Justifiably Paranoid

We all have heard the adage “Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”  And that advice usually strikes us as being sound.  Why say something that you don’t mean?’  You know potential answers to that question.  Some obvious ones that readily come to mind, for instance, are that we fear hurting someone’s feelings and/or of diminishing our standing in their eyes.  There are a thousand “good” reasons not to truly say what we mean or truly mean what we say.   What do all the potential reasons have in common?  They all depend on what psychologists call “mindreading.”  When we consider what to say to someone we must explicitly or implicitly “decide” what to say.  Another way to frame the issue is to consider whether mindreading is distinctly separate from or merely a sub-part of metacognition (thinking about thinking, in general).  That is, when you try to guess what another person thinks or will think, is that process different from how...

 You need help.  You seek help.  Your health provider makes recommendations, and your problems persist.  Then the provider reluctantly admits, "I can't help you."  Health providers rarely make that explicit admission.  That doesn't mean they don't think it.  And that doesn't mean  you  don't think it.   Health care is phenomenally successful in many areas, most of which involve relatively acute problems that can be corrected as a result of precise imaging and surgery.  But health care is abysmally poor in combating many chronic conditions.  For instance, the three leading causes of death in America - heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's Disease - all are lifestyle sensitive.  Every one of the big three can be caused or exacerbated by stress, excessive alcohol, faulty nutrition, and sedentariness.  My not-so-big revelation is that your health provider cannot live for you. So, how are you living?  I mean rea...

 No, I am not going to dwell on COVID. You have heard enough about that.  Rather, let’s think about how it has affected your lifestyle. Your lifestyle evolved over time.  Every one of your routines had a starting point.   Every one of your routines became “routine” because it provided something for you.  Few, if any of us, have not had our lifestyles majorly impacted by COVID.  Whatever changed about your lifestyle might now have replaced, in part, or in full, something healthful that preceded it.  Each passing day during which you behave in the changed unhealthful fashion makes it more and more likely that the new unhealthful routine will become a habit that replaces the pre-pandemic one, or that, at least, compromises it.   You do not need researchers to tell you what you know, but, for the record, Teresa Arora and Ian Grey (2020) reported some COVID-oriented epidemiological information about a few physical and mental health threats....

 Most of our decisions occur through totally or largely unconscious processes.  And, usually, that is of no concern.  Whether we decide on vanilla or chocolate ice cream will have no appreciably important effect on our well-being.  But, of course, there are other unconsciously determined decisions that literally can have life or death consequences.  We might automatically, unreflectively decide to drive to the grocery store after “a couple drinks” because we previously have done so with no adverse consequences. For important decisions such as those that concern relationships, we often, but not always, consciously deliberate.  In those cases, we tend to believe that we are proceeding rationally.  But are we? When deliberate decisions concern interpersonal relationships, regardless of our intention, our mood very often exerts the most powerful influence.  This point was driven home by a Joseph P. Forgas study  (1989).  Subjects were provid...

Keeping score is a defining characteristic of contemporary societies.   Civilization, itself, breeds continual tension between human cooperation and competition. Samuel Bowles (2006) explicitly asserts that our evolutionary success required "intense intergroup competition ...in the interest of avoiding group (and hence individual and family) annihilation in the context of intergroup aggression (warfare)."   Fortunately, for most of us, 21st century success rarely is a matter of "annihilation".  Cooperation and competition are not tooth and claw, life and death struggles. We usually choose when and how to compete --discretionary competitions that depend on what we define as important and unimportant.  And those definitions are mostly determined by the ways that we perceive interpersonal issues.   For many people, athletes embody competition, and they self-define similarly.  We hear them say, "I love this game. I'd play for free. I love the battles."...

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” was the colloquial term for official U.S. military policy from 1993 to 2011.  What was that all about?  Americans born on or before about 1973 probably remember—it concerned the armed forces approach to homosexuality.  Actually, the entire policy was “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, and don’t harass,” and it was Bill Clinton’s and the Legislature’s way simultaneously to both address and  avoid the issue. The policy is one obvious example of questioning and answering influences on human psychology and interpersonal relationships.  All people personally are inclined to ask about some issues and to avoid others.  Knowing those inclinations of your own can empower you to make good decisions.  For instance, given the current toxic social environment, most of us have learned to be very circumspect about what formerly would have been casual, harmless political questions and answers.   Even folk wisdom and popular enterta...