Notes from a Psychologist
Dr. Mel Whitehurst

The purpose of Notes from a Psychologist is to encourage and inspire the spread of optimism and hope.  Optimistic thinkers tend to be happier and healthier. I'll keep posting new ideas periodically.  Meanwhile....think positive 

                         MY FAMILY’S CHRISTMAS TRADITION

My Mom made Christmas the event of the year in our home when I was growing up.  She always took my brother and me to Sears in downtown Dallas to see Santa because, according to her, he was the real Santa.  All the other Santas around town, she insisted, were just his helpers. I was convinced she had some kind of inside scoop.  How else would she know?

The story of Santa coming down a chimney always worried me, especially since we didn’t have one.  I was worried he wouldn’t be able to get into our house on Christmas night.

Mom reassured me that when little kids didn’t have a chimney, Santa simply came through a window.  Every Christmas Eve she would crack a window halfway in the Christmas tree room to give him safe passage.  By morning, the room was always freezing.

And so, our Christmas tradition became opening the window for Santa on Christmas Eve and bundling up in warm clothes on Christmas morning.

                              Merry Christmas to all.

ARE NONVIOLENT POLITICAL MOVEMENTS MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN VIOLENT POLITICAL MOVEMENTS?

The answer is a definite yes!

Research consistently shows that nonviolent movements are more successful than violent ones in achieving lasting political change.  Nonviolent campaigns not only win more often but also tend to succeed faster and with broader legitimacy.

Political scientist Erica Chenoweth’s groundbreaking study of 300 resistance campaigns (1900-2006) found that nonviolent campaigns succeed about twice as often as violent ones.  Roughly 53% of nonviolent movements achieved their goals compared to only 26% of violent campaigns.

Nonviolent movements attract more far more people than violent movements.  The superior participation of nonviolent movements makes it more difficult to inhibit and dominate the movement.  Participation of 3.5% of the adult population historically has been enough to effect a change.

Sources

Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, Columbia University Press, 2011

Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stepha, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns:  Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail, Columbia University Press, 2021

SENIORS:  DON’T ALLOW DRIVING RUMORS TO DERAIL YOU

There’s a term used by psychologists called “awfulizing”, a state of continuous commiserating about something.  I was in one of those awfulizing states for several weeks last year. 

In Texas anyone who has reached a certain advanced age has to show up in person at a driver’s license center to renew their license.  Being one of the “advanced”, I scheduled my appointment.  Unfortunately, the earliest slot was three months out and in a city forty miles away.  During that long wait, I heard all kinds of dreadful stories about senior renewals:  full ten-finger fingerprinting, a high-tech driver’s test designed to make it almost impossible to pass for anyone over 65, an IQ and memory exam, vision better than 20/20 vision in each eye, the ability to deadlift 150 pounds, you name it. For three months I was convinced it would be awful, awful, awful.  I wasn’t ready to give up driving.

Fortunately, none of this ever happened.  It was only other seniors, like me, nervously speculating or maybe a few of them were just “putting me on”.  When I finally arrived at the license office, the whole process took ten minutes:  a simple eye test, a fee, and I was done.  Whew!  All that awfulizing for nothing.

I have a dental appointment next month.  And this time, I’m absolutely certain it really will be awful.

                           DON’T UNDERESTIMATE KINDNESS

Kindness frequently increases happiness for both the giver and the receiver.  Yet, two university researchers discovered that many people hesitate to show kindness, fearing the possibility of a negative reaction. **

I believe in taking the chance to be more kind. 

**Margaret Echelbarger and Nicholas Epley, Undervaluating the Positive Impact of Kindness Starts Early, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 2023, Vol, 152, No. 10, 2989-2994

                       THERE IS A HUGE COST TO LIVE SAFELY 

In my view, the greatest tragedy of the human race is that we continue to kill each other.

Combined spending from the military, National Guard, city and state police, ICE, private security systems is estimated to be about $125 trillion yearly, all devoted to protecting us from being killed or harmed by each other.

Imagine what might be possible if that same $125 trillion were invested in violence prevention.  Nothing will really change as long as aggression and warfare remain a high priority means of resolving our differences.  Nevertheless, I plan to make a small try.

I have to admit that I sometimes get angry and find myself supporting aggressive resolutions to disagreements.  There are a few political leaders that I would really, really, really, like to kick in the seat of their pants.  However, I recognize that this kind of reaction is dysfunctional and ultimately useless.  As an alternative, I’ve been exploring more constructive ways that I can address the problem instead of staying angry about situations much of the time.  Below are two things I plan to do.

Stop blaming, demeaning, belittling, name-calling, ridiculing, attacking, and accusing those who disagree with me even though they may deserve it.  Instead, try to see the other sides opinions before forming my responses.

Search for ways to support others although I strongly disagree with them by identifying what we have in common and supporting that.

One person like myself will most likely make only a miniscule difference.  I accept that I will never “save” the world as I once optimistically imagined in my younger days, but perhaps I can make a modest contribution, one small act at a time by encouraging nonviolence. 

 

                      MY 15 MINUTES HAVE NOT ARRIVED YET

Andy Warhol, the late pop artist, said that in the future everybody would be world-famous for fifteen minutes.  Regrettably, I still possess my fifteen minutes of fame, which I need to use before I quietly exit to a higher place in the sky.  Which one of the following do you believe would most likely earn me my 15 minutes of fame?

-Serving as the successful campaign manager for the next Democratic President of the United States in 2028.

-Becoming known as the world’s most knowledgeable worrier about the “right” things.

-Convincing Elon Musk to give his trillion dollars to prevent mass shootings in schools as well as eradicating other forms of violence.

-Repealing the convictions of insurrectionists that attempted to overthrow our American Democracy on Jan. 6.

-Establishing universal healthcare for all citizens in the U.S.

-Randomly handing out $100 bills on all my world travels.

                     LEARNING TO SEE WHAT YOU DON’T SEE

Have you ever known something without any observable facts?  You simply know you know but cannot support it other than your hunches and feelings.

That experience may be your intuition—a form of thinking that operates unconsciously and automatically, without deliberate effort.

Intuitive thinking continuously processes and organizes information below the level of awareness and, for reasons not fully understood, delivers some of it to consciousness in recognizable ways, such as....

....hunches, gut feelings, or impressions.

....a sense that something is wrong or missing in a situation, that things simply     do not feel right.

....the sudden emergence of a solution at an unexpected moment.

Recognizing and understanding intuition can greatly enhance your ability to make positive decisions.  However, intuitions can be incorrect unless they are examined and interpreted through logical analysis once they reach conscious awareness.

Therefore, remain attentive to your daily intuitions.  Logically analyze them when they arrive in your consciousness.  Ask the following questions.

      What does the feeling, hunch, uneasiness or solution mean?  What is it     

      saying to do or not to do?

      What is the probably it is correct?  What is the evidence for both sides?

      What appears to have started the intuition?

                                 THE BUG SPLAT STUDIES

Scientists have revealed some noteworthy results from their latest study of bugs. 

Bug splats on car windshields recently declined 80% in UK.  Researchers believe this is due to a steep drop in the insect population.  Even so, we need to get to the bottom of this disturbing situation because declining bug splats are likely to migrate to the U.S.  If this happens it could destroy the car window shield cleaning industry, subsequently leading to a dramatic stock market decline, and wiping out much our retirement investments.

I sincerely hope we elect leaders who are pro bug splat so seniors like myself can remained retired.

SOURCE

Ball, L., Still, R., Riggs, A., Skilbeck, A., et al. (2022), The Bugs Matter Citizen Science Survey: counting insect ‘splats’ on vehicle number plates reveals a 58.5% reduction in the abundance of actively flying insects in the UK between 2004 and 2021. (Technical Report). DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29866.49606

                                       GOOD QUESTION

“If our religion has convinced us that we are not really going to die, and that the next life could potentially be spectacularly better than this life, how does this change our calculations of living?” (Question asked by an anonymous source.)

I need to give this some more thought.​

                                      WHO’S AT FAULT?

Democrats say the 77,302,580 people who voted for Trump in the last presidential election are the ones causing all our problems.

Republicans say the 75,017,613 who voted for Harris are the ones causing all our problems.

So, according to both sides, more than 152 million Americans are to blame.

Mr. President, perhaps the only bipartisan solution left is clear: deport everyone who voted.  That should take care of nearly all the “troublemakers.”

* Endorsed by the Society of The Preservation of Merriment

​STOP BELIEVING RUMORS AND CONSPIRACIES UNLESS THEY ARE VALIDATED BY FACTS. 

I am a perfect example of a “rumor dupe”.

A rumor circulated among my 1st grade classmates during recess one day that our teacher was a wicked witch and, appallingly, was conspiring to turn any kid who annoyed her into a frog.  I was convinced the rumor was true because she seemed to be just like the wicked witch I saw on TV:  rigid, strict, grouchy, never smiled, and hated children.  I kept exceptionally quiet and lived in terrible fear of becoming a frog. 

First grade was not my best year.  Since that frightful first grade, I have spent the next seven decades of my life being easily hoodwinked by rumors or conspiracy claims.  Even when the media publishes rumor after rumor, conspiracy after conspiracy, and I absolutely know they are not true, I still have a strong compulsion to believe them.  I have to work hard to keep from being pulled in to this false and deceptive propaganda.  I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar there are a lot of people out there just like me.

My advice.  Challenge any rumor or conspiracy claim to produce facts supporting the claim.  Don’t accept any claim, no matter how dramatic, until you’ve verified it with solid evidence.  Only then decide what deserves your trust.

                                     WILLFUL IGNORANCE

Hostile disagreements are far more likely to be resolved when both sides make an honest effort to understand the other persons point of view.  If Democrats and Republicans were willing to examine each other’s perspectives before going to “war,” most of our political problems could be disentangled and solved.  A recent research study illustrates this point.

Researchers at the University of Amsterdam conducted a meta-analysis—a study that combines the findings of many studies—on people’s tendency to avoid information when it conflicts with their goals. This behavior, known as willful ignorance, allows individuals to ignore how their actions might negatively affect others.

Across 6,531 participants and 33,603 decisions, the researchers found that about 40% of people were quick to “look the other way” and avoid information about the harmful consequences of their actions if doing so benefited them.

The impact was significant: willful ignorance was associated with a 15.6% drop in altruistic behavior. But when participants did face the consequences of their actions, their altruism did not decline, and in some cases, it actually increased.

Source

Ignorance by Choice: A Meta‑Analytic Review of the Underlying Motives of Willful Ignorance and Its Consequences — Linh Vu, Ivan Soraperra, Margarita Leib, Joël van der Weele & Shaul Shalvi (2023, Psychological Bulletin

             THE INTERESTING EFFECTS OF UNSEEN FORCES

After conducting a wide-ranging study of the scientific evidence for unseen spiritual forces, I did not change my questioning attitude, but I did gain noteworthy insights.  Here’s what I found.

Experimental evidence about the so-called psi phenomena is at least plausible.  Meta-analysis of psi protocols generally supports the premise that telepathy (direct mind-to-mind communication from one person to another) and clairvoyance (out of the ordinary knowledge of distant events) are detectible in some research studies.  Additionally, distant healing such as prayer and other forms of healing thoughts show a positive treatment effect in a limited number of research studies.  Overall, the experimental evidence although sketchy warrants further study of these areas.

Sources

Caroline Watt & Ian Tiermey, Varieties of Anomalous Experience:  Examining the Scientific Evidence, 2014

Cardena, Etzel, The Experimental Evidence for Parapsychological Phenomena:  A Review, American Psychologist, 2018, 73(5), 663-667.

HAVE YOU EVER MADE A PROMISE TO YOURSELF WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING?  

I made a promise about thirty years ago when for some unknown reason one day I had this sudden insight that I would not live forever, that life was very tenuous.  Anything could happen at any moment.  Hastily, I made a promise to myself, which has influenced me every day since. 

I privately promised to the best of my ability, not to do anything that I could control to shorten my life.  I wanted to live as long as I could.  I did not want to die from something I had caused.  For example, I decided not to smoke, to eat healthy, to stay away from people who pulled me down when I could, to live more for the moment, and to pursue a low stress lifestyle.  Up to now, my promise has been going well.
                            

    THOSE WHO MAKE THINGS SIMPLE, CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

Albert Einstein said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.  It takes a touch of genius---and a lot of courage---to move in the opposite direction.”

When I read this several years ago, I decided to work at becoming a simplifier.  I have made a concentrated effort to simplify all areas of my life.  So far, I haven’t changed the world, but I am happier.

                                 PULL FOR THE UNDERDOG 

Unfortunately, most underdogs end up losing.  Only a few triumph.  So, why should one be drawn to underdogs knowing there is only a slight likelihood they will succeed?  It’s because underdogs’ determination to succeed in the face of nearly insurmountable obstacles is inspiring.  For me, the small fry struggling to triumph overrides the bad feelings of losing and encourages hope.  
 ​

       SENIORS ARE NOT AS EASY TO RATTLE AS YOUNG PEOPLE

Negativity has a lesser effect on seniors.  Researchers found that in a wide variety of cognitive tasks, negativity impaired younger adults’ performance significantly more than older adults.  It was also found that seniors get over negative events quicker than younger people.

Source 

Souza, Alessandra, Lemaire, Patrick, (Aix-Marselle Universite’), Aging, Emotion, and Cognition:  The Role of Strategies, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 2024, Vol. 153, No. 2, 435-453

​                          

                              ARE THERE ANGELS AMONG US?

There are angels among us despite the many horrific things we observe people doing to each other.  Angels give more than they take; they attempt to make things better for others; they are the loving mothers and fathers; the workers who show up every day and do their best; the community volunteers; the teachers who prepare us for the world; the healthcare workers valiantly saving lives at their own peril; the people who say thank you, and those who dare greatly to take a stand for improving the human condition.  I could go on forever.  Regrettably, the evil among us gets more publicity.   Look for an angel today.  They are here among us even in these difficult times.  Or, better yet, become an angel.

                       THE OBITUARY RESEARCH PROJECT

Thoughtful things people did during their lifetimes.  Excerpted from the analysis of 2,100 obituaries obtain from two newspapers. 

A man clipped and mailed comics and editorial cartoons to friends to bring enjoyment to their lives.  Another man listened carefully to find out what was important to his friends and then would send news articles to support those interests.  A woman visited sick friends in the hospital to bring her trademark “apple and flower” to cheer them.  A man kept a pocketful of teabags to give to those he met.  He often mailed tea bags with a note to “Join me for a cup of tea.”  He was known as the “Tea Man.  I thought it was a wonderful project when a man became a pen pal with a first grade reading class.  Four or five times each year, for ten years, the kids would each write a note to him. He would then write each student a personal response, sent with candy and a small note to get well.

 

                              Email: drmelwhitehurst@gmail.com