Dan Erwin

The Flip Side of Happiness

Too much of a good thing can backfire. And that, research reveals, includes happiness. It’s intriguing to find significant research explaining the downside of emotions. Not least because I’ve always been intrigued with the upside of bad emotions and the downside of good emotions. Anger, for example, has an upside. And, in a never forgotten experience with a client, paranoia—at least for a lawyer—can have an upside too.

American culture is all about the pursuit of happiness. We’ve institutionalized that pursuit in the Declaration of Independence. But we understand the governmental caveats to that pursuit to assume also that we don't do anything illegal or violate the rights of others.

Still, I’m not a happiness-hater. Normally I have more than my fair share of happiness...

How to Walk Safely in the Winter

I would never have thought about this except that one of our new apartment residents is from Louisiana. She’s terrified about driving in the snow and ice and just as frightened by walking. But I found her response to Minnesota winter just hilarious. Her brother recently flew in from Louisiana, landing on one of the coldest days thus far—minus 25 degrees—told her that she needed to come home. “Minnesota is uninhabitable. Why would anyone want to live in this country?” I gave her a few suggestions about how to walk in the winter--and especially how to deal with driving when you're sliding around.

For those of you, like me, who enjoy winter and snow and like to take an occasional outdoor walk, here are a few tips for safe walking.

--Dress in layers. At 20 below I’m comfortable in a t-shirt, regular shirt, hoodie and my lightweight Patagonia winter coat with hood. Some of my friends wear longies underneath their pants along with warmly lined boots, but I’ve never found them necessary.

--Cover your extremities. If it’s below zero, you may want a warm mask or big scarf to cover your face..

The Better Decision is Unconscious

You’ve just moved out of state and are looking for a new house in the new location. The local real-estate broker informs you elaborately about several available houses and takes you on a tour. After a couple hours you find yourself completely lost.

The houses differ so many ways that you find yourself completely lost. You’re not certain you can actually make a sound choice. One house is bigger than the others, and also more expensive. You’ve been promoted to director, not vice-president. Another house has a beautiful garden, a great opportunity for you and your wife to unwind and also enjoy some fresh vegetables. Still a third house is a rickety old mansion. It has three bathrooms, one of them with Tuscany marble. A glorious room. . .

I Never Thought I’d Read a Psych Book this Enlightening—and This Much Fun!

               Before You Know It: The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do
                    By John Bargh, PhD

Last Spring, I got cornered by one of my friends, a psych analyst, while vacationing with her and her husband. We’d been having some heavy discussions and I’d been taking a solid position on the conscious brain and ignoring the unconscious (Only nerds like me do such things.) Finally, she asked the question: “Well, Dan, do you believe in the unconscious?” Recognizing she was probably pissed, I stared at her for about 30 very quiet seconds and finally responded, “I’m agnostic.” That discussion went no further.

But after working through John Bargh’s book, I’m a convert to the phenomenal role of the unconscious brain. Bargh had me from the first line of his book: “In college, I majored in psychology and minored in Led Zeppelin. Or maybe it was the other way around.” The scholarship doesn’t get any better, and the fun never stops. . 

A Heckler's Warning

Balancing free speech with students’ objections to speakers with unpopular views has become a messy task in recent years. With students, the rights of free speech can come into conflict with the need to feel safe and welcome. Although the problem has recently surfaced all across the country, the most public episode was the shouting down of the conservative, Charles Murray, at Dartmouth last year.

Four months later when Murray was to appear at the University of Michigan, the experience was very different than that at Dartmouth. The problem has a long history. My college grappled with the issue back in the 1950s. But with the polarization in our country, the issue has become more front and center.

Part of the problem is that students often come to college having never interacted with someone with a different viewpoint or different lifestyle. Today’s homogeneous residential neighborhoods limit the opportunities for diverse interactions. There are also virtual reality silos where similar views can be curated so that one’s perspectives are always affirmed and never challenged.

Of course, there’s also a bit of imitation going on. The student brain thinks that they did it at Dartmouth so we can do it here in Podunk Center.

The best way to deal with the issue is...

Do Chameleons Get Ahead?

Most employees make getting ahead a very high objective. Promotions can drastically change the lives of both those who stay in a company and those who move to another company. Promotions do more than provide different job duties and better rewards. They can also change where you live and who you get to interact with. In today’s high-pressured workplace, gaining new skills and working with different people can help keep you on the learning curve—and provide for job security.

 

Recently, studies have assessed the power of personality traits to impact promotion and rewards. The studies have ignored the actual performance of individuals and focused, for example, on the Big Five personality traits: conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism. Systematic studies have found that personality can predict job performance fairly well—but only under certain conditions. In fact, you may have lots of job relevant talent and personality traits, like conscientiousness and extraversion, but nevertheless fail to gain power or get promoted. . .

Failing Your Way to Success

Walter Russell Mead, an astute historian and commentator on American history and current events, recently wrote an article on our American history of failing our way to success. His first paragraph is a fun mind game.

As Americans struggle to make sense of a series of uncomfortable economic changes and disturbing political developments, a worrying picture emerges of ineffective politicians, frequent scandals, racial backsliding, polarized and irresponsible news media, populists spouting quack economic remedies, growing suspicion of elites and experts, frightening outbreaks of violence, major job losses, high-profile terrorist attacks, anti-immigrant agitations, declining social mobility, etc. etc. etc.

Sound familiar? Really? Actually, it’s a description of the American Democracy in the years between 1865 and 1900.

Mead then reverts to our world. He’s aware that it will a very long time before it becomes clear what a fully mature information economy might look like. He points out that if people and the 1860s and 1870s had been told that only two percent of the population would earn a living on the farm in the twentieth century, they could never imagine what jobs the displaced farmers could find. The full consequences of the knowledge economy and the information age will only come into view on a very slow time table. The implication, however, is that getting caught in the grip of profound pessimism and giving up on government, business and the nation is highly unrealistic.

But he draws some interesting conclusions about...

A New Approach to Human Assessment

Back in March 2014, I read a fascinating interview of Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, by the Times writer, Adam Bryant. Nadella’s orientation was so unique and rhetorically fascinating that I decided there was enough information provided for a verbal analysis. Using psycho-rhetoric, a new tool that makes assessments possible, I posted the results on my blog. 

I drew a number of conclusions growing out of Nadella’s consistent use of the rhetorical form of point/counterpoint. The form--a verbal pattern--stresses affinity to the past, and provides an alternative reading for the future. The use of the form made it possible to reap the positive and constructive legends surrounding Gates’ tenure without rejecting Steve Ballmer’s tenure. Significantly, the strategy limits the potential for rejection and blowback that many new CEOs face.

Using point/counterpoint, Nadella positioned the individual expertise as the real power of Microsoft’s teamwork. He also moved to confirm the present leadership team, strongly emphasizing their abilities, and securing the value of continuity. Finally, he used the Microsoft rhetoric of “formula,” but tweaked so that he can insert his own strategy. In effect, Nadella affirms the traditions of the past while adapting them to the new leadership and the present. Implicitly, my post suggested that Nadella was a superb CEO choice, a conversationalist and leader par excellence.

Well, was the analysis correct? Just three years later, a March issue of The Economist had a two page article on Nadella and...

When Life Is Beyond Your Control

I regularly enjoy conversations with seven or eight friends, retired university faculty and social workers. Recently, I’ve become aware that at least three of them are profoundly alarmed by Trump and Trumpism. They talk about Trump incessantly and seem personally frightened by his actions. I’ve intended to tell them just to take a good stiff drink and forget it. But I’ve come to realize that won’t work for them.

I certainly don’t disagree with their politics. It’s fairly obvious to me that our president is an evil, greedy bastard who, thus far, has evinced little interest in the common good. Yet human personal and political reality is never that clear cut. Most of us know that good people can do bad things. But my friends seem unaware that sometimes bad people do good things. The current trade talks seem to bode well for the middle class, just as Trump promised. So what’s really intriguing to me is . . .

Gloria Steinem's New Category for Gory, Blood-and-Guts, Terrorism Filled, Male Movies

 

Maybe it's just the fact that we're both the same age--82 years--that causes Steinem and me to get a real bang out of creating new terminology and laughing at ourselves. She really did me one better a short time ago, revealing her ability to create new linguistic categories. I burst out laughing three or four times the same day, just thinking about her obscene category label.

Steinem was on a plane from New York to Seattle when a long delay on the tarmac prompted the airline to offer a free movie. When the flight attendant read the choices out loud, the man across the aisle from her said, "I don't watch chick flicks!" She knew the language as well as I...