Ellen Langer

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• 1 Comments
• 3 days ago

BBC Horizon

The BBC show Horizon ran an episode this week titled “Don’t Grow Old” that featured the Counterclockwise study. An article about the study also was published in BBC Magazine that includes a clip from the show, you can find it here:

Can the power of thought stop you ageing?

The show will be repeated on Tuesday, February 9, 2010, on BBC 1 at 2:50 GMT.

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• PsychToday
• 14 days ago

Same thing, only different

When we look at the “same” thing, what do we see? Presumably, we see the same thing. This simple assumption may be at the core of most of our interpersonal difficulties. Instead consider that 1) we may see different aspects of the same target; 2) we may see the same aspects differently; and 3) we may see the same aspects the same way and interpret them quite differently.

The first of these is the most familiar. When a flute player hears an orchestra, the notes played by the flutist may be most salient, while the rap artist may look instead for the repetitive beat of the music. The nutritionist, similarly may observe the lard in an oreo cookie that is totally missed by the hungry child or the adult on a diet. When we try to resolve interpersonal conflicts, it is these sorts of differences we try to find.

The second of these, that we may notice the same stimulus but interpret it differently, is also familiar when the difference in question is one of evaluation. The optimist see the glass as half full, the pessimist, as half empty. When evaluation is not the issue, however, this difference is much more obscure and often reveals that we are ignoring the fact that the same stimulus may look quite different to the two of us. We are in a paddock and five horses come running in our direction. To me, the horses are coming “to say hello” and so I stay to greet them. To everyone else they are coming “to trample us” and so all of you quickly run away. Because there are more of you, the consensus is that I’m in denial. If most of us stay and only one runs away, the person who runs is taken to be a coward. These attributions suggest we are unaware that we are really not seeing the same thing at all.

The third instance, where we acknowledge that we are seeing the same thing, but differ in our interpretation of what we see, is the least appreciated difference. Here we have the successful entrepreneurs who notice the chaos and look for opportunity. It is different from the difference between optimists and pessimists in that initially the view of the stimulus event is the same. What is done with the material is what differs. If no one in a community knows how to ride a bicycle and there are no bicycles, one may conclude that it would be a poor business venture to open a bicycle store there; someone else may see it as a great opportunity in that the market has not been tapped yet.

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• 20 days ago

Revitalizing and Reinventing Your Life

I’ll be appearing at the 92nd Street Y in New York City on Sunday, January 31, 2010. The flyer below has all the information you need, I hope you can make it!

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• 1 Comments
• Mindfulness
• 21 days ago

A rose is not a rose is not a rose

Gertrude Stein aside, a rose is not a rose, is not a rose. It is certainly easier to talk about the rose if all the subtleties are ignored, but in doing so, we come to react to it oblivious to the finer distinctions we could have made. This rose is different from other roses and different from itself from other perspectives and at different times.

It would be inefficient to have a different name for each difference for mundane discussion about roses. Thus we have created language that effectively directs our attention to a level of abstraction that enables us to communicate easily. We talk about a rose. However, this language leads us to accept all that the label entails and ignore all that appears irrelevant to the general case.

Our everyday language directs us to similarities, not differences. We notice it is a rose by seeing how it is like other flowers we call by the same name; and we mindlessly react to it the basically the same way each time. As will become clear, however, the opportunity for creating new choices for ourselves comes when we become responsive, rather than reactive, to the very differences that would make interpersonal communication difficult. The same is true for our disorders and emotions.

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• 3 Comments
• Mindfulness
• 26 days ago

Trying is trying

The life well lived is best lived effortlessly. I know I may be going out on a limb with this, but it is where my thoughts effortlessly lead me. Trying, in many instances, is based on mindless evaluation. If we find something aversive, we may try to overcome our feelings and do it anyway. Given that evaluation is in our heads and not with the thing we are evaluating, thinking differently about it is likely to be more successful. No matter how hard I try not to overeat, not to be stressed, not to be angry, I am likely to overeat, be stressed and angry at some point soon, if not immediately. Sometimes I overeat because no one, not even me should push me around.

If I frame food as irresistible it’s hard to resist. If I mindlessly think my state of mind depends on anyone other than me, I may be stressed. If I forget that what you did that made me angry has positive consequences and doesn’t say anything about me anyway, my anger will feel out of place. Given that I virtually always put my whole self into whatever I do, it may seem like I’m trying to do it well, while all I’m doing is doing.