Behavior Modification: Let’s Make Racism Bad Again

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the millions of Americans who voted for Trump.

This was a candidate who had at least 26 women come forward and accuse him of sexual assault. He also admitted to sexual assault in an interview, on the record. This was a candidate who refused to denounce white supremacists on national television. This was a candidate who incited violence and spread conspiracy theories. The list is long. Too long. This doesn’t even begin to cover it.

As a person with a psychology degree and a mental health counseling degree, I aim to try and understand other people’s worldview. I am fascinated by how people think and what motivates their behavior.

One of my (many) pet peeves is when people dismiss others’ behavior by saying, “I just don’t understand.” A flipside of that is to oversimplify or label a person’s behavior, also in an attempt to dismiss it: “Oh, he’s just a monster.” “She snapped.” “She’s crazy.”

In instances of flippant labeling like that, there’s no curiosity, no desire to actually seek to understand or find out the real, nuanced answer.

And so I ask myself, why did people vote for 45? Did they:

• Agree with his policies and morals?
• Benefit from those policies?
• Or perhaps, they just disagreed with Biden’s policies (or perceived policies)?
• If they didn’t agree or benefit, did they somehow justify 45’s actions/words enough to feel okay voting for him?
• Vote Republican out of habit? Or because their friends and family do?
• They consume Fox News/Breitbart/etc.?
• Some other explanation I haven’t thought of?

I ask myself these questions because, ultimately, I am interested in how sociopolitical change happens on a macro level. Namely, how do we get people who voted for a racist, misogynist, white supremacist to change their voting habits? How do we make racism bad again (or ever)?

I studied behavior modification briefly in grad school, and I find it fascinating. Getting people to vote and get vaccinated and wear masks and use car seats are examples of behavior modification on a mass scale, as is getting people to buy Gap jeans or the new iPhone.

This reminds me of the massive anti-drug campaigns I was exposed to growing up. “This is your brain on drugs…any questions?” Really stuck with me, as that ad was so compelling and wonderfully quotable.

My guess is that the answer to my question involves attacking the issue from all sides meaning, on both a micro and macro level. I read a quote somewhere from a BLM leader, and I’m paraphrasing: what will help to end racism more is for white people to call out the racist tendencies of their white friends, and not necessarily just befriending black people. Which means we’re going to fight racism little by little, interaction by microaggression.

I keep coming back to the question of how to whittle away harmful, fear-based beliefs of a massive group of people who are no doubt feeling all kinds of feelings after the election. Worse yet, it’s a group of people who have been taught to demonize truth and facts, and many are doubling down with the emergence of platforms like Parler. …How do you reach people who don’t wanna be woke? Again, I’m guessing the answer is: slowly and deliberately and on all fronts. With equal representation, by changing social norms, by calling out microaggressions, and probably much more that I am forgetting or am unaware of.

It makes me profoundly uncomfortable to know that such a large portion of the American population actively participates in an ignorant, fearful, hateful worldview or is at least accepting of them. My hope (maybe fantasy?) is that there is a team of psychologists out there somewhere, brainstorming a massive campaign to combat racism, misogyny, xenophobia, white supremacy, etc.

Where do I sign up?

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Day 9

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Delay of Gratification

I have tremendous amounts of willpower.  Clinicians and researchers call this “delay of gratification,” and it has been studied in young folks and correlated to certain behaviors as adolescents and adults.

When I was little, I remember being given Oreo cookies and eating them the same way every time.  You can tell a lot about a person by the way they eat their Oreos.  For me, I would twist the two cookies apart and then look to see which cookie had more frosting on it.  Then, I would eat the cookie with the least amount of frosting on it, saving the delicious frosting-covered deliciousness for last.

As a child, my Halloween candy would last until Christmas.  My Christmas candy would last until Valentine’s Day.  Hell, I still have some Valentine’s candy from this year in my pantry that I haven’t yet eaten.

These behaviors just came naturally to me.  As soon as I could understand the concept of “saving the best for last,” I did just that.  Somehow, I also correlate my wanting to clean up and liking rules and structure with being able to wait for things I really wanted, or even making myself wait for them.  In other words, I think my ability to delay gratification was helped by me being (and continuing to be) a little OCD.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to get dirty when the time is right, but after playing in the mud with my brother in the backyard, I would come inside and hold out my hands to my mother: “Need da wag, Mommy, need da wag!”  Translation: I needed a rag.  Out, out damn spot!

I still do these behaviors to this day, and I probably won’t ever stop.

I think about coffee and sugary drinks on a daily basis.  I fantasize about them.  Usually when I am trapped at work and want to leave, my fantasy includes sitting on a magical beach where sand can’t get in my crack and sun can’t harm my skin cells, and in one hand is a good book, and in the other is a bottomless grande caramel frappuccino from Starbucks.

But do I drink Starbucks everyday?  No, despite passing one every single time I drive to and from work.

Last story before the fun research part: My clinical internship during my master’s program was in a rural area and I worked with survivors of trauma.  Every day, I had to drive past a Dairy Queen that was within walking distance of my office.  Like I said before, I crave sugar on a daily basis, and I often turn to sweets when I am stressed.  For 9 long months I forced myself to not stop at that Dairy Queen.  It haunted me.  It called to me.

Finally, on the last day of my internship, I walked to DQ and got a blizzard.  Man, did that taste goooood.  Delay of gratification, FTW!!

So how do they test kids to see if they naturally perform this behavior?  It’s quite hilarious to watch.  First, they sit the kid down at a table in a room where they are being secretly videotaped.  The researcher puts a marshmallow down on the table and explains that the researcher is going to leave for a few minutes, and that the kid can have the marshmallow now, but that if the kid wants to wait to eat the marshmallow, and if the marshmallow is still there when the researcher gets back, then the kid can then have TWO marshmallows!

So then the researcher leaves the room and we watch.

Some kids eat that marshmallow so fast and never look back.  Some kids sit and wait patiently for the researcher to get back, because damnit, they want TWO marshmallows!  The interesting ones to watch are the kids who desperately want to wait and get their two marshmallows, and so they employ every tactic they can think of to cheat, avoid, or distract themselves.

Cheat – some kids will take tiny pieces off the marshmallow, or lick it, in hopes the researcher won’t notice and they can get their cake and eat it, too.

Avoid – some kids will turn their back on the marshmallow, or some even played under the table.  Out of sight, out of mind.

Distract themselves – some would use the marshmallow as a toy and play with it.  Some even tortured themselves by pretending to eat it…poor souls.

So what does this mean for behavior later in life?

Well, studies have shown that kids with an ability to delay gratification (meaning they have ‘impulse control’) are less likely to use drugs and break the law as adolescents and adults.  In my case, I wonder if it’s positively correlated with being crazy OCD?

Check out two videos I found and watch the kids squirm….

This last video also had some hilarious kid-coping-skills-moments, but I stopped watching after the speaker went in a religious direction with the analysis.  To each his own.

So, my Psychos, which kind of kid were you?!  Would you have eaten the marshmallow right away?  Would you have cheated?  Would you have waited patiently?