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‘Mentalizing’ is the new word for making sense of oneself, others, and intersubjective transactions in terms of inner motivations. It can be fast and intuitive (implicit mentalizing), as in most informal and routine interactions, or slow and elaborate (explicit mentalizing), when one steps back to indulge in reflective thinking. “Why did she say that?” The thought is such an integral part of being human that it is most often taken for granted. Yet it is an evolutionary achievement.

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If you’ve worked in an office, you’re probably familiar with “honor box” coffee service. Everyone helps themselves to stewed coffee, adds to the lounge’s growing filth, and deposits a nominal sum in the honor box, with the accumulated proceeds being used to replenish supplies. Notoriously, this system often devolves into a tragedy of the commons, where too many people drink without paying.

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By Adam Ferrier

So, recently there was another report from the scientists of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) telling us that climate change (what used to be called global warming) is upon us and there are real changes happening now. The scientists urged us to heed their warning and change our behaviours, and we ignored them in droves. Why we ignored them is interesting. The information they are giving us is dire. The environment is already changing for the worse, and will continue to change. We must all act now to avert some pretty disastrous outcomes.

However, the real issue is that humans just don’t really care about the information they have to hand. We never have. We’ve just lived through the wonderfully coined ‘information age’, a time where all of the world’s information was organised for us and made available to all of our fingertips. How many of the world’s problems did all of this easily accessible information solve? None.

The presentation of information alone is rarely a powerful enough motivator to get people to change. Especially when the information is complex, negative, or about the future (such as information about climate change). Due to various cognitive biases and a desire to believe everything is ok just the way it is we tend to tune out. How then can scientists get their message across, and effect genuine behavioural change within the broader community?

Well, there is a very handy behavioural change tool in existence, one that has proved itself capable of changing behaviour en-mass time and time again. This tool has been used to get people to loose weight, make them move more, volunteer their time to good causes, and cook healthier meals for themselves. This tool is one that if scientists could get hold of it, and use its powers effectively could get people to change their behaviours and start to look after the environment. The tool is called ‘reality TV’.

It pains me to say this, but over the course of the last 15 years, high-rating reality TV shows have continually proved themselves to be the best changers of mass behaviour. In my country of origin, Australia, we only need to look at what Bondi Rescue did for surf club enrolments, what The Block has done for the home renovation industry, and what Masterchef has done for the sales of Wagyu beef. Every country would have its own proven examples of reality TV changing the behaviour of the masses.

Reality TV is a great behavioural change agent because we like to be entertained first and informed second. An entertaining platform helps to make information that will be useful easier to digest. However, this is not all. To change people’s behaviour, you need to consider their motivation to do something and how easy it is for them to do it. Reality TV shows are a great way of increasing motivation for a particular activity as they make something feel like it’s already popular and thereby change the social norms (i.e. if there is a reality TV show about something it must be popular; therefore, I should get involved). People like to conform so if they think others are already doing something, they’ll do it too. However, reality TV shows also make a new behaviour easier to do by modelling it. Ever watched a reality cooking show? They model how to do the behaviour. So reality TV, in more ways than one, increases people’s motivation to undertake that behaviour and makes it easier by skilling people up via modelling.

So, the people who can make us start taking proactive steps towards saving the environment are the producers of reality TV. They will also need to convince the broadcasters that a TV show about the environment will rate. Thus, the show needs to be an extremely compelling reality TV series where you have lovable winners and lots of losers battling it out to save the environment.

Those who come up with good ways to make a difference to the planet will, just like the contestants on the cooking shows who dream up a great way to cook cous cous, act as models for all of us. We, too, will adopt the winning behaviours, and momentum will build to start acting in a pro-environmental way, becoming mainstream very quickly.

Unfortunately, there is a saying in TV that states ‘green doesn’t rate’, and this is largely because they have been treated as overly worthy, or blandly in the past. No one has sensationalised and popularised environmental issues as only reality TV can. This means, even more so, that we have to dumb down the environmental messages and turn them into a reality TV show. There you go Simon Cowell, here’s your new big challenge. You got the world singing, now get us all to take positive action to save our wonderful planet.

Adam Ferrier is a consumer psychologist and Chief Strategy Officer at independent creative:media agency Cummins & Partners. His book http://www.oxford.com.au/ferrier.” target=”_blank”>The Advertising Effect: How to Change Behaviour

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By Susan David

We humans are funny. Often we create beliefs or engage in behaviors that seem to help us in the short term, only to discover they get in the way of the lives we really want to live, or the people we want to become.

Allow me to share the story of my friend, Erin. Over lunch one day, she told both her mentor and me about a division director job she had truly wanted. The role offered good challenges, the chance to develop her skills, fabulous travel, and unparalleled flexibility. It would have been “a dream come true”.

But then Erin began to recite a litany of reasons why she hadn’t gone after the job. She wasn’t good in interviews, having never received the coaching that so many candidates are privy to these days. She was overweight, which would surely make a poor impression. On top of all this, due to the economic downturn, many people more qualified than she would apply. She thought she’d be great at the job if she could have made it beyond the interview, but all things considered, she “knew” she hadn’t stood a chance.

“So I never applied,” she told us. “Instead, I sent the advertisement to a peer and encouraged him to interview.” She paused. “He got the job.”

How was it that this bright, hardworking, lovely young woman also had such an aptitude for self-sabotage?

There are plenty of smart, even gifted, people like Erin. They are bonded by a common behavior psychologists call “self-handicapping,” which involves anticipating a real or imagined obstacle that might get in the way of success, and using that obstacle as an excuse.

Self-handicapping allows us to protect ourselves from the pain of assuming responsibility for our failures, and people do it all the time. In a groundbreaking 1978 study, psychologists Berglas and Jones found that participants who “succeeded” at a test (that was really just luck-based) were more likely to choose to take a performance-inhibiting drug before taking a second test. In other words, they actively set themselves up for failure on the second try. By doing this, they could blame their subsequent poor performance on the drug, and also protect their earlier feeling of success.

In a more recent set of experiments conducted by psychologist Sean McCrea at the University of Konstanz in Germany, participants were asked to take several intelligence tests under a variety of conditions. The research showed that people who were encouraged to make excuses for their poor performance — blaming poor performance on loud noises, for example — maintained high self-esteem, but were also less motivated to improve.

This kind of behavior is often so subtle and habitual that we don’t notice we’re doing it. Think about the manager who has to give a big presentation and fails to practice ahead of the event, or people who procrastinate on work projects and wind up “not having enough time” to do a good job. In a 2010 HBR article, Jeffrey Pfeffer identified self-handicapping as one of three major barriers to building professional power: people avoid the pain of failure by never trying to build power in the first place.

What can you do to overcome self-handicapping? Here are four steps:

1. Watch for the warning signs. Drawing down your efforts, generating lists of excuses, or distracting yourself (music, alcohol, etc.) are signs that you’re engaging in self-handicapping. Everyone needs to take breaks and manage energy during the work day, but these activities can be clues that you are veering onto the trail of self-sabotage. A mentor or colleague can often help steer you back on course.
2. Use “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” to help you generate goals instead of excuses. Research shows that the thinking people engage in during self-handicapping can just as easily be flipped to be motivational. When you ponder what could have gone better, or recognize obstacles in your way, you generate valuable information. Identify factors within your control, and see what you can do about them. Erin, for example, could have responded to the thought “I’m not great in interviews” by researching the right skills, practicing them, and requesting support from her mentor.
3. Recognize and manage your negative emotions. Research shows that when we use our “if-onlys” to motivate rather than excuse ourselves, we will also likely experience negative emotions, such as disappointment and self-directed anger . If you can notice these emotions and be kind to yourself in working through them, you’re more likely to be able to move into positive, empowering behavior.
4. Go for mastery. Self-handicapping is most likely to kick in when we are trying to perform well in order to avoid negative feedback from external sources, such as criticism from colleagues. When we focus instead on developing mastery in a domain we care about, we tap into our inherent motivation to learn and grow. Recognize what matters to you, and brainstorm ideas to get yourself moving in that direction.

Going for what you really want takes considerable courage. Let’s face it, even when you put forth your best effort, things don’t always turn out as you would like. But by taking a risk you open yourself not only to the possibility of failure, but also the possibility of learning, growth, and real attainment. It’s up to you to decide which is more perilous: the risk of disappointment, or the risk of never reaching your potential.

Reprinted with permission from Harvard Business Reveiw.  This blog was originally published here.

Susan David is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Happiness (due out in January 2013) with Ilona Boniwell and Amanda Conley Ayers. Susan is is a founder and co-director of the Harvard/McLean Institute of Coaching and a member of the Harvard faculty. She is also the director of Evidence Based Psychology, a leadership development organization and management consultancy.

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By Kirsty McHugh, OUP UK

Victoria Braithwaite, Professor of Fisheries and Biology at Pennsylvania State University, is the author of Do Fish Feel Pain?, which publishes in the UK later this month. In it she engages with the latest research on fish pain and suffering, explaining what we now understand about fish behaviour. In the original post below, she looks at the behaviour of coral reef cleaner fish, who remove skin parasites from client fish. But the cleaner-client relationship is rife with deception and reprimand – and even a battle of the sexes.

If you’ve ever had an itch that you couldn’t scratch, then you’ll understand what drives this quirky example of animal cooperation. Under the aquamarine surface of tropical seas, coral reef fish literally line up to be tended by one or a pair of small, striped cleaner fish. Without limbs or fingers, big fish have a tricky time removing parasites on their skin and fleshy gills. The small cleaner fish provide the solution: they bite off any crustacean parasites they find. It seems to be a simple arrangement. The client fish are cleared of their irksome parasites and the cleaner fish get a meal. But things are not always what they seem.

Cleaner fish are not just interested in parasites. They actually prefer mucus, the protein rich secretion that covers a fish and makes them feel slimy to us. From time to time cleaners cheat by taking a bite, not at a parasite, but out of their client. Client fish don’t like this at all and visibly shudder. Client fish have found that the best way to punish cheating cleaners is to swim away and avoid that cleaner in the future.

Intriguingly, it turns out that the relationship between the cleaner and client isn’t just restricted to any pairing, but in fact a whole communication network can become established with cleaner reputations being lost or gained. Some cleaners work at specific places on the reef, known as stations. The clients learn to approach these areas and wait for their turn to be serviced. Fish waiting in line for the cleaner’s attention keep a wary eye on the client in front, and if they see it shudder, they too will swim away in search of another station with a more cooperative cleaner. Cleaner fish that get too greedy lose their clients and their reputation.

A further twist to this tale has just been discovered. Researchers working in the Red Sea have reported that cleaner stations with a paired male and female are more cooperative and cheat less than stations with a solo cleaner. What makes these pairs different? It turns out that the male cleaner actually polices the honesty of the female cleaner, chasing and harassing her if she munches on mucus. Males punish the females, even though the client was the victim, because males need satisfied clients. On average the male gets more food when a client remains at a station until the cleaning operation is complete.

There is much in this tale. Clearly fish are smarter than we could have imagined. They can make and lose reputations. They can learn from the experience of others. They can cooperate as business partners – by force if need be. Who would have thought that such a beautifully simple business model would turn out to be a hotbed of cheating, reprima

Today I finished an illustration in Ilustrator CS3, inspired by the story of a boy with a very bad temper I recieved an email from a friend the other day. I was inspired to use it for my CRE Prep class so I re-wrote it for younger children and illustrated a book cover in colour. The pages will be in the form of a colouring book so the kids can read and colour in the pages. I will update my blog