I admit it, I’m a birdwatcher. Not a highly-esteemed group, generally. We are the nerds of the outdoor set. We don’t carry macho weapons; we don’t go all athletic and climb high peaks. We venture outdoors, or draw birds near where we can see them from climate-controlled comfort — as in the case of the above photo. We walk at a leisurely pace, a pair of short-range telescopes hanging from our necks. Otherwise know as binoculars. We keep an identification manual close at hand. We view the birds, observe and note behavior, song, identifying characteristics, and mark these on our clipboard. Okay, maybe we usually don’t carry literal clipboards. Nor do we sport pocket protectors. But we are the fresh-air cousins to that class of person. And I’m alright with it. I wear my nerdy-birdwatcher badge, if not with honor, without shame.

The above is a chipping sparrow. We see these only in winter at our feeders. Today I just bought a new, hanging bird bath. I’m glancing at it now, between looks at my computer screen. It’s in a small cypress tree, maybe 15 feet from me. I can’t wait ’til birds discover it. Which species will use it first? My guess is cardinals.

… Nope, nothing yet…

On the level of the question they are related because arguments are often made in the extreme. It’s black; No, it’s white.

One one extreme we have people emphasizing human plasticity and the role of other important social factors, such as peer group. On the other we find a focus on innate traits and predisposition.

In the more muddy middle are insights such as this: Many individuals that experience some type of trauma to the same degree as others turn out fine. It can’t be just the trauma. As it can’t be just experiences in the first three years that shape an individual forever more.

There is quite a bit of gray area. As was evident in a recent finding.

According to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, couples’ abilities to bounce back from conflict may depend on what both partners were like as infants. [emphasis added, source]

The authors emphasize that what infants “were like” was shaped by the quality of their attachment to their parents.

Adult relationships shaped by experiences as infants? I’m a bit skeptical of the idea, especially when expressed so generally. Yet early experiences being an influence (one of many) strikes me as plausible. Is the influence in question both most likely and most evident in extreme cases? Consider Harlow’s monkeys. Deprived of maternal physical comfort in their fist months, they showed a life-long social impact from it. Their ability to intimately relate and interact with other monkeys became nearly crippled.

As for the above pullquote, I must applaud the use of the words in bold. Yes, “may.” Yet I would have added these two words: “In part.” The ability to bounce back from conflict may depend in part on early life experiences.

As for the “may,” the use of that word was called for additionally due to the source of data. Kinda weak. Key words in bold.

By looking back at observations of the participants and their caregivers from the 1970s, when they were between 12 and 18 months old, the researchers discovered a link between the couples’ conflict recovery behaviors and the quality of their attachment relationship with their caregivers. People who were more securely attached to their caregivers as infants were better at recovering from conflict 20 years later. [emphasis added]

A link/hypothesis supported in hindsight via observational data . . . not terribly strong evidence.

As many psychological scientists are aware, unless innate traits are controlled for (nature), there is no way to determine if nurture bears responsibility. As much research attests, an infant’s temperament/personality can shape the attachment it forms with its parents. The relationship is bi-directional from the get-go.

So, do the first three years of life play an important role in shaping the person? My answer: it depends. The truth resides in the colorful specifics, and before those are disclosed we are arguing in black and white.

Once, at a car dealership I had stopped by to test drive a used car listed online, I severely befuddled a manager. He pushed the salesperson aside and dropped the price substantially. I said “no thanks.” He could hardly believe it. I had already communicated I really liked the car, thought is was in great condition, and the price seemed okay.

“Why won’t you buy it?” He asked. I told him that it wasn’t the car I came in to look at — the sales person had talked me into test driving another make and model, after having driven the unsatisfactory first. I hadn’t done any research on the second car. The manager dropped another two thousand dollars off the price, a price that had started at eight thousand. That caught my interest. But I said, “I still haven’t done any research on it.” At near wits end, the dealership sales manager let me use his desktop computer. I did, checking out the title history, blue book value, safety ratings and reliability reports. The car checked out. Sale was made. I got a real bargain on a car that fit my needs. A nice car. But it was just a car.

I wonder if some people are by nature more or less gullible, and/or easy to be persuaded by a good sales pitch. Is it akin to a personality trait that can be exaggerated or attenuated by experience? A recent bit of research got me thinking about it.

In news about a study — found at ScienceDaily.com — linking genes and learning styles, I encountered this somewhat science-language-heavy but fascinating information:

In their experiment, the researchers studied people with and without genetic variations that affected the activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the PFC and striatum. A variation in a gene called COMT that affects dopamine in the PFC, for example, helps people remember and work with advice.

People with a variation on the gene DARPP-32 that affects the response to dopamine in the stratium allowed people to learn more quickly from experience when no advice was given, but also made them more readily impressionable to the bias of the PFC when instruction was given. Like a “yes man” who is flexible to a fault, the striatum would give more weight to experiences that reinforced the PFC’s belief, and less weight to experiences that contradicted it. Researchers call this confirmation bias, which is ubiquitous across many domains, such as astrology, politics, and even science. [source, emphasis added]

While any lasting meaning of this study is undetermined, and the research was only indirectly about persuade-ability and possibly gullibility, I have a hunch it provides a piece to the puzzle. A very complicated puzzle. I think. But I’m not sure.

If anyone were to draw a hard-and-fast conclusion from the above, my response would be: “I ain’t buying it.” Still not enough research.

- Skeptical
– Fussy
– Inflexible
– Cold
– Interfering [source]

That sounds kinda autistic-ish to me. Emphasis on the ish.

But wait. I’ve taken liberties with the science finding. It wasn’t really about Virgos. It was about children conceived in winter. They are more likely to be autistic. Yet Virgos are conceived in winter . . . therefore you’ve got a bogus link of astrology to psychology. If you want to make it. As I did, in fun.

As for the actual science finding, in brief it is:

An examination of the birth records of the more than 7 million children born in the state of California during the 1990s and early 2000s has found a clear link between the month in which a child is conceived and the risk of that child later receiving a diagnosis of autism. [source]

Okay, that makes more sense. For an alignment of the “heavenly bodies” to influencing psychological traits is implausible. How the heck could it do that? For the season of conception to influence psychological traits is more plausible. The possible mechanism being:

The researchers said the finding suggests that environmental factors, for example, exposure to seasonal viruses like influenza, might play a role in the greater risk they found of children conceived during the winter having autism.

Which leads me to my earth-shaking conclusion. Virgos are less likely to be virally-virginal at birth. Or something.

One of my peeves is when individuals believe their political opinions are 100% rational. How could others disagree with them! Must be blind or dumb.

I think this nation needs a better educational system. One that emphasizes critical thinking. Which would include a fair amount of psychology, for that field has a lot to say how rational we really are. Perhaps the next generation of thinkers, voters, citizens would be more humble. Less heated by disagreements.

In a previous post, The Cart and Horse of Personality and Politics, I shared how the science of psychology has found a relationship between personality traits and political orientation. Yes, our political opinions are not fully rational.

Parenting, peers, personal experience — (events with an emotional component?) — these, too, are factors in the development of the political self.

I’m sure sociologists have also identified group influences on “personal” politics.

In a recent news release found at Eurekalert, Look: What your reaction to someone’s eye movements says about your politics, we learn of an experiment that yielded this fascinating result:

In a new study, UNL researchers measured both liberals’ and conservatives’ reaction to “gaze cues” – a person’s tendency to shift attention in a direction consistent with another person’s eye movements, even if it’s irrelevant to their current task – and found big differences between the two groups.

Liberals responded strongly to the prompts, consistently moving their attention in the direction suggested to them by a face on a computer screen. Conservatives, on the other hand, did not. [emphases added]

Of course, this is just one study with 72 subjects. And the specific degree of the difference is never mentioned — boo! What, I’d like to know, was the difference between “responded strongly” and “did not”?

And I definitely take issue with this sentence:

Researchers suggested that conservatives’ value on personal autonomy might make them less likely to be influenced by others, and therefore less responsive to the visual prompts.

Okay, “suggested” does express some tentativeness. But given the nature of the statement, I would have preferred the term “speculated.” For that is quite a claim. Certainly, it might be right on. But it is a big step from the actual measurements in the study to that thought. A step that need better justification.

Still. Provocative stuff. Just another drop in the bucket of reasons to take “the truth” of political opinions more lightly. And that starts with our own.