When You Want to Write a Complaint Letter, But Can't Find the Time...

... this website has your back. Enter the target of your complaint letter, some basic information, and preferred length, and it does the rest for you. Just for fun, I had it write one against me:

This is to voice my dissatisfaction with Dr. Sara Locatelli's apothegms. I begin with critical semantic clarifications. First, in order to convince us that it's okay to leave the educational and emotional needs of our children in the maladroit hands of the most spleeny pronks you'll ever see, Dr. Locatelli often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. Thanks to her, we're all in a freefall into a pit of expansionism. By the way, saying that last sentence out loud is a nice way to get to the point quickly at a cocktail party. For all intents and purposes, she wants us to feel sorry for the vile beatniks who galvanize the filthy herd into enthusiastically supporting her yellow-bellied, crime-stained endeavors. I, speaking as someone who is not a dimwitted paper-pusher, insist we should instead feel sorry for their victims, all of whom know full well that Dr. Locatelli's allocutions are like the Hydra from Greek mythology. They continually acquire new heads and new strength. The only way to stunt their growth is to accentuate our universal humanity. The only way to destroy Dr. Locatelli's Hydra entirely is to provide more people with the knowledge that she has made some imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them. I'll go further: Her diegeses have caused widespread social alienation, and from this alienation a thousand social pathologies have sprung.

If one needs a sign that Dr. Locatelli is abominable, then consider that she has been going around claiming that students should be molded into “change agents” to promote her misguided, drugged-out agenda. When challenged about the veracity of that message, Dr. Locatelli attributed its contradictions of the truth to “poetic license”. That means “lying”. Now that I've had a chance to cogitate, let me see if I have her argument correct: Dr. Locatelli seems to be saying that her tirades provide a liberating insight into life, the universe, and everything. Well, Dr. Locatelli can believe whatever she wants, but we all know that the truth is that like a verbal magician, Dr. Locatelli knows how to lie without appearing to be lying, how to bury secrets in mountains of garbage-speak. Believe it or not, a few unregenerate, garrulous big-labor bosses actually want her to get as many people as possible to line up behind the geek-tent barkers at the latest and greatest carnival of stoicism. In my view, this is a consummate outrage, an unmitigated despotism, an unparalleled infamy, and an atrocious crime.

We have to set an example. If we do, others will follow, and soon everyone will be leading her out of a dream world and back to hard reality. This is an encouraging prospect, especially given that Dr. Locatelli used to maintain that poststructuralism is indispensable for the formation of citizens and for the preservation of our free institutions. However, after my last letter so eloquently put a lie to that, Dr. Locatelli and her bedfellows have busily if rather quietly gone to work on their palinodes—amending here, canceling there, and generally trying to conceal the fact that in a vain effort to exculpate herself, Dr. Locatelli has been proclaiming to the world that she has done no wrong. Rather, it was her mercenaries who have been cultivating an unhealthy sense of victimhood. I suppose the next thing she'll have us believe is that she should be a given a direct pipeline to the national treasury. Dr. Locatelli is unhappy that people like me want to challenge paternalism and thereby create the possibility of justice and fairness in our society. Such cavils notwithstanding, if her perceptions get any more pro-censorship, I expect they'll grow legs and attack me in my sleep. Until we address this issue, we will never move beyond it.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be in the corner, thinking about what I've done...

The Bully Who Cried Wolf

This morning on Facebook, I came across an article about bullying. Or more specifically, it was about differentiating bullying from rudeness and meanness. As a researcher, I love operational definitions and digging into different but related concepts to come to a better understanding of human interaction. Specifically, the author Signe Whitson (social worker and author of Friendship & Other Weapons: Group Activities to Help Young Girls Cope with Bullying) defined the terms as follows:

"Rude = Inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else.

Mean = Purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice).

Bullying = Intentionally aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power."

The point Whitson was trying to make is that, while all of these behaviors are problematic and need correction, they shouldn't all be called bullying. Her reason for this is that overuse of the word takes away its effectiveness, especially if people begin hearing ad nauseum about cases that aren't bullying:

"I have already begun to see that gratuitous references to bullying are creating a bit of a 'little boy who cried wolf' phenomena. In other words, if kids and parents improperly classify rudeness and mean behavior as bullying — whether to simply make conversation or to bring attention to their short-term discomfort — we all run the risk of becoming so sick and tired of hearing the word that this actual life-and-death issue among young people loses its urgency as quickly as it rose to prominence."

What I've learned as a psychologist - and have repeated to friends, especially those who are or are soon becoming parents - is that it takes a lot to damage a person permanently. People are pretty resilient. But repeated injuries, whether physical or psychological, can have lasting effects. We need time to heal and rebuild, but if a person keeps being bullied without having the opportunity to grow and move on, they become stuck, merely reacting to it. They don't have time to prepare and build resources that would help them shield from it. Even worse, they may come to see being bullied as part of who they are. So I think Whitson's terminology is very important to keep in mind.

At the same time, rudeness and meanness can grow into bullying, if left unchecked. So I think it is still important to intervene before things get out of hand. To be fair, Whitson does say all of these behaviors need correction, so she isn't downplaying their importance. But we do need to strike a balance between responding to bullying, and intervening to keep other behaviors from turning into bullying.

Take a Load Off

It's Labor Day! I decided many years ago that the best way to celebrate is by paying someone else to do some work for you. 11 years ago, I celebrated by getting a tattoo. For nostalgia, here's a very low-res picture taken on a crappy flip phone right after I got it:

How did I celebrate today? I ordered a pie so I wouldn't have to do any baking for the party I'm about to go to. If that doesn't highlight how much I've changed in that time, I don't know what does.

Now I want to get another tattoo to remind myself I haven't completely turned into a 30-something suburbanite.

Enjoy your Labor Day! And take a load off:

Alexander Hamilton, Sleep, and Memory Consolidation

I'm currently reading Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow - the book on which the Broadway musical, Hamilton, is based.

I'm currently about 250 pages in, so it doesn't look like I'll finish before the end of my vacation, but I've made a good dent. In the current section, which is about Hamilton's writing habits, particularly with regard to the Federalist Papers, I found this description of Hamilton's approach to writing from William Sullivan's Public Men of the Revolution:

One who knew his habits of study said of him that when he had a serious object to accomplish, his practice was to reflect on it previously. And when he had gone through this labor, he retired to sleep, without regard to the hour of the night, and having slept six or seven hours, he rose and having taken strong coffee, seated himself at his table, where he would remain six, seven, or eight hours. And the product of his rapid pen required little correction for the press.

What Hamilton was doing - and I'm certainly not downplaying his genius, or his Mozart-like ability to write without the need for revision - was taking advantage of the memory consolidation function of sleep. That is, during sleep, your brain builds neural connections and essentially transfers events and what you learned that day into long term memory. This is why one of the effects of sleep deprivation is memory issues. So Hamilton did the thinking (and some research) needed to gather his thoughts, then slept to allow them to coalesce and organize. Then he would wake up and write it all down. In fact, I just received a link to yet another study demonstrating the memory consolidation effects of sleep.

Of course, what Hamilton did was even more extraordinary when you consider that it was not yet known that sleep could do this - at least, not from scientific study. Psychology wasn't even considered a field yet; that would happen in 1870s Germany. That Hamilton fellow was pretty smart.

New to Netflix This Month

As I've blogged before previously, the only reason I haven't I subscribed from the Glamour email newsletter (which I don't even remember how I started getting) is that they send a list of Netflix additions/deletions just often enough that I keep reading. (Yes, I know I could probably just find this list somewhere else, but I'm lazy.) Here's the list of new additions for September, including the newest Marvel show, Luke Cage. Can't. Wait.

I'm still enjoying my vacation (what my husband has started calling the Summer of George), which will be ending soon. Monday, I visited the Art Institute; Tuesday, I dropped by VA to complete some paperwork, and did some outlet shopping before playing pub trivia; and yesterday, I ran some errands, then watched fireworks on my friends' boat. I hope to get back to regular blogging one of these days, and will definitely post an update when I start my new job.

How I've Spent My Summer Vacation (So Far)

I'm really enjoying my time off between jobs. In addition to sleeping in most days, I've filled my time with fun activities.

I spent 4 days at Comic Con, which I've already blogged about. I've also been doing some writing on my novel, which I hope to finish during NaNoWriMo this year. On Tuesday, I visited Bachelor's Grove, and old cemetery just south of Chicago that is supposed to be one of the most haunted places in the country. I went during the day, and I would imagine the place would be creepier at night, but I really wasn't impressed. I was more afraid of snakes, spiders, and mosquitos. But I took lots of pictures:

Wednesday, I attended Jazzin' at the Shedd with some friends. My favorite part was the amphibian exhibit. One little cutie came up to the glass and posed for me:

The last couple days have been spent cleaning and organizing around the apartment. Unfortunately I wasn't paying attention while assembling some shelves this afternoon and sliced my finger. All is well, but I'm taking it easy for the time being. Next week, plans include visiting the Art Institute, doing some outlet shopping for work clothes, and lots of reading.

That's Not How This Works: Reinforcement, Punishment, and the Pavlok

As I've blogged many times before, I started my time in psychology as a behaviorist. I still frequently speak and think in behaviorist terms. So when I saw this device advertised on my Facebook, I kind of wanted to scream.

The device in question purports to be a way to break bad habits:

Here's how it works:
1) Download the app, and choose the habit you want to break.
2) Pavlok integrates with sensors, friends, and GPS to keep you on track with your goals.
3) Use the 'manual' mode for habits that aren't yet detectable.

As a friend pointed out, it's technology's answer to the rubber band on the wrist, the difference being that this device is supposed to snap the rubber band without needing any effort from you beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or with the wrong friends. Or with whatever the sensors pick up.

To give a quick overview, shaping a behavior draws on two overarching concepts: reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is meant to increase frequency or intensity of a behavior, and punishment is meant to decrease frequency/intensity. Further, either of these can be done by adding something (positive) or taking something away (negative). Positive reinforcement involves giving something good to encourage a behavior (e.g., clean your room and I'll give you some candy); negative reinforcement involves taking away something bad to encourage a behavior (e.g., clean your room and you don't have to help me with the dishes). Positive punishment involves giving something bad to discourage a behavior (e.g., if you don't clean your room, you'll get a spanking); negative punishment involves taking away something good to discourage a behavior (e.g., if you don't clean your room, you can't go to the party). Each of these approaches has a time and place.

The thing is, punishment, which is what this device is driven by, is tricky. It has to be used in a specific way to be effective. Basically, in order to punishment to be effective, it needs to be immediate and high enough in intensity that it extinguishes the behavior immediately or very quickly. If you keep delivering the same punishment over and over again - to yourself, to your kids, to your pets, whatever - you need to find another punishment because it isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

However, punishment can come with many unintended consequences. The person may come to associate the punishment with a specific person instead of the specific action with which it is associated. It may extinguish a good behavior in the process. One of the best examples I know of came from a friend who works as a dog trainer. She is against the use of punishment when training dogs except in very specific instances - and again, she also says if you have to punish more than a few times, do something else, because the punishment isn't working. But in one instance, she was brought in to train a dog who had already been trained (unsuccessfully) by a person who primarily used punishment. The dog was very territorial around his food. He would guard it for hours, growling at anyone who came near, and finally eat it in the middle of the night when no one was around.

She started training, using reinforcement. Things were going well, the dog was responding, and wagging his tail. Suddenly, he bit her. Why? Because the punishment used in his previous training had extinguished a behavior: growling. But growling serves an important purpose; it is a warning that a dog is about to bite. So now the dog went straight from happy tail-wagging to biting with no warning signs.

When I used to teach learning and behavior, I had my students complete a behavior modification project, where they selected a behavior about themselves (or in some cases, another, often a pet) they wanted to change, and came up with a plan to do that. While I had some propose punishment in their project, I generally talked them out of it, or coached them on how to use it properly (in isolated cases) while mostly depending on reinforcement. Those who insisted on keeping the punishment more often than not ended up dropping it from their project, focusing instead on reinforcement, because they found it just wasn't as effective. Working toward some kind of reward was far more motivating than avoiding some kind of punishment. Another approach I suggested instead is response prevention - keep the behavior from happening entirely rather than punishing when it does. Once again, this approach is far more effective, especially when combined with a reward for avoiding the behavior completely.

So if you really want to break that bad habit, give yourself some small rewards for resisting while working your way up to a bigger reward, and avoid situations where you would be likely to give into the bad habit. And if you really need to include punishment in your modification plan, find something you'll work hard to avoid. Don't use a human shock collar.