Bias Against the Long-term

An increased emphasis on the long-term, in relation to the effects of current systems of production and consumption, implies sacrifice, or at least significant change, in the now. In James March's A Primer on Decision Making, he writes, "The immediacy and clarity of the present and nearby tend systematically to disadvantage the spatially and temporally distant." Also, "Correcting the bias is, however, complicated by the fact that favoring the clear and the close is sometimes necessary to survive. In that sense, at least, concerns about long-term and global intelligence must always be subordinated to valid concerns about short-term and local intelligence."

I think the key phrase is valid concerns. How is that judgment made, where is the line drawn between need/concern and want/desire, and how can people be persuaded to deem long-term effects 'valid' that will very likely not personally affect them?

Along the same lines, according to Gilbert in Stumbling on Happiness, when people think of distant past or future events they think abstractly about why; when thinking of events in the near past or future, people think concretely about how. For example, in a study, "when volunteers are asked to imagine themselves locking a door the next day, they describe their mental images with detailed phrases such as 'putting a key in the lock,' but when volunteers are asked to imagine themselves locking a door next year, they describe their mental images with vague phrases such as 'securing the house'." If so, even if people intend to change the way they behave for a long-term abstracted purpose, taking the concrete steps toward it each day could be a somewhat separate mental process requiring different motivation, feedback, or incentives.

"A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future."
-Ecologist Garrett Hardin

An appeal beyond the rational will very likely be necessary.

Becoming Ordinary: A Double-Take on Habituation

One of the reasons we buy new things is that we become bored with what we have. The object that at one time was novel transitions to mundane. On successive occasions of having a particular experience, Gilbert writes, "we quickly begin to adapt to it, and the experience yields less pleasure each time. Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility." He suggests there are two mechanisms to counteract habituation - variety and time, although variety isn't necessary if there is sufficient time separating experiences.

Although Gilbert doesn't make the connection explicitly, presentism, or the tendency for current experience to influence one's views of the past and the future, also seems to play a role in stimulating purchases. Upon an initial novel experience with an object, we assume we will continue to have the same positive feelings for long after we purchase it - forgetting to take habituation into account. Gilbert does propose that comparisons have a similar effect. When considering the purchase of a new item, we compare it to our current, habituated, mundane possession - rendering the new, novel and/or the current, outdated. However, we fail to consider that after purchase and the discarding of the old, the delight produced by that initial contrast is gone. Styling, and perceived obsolescence, takes advantage of this phenomenon to persuade essentially unnecessary upgrade purchases.

Gilbert's theories don't sufficiently explain the existence of favorite, long-standing, frequently used possessions, as he doesn't account for contained memory, attachment, and meaning in objects. However, Michael Pollan, in Omnivore's Dilemma, proposes a framework for eating that transfers well to objects. (One of many concepts in this book that translates smoothly into material culture.) He suggests humans' "innate neophilia - the pleasure of variety, and neophobia - the comfort of the familiar," motivate the contradictory inclinations for the new and the known. We sometimes seek the excitement of novel experiences and stimulations and other times prefer the safe reassurance of the familiar.

The Futile Pursuit of Happiness

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert's book, Stumbling on Happiness, discusses the circumstances and conditions in which people incorrectly predict their future emotional states. Although our ability to imagine the future - which guides us in our decision making between multiple possibilities - is what defines our humanness, we are actually very poor forecasters. Our imagination fails us in three ways: it fills in and leaves out details without telling us, it projects the present onto the future, and it fails to recognize that things will look different once they happen.

I will describe the most compelling ideas in this book in future posts.