That the fear of missing out is to do with opportunity costs is easy to grasp. The formula the two scientists made to formalise this idea is comprehensible only to those with an IQ above 130. What's the point? In the case of Einstein's E=MC2 I get it but here?
By the way, while reading your article the song 'One of Us' by ABBA kept coming into my head. It's about someone who now regrets having miscalculated the opportunity costs of their relationship.
Fair. This post was a bit more academic than most. Still, I think there is value in formalisms. A formal model forces one to be explicit about one’s ideas, which, to be candid, social scientists usually aren’t. We don’t know much about the Fossils audience, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if many if not most of our readers have a high IQ… But, yes, point taken, this was a bit in the weeks. To your point about ABBA, one of my favorite (and barely cited) papers is entitled, Cheatin' Hearts & Loaded Guns: The High Fitness Stakes of Country Music Lyrics. I love the idea of looking for interesting bits of psychology in music. Here’s the link if you’re interested in the paper 😊 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/a0027913
Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that you shouldn't include research that backs up one of your theories. I wouldn't dare! And it must have been satisfying to have a hunch corroborated in the language of maths. Nor did I mean that the formula would be lost on most subscribers to this site. I'm sure it wasn't. And as you say, what's wrong with a bit of rigour for a change in the social sciences! It was more that for someone whose Maths begins and ends with +, -, x and ÷, I couldn't help wondering if there was a cut-off point at which mathematical formulas stop tidying up sloppily defined ideas and start...making your head spin.
I will take a look at the paper on music right now. Thanks.
I think I need to belong to some kind of academic institution to be able to access the paper. If you don't mind, could you send it to me? Is that via a link or do I need to somehow DM you?
Nice to read an academic paper that doesn't read like an academic paper. No formulas!
Often when I see the lyrics of songs written down I cringe and think, 'How COULD you actually sit down and write something so awful?' e.g. 'She's faster than most and she lives on the coast' (T.Rex's Hot Love) or 'Got to write a classic, Got to write it in an attic' (Adrian Gurvitz). Conversely, I have always been struck by just how good Country music's lyrics are, which are usually streets ahead of the pop I consume - or rather used to.
There are two kinds of music I won't listen to: music that is unmusical i.e. the kind of which our forebears or the people of distant Amazonian tribes would ask, 'What in God's name is THAT?! I put Thrash Metal and Rap in that category, music you can neither hum nor whistle and which makes you want to go out and kill someone.
The other kind is music I don't listen to from pure, narrow-minded prejudice which is contingent upon where and when you grew up. For me this was in 1960's subsurban Britain where Glam Rock and Bubble Gum Pop ruled. Country & Western was either ignored or laughed at, though Tammy Wynette and Lynn Anderson did reach number one in the 1970's. Elvis Costello introduced me to a few more Country songs with lyrics like:
Or the lipprint on a half-filled cup of coffee
That you poured and didn't drink.
But at least you thought you wanted it
And that's so much more than I can say for me.
What lyrics!
My dad's favourite was always Jim Reeves, whose songs he would sing while washing the dishes (we all had our asigned chores, mine being drying the cutlery, thus having to listen to dad sing, 'He'll have to go' and 'When Two Worlds collide').
For me though, Gentleman Jim was never really Country and Western. Instead he was in a genre of his own labelled, 'Dad's Music' which I didn't like since it was slow, old-fashioned and boring. Half a century later I often find myself humming or whistling those songs.
I sometimes teach Conversation English in Japanese universities. I'm not a university teacher. It's just that these extra-curricular classes happen to be held on campus for the convenince of the students. In one lesson we discuss the music we like and dislike and I first try, as a warmer, to get the students to identify different kinds of music. In preparation for this I spent a pleasant day gathering together the most typical songs from a dozen different musical genres and I chose Alan Jackson's 'Daddy Let Me Drive' for my Country and Western song. The lyrics were great and what a voice! Beats Morrissey and Elvis Costello (my favourite) into a cocked hat. Yet still my 1960's suburban England prejudice holds me in its sway and won't let me embrace Country.
Steven Pinker's 'Cheesecake' theory could well be right and the fact that some song lyrics are so bitter isn't necessarily a point against the theory. After all, some people grow sick and tired of cheesecake and Coca Cola and come to prefer blue cheese and red wine. Acquired taste. Maybe songs about double suicides are the musical version of this.
So in a world where multiple good options are available, with high r_a this makes all choices feel marginal and near-worthless?
This doesn't sound like being adventurous, this sounds like living in hell. An element of adventurousness is choosing an option to commit to - if I go climb Kilimanjaro I cannot go diving in a coral reef in the same time, and lowering my enjoyment from the climb because I could be diving is counterproductive and silly, even if you ignore happiness and focus just on strategic thinking.
The parameter r(a) is between zero and one so if there are two great options available and your r(a) is, say, small, those options will still be appealing. Still, I take your point. And, yes, with a big (near 1) r(a), you wind up enjoying things less. There is some wisdom there, I think.
Thank you! To your points. 1) I think “confusion” is the feeling you get when you know that there is something to be understood but you do not understand it. The feeling is to motivate either further effort or giving up, 2) I believe, ahem, my former mentors, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides invented – or at least brought into more common use – the term “internal regulatory variables.” I stay away from that topic because, candidly, it’s hard. I sort of allude to a kind of explanation, which is that there are some computations that have to be balanced against other computations when choosing to act. Those go to the global workspace. But I don’t take a strong stand on that. 3) My list does include: fatigue/tired, itchiness, flow, and nausea. I don’t have aimlessness, malaise, lassitude, ennui in their own chapters but I sort of point to them in my last “catch all” chapter of “stuff that is weird or totally mysterious.” I take headaches to be a subset of pain, which is a large category. 4) Good question! I don’t exactly deal with those and I’m not exactly sure what to make of them. I have a post on boredom, and that’s my current best guess. (Another opportunity cost story…) General anxiety could be a disorder, perhaps? I’ll mull a bit, but that’s an interesting question and I don’t really get at it.
That the fear of missing out is to do with opportunity costs is easy to grasp. The formula the two scientists made to formalise this idea is comprehensible only to those with an IQ above 130. What's the point? In the case of Einstein's E=MC2 I get it but here?
By the way, while reading your article the song 'One of Us' by ABBA kept coming into my head. It's about someone who now regrets having miscalculated the opportunity costs of their relationship.
Fair. This post was a bit more academic than most. Still, I think there is value in formalisms. A formal model forces one to be explicit about one’s ideas, which, to be candid, social scientists usually aren’t. We don’t know much about the Fossils audience, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if many if not most of our readers have a high IQ… But, yes, point taken, this was a bit in the weeks. To your point about ABBA, one of my favorite (and barely cited) papers is entitled, Cheatin' Hearts & Loaded Guns: The High Fitness Stakes of Country Music Lyrics. I love the idea of looking for interesting bits of psychology in music. Here’s the link if you’re interested in the paper 😊 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1037/a0027913
Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that you shouldn't include research that backs up one of your theories. I wouldn't dare! And it must have been satisfying to have a hunch corroborated in the language of maths. Nor did I mean that the formula would be lost on most subscribers to this site. I'm sure it wasn't. And as you say, what's wrong with a bit of rigour for a change in the social sciences! It was more that for someone whose Maths begins and ends with +, -, x and ÷, I couldn't help wondering if there was a cut-off point at which mathematical formulas stop tidying up sloppily defined ideas and start...making your head spin.
I will take a look at the paper on music right now. Thanks.
Ah, understood. If you (or anyone) can't find the paper online, send me a message and I'll be happy to send the paper along. Thanks for the comment!
I think I need to belong to some kind of academic institution to be able to access the paper. If you don't mind, could you send it to me? Is that via a link or do I need to somehow DM you?
Let me know if this doesn't work, but it should. I made a share link from my Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8ltoj8fwmtgptvtst127d/kurzbancheatinghearts.pdf?rlkey=fhw0klt8rqlhfsifqsjgk401m&st=t4p7cbr0&dl=0
Nice to read an academic paper that doesn't read like an academic paper. No formulas!
Often when I see the lyrics of songs written down I cringe and think, 'How COULD you actually sit down and write something so awful?' e.g. 'She's faster than most and she lives on the coast' (T.Rex's Hot Love) or 'Got to write a classic, Got to write it in an attic' (Adrian Gurvitz). Conversely, I have always been struck by just how good Country music's lyrics are, which are usually streets ahead of the pop I consume - or rather used to.
There are two kinds of music I won't listen to: music that is unmusical i.e. the kind of which our forebears or the people of distant Amazonian tribes would ask, 'What in God's name is THAT?! I put Thrash Metal and Rap in that category, music you can neither hum nor whistle and which makes you want to go out and kill someone.
The other kind is music I don't listen to from pure, narrow-minded prejudice which is contingent upon where and when you grew up. For me this was in 1960's subsurban Britain where Glam Rock and Bubble Gum Pop ruled. Country & Western was either ignored or laughed at, though Tammy Wynette and Lynn Anderson did reach number one in the 1970's. Elvis Costello introduced me to a few more Country songs with lyrics like:
Or the lipprint on a half-filled cup of coffee
That you poured and didn't drink.
But at least you thought you wanted it
And that's so much more than I can say for me.
What lyrics!
My dad's favourite was always Jim Reeves, whose songs he would sing while washing the dishes (we all had our asigned chores, mine being drying the cutlery, thus having to listen to dad sing, 'He'll have to go' and 'When Two Worlds collide').
For me though, Gentleman Jim was never really Country and Western. Instead he was in a genre of his own labelled, 'Dad's Music' which I didn't like since it was slow, old-fashioned and boring. Half a century later I often find myself humming or whistling those songs.
I sometimes teach Conversation English in Japanese universities. I'm not a university teacher. It's just that these extra-curricular classes happen to be held on campus for the convenince of the students. In one lesson we discuss the music we like and dislike and I first try, as a warmer, to get the students to identify different kinds of music. In preparation for this I spent a pleasant day gathering together the most typical songs from a dozen different musical genres and I chose Alan Jackson's 'Daddy Let Me Drive' for my Country and Western song. The lyrics were great and what a voice! Beats Morrissey and Elvis Costello (my favourite) into a cocked hat. Yet still my 1960's suburban England prejudice holds me in its sway and won't let me embrace Country.
Steven Pinker's 'Cheesecake' theory could well be right and the fact that some song lyrics are so bitter isn't necessarily a point against the theory. After all, some people grow sick and tired of cheesecake and Coca Cola and come to prefer blue cheese and red wine. Acquired taste. Maybe songs about double suicides are the musical version of this.
So in a world where multiple good options are available, with high r_a this makes all choices feel marginal and near-worthless?
This doesn't sound like being adventurous, this sounds like living in hell. An element of adventurousness is choosing an option to commit to - if I go climb Kilimanjaro I cannot go diving in a coral reef in the same time, and lowering my enjoyment from the climb because I could be diving is counterproductive and silly, even if you ignore happiness and focus just on strategic thinking.
The parameter r(a) is between zero and one so if there are two great options available and your r(a) is, say, small, those options will still be appealing. Still, I take your point. And, yes, with a big (near 1) r(a), you wind up enjoying things less. There is some wisdom there, I think.
Thank you! To your points. 1) I think “confusion” is the feeling you get when you know that there is something to be understood but you do not understand it. The feeling is to motivate either further effort or giving up, 2) I believe, ahem, my former mentors, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides invented – or at least brought into more common use – the term “internal regulatory variables.” I stay away from that topic because, candidly, it’s hard. I sort of allude to a kind of explanation, which is that there are some computations that have to be balanced against other computations when choosing to act. Those go to the global workspace. But I don’t take a strong stand on that. 3) My list does include: fatigue/tired, itchiness, flow, and nausea. I don’t have aimlessness, malaise, lassitude, ennui in their own chapters but I sort of point to them in my last “catch all” chapter of “stuff that is weird or totally mysterious.” I take headaches to be a subset of pain, which is a large category. 4) Good question! I don’t exactly deal with those and I’m not exactly sure what to make of them. I have a post on boredom, and that’s my current best guess. (Another opportunity cost story…) General anxiety could be a disorder, perhaps? I’ll mull a bit, but that’s an interesting question and I don’t really get at it.