Science news: How to avoid a social faux pas this holiday season

Have you ever told yourself not to say or do something in a particular situation only to find yourself doing the exact forbidden thing? For example, promising yourself not to eat, touch or even think about that piece of sumptuous and delicious chocolate cake sitting in your kitchen because of your New Year’s resolution to lose 10 pounds by spring, only to find yourself constantly thinking about it, and after a few quick strides to your kitchen, eating it?

Well I seem to be cursed with this very problem, doing the wrong thing in the wrong situation (not the eating chocolate cake part) and it seems that it is getting worse.

It seems that every time I decide to tell my sister, and it always seems to be her, a particularly serious story about something, I start laughing. Whether or not the story is amusing or not I find myself grinning like the Cheshire cat in front of a rather bemused sister.

Following each spectacle that I end up making of myself I promise myself that I will not do it next time yet when the next time comes around, there I am, grinning uncontrollably.

Well at least it seems it is not a problem I solely seem to possess. Dan Wegner, a psychologist at Harvard, has spent a lot of time studying “ironic” mental processes. Triggered by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s observations in his Winter Notes on Summer Impressions that “Try not to think of a polar bear and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute,” Wegner hypothesises about how ironic slips arise.

According to Wegner once you set yourself a task to avoid, say not smiling in utterly serious situations (relevant to me), a dual mental process begins. The conscious mind fills our thoughts with anything that will distract us from the forbidden thought, whilst the unconscious mind remains alert for any signs of the forbidden thought – all the better to avoid it.

There’s only one problem. Although the unconscious mind normally helps us control our impulses it also stores those unwanted thoughts as references which can be resurrected when our mind is under strain, such as when we need to multitask, or more relevantly to the Christmas season, when we begin drinking alcohol.

This is because it takes more mental effort for our conscious mind to find distractions than our unconscious mind to monitor the process, hence why when we add an extra mental load, such as drinking alcohol which decreases mental control, the ability to suppress our impulses falls to pieces. The more taboo a thought or action is and the more we try and suppress it, the more it becomes harder to do so.

No guesses then that trying to suppress carnal desires becomes extremely difficult. Wegner found that when people were instructed not to think about sex, they became significantly more aroused than when they were instructed to think about another activity such as dancing.

How then to avoid a social faux pas this holiday season?  Your best bets are meditating to increase your mental concentration, trying to practise the types of situations that you are normally likely to slip up in and perhaps the most difficult – staying off the booze.

In terms of New Year’s resolutions, Wegner encourages us to keep them positive (“I will eat fruit”) rather than negative (“I will not eat chocolate cake) as the former requires your brain to search for specific things rather than the rather fruitless task of filling your mind with distracting thoughts.

As for me it seems I will be practising my ability to tell my sister stories without the unnecessary bouts of smiles and laughter, probably whilst eating some delicious chocolate cake and watching some good seasonal television.

http://vaishalibhardwaj.wordpress.com/

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Tags: a psychologist at Harvard, Dan Wegner, drinking alcohol which decreases mental control, has spent a lot of time studying “ironic” mental processes. Triggered by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s observations in his Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, New Year’s resolutions, the ability to suppress our impulses falls to pieces, unconscious mind normally helps us control our impulses, Vaishali Bhardwaj