Perspective: Substantial vs. Superficial - Dentists and Deer

A failure in the dimension of Perspective is the superiority of the superficial over the substantial when choosing criteria for decision-making.  Simply put, we tend to value appearance over function when we decide how to act, how to vote, what to value and how to spend our money.  We substitute values based on appearance and popularity for our stated values of family, faith, charity, etc.  Evidence is everywhere.

A few days ago I caught the local news on TV and saw an advertisement for a dentist.  The emphasis was not on your teeth, but on your smile.  I’ve noticed this trend other places and even at recent trips to my own dentist.  More are promoting teeth whitening and straightening.  Not long ago dentists were mostly concerned about flossing, gum disease, and cleaning and filling teeth – substantial stuff.  I’m sure these items are still very important to them, but now they have discovered that to attract customers takes a superficial appeal, how bright and attractive your smile is.

Later in the same broadcast the news anchor reported on a deer jumping through a glass window.  She commented that fortunately no people were injured, but the deer had to be put down – “poor deer.”  Now if it had been a rat or a skunk, I’m sure I wouldn’t have heard “poor rat.”  Deer in populated areas are pests, causing more damage and potential disease than rats, but deer are cute.  People will protest the killing of deer (but not rats).  It’s a double standard based on appearance.

How does this carry over?  We often get the more attractive or charming, rather than the more competent candidates for office.  Attractive people tend to get lighter legal sentences, faster promotions and are hired more readily.  With indirect encouragement from the news media, we put as much stock in the opinions of movie stars and singers as those of known experts.  We are underwater on our houses but continue to buy more toys or products to impress our friends.  We trade a car that is not yet paid off for a newer model and go further into debt.  We forget to value people and things for what they are and judge instead based on whether they are cool or in.  As I say, examples are everywhere, some trivial and some important, but they all represent failures in the same dimension of behavior, Perspective.

Man Sues In-laws

Each week on Monday and Friday I post further explanations of my premise and examples of behavioral failings.  I contend that behavior has consequences and that the crises of the day are merely the accumulated consequences of overall behavior, poor individual decisions creating trends in society.  Pick a problem and I can show how it is born from behavioral failures, which can be classified into five key dimensions.  What needs fixing is not the visible problems, but the underlying persistence of poor choices.  Examples show the prevalence of these behaviors throughout our society.  I hope that more people will see events through this new lens to become more sensitive to the core behavior and less focused on mere symptoms.

A strange story from the news last week gave minimal information about the case.  Apparently a man was helping his in-laws retrieve Christmas decorations from the attic and made a misstep, falling into the garage and injuring himself.  He sued his in-laws.

Let me speculate that he sued not because of any family feud or bad feeling, but because he and his in-laws felt that their insurance would pay for his injuries thus relieving them of the expense.  After all, that’s what insurance is for!

I hope I am wrong, because this is clearly “magic money tree” thinking, so common among people weak in Economic Understanding.  When only the insurance companies or the government or some big industry must pay, many people think that the money comes from some big pot of reserves just sitting there to cover these sorts of contingencies.  They don’t appreciate that this pot gets refilled regularly through our taxes, our insurance premiums or higher prices for goods and services.  In the case of insurance this sort of activity not only affects the one company involved, but also increases the risk for all insurance companies, causing them to require a larger reserve, which translates into higher premiums for everyone.  There is no magic money tree.  All the funding that seems free at the time eventually finds its way out of your pocket and mine.

Restaurant Menu Issues Demonstrate My Point

Last time I reinforced the need for critical thinking by pointing out the dubious value of self-reporting surveys.  Whether they be about politics or personal habits, they tend to be an inaccurate reflection of actual choices and behavior.  I wonder why news agencies spend so much time on them.  Here is an article that reinforces that point and goes on to give good examples of conflicts within the other four dimensions as well.  It’s about healthier menu choices in restaurants.

The  report begins, “while 47 percent of Americans say they'd like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods…” Since the information comes from different surveys, we must be careful, but the general behavior, if not the specific percentages, is confirmed by sales figures presented later in the report, so again there seems to be a large discrepancy between stated preference and actual behavior.

Further along they remind us that, “the government has stepped up its oversight — and influence — over the industry that it blames for America's expanding waistline.”  This blatant admission that the government does not blame people for eating the wrong foods but blames the industry leads the government to seek solutions by regulating restaurants instead of expecting personal responsibility to change behavior.  When they find out this requirement of listing calories and offering more healthy choices is not working, what is their next option?  How do they escalate when they don’t trust us to do the right thing?  Next logical steps, as I stated in earlier articles, would be increased threats to our freedom, perhaps minor in this case, but where would it end?  As this controlling philosophy remains predominant in the minds of our government, they will feel justified in regulating away all of our choices.

Later the report cites the efforts of a couple of restaurants to conform to the regulations.  Omitted is the reminder that in one way or another we are paying for the additional food preparation, research and reprinting of menus; but as we are strong in economic understanding, we are aware of this.  Like any other attempt to solve a behavior problem by attacking symptoms with regulations, it inevitably leads to higher costs for the public – not unlike the additional fees that came on the heels of consumer credit card protection – but it does not solve the problem.  Most Americans and the government have yet to learn the main lesson of economic understanding - added costs are passed on to the consumer.

Finally, why don’t people choose the healthy menu items?  Examples in the report show as reasons:  peer pressure and that “[h]ealthier foods also are usually among the most expensive menu items, which can be tough for recession-weary customers…” Both relate to perspective, overly caring what other people think and not looking at the long-term effects of today’s decisions.

All this effort and regulation tries to solve a problem (unhealthy eating) brought on by behavior (a failure in discipline).  This single article, read from a behavioral standpoint, reinforces my point that weaknesses in the five key dimensions are the root cause of most of our contemporary crises and therein lie the solutions, not in any outside programs or government interventions no matter how well-intentioned.

Surveys and Critical Thinking

The news media seem obsessed with survey results, people telling us what they think or how they feel.   Being a critical thinker (at least most of the time), I take the results of these self-reporting surveys with a grain of salt.

I am skeptical for several reasons.  It is easy for organizations to word survey questions with the intent of influencing the answer.  People often want to impress the survey taker.  Most surveys leave no room for follow-up or clarifying questions.  The sample surveyed is often done with convenience in mind or is otherwise not properly designed.

I have seen survey questions that are preceded by a paragraph about how terrible or how wonderful a particular practice or policy is.  They then ask if you favor continuing the policy.  It’s important to see the entire question before judging the validity of the answer and brief news stories often omit this information.  In a similar vein, how many times has a salesperson told you directly that anything less than “completely satisfied” on the follow-up survey will reflect badly on the store?

Sometimes people just want to show the survey takers how cool or clever they are.  They try to guess at the desired answer or try to position themselves in the right group.  There are many examples where married couples are questioned separately about something they do together:  housework, managing the finances, general decision making, who disciplines the children or frequency of sexual activity.  Invariably discrepancies appear between the answers of husbands and wives, discrepancies that can be explained only by a misperception or an attempt to give a favorable rather than an accurate answer.  Apply this to teens self-reporting on tobacco or drug use.  Are they being honest or exaggerating?

Some surveys give a choice of answers, but perhaps none fits the exact situation.  I have received many customer service surveys that leave me scratching my head because I did not experience the service they ask about and there is no “Not Applicable” option.  I can’t give them the correct answer and there is no way to clarify.  The same can be true with public opinion questions.  My “10” or “completely agree” may differ, not from your experience, but from your definition of these terms.

Finally, there are people who, either purposely to influence the outcome or through negligence, survey an incomplete or biased sample.  I sometimes get unsolicited phone surveys, which I hang up on.  I wonder what they do next.  Do they get someone else from their list with the same demographics (and how do they know my demographics anyway?) or more likely, do they just go to the next name on the list?  Sometimes they survey likely voters and sometimes just registered voters.  It makes a difference.

So I take these reports in the news less seriously.  When I hear that consumer confidence is slipping, it’s interesting, but not as reliable as the retail sales numbers at the end of the month.  What people say and what they do often differ. 

Words People Use

Early in my career my job involved administering a union contract, one that had a protection clause that was somewhat controversial.  Management called it “comparison” and the union and workers called it “regression.”  You only had to listen to the choice of words to tell where the speaker stood on the issue.

Since then I have become sensitive to the way others use words to try to influence me as I try to make rational decisions politically and economically.  In politics it’s more transparent, for example, some talking about inheritance tax and others about death tax, but there are a few in advertising that seem subtler.

One that is especially widespread is the substitution of the word home for house.  In general usage, a house is a structure where people might live.  A home on the other hand connotes something more personal, defined in one source as “the place in which one's domestic affections are centered.”  Accordingly realtors don’t sell houses any more; they sell homes.  We are enticed to look for new homes at a parade of homes.  It was a very clever marketing strategy to get buyers to think of the touchy-feely aspects of the transaction and react emotionally to “the home of your dreams” or to fall in love with a home, but it seems to have caught on everywhere.  I rarely hear people referring to the places where they live as their house.  It’s their home, and they may have a second home or a vacation home somewhere.  They buy homeowner’s insurance in case it burns down.  I wouldn’t be surprised if soon they don’t have a dog home in the back yard with a bird home hanging from the tree!  Does “the American dream of owning a home” imply that an apartment or rental property cannot be made into a home with love and care?  The real estate industry probably hopes so.  This has become so widespread that I recently saw a religious wall hanging saying, “Bless this home”, rather than using the traditional wording of house.

Of course there are others trying to change our vocabulary to their advantage including:  car dealers selling pre-owned cars as if to imply that someone only owned it for a while, but didn’t really use it; executives calling us associates instead of employees, then going out of their way not to associate with most of us – too important/busy for that; or restaurants and hotels calling us guests instead of customers.  (Well, if I’m your guest, why are you making me pay?)  I received a survey from a restaurant asking me to compare them to other “rapid service” establishments.  Maybe the term they used was “swift service,” but it definitely wasn’t “fast food”!  Good luck with that one!

It’s all a ploy to get us to switch off our Critical Thinking mechanism long enough to slip one by us.  I’d rather see the actions/results that they are trying to portray with these words than the fancy marketing terminology.

Perspective and Gas Prices

A couple of days ago the AP published an article on lower gas prices.  The price has dropped significantly since summer and some people were amazed and thrilled to find prices below $3 a gallon.  If things go well some parts of the country could see prices as low as $2.50 in the near future (or not).

What does this have to do with perspective?  To me it’s a reverse example.  Here we have people very happy with prices below $3 and possibly headed toward $2.50, whereas not too long ago we were hearing cries of pain and anguish at prices as high as $2.50, but compared to $4.00 it seems like a bargain.  People tend to have short memories and get used to things as they are, reacting with some discomfort to changes.  In this example it is joy rather than discomfort, but because we have experienced such economic and technological growth and improvements throughout our lives, our expectations are set and any loss or reduction causes discomfort.

Perspective should remind us that how things are today is not the way they always were.  Gas was not always three or four dollars a gallon, but televisions were not always digital, with 50-inch screens, surround sound, 200 channels, or even in color (and we had to get out of our chair to change the channels).  Less than one hundred years ago most Americans had to live without radios, a second car, a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner, in-door plumbing, Social Security or any expected retirement, Medicare or any health insurance.  More recently people got along fine without home computers, dishwashers, (4G) cell phones, moon roofs, garage door openers and home air conditioning.  But it’s easy to take these things for granted and feel we could not live without them, when, in fact, people lived for many centuries without them.  It’s easy to understand how Greek citizens can march in protest over loss of benefits while their country teeters on the edge of bankruptcy.

Perspective is about values, values that keep our wants from morphing into needs, values that remind us what is vital vs what we can really live without.  It’s nice to see the price of gas turn around, but it should also remind us to be grateful for what we have and to consult our core values when we decide how to spend the extra cash.  Martin Luther King, Jr. put it very bluntly in his 1964 lecture at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies:  “Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”  I think he was talking, in part, about perspective and wonder if we have been progressing or declining since then.

Behavior has Consequences

As I reconsider my main topic, that behavior has consequences, I ask myself how anyone could disagree.  Hasn’t this been the message since our youth from parents and teachers, hard work will be rewarded and laxness penalized?  The ancient wisdom of the Yoga Sutra states in part that the consequences of an action will be either painful or beneficial (2.14) and that results of actions will be either immediate or delayed (3.22).

It seems that the opposite viewpoint would be very fatalistic, that no matter what you do, say or decide, your fate is sealed.  You are not rich or famous or popular or successful or happy because you were not destined to be.  It’s not what you do or say that makes a difference, it’s what other people decide.  That is giving up, not taking responsibility.  True, Americans often rely on prayer to assist in their decisions, but they typically pray for help in making a decision or being successful in their actions.  Talking to God helps them sort things out, may help put things into perspective, reminds them of options, or helps them keep the courage to cope when things go wrong.  When something is out of control they put it in the hands of God, but usually only after they have done everything they can think of.  That's not the same as giving up and their action or inaction that comes after praying will also have consequences.

To follow what I am presenting each week requires acceptance of this basic belief that what we do matters.  Bad things do happen to good people and good things to bad people.  This tends to challenge our faith.  On the other hand, good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people, but without the apparent irony this fact gets little attention.  In general, better decisions result in better outcomes.  Luck does enter into it, but there is truth in the saying that you make your own luck.

That’s why I am adamant about the information presented here.  I continue to see examples of opportunities for better decisions, and hence better outcomes, in the key dimensions.  I also see examples of powerful or influential people who really do believe that a sizable proportion of the population is at the mercy of forces beyond their control.  To overcome this is a double challenge:  taking control of our lives away from those (self-righteous) helpers while simultaneously making better decisions in face of the challenges presented by an increasingly technological society.  It’s our only way out.

Whenever people ask the question, “What’s wrong with America today?” my simple answer is this:  Our behavior is not consistently strong enough in the areas of Discipline, Responsibility, Economic Understanding, Critical Thinking and Perspective to deserve better outcomes.  I see evidence everyday and share it with you twice a week with the hope that more and more people will begin to find behavioral solutions to our societal problems instead of relying on the traditional view and trying to fix the problems by working on the symptoms.