Who Even Are You?

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in core knowledge and first principles. We have all heard it said that each person is as unique as a snowflake, and to a degree it is true. That said, if you keep drilling down you will eventually discover we are all the same.

Like the old cliché says, we all bleed red. Another example was given in the last post, which was about something called Self-Determination Theory. It seems pretty clear that all people need competence, autonomy and relatedness.

Recently, I gave an overview of the French word anomie. For our purposes here, a workable synonym for anomie is confusion. Modern society is very confusing and, in moments of vulnerable honesty, most people will admit they don't really know who they are. Who you are is a key part of your autonomy.

I also mentioned Liah Greenfeld, and I want to give you her deceptively simple hypothesis about the human mind. Stated in two identical ways, Professor Greenfeld says the human mind is "culture in the brain" or "individualized culture." To me, it often makes sense to compound the phrases and say the human mind is individualized culture in the brain.

At the risk of getting nerdy, let us touch briefly on a word which has become very popular. That word in meme. As usually happens, now that the word meme is used widely it is also widely misunderstood. Here is where I will get slightly nerdy. A nerdy definition of meme is "An artifact of consciousness." In simpler language, a meme is an idea.

Images with captions are common memes online, and they certainly are memes, but they are only one type of meme. Memes can also be more general (things like is transportation, weaponry, or even television) and it can be said that memes are fundamentally what separate humans from all other life forms.

We have all heard of DNA. A simple explanation of the purpose of DNA is to function as biological instructions on how to live. Suckling is an instinct DNA has put into mammals for survival. If the newborn doesn't suckle, it doesn't survive. All mammals possess DNA and it functions as the biological analog of memes. 

As already mentioned, the memes most people are familiar with are online memes, and they are usually humorous or thought provoking. But in the totality, memes function similar to DNA in that they constitute psychological instructions on how to live. Are you with me? Combined, memes create something we call culture. And again, yes, the funny online memes are one form of meme.

In western civilization one of our key jobs as humans is to give birth to ourselves. Psychological birth, which is painful and scary. And because it is painful and scary, most people simply default to doing what other people are doing. One of life's great ironies is, when people are free to do whatever they want they usually imitate each other. Short term this is a less risky strategy. But long term, it can be catastrophic because you may wake up one day and wonder "Who the hell am I?!"

It is not the intention of this blog to provide psychotherapy, but one thing we all have in common is we are trying to understand this big complex thing called life. Please stay with me.

Being a Model Citizen

A couple weeks ago we began our discussion of the word anomie. As a reminder, an acceptable synonym for anomie is confusion. So, what are we to do? The answer is we follow models, and there exists two main types of models; behavioral and mental.

As sad as it was, the year 2021 was a year where the world lost a number of psychology GOATs. As previously mentioned, we lost Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in October 2021. In July 2021 we lost Albert Bandura at the ripe old age of 95, and that November we lost Aaron Beck who made it all the way to 100.

During his career, Albert Bandura created Social Learning Theory and it explains behavioral models. To simplify, and to use a phrase everybody is familiar with, it is monkey see monkey do. Imitating the behavior of others is the easier way to learn, and thus it is the way most people learn. But, it isn't the only way. So, let us talk about mental models and a man named Anders Ericsson.

It can be said Anders Ericsson was a man before his time, and it can be argued he died before his time in June 2020. You may not know the name Anders Ericsson, but it is likely you know of his work. He was the world's leading expert on expertise. It was Ericsson's research that Malcolm Gladwell used, in his book Outliers, to create the so-called 10,000 Hour Rule.

A quick aside for anybody who insists the 10,000 Hour Rule isn't a rule. Fine. Let's not quibble over the small things. It may not be a rule but we can at least call it an average. Sometimes reaching expert performance takes more than 10,000 hours and sometimes it takes less.

Fortunately, in 2016 Professor Ericsson laid out his theory in an elegant book titled Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. As a general rule I prefer to stay descriptive rather than prescriptive, but please allow me to get prescriptive for a moment. I believe everybody should read Peak, or at least chapters three and eight.

Chapter three is titled "Mental Representations," and Ericsson says they are the key to understanding his theory. As an unfortunate reality of life, sometimes psychologists use words and phrases in ways the majority of people don't. Such is the case with the phrase "mental representations." As a replacement, I find it easier to think of "mental models."

In chapter eight, Ericsson writes "Abilities are created with the help of detailed mental [models]." The quintessential example is the game of chess. All chess "grandmasters" possess a highly detailed mental model of how the game works. The average person understands the way the pieces are allowed to move. Rooks can only move linearly, Bishops can only move diagonally and Queens can do both. But the better a person becomes at the game, the more they are able to string together the moves and see patterns in their mind's eye. Which is essentially the definition of a mental model or mental representation.

Let me give you another example. Last week we talked about one particular mental model called Self-Determination Theory. Do you remember the SDT CAR? It stands for Competence, Autonomy and Relatedness, and it can provide us with a mental model of human psychology. For literally anything I do, I make sure it includes competence, autonomy and relatedness.

As we conclude for the day, please allow me to be prescriptive again. I believe all adults should read Edward Deci's book on his Self-Determination Theory. It is called Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation. See ya next time!