Behavior and Consequences

An article in one of my news feeds caught my eye recently. The title was “How To Predict Your Future.” It was based somewhat on the same premise as this blog, except that it concerns itself with predicting individual futures, whereas I have generalized it to apply to the future of society as a whole. Past behavior predicts future behavior, and those behaviors almost always dictate how satisfactory the results will be.

About individual results he says, “It’s not about what you want — it’s about what you do.” Look at your habits and decide whether they are the ones needed to reach goals. Don’t just set goals and assume the good intentions will see you through. The same can be said of societies. 

Just because a couple of us agree doesn’t convince me, so I dug deeper. 

This Psychology Today article claims the maxim is too simplistic and depends on a lot of factors:

•        High-frequency, habitual behaviors are more predictive than infrequent behaviors.
•        Predictions work best over short time intervals. 
•        The anticipated situation must be essentially the same as the past situation that activated the behavior.
•        The behavior must not have been extinguished by corrective or negative feedback.  
•        The person must remain essentially unchanged. 
•        The person must be fairly consistent in his or her behaviors. 

These are reasonable objections. Of course if a person is not exposed to the same situations or if he has gone through a  change brought about by a personal realization or outside intervention, the same actions will not repeat. People can quit smoking, give up drugs or turn away from a criminal lifestyle.

But these arguments apply more to an outside authority or counselor using records to judge whether someone needs professional help (or incarceration). In daily life though, there are people who almost always drive too fast regardless of the number of tickets issued and people who don't pass up the snack food aisle or the corner coffee shop. It's not the big things that catch up to people in the long run; it's the accumulation of small habits with unnoticeable consequences the lead to obesity, retirement insecurity and car crashes.

An example comes from the medical field.  A study to determine which was a better predictor of statin patients’ adherence to their prescriptions found that attitudes about taking medicine as directed were not as strong as past medication-refill behavior. The conclusion was “that past prescription-refill behavior is a better predictor of medication adherence,” which is fortunate since the refills can be tracked electronically.

In academics a 2018 article states, “Your behavior in high school could predict your income.” The study began in 1960 with 345,000 American high school students, following up with “about 80,000 of them 11 years later and another [follow up] for nearly 2,000 of them 50 years later.” Those who performed well “were all associated with career prestige at the 11-year mark and higher income at the 50-year mark.”

Of course past behavior is not a perfect predictor of future behavior (and the consequent future outcomes), but we don’t usually need to be perfect when dealing with individuals or groups. General trends are enough to predict whether America will continue to head in what most consider to be the wrong direction. Several times in the past eight years I have written about predicting outcomes months in advance. Here is just one called "How to Predict the Future." 

In another case I criticized the panic resulting from an investigative report dubbing lean beef trimmings as pink slime. Anyone with a trace of critical thinking would have passed it off as ridiculous; but people did react, and a few years later ABC News settled a defamation case with the meat processor for $177 million.

Last spring I argued that constantly telling children scary lies is a form of abuse. One example I used was the story about the dwindling polar bear population. This week news broke with the headline: Canadian “University dumps professor who found polar bears thriving despite climate change.” (The university apparently favors such abuse.)

Likewise, I wrote in early 2015 that we must deal with our own problems by choosing healthier behavior and not “wait for the next election” to solve everything.  How right I was!

There are far too many examples bearing out the behavior/consequences link for it to be ignored or dismissed.

Your New High Tech Best Friend

Although some people would argue that the smart phone has replaced them, I think most still consider dogs as “man’s best friend.” I do feel bad though for my neighbors as they stroll, leash in hand, past my front window in all kinds of weather.

Despite the fact that having a dog as a pet is a major time and financial commitment, people still find the idea appealing. But does it have to be that way?

According to this site, the first year cost of a dog can easily reach between $1500 and $2000. From then on “costs for food, treats, veterinary exams, routine diagnostic testing, vaccines, deworming, preventive medications, licenses and health insurance” can add up to a “total lifetime cost of caring for a dog to $10,000 to $14,000,” with some exceptions running to $30,000 or more. That doesn’t include the value of time spent on those daily walks, the anxiety when your dog gets loose (which seems to happen once a week to someone in my neighborhood based on nextdoor.com emails) and the grief of eventually losing a family member.

Despite the cost and inconvenience, the attraction remains and the latest news reports explain why. This comes from CNN, but the New York Times, Yahoo and several others passed along the story. According to scientists, “'Puppy dog eyes' have evolved to appeal to humans.” By dissecting dog and wolf heads, they discovered that domestic dogs have an extra eyebrow muscle that “allows them to ‘intensely’ raise their eyebrows.” This movement, the look known as puppy dog eyes, elicits a strong nurturing response in humans, like the reaction to a human baby “and also resembles a movement humans produce when they are sad."

Does that mean that dogs evolved in a way that allows them to better appeal to the ones who feed, walk, shelter and play with them? As the lead researcher puts it, "The AU101 movement is significant in the human-dog bond because it might elicit a caring response from humans but also might create the illusion of human-like communication." Hence we unconsciously move from pet owners to “pet parents” by this evolved talent for psychological manipulation!

But the Twenty-first Century question is: Why can’t we have it all without the cost? And technology has the answer.

Several companies have been developing and testing robot pets for use in nursing homes where pets often aren’t allowed or patients don’t have the ability to look after them. The latest entry is a fluffy dog called Tombot, designed by muppet master Jim Henson's Creature Shop. They built the robot to "emulate live animal appearance and behaviors, providing ongoing fun, happiness, and emotional support." Machine learning and artificial intelligence allows companies to design more lifelike, sentient robots to “focus more on human companionship rather than [traditional] task-oriented performance.”

So far tests of robotic companions have focused on their benefit to the elderly. Live dogs still produced better long-term effects than robotic toys, but the gap may be closing. One study from 2016 found only small differences in responses to a dog or a robot at first, but interaction with robot pets decreased more quickly over time. Surprisingly, they found “no measurable benefits of six weeks of interactions with either fake or real therapy animals.”

As advancements continue, though, and robots become more lifelike, act more spontaneous and are able to do more than just respond, this relationship may change. A different brand already claims their robotic pet “keeps on growing and changing, constantly updating its data in the cloud.” As it accumulates a record of the owner’s interactions with it, it will gradually shape its own personality and learn new tricks.

Prices range from $450 to about $2,000. Compared to a real dog, this sounds like a bargain. We may see this trend extend from nursing homes to ordinary homes, especially as the robots develop the same longterm appeal while incorporating new features like security cameras. Kids clamoring for a dog can try out a robot first and possibly be satisfied for the long term. Imagine a future where airline comfort animals are replaced by a robot rented at the origin and dropped off at the destination. No, that will never happen – not until some celebrity turns it into a fad!