Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
The Brighter Side of Spite
In the dumpster?!
In October 2013, a Boulder, Colorado man took some half million dollars out of savings, converted it to gold and silver bars and threw them in a dumpster. What would account for such behavior? Spite. After a bitter divorce, the man didn’t want his ex-wife to get any of the money.
Spite has a long history. As Natalie Angier points out, spite is the driving force behind the Iliad. Achilles wants revenge on Agamemnon, even though it will be very painful to Achilles as well.
Spite is similar to altruism but with a different purpose. An altruistic person pays a personal price to do something helpful to another person. A spiteful person pays a personal price to do something hurtful to another person.
Spitefulness sometimes feels good. You’re getting even; you’re teaching the other person a lesson. But it rarely does any good. Does the other person really learn a lesson – other than to despise you? With spite, both parties lose. So, why does spitefulness stick around?
It could be a form of altruistic punishment. Altruism isn’t always positive for everyone concerned. You might punish somebody — and pay a price to do so — in order to bring a greater good to a larger community. In this sense, altruistic punishment is simply spite for the greater good.
A study by Karla Hoff in 2008 used a “trust game” to probe this phenomenon. In the game, trusting players can earn more money by giving away money. But a “free rider” (also known as an opportunist) could take advantage of the trusting player, hoard the money, and come out ahead. The game uses an “enforcer’ who can choose multiple options, including various punishments for the free rider.
Punishing the opportunist costs the enforcer. Still, in many cases enforcers decided to do just that. By spiting the free rider, the enforcer adds a cost to anti-social behavior. As opportunism become more costly, it also becomes less pervasive. Ultimately the enforcer’s spite encourages cooperation. It’s good for the community even though it hurts the enforcer. (This was a complex study and altruistic punishment varied by culture and by the social status of the various players).
More recently, Rory Smead and Patrick Forber used an “ultimatum game” to study spite and fairness. In some versions of the game, “gamesmen” emerge who make only unfair offers. Other players will spite the gamesman. Even though they pay a cost in the short run, fair players who spite the gamesman can benefit in the long run. Indeed, “Fairness actually becomes a strategy for survival in this land of spite.”
How do you measure spitefulness? David Marcus and his colleagues have developed a 17-point Spitefulness Scale “…to assess individual differences in spitefulness.” They then applied it across a large random sample of college students and adults. They found (among many other things) that men are generally more spiteful than women and young people are more spiteful than older people. Spitefulness is positively correlated with aggression and narcissism but negatively correlated to self-esteem. The researchers are now going to use the scale to predict how different players will act in trust and ultimatum games.
I’ve previously written about seemingly “good things” that produce bad outcomes. Spite is a good example of a “bad thing” that can produce good outcomes. Not always and not in all situations, but more often than we might guess. It’s useful to keep in mind that, if something exists, it often does so for a good reason.
Liar, Liar, Confabulator
Uh oh. His lips are moving.
How can you tell when humans are lying? Their lips move.
It’s not necessarily the case that we lie with the intent to deceive or defraud. It’s just that many of the stories that come out of our mouths simply aren’t true. You can call it non-malicious fabricated storytelling. More generally, it’s called confabulation.
Neurologists originally thought confabulation resulted from mental deficits caused by injuries or strokes or dementia. People with such deficits might tell entirely cohesive stores that were simply not true. Some people might recall old memories and assume that they were fresh and current. Others might invent stories to explain their physical limitations like blindness or paralysis. In Oliver Sack’s well-known book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, the man in question mis-identified not only his wife but most everyone he met.
The more we study confabulation, the more we recognize that “normal” people do it as well. We all have an innate desire to connect the dots. We want to explain how things happen and why. We want to be able to say that X caused Y and – if it was true in the past – it should also be true in the future.
The more we can construct effective stories about the past, the more we believe we can control the future. This gives us a sense of confidence and security. But, of course, we can’t predict the future. (Experts are especially bad at it). I wonder if our inability to predict the future doesn’t result from confabulation. We confabulate the past and, therefore, the future.
Here’s a little thought experiment. If you see five similar objects arrayed left to right, which one do you prefer? In the absence of distinguishing information, people tend to pick the object on the right. Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson used this bias in an early study of “normal” confabulation. The study simulated a consumer survey and asked subjects to pick an item of apparel from a left-to-right array of four items that were essentially the same.
Nisbett and Wilson noted that, “… the right-most object in the array was heavily over chosen.” This was expected; it’s normal behavior. However, when the researchers asked people why they chose a particular object, they gave all kinds of answers that had nothing to do with position. In other words, they were confabulating even under perfectly normal conditions.
Similarly, I have a story that explains my career. I have an explanation for why I was promoted in a certain case and not in another. I can explain how I got from Job A to Job G in a very linear, logical fashion. But do I really know these things? Am I really sure what caused what? Do I really know why the boss made a given decision? No, I don’t. But I can make up a good story.
The only way to prove cause-and-effect is through an experiment. I would have to replicate myself and run the two versions of me in parallel. I obviously can’t do that, so I’ve made up a convenient story. It seems plausible; it works for me. But is it true? Even I don’t know.
Confabulation happens before and beneath our consciousness. Nisbett and Wilson cite George Miller: “It is the result of thinking, not the process of thinking, that appears spontaneously in our consciousness.” We can’t readily control confabulation because we don’t know it’s happening. We only see the results.
When you ask someone a question like, Why did you choose your career? (or your spouse, or your suit, etc.), you’ll likely get a plausible answer. But is it true? Even the speaker can’t know for sure. Can it help us understand the past and predict the future? Probably not.
For a good overview of confabulation, see Helen Phillips’ article in New Scientist.
Laughtivism
Can laughter change the world? I’d like to think so. That seems to be the basic motivation behind an increasingly popular form of activism known as laughtivism. According to Foreign Policy magazine, “Today’s non-violent activists are inciting a global shift in protest tactics away from anger, resentment, and rage towards a new, more incisive form of activism rooted in fun.”
Plato, of course, banished humor and laughter from The Republic. He thought humor would distract the populace from the more serious issues of the day. Today’s laughtivists turn that logic on its head. The world is malign and malevolent; laughter is the only cure.
The phenomenon (I hesitate to call it a movement) is widespread. Beppe Grillo is one of the most popular and incisive politicians in Italy. Srdja Popovic used humor in opposition to a man who never seemed to smile, Slobodan Milosevic. Bassem Youssef in Egypt is widely known as the Arab Jon Stewart. The Yes Men have now made two films aimed at raising awareness of “problematic social issues.” And, of course, Jon Stewart is widely known as the American Bassem Youssef.
Laughtivism aims at political enlightenment and activism by undermining the legitimacy of ruling elites, especially those that scowl. I mean, really, how hard is it to make fun of Dick Cheney?
It’s also spiritually akin to culture jamming, which aims more broadly at undermining the established culture and mainstream media. As Wikipedia notes, culture jamming “purports to ‘expose the methods of domination’ of mass society to foster progressive change.” As such, laughtivism harks back to Abby Hoffman, the Yippies (with their nude radio show), Dr. Strangelove, and, perhaps, even to Marshall McLuhan.
Laughtivism aims to speak truth to power. That’s all well and good, but as Kei Hiruta points out in Practical Ethics, laughter “can also be used to conceal truth and reinforce cynicism.” We’ve all heard racist or sexist or homophobic jokes that aim to do exactly that.
While I enjoy laughtivism, I wonder how effective it is in changing the social order. For instance Yes! Magazine identified “Five Protests That Shook The World (With Laughter)”. Here’s how it describes the protest it ranks as number one:
In 1967, Abbie Hoffman and members of the Yippies, a radical activist group, threw 300 one-dollar bills from the New York Stock Exchange balcony onto the trading floor. According to Hoffman, as brokers grabbed for petty cash, trading ground to a halt. The famous stunt mocked the unregulated greed that still pervades Wall Street.
I happen to remember that protest. I laughed very hard and admired Abby Hoffman very much. But did it really change anything? I’m sure that it inspired some people and enraged others, but I didn’t see the pillars of society waver even a tiny bit.
Aristotle and other Greek rhetoricians taught that humor can help us learn and remember but that it doesn’t motivate us to take action. Humor can inspire and educate and even go viral but it doesn’t get us off the couch. Anger is the emotion that motivates action, which is precisely why our political rhetoric is so filled with anger.
I admire laughtivism because it can open a crack in the social facade. But I don’t think it has the force to drive the wedge home. As Hiruta says, “Mockery, jokes and satire are powerful tools to destabilise the existing order, but they are ill-suited to the different tasks of ending chaos, filling a power vacuum and installing a new order.”
Men, Women, Laughter, and Love
Made you laugh.
I like to make people laugh. I’m especially funny (I think) when women are around. So, what’s with that?
Frankly, I don’t know why I like to make women laugh. Surprisingly, the neuroscience community seems mildly confused as well. I’ve been reading up on humor as a window into how our brains work. One aspect is that men and women view and use humor differently. But not, perhaps, in the ways you expect.
Here’s what I’ve discovered so far. (Unless noted otherwise, these little gems come from Scott Weems’ book, Ha! The Science of When We Laugh and Why).
Quantity – women laugh more than men. Weems estimates that women laugh roughly 125 percent more than men.
Aging – women tend to laugh less as they get older. Men not so much. Does it ever even out? We need another study to find out.
Time of day – both men and women laugh more in the afternoon and evening than they do in the morning. This could be related to Immoral Afternoons.
Humor appreciation (1) – men enjoy put-down humor more than women. But this assertion is disputed. Women don’t like put-down jokes about women. When you take these out the mix, men and women are roughly the same.
Humor appreciation (2) – men like dirty jokes more than women. Again, this is disputed. Many dirty jokes make fun of women. When you factor these out, the differences evaporate.
Shared values – people tend to bond (romantically and otherwise) with other people who have similar values. How do you know if someone shares your values? Humor may be the fastest way. Men and women both use humor as a way to gauge values and degree of fit.
Humor and mateability – men and women both value humor in a mate in America, at least. American women rated intelligence as the most desirable trait in a mate; humor finished a close second. (The two are highly related). For American men, the top three traits were intelligence, good looks, and humor. But, as Weems points out, it’s different in Siberia. There, the most desired traits revolve around dependability – including faithfulness and reliability. It’s almost like Maslow’s hierarchy – if your mate is not dependable, it doesn’t much matter if he or she is funny.
Mate selection – if you ask happily married couples why they were attracted to each other, the women often say, “He made me laugh”. The men often say, “She laughed at my jokes”. In other words, men’s humor is essentially the same as a peacock’s display. Apparently, these differences exist even in young children. Perhaps this is why so many class clowns are boys.
Laughers and listeners – in general, “… people tend to laugh more when they are speaking as opposed to listening.” The lone exception? “… when a man is talking to a woman, the woman laughs more than the man.” Perhaps she’s responding to the peacock display.
Humor production – while men and women seem similar in humor appreciation, they differ in humor production. In a study cited by Christie Nicholson, women preferred men “…who could make them laugh twice as often as they returned the favor. Men, on the other hand, offered humor about a third more than they requested it.” It’s all about mate selection. (Isn’t everything?)
Relationship maintenance – it’s not just mate selection, its also mate maintenance. According to Weems, “Nine out of ten couples say that humor is an important part of their relationship. …. laughing together is essential for marital success.”
So, what’s it all mean? Perhaps Christie Nicholson sums it up best, “A genuine laugh is one of the most honest ways to convey: I’m with you.”
Bitcoin and Permissionless Innovation
It’s a platform.
When I started this website, I didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission. An enabling platform was already in place. The platform consisted of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and many pieces of open source software. All I needed to do was download the latest version of WordPress, rent some space on a web server, and I was off to the races.
The key element, of course, is an open, accessible platform that facilitates innovation. In my case, the platform is a collection of Internet-based technologies. Other permissionless innovation platforms include the interstate highway system, the human genome project, and the public school system. The trick is to provide a platform that anyone can use without prior permission.
I thought about this as I was reading up on Bitcoin. I’ve written about Bitcoin as a currency (here and here). One of my intrepid readers, John Ball, suggested that I’m probably missing the essence of what Bitcoin is all about. John, who understands the technology better than I do, suggests that Bitcoin is a permissionless innovation platform. Here’s what he has to say:
“… Bitcoin has little to do with currency, and everything to do with a protocol and trusted ledger. I suspect we may see multiple ‘digital currencies’ just as we see multiple email systems. However, the concept of peer to peer transactions freed from the tolls of large intermediaries like Visa, Western Union, and First Data, is here to stay and will continue to grow.” (John’s entire comment is here. Just scroll down.)
With Visa, Western Union, or First Data, we have to ask permission and pay fees to use their proprietary system. Similarly, in the early days of software, developers had to ask permission and pay fees to run their programs on proprietary computers. With the advent of open operating systems like Unix, software developers no longer had to ask permission. They simply wrote to the open software platform. As a result, software blossomed and hardware became a commodity.
As John suggests, the same thing seems to be happening in the world of crypto-currencies. John predicts that we’ll see multiple digital currencies. He’s right. In fact, it’s already happening. You can use another permissionless innovation platform called Google to find: Peercoin, Dogecoin, Namecoin, and others. As far as I can tell, all of these are built on the Bitcoin platform. If I had better programming skills, I could create my own currency. Let’s call it Travis Tender.
While Bitcoin (the currency) has certainly had some PR mishaps lately, Bitcoin (the platform) is just starting to blossom. In fact, we might say that Bitcoin is to currency as Unix is to proprietary computing. If so, we’re about to see a wave of innovation that will make the original Bitcoin seem quaint.
Thanks, John.
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