Tag: psychology

Fear Bradycardia and the Normalcy Bias

Rilaly28 Comments

[Scene] Everybody’s favorite clown, Dougie, ventures out a little too far in the lake.

“Didn’t you hear the old, Native American woman say something evil lurks in that there lake?” one of the great-looking people on the shore screams. Dougie ignores them, apparently unaware of the golden rule of modern cinema: Always listen to Native Americans, especially if they’re old and speak in hallowed tones. “You’ve gone too far, Dougie!” the great-looking people on the shore continue to shriek. “Come back!”

“C’mon, you chickens!” Dougie says, backstroking leisurely. “It’s fun, and there’s nothing evil out here!”

The music that cues Dougie’s impending doom spills out of the Dolby surround sound. A subtle roar follows, and those of us in the audience tense up. We grip the armrests so tight that our forearms flex. We join the gorgeous people on the shore, mentally screaming to Dougie to try to get him out of the water. We then join the collective hysteria that erupts when the water of the lake begins to swirl.

“Dougie, please!” we shout in unison with the great-looking people.

“Aw, shut it!” Dougie says, waving off the warnings. 

The trouble is the character actor who plays Dougie is unattractive and chubby, and those of us who have watched thousands of movies know our horror movies, and we know casting. We know unattractive and chubby types are doomed soon after they accept their role in a movie. 

The monster roars to an impossible height. Dougie looks up at it, and as his fate becomes apparent, he screams. Is the monster evil, or is it just hungry? We don’t know, and we don’t care. It’s going to eat Dougie, the comedic foil in our movie. The monster takes its time, so we can see the full breadth of its horror. It gnashes its teeth a little. It swivels its head about. It looks menacingly at Dougie. Dougie continues to look up and his screaming continues until the monster lowers onto him and bites Dougie’s head off. The idea that this macabre scene took a full thirty seconds leaves those of us who have watched too many horror movies nonplussed.

“Why didn’t he just move?” monster movie aficionados have asked for decades. “Why did he stay in the water, screaming, for thirty seconds? Why didn’t he just swim away?” We can live with the fact that the monster would naturally move through the water much quicker than Dougie, since the monster is aquatic and Dougie is not. We can also live with the fact that Dougie probably didn’t have much of a chance the moment he jumped into the water. Still, we horror movie aficionados would love, just once, to see victims do a little more to prove that they, like all humans, share an inherent survival instinct.

When I later learned that actors have to stay on their mark, I was a little less disgusted with the actors who played Dougie roles. I still want them to move, but I now know they must obey the director who commands them to stay in a designated spots for the decapitation scene. This cliché scene may strike horror in some, but I would venture to say that either the terrified are under the age of 30, or they haven’t watched enough horror movies to know the premise. For those of us who have crossed both thresholds, we know it’s just plain irrational that a person wouldn’t move or do something to get away from a menacing monster. We certainly wouldn’t just stand in one spot, looking up, screaming, at the person, place, or thing looking to seal our fate.

Or would we, author David McRaney asks. McRaney claims that not only are Dougie’s reactions normal, but they are a lot closer to a truth than anything monster movie aficionados might expect. In McRaney’s incredible book, You Are Not so Smart, he suggests that the one conflicting detail of this monster scene that might counter how we think we would react in a similar moment of unprecedented horror is Dougie’s screaming.[1]

Those of us who don’t study psychology in a professional setting know what we know. We know there are two basic reactions to catastrophic, chaotic moments: action and non-action, or as we like to call it acting and choking. Those who act may also be broken down into two categories: The selfish who fight to save themselves and the martyrs who act in a heroic fashion to save others. Either way, casual, non-psychology types insist there are but two reactions to such situations. Either the individual involved in the situation does something to save their lives, and the lives of those around them, or they choke.

McRaney argues that there is a third reaction, though casual, non-psychology types are more apt to view this course of action as little more than an extension of choking. Psychologists call it fear bradycardia. The difference between fear bradycardia and choking is that a victim of fear bradycardia experiences a heart deceleration, as opposed to the acceleration we might expect in a traumatic situation. An acceleration of the heart could lead a potential victim to fumble about and select an incorrect reaction, or choke, but a deceleration might lead the potential victim to freeze up in a manner they call attentive immobility. Fear bradycardia is a reflex, an involuntary, automatic instinct that often occurs in moments of unprecedented chaos and horror, heaped upon the unprepared.

Put succinctly, fear bradycardia is the idea that in our movie not only will Dougie not scream or scramble out of the way, he will reflexively stop moving and simply stay put, hoping beyond reason, for the best possible outcome. The normal reaction one might have to surviving a plane crash, for example, is to unbuckle and exit plane. We suspect that we might need a moment to deal with the most terrifying thing that ever happened to us. We might also need a moment to come down from the absolute horror we experienced going down, and we might also need another moment to deal with the euphoria that follows when we realize that we just survived one of the most horrible accidents that could ever happen to a human, but we suspect that we will eventually come to grips with it and exit the plane.  

The concept psychologists are describing, when they talk about the term fear bradycardia, suggests that we will remain frozen beyond the normal moment necessary to deal with the situation. It suggests that if the plane is on fire, in our scenario, and other survivors are screaming that the plane is going to blow, we might not do enough to assure our survival, as we will remain frozen hoping that this moment simply passes. This fear bradycardia reaction involves an automatic, involuntary instinct that exists in all of us. Some refer to this state as tonic immobility, but no matter the name, it falls under the umbrella of another psychological term, normalcy bias.

McRaney details several incidents in which people experienced fear bradycardia: an F5 tornado in Bridge Creek, Oklahoma, survivors of floods, and even the infamous 9/11 Trade Center terrorist incident.

According to some first responders, the one commonality in most similar tragedies is that victims wander about in a dreamlike state. These first responders say that their first responsibility is to shake survivors out of this state, so they can hopefully achieve full consciousness and save themselves. For even if their world is falling down around them, most survivors shut down and go to a safe, more normal space in their minds, if no one is around to shake them out of it.

In the aftermath of the 9/11/01 terrorist action, most first responders spoke of the calm that evacuating survivors exhibited. They stated that most of the survivors obediently followed instructions, without any panic, allowing for a safe exit that ultimately saved many lives. The first responders we saw interviewed on the news stated that the heroic first responders provided a model for proper evacuation procedures.

Other first responders agreed with that sentiment, but they added that the unspoken sense of order among the survivors was so calm and quiet that it bordered on eerie. Very few survivors were screaming, they said, and though there wasn’t room to sprint, there is no record of anyone pushing, shoving, or doing anything out of the ordinary to get out of the burning, soon to be falling buildings. There is no record of survivors complaining about the slow, orderly exit, or attempting to find their own alternative exit, if there was one available. We might think these are normal, human reactions to such a horrific episode, but the limited records we’ve found suggest no such incidents occurred.  

McRaney cited some of the accounts first responders of 9/11/01 reports of some survivors taking a couple extra, crucial moments to complete the log-out procedures on their computers. With first responders screaming out instructions, some survivors stopped to gather their coats. Other first responders made note of the mundane conversations some survivors shared with their coworkers on the way out of the office. Why would a survivor of one of the nation’s worst tragedies talk about adding marshmallows to a flan cake recipe, or the reason their favorite player missed a dunk last night? To try to establish some level of normalcy amidst the chaos happening falling down around them.  

Those of us on the outside looking in might view this as absolute lunacy. If I were in that situation, we might think, I’d be running, screaming, and I might be crying. I might even knock an old lady down in my departure, but I would do everything I could to get out. I don’t care what this author says I’m all about survival brutha.

Television shows and movies depict such drama on a regular basis, and we’ve all watched how they play out on our screens, be it some horror flick with a monster and a Dougie or our favorite cable news program’s recreation of a tragedy. We’ve all placed ourselves in the shoes of the characters involved in such stories, and we know we would do things differently. We’ve all shouted these condemnations at our various screens when the Dougies just sit there as a monster nears them, and we all know how we would’ve reacted before the menacing monster bites our head off. The central question of McRaney’s thesis, however, is this: While we might think we know how we would act, unless we’ve experienced such a moment in our lives we can never really know.

“If you haven’t experienced a true tragedy,” McRaney writes, “You can never know how prepared you will be, and you can never know how you’ll react. The ideas we have about how we will react may be lies we’ve told ourselves so often that we might end up not knowing the actual truth until it’s too late to rectify it.”

Shutting down computers, gathering coats, and having mundane conversations are automatic, involuntary responses that occur because of this dream-like, faux normal state we defer to when it becomes clear that no amount of rationalizing will ever render the horrific, unprecedented, chaotic moment normal. We shut down to block out the flood of external stimuli that might otherwise cause us further panic.

“The people in the World Trade Centers on 9/11 had a supreme need to feel safe and secure,” McRaney writes. “They had a desire to make everything around them go normal again in the face of something so horrific that their brains couldn’t deal with it in a functional manner.”

As stated previously, most casual, non-psychology types might characterize this as choking in the clutch, but McRaney states that it goes beyond this, because they do not freeze as a response to panic. “It’s a reflexive incredulity,” McRaney writes, –attributing the term to Amanda Ripley– “that causes you to freeze up in a reflexive manner. This reflexive incredulity causes you to wait for normalcy to return beyond the point where it’s reasonable to do so. It’s a tendency that those concerned with evacuation procedures –the travel industry, architects, first responders, and stadium personnel– are well aware of, and they document this in manuals and trade publications.”

Sociologists McRaney cites say, “You are more prone to dawdle if you fail to follow these steps and are not informed of the severity of the issue.” Failing to gain the necessary information leads to speculation and to the inevitable comparisons and contrasts of other more familiar incidents.

Men, in particular, seem to have an almost imbedded desire to rationalize fear away. Fear, by its very nature is irrational, and most men feel it incumbent upon them to keep fear a rationalization away. In the face of a tragedy that alarms most, the rational, no fear, man is prone to say, “This is bad, sure, but it’s not as bad as a previous experience I once had?”

Their preferred culprit for unwarranted fear is the media and politicians. “Fear equals ratings,” we say to tap into cynical truths, “and they want to keep us in a constant state of fear, so we’ll vote for them.” There is some truth to that, of course, but it’s also true that the terrorist incident on 9/11/01 was one of the most horrific to ever happen in our country.

“That is true, but there was just so much fear they spread that I smelled the politics of it all,” some cable news viewers said around 9/11/01, “and we should all start viewing the hype of politicians and media players as nothing more than that, hype.” Most of us recognize that some media outlets and politicians make their bones on promoting fear, but at times, a bit of fear –an emotion that can ignite awareness– might save our life.

For these reasons and others, it is crucial for a city facing an ensuing crisis to allow the local media to inundate us with reports of that impending storm, because the media needs to help us redefine our norm. It is also a reason for those of us who make fun of our friends for paying attention to the flight attendant’s pre-flight instructions, to drop our macho façades and listen. We may also want to drop the pretense that as frequent flyers we are prepared for anything. We must redefine our sense of normalcy in preparation for the many things that could go wrong in the air or upon our return to ground.

In spite of McRaney’s findings, I still find it hard to believe that the movie scenes that depict the near-catatonic reactions Dougie displayed as the monster neared him are closer to the truth than I am about how most people will react. I live with the belief that a survivor’s instinct will kick in for anyone facing impending doom. As those dumb enough to corner a badger into a corner know, most beings will do whatever it takes to survive, and I believe that the human being, regardless how chubby or unattractive they are, have that same instinct. The difference might be that the badger hones those skills more frequently, but we’ve all experienced mini-disasters and personal traumas in our lives, and most people have a decent batting average when it comes to reacting to them. Will that be enough to avoid experiencing fear bradycardia, tonic immobility, reflexive incredulity, or any of the normal bias tendencies we have in the wake of a horrific incident? We don’t know, and we won’t know until the decisive moment reveals if we are so ill prepared that we fall prey to automatic and involuntary instincts that result from lying to ourselves for so long that we end up rationalizing ourselves to death.

[1]McRaney, David. November, 2011. You Are Not So Smart. New York, New York. Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

Groundhogs, Led Zeppelin, and Our Existential Existence

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We love to define ourselves through artistic venues. We believe that listing off our current musical preferences provide a concise definition of who we are, and who we aim to be. Our preferences in all art forms define us in relative ways, but music appreciation appears to be the common denominator we use to define ourselves among other fans of music. Most adults continue to listen to the hit singles and albums they enjoyed back in that insecure, confusing period of our development that occurs roughly between age 15 and 25. I don’t know if it’s a sense of nostalgia we seek, or if we’re trying to relive an era of our lives we didn’t appreciate enough at the time, but most of us find ourselves trapped in that era when others defined good music for us on the sliding scale of cool. If others helped us define all of the variables inherent in the definition of cool music, and we regard our musical preferences as a concise definition of who we are, how much control did we have in shaping the people we’ve become? We might prefer to believe that we’ve left those mercurial teenage years behind us, as they become smaller and smaller in our rear-view mirrors, but some social scholars state high school is like a line from a hit single that preceded my era, but was nonetheless as ubiquitous in it, “You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

What this means, to some, is that it is almost impossible to reach such a level of confidence regarding our identity. It is possible to know thyself to elevated degrees as we age, but remain forever susceptible to getting this definition slapped around by the prevailing winds of cool and uncool? This spawns another question: Do we ever reach a point where this dimension of our identity is absolute and true? Those of us who reflect on our life and analyze our actions believe we learn more about ourselves as we age, but others state that even though the core tenets of our personality mature as we age, our core identity forms in the early stages of life. How often was that core identity slapped around by the prevailing winds of cool and uncool? “You listen to who? Uncool man, uncool.” This spawns another question: Do we ever reach a point when this dimension of our identity is absolute and true? We all prefer to believe we’ve made individual choices regarding the music we listen to on a regular basis, but are those preferences ours, or were they shaped by group thought, rebellion to group thought, and/or rebellion to rebellious thoughts?

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Why do research scientists study other animals to get to the root of human psychology? Is it because the nature of the reactions other animals have are more primal? Humans are often more difficult to test, particularly in groups, because we tend to project idyllic images of who we prefer to be, rather than who we really are. Animals test much better because they remain closer to the primal state, because one animal might tell us more about our psychological base than hundreds of idyllic human test subjects can.

I understand the general point about the primal state, but I don’t understand how animals can teach us about the comparative complexities of the human mind. As far as we know, animals do not have the mental capacity to sit around and contemplate greater questions of individual identity. Most concepts of this nature are too foreign and complex for them, but how simple and primal are their brains? 

On nature shows, we witness groundhogs watch one of their own fall prey to a predator. We assume their desire to watch a predator eat one of their own is born of simplicity, but could it be more complex than we’ve ever imagined? Is the desire to watch similar to our complex desire to rubberneck an accident on the interstate, or is that a primal, base desire on our part?

Groundhogs screech and chatter when a predator eats one of their brethren. We assume these screams are a mechanism they use as a last ditch effort to try to save their brethren. We also assume that they are attempting to warn other groundhogs in the vicinity, but could these screeches be similar to those that we engage in during horror flicks when we scream while watching a predator slaughter one of our own in a slasher flick? Is their fascination with horror similar our own, in that they’re horrified, but they can’t look away? Do they chatter about the images they saw later, in the manner we do when walking out of a theater, and do they mourn the lives of former friends and relatives in the aftermath?

When humans die, we attempt to minimize the deceased so we can live better lives in the aftermath. “Richard was a great guy and all, but he was old,” we declare to minimize the pain and horror of his death. We might say something along the lines of, “He smoked,” or “he ran himself ragged for so long that it was bound to happen sooner rather than later.” One has to wonder if groundhogs have a similar need for detachment to help them achieve some sort of distance from the deceased, so they can deal with the complexities inherent in life and death better. Do they say, “Alfonso was great guy and all, but he was slow. He didn’t work out enough, and building and rebuilding his home was really one of the only forms of exercise he engaged in. I knew he was going to die, and to be frank, I say good riddance.”

Do groundhogs like and dislike other groundhogs based on personality traits? If this is the case, how far do they take it? Do they ostracize those who have strange growths on their head, or are they more accepting of differences than us? Do they castigate others based on work ethic, the obnoxious behavior of their pups, and would one groundhog ever exclude another from the cool kid, groundhog group based on a titty twister?

I used to give titty twisters all the time. If you were in my contingent, and I considered you a mentally stable male, I probably gave you a titty twister. I thought it was funny, and I considered it harmless. These titty twisters had no sexual motivations as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t do it to establish dominance over a twistee. I just considered it a funny thing to do to a guy standing there, doing nothing, and acting far too normal. I thought a good twist might shake them out of an otherwise boring, normal day. It’s who I was, and who I will probably always be. I don’t force people out of the norm with physical actions in that manner anymore. I prefer more subtle measures now.

When I gave a titty twister to this one guy, however, he punched me in the chest for it. I twisted his titty. He was being too normal. He had a normal expression on his face, and he didn’t say anything for a spell. I gave him a titty twister, because I thought he needed a random shake.

His reaction might have left me doubled over on a normal day, as I loved impulsive, obnoxious reactions, but his reaction carried a mean face with it. I assumed we were friends, but his mean face informed me that the punch sent a message that rejected everything I valued, and that our friendship was officially irretrievable. I’m sure groundhogs reject other groundhogs’ over over-the-top attempts at humor, but do they hold grudges? This guy told people he hated me after that, and he added an insulting characterization of my manhood.

Does a groundhog ever do anything to shake up the norm, or is their existence so primal that they’re simply happy to be alive for one more day? Does that attribute say more or less about human beings? Do we take life for granted to such a degree that we’re no longer happy just to be alive? Is this desire to shake our lives out of the norm a complex desire, or is it a simplistic, biological need to keep our brains firing at a rapid pace?

If a groundhog decided to perform an act of procreation in a different position, for example, would we document that decision as simple or complex? If the groundhog displayed a sense of listlessness prior to trying the new position, how would we document his actions? If the groundhog performed his act on other groundhogs when his selected mate wasn’t around, would we view the adulterous act as complex or simplistic? If we could see inside the groundhog’s brain and witness a dream of an army of aliens shackling him to a wall, while suckling on his reproductive organ for the semen nutrient they needed to survive, would we consider this a complex need for fantasy or a simplistic, base desire?

That former friend of mine, whom I titty twisted into an enemy was a heavy metal dude, and I was a heavy metal dude. I mistakenly assumed that commonality would serve as the glue to our lifelong bond.

Most of the people I grew up around were heavy metal dudes. We called all like-minded souls, hessians. I so badly wanted to be a hessian that I was willing to do just about anything to make it happen, but I had a tough time gaining entrance into their world. I didn’t like Rush or Iron Maiden, but I did like KISS. They regretted to inform me that my application to into the world of hessianism would require a rejection notification at this time, for KISS was too popular and mainstream. Feel free to reapply, they said, when your preferences evolve to more of an outlier group. If I stubbornly resisted Rush or Iron Maiden, they said, then I should feel free to explore the worlds of Slayer or Megadeth. “Sorry,” I said. I wanted to be a hessian, but I didn’t care for those musicians. Their album cover art was cooler than cool, with cool monsters and satanic imagery, but their music was beyond me. I wore the mandatory denim jacket and donned the requisite mullet, but for some reason I was on the outside looking in for most of my young life. It may have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t say the “Dude” but I didn’t give “a durn about nothing”, and I found authority figures laughable. I thought that should be enough.

One thing I learned in the beginning of my public square humiliation was that my practice of calling my grandma “My Nana” would be out, if I wanted to be a hessian. I didn’t have to hate her or anything she stood for, as that was a trait reserved for punkers, but I didn’t have to like her so much either. A hessian was to remain somewhat unimpressed by his grandmother’s entrance into a room. He might consider shaking her hand as an alternative to hugging her, and a “Hello ma’am” is a viable alternative to running across a room screaming, “Nana!” When the greeting reaches a conclusion, the hessian is then to go on about his business, as if he’s not concerned with her existence. Ignoring such staples could consign the music aficionado to the perception shared by Genesis and the B-52s listeners.

Genesis lovers valued simplicity over the adrenaline rush we found in the force of heavy metal, so we hated them, and hating things gained us a lot more mileage than any expression of love, adoration, or a fondness for anything or anyone. Hatred gave a hessian character and complexity. To the question, “Do you enjoy the music of Phil Collins?” one must answer, “No. I think he’s feminine.” Loving something subjects one to scorn and ridicule, and it gives a hessian the license to hate another. What you love is irrelevant be it KISS, Happy Days, or your Nana. Loving something is a weakness to poke and prod, until the recipient of such scorn is too embarrassed to love anything, unless it’s Metallica. One can say, “I love Metallica,” and their hessian membership card will remain unblemished, but that’s the extent of love in the hessian world.

If the scorned has never heard the music of Metallica, friends will instruct them to run out to the store tomorrow and buy Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, or And Justice for All…” If the listener stubbornly refuses to worship these three albums, after repeated listens, they run the risk of having a ‘poser’ label cast upon them. That person may as well take the denim jacket off, cut their mullet, and start calling their grandma “My Nana” again, because they’ll never gain entrance into the hallowed halls of the hessian.

Hessians can smile and laugh, but they need to reserve those reactions for moments of scorn and ridicule. A hessian can like KISS and Van Halen, but as I said that’s not enough. They cannot –I repeat cannot– like Poison, Cinderella, or Faster Pussycat. Doing so, will open up the floodgates for scorn and ridicule, granting all card-carrying hessians in attendance the smile and laugh allowance. I assume that social media forums have made life easier for teens in America by comparison, for a person can now block those who question their musical preferences.

This complex world of identity through music became a lot easier for me when I became a Zeppelin guy though. Prior to experiencing the sensorial, shocking world of Led Zeppelin, I assumed they could be lumped in with The Doobie Brothers, Foghat, and all the other relatively nondescript bands of seventies music. When I discovered how faulty that assumption was, I became a Zeppelin guy.

Most of the fellas I knew wanted to befriend Zeppelin guys. They wanted to talk with us, be like us, and accept us into their community. I could hang out with Zeppelin guys. We could talk for hours about the band’s iconography and folklore. I could even proselytize others into the Zeppelin world if I wanted another friend. I could just play the Led Zeppelin albums II and Zoso, and create a friend, complete with all the shared associations and memories that went along with it. After becoming a Zeppelin guy and creating more Zeppelin guys, I decided to progress from being just a Zoso and Zeppelin II guy to a Physical Graffiti and Zeppelin III guy. I learned every lyric and every beat on those two Zeppelin albums, and to some Zeppelin guys I progressed from being a Zeppelin guy to the Zeppelin guy. For loving those two albums as much as I did, other Zeppelin guys assigned complicated and mysterious Zeppelin guy characteristics to me.

“Yeah, II and Zoso are great,” I said to beginners, “but wait till you start listening to III and Fizzy Graph,” (Fizzy Graph was the nickname the Zeppelin guys gave to Physical Graffiti.) “I’ll lend them to you when you’re ready.”

It was a glorious world to enter into, a world of opportunity. In this world, Zeppelin girls existed, and one could taste forbidden fruits and still be one of the fellas. Hessians, punkers, and even some Genesis guys could stand side by side, in mutual admiration. This society involved musicians and music aficionados of all stripes. We could talk, laugh, and listen to the greatest music ever produced, for as all Zeppelin guys know, all music stems from Led Zeppelin.

Zeppelin guys felt like rule breakers, for who broke more rules than Jimmy, Robert, JPJ, and Bonzo? Rule breakers do have rules though, albeit unspoken ones. We Zeppelin guys still had to avoid giving a durn about most things, as being a Zeppelin guy wasn’t a cloak against being ostracized. We still had to despise Beverly Hills 90210, Michael Jackson songs, and Tom Cruise movies, and the fake, superficial, and artificial matters, they espoused. We also could not permit fellow Zep guys to call their grandma “My Nana” either, especially if they aspired to the Zep guy status.

We also had to fortify our Zeppelin guy status on a continual basis, then the Zeppelin guy status if we were lucky enough to achieve it. A Zeppelin guy still had to guard himself against complacency in the Zep guy world, or we could lose our status entirely. It was all right to enjoy the music on In Through the Out Door, for example, but a true Zeppelin guy could not love it, because the music on that album relied on synthesizers too much, and John Paul Jones had far too much influence on it. It lacked the raw Page/Plant magic of the first six albums, and every fella who wanted to maintain the Zeppelin guy status had to know that.

We all know that the brain of a groundhog is less complex than that the human brain, but we also know that even the most simplistic, primal minds react to music. If a groundhog listens to the same music, however, will he, over time, develop an affinity for it? Will certain groups of groundhogs break out of the pack and develop discerning taste? Will these groups begin to develop an affinity for Zeppelin over Genesis? Will they begin to ostracize Genesis lovers just to gain some cachet within their own groups? Will groundhogs reach a point when it is no longer about the music for them but the iconography and complexities they developed in their particular group in the groundhog community for the music they chose to love? Will their love for the music strengthen over time, and if it does, will it reach a point when one can characterize that love as complex, or will we simply deem it a simplistic desire to belong to that group of groundhogs who listened to the same music other groundhogs considered cool, and will the groundhogs ever begin to see the distinction for what it is?

Are You Superior?

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I met a guy who didn’t mind dressing me down psychologically. Yet, he probably wouldn’t admit it, even if I called him out on it. Dressing people down in such an obvious manner is uncouth, and it suggests that the purveyor is superior while doing it. I could feel him doing it as walking down the aisle toward him. I was smiling, and I felt him analyze that smile. I could tell that he perceived smiling as a weakness. When he looked at the shirt I wore, the manner in which I walked toward him, and the way I greeted him in a nice manner, I could tell he was scoring me on an analytical chart, and I could tell I wasn’t do well. As much as I hate to admit it, his superficial analysis of me affected our initial interaction. My natural insecurities took over, and I felt inferior to him in a way that I spent weeks trying to redefine. 

This loathsome character is anecdotal evidence of a strange psychological phenomenon in our every day conversations. He’s anecdotal, because most of us don’t examine others in such an obvious manner, but do they psychologically dress us down in a more subtle, less obtuse manner? Do they score us on their personal analytical charts without intending to do so during our casual conversations? They probably don’t know why they do it. If they did, they likely wouldn’t attribute it to a search for superiority, but they do know that they’re searching for something that will give them some intangible, hard to describe feelings of superiority.

If an individual is muscular in a noteworthy manner, or gifted in the athletic arena, they already know the feeling of superiority, as most of us grant physical traits superiority. For the rest of us, this search is not as simple. How do we compare to others? How do we stack up? It’s often difficult, and fruitless, to stare into a mirror and gain true, objective definition, so we do it on the backs of others through our day-to-day interactions to try to gain some information about our identity.

The searches may occur in the first few moments we begin speaking to them, and it often involves scrutiny of our physical appearance. Are we well groomed? Do we brush our teeth? Are all of our nose and ear hairs trimmed? Do we have a socially acceptable hairdo? How much did we pay for that hairdo? How much did we pay for the clothes we wear? Do we wear fashionable clothes? If clothes make the man, what kind of men are we? Some say it’s all about the shoes. Others say that by creating a pleasing dimple in our tie, by denting that tie with the thumb in the tying process, we can create quite a first impression. Most people don’t speak in terms of superiority or inferiority in polite company. Yet, those same people worry about the first impressions they make. What are impressions, but an attempt to define ourselves among our peers?

Is it all about the clothes, or do we make a better first impression through a confident posture, the way we sit, the manner in which we hold our head when we talk, or whether or not we look our counterpart in the eye? Do we have a tongue stud? Are we tattooed or non-tattooed, and who is superior in that dynamic? It’s all relative.

First impressions can be difficult to overcome, but some suggest that what we say after the first impression has greater import. If we have a noticeable flaw we can garner sympathy or empathy, through an underdog status, with what we say in the follow up impression we provide.

To further this theory, some believe that if we notify our counterpart of our weakness –say in the form of a self-deprecating joke– it will redound to the benefit of a strong follow up impression. The subtext involves the idea that doing so will end their search for our weakness, and the feeling of superiority they gain will allow them to feel more comfortable with us. This, we hope, might result in them enjoying our company more. 

Comedian Louie Anderson turned this into an art form. Moments after taking the stage, Louie Anderson informs his audience that he’s overweight in the form of a well-rehearsed joke. The first impression we have of Louie is that he is overweight. When he addresses that first impression up with a quality, self-deprecating joke it disarms us. We thought we were superior to him, based on his physical flaw. By acknowledging that flaw, Louie takes that feeling of superiority away from us, and he gives it back to us with his definition of it. That re-definition of our superiority allows him to go ahead and manipulate us in all the ways a comedian needs to manipulate a crowd. The distraction of our physical superiority is gone, and we’re now free to enjoy the comedic stylings of Louie Anderson.

The problem with a successful follow up rears its ugly head when we begin to overdo it. When our self-deprecating humor works in the second stage of impression, we attempt to move into the more personal third and fourth stages of getting to know our counterpart better. In these stages, we begin to feel more comfortable with the person on the receiving end, and we let our guard down. The problem we encounter, partially due to our insecurity, is that these people might not be as entertained by us as they were in the second, more self-deprecating stage of impression. As a result, we might begin to fall back on the more successful, second impression to lessen the impact of our attempts to be more personal with them. “Of course I’m nothing but a fat body, so what do I know,” is a qualifier that we insecure types add to an insightful comment we make that they don’t find as entertaining. When that proves successful, and our counterpart begins laughing again, we begin committing to this qualifier so often that we become it in their eyes. They can’t help thinking this is who we are, because it’s the impression we’ve given them so often that it becomes part of what they think of us. One way to test if we’ve fallen prey to this progression is to remove that successful, qualifier that we have been adding to the tail end of our jokes and stories to gain favor with them. If we have been adding it too often, the recipient of the qualifier might add, “That’s true, but aren’t you fat?” to the tail end of our story for us.

Some of the times, we commit to these additions to complete the rhythm of a joke or story, but most of the times we do it to insert some element of superiority or inferiority. Thanks to certain situation comedies, and the effect they’ve had on the zeitgeist, some jokes, stories, and thoughts feel incomplete without some element of superiority or inferiority attached to it. I used to be a qualifier, until I realized that too many people were exploiting my qualifiers for their own sense of superiority. It was so bad, at one point, that I couldn’t say anything halfway intelligent without someone adding, “That’s true, but aren’t you fat?” at the tail end of it.

***

It’s my contention that most of us are in a constant search of indicators of superiority or inferiority. If our counterpart is religious, we may feel superior to them because we’re not. If we are religious, we may want to know what religion they are, and we may base our feelings of superiority on that.

“They’re all going to hell,” a friend of mine whispered when we passed a group of Muslims. When I asked why she thought this, she said, “They don’t accept the Lord, Jesus Christ as their personal savior.” 

I’ve heard Christians use that condemnation many times, but I rarely heard someone use it as a weapon of superiority. I realized some time later that this was all this woman had. She hated her job, her kids hated her, and she was far from attractive, or in good shape. She needed that nugget of superiority to help her get through the day, and to assist her in believing that she was, at least, superior to someone in some manner.

On the flip side of the coin, a Muslim friend of mine seemed forever curious about the American way of life. She would constantly ask me questions about the motivations I had for doing what I did. I didn’t mind it at the time, for I didn’t mind jokes about how Americans seem to be driven by sex, violence, and other “unclean” motivations. I also didn’t mind that some of her questions involved me, as I didn’t mind being self-deprecating. It didn’t dawn on me until later that she was searching for points of superiority. She saw the Muslim religion as a clean religion from which she gained a feeling of purity. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, until she used that as a weapon of superiority against me.

The search for where we stand in this chasm of superiority and inferiority can be a difficult one to traverse, so we often attempt to answer our questions on the backs of others. It’s a shortcut around introspective examination and self-reflection. Some feel superior to another, based on another’s religion, their politics, their race, or their education level. Some even gain feelings of superiority based on the manner they use to brush their teeth. Those who brush their teeth top to bottom are not doing it in the manner advised by the American Dental Association, but do those of us who brush our teeth in circles find vindication and validation from our dentist? Others base their comparative analyses on the manner in which they shave their pubic hair. If one person leaves a strip and another shaves Brazilian who is superior, and who is inferior, and where does the person that lets it all grow wild stand in that dynamic? We all have some positions of superiority and inferiority, and most of them are relative.

This modern battle for psychological definition often calls for the subtleties and nuance of guerrilla style warfare. The age of standing toe to toe occurred in the days of duels, and The Civil War, are over because most modern field generals would never risk their troops in toe-to-toe battles that former battalion leaders considered the gentleman’s way to fight. On that note, no one of the modern age would ever ask their counterpart if they think they’re superior for that might involve some sort of equivocation that details the strengths and weaknesses of both parties in which no one is a winner and no one a loser. No, the battle between two modern day, psychological combatants, more often than not, involves a never-ending battle of guerrilla warfare-style pot shots.

***

Long before my mind’s eye was opened to the comprehensive nature of this conversation, I met a kid named Walter in high school. A decent description of Walter is that he was at the bottom of the teenage boys’s totem pole. He was the rabbit and the ground squirrel at the bottom of the food chain. An indecent way of describing Walter is that he was a target for every other boy who feared being in the crosshairs of every other boy. In this indecent description, I was superior to Walter. If I was above him, I was clinging to the divider by my fingernails.

Walter did all the things boys like. He never let a slight go by without reply, and his replies were feckless screams of indignation. Teenage boys love nothing more than knowing they can get under another boy’s skin, and there’s nothing the subject can do about it. It makes them feel superior to drive another boy crazy, and it gives them a greater sense of superiority when that kid acts as if he’s being attacked by a hive of hornets. 

It would’ve been so easy to join the pack of jackals, as I saw an overwhelming number of my peers (those of us clinging to the border that divided us from Walter) join in on the barrage against Walter. The fact that I did not was based on sympathy and empathy. I knew what it felt like to be on the other end of a barrage. If Walter dominated the bully charts, I was in the top five. I thought we rabbits and ground squirrels should stick together and advise one another on how to deal with these awful moments in our lives. Not only did Walter fail to heed my advice, because why would he, I suffered from almost as much abuse as he did, but he joined the barrages against me to take a step up on me in this superior vs. inferior world.

‘Et tu, Walter?’ I wanted to yell, ‘but I refrained.’ You gave me ample opportunity to ride you, like a horse, to the promised land, but I refrained. Did I expect gratitude, respect, or appreciation from Walter ? Did I expect him to recognize me as one of the goodfellas who chose to refrain? If you knew Walter as well as we did, you knew he had a no-one-gets-out-of-here-alive mentality. I knew that, but I thought he might consider the numerous times I refrained. Not only did he fail to value, or even recognize my efforts for what they were, he apparently thought less of me for doing it. 

I don’t remember if I wanted Walter to recognize my previous efforts of refraining, or if Walter joining a barrage against me fueled some competitive animosity I gained for him, but I joined in on the next barrage against Walter. The funny thing was Walter didn’t react any different. 

For those, like me, who might feel guilty about cashing in on those opportunities to nuke another person for the purpose of gaining superiority, there is no reward for refraining. Even the most inferior will take any opportunity they can find to make another look bad. They enjoy it without reflection or feelings of empathy or solidarity, especially when they consider the new target to be superior in some way. Others don’t enjoy this, as we have intimate knowledge of the embarrassment that can accompany looking bad in front of others. We also feel some empathy for those who expose flaws that can be easily corrected. We hold our fire. In a perfect world, others would value such judiciousness, and they would return it. For various reasons, including the idea that most people do not know when we’re refraining, it is not valued. Some may even consider any refraining a display of inferiority on our part.

In a perfect world, our interactions would involve others recognizing inferiority and superiority in a gentlemanly manner. We would wait for enemy fire before firing, to win the battle off the field as well as the one on it. The problem with refraining too often, or only firing in self-defense, with those we battle in psychological warfare, is that most enemy combatants do not view refraining as an order to hold your fire. One would think that in the absence of pot shots, the other party would recognize any cease and desist order. In my experience, they don’t. They sense weakness, and they open fire. Something about the human condition suggests that even the most empathetic and sympathetic souls stay vigilant. Every once in a while, we need to fire off a few rounds just to keep our enemy combatants hunkered down behind shields. Are we superior, are they inferior? We don’t care. We just want to keep them level with us, as we learn that the individual with their mind’s eye open to the psychological games we all play must keep firing, if for no other reason than to remind all of our opponents of the arsenal we have at our disposal. 

If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy the personal experience that drove it: Are You Superior? II