As the days of my college experience are coming to a close, albeit many miles from Kenyon, I find myself looking back on how much I have changed from when it all started. While some things have remained more stagnant, like my punctuality (or lack there of), many of my beliefs of the world are wildly different than when I first came to the hill. That is, my beliefs about human nature have become much more nuanced, and my understanding of myself has greatly improved. As it turns out, I find these two concepts to be much more interrelated than I previously thought. As a teenager, empathy was really difficult. While becoming a more empathic adult has definitely resulted in changes to the way I treat others, it has also vastly affected my view of myself. While I understood the concept of theory of mind, it takes time, and is still a work in progress, to truly realize that other people experience the world in a surprisingly similar to how I do myself. While it is somewhat easy to understand the motivations of human behavior we have discussed (from the bystander effect, to stereotypes, to attraction, to fundamental attribution error), it is more difficult to apply that knowledge to my own behavior. It is even more difficult to piece together all of these concepts, relate them to my own personal experiences throughout my life, and utilize all of this information to form overarching beliefs and values to guide me throughout my life. I think the most beneficial takeaway from Kenyon has been to accept that I will not have all of the answers. That does not mean that there isn’t great value in searching for truths about the nature of the world and the people in it, but revelations only come from having an open mind. Assuming that I am a moral and just person without questioning my beliefs is a dangerous game to play. The best way to overcome some of the more troubling aspects of human nature (bystander effect, stereotyping, FAE, etc.) is to assume that I am just as likely as anyone else to fall victim to these trains of thought. For this reason, I will be forever grateful for Kenyon, as it has definitely helped shape the man that I am and will become.

As I have learned more about altruism, I’ve thought a lot about some of the competing theories of human motivation. The nihilist in me often does fall into the ego motivation theory camp. When you see how people react to a pandemic, it is hard to not see the extent to which people are individualist and selfish. To convince many people to do what benefits the common good, that common good must overlap with the individuals greatest benefit. That is why it is much more effective to tell people to wear masks to protect themselves and their family members, even if it probably has a greater effect for preventing you from infecting others if you happen to be sick. There are obviously ethical questions to deceiving people even if it is to persuade people to do the right thing, but I won’t get too deep into that. So the question is, will people only act pro-socially if it has a benefit to themselves, even if that benefit is abstract and indirect (such as feeling guilty if they do not do the right thing), or is it possible for people to truly act selflessly. Well, many western cultures rely heavily on the ideals of capitalism, which is inherently ego driven. With that said, we would all prefer to live in a capitalistic society that encourages altruism than one that does not. So, despite my most pessimistic efforts, it is hard to not romanticize the empathy motivated model. Part of me almost feels that there is less harm in falsely believing the empathy-model to be true than falsely believing in the ego motivated model. Al least for myself, I would rather be made a fool by giving someone the benefit of the doubt that they have good intentions and take advantage of that, rather than wrongly accuse someone with the best intentions of acting selfishly. This falls in line with the idea of innocent until proven guilty. As it turns out, there are three regions of the prefrontal cortex that play a large role in forming our behavior. The vmPFC is responsible for emotions, and risk reward behavior. When this region is active, you are likely to act in ways that are beneficial to yourself, and avoid any potential risks or harm to yourself. The trolley problem is a great example of a philosophical question that can examine the merits of ego versus empathy motivation.Studies have shown that this region is active if you choose to save one family member over 5 strangers from an oncoming trait. Thus, it can be thought of as more ego driven. Alternatively the dmPFC is responsible for making moral judgements. It is thought that if this region is active, you are more likely to act in ways that benefits humanity. Those that choose to save 5 strangers over one family member tend to utilize this region. Ultimately, the dlPFC is the decision maker, taking input from all the other active brain regions. There are not necessarily ‘right’ answers, as these are very subjective questions. However, I think that it is possible for both the ego-motivation and empathy-motivation theory to be true simultaneously. There can be examples of people being truly selfless to benefit the common good, for example there is no personal benefit to a soldier dying for what they believe to be moral. However, many people act truly selfishly. Sometimes people know what the moral thing to do is, and choose to go against it. So, I hope that the silver lining of Covid-19 is that we might learn something about human nature, and what motivates people to do the right thing, so that prosocial behavior can become more commonplace.

Well, the best part about coronavirus thing for me has also been the biggest hardship: My family. I am currently living with my parents for the first extended period of time since highschool, and it has most definitely been hard to not butt heads at times. All of us are adjusting to zoom meetings home, and often have meetings at the same time. It has resulted in it being quite difficult to find a quiet place to work. Especially given the increased stress due to the nature of the world, sometimes my parents, and I myself, displace anger about the situation onto each other. While I do under normal circumstances fulfill the elements of love, namely, have mutual understanding, give/receive support, and enjoy each other’s company, there have definitely been times the past. couple of weeks that that has been quite been the case. With that said, I have been making an effort to not use my parents as a scape goat. One of my football coaches often used a saying that I think is very important to keep in mind during these times- control the controllables. This in turn means, there is no point in stressing myself out over things that are out of my control. Furthermore, it is important that the same applies of those around us, there is no point in getting mad at someone for something that is out of their control. In this case, my parents have to have zoom meetings throughout the day that will sometimes overlap with my classes. Instead of getting upset, it is within my control to find somewhere quiet, even if it’s outside to do my work. Even if it’s not the most optimal situation, flexibility is key. Furthermore, I have control over my emotional response to the situation. Even in the most difficult of times, you don’t have control over what happens to you, but you do have control over how you respond.

As of today, it has been 2 weeks since I have socialized in person with anyone besides my family. My social interactions have been restricted to zoom, skype, facetime, and google meet. For a majority of Americans, this is what life will be like indefinitely. As tough as it is to completely halt my way of life, I know that the more I buy into social distancing, the shorter this period of time will be. Luckily, more people are starting to understand the magnitude of Covid-19, and are thus taking social distancing as seriously. However, this is not the case for everyone. There are still many people that are continuing their highly social way of life. So, the question is why are there so many people not social distancing, and what measures can be taken to get them to. While statewide restrictions have forced certain people to change their habits, it seems to be very difficult to force people to not go near other people without them being convinced it is necessary.

            Some of the things I’ve heard from people that refuse to stay at home are “I don’t care if I die, I’d rather live my life,” and “I think the economy crashing is far worse than the consequences of coronavirus.” While it is easy to just write these people off as ignorant, and not worth convincing, stopping the spread of a virus is not dissimilar to a group project, in that everyone needs to do their part for the collective to succeed. I think that these people are not being reached because the source and message characteristics of the information regarding the disease are not relevant to them. Taking a wild guess that the type of people that would hold these logical fallacies would be Joe Exotic fans, I would recommend a campaign to stay at home be told by him, and have him express that their actions affect others in a way only he could. The point is that by acting in this rebellious manner, you are only hurting the things that you think you are protecting. People may be willing to take risks on their own lives, but I think with the exception of sociopaths, they wouldn’t be able to live their life as they know it if their loved ones die. Furthermore, the more people die, the more the economy is going to hurt. It seems impossible to justify the opposite. Anyway, I hope that the urgency of the situation is understood sooner rather than later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2fyVGIWcSo

Given that quarantine has limited my face to face social interactions, I have filled that void with plenty of Netflix. I stumbled upon this show, 100 Humans, that basically conducts a series of social psych experiments on 100 random humans. While many of their experiments would not be IRB approved as they often fail to minimize harm or have large enough sample sizes to be statistically significant, some of their findings are still very interesting. One of the episodes focused on attraction. One of their research questions was “will someone who is good looking receive lighter jail sentences?” As it turns out, the participants in their study did, on average, recommend lighter jail sentences for more attractive people in the same made up scenario. While this is a made-up scenario, I can definitely think of times in my life that I gave someone who I found attractive a benefit of the doubt that I probably wouldn’t have given someone I didn’t find attractive. Furthermore, even knowing that they were guilty of something, I am more likely to attribute their behavior to their situation than them just being a bad person. For example, one of my roommates had a girlfriend who treated him very poorly, but found her very attractive. While he couldn’t deny that she was often mean to him, he would often justify her behavior by saying something like she’s just under a lot of stress, rather than attributing her behavior to her own disposition.

Another interesting study that the show conducted found that people are more likely to find someone attractive when you look at them longer. While I understand that this is a finding that has been replicated, I wonder if there is more at play than just finding a familiar face more attractive. I remember earlier in the semester discussing that faces that are more familiar we view as more normal. Given this I suspect it’s possible that people we are initially unattracted to, we become more attracted to with familiarity, I think it’s at least possible that very attractive people we will see as slightly less attractive overtime. This could explain the feeling of looking back on a crush that we had in high school and wonder “what were we thinking?”

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