Positively Media

Want to keep your job? Get more education

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:03:12 +0000

A recent survey by the Career College Association reported that 9 out of 10 Americans think college is important for career opportunities and 67% believe that education is the key to competitiveness in the global economy. Turns out education can also be the key to keeping your job in an economic downturn. Recent employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that not only do people with more education earn more, but in tough times like these, education provides a buffer against unemployment. The unemployment rate for people with a bachelor's degree or higher as of October 2009 was 4.6%. However, compare that to the percent of people out of work with less than a high school diploma-- 14%. When it comes to unemployment, 10% is a lot. The desire for more employment options is also fueling a spike in enrollment of adults returning to school.

The good news is that technology can help. First, it allows you to build a persuasive argument to inspire your kids. You can find employment and earning potential numbers at the click of a mouse (including charts) at the Bureau of Labor Statistics website so you can show your kids at the dinner table why it's so important to get an education. (Make sure you translate the numbers into a currency your kids will understand, like clothes or cars.)

More importantly, however, communications technologies make education available to people--both young and old--for whom it was previously out of reach. Traditional higher education programs can be prohibitive for a number of reasons: cost, geography, admission requirements, or home and family demands. Also, according to a report by Howell, Williams, and Lindsay Thirty-two Trends Affecting Distance Education: An Informed Foundation for Strategic Planning, the current higher education infrastructure isn't equipped to handle the number of college-bound students coming down the pipeline, not to mention the swelling number of nontraditional students looking to further their education and career options. In 2001, 42% of all students were over age 25. Adult learners are the fastest growing segment of the higher education population.

Brick and mortar institutions can't offer the flexibility to facilitate the needs of many, particularly adult learners, so it's exciting to see different solutions using distance learning models springing up. For example, the Big Bend Community College has established satellite "Community Knowledge Centers" to provide broadband access to their programs. The military is instituting a virtual school program to help the kids in military families stay on track through frequent relocations. The Conterra Telecom Services is connecting eight high schools in the Navajo Nation to the Northeast Arizona Technological Institute of Vocational Education. Where the average distance between high schools is 101 miles and 78% of student have to travel over unpaved roads to school, providing high speed Internet access can make a huge difference.

With the technology we have today, there is no reason why quality education cannot be available to anyone who wants it. In a perfect world, everyone would have a chance to stroll leisurely past ivy-covered halls carrying a swell book bag on their way to a lecture by a Nobel laureate. But it's not. Only about 25% of the population is able to attend a four-year college. Distance education is a powerful way to help expand access and options to the rest.

Contrary to widely-held beliefs, distance-learning is not a sorry second best. It is possible to have very meaningful relationships and learning experiences in asynchronous environments. I know. I've been on both sides of the equaiton. Just like in face-to-face courses, much of the success of an online course is due to the energy the teacher and students invest. But it is the convenience and flexibility in scheduling of the distance learning format that allows most students to continue their education. While there are potential downsides, of course, the disadvantages are vastly outweighed by the alternative--no education.

The U.S. could learn from places like India's Indira Ghandhi National Open University. It provides educational opportunities through distance and open education targeting disadvantaged populations. There are kids working as busboys working in Kuwait studying to be engineers, thanks to this system. We should take notice of both the opportunity and the motivation and energy of so many who are working to take advantage of it.

The world is becoming a smaller place, thanks to technology. This means that competition for jobs, not just goods, is in a global market. The disparity in unemployment across education levels is an example of this trend. If you haven't seen the viral video "Did You Know" on YouTube, watch it to get an idea of the magnitude of this global shift.

Unemployment numbers underscore the importance of an education in slow economic times. But in the global economy, we not only need to get an education, we need to keep learning.

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Richardson, J., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining Social Presence in Online Courses in Relation to Student's Perceived Learning and Satisfaction. JALN, 7 (1), 68-88.

The Coevolution of Society and Media

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:29:59 +0000

For a quite some time, ‘media' has been synonymous with ‘mass media' and mass media has been the focus of academic inquiry and public interest and concern. The field of media psychology, however, examines human use and development of, and interaction with, all forms of mediated communication, not just mass media. Mediated communication is communication using some kind of technology. That definition includes pretty much everything from cave paintings to text messages.

Some types of technologies are sufficiently profound that they cause a radical change in society that impacts our daily lives. The invention of the printing press meant that literacy was no longer available to just a few monks and kings. The invention of the telegraph meant that for the first time information could travel faster than you could physically carry it. Before that, broadband was the Pony Express. The introduction of social media means that many people can talk to many people without going through a gatekeeper or institution.

Media psychology looks not just at the media, but at the changes it brings--both the opportunities and the dark side. Media psychology is, of necessity, forward-looking because the media landscape and society are continually evolving. Media psychology is also very cool, if your defintion of cool is having to (getting to) learn new things all the time. It is the constant change, emergence of new technologies, and far-ranging implications that make the field so exciting and compelling.

I love that new ideas and approaches emerge as technologies develop. In large part, this happens because our collective experience with technology changes as the population ages. As we evolve from a society of digital newbies to one of the digitally-integrated, our perspectives of, beliefs about, and goals for technology change. As Max Planck is reported as saying,

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (quoted in Kuhn, 1970, p. 150)

Media technologies--technology we communicate with--are everywhere. The ubiquitousness of these technologies, multiple information channels, and new ways of connecting across society outside the mass media model are driving an acceptance of technology as a fact of life. This, in turn, creates a demand for exploring positive and prosocial uses of media, rather than always looking, as my grandfather would say, for the turd under the rosebush. There is great opportunity for us to set aside our fears and examine the role of individual agency and expression in how people interact with and create media.

I was rereading Bandura's (1999) article last night on social cognitive theory, the evolved version of his earlier theoretical work on social learning theory. Bandura has made--and continues to make--a profound impact on the field of psychology. Social learning theory and Bandura's 1961 experiments with the Bobo doll and social learning are often cited in the media effects literature, particularly the literature about violence.

My husband and fellow PT blogger John Rutledge often says that if people actually read Keynes, and not just the people who cite him, they would have an entirely different opinion about how economies work. I think the same is true for Bandura. If you think Bandura's theories mean that people blindly mimic what they see, you'd better read his stuff for yourself.

My problem with much of the media effects tradition is that it doesn't acknowledge the nature of a system. We know from physics that if you move energy in one place, it influences something somewhere else. Even if you can't visibly see it, a change in energy shifts the whole. Media effects is part of a tradition of psychological theories that often view energy flows (effects) as unidirectional. Beginning with the now out-dated hypodermic needle or magic bullet communication theory of mass media influence, too many theories about media assume that the media recipients (hard to call them users in this view) are passive victims of other people's agendas.

I don't believe that's how it works. I believe we are part of a system that produces, chooses, and uses media in a system with feedback loops. How we choose and use things are a function of who we are and what we believe; what we choose and use influences what we have to choose and use. It all interacts and co-evolves. By taking the position that media is this "thing" external to ourselves, we cheerfully absolve ourselves of our own responsibility and contributions to the system. In other words, we are not passive victims. We are active agents. Bandura (1999) is much more eloquent on individual agency:

"In its brief history, psychology has undergone wrenching paradigm shifts. In these transformations, the theorists and their followers think, argue and act agentically, but their theories about how other people function grant them little, if any, angentic capabilities. It is ironic that a science of human functioning should strip people of their very capabilities that make them unique in their power to shape their environment and their own destiny." (p. 21)

Or in the immortal words of Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that media doesn't impact us or that media content doesn't contribute to our view of the world. I'm not. I am saying, however, that we contribute to media content both as producers and by our choices. People don't turn into conservatives because they watch Lou Dobbs or listen to Rush Limbaugh; they watch Dobbs and listen to Limbaugh because they are conservative. I'm not sure what you are when you listen to Howard Stern, but you did pick the station. If we didn't watch it or read it, the media, mass or otherwise, wouldn't invest the resources to show it or print it.

The coevolutionary nature of media communications systems is powerful and positive because not only can it be changed, it is changing everytime you get information and act on it. Just like in any relationship, if you want it to change, you have to acknowledge your part in the system.

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Bandura, A. (1999). Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective. Asian Journal Of Social Psychology, 2(1), 21-41.

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Pogo cartoon from wikipedia.com

The Fun Theory of Behavioral Change

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:22:56 +0000

Just when you despair for humanity (or perhaps the media version of ourselves), someone reminds us of the creative, uplifting, and inspirational potential of media technologies. If you haven't seen it, check out http://thefuntheory.com sponsored by Volkswagen. It's brilliant in its simplicity. The introduction to the site says:

"This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better."

TheFunTheory.com site is even hosting a contest to encourage people to find their own evidence to support the theory that fun is best way to make positive behavioral changes. (You don't have to make a video to qualify, in case you're a positive and creative person with no camera skills.)

Think of it as applied positive psychology. See how they tackle issues like exercise, recycling and littering by making them fun. I guarantee you'll want to take the stairs and recycle your bottles, too.

Carried Away with Balloon Boy

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:37:43 +0000

The big story today was the six-year old boy who was carried away in the family weather balloon. It was the ONLY story on the news radio channel during my drive home from the post office and I arrived back at my desk to find an interview request about the 'Boy in the Balloon' story.

Why do we care so much about this story that we are literally hanging on every word for hours? What creates such appeal?

When children are in harm's way, it triggers the nurturing parent in all of us.
Most people fundamentally believe in a "just world." Bad things aren't supposed to happen to kids.
The live coverage of the balloon, the ongoing dialogue across blogs and Twitter makes this a participatory event. Humans like to engage and be part of the group. We are much more emotionally involved with things we are part of.
The lack of resolution (well, until they found the boy hiding in the attic) makes a story more compelling. People like closure and order. It's how we achieve cognitive comfort.
The local color around the event itself contributed to the emotional engagement. This family had been on the reality TV show "Wife Swap." They were "weather-chasers" and "thrill-seekers." I mean, really, what normal family has a weather balloon hanging around in the backyard. The balloon even looked like a flying saucer. For a journalist, you can't get much better than that--the pull of the heart strings plus a little bit of kinky.
With the unusual family activities, you can almost hear the mental wheels churning across America--are they bad parents? All the more reason for us to watch and make sure the boy's okay.

It's relevant, or course, that it was a very slow news day. Even so, it may be that worrying about one child in one family in one balloon, however wacky, is easier than worrying about jobs, mortgages, banks, terrorists, and recessions.

Facebooking at work

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:57:38 +0000

Fifty four percent of US companies have banned the use of social media at work, according to an interesting article by Sharon Gaudin in Computerworld.

Gaudin also reports that only10% of the companies in the survey allow employees to use social media while at work. Last July, Nucleus Research reported that productivity dropped 1.5% at companies that allow full access to social media. This is probably because they also found that 87% of use was not work-related. The headlines are a little alarmist, however, because they also note that only one in 33 employees accessed Facebook at work. (That's about 3%, so what they're saying was that 87% of the time that the 3% were using social media, it wasn't work related.) Nevertheless, it's important to actually do your work when you're at work. It is why they pay you.

The key in all this is how the social media is being used. Humans like to connect; in fact, they're biologically wired to do so and, when exercised appropriately, this is a healthy behavior. Thus, it's not surprising that these new tools are being embraced enthusiastically. Facebook alone has over 250 million people, up 700% from April 2008 to April 2009.

Before we go demonizing social media, let's ask whether or not the social media tools are being used to support an employee's work or enriching his or her personal life. To keep people focused on their jobs, and not where to meet for a drink after work, most businesses limit the amount of personal phone calls, not to mention instant messaging. Social media raises new issues, of course. I admit that enforcement is a conundrum since much of social networking happens from mobile devices for those who are fleet of finger.

Nevertheless, if social media is being used to get around corporate communications policy, let's not blame the tools. There are lots of people who will adamantly insist that social media is to blame because it is a complete waste of time. They will be content to dump this whole thing on the evils of Facebook or Twitter. Those same people also feel pretty comfortable using the telephone and driving their car. As a teenager, I excelled at wasting time on the telephone until I got a car and could waste time in person. The problem is the behavior, not social media. You don't have to be a psychologist (or a parent) to know that motivating positive behavior can be challenge or that people like to share stuff with each other. Businesses need to address new communication tools as just that--tools--and set up appropriate usage guidelines. The problem and the solution lie in the employee's motivation and behavior. From a positive psychology perspective, if employees have appropriately challenging and defined goals and targets to meet at work, then they will either self-regulate or self-terminate. The ability to text message or post a Tweet should not be viewed as an indication of deviant behavior. There are, after all, lots of ways to waste time.

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Photos: istockphoto.com

Celebrity Tourette's Syndrome?

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:15:24 +0000

The Internet is all a Twitter (literally) and all a YouTube, if you can say that, with the recent celebrity outbursts. In the same week, we saw the displays of bad manners and lack of self-control of tennis star Serena Williams, hurling her frustration in a stream of invectives at a line judge in the US Open; rapper Kanye West expressing his opinion of the award choice during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Music Video Awards; and Congressman Joe Wilson doing the same to President Obama over the impact of the proposed health care package during Obama's address to the US Congress.

What's the deal? Is this Celebrity Tourette's syndrome of a sign of the times? Are we a society of rampant narcissists and Twitter-length cognitive processors? Has the new social media environment so empowered us to speak our opinion that we think we can do it at any time with no content censor?

No. People haven't really changed. The technology changes much faster than we change our behavior and certainly faster than our biology can keep up. But, even if we aren't really changing, it's time we at least understand the program. As individuals and as a society, we must realize that information in the digital age has different properties than when we relied on flyers, party lines, and the 6 o'clock News. We function as an information network. Every single one of us can document and distribute events and information. The very act of people passing along a piece of information changes its import and impact.

Social networks take the information far beyond what happens in mass media, because the conversation is two-way but not just between two people. It's a continual exchange between many people, all at the same time. Once the information is out there, it moves across multiple channels and with great efficiency as it can shape shift through combinations of different forms: words, sounds, and images.

The digital environment means several things for information.

• There's a lot of airspace to fill, so all kinds of information is needed to fill up the vacuum.

• That loud sucking noise from the information void means that something you don't want someone else to know is very likely to show up somewhere you don't want it to.

• Information hangs around for a very long time.

• While the information is out there hanging around, somebody clever, creative, funny, or even mean may decide to integrate it with other information and it takes on a new life with new meaning as a mash-up. (Did you see the YouTube video edited to make it look like Kanye West interrupted President Obama? As of Sunday, it had 3,519,163 views. )

This no-secrets, no do-overs environment has some advantages.

As a society:
• The extensive coverage makes it impossible for the celebrity to downplay or disavow their behavior. They have to take responsibility for their actions as we saw with public apologies across the board.

• The public response from fans, peers, and dignitaries get as much play as the original event. This is a great tool for providing feedback about social norms and rebuffs and censors for deviation. If the President thinks you're a jackass, maybe you'd better shape up.

• People engage and participate in culture. They take current events and remix them to make their own points. The Internet is full of creative responses, such as voting for the week's worse outburst or a YouTube video edited to make it look like Kanye West interrupted Obama's speech. This really speaks to the public nature of media with new technologies and social networks. People can take charge of information, and make their own imprint. It underscores the inability of the content producer to control messages in this environment. Personally, I find this proof of life encouraging.

As a parent:

• The viral nature of these events, including the apologies and reactions from others across YouTube and the Internet as well as traditional media channels, provides ample opportunities to discuss it with your kids. You don't have to worry about something getting by without you seeing it or having a chance to hunt it up and find out what the squawking is about for yourself.

• It's a great opportunity to understand how your kids and their peer group interpret the event. That way you can effectively talk to them about what you think are the key points and have an idea about the impact those events actually have on your kids. It makes a much stronger point to make a cautionary tale out of current events than have to rely on Aesop's Fables.

• Parents can even use these opportunities to make points that go beyond the questionable celebrity behavior to include qualitative aspects of new technology, i.e. the way information spreads quickly to a large amount of people making an event seem worse and more embarrassing or the permanence of digital information, particularly if it's something that reflects poorly on you. What about future employers or future friends?

It used to be that there was ‘no such thing as bad publicity' but I like to think that may no longer be the case. In the new media world, coverage of events happens both inside and outside of traditional media channels. We are shown transgressions of all kinds not just celebrities stepping in cowpies-including bias and oversight by traditional media. The negative public reaction travel as far and fast as the event. If we can expose bad behavior of celebrities, no matter how superficial that seems in the grand scheme of things, we have a much better chance of exposing the negative things that really matter--such as abuses of power.

Photos: istock photos, http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/

Tips on Going with the G-Force

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:37:22 +0000

Disney has a new family movie, G-Force, out in theaters replete with action, good guys, bad guys, humor, and secret agents-in the form of guinea pigs. The 3D computer animation in the tradition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, only in standard guinea pig size, this specially trained squad of guinea pigs is assigned the mission of saving the world.

Sounds pretty cute and lots of fun. But parents worry. What if my kid doesn't understand that guinea pigs are not really like that? What if my kid wants to BUY a guinea pig as a pet?

It is true that kids sometimes can't differentiate between fantasy and reality. Kids understand the world is a fundamentally different way. Magical thinking is a developmental phase, when kids attribute and accept causality in ways that are unrealistic from an adult point of view. (I hesitate to call this reality.) Even when they "know better," kids are much more able to suspend earthly logic and embrace fantasy. We don't get to be kids for very long. Yet parents often feel compelled to rush children through these phases they view as "shortcomings."

The comedian Lilly Tomlin said, "I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it's much too confining." Frankly, even being an adult is over-rated. As adults, when we're supposed to be past this preoperational stage, but we love magic shows and Harry Potter and other things that connect us with this earlier mode of processing and remind us how the word was when everything was magic and the buck didn't always stop here.

Disney's G-Force is another chance to suspend belief and go along for the ride. You may be offended by the overt product placement and marketing push of these new vehicles. Get over it. You may also fear that your children will want a guinea pig of their own, either in action figure or wire cage from Petco. My advice? Take a deep breath and remember when we all wanted a sidekick like Benji, Lassie, or Flipper. (See this list of top 15 sidekicks for a walk down memory lane. ) Who didn't want the ability to twitch your nose like Samantha on Bewitched and just tidy up a few things around the house (or the country). These fantasies speak to our desire for connection, companionship, unconditional love, order amidst chaos, protection, and the perfect parent. Not to mention, it's fun and feel good. In other words, wanting a guinea pig after seeing the G-Force is a pretty normal reaction. So, what's a parent to do?

Suggestions for parents:

If you child expresses the desire for a guinea pig, real or otherwise, don't snicker or be condescending. Don't say "Don't be silly" or "You don't really want a guinea pig." Of course they do. If the guinea pigs were really like Darwin and Blaster in the movie, I would want one, too. Recognize how appealing this is in substance, not form. In other words, It's not the guinea pig, stupid; it's what it represents.
Don't deny that it would be cool. It would be very cool and you know it. Say: "Wouldn't it be great if guinea pigs were really like that? Wouldn't it be great to have a sidekick like that? What would you want your guinea pig to do?"
Remember that while you may be an idiot, your kids probably are not. But if you're worried they really don't know the difference between real guinea pigs and the G-Force squad, contextualize it. You can ask: "Do you think guinea pigs are really like that or do you think they made him look special in the movie? Is that like what they did with Superman, Batman, or the Transformers?"
Most of all, enjoy it. Share the experience. Help create stories about what you would do if that were real. (I'd have my guinea pig fold the laundry as soon as he was finished with saving the world.) Your kids will enjoy it more and so will you.
If the idea of a guinea pig remains persistently and problematically desirable to your child, kindly deliver a reality check. Find a pet store that will let your child scoop the poop from the cage.

Photos: Disney G-Force website

For a list of what it’s like to have a real Guinea Pig, see Mom, I want a Guinea Pig! by Joanne Richards of the Toronto Sun.

The Positive Psychology of Entrepreneurship

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:10:57 +0000

There's a lot of buzz about entrepreneurship right now. This is especially obvious if you hang out on LinkedIn, Twitter, or cruise the Ning social networks. It is not surprising, given the amount of people looking for jobs due to cutbacks and restructuring and a few bankruptcies thrown in for good measure. So far, the government plans to promote economic growth have tried to stimulate a lot of things, but stimulating entrepreneurs doesn't seem to be one of them. It's important to encourage entrepreneurship and not just for economic reasons. Entrepreneurship is the ultimate exercise in developing the attributes that we know from positive psychology to be essential to having a good life: self-competence, optimism, engagement, and resilience.

I'm against government stimulus the way it's usually done for the same reasons that I'm for entrepreneurship. Sending people checks in the mail may give them money to spend--and I'm not saying that's not fun--but they might as well print a card to stick in the envelope with the check that says: "You can't do it yourself, so we have to help you." There is no indication that anyone in government from either side of the aisle thinks we can take care of ourselves. There is no encouragement to start a business or suggestions about how do it with or without the stimulus checks. There are no messages about how starting a business is way to turn one dollar into two. Or even how important it is for everybody's morale if you just get busy and make or do something. We don't even teach it in schools unless you make it all the way to an MBA. For a country founded on initiative and pioneer spirit, this seems totally out of character. The stimulus program is a message about powerlessness and consumption. And worse, this type of stimulus is promoting consumption without any ties to an individual's effort. Every parent knows that's a recipe for disaster. Aside from what that kind of incentive does to someone's work ethic, it is even worse psychologically because it undermines people's belief in themselves.

When someone starts a business, it's just the opposite. It draws on your passion and energy, your creativity and innovation, your resourcefulness and your guts. You do not have to start the next Apple or IBM to have the satisfaction of making a positive contribution. And if you're even remotely successful, you'll also give someone else a job. Do you have a passion for making scented soap? Can you keep somebody's books, build a website, knit a sweater, wash a dog, tutor kids, repair cars, mow a lawn, or teach someone how to use their computer? (Check out business experts John Rutledge and Dani Babb helping Lori Lawrence start "My Pampered Pooch"on CNN.com. From a practical standpoint, thanks to media and communication technologies, some of the major hurdles to starting a business are incredibly low. With the Internet and social media, you can research legal issues, apply for licenses, get supplies, and launch marketing campaigns all on a shoestring budget. With the Internet, service jobs can be done without having to drive your car or put on a tie. If geography matters to what you want to do, then you've got Craig's List or EBay. Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland put on a show in their father's barn. You can start a business in yours. If you don't have a barn, how about the garage or the basement?

However, the logistics of starting a business are not the point.

It isn't what business you do, or how you do it that brings psychological value. It's that you are doing something. Once you have a plan, you are engaged. You take action, figure out problems, try things, and your belief in yourself grows. Those feelings are self-reinforcing; they build on each other and it's empowering, if not slightly exhausting. In the recent issue of Psychological Science, Park and Peterson (2009) review what it means to live well according to the positive psychology literature. From Freud to Seligman, the recurring themes include autonomy, competence, initiative, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, engagement, meaning, and the balance of skills and challenges. Sounds like the manifesto of an entrepreneur.

Positive psychology gets a bad rap because many people think it's just about being "happy" and, aside from our moral ambivalence about happiness, many construe that as a fairly shallow construct. If all we--or the economy--needed to feel better was money, the government stimulus checks would really be doing the trick. But that approach misses the point. Positive psychology is about the attributes that make you feel good, which is a different thing. It's about feeling like you matter, that what you do has meaning, and that you believe in your ability to get stuff done. (Psychologists like to call that ‘self-efficacy'.) When you feel like that, you also feel more optimistic and hopeful which makes you more willing to take risks and try other new things. If you don't believe me, read Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus' "Banker to the Poor" in which he describes how microlending (lending people small amounts of money to start businesses) has positively transformed the lives of people around the world, lifting them out of both poverty and helplessness. Or go to Kiva and read about their social network approach to financing small business ventures.

This is the kind of stimulus we need. Let's at least focus a couple of initiatives on creating the opportunity to achieve some autonomy, meaning, independence, and engagement through entrepreneurship. It would be nice if the government could show us they have faith in us, too. We could stand a little more optimism all around.

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Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2009). Achieving and sustaining a good life. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(4), 422-428. Retrieved July 15, 2009. from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pps/4_4_inpress/park.pdf

Photos: istockphoto.com

Michael Jackson and Garage Sales: Giving Away Pieces of Ourselves

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:39:55 +0000

The extensive media coverage of Michael Jackson's death and memorial has kept journalists and camera crews occupied for days on end. Facebook-CNN.com reported over 700 thousand status updates and CNN.com totaled over 100 million page views and 10.5 million live streams on Tuesday alone. I have been very interested in the whole process because it marks a turning point in how we follow breaking news events. The merging of boundaries between news and social networking sites as access points makes these events participatory in a way they have never been before. It was not that so many people watched Michael Jackson's memorial; it was that so many people participated in his memorial.

However, the most compelling part was the questions on people's mind, both here and outside the US:

* Why do we care about somebody we don't know?
* Why is it such a big deal?
* Why doesn't anybody talk about how creepy Jackson was in the later years? (Honest, that was a real question.)
* Why do we grieve for celebrities?

Yesterday, a Twitterer posted that it was hard to get ready for a family garage sale (in the East, it's a 'tag' sale) because you are trying to place price tags on sentimental value. It occurred to me that Jackson's death is like a garage sale--it feels like you are letting go of parts of your life. In grieving Michael Jackson' death, we are saying goodbye to some of our own memories, hopes, and dreams.

There is no disputing that Jackson was a cultural icon. His contributions to music and dance define specific periods on the timeline of US pop culture. His unique history is a manifestation of the American Dream and has the stuff of heroic myths, a journey against odds and hardship to achieve triumph that would make Joseph Campbell proud.

As a public figure, Jackson's sudden death forces us to deal with the passage of time and mortality--his and ours. As someone else's death always does, or at least should, it reminds us that we, too, are mortal. We will not ever be that age or that person again. For Baby Boomers, this may be particularly profound because, as a generation that has defied society's rule on numerous occasions, we are in total denial about aging and death. We really do not like it when one of our own serves as a reminder

While there is a large body of psychological literature examining the phenomenon of parasocial relationships--when people feel like they have personal relationships with celebrities they don't actually know--I believe the enormity of the response to Michael Jackson is more about us. We have lost something with larger social meaning.

The cultural prominence of Jackson's contributions as a musical genius whose talents crossed many social and artistic bridges means that he provided a backdrop against which our lives played out. It is very hard to separate that presence from the experiences we have both personally and in society at large. Jackson inspired many an artist. But for each artist he inspired to dance or sing, he provided social context for a hundred times that many people, almost transparently. This is what we saw from the outpouring around his Memorial. We saw all the people with memories connected to his artistry. My daughter was born the year Thriller was released. My sisters lip-synced to Ben. And what about Michael Jackson songs for ring tones? How many kids dressed for Halloween like 'The Gloved One'? (How do we even know what that means?) How many Boomers made their kids watch the ENTIRE Thriller video? Or danced to Billie Jean? How many times have you sat through your kid's school chorus performance and listened to Heal the World? There will be as many memories as there are people. That's a lot of memories to lose in one day.

Because it is really about us, why would we want to talk about the negative stuff? We are still in this world and we and the world are a richer place for Jackson having been here--even if you didn't like him or his music.

Michael Jackson was, however, an outlier. Geniuses are outliers by definition and I believe you don't get the upside for free. But biologically, we, as human beings, respond to outliers, oddities, and discontinuities with fear and suspicion. Out in the Savannah, hanging out when things didn't feel right was not good for your health. You didn't associate with things that were threatening in any way because generally that meant you were somebody's dinner. Jackson could have been perceived as by some as a threat because of the questions about his relationships with children, his changing appearance, perceptions of what he meant for race, masculinity, and even fashion. But out there on the Savannah, once something dies, the threat is gone. We don't have to focus on the negatives; we can luxuriate in the positives. We can look and say "Wow, that was a REALLY BIG tiger!" without having to worry about being eaten.

Loss of any emotional attachment causes a grieving process. Humans don't like change much anyway and we certainly do not like uncertainty. We grieve for Michael Jackson and ourselves because the world won't be the same. With the passing of icons, we lose pieces of our own stories. We build the image of these icons by projecting our meaning onto their public personas and then decorate that by hanging pieces of our lives on songs, events, and images. These projections are real for us and we are emotionally committed to them. We feel real loss. Death doesn't erase what we built, however, and the act of grieving, especially in such a shared public space afforded by social media, allow us to reinforce and strengthen the things that were important to us. As we progress through the grieving process, we will remember things much less critically. We will integrate and internalize the hope, inspiration, and attributes that we loved or that inspired us. We will ultimately look at Jackson's life and say with awe and appreciation "wow, that was a REALLY BIG tiger!"

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photos: Thriller album; istock photos

Social Media Destroys Geography in Education

Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., M.B.A. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:00:23 +0000

Let's face it, communication technologies are forcing us to become global citizens and think outside our own borders. Politicians may be full of rhetoric about the dangers of globalization, but technology isn't going away. It seems to me more productive to figure out how to flourish in the new environment than to stand in front of a steam roller. We might get the guy driving the steam roller to slow down, but it will cost a lot and it won't last for long.

In the Washington Post article Students without Borders, journalist Maria Glod writes about some positive examples of globalization through communication technologies. Social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, are connecting students around the world. The article and accompany chart are well worth a read to see how students in Washington DC area high schools are debating things like freedom of the press with their peers in Azerbaijan and Romania or collaborating on a science project growing maggots (I'm not making this up) with their counterparts in Singapore. When you're talking on Facebook, there is no such thing as geography.

This is cool for a number of reasons. First, the students have an opportunity to use media technologies in a positive way. This will expand their perception of how things like Facebook can be used. This kind of activity blurs the line between education and technology, allowing the technology to facilitate the educational process. If an excellent writer's words recede so we can experience a story, not ‘hear' the author, so should good education and good use of media technologies recede so they do not interfere with content and learning experience. The kids from Washington DC aren't Facebooking. Facebook isn't even there. They are creating human connections and experiencing first hand the richness and nuances of other cultures and perspectives.

There are some economic advantages of integrating technology in education, too. Technology offers the possibility of world travel to every schoolchild with Internet access. I can't think of a more cost effective and pain-free way to get a group of teenagers to Romania. Not only do you save money, you don't have to sit next to them for 14 hours in coach.

Most importantly, however, these experiences influence our social identities. How we think about, or define, ourselves and how we define others is fundamental to how we relate to others. Our social sense of self comes from how we view ourselves relative to others. We negotiate through psychological and physical needs, desires, and allegiances to establish boundaries between ‘us' and ‘them'. From the immune system to Project Runway, we select who is ‘in' our group by identifying who is ‘out.' A large body of social science literature shows that a strong sense of group affiliation creates a strong sense of who is NOT part of our group. Remember junior high? Call it a mental model, a core belief, or a stereotype. It doesn't matter. Out is out. If you're out, you're not a person, you're an ‘other.' Not surprisingly, a very strong sense of group affiliation is highly correlated with cognitive inflexibility and the predisposition to conflict in group relations, whether it's your department, your football team, or your country.

If we meet someone from Azerbaijan, we can redefine as a place where our new acquaintance, a real person, lives. This is especially important when we create connections between cultures that traditionally, geographically, and politically have little contact. Lack of information means our understanding is limited and simplistic-we have no choice but to stereotype. Personal experiences are the broadband of information transfer. They provide rich information and emotional texture that makes us think and challenges the stereotypes we hold. Without experiencing things ourselves, we build our models of ‘how things are' based on the filtered information we receive from the environment (a nice way of saying from the media and our acquaintances). That information cannot help but be biased by the time it is edited, socially-adjusted, transmitted, and passed through someone else's metaphor bank.

Direct experiences add complexity to our social identity. Economist and philosopher Amartya Sen is one of many scholars who promotes the development and awareness of complexity in our identity on the premise that people who can see themselves as part of many groups are more tolerant of others. (See Identity and Violence.) In other words, if our kids have the chance to share an activity, an interest, a discussion, or even a joke with a peer from places like Romania, Azerbaijan, Iran or China, they will be increasing their propensity for tolerance by seeing those as countries full of real breathing, caring, working, playing humans and not an enemy or an ‘other.' To me, that's a pretty good learning objective for an educational experience. And the kids may even want to know where Azerbaijan is on the map.

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Sen, A. (2006). Identity and violence: The illusion of destiny. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Photos: iStockphoto.com