SHORT OF A BEDROOM TOUR

In a previous posting (“He Said, She Said,” June 24, 2016), this blog reported on research that zeroed in on a factor that proves to be detrimental to marital survival.  Using research by John Gottman,[1] it turns out that a predictor of marriage dissolution is contempt – usually expressed in the communication patterns between the spouses.  This contempt tends to be peppered with foul language.

Recorded interchanges between married people were coded as to their content and through the history of the research, it did not take much sampling of these conversations to predict which couples were going to end up in divorce.  Contempt proved far more predictive than other forms of negative messaging.

          Such insight is useful in developing organizational theory and that extends to change theory.  As a matter of fact, any understanding concerning how people can know each other further helps in developing personnel policy.  If one is about working toward changing an organization, especially what has been called transformative change, these issues are important.  Consequently, a change agent is well served if he/she can have a process by which the agent can “know” the subjects of the organization and this extends to school sites.

          So, in this light, it would be useful for a change agent to have a set of questions he/she could ask or be concerned about to grasp what kind of person each of the staff is like.  Here, it turns out, one can better get a sense of who another person is if he/she could have about fifteen minutes to investigate what the subject’s bedroom looks like.  Such an investigation gives one more accurate insight along most dimensions of a person’s personality than would a lifelong friendship.

          That’s the conclusion Samuel Gosling[2] discovered using a five-dimension set of questions.  It’s called the “Big Five Inventory.”  It is summarized as follows:

1.     Extroversion.  Are you sociable or retiring?  Fun-loving or reserved? 

2.     Agreeableness.  Are you trusting or suspicious?  Helpful or uncooperative?

3.     Conscientiousness.  Are you organized or disorganized?  Self-disciplined or weak willed?

4.     Emotional stability.  Are you worried or calm?  Insecure or secure?

5.     Openness to new experiences.  Are you imaginative or down-to-earth?  Independent or conforming?[3]

For the most part, a person who can have access to another person’s bedroom – allowing an inspection of said room – can better detect how that other person’s personality is – e.g., how items are arranged or if there are dirty clothes all about – than someone who has had extensive friendship with that other person.  Personality is being defined here as the product of the above, questioned concerns.

          Of interest to this blog is the questions.  A change agent is not going to have access to a subject’s bedroom, nor is he/she likely to have had a long-established relationship with a subject.  But he/she can, with a short list of questions, go about having interactions that are aimed at answering those above listed questions. 

And, as the Gosling research utilized, indirect questions can be used.  For example, in conducting a conversation over the subject’s last vacation, well-directed inquiries can get at many of these concerns – did the subject go for that zip line option or be content with lounging by the pool?  Answers to that type of question can give insight as to the dimensions:  extroversion and openness.  Similarly, other conversations can get at the other dimensions.

  This need not be devious, early on a change agent can let it be known that in doing his/her work, knowing the subjects – their personalities – is essential in doing an effective job.  The more the agent understands the subjects, the more the agent can plan the change effort along the parameters the school’s social landscape provides.

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[1] As reported in Malcolm Gladwell, Blink:  The Power of Thinking without Thinking (New York, NY:  Bay Back Books, 2005).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 35.

THE RELUCTANCE TO ADMIT A MISTAKE

In the last posting, this blog presented a game.  It’s called the dollar auction in which literally a dollar goes up for auction.  The scholar who introduced this game, Martin Shubik, reports that he made, on average, $3.40 playing the game and acting as the auctioneer.  He even reports making up to $20 in one playing of the game.  The auction is conducted as any auction with one difference:  not only does the highest bidder pay his/her bid, but the next highest bidder must pay what he/she bid while walking away with nothing.

          The reader is invited to look up that posting if he/she missed it.  It’s entitled, “In for a Pound.”  It leaves the reader with a preview of this posting and suggesting the dollar auction has something to say about the nightmare the Vietnam War proved to be.  It also gives insight into the financially disastrous experience the initial Concorde supersonic passenger aviation program was.[1]

          In terms of Vietnam, Laszlo Mero[2] points out that President Johnson’s early speeches on the war were full of idealistic, but rational messages.  The emphasis was protecting democracy, advancing freedom, and promoting liberty.  A war that advances these ideals can be rational if the costs are reasonable. 

But as time passed, the American public became more informed as to what the politics of South Vietnam were – corrupt and lacking in these idealistic attributes – and the costs became evermore significant.  The idealistic calculation to most Americans became skewed toward withdrawal.  Consequently, Johnson’s rhetoric became “in for the pound” sort of argument.  He said withdrawal would damage the national honor, would be a step away from halting Communism, and/or it would project weakness.  In short, as in the dollar auction, the nation, in the estimation of the policy makers, had invested too much to walk away.

This reminds one of marginal analysis which this blog has described at various times.  Should one do X (continue the war)?  Rational thought calls for a marginal analysis.  One is reasonable in continuing – or even starting – something if one anticipates that the extra benefit from doing it exceeds the extra cost involved.  How much more will it cost to continue the war?  What can one expect will be the reward in doing so? 

The first of these questions is relatively easy to determine.  War expenses are well understood – heaven knows, unfortunately, the nation has had sufficient experience to have such an understanding.  But how about the second question?  What was known at the time that assisted policy makers to answer that question?

The recent film, The Post, dramatizes the fact that it became known among policy makers that the US could not win the war – either in terms of an outright capitulation of the enemy or a withdrawal due to attrition of their resources.  That was the central message contained in the Pentagon Papers.

Ergo, it was irrational to continue the war, much less escalate it.  Yet, escalation was the policy of the Johnson administration.  The “in for the pound” arguments prevailed much to the tragic results in terms of human life and national – both to Vietnam and the US – resources.  Since then, it is amazing to this writer how much the relationship between the two countries has become as positive as it has.  Perhaps a rash of rational thought has broken out.

As for the Concorde example – a cooperative venture between France and Britain – it was to develop and institute intercontinental passenger service using a supersonic jet – it traveled twice the speed of sound.  Here, another aspect of these calculations comes into play.  It is rational for the developers of the program (functioning as an auctioneer in this example) to provide estimates of future costs as being lower than is the case.  Lower initial costs lures consumers – France and Britain – into the program, but as the project evolves, the costs first become more realistic and then become exorbitant.

Mero writes of how TV programmers are aware of this phenomenon and front-load programs with few commercials (low costs to the viewer) and then, as the viewer invests his/her time and interest into the program, loads those commercials toward the end of the program.  By that time, the viewer is so invested that he/she is very unlikely to leave the program due to any annoyance the commercials provide.

Likewise, as France and Britain sank their investment dollars (pounds or francs), they fell victims to “in for a pound” thinking.  Withdrawal was tantamount to admitting foolishness with the nation’s treasure.  That is not a formula for success in the political thicket of democracies which both France and Britain were and are.  Therefore, before the Concorde was abandoned (the service lasted from 1969 to 2003), a lot was lost down that rathole.  One can figure the project was abandoned as more and more of the initial politicians departed the scene.[3]

This notion of the dollar auction can be presented in civics and history classes.  The game can add insight into what otherwise can be quizzical.  Vietnam is one example, but this dynamic reoccurs often both at the national level or at the individual level and all levels in between.  Secondary students are old enough to note their own folly along these lines or of that of their parents, relatives, or school officials. 

“In for the pound” thinking happens all the time.  As Mero writes:  “The principle of the dollar auction keeps many people in unsatisfying jobs and unhappy marriages.  Every fight is basically a dollar auction; if it isn’t, it is not a fight but a thrashing.”[4]  Surely, by secondary school years, a student has had first-hand knowledge of a fight or two, perhaps even a thrashing.  Hopefully, these are not physical (they usually aren’t), but, surely, they are always emotional.

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[1] There is currently talk of reviving the Concorde.

[2] Laszlo Mero, Moral Calculations:  Game Theory, Logic, and Human Frailty (Springer-Verlag, NY:  Copernicus, 1998).

[3] Of course, the Concorde crash in the year 2000 seemed to hasten the program’s demise.

[4] Laszlo Mero, Moral Calculations:  Game Theory, Logic, and Human Frailty, 10.