If the pilot of your plane has a heart attack mid-air, could you land the plane? With the help of some calm, fast-thinking air traffic controllers, Doug White of Archibald, La., was able to land the plane — saving both his own life and the life of his family.
You probably didn’t hear about this story–from more than a year ago–or the brief media mentions of the Archie League Medal of Safety Award that the National Air Traffic Controllers Association gave Brian Norton and Lisa Grimm for talking Mr. White through a harrowing situation on Easter Sunday 2009. But when I come across stories of courage like this, I think it’s important to highlight them, no matter when they happened.
Mr. White knew how to fly a smaller, less complex type of aircraft, so that helped, but in the audio tapes of the event, you can hear the fear in his voice.
GRIMM: “We’re going to have you hand-fly the plane…Hold the yoke level and disengage the autopilot.” WHITE: “Alright, I disengaged it. I’m flying the airplane by hand… You find me the longest, widest runway you can, ma’am.”
After a pause, the dialogue continued
GRIMM: “We’re gonna bring you around to Fort Myers. They’ve got the longer runway … You’re gonna do fine.” WHITE: “I’m in the good Lord’s hands flying this.”
Courage under pressure. That’s one well-deserved award.
Here’s some visual amusement — to make you laugh or cry.
Check out this map, from the good folks at Sociological Images. The red parts of the map are locations where there are more bars than grocery stores. The yellow parts of the map are where grocery stores outnumber bars.
Hmmmm.
After nearly three years at the University of Iowa, this map seems about accurate: Midwestern college towns must have bars outnumbering grocery stores by a margin of 10 to 1. Indeed, it’s fitting that this research comes out of the University of Wisconsin:
According to my totally unscientific online research, La Crosse, Wisconsin is home to more than 360 bars and holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most bars per capita and most bars on one street. In Medford, Wisconsin, apparently there’s one bar for every 455 people.
And I see a little cluster around what might be my current hometown in Pittsburgh. Indeed, given how hard it is to buy alcohol outside of a bar in Pennsylvania, I’d expect to see the whole state light up red.
While you might think that places with more grocery stores than bars would be more virtuous, it’s the Midwest that seems to be the reddest area on the map, while those heathens on the East Coast seem rather teetotaling.
Or, are we looking at areas of food deserts — where grocery stores with fresh, healthier food aren’t available, encouraging people to eat pre-packaged and more highly caloric snacks on the run? In which case we stop laughing at Midwestern beer bellies and start crying about our national obesity epidemic once more.
In the last year, at least six Cornell University students have committed suicide, with the most recent death in March. Back in the late 1990s, there was a similar wave of suicides, giving the university a reputation as a “suicide school.” While that’s a little bit unfair–yes, it’s cold and dark and dreary in Ithaca during the winters–Cornell has developed an admirably open and proactive mental health approach to its problem.
Suicides are awful — and suicides among young, bright students with so much potential? It’s that much more heart-wrenching. Yet somehow, news of these deaths has sparked excellent conversations about recognizing depression in teens.
Amid these recent tragedies, Cornell president David Skorton wrote a beautiful letter to his community, reminding them:
If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help. It is a sign of wisdom and strength.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there are about 7 suicides for every 100,000 college students each year. As a college professor, I try to be open and available to my students if they want to talk about personal problems-and in my classes, we discuss the encouraging social change toward open discussion of depression and other mental illness.
Virtues like wisdom, strength and courage are usually discussed in terms of valor and greatness-slaying a dragon or fighting in a war. But we can exhibit these virtues on a personal level every day. President Skorton’s words ring true: Asking for help is a sign of wisdom and strength. Admitting weakness and allowing someone else to help shoulder your burden, or lead you to safety, is an act of maturity and courage.
economists – academic economists in particular – are generally free from the political and moral boundaries that restrict most people, and are therefore able to offer analysis or recommendations that politicians, e.g., wouldn’t go near with a ten-foot pole.
I’m all for rigorous academic research and presentations of findings, even if we disagree with them. I find the research on the rise in premarital sex that Dubner highlights fascinating. And I’m a huge fan of the whole Freakanomics approach generally. But I’m stuck on the implication in this post that to be a good academic means to have no morals.
There are Institutional Review Boards at every major research University in the country that would disagree with this, I’d imagine.
My hope is that what Dubner meant to say was that economists work with the data and numbers and report what they find, regardless of whether it goes against conventional wisdom or tells us something negative about our culture. But taken at face value, the post does raise some interesting questions:
Do we need to be freed from morality to do good research? Or must we be guided by morals to search out true answers?
A French documentary, which aired this spring, argues that we’d do anything to win a reality television show — even kill another human being.
The film, called “The Game of Death,” features players in a fake television game shocking fellow contestants if they answer a question incorrectly. The directors of the film found some 80 contestants and auditioned them to take part in a game-show called “Zone Xtreme,” where other “contestants” (actually actors) were asked questions while strapped to an electrified chair. If the actor gave an incorrect answer, the contestant was encouraged to administer an electric shock as punishment, while the crowd roared approval.
Christophe Nick, the maker of the documentary, told the BBC that 82% of the participants shocked the actor-contestant.
“They don’t want to do it, they try to convince the authority figure that they should stop, but they don’t manage to.”
The idea for this show comes from the Milgram experiments from the 1960s, which demonstrated people will do horrible things if someone in a position of authority tells them to do it. Mr. Nick, the documentary’s producer, said his results outstripped even Milgram’s findings, with 4 out of 5 contestants going against their conscience at the behest of a television show audience.
Which means that in 2010 we’re more likely to do something morally reprehensible for a reality TV show host-and a shot at fame-than folks were to obey a white, male scientist authority figure in the 1960s.
Ugh.
If the point of this was to demonstrate the dangers of reality TV, it’s certainly a wake-up call. But did the contestants really believe that the injuries were real? Given how accustomed we are to the twists of the entertainment biz, didn’t at least some of them suspect an actor behind the set-up?
And just think of how the “contestants” must have felt when they were told it was a documentary-not a real game-show-and that instead of prize money to go along with their shame, they’d …
Honesty is a virtue — as is beauty, arguably. But wow, are these two ideas in conflict here. What’s freaking me out (and other women) is that at first glance we don’t even notice that the women are fake. We’re that used to seeing airbrushed models that we just see this as yet another display ad for some fashion show or product.
This is problematic. While I don’t need to see rolls of fat on models either, it’s probably time to acknowledge that, in the quest for “perfection,” we’ve lost touch with reality.
Anti-obesity drugs haven’t successfully tackled the wider issues of obesity because they’ve been focused predominantly on weight loss. Obesity is the result of many motivational factors that have evolved to encourage us to eat, not least our susceptibility to the attractions of food and the pleasures of eating energy rich foods – factors which are, of course, all too effectively exploited by food manufacturers.
He continued:
As psychological factors are critical to the development of obesity, drug companies should take them into consideration when designing new drug therapies. We’ve learned a great deal about the neurochemical systems that govern processes like the wanting and liking of food, and it’s time to exploit that knowledge to help people manage their eating behaviour.
We all know that to lose weight we’ve got to eat less and exercise more: Calories in, calories out. But we’ve still got to eat something, and that’s where things get tricky. Psychologist George Ainslie has told us for years that it’s easier to control things when you can implement bright lines: Don’t smoke even one cigarette. Don’t drink even one alcoholic beverage. This is why the Atkins diet and other “bright line” strategies are so tempting… but they don’t work because us humans need a variety of different foods-in moderation!-in our diet. And moderation is where we always get tripped up.
Also, eating less may make you more slender, but weight may be a proxy for another desire, perhaps the desire to be attractive or appear virtuous, and there is certainly no guarantee of that outcome. (For more on this, check out Prelec and Bonder’s essay in Time and Decision — but I’ll warn you, it’s not a light read.)
Plus, just like the act of smoking, eating has a social aspect-and is often used as a response to emotional cues, rather than real hunger.
The psychology of dieting is a big old mess. But it’s good to see folks in medical research who are acknowledging the psychological …
I’m fascinated with ambition–and people’s reaction to other folks who want to succeed. Remember a few months back when Kate Gosselin was being criticized for leaving her eight children with nannies to appear on “Dancing with the Stars.” Media reports asked whether her ambitions of fame getting in the way of being a good Mom.
While it’s unlike me to defend the overly dramatic, in-the-spotlight poor parenting of Jon & Kate, that hubbub got me simmering once more on a fascinating — and thorny — question about ambition: Is it a vice or a virtue?
Asks Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger Theresa Walsh Giarrusso
If Kate is being criticized for her ambition does that mean other moms should be criticized to for wanting to be successful at their jobs? Should moms be criticized for wanting to make more money, be recognized within their industry or overall being successful in their jobs? Is ambition in a mom a bad thing?
Clearly, there’s a gender double-standard about ambition at play, says Margot Magowan in the San Francisco Chronicle blog. And this idea isn’t new: Debra Condren wrote a terrific book, AmBITCHous, addressing this very issue of women being criticized for ambition.
But gender aside, ambition is still a tricky thing:
Ambition, often synonymous with aspiration, is the will to succeed. It is the pursuit of desire with all possible resources. Ambition provides the motivation and energy to pursue challenging goals – and the desire to keep going when the going gets tough. Psychologists tell us that ambition can be triggered by both positive factors, like personal motivation, increased confidence, social and financial needs, and negative factors, like jealousy, fear of failure and feelings of inferiority. And some people have more of it than others.
In opinion surveys where respondents are asked what it takes to get ahead in life, Americans rank ambition ahead of education and natural ability. According to cumulative data from the General Social Survey, 89% of Americans believe that ambition is essential or very important for “getting ahead in life” and …
If Joe the Camel cigarette ads were geared toward the guys, Camel’s recent ads are targeted straight at teenage girls, say anti-smoking activists. I mean, they’re pink, for heaven’s sake. And a clear play on Chanel’s perfume.
So that’s bad. But what seems even crazier to me is that, at the same time as the tobacco companies are marketing a dangerous product to young women, there are other young women who are fighting against what seems to be a much safer substitute: e-cigarettes.
Mara Zrzavy, a 16-year-old high-school student joined with other activists to encourage New Hampshire to ban the use of e-cigarettes by minors. Her argument is that kids who wouldn’t otherwise smoke will start with e-cigs, because they are cool gadgets, and then move on to the real thing when they get hooked.
Don’t get me wrong. Kids shouldn’t be smoking anything. And we don’t want to encourage kids who would otherwise not smoke to start. (Although they are: Check out this study about how preteens are more likely to abuse household products as drugs than anything else.) But since we know that kids are going to at least try it anyway, let’s be realistic:
Shouldn’t we crack down on the things we know cause cancer? And be open to some safer alternatives?
Since 2006, e-cigarettes, electronic nicotine delivery devices that contain no tobacco and emit no smoke, have been available in the United States. While they look like real thing, e-cigarettes use a metal tube with a battery to heat the nicotine cartridge, and then people inhale water vapor that packs the same punch as smoking a cigarette – but without the negative health effects of inhaling smoke.
E-cigs were launched as way to help folks quit smoking. Really, it’s the same as wearing a nicotine patch, plus the bonus of being able to pretend you’re actually smoking. And since a big part of the habit is the oral fixation of something to do with your hands and …
Recently I blogged about myopic choice–and how, just like Wall Street traders, we’re all pulled into making short-sighted decisions that compromise our future interests. And I think I left everyone feeling a bit depressed about our inability to make good choices. So, I’m back with some good news, borrowed once again from behavioral economics and psychology: We can prevent those myopic choices from ruling our lives. How? By setting up commitment strategies.
A commitment strategy is one way in which we trick ourselves into overriding our urge to make myopic choices.
A simple example is the alarm clock: When you set your alarm clock at 11 p.m. as you go to bed, you do it because you know you have to get up at 6 a.m. You also know that at 6 a.m. the last thing you’ll want to do is wake up, and if you don’t set an alarm you’ll sleep too late.
Another commitment strategy is to make a public announcement of your intentions. Want to lose weight? If you tell everyone about your goals, and ask for help sticking to it, you’re more likely to achieve.
We employ a commitment strategy when we know that it is important for us to do something in the future — get up — so now, before we go to bed, we are setting up some ways to make sure that will happen, even when we won’t want to do it at the time, and before we head out to that all-you-can-eat buffet, we’ve told our friends that we’re “being good.”
Those are just small examples. The larger issue, argued brilliantly by Oxford professor (and my doctoral thesis advisor) Avner Offer, is that in a time of affluence, it becomes harder and harder to employ those commitment strategies because there are so many possible choices … and so many possible things to choose from right now.
I don’t know a lot about finance. Indeed, my brain usually turns off when I hear about structured finance or BBB-rated bonds. But after the market crashed in 2007-8 because of … well… bad things, I knew I needed to learn more.
If you haven’t read Michael Lewis’s new book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, get yourself a copy and get to it. It’s the best explanation for the Great Recession — and the various vices and virtues at play — that I’ve read.
Lewis makes the argument that traders and Wall Street executives – smart men and women – were being rewarded with fast, big money for making short-sighted decisions that, had they studied the data a bit more, they might have realized would be disastrous in the long run. The immediate upside to the gamble of trading sub-prime mortgages certificates was just too tempting for most.
It’s classic myopic choice in action–and something I discuss with my students in every sociology class I teach.
If we call a person myopic that means we are saying that they are shortsighted, or that they are unable or unwilling to act prudently. It’s just like when you go to the eye doctor–if you’ve got myopia, you can’t see things in the distance as clearly as you can see things up close. If a person is myopic in their decision-making, it means that they are showing a lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning.
So when we talk about myopic choice we are talking about choices that people make that are shortsighted: Choices that are clearly acceptable choices in the short-term, but have negative long-term implications.
A myopic choice is a choice that puts a premium on the present at the cost of the future.
In a time of affluence, in a time of abundance, we are tempted to make more myopic choices than ever before. Psychiatrist and economist George Ainslie has done a great deal of research on myopic choice as it relates to economic and social changes in …
June 20, 2010 is the 100th anniversary of Father’s Day. Let’s take a moment to celebrate fathers — and men who act with self-control and responsibility generally.
There are nearly 70 million fathers in the U.S., and more than 30 million have kids under the age of 18, according to the U.S. Census. Mr. Mom is a reality for a quarter of all families with young children: Some 24 percent of the nation’s 11.2 million preschool-age children with a working mom are regularly cared for by dad during mom’s working hours, according to the Census. An estimated 158,000 men are stay-at-home dads whose wives support the family financially. Dads are spending more time with their kids (although still not as much as Mom):Fathers with children aged 3 to 5 in the home read to them 6 times a week on average, compared to almost 7 times per week for mothers. Seventy percent of fathers have dinner with their child every night during a typical week. And fathers have more than tripled the time they spend in child care since the 1960s, according to the Council on Contemporary Families Father’s Day release. President Obama, speak out again! In a HuffingtonPost.com blog, Joy Moses argues that the best way to celebrate father’s day is to honor dads with legislation that supports his role in family life. (Remember Obama’s Father’s Day speech in 2008? I would love to see him step out on this issue once more.) Moms and Dads, try to strengthen your own relationship: Among heterosexual families, the single most important predictor of whether fathers are actively involved with their children is the quality of the father’s relationship with the mother, according to the Council on Contemporary Families. …
We generally understand how a virus or flu spreads: I’m sick and I shake hands with you. Then, you touch your nose and… oops, now you’re sick, too. Then you kiss your husband and… oops, now he’s sick, too. And so on. But in recent years, social scientists have begun to consider whether behaviors and character traits can spread in a similar way. Are vices and virtues socially contagious?
A while back, we learned that obesity is contagious: Researchers Nicholas Christakis, a medical sociologist, and James Fowler, a political science professor, found that we’re more likely to gain weight ourselves if our family and friends gain weight. Similarly, we’re more likely to succeed in losing weight if others are trying to do the same.
According to WiredScience:
In a game where selfishness made more sense than cooperation, acts of giving were “tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who are directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more,” wrote political scientist James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and medical sociologist Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University.
But I’d argue that all of these fall under one big umbrella finding that went somewhat unnoticed back in January: Self-control is also socially contagious. According to University of Georgia psychologist Michelle vanDellen. Volunteers who watched someoneelse exercise self-control – by choosing a carrot instead of a cookie from a buffet of options – scored higher on a later test of self-restraint themselves. So did folks who just talked about having good self-control. Translation: Choose your friends wisely-and they exhibit self-control, it’ll be easier for you to do the same. And if you set a good example, others will follow your lead.
Self-controlled behavior builds on previous patterns of behavior, and those who …
Don’t get me wrong. Kids shouldn’t be smoking anything. And we don’t want to encourage kids who would otherwise not smoke to start. (Although they are: Check out 
