John Timmer reports on studies from the journal Science which suggest that ineurotransmitter levels influence perceived fairness:

Exploring the neurochemistry of fairness

First, consider the notion of innate fairness. People who participated in a experimental transaction called the Ultimatum Game (a simple 2-party example of game theory) tended to reject offers they perceive as ‘unfair’ even though doing so results in them receiving less. This reinforces a recurring theme in current economic theory that participants often act fundamentally irrationally (e.g. Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational and other efforts in behavioral economics). One hypothesis drawn from the Ultimatum Game is an underlying evolutionary selection of a shared ‘golden rule,’ given the comparative advantage of group cohesion this might reinforce.

Second, the implications of the neurochemistry itself are more sobering. Even basic negotiation is often based on latent manipulation through psychological leverage; more advanced techniques sometimes exploit physiological factors such as room temperature or sleep deprivation to affect pliability. The casino industry has invested heavily in psychological profiling both in developing comp systems and interior design to lower inhibitions and increase the desire to stay on the gaming floor (high ceilings, rounded walls, indirect lighting, running water)—some examples are given in a short featurette on the DVD for Ocean’s Thirteen. Pushed a little further, you can see some of the same techniques deployed in the fields of law enforcement and the military as interrogation aids, as well as within specialized training such as SERE. In each case, the environment and physical comfort of the targeted participant are manipulated to lower their resistance, gain their trust, or ultimately obtain some concession.

Moving from science to science fiction, you can find ready parallels to controlling serotonin and oxytocin with the Pax used to curb aggression on the Outer Rim planet Miranda in Joss Whedon’s Serenity; the drug Prozium in Equilibrium and Soma in Brave New World; and more obscurely, the hormones produced by alien Powers that activate the ‘god module’ (aka neurotheology) in humans from Walter Jon Williams’ Voice of the Whirlwind. In each, the population is effectively controlled through their own neurochemistry by instilling languor, reducing aggression, suppressing emotion, etc.

Another variation of the ‘cognitive trap,’ David Weiss explores the inverse relation between confidence and knowledge—again through the lens of software development, sort of the zebrafish of organization psychology.

David Weiss: Metacognitive Miscalibration

He goes on to characterize several cases of the miscalibration of confidence and thinking. “Wicked Problems” could be considered as similar to those physics problems you first struggled to complete in high school, which helpfully neglected messy factors like air resistance at the expense of effective accuracy. As you add in all of the variables required by the actual underlying complexity, the problem eventually collapses. The “Desire to Learn” dovetails with the previously linked Raganwald predicament, where a sense of sufficient knowledge forestalls efforts to deepen understanding. “Personal Pride” evokes the admonition common in entrepreneurship and venture capital to “fail quickly” and not let fear of failure paralyze you.

Finally, the “Well Intended Deception” describes a situation more specific to software programming where levels of abstraction can hide deeper problems—sometimes an emphasis on simplicity through inheriting framework code results in an offset in opacity. The upfront ease of using pre-made tools and resources can be undone by the lack of transparency into what’s really going on when you need to dig into the details. This is a balancing act, as it’s often more efficient to build on proven platforms and add just distinguishing features as custom effort. Thus a new product like Pixelmator, even with only one designer and one developer, can usurp some of the mighty Adobe Photoshop’s turf by building on established open-source and Apple-provided APIs. The parallel in videogame development is whether to build one’s own engine, a la Id Software, or license a middleware product like the Unreal Engine. The former gains full optimization and customization options at the cost of major additional engineering effort; the latter can focus on just a specific game’s logic rather than the underlying plumbing, but remain fundamentally limited by the licensed engine’s capabilities.

This ‘buy or build’ decision ripples through most manufacturing processes. Despite its long history of ‘Not Invented Here‘ myopia, Apple has lately shown a great deal of maturity in this area, with the move to Intel processors freeing up engineering to focus on new products like the iPhone and Apple TV; yet their recent purchase of P.A. Semi also shows that they intend to maintain a toehold at the lower levels of chip design.

One of the small joys of introspection is identifying those cognitive traps that restrict our growth. This ego-spelunking process has featured prominently in Western philosophy within the role of the skeptic (e.g. Descartes); in Eastern disciplines such as Buddhism; and in various self-help tomes that provide a mash-up of both (e.g. Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior). In laying out the idiosyncratic ‘metaphysics of Quality’ in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig proposes a related concept called the ‘gumption trap’ which siphons off your enthusiasm when you encounter “affective, cognitive and psychomotor blocks” in performing a task.

Reginald Braithwaite discusses what might be characterized as one of these self-limiting habits:

Why we are the biggest obstacles to our own growth

This begins by riffing on an observation made by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber in analyzing the import of the mainstream success of Apple among youth, which has now filtered down from the obvious case to financial analysis. Braithwaite carries the idea in a more professional direction, namely that what you know often interferes with your acceptance of something you don’t. Building up a degree of expertise in any discipline means you have potentially more to lose - in comfort and initial efficiency at least - when switching to a novel alternative. Braithwaite’s examples are specific to software programming (Lisp vs Factor, regular expressions in Ruby) but the principle can be applied more broadly. The effects can be seen in resistance to new technologies or methodologies, resulting in foot-dragging up through overt sabotage reminescent of Luddites.

The solution at the individual level is to learn how to stretch, just as you do to extend physical reach. This can mean challenging long-accepted notions on technique that may no longer be the pinnacle solutions they once were, particularly when crossing disciplines—keeping with the software design idea, , for example, when switching from procedural to object-oriented programming. At the group level, extra attention should be paid to transitional aids and training to help lower the resistance borne out of knee-jerk anxiety triggered by a perceived threat to one’s identity.

[EB: Luddite]

Ed Boyden of the MIT Media Lab provides a useful list of good cognitive habits, for optimizing “brain resources in an age of complexity.”

How To Think

#1 & #9 on the list are as good a codification of this blog as any, reinforcing Bloom’s Taxonomy - particularly the inverted Cognitive pyramid which builds to “Analyze / Evaluate / Synthesize.”

#5 I have been following while evaluating MBA programs, building course dependency maps in NovaMind.

#6 encapsulates the reason behind the new TSP project I’ve started with TNG.

#7 is my emergent approach to new tasks, although I’ve noticed it most prominently in programming, cooking, and taxes. Getting it wrong first is sometimes the quickest route to learning how to do it right.

Good ideas all!