Category: Learning
Automaticity in Everyday Life
Automaticity is when you have become so good at something, you can do it without thinking. Until we achieve automaticity, things seem very difficult (i.e., we have to think hard while doing). After we achieve automaticity in something, we forget a time when it wasn’t easy. For example, do you remember learning each of the tasks below? Try to imagine what learning the below tasks would be like for a young person:
infancy: learning to crawl, walk, use a spoon
early childhood: put away your toys, get dressed, use a pencil, crayon, or marker
middle childhood: write with good penmanship, pack your backpack, zip a zipper
adolescence: drive a car, make a meal, take notes
photo by A M Carley
Adults have gotten good at many things. Automaticity makes us able to do more tasks and more tasks that are complex. Still, there are times when we have to learn new things, and when it’s not an advantage to be able to do something without thinking. The 21st century demands a lot of new learning from all of us–especially adults. I’ve gotten too good at ordering take-out and throwing away the styrofoam at the end of the meal. I’ve gotten too good at going to the grocery store without my cloth bags, because years of stores that provide me with bags have trained me that way.
Automaticity intersects with everything–how we navigate the world, how we educate our young people. It’s about how we treat each other, and how we use the social and environmental resources around us. Having just completed a big move, I’m re-evaluating my habits–the things I do automatically, without thinking. Which habits should I keep in my everyday life? Which ones should I discontinue (a psychologist would say, extinguish)?
Learning new things requires attention, a limited resource. Which is part of why I often urge friends to make sure to take rests and vacation. The benefits of free time are clear. Now, if we could just make resting something we do more automatically in this culture…
Attention is a Valuable and Limited Resource
One of the personal resources that’s easy to take for granted is attention. That is, what you’re looking at or thinking about at a given moment. And in today’s information age, attention is a valuable resource. Marketers are constantly trying to grab your notice through commercials, billboards, pop-up ads, and product placement. The research on attention is actually pretty cool. Some of my favorite findings are:
- Babies use their attention (where they are looking or if they are looking) to help regulate (control) themselves. Ever see a baby fall asleep in a really noisy place? They are overwhelmed with stimulation and sleep is a way to control that. So is looking away from that loud stranger who has gotten too close.
- The key problem in ADHD is that children can’t keep their attention from being distracted. This is known as “inhibition.” Whereas children without ADHD are able to ignore distractions, like someone coming into their classroom or a noise going on in the other room, a child with ADHD can’t help but react. Even if that means they get in trouble!
- When we learn something new like driving, reading, or tying shoes, our attention is fully focused. We can’t do anything else. Likewise, when we do something challenging, like driving in traffic, reading in fuzzy font, or figuring out our new Smartphone, our attention is fully focused–and again, we can’t do anything else.
- Learning something new is often frustrating. When learning a new task, people’s thoughts and attention tend to be negative. E.g., “I don’t like this,” “This is hard,” “I’m never going to get this,” and other downers like that. But the cool part is, the better you get at the task, the less likely you are to have those negative thoughts. The key is to make it past that first, tough part.
- Just like babies, children and adults can refocus their attention to regulate or improve their mood. If their friend takes away a toy, a 5-year-old who immediately finds a new toy to happily play with is going to have less trouble in kindergarten than a 5-year-old who strikes out and becomes angry. Likewise, an adult who can “focus on the positive” (ick-phrase, but true) after a setback has better mental health.
Last night, at Torn Space Theater’s surreal production of They Kill Things, I used my attention to regulate my fear. There were lots of creepy situations, and in an everyday environment, I would have freaked out if a bulky masked man walked up to me and looked closely at my hands. Or if a group of masked maidens dressed in white rags wrapped a May pole while chanting.
Maypole Maidens | photo by C. E. Cameron
But I was in Silo City, a converted industrial site. The environment was so amazing and so different from anything I’d ever experienced, that I could move on from feeling scared immediately, simply by refocusing my attention on something else.
Silo City | photo by C. E. Cameron
Obviously there are times when it won’t work to refocus attention. There are plenty of situations that demand your full attention, for safety, or learning an important lesson, for example. But awareness of attention as a resource has definitely helped me in certain situations. Even outdoor interactive theater productions.
Opportunity [to Smile and Say Hello] Pledge
For the last year or so, I’ve made an effort to smile and say hello to people in passing. Before adopting this habit, I had this complicated conversation with myself whenever I approached someone on the sidewalk.
Will they say ‘hi’ back? Will they think I’m weird? Am I weird?
Then I decided, who cares? If one of my goals is to, on a daily basis, make the world a more friendly place, this is a low-cost way to do it.
At first–when the behavior was new–saying hello felt like a lot of effort. This is because I hadn’t done it before, and the awkward questions in my head still sounded. But now, saying hello feels almost automatic. Do I say hi every time I pass someone? No. Some people are on their phones or intently looking down at the sidewalk in a way that says clearly “don’t talk to me.” I skip them. But everyone else–whether they’re sitting or standing, passing me by or clear across the street–gets a hello.
I’ve found that most people say ‘hello’ back. When that happens, I feel good, and I feel a little less like an anonymous stranger passing another anonymous stranger. I feel like part of the community in a way that I didn’t, before this habit.
Today I heard Buffalo’s #1 community leader, Mayor Byron Brown, encourage the citizens of Buffalo to sign the “Opportunity Pledge.” (You can sign the pledge here.) This pledge means that the signer appreciates and respects diversity, and acknowledges that only through taking advantage of and celebrating our diversity can we become a prosperous, healthy, and dignified community.
I can get behind that. So, Buffalo, I pledge to take the opportunity to smile and say hello, as often as I can. Maybe I’ll make someone’s day–maybe that someone will be me.
Either way, the community wins. Because I am the community, and the community is me.
Sunken Cost and Coffee Shops
My new office isn’t ready yet.
So I decided to work at the library. But this morning when I arrived at 9:30, the library was closed, until noon. The rational thing to do would have been to turn around and walk back 2 blocks to the coffee shop I knew was open, I’d worked at before, and which is a pleasant place to work. But…
A sunken cost is the time, money, or other resources you have already invested in something, whether or not that something ends up working out. The 20 minutes I had already spent walking from our new apartment to the library were, for me, a sunken cost. And instead of turning around—which would have made me feel that those last 2 blocks were for naught—I kept going.
photo by C. E. Cameron
Given that I fell victim to the cognitive bias known as “sunken cost”…
I walked for another 20 minutes, expecting at every moment to see another coffee shop at the next block. I passed a coffee and tea supply store, and almost a dozen restaurants and cafes, which were, like the library, CLOSED. Finally I spotted a corner shop with COFFEE CULTURE in large letters. I felt vindicated. My walk—totaling 40 minutes, double my initial “investment” had paid off.
Then, as I approached the door, I squinted, hoping that the dark interior and white postings on the front door were simply part of the ambiance.
No chance. The white postings were eviction notices, dated more than a month ago.
It took a while, but I finally did the rational thing:
I turned around, and went back to the original spot, Spot Coffee. Moral of the story? I’m not actually sure. If I were a rational economist, I’d say “should have turned around at the library.” But I’m in a new place, still getting to know the Elmwood Village. Maybe, like ants exploring for food, my additional walk would have revealed the perfect place to work. Maybe next time, it will. (Perhaps by now you’ve figured out I wasn’t using a SmartPhone). But maybe, like ants exploring for food, much of my time ended up wasted.
Oh well. Being rational isn’t one of my life goals anyway. Awareness and looking at the scenery is more my library-passing, coffee-shop seeking, stop-and-smell-the-flowers speed.
How To Talk About Things That Are Hard to Talk About
How to talk about the things that are most difficult? Choose one or more answers that apply.
A. Don’t. Keep it inside, and when a thought that pains or confuses you comes across your mind, wave it away like a fly.
B. Talk about it haphazardly. Talk about it when you don’t mean to, with people you don’t know or trust, and say things that you didn’t realize you thought, accidentally and without intention. Take the consequences and regret.
photo by C E Cameron
C. Talk about it awkwardly. Start to talk about it, then change your mind and see how the conversation partner responds. If they want to talk about the weather, sports, or a TV show, take it as a signal that they’re not ready, either. Talk about the weather, sports, or a TV show so neither of you has to act awkward in public. Or keep pushing until they hang up or become angry or stonewall. Feel sad that they won’t engage.
D. Talk about it thoughtfully. Mull your feelings over for a while first, write about it privately, decide how to open the topic and with whom you feel safe discussing it. Resolve not to become offended or hurt but to instead take new information in, like you’d feel a fabric before deciding to try it on. Feel grateful when the person(s) responds with thoughtfulness back, validating your feelings and telling you what they think. Feel more connected, trusting, and less alone.
There are so many topics that we would all like to pretend don’t hurt us. Catastrophic climate change, sexist family members, racism and police brutality, end of life decisions, second weddings, our personal writing. What are the consequences for not talking? Are they worse than trying B-D and going from there?
claire e. cameron 