The Banana Is Dead?  Long Live the Banana!
By Heath Shive

There are 1,000 varieties of bananas.  The banana we eat in America is the Cavendish banana – the world’s most popular banana. 

Dan Koeppel – author of the book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World – had a dire prediction.  “There may be five or ten or thirty years left for our banana,” Koeppel wrote.    

He wrote that 10 years ago.

Global banana production reached a record peak of 117 million metric tons in 2015, up from 68 million tons in 2000.  Bananas are the world’s fourth most plentiful crop (after wheat, rice and corn). 

So how is our doomed Cavendish banana doing now?

To the science!

The Cavendish Banana

Americans eat more Cavendish bananas than apples and oranges combined!

The Cavendish is the world’s favorite banana too.  According to a FAO Report, Cavendish bananas make up 47 percent of global banana production – about 50 million metric tons every year!

The Cavendish banana has a magical mix of virtues.  The Cavendish is more resilient than most bananas, which made it great for shipping.  The Cavendish plant is shorter – so harvesting is easier and the plant more likely to survive tropical storm winds.  And it is a big producer: on average, one hectare can produce 40 to 50 metric tons of fruit. 

And it tastes great!

But once – according to legend – there was an even better banana.

The Gros Michel (“Big Mike”)

Before 1960, the Gros Michel (“Big Mike”) banana was the world’s favorite.  You can see the Gros Michel in old movies and TV shows.  Compared to the Cavendish, the Gros Michel was bigger, easier to ship, had a creamier texture, and the flavor was unbelievable! 

But it wasn’t immune to the Panama disease – a soil-tainting fungus – which destroyed whole plantations. 

By 1965, the Gros Michel had vanished from the world’s supermarkets. 

The Cavendish was more resilient…until recently. 

Trouble in Paradise

For two decades, Cavendish plantations have been struck down by a new variety of Panama disease called Tropical Race 4 (or TR4).  There’s no cure.  The fungus stays in the soil for decades.    

No wonder Koeppel made his dire prediction.

And there didn’t seem to be a new banana variety that could take the Cavendish’s place. 

The New Franken-Banana?

Koeppel did suggest – however reluctantly – a quicker solution.  The Cavendish could be genetically modified to be more resistant to the new TR4 fungus.  Genetically modified (GM) foods are unpopular globally, even banned in some countries.  But Koeppel felt that there was no choice. 

And behold, there’s a new GM Cavendish!

Last year, a group of scientists from Queensland University of Technology successfully created a stronger “transgenic” Cavendish.  They spliced a gene from a TR4-resistant, wild banana species unto the Cavendish genome. 

One line of GM Cavendish was disease-free for the 3 years of trials.  And 3 other lines of GM Cavendish had a mortality rate of only 20% after 3 years.  The normal Cavendish plants had a 67-100% mortality rate in the same time.

Conclusion

As bad as it sounds, losing the Cavendish wouldn’t be the end of America’s banana craving.  Nature (and business) abhors a vacuum.   

There are other sweet banana varieties in the world.  For example, there are the Lakatan, the Latundan, and the Red Banana.    

But I have loved the Cavendish my entire life.  And there is no love quite like your first love. 

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Sources:
Koeppel, Dan.  Banana:  The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.  Hudson Street Press, 2008.
Queensland University of Technology. "Saving cavendish: Panama disease-resistant bananas." ScienceDaily, 15 November 2017.

Wasted Youth:  The Science of ‘Young, Broke, & Horny’

My friends were talking about their lives – between the ages of 21 and 31 – when they were going to bars 4 times a week.

Their hard-earned money evaporated in a series of dates, dinners, and drinks!  Then it was ramen noodles every day until payday. 

Why are we so wasteful in youth? 

Is it evolutionary psychology? 

To the science!

Money Now or Later

In 2004, psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly published a study that seemed to indicate that males are more reckless with money around ‘hot’ women.  However, women are not so reckless around ‘hot’ men.    
 
When humans ‘discount the future,’ we sacrifice future rewards for immediate gratification.  Wilson and Daly assessed students’ monetary choices when comparing the desire for low-money rewards ($15-$35) ‘tomorrow’ against a higher reward ($50-$75) in the future. 

The value of indifference (or monetary recklessness) was measured as value ‘k’ in the study. For example, it makes sense to sacrifice a chance at $50 in 6 months for a chance at $35 tomorrow (a low k-choice).  But it’s more reckless if you sacrifice a chance at $75 next week just so you have a chance of $15 tomorrow (a high k-choice). 

Suckers for a Pretty Face?

There were 200 students (96 male, 113 female).  Each student was seated at a private computer and given 3 tasks: 1) a first set of monetary choices to set a k value, 2) a series of 12 images, and then 3) another set of monetary choices for another k value. 

For half of the students, the images were either of ‘hot’ opposite-sex faces or ‘not-hot’ faces (lifted from HotorNot.com). 

The other students saw images either of ‘hot’ cars or ‘not-hot’ cars. 

Men’s k-value (monetary recklessness) escalated significantly after seeing ‘hot’ women!  Men’s k-value didn’t change much at all after seeing ‘not-hot’ women. 

Women’s k-value increased when they saw ‘hot’ men, but the “change was not significant.”  And there wasn’t much of a k-value difference between women who saw ‘hot’ men versus ‘not-hot’ men.

The study’s men seemed to ‘discount the future’ (be more reckless with money) when ‘hot’ women entered their minds. 

The study’s women seemed to maintain their monetary choices regardless of the attractiveness of men.   

Oddly enough, women’s k-value did increase significantly…after they saw ‘hot’ cars!

Debt and Sex          

In 2008, Daniel Kruger released a paper that showed that the more sexually active a man was – thus “successful” in evolutionary terms – the more likely he had large credit card debt.  The group tested was comprised of men between the ages of 18 to 45, from different zip codes, incomes, and marital status.  But the results were the same.  The men who admitted to the largest number of sexual encounters also admitted to having the smallest savings and higher debt.

Someone who spends everything doesn’t have wealth, they have debt.  But Kruger’s study showed that high financial consumption still signals wealth, and so is a successful mating strategy.    

Conclusion

Did you waste your twenties?  Most of us did! 

It might have to do with youthful exuberance and lack of experience. 

It might also have to do with how we are programmed on a genetic level.

​But still...what a ride.

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Sources:
Kruger, D.J. (2008). Male financial consumption is associated with higher mating intentions and mating success. Evolutionary Psychology, 6, 603-612.

Wilson, M., & Daly, M. (2004). Do pretty women inspire men to discount the future? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 271(Suppl 4), S177–S179.
 

Mother Nature Mostly Hates Men:  Mortality Science!
By Heath Shive
​
Back in 2000, psychiatrist Sebastian Kraemer wrote a paper for The British Medical Journal entitled “The Fragile Male.”  It created quite a stir. 

Men have a shorter average life expectancy than women.  But Kraemer thought a male was inherently more likely to die from the very beginning – even in his mother’s womb!

Kraemer argued that many obstetric maladies – perinatal diseases, deformities, stillbirths, etc. – afflicted males much more than females.  At birth, the ratio of males to females is roughly 105 to 100.  Kraemer believed that the ratio at conception started about 120 to 100 – and then Nature started to cull off males.

To the science!
​
But That Changed

Recently, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that fetal mortality isn't so simple.

The scientists analyzed 140,000 embryos (conceived by IVF or other technologies) in the first days after conception. Male embryos were more likely to be abnormal and so die a week or two after conception.  At first, male mortality is higher. 

But data from about 800,000 amniocentesis tests showed that between weeks 10-15 more female embryos are miscarried.

In the third trimester, male mortality rates accelerate.

But overall, female fetus mortality rates were slightly higher.

To be more specific, there would seem to be “different windows of vulnerability” for males and females during development. 

Mortality by Gene-Based Behavior

After birth, male mortality rates exceed female rates – because of the consequences of risk-taking behavior.  Evolutionary psychologists – like Glenn Geher and Scott Kaufman in their book Mating Intelligence Unleashed – believed that such risk-taking behaviors were intrinsic to men, written on their DNA, to display strength and virility to women. 

Behaviors affect vulnerability to disease.  Zhang et al (1995) showed men were more likely to die from most diseases (“total cardiovascular disease and cancer”). 

In the U.S., homicide victims are 3 times more likely to be male than female.  According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, men are 3 times more likely to commit suicide. 

Conclusion

Whether from genes or gene-based behavior, from the womb to the tomb, men seem to be….more expendable to Nature. 

According to a nursery rhyme, little boys are made of “snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails.”  Whatever men are made of…it’s perilous stuff.

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Sources:
Kraemer S. (2000). The fragile male. British Medical Journal, 321, 1609–1612.

Geher, Glenn and Kaufman, Scott.  Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love.  Oxford University Press, 2013.

Lawlor D., Ebrahim S., Smith G. (2001). Sex matters: Secular and geographical trends in sex difference in coronary heart disease mortality.  British Medical Journal, 323, 541-545.

Orzack, Steven Hecht, J. William Stubblefield, Viatcheslav R. Akmaev, Pere Colls, Santiago Munné, Thomas Scholl, David Steinsaltz, and James E. Zuckerman.  The human sex ratio from conception to birth.  PNAS April 21, 2015. 112 (16) E2102-E2111

Zhang X., Sasaki S., Kesteloot H. (1995). The sex ratio of mortality and its secular trends.  International Journal of Epidemiology, 24, 720-729. 

Monster Morel Mushrooms Conquered the World!
By Heath Shive

It’s morel mushroom season! 

But the morels these days are wimps. 

There were once mushrooms that were big as palm trees! 

These super-mushrooms dominated the surface of the Earth!

I’m talking about Prototaxites, a super-fungus which was once the largest land creature on the planet. 

Even the Mario Bros. couldn’t handle these toadstools!

Don’t believe me?

To the science!

Prototaxites, the Super Mushroom

During what geologists called the late Silurian Period (i.e., 420 to 370 million years ago) – millions of years before the first dinosaur roared – the world was a different place.  The ocean had a lot of life.  But life on dry land was fairly barren.  Plants were small – the tallest trees in the world would come up to your shoulder.    

But Prototaxites could be a 3 feet (1 meter) thick and almost 26 feet (8 meters) high! 

The Prototaxites were discovered in Canada by W.E. Logan in 1843. But John William Dawson thought the tree was a kind of ancient pine tree eaten by fungus – so he named the fossil Prototaxite,”first yew tree.” 

But 150 years later, plant scientist Francis Hueber classified Prototaxites – the whole thing – as one big fungus, due to its structure and morphology. 

A few years later, a research team (including Hueber) concluded that Prototaxites was indeed a fungus, due to its variety of carbon isotopes. In plants, like today's trees, two particular carbon isotopes should be in balance because they get their food by photosynthesis. In plants and animals that eat other life-forms, the isotope ratio should vary widely. The Prototaxites’ combination of isotopes indicated that it fed on decaying organic matter, just what you would expect from a fungus. 

Of course, Prototaxites was a super-fungus, so it would need a large food supply.  But if the plant world was new and small, where would the food come from? Scientists Erik Hobbie and C. Kevin Boyce suggested that Prototaxites could have fed on “algal-derived organic matter.”  Even without true plants, there still would have been a huge compost derived from millions of years of algal mats. 
 
The Non-Fungus Theory

However, another group of researchers asserted that Prototaxites was more like a kind of liverwort, curling up with other liverworts and plants and ascending into the air. They thought that the fungus-like structure was just an associative growth with fungi and cyanobacteria, just like in some modern liverworts.

But the “monster mushroom” theory is currently in vogue.    

The Mushroom Vogue
 
Did Jules Verne know about Prototaxites?  In chapter 30 of Jules Verne’s classic Journey to the Center of the Earth, the heroes find themselves in “a forest of mushrooms” that had been “constructed on a gigantic scale.” 
 
Simon and Schuster’s 2008 edition of the classic has a drawing of the mushroom forest on its cover. If you eliminated the mushroom caps, you’d get a pretty good visual of Prototaxites. 

My cousin told me he was a “mushroom hunter.” I told him that you can’t call it “hunting” when it lacks teeth and legs.  But who could hunt Prototaxites?  Not even Mario and Luigi.

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​How to Brainwash Turkeys…and Maybe Humans Too?  
By Heath Shive

Robert Cialdini wrote what is quite possibly the most influential book in modern psychology, entitled “Influence.”  In its first chapter, Cialdini describes an experiment made by the pioneering ethologist M.W. Fox. 

Fox noticed that mother turkeys can either care for their young - or they can ignore them. 

A turkey’s mothering is triggered by the “cheep-cheep” sound of chicks. 

The more “cheep-cheep,” the more love.

Fox used a stuffed weasel (or European polecat) in an experiment.  Turkeys and weasels are natural enemies.  But Fox found that if a stuffed polecat played the “cheep-cheep” sounds of baby turkeys, then the turkey not only approached a stuffed weasel, but even gathered the stuffed weasel beneath her! 

When the “cheep-cheep” sound ended, then the mother turkey would attack!

We might think it’s inferior that a turkey is so simply programmed. 

But are humans any different?  Do we honestly “think” about all of our actions?

To the science!

The Norm of Reciprocity

If I give you a gift, you feel compelled to give me something in return.  
 
A study by Dennis Regan published 1971 illustrates this. Two male students were surveyed for their “aesthetic judgments.”  However one of the students was an accomplice - who intentionally either made himself likable or unlikable.

After five minutes, sometimes the accomplice would leave and come back with two Cokes…offering the other Coke to the other student.  At the end of the study, the accomplice asked the real student if he would like to buy some raffle tickets.

The results showed that when the accomplice gave the other student a Coke, he sold nearly twice as many tickets compared with no Coke – whether the accomplice was likable or not!

The Endowment Effect

You automatically ascribe more value to anything  you perceive as “yours.”  It’s called the endowment effect. 

In a 1989 paper, economist Jack Knetsch asked one group of students to choose between a coffee mug and a chocolate bar. Of these students, 44 percent wanted the chocolate bar, 56 percent wanted mug.  In other words, the items were roughly equal in perceived value.

Knetsch gave a second group only coffee mugs, but they could exchange for chocolate bars later if they wanted.  He gave a third group only chocolate bars, but they could exchange for mugs later.

About half of the students should have traded the items, right?  No!  Only 11 percent of the mug-owning students wanted to trade, and only 10 percent of chocolate bar-owning students wanted to exchange for mugs. The vast majority of students didn’t want to part with what they had now that they had (“owned”) it!

The Peak-End Rule

We judge an experience based on how it ends!

Barry Schwartz – author of the fantastic book “The Paradox of Choice” - cites a lab study where participants were asked to listen to two terribly loud noises.  The first noise was awful, but lasted only 8 seconds.  The second noise was the same as the first and also lasted 8 seconds…but it was followed by another 8 seconds of unpleasant noise that wasn’t as loud.

The vast majority of the participants chose the second noise – despite the fact that it had all the noise of the first, and was twice as long (16 seconds vs. 8 seconds).

Conclusion

Your mom always told you to think before you act.  But “thinking” is a long and deliberate process.  Our brain is guided primarily by instincts – shortcuts to decision-making that are written on our DNA. 

Whoever knows your instincts knows the “buttons” in your mind.  Much of modern advertising and political propaganda is trying to bypass our thinking to control us by instinct.

But knowing that there’s a trap is the first step in avoiding it.  Mind your thoughts!

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Sources:
Cialdini, Robert.  Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.  Rev.ed. Collins, 2007. 

Knetsch, Jack L., "The Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves," American Economic Review, 1989, 79, 1277-1284.

Regan, D. T. (1971). Effects of a favor and liking on compliance.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 627-639. 

Schwartz, Barry.  The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less.  New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.  

Birdy Words, Political Hype, and How to Create a Stereotype
By Heath Shive

In the early 1970s, psychologist Eleanor Rosch started a revolution in cognitive science.

Rosch asked her subjects the following questions:

1) A robin is a bird. True or false?
2) A chicken is a bird.  True or false?
3) An ostrich is a bird.  True or false?

The answer to all questions is the same.  But what Rosch really measured was how quickly they responded.  People responded almost immediately to question 1, but took a little longer to answer question 2, and longer still to answer question 3.

So why was it easier to classify a robin as a “bird” than a chicken?    

When the subjects thought “bird,” a robin fit the definition in their head much more readily than a chicken.  Rosch concluded from this and other studies that we tend to think in terms of prototypes – or the most idealized example in a category. 

The Prototype Theory

When confronted with a category, your most idealized example will be the first and fastest image to your mind.  It is harder for us to accept the variations from that ideal! 

A Republican President might see a tax cut as idealistically good - despite the explosive national deficit following the tax cuts.  Tax cuts aren’t automatically good.  There are variations from that ideal. 

A Democratic President might see a Medicare expansion as idealistically good – despite the fact that around 9% of payments are “improper” (i.e., going to the wrong people, for the wrong procedure, or for outright fraud).  Medicare isn’t automatically good.  There are variations from the ideal that need reform. 

The Stereotype

A stereotype is just a prototype with a negative social effect.    

If you have a very negative experience with a person, then that memorable experience could form a stereotype.  Instead of seeing individuals (the variations in a group), you generalize the whole group based on the stereotype.  This would explain racism, sexism, misogyny, misandry, crusade, jihad, and xenophobia. 

Have you ever heard a woman say “Men!” with disgust?  Have you ever heard a man say “Women!” with disdain?  They apply their bad experience to a whole gender!

What do you think of when I say “immigrant,” “welfare mom,” or “redneck”?

This is how propaganda works.  The propaganda machine only needs to keep emphasizing a specific image of an “enemy.”  Eventually that image is the dominant image in your head (the prototype) and you will hate accordingly.

Conclusion

Wisdom is not a byproduct of age.  Old fools start as young fools. 

Wisdom is a product of mental discipline. We gain wisdom when we expand our imagination, recognize our assumptions and limited thinking, when we recognize the assumptions in other people, when we patiently research a topic for evidence, and even when we introspectively challenge our own ideals.

Prototypes profoundly narrow our perception of the world.  That does not mean we are stupid!  It means we must reach for our full potential!   

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Cracked Backs & Mosquito Attacks: How Even Docs Can Be Quacks 
By Heath Shive

Causation confusion – or causefusion for short – is any misunderstanding about the causes of complex events. 

No one wants to feel ignorant.  Ignorance insults our vanity.  And the unknown can be frightening.  So we oversimply – for various reasons – so at least we can pretend to understand. 

Causefusion is a cognition trap, one of many explored by Zachary Shore in his book “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.”

To the science!

Malaria: It Was Never “Bad Air”

The Romans believed that swamp air caused illness and disease.  They called this sickness malaria, from the words for bad (“mal”) and air (“aria”).  So the Romans drained the swamps.  The disease incidence dropped dramatically. 

So bad air caused the disease.

Except it didn’t.

Now science connects malaria to blood parasites transmitted by anopheles mosquitoes.

For centuries, medical authorities thought that draining swamps destroyed the disease, even when those efforts failed. 

Malaria outbreaks were decimated only with the introduction of mosquito-busting measures, like mosquito netting, citronella plants, using insecticidal surfactants (like DDT) timed to mosquito breeding cycles, and eliminating any mosquito breeding grounds (not just swamps).

Back Pain: Not in Herniated Disks

For years – and to this day – many blame their back pain on herniated disks in their spine.  The doctors saw your herniated disks with an MRI.  Nodding their heads, they would point out your herniated disks and insist you needed surgery. 

Surgery is an invasive and expensive procedure.  Yet many back surgeries fail to provide pain relief. 

So what if herniated disks were never the problem?

In 1994, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine pointed out the non-sequitur. 

People without back pain (asymptomatic) were examined with a MRI.  Of the 98 subjects (mean age, 42 years), 52 percent had a bulge on at least one disk, 27 percent had a protrusion, and 1 percent had an extrusion.  Also, 38 percent had an abnormality on more than one disk!

Yet none of these people had back pain!

Back pain wasn’t simply about herniated disks or even spinal abnormalities. 

So the benefits of some surgeries are questionable at best.  Medicare has been debating their protocols and now sees some surgeries (like spinal fusion) as a waste.

The Burden of a Complex World

When the Romans drained those swamps, malarial incidence decreased.  But without the mosquito part of the equation, malaria couldn’t be combated effectively.

Some treatments for herniated disks seem to bring significant pain relief.  But obviously, herniated disks alone are not the problem.

We want understanding.  Simplification seems to offer that understanding.  But simplification can also create – what Shore called –“monocausal myopia.”  That’s the trap – the cognition trap – that Shore warns us about.

We make assumptions, we limit our thinking.  And that limit puts the brakes on our progress. 

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Sources:

Jensen, Maureen C, Michael N. Brant-Zawadzki, Nancy Obuchowski, Michael T. Modic, Dennis Malkasian, and Jeffrey S. Ross.  Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Lumbar Spine in People without Back Pain.  New England Journal of Medicine 1994; 331: 69-73 (July 14, 1994). 
Shore, Zachary.  Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.  Bloomsbury, 2008.

Exposure Anxiety:  When “Strong” Isn’t Smart
By Heath Shive

Exposure anxiety is the fear of looking weak.  It is also a “cognition trap” – a mind-set (belief, personal philosophy) that limits your ability to think and act. 

Maybe everyone has felt this way.  But when very powerful people are affected, the results are disastrous and large-scale. 

Zachary Shore is a professor of national security affairs.  He is also the author of a book entitled “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.” 

It’s a great read, and his chapter on exposure anxiety is the first “cognition trap” he tackles.

To the science!  (Mixed with history.)  

Orwell and His Mad Elephant

When he was young, the future-author George Orwell had been a police officer in Burma.  A local elephant had broken free and gone on a rampage.  When Orwell finally found the elephant, the elephant’s rage was gone and it was calmly eating grass.  But the entire town had come out to watch Orwell deal with the elephant. 

Everyone expected a show.  Orwell didn’t want to shoot – but if he didn’t do something "strong," how could the Burmese respect his authority?    

Orwell shot the elephant repeatedly…but it wouldn’t die quickly.  In frustration, Orwell just left.  The elephant died a half hour later. 

Orwell didn’t look very powerful.  He didn’t impress.  He felt a fool.  Even though Orwell did not want to shoot the animal, he did not want to look weak to his audience.

Greeks and the Price of Overkill

 In the 5th century B.C.E, the Greek island of Mytilene had revolted against the city of Athens.  In retaliation, Athens sent a war party to the island with these orders: kill every man, enslave every woman and child. 

However, some Athenians had second thoughts.  So they had a debate.  The Athenian Cleon argued that if Athens showed mercy, it would look weak and there would more revolts in the future. 

But the Athenian Diodotus argued for mercy.  He pointed out that not all the Mytilenians had revolted.  Many of the rebels had surrendered their arms. But – Diodotus argued – if other cities knew that there would be no mercy, new revolts would be better planned and the rebels would fight to the death.  There would be no incentive for surrender. 

Cleon’s show of strength actually would make future revolts more ferocious and implacable. 

Athens sided with Diodotus and a fast ship was sent to stop the war party in Mytilene.

Abu Ghraib and the Need for Morale

The abuses at the prison of Abu Ghraib made international headlines.  Many Americans did not see the big deal – the victims were enemy soldiers.  Sergeant Ivan Frederick was court-martialed for his part in the crimes.  In the closing statement, the prosecutor Major Michael Holley said that treating enemy soldiers to basic dignity was essential for long-term warfare.  Because if the “prisoner – or an enemy, rather – believes that he will be humiliated…why wouldn’t he continue to fight to his last breath?”

If surrender wasn’t incentivized, then the fighting would be more intense and more soldiers’ lives lost. 

Conclusion

Exposure anxiety leads its victims to overreact, but the aftermath usually leaves them less secure than before the conflict began. 

Anxiety warps our feelings and imagination.  Anxieties create a chain of fears.  Anxieties cripple our ability to get what we want, because we fear how we look.

It is important to not act on fear.  Act in your interest.  Then you can win.    

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Sources:

Shore, Zachary.  Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.  Bloomsbury, 2008.
 

Satisfice Yourself?  The Art of Settling
By Heath Shive

I was at a wedding and the couple had written their own vows.  The couple said all the clichés, like “I’m marrying my best friend” (blech) and the (ugh) worst of the worst, “You are my soulmate.” 

Soulmate?  If there’s any word in the English language that American romance has to apologize for…it is soulmate. 

When I talk to long-term couples, I sometimes ask how they met each other. Overwhelmingly, they met in either high school, college, or at work.  Predictable.   

Yet when I hear the word soulmate, I hear someone implying that their romantic happiness was the work of Cosmic Forces – like Fate or the Universe had a hand in it. 

Most couples have predictable backstories.  Predictable wedding traditions.  They get married at predictable ages. 

And now I realize this could be a good thing! 

It might just be, just maybe, the wisest choice of all. 

Don’t believe me?

To the science!

Bounded Rationality, or “Nobody’s Perfect”

The word “settling” has a bad reputation.  To settle – to choose the less than ideal option – is to imply a kind of defeat. 

But in all actuality, settling for “less than the best” – whether a purchase, property, occupation, or marriage mate – may be a very wise choice.  

The famous economist Herbert Simon said so.  And he won a Nobel Prize in Economics for it. 

A Nobel Prize…for “settling”?

Yes!  For most of the 20th century, social science (including economics) assumed that people acted rationally with their decisions.  Economists thought of humanity collectively as a rational thinker, like a Homo economicus if you will.

But…we’re not rational.  Actually we’re more irrational.  That’s not to say that we’re crazy (it just looks that way). 

But on the average, humans do not rely on rationality and logic to make many of our biggest decisions.  We rely instead on emotion, conformity, tradition, prestige, peer pressure, or even neurosis. 

Even when we choose to be rational, humans have limits. 

Herbert Simon called this “bounded rationality” - the idea that when individuals make decisions, their rationality is limited by the how easily the problem can be measured, the limits of their ability to understand, the time available, etc.

Simply put, you will never have the time to examine all possible options, to examine all the data, and sometimes, you don’t even know what the root problem might be. 

So – as we say in America – you have “to wing it.”  You do the best with what you have, whether you’re prepared or not. 

Simon once made an analogy.  Suppose you had to sew something, but you needed a needle that was at least 4 inches long and must have a needle’s eye of at least 3 millimeters.  Then you’re shown a pile of 100,000 needles ranging in size from 1 inch to 6 inches long, and needle’s eyes from 1 millimeter to 5 millimeters wide. 

Will you examine all 100,000 needles?  You would probably “settle” for the first needle that meets the standard. 

Satisficing: The Art of Settling

Herbert Simon elaborated on his theory.  Basically, he said that there are two kinds of choosers – the maximizers and the satisficers. 

Maximizers are people who will not settle for anything but the best.  They put enormous amounts of research, effort, and patience into the decision before they make their move. 

Then there are the satisficers – mixing “satisfaction” with “sufficing”.  These people explore their options until “an acceptability threshold is met.”  In other words, they settle. 

There is nothing wrong with either style!

It all depends on what you really want in this life.

Conclusion

But maximizers may never find that ideal solution.  They may never have enough time, resource, or options.

They may never find “the one” or their “soulmate.”

That’s the price they pay. 
  
Satisficers can enjoy something sooner.  Get the result faster.  Conserve their time and resource.  But they will also have to compromise more.  Tolerate more imperfection.  Maybe even suffer more consequence.

Or maybe get a divorce.

That’s the price they pay. 

It reminds me of something that I heard on an episode of the TV show Community (Season 6, Ep. 12). 

It’s you against the world and you will not win.  But until then, you make your own moves.

Good luck.

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Lies of Reputation: Welfare and the Need for Esteem
By Heath Shive

In 2006, two researchers named Cesar Martinelli and Susan W. Parker published a study on the Mexican welfare program Opportunidades. 

Martinelli and Parker analyzed data from more than one hundred thousand applicants (about 10% of the applicants in the year 2002).

Not surprising, some of the applicants lied. 

What is surprising is how they lied and why.   

And it will either move your heart to disdain or pity…or both.

Those Damn Cheaters

The Opportunidades program has a cash benefit that is equal to about 25% of the average applicant’s annual expenditures.  There’s an obvious economic incentive for people to be on this program…and also incentive to lie to get on the program.

Applicants had to answer questions about the amount of property they owned and the quality of their home.  Many people lied about certain “luxury” items they had.

For example, 83% of the applicants who had cars lied and said that they didn’t have cars.  Also, 73% of the applicants who owned a phone said they didn’t.

They obviously were lying on the questionnaire.  They wanted to look poorer in order to receive the benefits.

But some applicants lied in a more heart-wrenching way.

Those Poor People

Some people lied to look poorer than they actually were. 

But some applicants lied to save their reputation - they lied about how badly off they were! 

Of the applicants who claimed to have a toilet in the house, 39% didn’t have a toilet at all!

Also, 32% of the applicants lied and claimed to have ordinary tap water – when they didn’t have tap water at all!

Some applicants were much worse off than they pretended to be.  They were lying to save face during the interviews. 

They were so ashamed, they claimed to have basic necessities that they couldn’t afford.

Heartwrenching.

The Social Need to Save Face

Economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner wrote about this study in their book “When to Rob a Bank.”

They claimed that the Martinelli-Parker study showed two insights.

First, we should not underestimate the lies people will say to protect their reputation.  As Dubner writes: “Of the many reasons that people lie…the lie of reputation is the most interesting – as opposed to a lie to gain advantage, to avoid trouble, to get out of an obligation, etc.”

People may lie about how badly they are doing because they don’t want your pity or condescension. 

Second, the study also shows researchers to naturally distrust self-reported data.  Some will lie to gain advantage, while others will lie to save face and spare themselves shame.

Conclusion

There is a general disdain by society's majority for those on poverty assistance programs - which is odd, because most people take "subsidies" in many forms from tax breaks, tax cuts, student and farmer aid, etc. 

But poverty assistance - like poverty itself - carries extreme social stigma.  We need to realize that their economic need does not preclude their need for self-esteem and dignity.    

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Sources:
Levitt, Steven D. & Stephen J. Dubner.  When to Rob a Bank.  William Morrow, 2015. 
Martinelli, Cesar, and Susan W. Parker.  “Deception and Misreporting in a Social Program,” Centro de Investigacion Economica discussion paper 06-02, June 2006.