Can increased happiness lower crime rates? It seems it can, in part. At least judging from a recent research finding and the write-up about it.
The paper title outright implies a causal relationship between happiness and crime. It reads, "Get Happy! Positive Emotion, Depression and Juvenile Crime." The news release gets more explicit in the words it uses -
Happiness can deter crime, a new study finds
If happiness can deter crime, it must then causally influence it. How was this determined? What data was the conclusion based upon? Hold onto your veils, it ain't pretty.
The authors used 1995 and 1996 data from nearly 15,000 seventh- to ninth-grade students in the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the largest, most comprehensive survey of adolescents ever undertaken.
They found that about 29 percent of the youth surveyed reported having committed at least one criminal offense, and 18 percent said that they had used at least one illegal drug. The researchers then correlated these reports with self-assessments of emotional well-being. [all emphases added]
The researchers correlated them. How, then, did they get to the causal part? Co-authors Bill McCarthy and Teresa Casey are quoted as saying,
We hypothesize that the benefits of happiness — from strong bonds with others, a positive self-image and the development of socially valued cognitive and behavioral skills — reinforce a decision-making approach that is informed by positive emotions.
So the study finding, at least as advertised, is a hypothesis? Isn't it possible that happiness and crime are correlated, but not causally? It seems possible to me, for instance, that "strong bonds with others, a positive self-image and the development of socially valued cognitive and behavioral skills" might both increase personal happiness and decrease the likelihood of involvement in criminal behavior.
Mind you, I do find it likely that happy people are less inclined to commit crime. Maybe. I haven't seen actual stats on the matter. But I don't think this study alone makes a strong case for it.
Psychology is a complex field. Social psychology, even more complex. Read and interpret with caution.
Although adult-adult loving relationships are a cultural universal, the 'flavor' of that love can vary from culture to culture. (Of course, culture can also determine what type of love is appropriate to manifest when and where. Think homosexuality, also a cultural universal.)
As to flavoring love, a recent study published in the journal Cross-Cultural Research (man would I love to have a subscription to that!) looked at "how men and women defined romantic love through the use of surveys and used the results to find some commonalities and differences among the countries." The finding? In part:
"The idea that romantic love was temporary and inconsequential was frequently cited by Lithuanian and Russian informants . . . [while] expressions of 'comfort /love' and 'friendship' were frequently cited by the U.S. informants and seldom to never by our Eastern European informants." [source]
Interesting. I imagine we could also find generational differences in ideas of love. The "best friends" element being relative new to our own. At least when measured in decades.
What a mess. That was my conclusion upon reading the news release to new research on "forgiving." The finding -
The first element that perplexed me was the lead sentence. See if you catch the bit of a word miss-match:
According to the study, parents forgive more than children, while women are better at forgiving than men.
Catch it? While more is readily quantifiable, what is better?
But wait, it gets worse. In a mere 500 words, I also encountered these claims:
- "The study has great application for teaching values."
- "Women have a greater empathetic capacity than males."
- "Children believe that 'one forgives with time', while parents point to reasons such as 'remorsefulness and forgiving the other person' and 'legal justice'."
- "[P]arents who have forgiven most over the course of their lives have an increased capacity to forgive 'in all areas'."
- ["T]here are greater differences between men and women. Both see 'not bearing a grudge' as the best definition of forgiveness, but men place greater importance on this characteristic."
- "The study . . . highlights two key conditions for a person to be forgiven. One is for them to 'show remorse' and the second is for the person who has been offended 'not to bear a grudge'."
- "[T]he family environment plays a key role in transmitting ethical values."
- [I]t is 'necessary to study the role that forgiveness plays in psychological treatment, especially among victims of sexual abuse, physical and psychological maltreatment and marital infidelity, as well as other situations'."
Yikes! What a spray of claims.
This piece of "science" is no single-fire, precisely targeted rifle shot. It's more like a shotgun blast. Of rubber bullets. Why rubber? Based on what little we learn about the source of the data -- a study "carried out with the collaboration of 140 participants (parents and children aged between 45 and 60, and 17 and 25, respectively)" -- the claims lack any strong connection to data. As far as I can tell.
Sometimes being narrow-minded is more scientific.
For years scientists and our kind in general have under-estimated, even discounted, the intellectual abilities of other, "lesser" primates. In my questioning of a new research finding -- one that asserts that rhesus monkeys can experience regret -- am I continuing that trend, or just being a good skeptic?
The finding:
Now a new study by Yale University researchers shows that monkeys also can be Monday morning quarterbacks and visualize alternative, hypothetical outcomes. [source]
By "Monday morning quarterbacks" the writer meant that the rhesus monkeys can recognize bad decisions in light of what would have paid off better.
How did the researchers determine this?
Lee and co-author Hiroshi Abe, in the Department of Neurobiology, recorded neuronal activity in rhesus monkeys as they played a modified game of rock-paper-scissors, receiving large juice rewards for winning games, smaller rewards for tying and nothing for losing. Monkeys were more likely in the subsequent round to pick the winning symbol in the previous game – for instance selecting paper if a rock smashed scissors. In other words, they were able to imagine a different outcome.
The Yale team also found that neural activity in the brain area known as the prefrontal cortex reflects both rational and emotional aspects of regret. One of its subdivisions is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area previously implicated for other complex cognitive functions, such as working memory, and the neurons in this area signal what action would have led to a better outcome. [emphases added]
Hmm. Did the monkeys "imagine" different outcomes? Did they feel regret as we understand the term? Or is this a case of something simpler, with researchers saying "looks like a duck, must be a duck!"? Me, I think it could certainly be the case. But in all I read I did not hear a clear quack. So to speak.
Nonetheless, an interesting finding.
[recycled material - in vacation mode - first appeared here]
An Interesting new research finding (with speculations) on crying hit my desk a couple months ago. The article begins fairly ho-hum, before getting interesting:
Medically, crying is known to be a symptom of physical pain or stress. But now a Tel Aviv University evolutionary biologist looks to empirical evidence showing that tears have emotional benefits and can make interpersonal relationships stronger.
Okay -- that seems almost status-quo for current knowledge, at least of the pop-psychology variety. And, unfortunately, also in line with pop-psychology, the article didn't share much about how the enlightening data was generated and analyzed, besides mentioning in passing that "multiple studies across cultures show..." All we learn is that the study author, Oren Hasson, "investigated the use of tears in various emotional and social circumstances. " Um, just how was the investigation conducted? Minus 50 points for leaving that essential bit of information out.
Where the article gets interesting is when it transitions into evolutionary biology/psychology. Perhaps that is precisely when it gets speculative. But we can't make that determination if the data source is left out of the picture. Anyway -
"Crying is a highly evolved behavior," explains Dr. Hasson. "Tears give clues and reliable information about submission, needs and social attachments between one another. My research is trying to answer what the evolutionary reasons are for having emotional tears.
"My analysis suggests that by blurring vision, tears lower defences and reliably function as signals of submission, a cry for help, and even in a mutual display of attachment and as a group display of cohesion," he reports.
Hmm. Tears as a submissive signal. As a white flag of surrender when under stress. As a display of an individual's harmless intent, yet continued interest in a relationship. Of their need for assistance, even.
Hmm. When fathers tell their young male offspring, "boys don't cry," are they really saying that males with aspirations of dominance don't cry?
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