and indifferent.  Maybe he’s stunned. In his world, things like courts and jail and “getting caught” weren’t real.

And if that’s life as he saw it, why wouldn’t he shoot for the stars and pursue his wildest ambitions? Why would he stop at stealing food when he could steal cars? Why stop at stealing cars when he could steal airplanes?

That’s the surefire way to raise a criminal:  teach a kid that consequences aren’t real.

I mean, honestly, what would you do if you knew you would get away with it?

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Lessons From The Metro Bus: Punishment Doesn’t Work (Pt.2)

July 23rd, 2010 by Sheena

In Part 1:  I described why I believe that traditional punishment doesn’t work, using the example of a certain Demon-Boy whose only goal in life appeared to be terrorizing an entire downtown Seattle bus despite his mother’s attempts to punish him.

The questions remain: What does it mean to say a certain method “works”? And what does work, anyway?

To say that a method of changing behavior “works” is to say that it alters behavior permanently, consistently, and without damaging side effects. If I try to get you to go jogging every day by nagging you constantly, and I manage to get you to jog a few days a week and then you start avoiding me, well, nagging simply didn’t work.  I didn’t convince you to jog every day and you ended up hating me in the process.

It’s a simple example, but it has a lot in common with the situations in which people have a tendency to punish each other.  There are easier, more effective, all-around-better ways to help each other along the road toward self-improvement.

1.  Make sure you’re not trying to change someone unnecessarily. This happens far more often than it should, but the very first step before you go messing around in someone else’s life is to figure out if you’re trying to help them because they’re struggling, or because they’re not exactly what you think they should be. If it’s the latter, you should probably focus on your own life first, maybe try to acquaint yourself with something called “acceptance.”  People are free to make their own choices, and if you have a real problem anytime someone doesn’t choose the same thing as you, the problem is with you and not them.

2.  Remove the incentive to behave badly. If a person is a pretty decent human being most of the time, there’s probably a real reason why they keep acting in a certain way even if it’s hurting themselves or others.  With adults, the best way to find out is to just ask.  You seem to have a short temper lately, is there something on your mind? You’ve been late and missing deadlines, is there something distracting you from your work? Then, at the very least, you have all of the information and you aren’t just punishing people from your own limited perspective.  And with children (though sometimes this is true for adults too,) quite often the main incentive is the attention they get when they act up. This is why so many therapists urge parents to ignore bad behavior, though it seems counterproductive at first:  if you notice that he or she is well-behaved most of the time and suddenly has an  unpredictable outburst of bad behavior, then the most likely reason is that they are rewarded with your full and undivided attention for a little while. By going about your day as if nothing happened-  simply refusing to react to the misbehavior-  they no longer have that incentive to act like a crazed maniac.


3.  Reward good behavior. Let’s play pretend and imagine what Demon-Boy had to look forward to if he behaved himself and sat quietly on the bus:  a long, quiet ride of sitting still, perhaps? To a 7-year-old boy, that’s so boring it’s practically punishment in itself.  People often need to know when they’re getting it right, and that means getting the kinds of rewards they want and strive for.  It needn’t be fancy or over-the-top; staying up a little later can work for a child, leaving work early can do wonders for an employee, and compliments work for everyone.

4.  Model good behavior. One of the stranger things about human nature is that we tend to try to make two wrongs make a right. Parents match tempter tantrums with emotional outbursts of their own; people in relationships try to guilt each other into being the perfect mate; violence is battled with more violence and anger is met with more anger.  It’s an uphill battle, and even if anything is accomplished, it’s exhausting.  Modeling the right behavior means living the way you want others to live so they can see the benefit firsthand. What do you find more motivating:  getting written up every other day for failing to live up to your boss’s expectations, or seeing a coworker get promoted because of good attendance and quality work? Dating someone who maintains a happy life on their own and accepts you as another human being, or dating someone who watches your every move and rips you apart at every opportunity? No one likes a hypocrite, and it is far easier and more effective to show people why they should change for the better than trying to force them against their will.

5.  Punishment is a burden on the punisher. Once you start punishing someone for a certain behavior, you’ve basically put yourself in the position of watch guard.  As I’ve mentioned, punishment needs to happen every time a behavior occurs to guarantee it will stop for good. Who wants to spend their time and energy constantly monitoring someone else, waiting for a slip-up?  It’s far more effective to look past it, reward the good behaviors and keep your perspective in check.  And if all else fails….

6.  Get help, or get going. Serious behavioral problems can require the help of a pro, and the objective and educated opinion you can get from a psychologist or therapist can do wonders in making everything run smoothly again.  For everything else, sometimes you need to make the decision between having a certain person in your life and… well, not having them in your life. If they aren’t permanent components, they have little interest in making it better and they’re causing serious damage to your life, whoever they are, it may be time to just say good-bye-bye.

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Lessons From The Metro Bus: Punishment Doesn’t Work (Pt.1)

May 18th, 2010 by Sheena

It’s just another day on King County Metro and  I’m watching the frazzled mother next to me as she struggles to contain her child, a 7ish-year-old demon-boy who is yelling his head off, jumping on the seats, running up and down the aisle and using his umbrella to bang on the back of the seat in front of him.

After telling him to stop about fifty times, the mother snatches it out of his hand and whacks him on the head with it.

“And you can’t have it back!” she growls at him.  “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t sit still.”

The boy slumps down, looking indignant. And after sitting quietly for approximately two minutes, he lifts his little Nike-clad foot and starts methodically kicking the back of the seat in front of him.

Judging by the scathing annoyance on their faces, everyone on the bus is having the same thought:  “Whatever it is you’re doing, lady, it ain’t working.”

It’s punishment, and it‘s one of the most common methods for dealing with people in every aspect of life.  It’s speeding tickets, revoked privileges, humiliation and intimidation, threats, time-outs.  It’s having your toys taken away and getting whacked with an umbrella.  Does it work? In the sense that it can temporarily squelch bad behavior, the answer is sort of. Is it the best way to permanently solve behavioral problems in relationships, parenting or the workplace? As Demon-Boy so eloquently demonstrated, the answer is not in the slightest.

Punishment only works when it happens every single time the behavior is performed and is severe enough to outweigh all the possible benefits. You never try to touch a hot stove because getting burned is super sucky, and because you have absolutely no doubt you will get burned. And since those circumstances rarely, if ever, exist in our social lives, what actually happens is that people keep behaving badly while doing just enough to get by without being punished.

According to Henley,  the problem with punishment is that it doesn’t encourage personal responsibility. It becomes the punisher’s job to force you to obey the rules, and if you can get around the punisher then you are free to do whatever you want.  You slow down when you see a cop car on the road ahead of you, but drive like a maniac the rest of the time.  You go to great lengths to cover your tracks so your spouse doesn’t find out you’re having an affair.  You have the mouth of a *^&%$* sailor whenever your mother isn’t around to hear it.

In that sense, punishment actually encourages deceitfulness. You may know that what you’re doing is wrong and that there could be consequences, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference if there’s a chance you can get away with it.  And worse, it can actually discourage good behavior: when a liar comes clean and faces the consequences, either for the lie or whatever he or she was covering up, it is the act of confessing- not lying- that gets punished.

It also shifts the focus away from the bad behavior and creates a game between the punisher and the punished. A person who endures abusive punishment, or mild punishment over a prolonged period, feels a constant state of guilt, shame and frustration that eventually progresses into resentment and hatred toward the punisher.  The bad behavior is no longer a matter of  learning necessary life skills; it’s a matter of outwitting the enemy.

So maybe Demon-Boy isn’t really a demon, just another kid who has learned enough from punishment to think that the keys to getting what he wants are dishonesty and an ability to stay one step ahead of the punishment.  Go ahead and take away his umbrella, he’ll still find a way to be obnoxious.

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The Grim Reaper Goes Tanning

April 28th, 2010 by Sheena

Oh, boo.  Just as I started getting excited to work on my bronzey glow for summer, the World Health Organization released a study showing that tanning can not only cause skin damage (duh,) but it’s actually one of the primary causes of terminal cancer, along with other tasty treats like tobacco, mustard gas and asbestos.   Damn! Can’t a girl just be nice and crispy anymore?

My doctor is going to slap me for this, but tanning is a guilty pleasure that I really, really don’t want to give up. It makes me look and feel better, and in the winter I even try to pop in to my friendly neighborhood fake-bakery for one or two sessions per month-  there’s something so soothing about those warm UV rays on a wretchedly dark and cold January day.

I’ve always been fully aware that tanning beds aren’t good for me, but even that knowledge hasn’t been enough to keep me from doing it. And if the orange-hued cast of Jersey Shore is any indication, I’m certainly not alone.  The funny thing is, the allure of tanning is purely aesthetic and doesn’t evoke a physical response in the body like other unhealthy behaviors-  such as the emotional numbing of alcoholism or the adrenaline rush of gambling.   So why are so many people (myself included) willing to run the risk of something as horrible as cancer just for a golden complexion?

Strangely enough, it may have a lot to do with our natural fear of death. Hmmmm.

= ?

In a category of research I like to refer to as “Who would ever think to do that?”, Routledge, Arndt & Goldenberg performed an experiment in which they made half of the participants think about coffins, corpses and other unpleasantries associated with death, while the other half thought about more generalized but still uncomfortable situations (like dental surgery), then unleashed them all on a beach and monitored their behaviors.  They found that the “normal” group engaged in a range of activities like swimming, jogging and playing in the sand, and purposefully protected themselves by seeking out shade or putting on sunglasses and sunscreen.  The people who had death on their minds, however, just wanted to stretch out and soak up the direct, full-force rays-  and the majority of them skipped sunscreen altogether.

Aside from its rather grim tone, the study’s implications are that the act of tanning helps battle the mental anguish caused by death-awareness. The thought of death is so disturbing that it actually diminishes self-esteem, then prompting us to act in ways that raise our confidence back up and make us feel better about ourselves.  Thus, the tanning-  because what can make you feel more like a god or goddess than a perfect, I-just-got-back-from-playing-beach-volleyball-in-Cancun golden complexion?

Further, the study highlights the contradictions of human nature:  the same things that make us feel good (like tanning, drinking and jumping out of airplanes) are often the very things that can get us killed. No other living thing on the face of the planet reacts to mortality by becoming more reckless and self-destructive, but then again no other living thing can ponder death the way we can.

So who’s afraid of the big bad grim reaper? Apparently those slow-roasted bodybuilders strutting around the gym are the most terrified of all.

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Stress Strategies From Space

April 26th, 2010 by Sheena

I’ll admit that some of my interests are the kind usually shared by science geeks and grade-school boys; namely dinosaurs, explosions and especially outer space.  My upcoming visit to the Facing Mars exhibit at the Pacific Science Center has awakened my inner nerd and my fascination with the extraordinary psychology of space travel.

Astronauts are subject to rigorous psychological testing before they ever leave the ground and are then put into situations where their mental stability is challenged again and again.  They may look like mysterious superheros, but they aren’t immune to the hazards of the job including depression, isolation, extreme fatigue and sensory deprivation from living in environments without gravity or a regular night/day cycle (in Earth’s orbit, the sun rises and sets every 45 minutes.)  And on top of all that, space crews have to try and get along with each other, sometimes in the same cramped quarters for months or years at a time-  kind of makes your roommate woes pale in comparison, eh?

They have to deal with the stress of everyday life just like the rest of us, and Brcic’s review of the coping techniques used by space crews shows that they rely on some very basic methods to relieve stress and get through the tough times:

1. Coping with emotional stress. A frequent problem that arises on long-term space flights is that the astronauts start (understandably) getting on each other’s nerves, but it’s not like they can just take a break from each other and hang out somewhere else.  Instead, they use a technique called reframing the problem, which means letting go of assumptions and accusations (“John is such a jerk, he’s always eating my dehydated mac n’ cheese”) and looking at the problem from another point of view, allowing them to look past the petty stuff and forgive and forget.  Reframing the problem is the key to getting past the emotional turmoil that exaggerates problems and makes it difficult for people to get along with one another.

2.  Planful problem-solving (PPS). Astronauts are especially good at PPS and prefer to face challenges deliberately and rationally, creating step-by-step plans that define the problem, list each action to be taken and by whom, and backup actions to take in case the original plan fails.  By using PPS, everyone involved in a stressful situation knows exactly what’s going on and what to expect from everyone else, every step of the way-  and that is immensely comforting no matter how large or small the problem may be.

3.  Accepting responsibility. When we get stressed out, we have a tendency to paint ourselves as totally innocent or helpless and blame the problem on everyone else.  This just doesn’t work in deep space, where there may be only four astronauts to a crew and each has distinct tasks he or she must carry out for the entire mission to succeed.  When you acknowledge the part you play in a difficult situation, you put yourself in a position to do something about it rather than relying on others to find the solution for you, and you will effectively reduce your stress and the stress on everyone else.

4.  Seeking social support. The opposite of denying responsibility is trying to shoulder the burden of solving the problem all by yourself, which just leads to more stress and conflict among your coworkers and team members.  The sheer complexity and precision of an astronaut’s job demands that they communicate with one another and ask for help when they need it-  and that’s a good thing to keep in mind the next time you’re tempted to say “Screw it, I’ll just do it all myself.”  Simply talking about the problem with another person can be a huge relief, even if that person can’t actively help you find the solution.

5. Learn from the problem and let it go. Sometimes we face problems that just aren’t fixable, and finding positive meaning in the  situation is the best way to relieve stress when all else fails.  In space-travel psychobabble it’s called “positive reappraisal,” but it’s basically just seeing every situation as a learning experience and realizing when it’s time to let things be and stop beating yourself up over what went wrong or what could have been done differently.

These coping mechanisms aren’t new or shocking-  but if the high amount of stress reported by most people is any evidence, we are neglecting to follow them far too often.  The way I see it, if these simple tried-and-true strategies are effective in the infinite blackness of outer space, they will do wonders for the pressures of life felt here on Earth.

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The (Real) Problem With The Anti-Panhandling Law

April 21st, 2010 by Sheena

A few days ago Seattle City Council passed the long-debated anti-panhandling ordinance,  which will impose fines and community service on anyone using aggressive or threatening tactics, and critics of the law have been scrambling to secure a veto from Mayor McGinn ever since.

I don’t share the passionate disdain expressed by those who oppose the ordinance.  I believe that, in theory, it has good intentions and attempts to keep everyone’s best interests in mind.  Dealing with these kinds of social problems isn’t much fun for anyone and there is rarely a clear line between right and wrong.

But, it doesn’t really matter whether you agree with the ordinance or not because it’s jumping the gun to talk about it like it’s an issue of human rights or racism or free speech or what-have-you.  It’s really an issue of wasting our time and resources arguing over a law that has been tried again and again in numerous cities across the world – and has consistently turned out to be a big fail.

Consider the University of Winnipeg’s crisp cross-examination of U.S. and Canadian cities that have attempted panhandling legislature very similar to Seattle’s ordinance, all of which wound up disappointed. Further, the study corresponds perfectly to Barrett & Lee’s sociological theory of panhandling, which explains that there are complexities that go along with panhandling and it doesn’t work to try to regulate it using conventional methods for controlling behavior (like fines and community service, for example.)

Here’s why not:  panhandling is linked to homelessness which is linked to poverty and addiction and mental illness and a whole mixed bag of pathological problems, and it just can’t be treated like it’s littering or speeding.  In order to be effective, the anti-panhandling rule assumes that everyone cares about rules, that everyone understands and abides by the same social norms.

It totally overlooks the fact that the panhandlers who are stable enough to care about getting in trouble with the law are probably not the ones who will threaten or attack you if you don’t hand over your pocket change.  If you are approached by someone who thinks of panhandling in the terms of life or death, or is soaked in urine and muttering about FBI spies, it’s probably safe to bet that they have bigger problems than having to spend a Saturday afternoon  picking up trash along I-5. And may I point out the obvious silliness of slapping a $50 citation on a person begging for food on a street corner?

My question is not whether an anti-panhandling law is ethical, moral or tastes like chicken-  because in all likelihood it will fall flat and won’t accomplish anything for anyone, anyway. A better solution exists, but we’re never going to find it if we keep trying to beat this dead horse, distracting ourselves with secondary issues and getting all tangled up in the aftermath of controversy.

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Don’t Blame The Weather!

April 12th, 2010 by Sheena

Ahhh, springtime in Seattle:  the epitome of weather with a serious mood swing problem.  Sunny and warm one day, freezing and dark and gusty the next; the only reasons why the unpredictability doesn’t drive me completely insane this time of year are all the pretty pretty flowers and cherry blossom trees, and the knowledge that summer is just around the corner-  I just need to survive another month or two.

The effect of weather on a person’s mood is a concept with which we Seattleites are all too familiar.  Who hasn’t felt the lethargic drag of those long, cold, dark January days? Just the thought of it makes me want to take a nap,  so I was understandably surprised to come across studies by Denissen and Keller claiming that there is very little scientific evidence to support the idea that we feel miserable because it’s miserable outside. Rather, our moods are influenced by a kitchen sink of factors that, unlike the weather, are completely within our control.

A lack of vitamin D (which the skin naturally produces when exposed to sunlight and helps regulate “happy hormone” serotonin) is actually the only factor that has any biological basis in explaining why people are so inclined to feel upbeat in the summer and cranky in the winter, and correcting the deficiency is as easy as popping a vitamin D supplement during long stretches of sunlessness.

The rest, it seems, falls under the broad category of “Looking For Reasons to be Grumpy.” Getting stressed out during the holidays, opting to decompose on your couch rather than maintain a regular social life and exercise routine, and just generally wanting to be irritable and blame it on something (so you can put off dealing with the problems in your life that are actually bringing you down) are all factors that deplete your motivation and energy-  and at the most fundamental level, they have nothing to do with the weather. The studies even found that people who see extreme weather as exciting rather than an inconvenience, and look forward to the unique experiences offered by each season, were significantly happier all year round.

So, as is so often true in life, the only thing preventing us from permanently having a summer state of mind is not taking responsbility for our own perspectives and making sure we do the things that make us feel good-  even if it is easier to just blame it on the weather.

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Cheating: Is It Ever Really A Surprise?

April 6th, 2010 by Sheena

Even if you’re not much for celebrity gossip-  I think the last time I read People was at my dentist’s office, and that was because the only other choice was a dusty Highlights for Kids-  you can’t help but know about the recent explosion of celebrity infidelities. Oh, Tiger, you were such a golden boy, and look at this big mess you’ve gotten yourself into.  And how could anyone cheat on Sandra-  she’s so pretty and charming!

Putting aside the fact that I don’t know these celebrities personally and would prefer not to make judgments about their character or relationships, it’s these kinds of scandals that tend to really shock and ignite an uproar.  Why? Because they remind us of the fragility of relationships and the unpredictability of people, and because they contradict what we thought we knew about love and loyalty. Of all the relationships gone wrong, it’s the ones we never saw coming that really seem to leave us feeling shaky.

There’s a million reasons why people cheat, but my mission was to learn about a more specific type of cheating: the “surprise” cheat, the type of infidelity that seems to come out of nowhere and defy any reasonable explanation. What I ended up with was a great deal of uncertainty that such surprises even exist.

The “I Thought It Wouldn’t Happen To Me” Surprise: Jesse James, for example, was married to his pregnant tax-evading wife when he met Sandra Bullock.  Anytime you enter into a relationship with someone who has proven that they are capable of cheating, you are essentially saying that you accept their history of disloyalty and are willing to take the risk that they will do it again.  Now, I am not a subscriber to the belief “once a cheater, always a cheater.”  I am a firm believer that people can and do change.  A person’s past does not necessarily predict their future-  but it is a good place to start.  There is nothing wrong with believing in someone you love and hoping they won’t betray you, but in the end you had all the information from the beginning, and that isn’t much of a surprise.

The “I Was The Last To Know” Surprise: We are amazingly skilled at protecting ourselves from emotional pain, to the extent that Dr. John Grohol estimates at least fifteen defense mechanisms commonly utilized by normal adults.  Many of them involve pushing threatening information to a storage closet in our minds, either to be forgotten completely or dealt with later, which helps to explain why someone like Tiger Woods can cheat for years and years, with dozens of different partners, and still his wife claims she had no idea it was happening.  Defense mechanisms exist for a reason, and they can be incredibly handy in helping us get through crises that would otherwise cause our minds to implode; still, it isn’t a surprise when you see all the signs and refuse to acknowledge them.

The “But I Thought We Were Happy” Surprise: Because we like to be able to predict things, we like to imagine that people have affairs for some obvious reason.  He probably worked too much, she probably never wanted to have sex, someone must have been terribly unhappy.  But as Shirley Glass points out, happiness and infidelity are not mutually exclusive.  A cheater who does not want to face the damage of getting caught may put in quite a bit of effort to maintain the illusion that the relationship is going well;  but it is still just an illusion, and even conflict avoidance in itself can be a sign that something’s up.  Saying all the right things, insisting that everything is fine and refusing to argue may make the cheating easier to hide and easier to ignore-  but if the words aren’t backed up by actions, if there is suspicion and secrecy and new rules without reasonable explanation (“Don’t just drop by my work, don’t call me when I’m at the gym,”) then it’s just choosing to pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.  It still isn’t a surprise.

There is almost always more to the story than “We had the perfect marriage, and then I found out he/she was cheating.”   There is a strong natural desire to see things the way we want them to be, to ignore the warning signs and hope it all goes away; and from what I can see, if there is such a thing as infidelity that really, truly caught everyone by surprise, it is the rare exception and not the rule.

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Posted in Relationships | 2 Comments »

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About Sheena

About Sheena

A social scientist with an endless curiosity for why we do the things we do, a handful of psychology and sociology degrees, an overactive imagination and a passion for learning, understanding and enjoying everything about the human experience.

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