Thursday, December 04, 2008
Behavioral & Psychological Sciences: Their Strengths and Weaknesses
How to Learn Self-Control
Val J. Peter
Since World War II, our knowledge of human behavior has grown enormously, especially through the many, many contributions of psychology and other behavioral sciences. Their strengths can be found in principles of behavior, stages of development and many other areas.
But the influence of these sciences is not always positive. In fact, at times it is downright negative. The insistence, for example, of many behavioral psychologists that guilt, in any form, should be eliminated is downright harmful to the human condition. Denial of original sin by these folks makes their views seriously defective. Two things missing from their agenda: the idea of virtue and the understanding of self-restraint in sexual behavior are seriously lacking among many behavioral science practitioners. At times, they are outright ridiculed by them. This is a sorry state of affairs. Some behavioral psychologists are moral relativists who believe in a form of hedonism.
It is a common view in some therapeutic psychology that we should abandon the rules of Christian morality and that psychologically well adjusted people must do so right away. They believe that therapy is not directed to clients discovering some basic wisdom about objective truths of life and transcultural values, but is directed to removing the psychological impediments in a client’s life to emotional adaptation and a shifting moral landscape. In other words, some of them believe the human mind and heart cannot find the truth about life, but instead must learn to adapt to the environment because that’s all we have.
So there is much we Christians can learn from psychology and the behavioral sciences when we apply lots of these insights with great success in helping our boys and girls. However, too many psychological specialists have no interest or understanding of religious devotion, prayer, fasting, ascetical discipline or chastity. They do not understand the saying of the Lord: Take up thy cross and follow Me.
So while we can benefit so much from the behavioral sciences, at the same time, we have to take care less we gloss over things that are harmful to Christian faith and practice. Let us take a few examples.
For a man or woman to be faithful to their spouse in marriage, it is necessary for them to practice sexual self-restraint and self-denial both on occasion and even over long periods of time. The same is true of anyone committed to following the Lord.
A pagan therapeutic mentality would say this sexual self-denial is a symptom of deep seeded psychological maladjustment.
Philip Rieff, in his famous 1966 book Triumph of the Therapeutic, said that this pagan therapeutic mentality was killing off the spiritual roots of western culture and that it was nothing more than preaching kindly pagan humanism with fundamental opposition to Christianity.
We Christians say the truth of the matter is that some guilt and shame are very appropriate. If you shoplift, you should feel guilty. If you lie and cheat, you should feel guilty. If you abuse a child, you should feel shame. The pagans are wrong to reject the efficacy of these when they are appropriate. What is rejected by us Christians is false guilt and false shame. False guilt is feeling guilty when you really weren’t guilty or feeling shame when you have done nothing shameful.
The truth of the matter is that we should be sorry for our sins, our lying, our cheating, our stealing because they hurt others and ourselves, too. The pagan mentality would be saying that only therapy rather than repentance is needed.
The truth of the matter is that we should do penance for our sins and make up for them and that these are vehicles for important personal transformation.
The truth of the matter is that spiritual integrity involves good habits, for example, of sexual self-restraint and a concern for modesty.
With nothing more at his disposal than his wits, his good habits and an understanding of natural law, Hippocrates (long centuries before Christianity came along) saw clearly the relationship between a person’s interior spiritual life and their ability to heal. The Hippocratic Oath used to be taken by all medical students and that made it clear that the pagan Hippocrates, even without the help of God’s Holy Scriptures, recognized the vital relationship between the practice of healing and sexual restraint. The Hippocratic Oath sworn before the gods says this:
“With purity and with holiness, I will pass my life and
practice my healing art…into whatever houses I enter,
I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will
abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and
corruption; and further, from the seduction of females
or males, of free men and slaves.”
In other words, the practice of self-restraint or impulse control refreshes us into fuller humanity.
Wisdom would indicate that our goal should be to integrate the true valid insights of traditional Christian spiritual growth and development. The spiritual masters had real wisdom through the centuries. They were on to something.
Not all psychological experts are opposed to self-restraint and self-control. Here are some interesting studies that favor the Christian emphasis on self-restraint and self-control.
First, let us look at Shoda, Y., Mischel, W. & Peake, P.K. (2006) in the article “Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification” in Development Psychology, 26(6) 978-986.
The question was: can 4-year olds be taught to develop self-control and how?
According to this interesting study, some 4-year-olds were able to postpone eating a marshmallow longer than their peers under certain conditions. This study has some interesting implications on how we should approach self-discipline and self-restraint. In this study of 4-year-olds, the children were placed in four groups:
The first group was given specific instructions not to eat the marshmallow with no apparent reward for doing so.
The second group was told if they waited until the researcher came back, they could have two marshmallows. But if they didn’t want to wait, they could ring the bell and still have one.
The third group was told the same thing as the first group. Don’t eat the marshmallow with no reward for resisting. (Except they were given help by the researchers as how they might resist such as try and think of something else besides eating the marshmallow.)
The fourth group was the same as the second group (2 marshmallows for resisting, one if not) except they were also given suggestions by the researchers as to how to resist eating the treat.
The first two groups (who were given no suggestions on how to resist eating the marshmallow) differed dramatically in their ability to delay gratification.
a. The first group (delayed 590.4 seconds), who were given a clear expectation to resist the treat without knowing the reward of doing so, delayed gratification for nearly four minutes longer than the second group (delayed 365.2 second), who knew they would get at least one marshmallow and opted for a smaller reward much sooner, rather than delay gratification for the greater reward.
b. The second two groups who were given instructions on how to resist the treat were interesting. The group whose reward was not revealed again performed better, delaying gratification for more than a minute longer than the group who knew.
c. The factors that helped delay gratification the most were twofold: the presence of cognitive strategies, coupled with clear expectations from the researchers.
The lesson we can draw from this study is when given clear expectations for behavior kids usually perform better, especially those with inherent traits of self-control. However, even for kids who might not be blessed with those traits, behavioral strategies to help them increase their self-discipline, coupled with clear expectations from teachers and parents may help delay things.
A number of studies also highlight the role of self-control in academic success. In one such study, researchers surveyed 201 college students and found that self-control (second only to high school GPA) was a better predictor of academic achievement than a number of other variables, including scores on the SAT. (Wolfe, R.N. & Johnson, S.D. (1995) “Personality as a predictor of college Performance” in Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55(2), 177-185.)
Another longitudinal study following 140 eighth grade students over the course of a school year found that students with high levels of self-control outperformed their peers in report card grades, standardized achievement-test scores, admission to a competitive high school, and school attendance. The students with more self-control scored two percentage points higher in the final GPA when compared with those with a high IQ. (Duckworth, A.L., Seligman & Martin, E.P. (2004) Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 16(12), 939-944)
What about children who have a genetic pre-disposition for low self-control…are they doomed to be low achievers and high risk-takers? Perhaps not; research shows that for those who regulate their behavior, self-control has the ability to increase in capacity, improving gradually and strengthening over time.
In a longitudinal study of college students, improvement over a period of two weeks in the capacity to perform seemingly unrelated tasks led to an increase in self-discipline to the initial exercise. In short term, the exertion of self-control made the subjects tired and fatigued. However, in the long term, the series of exercise caused the individuals to be less vulnerable to fatigue and to improve their self-regulation. (Muraven, M., Baumeister, R.F. & Tice, D (1999) “Longitudinal improvement of self-regulation through practice: Building self-control strength through repeated exercise.” The Journal of Social Psychology, 139(4), 446-457)
Self-control can function like a muscle, increasing strength and improving gradually over time with regular exercise. (Mischel, W. (1996). “From good intentions to will power.” In P. Gollwitzer & J. Bargh (Eds), The psychology of action (pp 197-218). New York: Guilford
Hurray for self-control. Kids can best learn self-control and self-restraint by using two things: clear expectations (I won’t let my anger explore) and behavioral strategies (neat tricks such as redirected thinking and acting). This works.
How to Learn Self-Control
Val J. Peter
Since World War II, our knowledge of human behavior has grown enormously, especially through the many, many contributions of psychology and other behavioral sciences. Their strengths can be found in principles of behavior, stages of development and many other areas.
But the influence of these sciences is not always positive. In fact, at times it is downright negative. The insistence, for example, of many behavioral psychologists that guilt, in any form, should be eliminated is downright harmful to the human condition. Denial of original sin by these folks makes their views seriously defective. Two things missing from their agenda: the idea of virtue and the understanding of self-restraint in sexual behavior are seriously lacking among many behavioral science practitioners. At times, they are outright ridiculed by them. This is a sorry state of affairs. Some behavioral psychologists are moral relativists who believe in a form of hedonism.
It is a common view in some therapeutic psychology that we should abandon the rules of Christian morality and that psychologically well adjusted people must do so right away. They believe that therapy is not directed to clients discovering some basic wisdom about objective truths of life and transcultural values, but is directed to removing the psychological impediments in a client’s life to emotional adaptation and a shifting moral landscape. In other words, some of them believe the human mind and heart cannot find the truth about life, but instead must learn to adapt to the environment because that’s all we have.
So there is much we Christians can learn from psychology and the behavioral sciences when we apply lots of these insights with great success in helping our boys and girls. However, too many psychological specialists have no interest or understanding of religious devotion, prayer, fasting, ascetical discipline or chastity. They do not understand the saying of the Lord: Take up thy cross and follow Me.
So while we can benefit so much from the behavioral sciences, at the same time, we have to take care less we gloss over things that are harmful to Christian faith and practice. Let us take a few examples.
For a man or woman to be faithful to their spouse in marriage, it is necessary for them to practice sexual self-restraint and self-denial both on occasion and even over long periods of time. The same is true of anyone committed to following the Lord.
A pagan therapeutic mentality would say this sexual self-denial is a symptom of deep seeded psychological maladjustment.
Philip Rieff, in his famous 1966 book Triumph of the Therapeutic, said that this pagan therapeutic mentality was killing off the spiritual roots of western culture and that it was nothing more than preaching kindly pagan humanism with fundamental opposition to Christianity.
We Christians say the truth of the matter is that some guilt and shame are very appropriate. If you shoplift, you should feel guilty. If you lie and cheat, you should feel guilty. If you abuse a child, you should feel shame. The pagans are wrong to reject the efficacy of these when they are appropriate. What is rejected by us Christians is false guilt and false shame. False guilt is feeling guilty when you really weren’t guilty or feeling shame when you have done nothing shameful.
The truth of the matter is that we should be sorry for our sins, our lying, our cheating, our stealing because they hurt others and ourselves, too. The pagan mentality would be saying that only therapy rather than repentance is needed.
The truth of the matter is that we should do penance for our sins and make up for them and that these are vehicles for important personal transformation.
The truth of the matter is that spiritual integrity involves good habits, for example, of sexual self-restraint and a concern for modesty.
With nothing more at his disposal than his wits, his good habits and an understanding of natural law, Hippocrates (long centuries before Christianity came along) saw clearly the relationship between a person’s interior spiritual life and their ability to heal. The Hippocratic Oath used to be taken by all medical students and that made it clear that the pagan Hippocrates, even without the help of God’s Holy Scriptures, recognized the vital relationship between the practice of healing and sexual restraint. The Hippocratic Oath sworn before the gods says this:
“With purity and with holiness, I will pass my life and
practice my healing art…into whatever houses I enter,
I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will
abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and
corruption; and further, from the seduction of females
or males, of free men and slaves.”
In other words, the practice of self-restraint or impulse control refreshes us into fuller humanity.
Wisdom would indicate that our goal should be to integrate the true valid insights of traditional Christian spiritual growth and development. The spiritual masters had real wisdom through the centuries. They were on to something.
Not all psychological experts are opposed to self-restraint and self-control. Here are some interesting studies that favor the Christian emphasis on self-restraint and self-control.
First, let us look at Shoda, Y., Mischel, W. & Peake, P.K. (2006) in the article “Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification” in Development Psychology, 26(6) 978-986.
The question was: can 4-year olds be taught to develop self-control and how?
According to this interesting study, some 4-year-olds were able to postpone eating a marshmallow longer than their peers under certain conditions. This study has some interesting implications on how we should approach self-discipline and self-restraint. In this study of 4-year-olds, the children were placed in four groups:
The first group was given specific instructions not to eat the marshmallow with no apparent reward for doing so.
The second group was told if they waited until the researcher came back, they could have two marshmallows. But if they didn’t want to wait, they could ring the bell and still have one.
The third group was told the same thing as the first group. Don’t eat the marshmallow with no reward for resisting. (Except they were given help by the researchers as how they might resist such as try and think of something else besides eating the marshmallow.)
The fourth group was the same as the second group (2 marshmallows for resisting, one if not) except they were also given suggestions by the researchers as to how to resist eating the treat.
The first two groups (who were given no suggestions on how to resist eating the marshmallow) differed dramatically in their ability to delay gratification.
a. The first group (delayed 590.4 seconds), who were given a clear expectation to resist the treat without knowing the reward of doing so, delayed gratification for nearly four minutes longer than the second group (delayed 365.2 second), who knew they would get at least one marshmallow and opted for a smaller reward much sooner, rather than delay gratification for the greater reward.
b. The second two groups who were given instructions on how to resist the treat were interesting. The group whose reward was not revealed again performed better, delaying gratification for more than a minute longer than the group who knew.
c. The factors that helped delay gratification the most were twofold: the presence of cognitive strategies, coupled with clear expectations from the researchers.
The lesson we can draw from this study is when given clear expectations for behavior kids usually perform better, especially those with inherent traits of self-control. However, even for kids who might not be blessed with those traits, behavioral strategies to help them increase their self-discipline, coupled with clear expectations from teachers and parents may help delay things.
A number of studies also highlight the role of self-control in academic success. In one such study, researchers surveyed 201 college students and found that self-control (second only to high school GPA) was a better predictor of academic achievement than a number of other variables, including scores on the SAT. (Wolfe, R.N. & Johnson, S.D. (1995) “Personality as a predictor of college Performance” in Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55(2), 177-185.)
Another longitudinal study following 140 eighth grade students over the course of a school year found that students with high levels of self-control outperformed their peers in report card grades, standardized achievement-test scores, admission to a competitive high school, and school attendance. The students with more self-control scored two percentage points higher in the final GPA when compared with those with a high IQ. (Duckworth, A.L., Seligman & Martin, E.P. (2004) Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science, 16(12), 939-944)
What about children who have a genetic pre-disposition for low self-control…are they doomed to be low achievers and high risk-takers? Perhaps not; research shows that for those who regulate their behavior, self-control has the ability to increase in capacity, improving gradually and strengthening over time.
In a longitudinal study of college students, improvement over a period of two weeks in the capacity to perform seemingly unrelated tasks led to an increase in self-discipline to the initial exercise. In short term, the exertion of self-control made the subjects tired and fatigued. However, in the long term, the series of exercise caused the individuals to be less vulnerable to fatigue and to improve their self-regulation. (Muraven, M., Baumeister, R.F. & Tice, D (1999) “Longitudinal improvement of self-regulation through practice: Building self-control strength through repeated exercise.” The Journal of Social Psychology, 139(4), 446-457)
Self-control can function like a muscle, increasing strength and improving gradually over time with regular exercise. (Mischel, W. (1996). “From good intentions to will power.” In P. Gollwitzer & J. Bargh (Eds), The psychology of action (pp 197-218). New York: Guilford
Hurray for self-control. Kids can best learn self-control and self-restraint by using two things: clear expectations (I won’t let my anger explore) and behavioral strategies (neat tricks such as redirected thinking and acting). This works.
posted by Fr. Peter | 4:07 PM
