What is known about “how the mind conjures value,” as you write?
Partly this has been a staple of economics for centuries – the value we see in something shifts according to our situation and proclivities.  Just browse Ebay sometime. You may have no use for an obsolete Polaroid camera that shoots out tiny self-adhesive photographs. So, it has no value for you. But somebody out there really wants one for a party, and they are going to outbid all comers (yes, this is autobiographical). However, I write about research that takes this idea a step further, showing how our brains adjust the value we see in something based on how much we expect others value it. So, it’s not just our personal situation and proclivities that weigh into this equation, but everybody else’s too.

In brain scan studies, for example, the reward centers in the brains of young men looking at photos of young women go up and down based on learning that their peers supposedly thought that this particular woman was more or less attractive than they did originally. This isn’t just peer pressure. Their brains have adjusted the “value” of that face.

Think of the recent housing bubble and how much value we saw in a three bedroom house in our neighborhood during the boom and how much now, after the bust.  There’s a rational market explanation for the change – too many sellers and not enough buyers, and not enough cash – but the research suggests brain changes, too.  We really saw more value in that house during the boom, based on the expectations of what others valued.

Have you experienced any of these effects first hand?
I'm certain that I have, although most of the examples I could bring up are naturally speculative, rather than controlled experiments. For instance, I was a fairly successful student growing up, and much of the credit goes to my teachers and parents for preparing me and instilling discipline and study habits. But I'm pretty sure that some of it was due to the self-fulfilling potential of expectations. I became a good student partly because my teachers expected me to do well, my parents expected me to do well, and so I expected to do well.

Plus, I know that I almost always enjoy a wine that I know is expensive. But, last summer, I hosted a blind-wine tasting of with friends and family where we tried to guess the prices of the wines we tasted — which ranged from $15 a bottle to about $60 a bottle. The tasters, myself included, generally preferred wines that we thought were the most expensive. But, in reality, those preferred wines were often among the cheapest.

Finally, when I was in my 20s, I had my first bout with insomnia. Two nights with zero sleep, and I was freaking out. Over the course of those two nights, I'd tried over the counter sleep medication. I'd tried alcohol. I slept not a wink. I finally went to a walk-in clinic and talked with a psychologist who later handed me a couple of small pills in a vial and told me they would help me sleep. There was no label on the vial, no marking on the pills. He just said to take one and then avoid driving and operating power tools, etc, because these were powerful. I took one that night and slept soundly. I think about that every now and then. I know that I would have eventually slept no matter what. But I also suspect I was given a placebo.

Why did you want to write this book?
I think we're too insistent on separating what's imagined from what's real. A lot of scientific endeavor involves making such distinctions, and that's worthwhile and necessary. But it's worth taking stock of how often our imagination, our expectations and assumptions, bleed into reality and actually change experience or change our bodies. This isn't about denying, disguising, or not seeing what's true, it's about the cases when truth may be malleable.

4 Comments

1. 1. sunspot 03:56 PM 10/16/12

   It seems more accurate to say that expectations bend PERCEPTION of reality, and thereby results in behavioral changes that may affect reality. The placebo effect changes a mental state (perception) which is conducive to brain behavior that results in pain relief.
   
   But what's new in this observation. Low expectations of parents can result in under-achieving children and vise versa.
   
   Here's a related issue. Does a crack addict gain superhuman strength from the drug, or does the addict perceive others as weaker, and therefore acts accordingly?

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2. 2. Petra 05:40 AM 10/18/12

   Interesting article as it covers a lot of territory, yet the point is not to have any preconceived ideas about anything without further investigation/gaining a learned point of view about the subject matter, though life experience is enormously helpful.
   In application of the 4 Person Principle where one wants to contact someone and in theory accepting we are only 3 contacts away from making the connection with the fourth person we wish to contact, it's an interesting exercise in asking do we really believe it's possible? And if so, who are the three front-runners to helping us gain access to the fourth person we wish to reach?
   But what happens if it works and contact can be established? What dialogue will follow that will either bring success or failure?
   The key most likely is knowing as much as possible about the person one may address in asking for something or wishing to promote an action.
   But is our expectation in researching the person and their interests enough? Probably not. We may need to ask one of our three preliminary contacts along the way who may offer a morsel of knowledge about the most suitable approach.
   So there one sits with a choice between e-mailing, calling or writing a formal letter. Which one should it be?
   The point being at at each juncture we find ourselves somewhere between desire, hope and faith, with our preconceived notion success is possible because we've been told the method is known to work.
   Yet, it goes back to simplicity in stating "one cannot succeed for fail, unless one tries. Thus if contact is made the 4 Person Principle worked, though the outcome may fail.

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3. 3. theWrathe 10:33 AM 10/24/12

   There is some interesting data about expectations. This is a glib restatement of the experiment (ie, I'm not going back to verify the details). Basically, a group of near-failing kids (hovering around a D to F border) were divided into two groups. The first group was told how wonderful they were, how smart they were, how well they were doing, and that the teachers knew they would do well. The other group was told clearly that they were failing without mincing any words.
   
   The following year, the encouraged kids' grades dropped. The condemned kids' grades rose to the C- level. (Lots of details, like teacher quality, were controlled for iirc).
   
   Speculation was that giving kids a false sense of how they are doing undermined their own efforts. Objective reality (in the sense of "dude, you're failing!") apparently helped. It was popular to say this undermines the argument that we need to build up self-esteem.
   
   I'm not sure that conclusion is accurate though. Maybe there's a subtle expectation game going on here. Telling someone what they "know" is the truth means you're not coddling them and that you MUST have real faith in them. But giving out made up awards and complements to boost self-esteem might undermine real self-esteem, real confidence, and real results.

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4. 4. CharismaDawn in reply to sunspot 09:14 AM 11/21/12

   
   As you put it...
   "It seems more accurate to say that expectations bend PERCEPTION of reality, and thereby results in behavioral changes that may affect reality."
   
   Well said!

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