Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Altruism and Sex
My genome is healthy.
Altruism is traditionally defined as: “behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species.” So here’s a simple question: why would anyone be altruistic?
One answer has to do with our relatives. Sociobiology suggests that all living creatures share one fundamental goal: to propagate our genes into future generations. Of course, the most direct way to propagate our genes is to reproduce.
But we can also propagate our genes by supporting our genetic relatives. So I might behave altruistically toward my sister because she shares much of my genome. If she reproduces successfully (and her children do as well), then some of my genetic heritage is passed on to future generations. So it pays to be nice to my sister. (It took me a long time to figure this out).
But why would anyone be altruistic toward someone who is not a genetic relative? According to Steven Arnocky’s recent paper in the British Journal of Psychology it has to do with another fundamental human drive: sex.
You may recall that competition for sex is a key element in maintaining the overall health of a species. When there is a fair amount of competition among males, females are remarkably good at picking out the best mates. What does “best” mean in this sense? The best men for producing healthy offspring who can in turn produce healthy offspring of their own.
So how do females know which males will produce the best offspring? Some of it is physical. For instance, females strongly prefer males who are symmetric rather than asymmetric. Being symmetric is, apparently, a good marker of genetic health.
Behavior also plays a role. We know, for instance, that creativity plays a strong role in mate selection – for both men and women. Ornamental creativity is especially attractive. Strictly speaking, ornamental creativity is not essential to survival. So those who display this trait are effectively advertising “I have more than enough to survive plus some left over for ornamentation. I have an abundance of what you want.”
According to Arnocky’s paper, non-kin altruism plays a similar role to creativity. It’s a behavior that is desirable to the opposite sex. The study used two different methods to measure altruism and then correlated the degree of altruism with sexual activity. Those who scored higher on altruism, “…reported having more sex partners, more casual sex partners, and having sex more often within relationships.” The correlation was stronger for men than women, suggesting that altruism is more important for women selecting men than for men selecting women.
In an interview, Arnocky summed up the results by noting that, “”It appears that altruism evolved in our species, in part, because it serves as a signal of other underlying desirable qualities, which helps individuals reproduce.”
Based on Arnocky’s findings, we may have been defining altruism improperly. The classic definition says that altruism doesn’t benefit the individual but does benefit the species. But Arnocky’s paper points out a very direct benefit to the individual – better mates and more of them. Given this, we need to re-phrase our initial question. It probably should be: why wouldn’t everyone be altruistic?
(Less technical summaries of Arnocky’s paper are here and here).
Another Reason For Female Executives
Which gender norms should we adopt?
Want to get stuff done? You may need to compromise occasionally. Who’s better at that? Who do you think?
A recent study in the Journal Of Consumer Research (abstract here; pdf here) suggests that men working with men tend not to compromise. By contrast, men working with women or women working with women are more likely to find the middle ground.
The article, by Hristina Nikolova and Cait Lamberton – professors at Boston College and the University of Pittsburgh respectively — focuses on consumer behavior and is probably most relevant to marketing strategists. But I wonder if it doesn’t have much broader implications as well.
The study revolves around the compromise effect, which is well understood in marketing circles. Let’s say that you want to buy a car and you have two decision criteria: efficiency and prestige. Car X is clearly better on efficiency and OK on prestige. Car Y is clearly better on prestige and OK on efficiency. Car Y is also more expensive than Car X.
Which one do you buy? It’s a tough choice. So the salesperson introduces the even more expensive Car Z, which is even better on prestige than Car Y. Now Car Y is the compromise choice – it’s OK on efficiency and pretty good on prestige. With three choices available, Car Y is not the top of the line on either criterion but it’s acceptable on both criteria. The compromise effect suggests that you’ll buy Car Y.
The compromise effect has been demonstrated in any number of studies. Indeed, it’s why restaurants often add a very high-priced item to their menus. The item probably doesn’t sell very often but it makes everything else look more reasonable.
But what if you’re making the decision with another person? This hasn’t been studied before and Nikolova and Lamberton focus their attention on decisions made by two people acting together (also known as dyads). The authors looked at three different dyads:
- Male/male
- Female/male
- Female/female
Under five different conditions, Nikolova and Lamberton found essentially the same results. First, the compromise effect seems to work “normally” with female/female and female/male dyads. Second, the compromise effect has much less impact on male/male dyads. Such dyads tend to move toward one of the extremes – either Car X or Car Z in our example.
Why would this be? The authors suggest that it has to do with gender norms coupled with the act of being observed. They write, “Normative beliefs about women’s behavior suggest that women should be balanced, compassionate, conciliatory, accommodating, and willing to compromise….” Male gender norms, on the other hand require, “…men in social situations to be maximizers, assertive, dominant, active, and self-confident; their decisions should show leadership, … high levels of commitment … and decisiveness….”
For both genders, being observed influences the degree to which an individual adheres to the gender norms. If you know you’re being observed – and/or that you will need to defend your choice later – you’re more likely to behave according to your gender norm. Interestingly, men working with women tend to adopt more of the female gender norms.
Nikolova and Lamberton focus exclusively on consumer choice but I wonder if the same dynamic doesn’t apply in many other decision-making situations as well. Men may be willing to compromise but they don’t want to be seen as compromisers. If you need to compromise to get something done, it helps to add a woman into the mix.
Indeed, I was struck by the fact that the same day I discovered the Nikolova-Lamberton article, I also read about Tim Huelskamp, a Republican congressman from western Kansas. According to the New York Times, Huelskamp is a “hardline conservative member of the Freedom Caucus” who “quickly earned a reputation for frustrating Republican leaders…” after he was elected in 2010. Yesterday, a more moderate challenger defeated Huelskamp in the Republican primary. As one voter noted, ““I don’t mind [Huelskamp’s] independent voice, but you’ve got to figure out how to work with people.” Perhaps the good people of Kansas should elect a woman to replace him.
Healing Architecture
I feel better already.
We were in Barcelona last month with our two favorite architects, Julia and Elliot. Of course, we wanted to see the many buildings created by another favorite architect, Antoni Gaudi. A friend also clued us in that, if we wanted to see some really good architecture, we shouldn’t miss the Hospital de Sant Pau.
I enjoy discovering cities but had never thought about visiting hospitals as part of a tourism agenda. Hospitals seem very functional and efficient and somewhat drab. They also look pretty much alike whether you’re in Denver or Paris or Bangkok. They seem to be built for the benefit of the medical staff rather than the patients.
So I was very surprised to find that the Hospital de Sant Pau contained some of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. The hospital dates to 1401 but the major complex that we visited consisted of about a dozen buildings constructed between 1901 and 1930. The Catalan architect Lluis Doménech I Montaner designed the entire campus, which today claims to be the largest art nouveau site in Europe. The campus is like a fairy tale – every which way you turn reveals something new and stimulating. (My photo above barely does it justice).
(The art nouveau campus was a working hospital until 2009 when it was replaced by a newer hospital – also an architectural gem – just beside it. The art nouveau campus is now a museum and cultural heritage site).
As I wandered about the campus, I thought if I were sick, this is the kind of place I would want to be. It’s beautiful and inspiring. That led me to a different question: Can the architecture of a hospital affect the health of its patients? The answer seems to be: Yes, it can.
The earliest paper I found on healing and architecture was a 1984 study by Roger Ulrich published in Science magazine. The title summarizes the findings nicely: “View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery.” Ulrich studied the records of patients who had gall bladder surgery in a Philadelphia hospital between 1972 and 1981.
Ulrich matched patients based on whether they had a view of trees out the window or a view of a brick wall. He studied only those patients who had had surgery between May and October “…because the tress have foliage during those months.” He also matched the pairs based on variables such as age, gender, smoking status, etc. As much as possible, everything was equal except the view.
And the results? Patients “…with the tree view had shorter postoperative hospital stays, had fewer negative evaluative comments from nurses, took fewer moderate and strong analgesic doses, and had slightly lower scores for minor postsurgical complications.”
Ulrich’s study (and others like it) has led to a school of thought called evidence-based design. Amber Bauer, writing in Cancer.Net, notes, “Like its cousin, evidence-based medicine, evidence-based design relies on research and data to create physical spaces that will help achieve the best possible outcome.”
Bauer cites Dr. Ellen Fisher, the Dean of the New York School of Interior Design, “An environment designed using the principles of evidence-based design can improve the patient experience and enable patients to heal faster, and better.” Among other things, Dr. Fisher suggests, “A view to the outdoors and nature is very important to healing.” It’s Ulrich redux.
I’ll write more about evidence-based design and the impact of architecture on healing in the coming weeks. In the meantime, put a vase full of fresh flowers beside your bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.
Jevons Paradox and The Future of Employment
My new teaching assistant.
Four years ago, I wrote a somewhat pessimistic article about Jevons paradox. A 19th-century British economist, William Jevons, noted that as energy-efficient innovations are developed and deployed, energy consumption goes up rather than down. The reason: as energy grows cheaper, we use more of it. We find more and more places to apply energy-consuming devices.
Three years ago, I wrote a somewhat pessimistic article about the future of employment. I argued that smart machines would either: 1) augment knowledge workers, making them much more productive, or; 2) replace knowledge workers altogether. Either way, we would need far fewer knowledge workers.
What if you combine these two rather pessimistic ideas? Oddly enough, the result is a rather optimistic idea.
Here’s an example drawn from a recent issue of The Economist. The process of discovery is often invoked in legal disputes between companies or between companies and government agencies. Each side has the right to inspect the other side’s documents, including e-mails, correspondence, web content, and so on. In complex cases, each side may need to inspect massive numbers of documents to decide which documents are germane and which are not. The actual inspecting and sorting has traditionally been done by highly trained paralegals – lots of them.
As you can imagine, the process is time-consuming and error-prone. It’s also fairly easy to automate through deep learning. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) can study the examples of which documents are germane and which are not and learn how to distinguish between the two. Just turn suitably trained ANNs loose on boxes and boxes of documents and you’ll have them sorted in no time, with fewer errors than humans would make.
In other words, artificial neural networks can do a better job than humans at lower cost and in less time. So this should be bad news for paralegal employment, right? The number of paralegals must be plummeting, correct? Actually no. The Economist tells us that paralegal employment has actually risen since ANNs were first deployed for discovery processes.
Why would that be? Jevons paradox. The use of ANNs has dramatically lowered the obstacles to using the discovery process. Hence, the discovery process is used in many more situations. Each discovery process uses fewer paralegals but there are many more discovery processes. The net effect is greater – not lesser – demand for paralegals.
I think of this as good news. As the cost of a useful process drops, the process itself – spam filtering, document editing, image identification, quality control, etc. – can be deployed to many more activities. That’s useful in and of itself. It also drives employment. As costs drops, demand rises. We deploy the process more widely. Each human is more productive but more humans are ultimately required because the process is far more widespread.
As a teacher, this concept makes me rather optimistic. Artificial intelligence can augment my skills, make me more productive, and help me reach more students. But that doesn’t mean that we’ll need fewer teachers. Rather, it means that we can educate many, many more students. That’s a good thing – for both students and teachers.
Politics — Lying Versus Bullshitting
You talkin’ to me?
The presidential campaign is about to lurch into high gear and the lying is flying. Or is it? Are the candidates lying or are they bullshitting us? The two concepts are related but not the same.
Let’s take an example from Donald Trump. Trump says that he will build a wall along our southern border and make Mexico pay for it. Many neutral observers claim that it would be prohibitively expensive to build a useful (that is, impenetrable) wall along the entire border. They also suggest that it’s ludicrous to believe that Mexico would pay for it. So is Trump lying or is he bullshitting?
To answer the question, I dug out an essay by the Princeton philosopher, Harry Frankfurt. Originally published in 1986, the essay is aptly tilted, On Bullshit. * Frankfurt lays out the essential differences between lying and bullshit (with a side trip through humbug).
Frankfurt argues that both bullshit and lying are deceptive – but they’re deceptive in different ways. The liar aims to deceive us about reality and “the way things are.” A liar might say that he has a million dollars when he’s actually flat broke. A bullshitter, on the other hand, aims to deceive us about his purpose. Frankfurt writes, “His eye is not on the facts at all…. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”
Further, a liar knows the truth and seeks to conceal it. He opposes the truth. By contrast, a bullshitter may or may not know what the truth is – and certainly doesn’t care. Indeed, he may even be telling the truth. Making a true statement or a false statement is beside the point. As Frankfurt notes, “…the truth … of his statements is of no central interest to him.”
A liar is under numerous constraints. He knows the truth and, “…to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth.” A bullshitter has no such constraints. He can make everything up, including the context and the backstory. Instead of making a statement about reality, he invents his own reality.
Indeed, the bullshitter avoids the “authority of the truth” altogether. Frankfurt writes that, “He pays no attention to [the truth] at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
So is Trump lying or bullshitting about the wall? I’m guessing that he’s bullshitting. He doesn’t seem to care whether his statement is true or false. That’s beside the point. He just makes stuff up to suit his purpose.
So, if making a true statement (or a false one, for that matter), is beside the point, what is his hidden agenda? I think there are two:
- To maximize attention and press coverage – every time Trump makes an outrageous statement, journalists write about it. Often times, they point out that the statement is not true. But that’s beside the point. Trump doesn’t care – nor do his followers, apparently. The point is to get elected and that requires attention and saturation coverage.
- To soak up his opponents’ time – Trump’s opponents often make detailed rebuttals of his claims. They want to set the record straight. But as long as they’re doing that, they’re on Trump’s turf. He’s the center of attention. It’s political rope-a-dope. I’ve noticed that Trump rarely defends his points in any logical way. He simply repeats them, thus causing his opponents to redouble their efforts to prove him wrong. He gets their goat because they think he’s lying when, in fact, he’s bullshitting. Setting the record straight is useless if truth and falsity are beside the point.
So how can Trump’s opponents – Johnson and Clinton – best deal with his bullshitting? To the maximum extent possible, they should ignore him. Don’t get caught up in the trap of making him the center of attention. When a journalist asks about an outrageous Trump statement, don’t take the bait. Just say something along the lines of, “Well, we all know that he’s a world-class bullshitter. Let’s talk about something more useful.”
* Frankfurts’ essay was originally published in The Raritan Quarterly Review in 1986. It was then republished in 2005 as a small book. I’ve depended on the version that’s found here.
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