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On the matter of the correct receptacle for draining spaghetti, my husband demonstrates a bewildering pigheadedness. He insists that the colander is the appropriate choice, despite the manifest ease with which the strands escape through the draining holes.

Clearly the sieve, with its closer-knit design, is a superior utensil for this task. Yet despite his apparent blindness to the soggy tangle of spaghetti in the sink that results from his method, my husband claims to be able to observe starchy molecules clinging to the weave of the sieve for weeks after it's been used for draining pasta. We have had astonishingly lengthy discussions on this issue but after three years of marriage it remains unresolved. By which, of course, I mean that my husband hasn't yet realised that I'm right.

What is it about brains that makes them so loyal to their beliefs? We don't seek refreshing challenges to our political and social ideologies from the world; we prefer newspapers, magazines and people that share our own enlightened values. Surrounding ourselves with "yes men" limits the chances of our views being contradicted.

Nixon supporters had to take this strategy to drastic levels during the US Senate Watergate hearings. As evidence mounted of political burglary, bribery, extortion and other hobbies unseemly for a US president, a survey showed that the Nixon supporters developed a convenient loss of interest in politics. In this way they were able to preserve their touching faith in Nixon's suitability as a leader of their country.

In other words we like evidence that affirms our pre-set worldview - and discount what doesn't.

[...]

There is in fact a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. Their self-perceptions are more balanced, they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions are more realistic. They are the clinically depressed.

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Part of this attachment may be because there is a sense in which our important beliefs are an integral part of who we are. To bid a belief adieu is to lose a cherished portion of our identity. Interestingly, people who have recently indulged in extensive contemplation of their best qualities are more receptive to arguments that challenge their strongly held beliefs about issues such as capital punishment and abortion. By hyping up an important area of self-worth, you are better able to loosen your grip on some of your defining values. Effusive flattery dulls the sword of an intellectual opponent more effectively than mere logical argument.

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Oh cripes. So we have to first flatter "Secretive Stevie" (Harper) supporters before informing them how absolutely, utterly wrong they are on everything??

I'll work on some compliments;
Gee, your head looks especially square-ish today!

Yes, fascism is the new black.

Sexual repression seems to have done wonders for your skin -- lovely and smooth.

I do believe your self-righteous aggrandizement has made you look taller.

I'd write more but I'm pessimistic it would help. And my left arm is tingling. No good will come of that.

In the example given, the colander versus sieve, regardless of the views of one or the other, the fact remains that you can strain spaghetti with either. The 'belief' is this case is more or less immaterial.

However, in the real world, there are questions which don't allow two or more answers. At the same time there are people who hold different answers to be true.

Seriously, the woman's husband is right. Never put anything starchy in a sieve. You'll never get it clean.

rasmus, the article is fun, and I see grains of truth in it, or interesting provocations, although I also agree quite a bit with maestro. All beliefs are not equal, and that of course becomes an easier position to demonstrate the closer we move towards science.

A lot of us lit-crit types flatter ourselves - - that our standards for writing and our ways of analysing writing make us good judges of how rigorous a brain is being with itself, of whether we are reading the effusions of a "vain brain" or the careful search for truth of someone honestly paring away at the vanity in order to approach self-knowledge. Maybe that presumption connects with Fine's concluding thoughts on the clinically depressed: it is true that literary people are likely to value unflinching, understated focus on hard truths over therapeutic writing, writing that seeks easy transcendence, the suspicion always being that such writing is purely sentimental.

A question: how do you put together what seems to me a basic contradiction in Fine's article? If people are more open to changing their minds when the "vain brain" is being stroked, how does that fit with the perception that depressed people, people with low self-esteem, are apt to be most realistic, least likely to let their egos get in the way?

A final blind prejudice of mine: I don't like behavioural psychology.

[ 19 March 2006: Message edited by: skdadl ]

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Originally posted by Raos:
I protest the title of this thread! Here I was expecting amusement in the form of a dancing troll beating it's chest, with maybe a good recipe or two to try out, and I get nothing more than straining pasta?

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There is in fact a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. Their self-perceptions are more balanced, they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions are more realistic. They are the clinically depressed.

Psychologist Martin Seligman and colleagues have identified a pessimistic "explanatory style" that is common in depressed people. When pessimists fail they blame themselves, and think that the fault is in themselves ("I'm stupid", "I'm useless"), will last for ever, and will affect everything they do. This is a far cry from the sorts of explanations that happy, self-serving people give for failure. And it seems that this pessimism can seriously endanger health. Pessimists are less likely to survive cancer, are more likely to suffer recurrent heart disease and are more likely to meet with untimely death. It may be hard to cultivate a more optimistic perspective in the face of such data, but it's worth trying.

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Anyone here want to trade their pessimistic nature for the kool aid of the kind of optimistic thinking Fine describes?

No thanks Cordelia, I may fight the black dog my entire life but I'm damn glad to see the world as it is and life as well, rather than that pathologically optimistic which suffer, in my opinion, from more serious delusions.

(Ok, I know I'm taking this wayyy too seriously).

Any, for years I poured cold water on spaghetti I just took off the boil in a collander until I read somewhere this isn't a good method. So I stopped. See Cordelia, I'm very open minded and amenable to change while making spaghetti. Its just the essential basic nature of human beings that I remain what you might call 'closed minded' about.

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Originally posted by Michelle:

And then rasmus was the thread starter! Sunshine all around!

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What is it about brains that makes them so loyal to their beliefs?

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Perhaps it is a result of being raised in a culture where "questioning the authorities" is deemed bad form? If rigid thinking dominates a culture, 'thinking outside the box' will always be the minority experience.

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Originally posted by nonsuch:
I have nine colanders and sieves of different sizes and materials, for different purposes, and i clean them all with a moderately stiff, long-bristled brush.
Maybe every other problem has nine possible approaches too? But only one perfect answer.
Flatter me all you want; i'm still not giving up the brush.

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Oh, my god, that's me.

Am I posting under another name without knowing it ? Have things gotten that bad?

[ 20 March 2006: Message edited by: maestro ]

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Cook your pasta or potatoes in a pot that comes with a lid. When it comes time to strain, hold the lid on, and tip the pot sideways over the sink.

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There is in fact a category of people who get unusually close to the truth about themselves and the world. Their self-perceptions are more balanced, they assign responsibility for success and failure more even-handedly, and their predictions are more realistic. They are the clinically depressed.

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In one Alan Bennett play or another (proper reference to follow):

"Are you happy?
"No. But I'm not unhappy about it."

And as for spaghetti: you're all out to (heh, heh) lunch. One uses neither a collander nor a sieve: one removes pasta from the water with pasta tongs.

This from the food critic of the New Yorker (from his article, I mean), who spent a week working the pasta line at the best pasta restaurant in New York.

Proper reference for that to follow, as well. Neener. Neener. Neener.

[ 20 March 2006: Message edited by: 'lance ]

I have great long oven mitts as protection, so I can take quite a bit of steam as I tip and tip and tip repeatedly, to get the last drips of water out.

But back to the original question:

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Classical behaviourism seems absurd now, but was taken very seriously by people like BF Skinner, who tried to raise some interesting and sometimes useful techniques to the level of a metaphysics.

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[ 20 March 2006: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

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And as for spaghetti: you're all out to (heh, heh) lunch. One uses neither a collander nor a sieve: one removes pasta from the water with pasta tongs.

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Even orzo? Or what about ziti or thick bucatini? Wouldn't they be damaged by the tongs? I am afraid you are hopelessly wrong on this point, old boy, but at least you aren't depressed about it.

As for the psychology question, skdadl, I'm no expert, but this wikipedia paragraph seems to capture what I meant:

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Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in two key ways.

* It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychology.
* It explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and motivations) unlike behaviourist psychology.

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Originally posted by rasmus raven:
I am afraid you are hopelessly wrong on this point, old boy, but at least you aren't depressed about it.

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No, just realistic.

If these things kept you alive before, then chances are they will keep you alive in the future. So you cling to the pattern until the wieght of evidence suggests that it is no longer a good idea.

That people are reticent about changing their minds is no new revelation.