Studies Gone Wild

A good friend and former colleague of mine turned me into a fan of NY Times Columnist David Brookes a few years ago. My friend is a US politics junkie, and Brookes has lots to say on this subject, but he also has interesting thoughts on many macro societal trends.

Brookes wrote a recent column about social science studies that “struck his fancy”. Here are a few of the more amusing ones that he references:

·         “We communicate, process and feel emotions by mimicking the facial expressions of the people around us. For a study in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Paula M. Niedenthal, Maria Augustinova and others studied young adults who had used pacifiers as babies, and who thus could not mimic as easily. They found that pacifier use correlated with less emotional intelligence in males, though it did not predict emotional processing skills in girls.

·         “Birth date affects corporate success. In a study for Economics Letters, Qianqian Du, Huasheng Gao and Maurice Levi found that C.E.O.’s are disproportionately less likely to be born in June and July.”

·         “Women use red to impress men. In a study for the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Andrew Elliot, Tobias Greitemeyer and Adam Pazda found that women expecting to converse with an attractive man were more likely to select a red versus green shirt than women expecting to converse with an unattractive man or another woman.”

·         “Organic foods may make you less generous. In a study published in Social Psychology and Personality Science, Kendall J. Eskine had people look at organic foods, comfort foods or a group of control foods. Those who viewed organic foods subsequently volunteered less time to help a needy stranger and they judged moral transgressions more harshly.”

And a couple that make me think about what it means for us:

·         “Women inhibit their own performance. In a study published in Self and Identity, Shen Zhang, Toni Schmader and William M. Hall gave women a series of math tests. On some tests they signed their real name, on others they signed a fictitious name. The women scored better on the fictitious name tests, when their own reputation was not at risk.”

·         “Affluent neighborhoods challenge mental equilibrium. In a study for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, Terese J. Lund and Eric Dearing found that boys reported higher levels of delinquency and girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression when they lived in affluent neighborhoods compared with middle-class neighborhoods. Boys’ delinquency and girls’ anxiety-depression levels were lowest when they were from affluent families living in middle-class neighborhoods.”

To be honest, I am not sure whether Brookes’ article may be implying something about the value of some studies being funded. But what he does say explicitly is very true. The actions and interactions between people in society are complex and influenced by a myriad of factors, many of which we do not intuitively understand. I think this reinforces the need for education to include a focus on developing emotional intelligence – the ability to read and effectively interact with others – so that our graduates can navigate these complicated waters.

I also now understand why so many women I meet are dressed in green … and, on a positive note, I can now blame my relationship problems back to my pacifier and being a July baby!

The Story of Family – What It Means for Children

Coincidence? Serendipity? Don’t tell me that my 11-year-old reads my blog!

As I was driving with my youngest son yesterday, he started asking me about our family history and the stories of his grandparents, great-grandparents and even great-great grandparents.

In my last post, I talked about a story that my wife forwarded to me about some research out of Emory University, which concluded that the best thing that parents can do for their children is have them be aware of their family story. The psychologists found that resilience in children correlates most strongly to awareness of family history, their ancestors and relatives. Moreover, narratives that painted an oscillating tradition – marked by examples of achievement and happiness as well as times of challenge and tragedy – were far more helpful than those histories that captured only one or the other.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. It is good for young people to feel that they belong to something much larger than themselves, and to understand that there will certainly be times of success and, just as surely, there will be those of failure. But that collective familial being of which they are a part will survive and flourish in its own way.

One can easily imagine that a narrative of sustaining losses could easily create in a young person a dour outlook, which could morph into hopelessness. However, the case that is far more prevalent in independent school families is the narrative: “Our family has always been one of high achievement and we win.” Even if this is not explicitly articulated, many children interpret this as their families’ tradition. It is a razor-sharp, double edged broadsword. In these cases, one often sees the dynamic where children are highly motivated to succeed (the good blade.) Some of these motivated offspring, as well as many of those who are not, also end up in zones marked by deep anxiety and depressions because they feel that they can never fulfill the legacy of their parents and this larger family being – the tragic blade.

I remember talking to a friend of mine a couple of years ago. We were discussing the dynamics between fathers and sons, and how many sons don’t ever hear their fathers reflect on their failures in life – in careers, relationships, and personally. So their sons are sometimes left with (I am happy to volunteer on behalf of my entire gender) what most certainly is the mistaken impression that their fathers do not fail … and neither should their sons. This is far more common than we might want to think.

This dynamic most assuredly crosses gender lines, as it relates to the relationships that children have to the parent(s) – as well as other relatives and role models – to whom they look up. It can relate as easily for mother to son, or step-father to daughter, or grandmother to daughter. It is remarkable how many times one hears parents, very much in a spirit of caring for their children, exhorting them to heights well-beyond anything the parents ever achieved – once again, this can both help and harm, depending on the child and how it is done.

So, what does this all mean? There are two actions I took away from the story.

The first is to find a way, as a parent , to talk about our own family’s ups and downs … as well as my own. While the messaging is nuanced, I know that these stories can create an important blend of heightened motivation, the comfort and stability of belonging to something that will always be with them, and an intriguing deeper sense of who they are.

And just as this sense of narrative is important in families, it is also beneficial for schools. Today’s Appleby students share “community DNA” with those who were here one generation ago, as well as those who were here 50 years ago, and even a century ago. While there are many differences in the circumstances and experiences, there are also many parallels. It helps the community overall, as well as Appleby students individually, to hear and understand the experiences of their ancestors. To understand that they face many similar challenges and, like those who have gone before, there will be wins and losses. Most importantly, they will make it through.

I appreciate the dozens of stories that alumni have shared with me about their recollections and the impacts. As we draft our new Advancement plan for Appleby, we have identified the importance of students understanding and feeling that they are part of a continuum. So, I am looking for the right forums to bring this alumni narrative to life for our students of today.

The Most Important Family Question ... and Answer

A couple of my children have recently developed a deep interest in our family history, which of course makes me proud. But I recently read a piece that has morphed that pride into sheer delight.

My wife is the source of a great deal of wisdom (and sometimes “guidance.”) I have come to recognize that she is much smarter than me in many or most (her father’s emphasis) areas. Last week, Alison sent me the link to an article that purports to answer the question: “What makes for the best family?” This almost ranks up there with “What is the meaning of life?” … it promises the holy grail of parenting.

As I have suggested in previous posts (see December’s The Turbo Season,) many of us have an over-developed expectation to see ourselves and our families as more perfect than can ever be the case. If we became more comfortable with our own quirky peccadillos and strange familial intra-dynamics, we would likely be much healthier and happier.

Notwithstanding that sentiment, the New York Times Op-Ed piece The Stories That Bind Us provides a compelling yet surprising answer to the central question that most parents ask themselves, and sometimes live in fear of the answer.  Well-known psychologist Adam Cox undertook a study of boys around the world who concluded that young men across all cultures deep down long to two things: to be a good son; and to find meaningful work in their lives. I would be fascinated to know how this differs, if at all, for young women. But what about parents? I suspect that the vast majority of mothers and fathers, on their deathbeds, would want to know more than anything else, “Was I a good parent?” and “Did I create/foster a good family?” When the final tally is being made for each of us, these must rank up in the very top echelon of what are the most important achievements or failures.

So, what does make for the strongest families? The author of the Op-Ed piece, Bruce Feiler, has written a book on the subject (The Secrets of Happy Families: How to Improve Your Morning, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smart, Go Out and Play, and Much More) and draws his conclusions from fascinating research by Emory University psychologists Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush. Their work was stimulated by an observation made by Duke’s wife Sara as she worked with children with learning disabilities: “The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges.”

To quote Feiler directly:

“Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.”

Later that year, they went on to test this in the aftermath of the 9/11 with a variety of families, and the theory continued to hold true.

 

I certainly didn't expect this conclusion, but on some levels, it makes great sense.

How youth understand themselves can be seen, in part, through the narrative of their families – that great-granny lost her leg as a teenager but managed to live a full and successful life; that grandad left his home to find a better life but had to toil for 50 years in tough labouring jobs that had nothing to do with his higher education; that aunt Molly still struggles with addiction like her father; that mom is one of the most famous business leaders in the country; that great uncle cousin Ernie received an Order of Canada for his work with the disabled; that my younger sister managed to overcome breast cancer.

There are three kinds of family narratives:

-         The ascending one – where we “came from nothing” and managed to overcome hardship to achieve great success

-         The descending one – where we had it all but ran into great tragedy and lost it

-         The oscillating one – where family lore includes many peaks and valleys and there are stories of both great achievement and great loss intertwined over the generations

Not surprisingly, they find that young people are best served by the oscillating narrative where they see examples of the good and bad that life brings, but also understand that they are part of something larger that perseveres and is resilient over a long period of time. That creates what Duke and Fivush refer to a strong sense of “intergenerational self.”

I find this research to be very interesting and it poses a number of questions to us as a community, as a school, and as parents. I will delve into some of these in my next post.