3/16/18

Why we should lower the voting age to 16 and raise the age to buy a firearm to 21.

Like many of us, I have been stunned at the thoughtful and articulate maturity of the Parkland, Florida students as they expressed their frustration and anger at school shootings and gun control laws.  They certainly didn’t fit the stereotype of phone-addicted, narcissistic slackers. But are they exceptions or just good examples? And what does this have to do with gun control?

There was a fascinating op-ed piece on this topic in the New York Times earlier this month. The author, professor Laurence Steinberg, suggests that the voting age should be lowered to 16. 

He begins by distinguishing between “cold” cognition and “hot” cognition. Cold cognition is the type of thinking we do in calm situations, where we look at evidence and weigh pros and cons.  Voting is a great example of this.  And Steinberg says that the research on adolescent thinking shows that cold cognitive abilities have matured by the time teenagers have reached age 16.  Hot cognition, on the other hand, concerns making good decisions in times of stress or emotional arousal, which requires self-regulation. As most of us remember, teenagers are notoriously short on this and will remain so until their early 20s when the related parts of the brain finish developing. 

Can we change the voting age?  Certainly. It was changed from 21 to 18 some years ago. 

Should we change the voting age?  Steinberg says definitely because voter turnout in this age group is significantly higher than among other young adults.  And when it comes to voting, we tend to continue as we've started. People who don't vote the first time they can are less like to vote in the future.

Will we change the voting age?  Probably not. Since younger people tend to be more liberal, that’s not going to happen in this political climate. Moreover, as my husband suggested when I brought this up, 16 year olds don’t have a wealth of experience to bring to bear on topics of foreign trade, economics, or the balance of powers. However, the research does provide excellent support for the notion of raising the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, when mechanisms in the brain for self-regulation have matured. That notion gets a big YES vote from me.

3/6/18

Demonizing the Opposition

One of the first things you learn in social psychology is how easily we group people into "US" and "THEM".  In-groups and out-groups. There's probably a survival mechanism at work here - we bond together for safety with those who are like us in some way because it increases our likelihood of survival.  But we do see each group differently.

One of the biggest differences is that we see our guys as individuals, with varying skills and opinions and actions, while those other guys over there are all the same.   The formal term is the "outgroup homogeneity effect". Drop that into the conversation if you want to impress someone at your next cocktail party.  

Recently, though, this has taken on even more of a political flavor. The result is a demonization of the opposition, to the detriment of useful conversations and helpful problem solving. 

"Those stupid, bleeding-heart liberals." 

"Those evil, money-hungry Republicans."

I came across a recent article in the January edition of Political Psychology that bears this out and ties it to something called Implicit Follower Theory.  What the researchers found is that we see followers of our own political viewpoint as enthusiastic, industrious and good citizens.  The other guys are conformists, incompetent and insubordinate.  In turn, this leads to two qualitatively different strategies in trying to change opinions.  If we’re dealing with our own guys, our favorite strategies involve persuasion.  Lay out the facts and try to change their minds. Sadly, the option of choice for the other guys is coercion instead.  One of my favorite people sometimes says, "I'd like to smack those guys till they can see what's real and what's not." Think how useful that'll be!

Those notions on how to change the mind of the opposition are about as successful as the guy below. And for the same reason: they’re driven by faulty perceptions, not reality. We can do better.