Pat Hastings

We love to talk about behavioral lab studies. I was just talking about one at dinner on Sunday, the famed Milgram experiement. Gladwell’s Blink cites several studies like this. They “prove” all kinds of things that seems different than the “real world.” The problem is that they simply are not the “real world.” We shouldn’t ignore them, of course, but we shouldn’t accept their results blindly either.

Another case in point: “Yet Another Reason to Hate Economists” from the Freakonomics Blog.

I’m wondering what would happen if they ran that experiment with sociologists.

First, I should be forthright in saying I eat a lot of meat, and I intend to continue this habit. However, I respect those who choose not to, whether for reasons of health, budget or conscience.

I think there are a number of people who think it would be great to be a vegetarian, but haven’t the commitment or family support or whatever to actually do it. For those people, the Freakonomics blog posted the novel idea of essentially teaming up to create a vegetarian. Basically, imagine that seven people made a “commitment contract” to each not eat meat once a day each week. The result would be “one vegetarian.”

Here is the idea. I figure there are many people out there who, like me a year or two ago, are sympathetic to the veggie cause but are just so used to eating meat that it is ingrained in their daily routine. But if you put several of these like-minded people together, perhaps something could come of it. This is where the commitment contract concept comes in.

The idea that occurred to me was: What if a group of people collectively signed a contract that said one of them would be vegetarian everyday of the year? More specifically, say a group of 7 people signed a contract saying that each of them would go meatless on an assigned day each week. Thus, within the group each member could eat meat 6 days a week, but there would be one vegetarian at all times. The group could be 7 good friends, or it could be 7 individuals matched by the “commitment store.” And of course 7 is an arbitrary number – more ambitious folks could form a team of 2 or 3.

The effect may seem marginal, but I have seen tons of sources which say that just a bit less meat consumption could have immense environmental benefits. Here is one: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.

(Read the rest here)

I’m wondering if you could use this idea for other things. How about a group where each person bikes or taking public transportation to work once a week? Or a group at a church creating “one full-time staff person” by each volunteering one day a week. I’m sure there must be other interesting applications of this concept. Can you think of any?

In general, I think the “common wisdom” of today’s culture is to put off marriage until one is “really, really ready.” That is, when one has the right education, is working right job, is living in the right location, and has “grown-up” hobbies (in particular no hobbies for young men that involve staying up past 3am several nights a week).

Part of this is an obvious recognition that a certain maturity level is needed for marriage (and said hobby referred to above is probably not going to qualify). Beyond that, however, there seems to be this idea that individuals need to figure out “who they are” before getting married. The argument goes that one does a lot of changing in and right after college, and one ought to get past all that before tying the knot. If you marry before you’re fully formed, you and your spouse may find that as you change you’ll be less compatible, less happy, and more likely to divorce.

(Much of Christian culture, it appears, follows this same wisdom. There is, however, (among others) a strong exception in the conservative, homeschooling types. But it’s also my observation that they (1) tend to be more mature than most when in the college age range and (2) put less emphasis on college (especially graduate education), which isn’t to say that many of them still don’t go. Another overlapping exception would be Boundless at Focus on the Family. And both of those groups would say divorce should not be an option anyway.)

Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas, wrote a piece encouraging marrying young which was in the Washington Post. It’s a great read. Check out his third point on why he’s promoting marrying young:

Third, the age at which a person marries never actually causes a divorce. Rather, a young age at marriage can be an indicator of an underlying immaturity and impatience with marital challenges — the kind that many of us eventually figure out how to avoid or to solve without parting. Unfortunately, well-educated people resist this, convinced that there actually is a recipe for guaranteed marital success that goes something like this: Add a postgraduate education to a college degree, toss in a visible amount of career success and a healthy helping of wealth, let simmer in a pan of sexual variety for several years, allow to cool and settle, then serve. Presto: a marriage with math on its side.

Too bad real life isn’t like that. Marriage actually works best as a formative institution, not an institution you enter once you think you’re fully formed. We learn marriage, just as we learn language, and to the teachable, some lessons just come easier earlier in life. “Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth,” added Tennyson to his lines about springtime and love.

(Read the rest)

Being unmarried (Nope, no surprises in this post. Sorry.), I’m still on the outside looking in, but I’m thinking that if I’m convinced I’ve figured myself out before I get married, I’m only kidding myself. Marriage itself will do a lot of forming who I am, for better or for worse…

P.S. It seems like eons since my last post. I hope to post more regularly in the future. Blog posting is good for me. If you enjoy reading it, that’s even better!