The Psychology of Waiting Lines

Years ago Fedex ran a series of advertisements in which they noted; “Waiting is frustrating, demoralizing, agonizing, aggravating, annoying, time consuming and incredibly expensive.”  Much has been written in relation to the psychology, dynamics and science of waiting. The truth of this assertion can't be denied.  Few of us haven’t felt these emotions at one time or another. And many of us would have seen the collapse of queues in various forms and places. I recently watched this disorder (mob behaviour) arising suddenly from a perfectly ordered (behaved) queue outside a Sydney Apple store. I shall say more on this in a minute.

It’s understandable that in some, perhaps many  waiting situations there is no visible order to the waiting line. Waiting for a train on a busy platform comes to mind. Shopping for sales on Boxing day is another. Here the level of anxiety can be quite high and the group waiting resemble less a queue and more a mass of humanity. Instead of being able to relax, each individual remains in a state of nervousness about whether their priority in the line is being preserved. But what about an orderly queue? The assumption here is that a first in, first out (FIFO) system prevails.  Sasser, Olsen and Wycoff (1979) showed that one of the most frequent irritants mentioned by customers at restaurants is the prior seating of those who have arrived later.

And, in 1982 social scientists James Wilson and George Kelling described the broken windows theory. Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters. I’m not suggesting here that an orderly queue of people waiting optimistically for their new shiny gadget would over time track the theory of broken windows. However I am proposing that the smallest of triggers, perceived or otherwise, can drive a well-ordered queue that’s been maintained for many countless hours if not days to collapse rapidly and violently - the scene, as it turned out outside that Apple store in the very early hours of the morning.

In 1985 David Maister provided some insight in the psychology of waiting lines.  He proposed the following:

• People want to get started.
• Anxiety makes waits seem longer.
• Uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits
• Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits
• Unfair waits are longer than equitable waits
• The more valuable the service, the longer the customer will wait
• Solo waits feel longer than group waits

So what turned people, mostly adults, who were otherwise waiting their turn patiently and enthusiastically into a mob of lawless, aggressive queue jumpers requiring the intervention of a significant number of police officers that threatened delaying the opening of store?

For starters, you could argue that there was an element of that “uncertain wait.” Rumours were spreading, as they do, up and down the large queue that the said shiny gadget was in short supply and therefore many will miss out. Also, the idea that “unfair waits are longer than equitable waits” was beginning to take hold. People were reserving places in the queue for their family and others.  Many in the queue were complaining that the queue in front of them was getting progressively longer than behind them. And, now that I’m thinking about it… was the product of such perceived value that it justified the multi-day wait? Perhaps so… but only until the next new new thing!

The impact of mobile phones on psychology and depression

Much has been written recently about the impact mobile phone usage has on our psychology and mental health.

According to researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, young people who heavily use mobile phones and computers also complain more about sleep disturbances, stress and other mental health problems. The research team conducted four separate studies aimed at investigating the correlation between computers and mobile phones, and their impact on the mental health of young adults.

The findings reveal that extreme use of mobile phones and computers may be linked to stress, sleep disorders and depressive symptoms. The researchers could not determine causation, so it may be that people with depression or sleep problems are simply more likely to reach out to others using mobile technology. Their conclusion is that intensive use of information and communication technology can have an impact on mental health among young adults.

The research reveals, for example, that heavy cell phone use is correlated with an increase in sleeping difficulties in men and an increase in depressive symptoms in both men and women. Those who find the constant accessibility via mobile phones to be stressful are most likely to report mental symptoms.

The call for an academic discipline

Florie Brizel, who is currently working on her third book, which examines what she calls Mobilology, the study of the effects of mobile phone use on behavior, community, culture, entertainment, and economics says; Mobile phones allow people to talk to the world, but they can do so much more. We must teach people how to really maximize the global linkage available to them through their mobile devices, especially if we expect them to be used for any kind of social good.

Of course, technology and humanity are not necessarily compatible. One is about an anonymous push forward into the unknown... to explore it, to develop and exploit it, which is important. The other is about paying undivided attention to the individual and the world in front of you, developing relationships, and increasing consciousness. Both are necessary. The challenge is figuring out how to use technology to enhance humanity, not degrade it.

Mobilology addresses how mobile phone use affects life in the modern world. Not only does it address the five main sectors of behavior, community, culture, entertainment, and economics and whatever else comes along. 
It's the first academic discipline that is inherently collaborative as well as being interdependent with other academic disciplines.

Ten rules for a happy ever after

Here are the 10 rules for a happy ever after according to the UK's dailymail...

 1. The best times are still ahead 
 2. Arguments are good for you 
 3. Learn to listen 
 
 4. Focus on comings and goings 
 5. Stop doing what doesn’t work 
 
 6. Find the positive angle 
 7. Understand that men and women have different attitudes to making love 
 
 8. Marriage is for ever; children are just passing through
 
 9. Don’t lose sight of yourself 
 
10. Remember why you fell in love with each other 


Post of the day (and no postman in sight)

Today Australia Post floated the notion of a user-pays postal system. My only thought (for now) is to ask - what took them so long? Australia Post letter operations suffered a $218 million loss last year because; as it turns out we sent fewer letters than ever. I’d say more emails than ever though and that’s probably the rub.

The user-pays model means residents would pay an annual bill in addition to the stamp price.

In what may soon be one of those evolutionary dead-ends – that innate ability to recognize bills lurking behind those plan looking envelopes. Bad news, those school reports and the odd xmas card hiding a $20 note from a long forgotten relative will all seem nostalgic – from yet another golden age. Who doesn’t open those bills, toss the extra paper, and keep only the parts that are needed. We even open our spouse’s mail too. We wouldn’t want him (or her) to procrastinate now.

What about emails then? What keeps us glued to them…? Here are a few psychological reasons that keeps us interested.

We all have an innate desire to "pay back" other people for their actions. If someone gives you a gift, you feel the desire to return something in kind. The same hold true for emails. Reciprocity means that each email is an invitation to a social encounter.

We love Irregular rewards; it's how our brains know that it's making your body do the right things. And getting an email is a form of reward since emails are often a form of a social glue.

We are wired to value things that are closer in time more than things that are more distant. If we’re offered $10 today or $20 a year from now, we’re more likely to make the poor choice of taking the lesser money now. Similarly, we value email because it's fresh and new, even if it's not especially important or valuable.

https://plus.google.com/106404354758883120445

Element 117

Today we learn about a super heavy element co-created by Australian researchers at a German laboratory. Temporarily known as element 117 after the number of protons in its nucleus. Only four atoms of the super heavy element were observed and given its rapid radioactive decay it disappeared within one tenth of a second. This was, however, enough to independently corroborate the element's first observation in 2010 (Physical Review Letters on 5 April 2010, "Synthesis of a new chemical element with atomic number Z=117”).

The minuscule size of the element created makes practical use unfeasible, focus will be placed on how the science behind the element's creation can lead to even heavier substances. The team, rightly suggest that the trick is to understand the quantum physics at play.

Learning of this news reminded me of Empedocles and Jung’s work. According to Empedocles, the Greek philosopher, scientist and healer who lived in Sicily in the fifth century B.C., all matter is comprised of four  "roots" or elements of earth, air, fire and water. The interaction of the four elements is influenced by the relationship between the two great life energies of Love and Strife. How’s that for an eternal insight in the human psyche.

Empedocles' philosophy was influenced not only by Pythagoras, but also by the ancient Greek mystery traditions, which included the Orphic mysteries and the underworld cults of Hades, Hecate, Demeter, Persephone and Dionysos. In his own thinking and writing, and in works and practices of the alchemists, Neoplatonists and Gnostics that further developed his theories, the four elements are not only material and spiritual forces, but also facets of a human being. Their varying combinations result in different personality types. 

Now Jung, you might recall, contributed greatly to the theory of type. Jung found that different people think, feel, and experience the world in fundamentally different ways. His type theory has helped us understand how people function. He identified four fundamental psychological functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. Each function may be experienced in an introverted or an extraverted fashion. Generally, one of the functions is more conscious, developed, and dominant. Jung called this the superior function.

Jung focused initially on the polarities of introversion (directing one's attention inward toward thoughts, feelings and awareness) and extroversion (directing one's energy outward toward people, actions and external objects), combining each polarity with predominances in thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting, to develop eight basic personality types. The four personality variables of the Meyers-Briggs test (and its offshoots, the Keirsey test and the DDLI) also appear to be a further development of this psychological philosophy. 

When we want what we can’t have

Remember Charlie Brown, who spent many of his precious childhood moments aching for the infinitely unreachable red-headed girl? 

It seems we want what we can’t have more often than not. Sure, it’s a cliché but it’s unfortunately and routinely true. This happens in all sorts of places, in all walks of life and involves people (perhaps that gal that got away), that house by the sea, more hair, that job… well, you get the idea. Even The Rolling Stones sang about it way back then. It’s entirely possible that we might just be gluttons for punishment.

But here are a few more reasons why

When we perceive something is scarce or in limited supply or a one-off, its professed value increases. You want it more because you think other people also want it. If you’ve ever bid at auctions you know the experience of that last-minute excitement as you watch the bids spiral upward. People also don’t like to be told they can’t have or can’t do something. This is related to not wanting to be controlled by others, especially if the situation feels unfair or arbitrary. Sometimes when something is hard to get (or forbidden) you immediately pay more attention to it.

Our reward system plays havoc with our innermost desires.  It only takes one or two times for them to form associations between random events in the outside world and something that feels so good we can’t stop craving more. For example, Dopamine floods our brain when it’s overwhelmed with pleasure. Having said this, it’s much much more difficult to understand why different people’s reward systems respond differently to so many different triggers.

Incidentally, in the words of the Rolling Stones, you “might just find [that] you get what you need.”

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not a real disease

Bruce Perry on ADHD The Guardian-30 Mar 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/30/children-hyperactivity-not-real-disease-neuroscientist-adhd

One of the world's leading neuroscientists, whose work has been acknowledged by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, has suggested that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not "a real disease".

On the eve of a visit to Britain to meet Duncan Smith and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Dr Bruce D Perry told the Observer that the label of ADHD outlined a broad set of symptoms. "It is best thought of as a description. If you look at how you end up with that label, it is remarkable because any one of us at any given time would fit at least a couple of those criteria," he said.

Prescriptions for methylphenidate drugs, such as Ritalin, which are used to treat children diagnosed as suffering from ADHD, have soared by 56% in the UK, from 420,000 in 2007 to 657,000 in 2012. Such "psychostimulants" are thought to stimulate a part of the brain that changes mental and behavioural reactions.

However, Perry, a senior fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy in Houston, Texas, said he was concerned that children were being labelled as having ADHD when that merely described the symptoms of a range of different physiological problems. The symptoms that lead to a diagnosis of ADHD include inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness over a sustained period.

Perry added that clinicians were also too readily prescribing psychostimulants to children when the evidence suggested there were no long-term benefits. Animal studies have raised concerns over the potential for damage to be done.

Perry, who will also meet cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood during his visit as a guest of the Early Intervention Foundation, a charity aimed at tackling the root causes of childhood dysfunctions, said: "We are very immature in our current evolution in giving diagnoses. A hundred years ago, someone would come to the doctor and they would have chest pain and would be sweating. And they would say, 'Oh, you have fever.' They would label it, just like we label it [ADHD] now. It's a description rather than a real disease."

He added: "If you give psychostimulants to animals when they are young, their rewards systems change. They require much more stimulation to get the same level of pleasure.

"So on a very concrete level they need to eat more food to get the same sensation of satiation. They need to do more high-risk things to get that little buzz from doing something. It is not a benign phenomenon.

"Taking a medication influences systems in ways we don't always understand. I tend to be pretty cautious about this stuff, particularly when the research shows you that other interventions are equally effective and over time more effective and have none of the adverse effects. For me it's a no-brainer."

Perry said he favoured an approach that went back to the root causes of the problem, and often required attention being focused on the parents. "There are number of non-pharmacological therapies which have been pretty effective. A lot of them involve helping the adults that are around children," he said.

"Part of what happens is if you have an anxious, overwhelmed parent, that is contagious. When a child is struggling, the adults around them are easily disregulated too. This negative feedback process between the frustrated teacher or parent and disregulated child can escalate out of control.

"You can teach the adults how to regulate themselves, how to have realistic expectations of the children, how to give them opportunities that are achievable and have success and coach them through the process of helping children who are struggling.

"There are a lot of therapeutic approaches. Some would use somato-sensory therapies like yoga, some use motor activity like drumming.

"All have some efficacy. If you can put together a package of those things: keep the adults more mannered, give the children achievable goals, give them opportunities to regulate themselves, then you are going to minimise a huge percentage of the problems I have seen with children who have the problem labelled as ADHD."

The chairman of the Early Intervention Foundation, Labour MP Graham Allen, said Perry was the "best in his field" and was meeting senior officials and politicians already "convinced by the philosophy of his research. I would argue that if you can diminish adverse childhood experience, then we eliminate a lot of the causes of dysfunction."