8. On radiologists’ diagnoses, see C. A. Estrada et al., “Positive Affect Facilitates Integration of Information and Decreases Anchoring in Reasoning Among Physicians,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 72 (1997), pp. 117–35.
9. The more difficulty we have performing a given task, the more diffuse and unfocused the pattern of active sites will be in our brain. A diffusely activated brain occurs, for instance, when we are bored and daydreaming, or when we are highly anxious. The brain activation pattern during peak cognitive efficiency looks highly specific to the task at hand. Brain imaging taken while the person is performing a task well shows that the brain has mobilized the sites most pertinent to that activity, and not others that are irrelevant (and so represent an extraneous action or distraction). Cognitive efficiency demands that the specific tools of the brain contribute to the task at hand in a well-orchestrated manner.
10. Anxiety erodes cognitive efficiency. For example, students with math anxiety have less capacity in their working memory when they tackle a math problem. Their anxiety occupies the attentional space they need for math, impairing their ability to solve math problems or grasp new concepts. See Mark Ashcroft and Elizabeth Kirk, “The Relationship Among Working Memory, Math Anxiety, and Performance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 130, no. 2 (2001), pp. 224–27.
11. That argument, in terms of the “X-system” and the “C-system” (roughly the low and high roads, respectively), is made by Matthew Lieberman et al., “A Pain by Any Other Name (Rejection, Exclusion, Ostracism) Still Hurts the Same: The Role of Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Social and Physical Pain,” in J. Cacioppo et al., eds., Social Neuroscience: People Thinking About Thinking People (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005).
12. On cortisol and the inverted U, see Heather C. Abercrombie et al., “Cortisol Variation in Humans Affects Memory for Emotionally Laden and Neutral Information,” Behavioral Neuroscience 117 (2003), pp. 505–16.
13. Moderate stress enhances focused attention. See Eran Chajut and Daniel Algom, “Selective Attention Improves Under Stress: Implications for Theories of Social Cognition,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2003), pp. 231–48.
14. On anxiety and working memory, see Mark Ashcroft and Elizabeth Kirk, “The Relationship Among Working Memory, Math Anxiety, and Performance,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 130 (2001), pp. 224–27.
15. See, for example, Mario Mikulincer et al., “Attachment, Caregiving and Altruism: Boosting Attachment Security Increases Compassion and Helping,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89 (2005), pp. 817–39.
16. Mihalyi Csikszentmilhalyi and Reed Larson, Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
17. On managers in bad moods, see J. M. George and A. P. Brief, “Motivational Agendas in the Workplace,” Research in Organizational Behaviour 18 (1996), pp. 75–109.
18. In describing the relationship between mood and performance in terms of the inverted U, I am oversimplifying a bit. Every major emotion has its distinctive influence on how we think. Our moods sway our judgments; when we are in a sour mood, we more readily dislike what we see; in contrast, we are more forgiving or appreciative while we are upbeat. See Neal M. Ashkanasy, “Emotions in Organizations: A Multilevel Perspective,” in Neal Ashkanasy et al., eds., Emotions in the Workplace: Research, Theory, and Practice (Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 2000). While good moods have great benefits, negative emotions can be useful in specific situations. “Bad” moods can enhance certain kinds of performance, such as attending to detail in a search for errors or making finer distinctions among choices. This mood-task fit has been mapped in more detail in the work of John Mayer at the University of New Hampshire. For a review of how moods affect performance, see David Caruso et al., The Emotionally Intelligent Manager (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2004). Neuroscientists have started to map the specific ways different emotional states might boost various intellectual abilities. In the mild mood range at least, moods can facilitate specific tasks—and on a limited range of specific tasks, negative moods help at times and positive moods sometimes hurt. For instance, anxiety (at least at the levels instilled by watching a clip of a horror film) seems to augment tasks largely processed by the right prefrontal cortex, such as face recognition. Enjoyment (induced by watching a comedy) enhances left-hemisphere tasks such as verbal performance. See Jeremy R. Gray et al., “Integration of Emotion and Cognition in the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 199 (2002), pp. 4115–20.
19. On social stress and working memory impairment, see Bernet Elizuya and Karin Rochlofs, “Cortisol-Induced Impairments of Working Memory Requires Acute Sympathetic Activation,” Behavioral Neuroscience 119 (2005), pp. 98–103.
20. Destroying the hippocampus ends the ability to learn; neurological patients with damage there live every moment as though the last has not occurred. Some conditions—notably trauma and chronic depression—shrink the hippocampus by killing off cells. As patients recover from these disorders, their hippocampus gradually grows back.
21. On cortisol and the inverted U, see Abercrombie et al., “Cortisol Variation in Humans.”
22. R. Alpert and R. N. Haber, “Anxiety in Academic Achievement Situations,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 61 (1960), pp. 207–15.
23. Sian Beilock and Thomas Carr, “When High-powered People Fail: Working Memory and ‘Choking Under Pressure’ in Math,” Psychological Science 16 (2005), pp. 101–05.
24. Jeanne Nakamura, “Optimal Experience and the Uses of Talent,” in Mihalyi and Isabella Csikzentmihalyi, eds., Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
25. Oddly, the combination of good news delivered with a gloomy expression was perceived even more negatively than bad news delivered with a tone of gloom. On the effects of a positive facial expression in managers, see Michael T. Newcombe and Neal M. Ashkanasy, “The Code of Affect and Affective Congruence in Perceptions of Leaders: An Experimental Study,” Leadership Quarterly 13 (2002), pp. 601–04.
26. Thomas Sy et al., “The Contagious Leader: Impact of the Leader’s Mood on the Mood of Group Members, Group Affective Tone, and Group Processes,” Journal of Applied Psychology 90 (2005), pp. 295–305.
27. M. T. Dasborough, “Cognitive Asymmetry in Employee Emotional Reactions to Leadership Behaviors,” Leadership Quarterly, 17 (2006), pp. 163–178
28. Neal Ashkanasy et al., “Managing Emotions in a Changing Workplace,” in Ashkanasy et al., Emotions in the Workplace.
29. James Harter, Gallup Organization, unpublished report, December 2004.
30. The poll is cited in Amy Zipkin, “The Wisdom of Thoughtfulness,” New York Times, May 31, 2000, p. C5.
31. Students tend to feel more a part of things at school the more their teachers are supportive and caring, and the more good friends and favorite extracurricular involvements they have there. See the special edition of the Journal of School Health 74, no. 7, September 2004.
32. For the study of teaching style and student achievement, see Bridget Hamre and Robert Pianta, Child Development 76 (2005), pp. 949–67.
33. K. Wentzel, “Are Effective Teachers Like Good Parents? Teaching Styles and Student Adjustment in Early Adolescence,” Child Development 73 (2002), pp. 287–301.
34. Joseph Durlak and Roger Weisberg, “A Major Meta-Analysis of Positive Youth Development Programs,” presentation at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 2005.
35. On the educational benefits of a caring environment, see, for example, K. F. Osterman, “Students’ Needs for Belonging in the School Community,” Review of Educational Research 70 (2000), pp. 323–67.
36. See, for example, the special issue of the Journal of School Health (September 2004) on school connectedness.
Chapter 20. The Connectedness Corrective
1. Forme
r superintendent John Tindall, as quoted in 1949 by the St. Louis Dispatch in a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Small Is Beautiful (Missouri Division of Youth Services, 2003). My account of the Missouri system is based on that report.
2. On recidivism rates, see ibid. However, comparisons across states should be viewed with caution; they may not reflect identical measures. A better comparison would include all states, tracking in the identical way those released. Such data do not yet exist.
3. On prefrontal damage, see Adriane Raine et al., “Brain Abnormalities in Murderers Indicated by Positron Emission Tomography,” Biological Psychiatry 42 (1997), pp. 495–508.
4. Adriane Raine et al., “Reduced Prefrontal Gray Matter Volume and Reduced Autonomic Activity in Antisocial Personality Disorder,” Archives of General Psychiatry 57 (2000), pp. 119–27. Many violent people have atrophy in the amygdala; see R. J. Davidson, K. M. Putnam, and C. L. Larson, “Dysfunction in the Neural Circuitry of Emotion Regulation—A Possible Prelude to Violence,” Science 289 (2000), pp. 591–94.
5. On prefrontal lobe and cognitive control, see E. K. Miller and J. D. Cohen, “An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function,” Annual Review of Neuroscience 24 (2001), pp. 167–202.
6. This neurological timeline was the basis for a 2005 Supreme Court decision against allowing the execution of juveniles, because young brains have not matured to the point that their decision-making and impulse-control abilities are at levels of adults.
7. Nationally, the annual cost of this vast prison system surpassed $60 billion in 2002. On the prison population, see Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2005.
8. On costs and recidivism rates, see Patrick Langer and David Levin, “Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994,” report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 193427, (June 2002).
9. Kalamazoo County Coalition on Criminal Justice, “A Plan for Integrating Prevention, Intervention, Corrections, and Reintegration Programs in the Kalamazoo County Criminal Justice System,” September 15, 2004.
10. On connectedness and crime, see Dr. Felton Earls, interview by Dan Hurley, “On Crime as Science (A Neighbor at a Time),” New York Times, January 6, 2004, p. C1.
11. On analysis of neighborhoods, see Robert J. Sampson et al., “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multi-level study of Collective Efficacy,” Science 277 (1997), pp. 918–24.
12. The creation of greater cohesiveness is a social experiment waiting to be done well.
13. Nancy Guerra and Ronald Slaby, “Cognitive Mediators of Aggression in Adolescent Offenders: 2. Intervention,” Developmental Psychology 26 (1990), pp. 269–77.
14. On younger inmates, see “Childhood on Trial: The Failure of Trying and Sentencing Youth in Adult Criminal Court,” Coalition for Juvenile Justice, 2005 Annual Report.
15. These circuits remain somewhat malleable throughout life; if a person of any age has the motivation to learn, they still can do so with some success, given the proper model of learning. But after this window has closed in the twenties, it takes far more effort and time to shape them—and so requires that the person be more highly motivated and be given more personalized help. For the apt model of learning, see Part Two in Daniel Goleman et al., Primal Leadership (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002). See also “Best Practices” at www.eiconsortium.org.
16. On rehab in prison, see James McGuire, ed., What Works: Reducing Reoffending (New York: John Wiley, 1995); James McGuire, Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment (New York: John Wiley, 2002).
17. On programs in social and emotional learning, see www.casel.org.
18. On lower rates, see Wendy Garrard, “Does Conflict Resolution Education Reduce Antisocial Behavior in Schools? The Evidence Says Yes,” presented at the annual meeting of the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management, Columbus, Ohio, November 2005.
19. The National Emotional Literacy Project for Youth-at-Risk is one pilot program that adapts social-emotional abilities to young prison populations (www.lionheart.org). Another pilot program teaches social intelligence skills to youth offenders in Connecticut prisons—for example, they learn better social problem-solving skills and ways to disengage from anger. See Zak Stambor, “Can Teaching Troubled Teens Social Problem-solving Keep Them Out of Trouble?” Monitor on Psychology (December 2005), pp. 90–91.
20. On highest recidivism among youngest prisoners, and those with the longer records, see Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005.
21. On the Bucks County meeting, see Laura Mirsky, “Directing Burning Bridges, a Documentary About a Restorative Conference,” at www.realjustice.org.
22. On restorative justice, see Gerry Johnstone, Restorative Justice (London: Willan Publishers, 2001).
23. See Kathleen Kenna, “Justice for All,” Greater Good (Spring/Summer 2005).
24. On recidivism in multisystemic therapy, see C. M. Boruin et al., “Multisystemic Treatment of Serious Juvenile Offenders: Long-term Prevention of Criminality and Violence,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 63 (1995), pp. 569–78.
25. Ibid.
26. On age of prisoners, see Paige Harrison and Alan J. Beck, “Prisoners in 2003,” Bulletin, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D.C., November 2004.
Chapter 21. From Them to Us
1. The Afrikaaner and Anne were witnessed by Peter Senge and recounted in Peter Senge et al., Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future (Cambridge, Mass.: Society for Organizational Learning, 2004).
2. On Us-Them, see Walter Kaufmann, prologue to Martin Buber, I and Thou (1937; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 13.
3. On similarity and shocks, see, for example, Dennis Krebs, “Empathy and Altruism; An Examination of the Concept and a Review of the Literature,” Psychological Bulletin 73 (1970), pp. 258–302; C. Daniel Batson, The Altruism Question: Toward a Scientific Answer (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1991).
4. Elie Wiesel made these remarks at the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. See Jerusalem Post, January 25, 2005.
5. For instance, data from the Implicit Association Test suggest that in the United States most whites and about half of blacks are quicker to associate positive terms like “joy” with whites and negative ones like “bomb” with blacks. Even people who espouse antiracist views are often chagrined to find that they, too, are quicker to be positive about whites and negative about blacks.
6. On the Implicit Association Test, see Anthony Greenwald et al., “Measuring Individual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit Association Test,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1998), pp. 1464–80.
7. T. Andrew Poehlman et al., “Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of Predictive Validity,” unpublished manuscript.
8. Brain imaging reveals that the stronger a person holds such subtle prejudice, the more active the amygdala while looking at the photo of someone in the target group, be it whites, women scientists, or the elderly. See Alan Hart et al., “Differential Response in the Human Amygdala to Racial Out-group Versus In-group Face Stimuli,” NeuroReport 11 (2000), pp. 2351–55; Elizabeth Phelps and Mahzarin R. Banaji, “Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12 (2000), pp. 729–38. And when images of faces from a Them group are shown quickly (or masked) so that the conscious mind has no idea what it has seen, the amygdala reacts more strongly to these barely glimpsed images than to ones that are consciously seen. See also William A. Cunningham et al., “Separable Neural Components in the Processing of Black and White Faces,” Psychological Science 15 (2004), pp. 806–13.
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