All these things have something in common – it’s not really discussion.  It’s broadcating.  It’s monologuing.

Like so many tough issues we don’t discuss this stuff in a real way in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces.  One real problem with that is that it’s hard to shift ones view through consumption of a broadcast… typically one tunes into the broadcast they already agree with.  Through dialogue, real in person dialogue, one has to put ones value statements to the test.  Hear them outloud, mash them with others, rebuke, rebut, reform.

It’s hard for me to decipher if it’s a failing of our new modes of communication or our modes of communication are the result of our lack of desire to connect.  Maybe a bit of both.  Either way, the discussion about racial issues isn’t moving along very quickly.

Sure, I have a view about where we are in tolerance and inclusion as a society.  Rather than dump that here… talk to me sometime so we can share our views.

Things are complicated out there. You may or may not be aware that your nervous system filters out the massive amount of data that your senses are exposed to. As a matter of conservation of energy (real and metaphorical) you are attending to very little of your environment based on your history and the current value you have for some segment of it.

Let me frame this for your consideration…

Due to our complexity as humans, when things are not there, we sometimes see things. (No, it is not the 60’s.) What’s more, when things are there in front of us and available for our experience, we don’t see them.

Two Experiments to consider…

1. In a recent paper in Science, Whitson and Galinsky (2008) found when individuals are unable to gain a sense of control objectively they will gain it perceptually through illusory pattern perception meaning they will identify “stuff” among a stimuli in their environment that don’t really exist. They are not hallucinating in the usual sense of the word. They are generating information to provide continuity linking what they can just as is sensory data is generated in sensory deprivation experiments.

Whitson, et.al, empirically found that people generate pattern perceptions to make sense of the events in their environment when they experience lack of control of the environmental events they are experiencing.

Now, consider what that means…

• It means we don’t see the flaws in people we are connected to or that we see the flaws where none exist
• it means that we see a conspiracy from a new boss when we don’t yet exist to the new boss
• it means we identify objects in random noise images where there are none
• it means we see mechanistic cause and effect relationships where no links exist
• it means we see correlations in economic markets in companies we like
• it means we don’t see how our behavior is like the behavior of someone we don’t like
• it means we can’t tell why people like us or dislike us when they do
• it means that we can’t see the flaws in our children as they lie dead with a needle in their arm
• it means that we can be more than one kind of person every day of our lives
• it means that people not like us are suspicious and people like us are allies

Staggering, isn’t it!

Examples of superstitious behavior in the modern world are countless – sports super heroes involved in astrology, learned rituals so complex that someone once referred to a baseball player as “his own seventh inning stretch” due to the time he took to address each pitch. Religion, prayer, sacrificial rituals, appeasements, holidays, traditions, incantations, etc. all come from making relationships where none exist.   Gasuntheit!

When you are uncertain about your environment and don’t perceive you have control, know what is going on, etc., it is disconcerting. In terms of how we learn, not perceiving you have control is an aversive stimulus equal to shock, rejection, pain, or other punishers. Faced with uncertainty, lack of control, people look for patterns [ah, the value of search] in their environments to re-establish control. When it is not there empirically, we try to establish it perceptually with vision playing the lead role.

With the dearth of information and conflicting data sets it is a constant challenge to understand what is related and what isn’t. In an election year the conspiracies exist for those that most not understanding why their candidate is losing since they see the relationships between them and the agenda as a citizen. The media, the polls, the moderators, the economy, the Jews, the youth, the women…etc. are all plotting to undo the trailing candidate.

2. The following video  is based on research by Simons and Chabris from Indiana University. It is very interesting for several reasons, all of which you’ll see if you FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS OF THE PRESENTER EXACTLY.

After you see it spend some time thinking how that affects what your life is like, how research is done and how the world works. After all that, come back write or respond with what you think the implications are of the research.

~~~~~~~

The lesson here isn’t simple. If we were to want a society free from magical thoughts, then we need expand the tolerance for people to live in ambiguity in some areas, educate people on how feelings and emotions are the exhaust of perceived contingencies and how the environment comes to control behavior via consequences.

J. A. Whitson, A. D. Galinsky (2008). Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception Science, 322 (5898), 115-117 DOI: 10.1126/science.1159845

Behaviorally speaking, what happened when Barack Obama spoke on religion yesterday?For some, like the way I approached the speech and later his presentation, Obama’s speech might have seemed to be about religion… or perhaps the American Black experience… or perhaps the generational tug of our past with what is important to us today. Well, it wasn’t about religion as much as we might think it was.

Yes, we’ve into a shift in religion (Religious Shift in America 2008), energy, globalization, business, etc.

I know what I heard but I noticed something else. My conclusion is there is no Hope for an undefined future condition called ‘a better America’. It has arrived.

What I heard was a shift and a loss of cues that we all have depended upon for so long. Behaviorally they are called SDs or “S – Ds” and stand for ‘discriminative stimuli’. You know, the things we recognize, the brands, the terms, the words, the stimuli out in the environment that we come to recognize as meaning good and bad, smart and dull, etc.; anything that allows us to discriminate one thing from another. While reading the speech that came out in the AM prior to the Barack’s presentation, I couldn’t tell who was speaking. We saw a difficult subject handled without acrimony: race.

Barack Obama speech laid waste to more of the SDs that we’ve all depended on but that are no longer dependable. What are we going to do now if we can’t depend on those old stereotypes? (SDs)

• We lost the inflamatory rhetoric SD of White, Jackson, Farrakhan and others
• We lost the ‘done me wrong’ SD
• We lost the ‘one cause’ explanation for 300 years of bad behavior SD
• We lost the ‘good guy – bad guy’ dichotomy SD
• We lost the ‘quick fix’ remedy in my term claim SD
• We lost the government can make it better pabulum SD
• We lost the SD of when to have the gut wrenching sinking feeling

I’m a pretty smart guy so I need to figure out the consequences of losing my SDs.

• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and says things that are not purely Democratic, Republican or Washington centric?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and you can’t tell if he favors those that are white or black?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and he doesn’t instill fear of the future?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and he doesn’t try to make you mistrust those who want him silenced?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and you think he is talking directly to you rather than in lobbyist code?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and you can’t tell why he knows what you value?
• How is this going to work if Barack Obama speaks and you don’t hear that government knows what is best for you?

Wow, this election is getting complicated. I am going to have to make other associations with Barack Obama when he speaks and that’s hard work because it involves changing my stereotypical SDs.

I’m posting this article recently published by my friend John Bryant (Religious Shift in America 2008). It’s relevant because it digs in deep to the shift in religion in America.

     Religious interest never goes away but in the last decade interest has risen to new levels.  Two studies in particular to be highlighted here mark today’s on-going monologue about religion in America. The first study is not about a shift at all but acts as a reference point for this article. The research is based on structured telephone surveys of more than 2,000 households and in-depth interviews with more than 140 people in 2006 conducted through the University of Minnesota by sociologist Penny Edgell. Researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups as “not sharing their vision of American society.” Furthermore, Americans are least willing to let their children marry atheists.

The Edgell survey was followed by the release in February, 2008, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That survey of over 35,000 Americans found that nearly half questioned were not practicing the religion of their parents. While that finding was no big deal for some, it was a bomb for many, especially those involved with the business of religion.

The Pew Forum study confirmed what has been speculated for years about believers:

•   the long-held belief that denominational loyalty is fraying —
•   those greatest impacted are mainline Protestant and evangelical churches —
•  One in six overall (16.1%) reported they were not connected with any particular religious faith —
•  This number rose to 1 in 4 between the ages of 18 -29 who said they were not affiliated with any religion —
•  Twelve percent were split 50/50 between a) those that were secular and unaffiliated, and b) those who said they were religious and unaffiliated —
•  Catholics have seen numbers diminish for almost 40 years and seem to be outside the survey radar —
  • Absolute numbers don’t reflect major declines in the last four years
  • Their age demographic has shifted more rapidly than other Protestant denominations
  • Catholics have the broadest mixture of education levels but declining numbers in the 18 – 29 age group
  • Supported by older populations including high percentage of immigrants who bring that religion with them

After checking out that pdf, go back to Obama’s speech. We’re talking about a major politician speaking to the gray area and the shifting context of truth. Yikes, it will be pretty interesting how this will play out in America.

Post 3 on the speech will be the full analysis of his text.

~R

What can we gather about how we consumer, distribute and understand mass media?   How does the context and the entry point affect our consumption of this speech?  How do our own views and history color the speech and alter the path we use to get at this information? How does the content of the speech and the headlines and the sources alter the spread of information?

Transcript: Barack Obama’s Speech On Race CBS News, NY - 2 hours ago Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., delivers a speech on race in Philadelphia, March 18, 2008. (CBS) A look at the young senator from …

Will Obama’s Speech Work? Wall Street Journal - 2 hours ago From a political perspective, Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on race in America this morning in Philadelphia was extraordinary. Obama addressed head-on the bad …

On Defensive, Obama Plans Talk on Race New York Times, United States - 3 hours ago Alex Brandon/AP Senator Barack Obama took part in an MTV discussion with Iraq veterans on Monday in Scranton, Pa. By JODI KANTOR and JEFF ZELENY Faced with …

Obama Confronts Racial Division in US The Associated Press - 1 hour ago PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Barack Obama unsparingly criticized his longtime pastor’s words while strongly defending the man himself Tuesday in a politically risky …

Obama Speech: Rebuking Rev. Wright Wall Street Journal - 2 hours ago Sen. Barack Obama confronted white resentment head-on in a way not often seen in a political race. He compared the dark thoughts of white citizens to those …

Christopher Cooper reports on Sen. Obama’s speech. Wall Street Journal - 2 hours ago Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, dogged in recent days by his longtime connections to a Chicago pastor cast as radical, delivered what is …

Barack Obama Addresses Racial Wounds NewsOXY, FL - 1 hour ago Barack Obama addresses pastor’s remarks hoping to silence the storm that has engulfed his presidential campaign. During a televised speech, Senator Obama …

Follow the consequences.

Headlines are a partial result of past data… what keywords worked in the past… what abstracts attract not just eyes but clicks.  Headlines are a partial result of the editorial bias…

that bias is a combination of reader bias, technology limits (character limits), copy editor, editor…

what about the Google algorithm?  how much “say” does it have it what we see? how we see? when we see?  If not the Google algorithm then the WSJ alerts, or your local paper, or your local news station…

Check this out:

http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN1440646120080318

Look at this page!  It has so much automated and semi-automated content.  Look at the context it puts the SUMMARY of the speech in.  How does that affect communication of mass messages?  what do we bring to this experience plus the actual speech and the sub speeches themselves?

No, this isn’t an arbitrary let’s ask really rhetorical questions about politics and the Internet.  How, why, by whom, and when political messages are consumed impacts our world.  The medium matters, the context matters.  For us, as consumers, it matters if we value our content. For media people who make money by making sure lots of people consume content, it helps to understand these aspects.  For advertisers and agencies, it makes a difference where, when and in what context your ads appear. For politicians, it can make or break a campaign to understand the contingencies in message delivery, not just whether the message itself was consumed.

I ask these questions because I don’t have the answers and have only loose hypothesizes at this point and there’s no right answer, just more or less relevant data that gets us closer to understanding the contingencies.

Post 2 contains a behaviorist perspective on the speech itself.  Religion, race, politics, history, future, an appeal to dreams, a call out for responsibility, a call out to ask questions, Obama’s bias, his speechwriter’s bias, text versus oration, timing…. Yikes!

~R

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::