Cynical from a Young Age

The research mentioned in yesterday's post shows that children may display altruistic behavior at a much earlier age than previously thought. To continue with that theme, I thought I'd post on some research by Candice Mills and Frank Keil¹ showing that children may display cynicism at a much earlier age than previously thought, as well. In both lines of research, interesting aspects of children's theory-of-mind are demonstrated. And in both cases, we may have to change the way we think about children's social cognition. Children, it turns out, may be a bit more sophisticated than we usually give them credit.

Historically, young children have been thought to be extremely naive and gullible, in part because people thought they had to be. Here's how Richard Dawkins put the traditional position²:

When you are pre-programmed to absorb useful information at a high rate, it is hard to shut out pernicious or damaging information at the same time. With so many mindbytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort. (pp. 13-14)

But we already know that children are much better at distinguishing fantasy from reality than most had previously thought. And in two experiments, Mill and Keil have shown that they're also pretty cynical when deciding whether people might be telling the truth, when they might not, and why they might or might not be telling the truth.

In the first experiment, participants in three age groups (kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade) were trained on a 5-point rating scale (described below), and then read twelve short stories (about four sentences long). There were four different kinds of stories, and each child heard three of each. The first two types of stories involved a situation (e.g., a race) in which, if the main characterachievedd a certain outcome, he or she would win a prize. Thus, in these stories the main character had a specific personal interest, namely winning the prize. In one version of each of these stories (with self-interest version), the main character stated that he or she hadachievedd the outcome required to win a prize. In this case, then, the character's claims were consistent with his or her self-interest. In the other version of these stories (against self-interest version), the character stated that he or she had notachievedd the required outcome. Thus in this version the characters' statements were against his or her personal interests. The other two conditions were included as controls. In these stories, the outcome was known. In the true version of the story, the character correctly stated that he or she had won the prize. In the false version, the character incorrectly states that he or she had not won the prize. After each story, the children were asked to rate how much they believed the character on a 1 to 5 scale, with one indicating that they don't believe the character at all, and 5 indicating that they believe him or her completely.

As we would expect, for all ages, children's ratings of their belief of the character in the true version were much higher than their ratings of their belief of the character in the false version. This indicates both that they understand how to use the ratings, and that they are not simply more likely to disbelieve someone who says he or she won, or to believe someone who says he or she lost. The interesting results, however, occurred for the with self-interest and against self-interest versions. Kindergarten children were significantly more likely to believe that the characters were telling the truth in the with self-interest condition. Second and fourth graders, however, were significantly more likely to believe that the characters were telling the truth in the against self-interest condition. This is the way adults tend to answer in similar experiments, also³. Thus, the data from this first experiment indicates that between kindergarten age and second grade, children began to develop adult-like cynicism.

In the second experiment, children from the same three age groups, along with a group of six graders, were read stories similar to those from the first experiment. In each of these stories (six in all), the characters made incorrect statements. In half of the stories, the incorrect statements were consistent with the personal interests of the character, and in the other half, they were against those interests. The children were then asked to indicate what they thought was the best explanation for the incorrect statement: the character was lying, the character was biased, or the character made a mistake. The results were as follows: for kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade children, incorrectstatementss that were consistent with the character's self-interest were most often explained as lies, while incorrect statements that were inconsistent withtheh character's self-interest were most often explained as mistakes. Sixth graders gave similar explanations, except that they listed bias as an explanation for incorrect statements consistent with the character's self-interest about as often as they listed lying. Mill and Keil explain this small difference between the younger children and the six graders by noting that in the literature, young children have been shown to underestimate or ignore the role of interpretation in people's thinking⁴.

Thus, children as young as 7 (second graders) believe that people's self-interest affects their honesty, and children as young as 5 kindergartenerss) believe that when people make incorrect statements that are consistent with their self-interests, they probably did so intentionally (or because they are biased, for sixth graders). Young children appear to be cynics pretty early on, then. By the second grade, they're approaching full-fledged adult cynicism, and are not the gullible information-sponges that many believe them to be.


¹Mills, C., & Keil, F.C. (2005) The Development of Cynicism. Psychological Science, 16, 385-390.
²Dawkins, R. (1993). Viruses of the mind. In B. Dahlbom (Ed.), Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind. Oxford, England:
Blackwell, pp. 13–27, as quoted in Mills & Keil (2005).
³Murukutla, N., &Armor, D.A. (2003). Illusions of objectivity in the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Unpublished
manuscript, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
⁴Carpendale, J.I., & Chandler, M.J. (1996). On the distinction between false belief understanding and subscribing to an interpretive theory of mind. Child Development, 67, 1686–1706.

Human Infant and Chimpanzee Altruism

Some of you may have read in the popular press about the study recently published in Science, by Felix Warneken and our old friend Michael Tomasello, in which both human infants (18 months) and young chimpanzees displayed altruistic behavior. The display of altruistic behavior is interesting, but what I find even more interesting is the level of theory of mind capabilities displayed by the young chimps. Here's how the experiments work (there are a few variations):

An experimenter is holding or trying to do something with an object (e.g., a marker or a sponge), while the infant or chimp is watching. At some point, the experimenter drops the object out of his reach (or the objects he needs to complete his task are out of reach), and makes a big deal of trying to reach it but failing. The infants and chimps then go to get the object and bring it back to the experimenter. If the experimenter drops the object in such a way that it was clear that he did it on purpose, however, neither the child or the chimp tended to help him retrieve it.

Unfortunately, the paper is only accessible with a subscription, so I can't link you to it (the reference is below, if you have a subscription or want to take a trip to the library). However, at Warneken's website, you can actually view clips from the experiments with both infants and chimps. So you can see how these things work.

Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. (2006). Altruistic helping in human infants and young chimpanzees. Science, 311(5765), 1301-1303.

Supplement to the Last Post

As promised, here is the list of metaphorical expressions of the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent metaphors, from part 1 and 2 of Appendix 1 of the Cienki paper (citation in previous post), and taken from Lakoff's Moral Politics:

1. Metaphors in the "Strict Father" (SF) model:

I. Moral Strength

• BEING GOOD IS BEING UPRIGHT
• BEING BAD IS BEING LOW
• DOING EVIL IS FALLING
• EVIL IS A FORCE (either internal or external)
• MORALITY IS STRENGTH
  

II. Moral Authority

• A COMMUNITY IS A FAMILY
• MORAL AUTHORITY IS PARENTAL AUTHORITY
• AN AUTHORITY FIGURE IS A PARENT
• A PERSON SUBJECT TO MORAL AUTHORITY IS A CHILD
• MORAL BEHAVIOR BY SOMEONE SUBJECT TO AUTHORITY IS OBEDIENCE
• MORAL BEHAVIOR BY SOMEONE IN AUTORITY IS SETTING UP STANDARDS AND ENVORCING THEM

III. Moral Order

• THE MORAL ORDER IS THE NATURAL ORDER

IV. Moral Boundaries

• RIGHTS ARE PATHS

V. Moral Essence

• A PERSON IS AN OBJECT
• HIS ESSENCE IS THE SUBSTANCE THE OBJECT IS MADE OF

VI. Moral Wholeness

• MORALITY IS WHOLENESS
• IMMORALITY IS DEGENERATION

VII. Moral Purity

• MORALITY IS PURITY
• IMMORALITY IS IMPURITY

VIII. Moral Health

• MORALITY IS HEALTH
• IMMORALITY IS DISEASE

Priorities of the SF Model: STRENGTH, then SELF-INTEREST, then NURTURANCE

2. Metaphors in the "Nurturant Parent" (NP) model:

I. Morality as Empathy

• MORALITY IS EMPATHY

II. Morality as Nurturance

• THE COMMUNITY IS A FAMILY
• MORAL AGENTS ARE NURTURING PARENTS
• PEOPLE NEEDING HELP ARE CHILDREN NEEDING NURTURANCE
• MORAL ACTION IS NURTURANCE

III. Morality as Social Nurturance

• MORAL AGENTS ARE NURTURING PARENTS
• SOCIAL TIES ARE CHILDREN NEEDING CARE
• MORAL ACTION IS THE NURTURANCE OF SOCIAL TIES

IV. Moral Self-Nurturance

• MORALITY IS NURTURANCE [OF ONESELF]

V. Morality is Happiness

• MORALITY IS HAPPINESS

VI. Morality as Self-Development

• MORALITY IS SELF-DEVELOPMENT

VII. Morality as Fair Distribution

• MORALITY IS FAIR DISTRIBUTION

VIII. Moral Growth

• THE DEGREE OF MORALITY IS PHYSICAL HEIGHT
• MORAL GROWTH IS PHYSICAL GROWTH
• MORAL NORMS FOR PEOPLE ARE PHYSICAL HEIGHT NORMS

IX. Moral Self-Interest

• WELL-BEING IS WEALTH
  

X. Moral Strength to Nurture

• BEING GOOD IS BEING UPRIGHT
• BEING BAD IS BEING LOW
• EVIL IS A FORCE (EITHER INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL)
• MORALITY IS STRENGTH

Priorities of the NP model: NURTURANCE, then SELF-INTEREST, then STRENGTH.

Do People Actually Use the "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" Models?

I've talked about Lakoff on this blog a lot. Way, way, way too much. But in talking about him incessantly, I've focused on conceptual metaphor theory in general, and ignored one of his more widely known, and controversial claims in his political writings: the existence, and use, of the "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" metaphorical models. These models get a lot of talk elsewhere in the blogosphere and popular press, though, and while the status of these models, and conceptual metaphor theory, is independent of the status of framing analysis in general, people often seem to form their opinion of framing analysis based on their opinion (often negative) of the two metaphors. So, I've been looking for an excuse to talk about the metaphorical models themselves, and the recent publication of a paper on them has given me just such an excuse. So, here goes.

When evaluating the claims of cognitive linguists in the conceptual metaphor tradition, it's not always clear how you should go about it. There are two main problems. First, there's not a whole lot of empirical evidence for most, if not all of the bigger claims, which makes it difficult to know exactly what you should be evaluating. Second, from the start of the conceptual metaphor paradigm, there have been serious reservations about its methodologies¹, among psychologists and linguists, which makes it difficult to know just how to take the evidence that does exist. When evaluating Lakoff's political writings, it's easy to be completely overwhelmed by both problems. For his larger claims, such as that the "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" metaphorical models serve as prototypes, or idealized cognitive models, Lakoff provides very little evidence, and what evidence he does provide is in the form of a few linguistic examples that have been analyzed by one person, Lakoff himself. This raises two problems. The first is the common problem of circularity in linguistic analysis. The cognitive linguistic argument says, in essence, that metaphors in language are evidence of metaphors in thought, and this is evidenced by the existence of metaphors in language (see Murphy, 1996, citation in footnote 1). The second problem, raised by Sandra and Rice (see footnote 1), is that it's not clear whether the metaphors that cognitive linguists discover through their linguistic analysis are in the minds of the producers of the utterances in which the metaphors were found, or in the minds of the linguists who found them.

The simple answer to all of these problems would be to run carefully designed experiments to test specific predictions of conceptual metaphor hypotheses. And a very, very few such experiments have been run, mostly in the lab of one psychologist, and in one domain: the domain of time-space metaphors². And even these are open to very plausible alternative explanations. But as of yet, there is absolutely no experimental evidence for the existence, much less the use, of metaphorical models like the "Strict Father" and Nurturant Parent" models, and aside from the tiny amount of linguistic evidence that Lakoff presents in Moral Politics, there's no non-experimental evidence that they exist, either. Lakoff, of course, is not worried by this. In that book, he readily notes that the existence of metaphorical models "does not have the degree of confirmation that one would expect of more mature theories" (p. 158, or, I would say, preliminary working hypotheses!), and goes on to blame this not on the theory itself, but on the available methodologies, writing:

No experimental paradigms of the complexity needed to test this hypothesis now exist.

and

Survey research has not yet developed an adequate methodology to test for the presence of complex metaphorical cognitive models such as these.

And of course, he's right: there are no experimental paradigms or survey research methods of sufficient complexity to test his hypotheses. The reason no such paradigms or methods exist is that we haven't yet learned how to test hypotheses that make no predictions! Fortunately for us, though, one researcher didn't see the lack of straightforward predictions from the hypothesizing of metaphorical models as a problem, and actually went out to look for the models in actual speech. The study is primarily in the form of linguistic analysis, which means that it could potentially suffer from the problems mentioned above, but the researcher, Alan Cienki, used techniques designed to avoid them. But I'll get to all of that in a moment. First, a refresher course on the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models (SF and NP respectively, from here on out).

The Strict Father and Nurturant Parent Metaphors

Good summaries of the two metaphors can be found at the Rockridge Institute, Lakoff's think tank. The two metaphors are both instances of the larger "Nation as a Family" metaphor. Here is how the SF model is described at Rockridge:

The father's job is to protect and support the family. Children are to respect and obey him. The father's moral duty is to teach his children right from wrong, with punishment that is typically physical and can be painful when they do wrong. It is assumed that parental discipline in childhood is required to develop the internal discipline that adults will need in order to be moral and to succeed. Morality and success are linked through discipline. This focus on discipline is seen as a form of love—"tough love."

The mother is in the background, not strong enough to protect and support the family or fully discipline the children on her own. Her job is to uphold the authority of the father and to care for and comfort the children. As a "mommy," she tends to be overly soft-hearted and might well coddle or spoil the child. The father must make sure this does not happen, lest the children become weak and dependent.

Competition is necessary for discipline. Children are to become self-reliant through discipline and the pursuit of self-interest. Those who succeed as adults are the good (moral) people and parents are not to "meddle" in their lives. Those children who remain dependent—who were spoiled, overly willful, or recalcitrant—undergo further discipline or are turned out to face the discipline of the outside world.

When everyone is acting morally and responsibly, seeking their own self-interest in a self-disciplined fashion, everyone benefits. Thus, instilling morality and discipline in your children is also acting for the good of society as a whole.

The political implications of this metaphor, from the same Rockridge article, are as follows:

• Protect the country and its interests in a dangerous world by maximizing military and political strength;
• Promote unimpeded competitive economic activity so that both the disciplined moral people and the undisciplined immoral ones are able to receive what they each deserve, based on their own choices;
• Maintain order and discipline, through severe enforcement of the rules if necessary

Examples of metaphors within the SF model, from Moral Politics, include (with examples given in the book) MORALITY IS STRENGTH ("having the moral fiber to resist evil"), BEING GOOD IS BEING UPRIGHT ("an upstanding citizen"), and MORALITY IS PURITY (undesired behaviors are seen as "unclean").

The NP model is described at Rockridge as:

In the Nurturant Parent family, it is assumed that the world is basically good. And, however dangerous and difficult the world may be at present, it can be made better, and it is your responsibility to help make it better. Correspondingly, children are born good, and parents can make them better, and it is their responsibility to do so. Both parents (if there are two) are responsible for running the household and raising the children, although they may divide their activities. The parents' job is to be responsive to their children, nurture them, and raise their children to nurture others. Nurturance requires empathy and responsibility.

The political extensions for this model listed at Rockridge are too numerous to include in this post, but you can check out the link to learn about them. Central metaphors in this model (again from Moral Politics) include MORALITY IS EMPATHY, MORAL ACTION IS NURTURANCE, and MORGROWTHOTH IS PHYSICAL GROWTH.

It is very important to understand, both when trying to evaluate the models themselves, and for understanding the study I'm going to describe in a minute, that neither the SF or NP models are supposed to exist, in their entirety, in any single person's head (except Lakoff's). Instead, they are meant as prototypes, around which liberal (in the case of the NP model) and conservative (in the case of the SF model) world-views cluster in a family resemblance fashion. Liberals may represent some features of the NP model, and some of the SF, but overall they will tend to represent more features of the NP model than the SF model. The reverse is true of conservatives. This is why the two models may seem a bit like caricatures: they are, in fact, meant to be caricatures of a sort.

The Study

Cienki's study, published last year in the journal Cognitive Linguistics, went looking for the use of these two models in the speech of the two candidates in the 2000 presidential election, using their three televised debates as a corpus³. He gives four reasons for using the debates as data for his analysis (pp. 283-284):

1. "They not only consist of spoken data from Bush and Gore on the same subjects, they provide approximately the same amount of linguistic output from each."
2. "The lexical density [the number of different words] per debate did not differ statistically between Bush and Gore."
3. "The debates took place late in the campaign. By this time the positions of the candidates had become more fixed, and so the debates can be seen as fair representations of the candidates' views."
4. "They consist of a variety of speech genres, from the more formal and serious to the occasional joking, and from statements which were more prepared and often re-used to responses which were more spontaneous."

The first stage of the study consisted in looking for instances of specific SF and NP metaphors, which were taken from Lakoff's own list in Moral Politics (I'll put a list of the metaphors, from the appendix of the paper, in the next post). Here are examples of metaphors from the debates, as listed in the paper (p. 287):

IMMORALITY IS IMPURITY. Gore: "By giving parents the tools to protect their children against culturpollutionion."

ACTION IS THE NURTURANCE OF SOCIAL TIES. Bush: "And that's a case where we need to use our influence to have countries in Africa come together and help deal with the situation.

In order to overcome the problem in linguistic analysis, described above, of finding only metaphors that exist in the linguist's head, rather than the speaker's, two researchers coded the debates, and their agreement was high (near 100%). Here is Cienki's description of the results (p. 287):

What is noteworthy is that the central conceptual metaphors of the SF and NP models were expressed so seldom through metaphorical language in the debates. In the approximately 41,000-word corpus, there were only 48 expressions in total which directly expressed any of the 43 metaphors in the Appendix [see the next post]. The paucity of these metaphoric expressions contributed to their salience when they did occur, which is likely a factor in the very high agreement reached between coders.

In all, Bush used 29 expressions of the 43 metaphors, seven of which were from the NP model, and 22 from the SF model. Gore used a total of 19 expressions of the metaphors, 14 of which were from the NP model, and 5 of which were from the SF model. So, it appears that while the models' metaphors are rarely used, they are used in a pattern consistent with liberals (in this case, Gore) being more inclined to the NP model, and conservatives (Bush) being more inclined to the SF model.

Now, a skeptic like me would take the extreme paucity of metaphorical expressions from the two models as evidence that they are, in fact, not the models that shape the world views of liberals and conservatives. I certainly can't imagine how the data above could be taken as evidence for their existence. But Cienki doesn't want to let them go, writing that "the explanatory power provided by the models and their comprehensivenedeterter one from jumping to such conclusions." He argues that metaphors can exist at different levels of "schematicity," by which he means "the range of source or target domain concepthataht are consistent with a given metaphorical mapping" (p. 288). Put differently, metaphors exist at different levels of abstraction. Metaphors also differ in their productivity, by which Cienki means "the number of roughly synonymous expressions by which the metaphorical mapping is manifested, that is, how successful a schema is in manifesting its generality in linguistic expressions" (p. 289). In other words, how many linguistic expressions you can get from a particular metaphor. Cienki argues that the reason behind the dearth of metaphorical expressions from the SF and NP models may be that the models are high in schematicity, but low in productivity. That means they subsume a lot of other metaphors, but they don't allow for the production of many particular metaphorical expressions directly from the models themselves. In short, if the first prediction you come up with from a metaphorical models hypothesis doesn't work out, come up with a new one.

In order to test this new prediction, the second part of the study consisted of a search for "expressions in the corpus which do not directly reflect the central SF or NP metaphors, but which logically follow from the SF or NP model, that is, they may be entailed by them" (p. 289). The new prediction is thus that we'll find a lot of entailments, both metaphorical and non-metaphorical, and that this will indicate the presence of the SF and NP metaphors themselves in the minds of the speakers. If you're like me, you're probably thinking that we're getting further away from any possibility of non-circularity, by undertaking this type of analysis, but the results are worth looking at. Here are examples of the entailments (both metaphorical and non-metaphorical) found in the debates (pp. 290-291):

1. SF metaphorical entailment. Bush: "I think it's important for NATO to be strong and confident."
2. NP metaphorical entailment. Gore: "So I want proceedced carefully to cover more people."
3. SF non-metaphorical entailment. Bush: "We need to send five percent [of tax revenues] back to you that pay the bills.
4. NP non-metaphorical entailment. Bush: "There needs to be more community health clinics where the poor can go get health care."

The explanations of theexamplesles are as follows (from p. 291). For example 1., "The phrase supports the SF ideal of individual self-reliance, and in this case, the organization is metaphorically an individual person." For example 2, "This is consistent with the NP priority of nurturance, and also of fair distribution." Example 3 "reflects the emphasis on the importance of individual control of one's well-being; managing one's money is thus a matter of individual responsibility, and taxation is viewed as government interference." And example 4 "reflects the concern for others typical of the NP priorities of empathy and fair distribution." In all, very few metaphorical entailments were found. Bush used a total of 48 metaphorical entailments, 27 from the SF model, and 21 from the NP model, while Gore used a total of 45, 12 from the SF model, and 33 from the NP model. As with the direct metaphorical expressions of the model, both candidates used more metaphorical entailments from the model consistent with their political ideology than with their opponent's, though both used some of each, and Bush's totals from both models were pretty similar. Non-metaphorical entailments were a little more frequent. Bush used a total of 469 non-metaphorical entailment expressions, 269 from the SF model and 200 from the NP model, while Gore used 276 total, 68 from the SF model and 208 from the NP model. Once again, both used entailments from both models, but used more from the model consistent with their political ideology. However, Bush's ratio of SF to NP entailments was small in this case as well.

Again, if you're a skeptic like me, you'll note two things about this data. First, in a 41,000 word corpus, there were, again, very few metaphorical entailments, and many more non-metaphorical ones than metaphorical ones. This implies two things to me. One, it looks like people aren't using metaphors with the frequency that conceptual metaphor theory would have us believe, and two, it doesn't look like conceptual metaphors are structuring the way people talk, and given the linguistic arguments, think about political issues. Second, we again run into the inherent problem of circularity in using the non-metaphorical expressions, hese are simply expressions of political ideology, and Lakoff's analysis came up with the metaphors from similar expressions, meaning, in the end, that the argument from non-metaphorical expressions is that we see the positions in people's speech because the metaphorical models exist, and we know the metaphorical models exist because we see the positions in people's speech. So I'm not sure that it's actually possible to interpret this data, and I'm pretty damn sure that it's not possible to interpret it as supporting the existence of the SF and NP models, or conceptual metaphor theory in general.

In discussing these results, Cienki notes that neither candidate seems to be "very prototypical adherent[s] to either the SF or NP model" (p. 293). In fact, one of the interesting features of these results, in my mind, is the fact that Bush used both models frequently (his ratio of SF to NP was around 1.3:1 for both metaphorical and non-metaphorical entailments), whereas Gore's was at least 3:1 for both). This seems to be inconsistent with one of Lakoff's more practical claims, namely that conservatives have done a better job of framing issues in their language, and that, in fact, Bush is a master of this. Here he appears to be framing the issues in both conservative and political language (according to the SF and NP models), while Gore is much more consistent.

The final part of the debate is meant to get past this circularity. Instead of looking at speech, it looks at gestures. The argument is, if we find the use of the metaphors in gestures, then we have evidence that lies outside of the linguistic circle. Nevermind the fact that in doing so we create a new circle, and thus have cognitive linguists twirling hoops on both arms. At least the evidence isn't linguistic! The methods for the gestural analysis are kind of complex, and I don't want to try to explain them in detail here (this damn post is long enough as it is). Instead, I'll just give you a few examples of gestures described in the paper, and then the overall results of the gestural analysis. Here are two examples (from pp. 298-301; the gestures are described in bold below the statements during which they occurred, and Cienki's explanations are listed in italics beneath those descriptions; {} are placed around the words that occurred "during the main stroke of the gestures"):

Bush: "If we're a humble nation, but {strong}, they'll welcome us in.
2 hands barrier, fingers spread, bounce forward from self.
Consistent with source domains of the SF metaphors... (such as STRENGTH, WHOLENESS, and BEING UPRIGHT).

Gore: "The power of example is America's {greatest power} in the world."
2 hands palms up, cupped.
No metaphorical description given.

The results of the analysis showed that Bush used many more "metaphoric" gestures than Gore (43 and 13, respectively), and that each candidate used more gestures when using expressions entailed by the metaphorical model consistent with their political ideology. I'll be damned if I know what that means, and I doubt anyone does, but Cienki takes it as evidence of the existence of the two models.

Overall, I think you have to give Cienki a pat on the back for even attempting something like this. Elsewhere (e.g., in this manuscript), he continues to search for methods to test for the existence and use of political metaphorical models. Unfortunately, the paper described in this post contains the only data published thusfar. But you have to respect a guy who attempts to test a theory that doesn't provide any testable predictions, even if that means that when one prediction doesn't pan out, he has to come up with new ones (which may even be inconsistent with the first prediction) to continue testing the theory. Of course, if you're a fan of the SF and NP models, the data in this paper cannot be encouraging. The models were rarely used, metaphorical entailments were rarely used, and the non-metaphorical entailments that were found in the speech of the two candidates can only be used to argue for the existence and use of the metaphorical models through circular reasoning. The gestural analysis, while interesting, doesn't seem to say much of anything. Plus, as I said above, Bush's use of entailments from both models with near equal frequency argues against one of Lakoff's central claims about "what conservatives know that liberals don't."

My sincere hope is that, given the complete lack of evidence for the SF and NP models, people stop trying to use them for now, and instead focus on integrating the basics of framing analysis, with insights from research on knowledge representation, into their political speech. I know Lakoff won't stop peddling them, but a lack of evidence has never stopped him (as his quotes above indicate). We're simply going to have to ignore him for a while, until he, Cienki, or someone else, comes up with some data thunequivocallybly supports the existence and importance of these two metaphorical models. I know I'm not holding my breath. I don't think you should be either.

¹E.g., Murphy, G. 1996. "On metaphorical representation", Cognition 60: 173-204; Sandra, D., & Rice, S. (1995). Network analyses of prepositional meaning: Mirroring whose mind—the linguistÂ’s or the language user's? Cognitive Linguistics, 6, 89-130.
²E.g., Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75, 1-28.
³Cienki, A. (2005). Metaphor in the "Strict Father" and "Nurturant Parent" cognitive models: Theoretical issues raised in an empirical study. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(2), 279-312.

Happiness Is a False Memory

Nietzsche once wrote, "[W]ith the smallest and with the greatest good fortune, happiness becomes happiness in the same way: through forgetting"¹. It turns out that happiness may be associated with memory in another way: happiness makes us more likely to make memories up, at least relative to when we're depressed. In fact, it might be better to say that depression makes memory more accurate. That's the gist of what a recent study on mood and false memories by Justin Storbeck and Gerald Core found. And aside from some interesting theoretical implications about both affect and memory, the study is sexy enough for a blog post.

Here's the backstory. Memory involves two main stages: encoding and retrieval. Encoding involves storing information in memory, and retrieval is the name for taking it back out (i.e. remembering). It's widely believed that there are two ways of encoding memories: item-specific encoding and relational encoding. Item-specific encoding is just what it says: individual items are encoded separately, with attention to their specific properties. Relational encoding is a little more complex. In essence, it involves encoding items through the activation of information already and memory, such as concepts or schemas. When information is encoded in an item-specific fashion, particular features of the instance are encoded, whereas when relational encoding occurs, the gist of the information is stored in memory to the detriment of particular features of the instance.

One interesting difference between the two types of encoding is that item-specific encoding tends to produce accurate memories about particular instances, whereas relational encoding can produce memory intrusions, or false memories. For example, in one of my favorite experiments of all time, Sulin and Dooling² gave participants bibliographical stories in which the main character was given either a famous name (Helen Keller or Adolph Hitler) or an unfamiliar name (Carol Harris or Gerald Martin). After reading the stories, participants read a list of three types of sentences: 1.) sentences from the original stories, 2.) sentences about the famous characters that were not in the original stories, and 3.) sentences that were unrelated to the famous characters and were not in the stories. Participants were asked to indicate which of the sentences they had previously read. Participants who'd read the stories with unfamiliar names were unlikely to say that they had seen sentences of type 2 or 3, but participants who had read the same stories with the famous names were almost as likely to say that they had seen sentences of type 2 as they were to say they had seen sentences of type 1. In other words, they were almost as likely to mistakenly remember seeing true sentences about the famous person as they were to remember sentences they had actually seen. The reason is that reading the famous name activated the knowledge of that person in their memory, and the story was encoded relationally, whereas reading a story about an unfamiliar person caused participants to focus on the particulars of the study.

Several recent studies have shown that affect can influence the type of encoding. Specifically, positive affect (a good mood) seems to enhance relational processing, while negative affect leads to more item-specific encoding³. For example, in one set of studies, Storbeck and Clore found that in several different kinds of semantic priming tasks (tasks that involve using priming words or objects with similar meanings to test objects), priming occurred for participants with a positive mood, but participants with a negative mood were much less likely to exhibit priming⁴. If positive affect leads to more relational processing, and negative affect leads to more item-specific encoding, and if relational encoding leads to more false memories, then we can predict that happy people will be more likely to produce false memories than depressed people.

In order to test this prediction, Storbeck and Clore used the now common Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. This paradigm involves presenting participants with lists of words that are all highly associated with another word (the "critical lure") that is not on the list. After reading the list, participants are asked to recall as many of the words on the list as possible, or are given another list of words and asked to indicate which had been on the list. In both cases, participants are likely to mistakenly remember having seen the critical lure. The task is sort of like the Sulin and Dooling task, in that when a concept is activated (by reading several words associated with the concept), relational processing occurs, and participants are likely to produce false memories.

To induce a positive or negative affect in participants, the experimenters played either Mozart's Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, which has been shown to produce a positive affect, or Mahler's Adagietto, which has been shown to produce a negative affect (I think we all know that Mahler is depressing, anyway), while participants read the DRM list. After completing the study, participants' mood was tested in a questionnaire, and only the data from participants whose moods were significantly above the median mood score (in the positive mood condition) or below it (in the negative mood condition) were kept. There was also a control group, which heard no music while completing the task.

The main findings in their two experiments were these: participants in all three conditions(positive mood, negative mood, and control) recalled words that were on the list with equal accuracy, while participants in the positive mood and control conditions produced many more false memories (recalling the critical lures) than participants in the negative mood condition. There was no difference between the number of false memories produced by participants in the positive mood and control conditions. Even when participants were asked to list any words that were not on the list, but that came to mind during the recall task (a common procedure designed to test whether the critical lures were activated during encoding even if participants are aware that they weren't on the list), the participants in the negative mood condition were significantly less likely than participants in the other two conditions to list the critical lures. This implies that the lures were not activated during encoding, and supports the hypothesis that negative mood induces item-specific encoding. The fact that there was no difference between the false memory production in the positive mood and control conditions implies that we may generally encode information relationally, and negative mood causes a shift away from our normal encoding processes toward more item-specific processes.

It would be natural to ask whether these findings might have clinical implications for people suffering from depression, and the answer is, I don't know, and the authors of the paper don't discuss clinical issues. It is interesting to note that we've known for some time that traumatic events often induce increased accuracy for the details (e.g., specific perceptual details) of the event, while memories for the overall gist of traumatic events tends to be poor. It's generally believed that this is because higher levels of arousal lead to more detailed processing and encoding of information. Based on the results of the Storbeck and Clore study, it may be that the negative affect produced by traumatic events also helps to produce more accurate recall for details, and less accuracy for the gist of the events.

¹In "On the use and abuse of history for life."
²Sulin, R. & Dooling, D. (1974). Intrusion of a thematic idea in retention of prose. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 103, 255-262.
³E.g., Gasper, K. & Clore, G. L. (2002). Attending to the big picture: Mood and global vs. local processing of visual information. Psychological Science, 13, 34-40; Isen, A., & Daubman, K. (1984). The influence of affect on categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1206–1217; Bless, H., Clore, G.L., Schwarz, N., Golisano, V., Rabe, C., & Wolk, M. (1996). Mood and the use of scripts: Does a happy mood really lead to mindlessness? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 665–679; Storbeck, J. & Clore, G. L. (Submitted Manuscript). Mood governs implicit processes: Affect, priming, and false memories.
⁴Storbeck & Clore (Submitted).

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

This post has nothing to do with cognitive science, but I found the article that I'm reprinting below so fascinating, and horrifying, that I just had to share it. Since I can't find it on google, and it was written by a somewhat obscure theologian some 135 years ago, I suspect that most people who are reading this post haven't seen it before. I won't bore you with the story of how I came across it, largely because it would reveal how seriously geeky I am. The article, written by R. L. Dabney, who, among other things, was Stonewall Jackson's official biographer and taught philosophy at the University of Texas, is titled “Women's Rights Women,” and was published in the March, 1871 issue of The Southern Magazine (pp.322-334 ). It's a sarcastic, vitriolic, and downright disturbing attack on the women's rights movement in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, and women's suffrage in particular. What I find so fascinating about it is how incredibly similar it is to much of what you hear and read from cultural conservatives today, on issues ranging from homosexuality to, well, women's rights, while at the same time it's very different from anything you might read today. The similarities will be obvious to most. In the article you'll find the common “women's rights women are socially unsuccessful/ugly” attack (in the first paragraph!); hints that women's rights will make women sluts; the claim that independent women will be less attractive to men, and that women will be less able to please men if they have equal rights; the assertion that giving women rights will harm (or even signal the end of) the family, Christianity, and society as we know it (this one isn't uncommon in social conservative arguments about gay rights these days, either); the belief that he and those of a like mind aren't trying to harm women, but to help them, by limiting their rights, because men know what's best for women; along with the usual stereotypes of sex differences in reasoning, emotionality, etc. I've highlighted (in bold; all other emphasis is Dabney's) some of the passages that I noticed are similar to what you might hear today from social conservatives, even if the wording is different. I'm sure I missed some, though. You can play “How are today's social conservatives like racist, sexist social conservatives in the 19th century American South” and find your own, if you like.

The differences might be even more obvious. I haven't heard anyone claim that the women's rights movement is a result of evil abolitionism, lately, and you won't find many of the arguments about women ruining society by voting irrationally these days (oh wait, yes you will, but then again, you'll also find many of the racist and secessionist arguments in the article on that author's blog, too). You're unlikely to find this level of anger and spite directed at the North in contemporary social conservative commentaries, either (though you might find a similar level of vitriol leveled at the West cpast or the Atlantic Northeast, or just at universities). Clearly, Dabney was bitter about the way the war went, and writing this only six years after its end, and while in the midst of the nasty Reconstruction, he made sure to blame the evil women's rights movement on the Yankees.

Anyway, I the article offers a nice window into the thinking of southern conservatives at the time, and how much, and more importantly, how little, that thinking has changed. I should warn you up front that you will find in the article a level of explicit racism that can be hard to stomach at times. So read at your own risk. I know it's long, but I think it's worth it.



Women's Rights Women by R. L. Dabney

IN our day, innovations march with so rabid a stride that they quite take away one's breath. The fantastical project of yesterday, which was mentioned only to be ridiculed, is to-day the audacious reform, and will be to-morrow the accomplished fact. Such has been the history of the agitation for “women's rights,” as they are sophistically called in this country. A few years ago this movement was the especial hobby of a few old women of both sexes, who made themselves the laughing-stock of all sane people by the annual ventilation of their crotchet. Their only recruits were a few of the unfortunates whom nature or fortune had debarred from those triumphs and enjoyments which are the natural ambition of the sex, and who adopted this agitation as the most feasible mode of expressing their spitefulness against the successful competitors. To-day the movement has assumed such dimensions that it challenges the attention of every thoughtful mind.

If we understand the claims of the Women's Rights women, they are in substance two: that the legislation, at least, of society shal disregard all natural distinctions of the sexes, and award the same specific rights and franchises to both in every respect; and that woman while in the married state shall be released from every species of conjugal subordination. The assimilation of the garments of the two sexes, their competition in the same industries and professions, and their common access to the same amusements and recreations, are social changes which the “strong-mined expect to work, each one for herself, when once the obstructions of law are removed from the other points.

One result of the reflection which we have been able to give this movement, is the conviction that it will prevail in the so-called “United-States.” This is foreshadowed by the frantic lust for innovation which has seized the body of the people like an epidemic. It is enough with them to condemn any institution, that it was bequeathed by our forefathers' because it is not the invention of this age, it is wrong, of course. In their eyes no experience proves anything, save the experience which they have had themselves. They do not suppose that our fathers were wise enough to interpret and record the lessons of former experiences. That certain things did not succeed in our forefathers' hands is no proof that they will not succeed in our hands; for we are “cute,” we live in an enlightened age, and understand how to manage things successfully. The philosophy of the Yankee mind is precisely that of the Yankee girl who, when she asked for leave to marry at seventeen, was dissuaded by her mother with the statement that she “had married very early and had seen the folly of it.” “yes, but, Mamma,” replied the daughter, “I want to see the folly of it for myself.” Your Yankee philosopher is too self-sufficient to be cautioned from the past. He does not know history; he would not believe its conclusions if he did; he has no use for its lights, having enough “subjective” light of his own¹. To such people the fact that a given experiment is too absurd to have been ever tried before, is an irresistible fascination: it is a chance not to be neglected.

The symptoms of approaching success which already exist are such as may well cheer the advocates of the new revolution. They who a few years ago counted their adherents by scores, now have tens of thousands. They are represented by their own press. They have received the support of at least one religious journal, which presumes to call itself Christian and is the organ of numerous domination-- the New York Independent. They receive the obsequious homage of the demagogues of the day. They have already engrafted a part of their ideas upon some State constitutions². Their apostles are invited to lecture before “Christian Associations” (of that peculiar kind which enumerate billiard and card-tables among the means of grace), and before the United States Congress. And last, a kindred cause, that of indiscriminate divorces, is making such progressin many of the States that it will soon be able to lend a strong helping-hand to its sister. Now it is by just such steps that Radicalism grew from its despised infancy in this country. It was just thus that Abolitionism grew. It is thus that all things grow on the American soil which ripen their harvests of evil³.

The advocates of these “women's rights” may be expected to win the day, because the premisses from which they argue their revolution have been irrevocably admitted by the bulk of the people. Now this popular mind may not be consciously or intentionally consistent and logical. It may jump to many conclusions without much analysis of the steps by which they are reached. It may deliberately harbor the most express purpose to be guilty of any logical inconsistency, however outrageous, in pursuing its supposed interests; and may have its mind ever so clearly made up to eat its own words and principles whenever its convenience prompts that measure. But still the Creator has made man, in spite of himself, a logical animal; and consequences will work themselves out, whether he designs it or not, to those results which the premisses dictate. History will write out the corrolaries of the theorems whether the projectors wish to stop for them or not. Now, false principles are already firmly planted from which the whole “Women's Rights” claim must follow. If we look at the coarser, more concrete, and popular form in which the consequence is drawn, we find the argument for the popular, Radical mind perfectly unanswerable. “It has been decided that all negro men have a right to vote: is not a Yankee white women with her 'smartness' and education as good as a stupid, ignorant, Southern black?” We should like to see the answer to that logic from that premiss which a Northern Radical mind could be made to appreciate. An unanswerable point thus perpetually made upon the mind of the public, will impinge at last.

Or if we examine the argument in its more exact and logical form, we shall find it, after the established (false) premisses are granted, equally conclusive for the educated. The very axioms of American politics are now that “all men are by nature equal,” that allareinalienably “entitled to liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and that “the only just foundation of government is in the consent of the governed.” There was a sense in which our fathers propouned these statements; but it is not the one in which they are now held by Americans. Our recent doctors of political science have retained these formularies of words as convenient masks under which to circulate a set of totally different, and indeed antagonistic notions; and they have succeded perfectly. The new meanings of which the “Whigs” of 1776 never dreamed are now the current ones. Those wise statesmen meant to teach that all men are morally equal in the sense of the Golden Rule: that while individual traits, rights, and duties vary widely in the different orders of political society, these different rights all have some moral basis; that the inferior has the same moral title (that of a common humanity and common relation to a benignant Heavenly Father) to have his rights -- the rights of an inferior -- duly respected, which the superior has to claim that his very different rights shall be respected⁴. The modern version is that there are no superiors or inferiors in society; that there is a mechanical equality; that all have specifically all the same rights; and that any other constitution is against natural justice. Next: when our wise fathers said that liberty is an inalienable, natural right, they meant by each one's liberty the privelege to do such things as he, with his particular relations, ought to have a moral title to do; the particular things have righteous, natural limitations in every case, and much narrower limits in some cases than in others. Radical America now means by natural liberty each one's privelege to do what he chooses to do. By the consent of the governed our forefathers meant each Sovereign Commonwealth's consenting to the constitution under which it should be governed: they meant that it was unjust for Britain to govern America without America's consent. Which part of the human beings living in a given American State should constitute the State potentially, the populus whose franchise it was to express the will of the commonwealth for all -- that was in their eyes wholly another question, to be wisely decided in different states according to the structure which Providence had given them. By “the consent of the governed” it would appear that Radicalism means it is entirely just for Yankeedom to govern Virginia against Virginia's consent, and that it is not just to govern any individual human being without letting him vote for his governors⁵. The utter inconsistency of the two parts of this creed is not ours to reconcile. It is certain that both parts (consistent or not) are firmly held as the American creed. The version given to the maxim as to individual rights is universally this: that natural justic requires that suffrage shall be coextensive with allegiance, except where the right has been forfeited by some crime (such as that which the men of 1861 committed in presuming to act on the principles of the men of 1776). To these errors the American people are too deeply committed to evade any of their logical applications. For the sake of these dogmas they have destroyed one Federal and eleven other State constitutions, have committed a half million murders, and (dearest of all) have spent some seven thousand and millions of dollars. Repudiate these maxims now! Never! This would be to dishonor the ghosts of all the slaughtered Union-Savers, to shame the sacrifices of all the “Trooly Lo'il” during the glorious for years, to dim the very crown of martyrdom upon the brow of the “late lamented,” and worst of all, to outrage the manes of all those departed dollars.

Now then, when Mistress Amazona Narragansett steps forward and having vidicated her claim to have belonged always to the true Israel of the “unconditional Unionists,” demands a simple and obvious application of these honored maxims to her own case, how can she be gainsaid? Hitherto the State has governed her without asking her consent at the ballot-box. This is self-evidently against the immortal truth that “all just government is founded on the consent of the governed.” The State has restrained her natural liberty of doing as she chose, compelling her to pay a great many dollars in taxes which she would rather have chosen to expend in crinoline, and forbidding her to do a great many other little acts, such as bigamy, etc., which might have been her preference (and therefore her natural right); and all this without even saving the State's credit and manners by asking her consent at the polls to the laws made for her. And last: the State has committed the crowning outrage and inconsistency of not letting her be a man because God made her a woman! What an outrage this to be committed on so frivolous a pretext! Be consoled, Mistress Amazona; it is simply impossible that such abuses can stand much longer in the full light of this reforming age. “The school-mistress is abroad.” That mighty tide of progress which has already swept away the Constitution, and slavery, and States' rights, and the force of contracts public and private, with all such rubbish, will soon dissolve your grievance also. Has not the Radical version of the political gospel said, “All men are by nature mechanically equal”? And “man,” Mistress Amazona (as you will know when you acquire the virile right of learning Latin) here means, not vir, but homo; the species irrespective of sex. It means that a woman has a natural right to do all the particular things that a man does (if she can), to sit on juries and shave her beard, to serve in the army and ride astraddle, to preach sermons and sing bass⁵.

But seriously: a woman is a human being, and a grown woman is an adult. She is treated, and must be treated, by all governments as a citizen owing allegiance and subject to law. On those principles, which are the first principles of Radicalism, it is impossible to deny her right to vote and to participate in all franchises of men. Her exclusion is a glaring instance of “class legislation”--that odious thing which Radicalism so strongly condemns as contrary to equality. To subject women to these disabilities is even a more glaring injustice than was the exclusion of the negro from American citizenship because he was “guilty of a skin”; for here the exclusion from natural rights is grounded on the sole fact taht a woman is “guilty of a sex.” And especially are all those laws unnatural and inexcusable iniquities which subject the person or property of the wife to any marital authority. What is such marriage but a species of (white) domestic slavery? Nor is it any excuse to say that in American no woman enters the married state save at her own option; for to that state the most commanding insticts of woman's being impel her; and it is but a mocking tyranny to impose this slavery on the married state of woman, and tell her then that she need not submit to the yoke if she chooses to avoid it by sacrificing the chief insticts of her being. Why, it may be even said to the galley-slave that he need not be a slave, provided he is willing to disregard that other primal instict, the love of life: suicide will set him free!

Such is the logic of the Women's Rights party, from Radical premisses. Its prospect of triumph is greatly increased by this, that its Northern opponents (the only ones who have any power to oppose) have disabled themselves from meeting it by their furious Abolitionism. The premisses of that doctrine, to which they are so irrevocably committed, now shut their mouths. It is vain for the rabid negrophilist, Dr. Horace Bushnell, to write a book at this date against Women's Rights as the “Reform against Nature.” He cannot consistently oppose it; he has himself naturalised the false principles from which that “reform” will flow. The true principles from which its folly might have been evinced, the principles held by us “Rebels,” he has trampled down with the armed heel, and drowned in blood and buried under mountains of obloquy and odium and slander. he cannot resort to those sound premisses. To meet the argument of these aspiring Amazons fairly, one must teach, with Moses, the Apostle Paul, John Hampden, Washington, George Mason, John C. Calhoun, and all that contemptible rabble of “old fogies,” that political society is composed of “superiors, inferiors, and equals”; that while these bear an equitable moral relation to each other, they have very different natural rights and duties; that just government is not founded on the consent of the individuals governed, but on the ordinance of God, and hence a share in the ruling franchise is not a natural right at all, but a privilege to be bestowed according to a wise discretion on a limited class having qualification to use it for the good of the whole; that the integers out of which the State is constituted are not individuals, but families represented in their parental heads; that every human being is born under authority (parental and civic) instead of being born “free” in the licentious sense that liberty is each one's privelege of doing what he chooses; that subordination, and not that license, is the natural state of all men; and that without such equitable distribution of different duties and rights among the classes naturally differing in condition, and subordination of some to others, and of all the law, society is as impossible as is the existence of a house without distinction between the foundation-stone and the cap-stones. No words are needed to show hence that should either the voice of God or of sound experience require woman to be placed for the good of the whole society in a subordinate sphere, there can be no natural injustice in doing so. But these old truths, with their sound and beneficent applications, have been scornfully repudiated by Abolitionism and Radicalism. The North cannot, will not, avow and appeal to them, bwecause that would be to confess that the injured South was all the time right in its opposition to Abolition; and the conquerors will rather let all perish than thus humble their pride to the poor conquered victims.

It may be inferred again, that the present movement for women's rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent, Northern conservativism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is to-day one of the accepted principles of conservativism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timidity, and will be succeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservativism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. it is worthless because it is the conservativism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. it intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always--when about to enter a protest--very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent rôle of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women's suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservativism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforeward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the ingtegrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to assessuffrage⁷. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.

Indeed, as De Tocqueville predicted, innovation in the direction of extensions of suffrage will always be successful in America, because of the selfish timidity of her public men. It is the nature of ultra democracy to make all its politicians time-servers; its natural spawn is the brood of narrow, truckling, cowardly worshippers of the vox populi and of present expediency. Their polar star is always found in the answer to the question, “Which will be the more popular?” As soon as any agitation of this kind goes far enough to indicate a possibility of success, their resistance ends. Each of them begins to argue thus in his private mind:--”The proposed revolution is of course preposterous, but it will be best for me to leave opposition to it to others. For if it succeeds, the newly enfranchised will not fail to remember the opponents of their claims at future elections, and to reward those who were their friends in the hour of need.” Again: it has now become a regular trick of American demagogues in power to manufacture new classes of voters to sustain them in office. It is presumed that the gratitude of the newly enfranchised will be sufficient to make them vote the ticket of their benefactors. But as gratitude is a very flimsy sort of fabric among Radicals, and soon worn thread-bare, such reliance only lasts a short time, and requires to be speedily replaced. The marvellous invention of negro suffrage (excogitated for this sole purpose) sufficed to give Radicalism a new for years' lease on life' but the grateful allegiance of the freedmen to their pretended liberators is waxing very thin; and hence the same expedient must be repeated, in the form of creating a few millions of female votes. The designing have an active, selfish motive for pushing the measure; but its opponents will without fail be paralysed in their resistance by their wonted cowardice; so that success is sure.

This expectation is greatly confirmed by a review of the history of past innovations. They have all been carried against the better judgement of the class in the country to whom the Constitution commmitted the power of deciding for or against them. In 1829-1830, the State of Virginia took her first departure from the old principle of freeholders' suffrage. in 1851 she completed that revolution (as well as introduced sundry other Radical features) by extending the right to vote indiscriminately to all white males. In both instances it was hard to find a freeholder, not a demagogue, who could avow a hearty preference for the change. They were carried against the convictions of the voters by the influences which have been above described. it is most probable that the same thing was true in every State which adopted universal suffrage. The coercive measures of the Federal Government were undoubtedly predicipated against the convictions of the majority of the Northern people. So the war was transumted into an Abolition measure under the same circumstances. And last: negro suffrage was undoubtedly introduced against the better judgement of nearly all by the selfish arts of the demagogues; and as there was neither party nor statesman that had the nerve to head the almost universal opposition, the decision went by default. Nor will there be, under any future circumstances, either leader or party that will risk the odium of a movement to take away suffrage from the incompetend hands of the blacks, however clearly it may appear that they are using it for the ruin of themselves and the country. Thus it is the destiny of the Yankee people to commit a species of political Hari-kari with its own unwilling hands. The crowning element of despair is in the enforced consolidation of the Government. There are no reserved rights of States. The mad innovation which is adopted by a majority of them is enforced upon all; so that no place of refuge is left in the whole land where the right principles and usages might find sanctuary, and abide as the wholesome example and recuperative power for reform.

What then, in the next place, will be the effect of this fundamental change when it shall be established? The obvious answer is, that it will destroy Christianity and civilisation in America. Some who see the mischievousness of the movement express the hope that it will, even if nominally successful, be kept within narrow limits by the very force of its own absurdity. They “reckon without their host.” There is a Satanic ingenuity in these Radical measures which secures the infection of the reluctant dissentients as surely as of the hot advocates. The women now sensible and modest who heartily deprecate the whole folly, will be dragged into the vortex, with the assent of their now indignant husbands. The instruments of this deplorable result will be the (so-called) conservative candidates for office. They will effect it by this plea, that ignorant, impudent, Radical women will vote, and vote wrong; whence it becomes a necessity for the modest and virtuous women, for their country's sake, to sacrifice their repugnance and counterpoise these mischievous votes in the spirit of disinterested self-sacrifice. Now a woman can never resist an appeal to the principle of generous devotion; her glory is to crucify herself in the cause of duty and of zeal. This plea will be successful. But when the virtuous have once taste the dangerous intoxication of political excitement and the power, even they will be absorbed; they will learn to do con amore what was first done as a painful duty, and all the baleful influeces of policial life ill be diffused throughout the sex.

What those influences will be may be learned by every one who reverences the Christian Scriptures, from this fact, that the theory of “women's Rights” is sheer infidelity⁸. It directly impugns the authority and the justice of these Scriptures. They speak in no uncertain tones. “The husband is the head of the wife” (EPH v:23). “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as to the Lord” (v. 22. “The man is not for the woman, but the woman for the man” (I COR. II:9). “Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection: but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence: for Adam was first formed, then Eve: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was the transgression” (I TIM. II: 11-14). They are to be “discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands,” etc. (TITUS II:5). How utterly opposed is all this to the levelling doctrine of your Radical. Women are here consiged to a social subordination, and expressly escluded from ruling offices, on grounds of their sex, and a divine ordination based by God upon a transaction which happened nearly six thousand years ago! The woman's sphere is expressly assigned her within her home, and she is taught that the assumption of publicity is an outrage against that nature with which she is endowed. Now the politics which denounce all this as a natural injustice and self-evident folly cannot be expected to reverence these Scriptures; they must and will flout their whole authority. We must then make up our minds in accepting Women's Rights to surrender our Bibles, and have an atheistic Government. And especially must we expect to have, presiding over every home and rearing every group of future citizens, that most abhorrent of all phenomena, an infidel woman; for of course that sex, having received the precious boon of their enfranchisement only by means of the overthrow of the Bible, must be foremost in trampling upon this their old oppressor and enemy. Its restoration to authority is necessarily their “re-enslavement,” to speak to language of their party.

Second: these new excitements and temptations will utterly corrupt the character and delicacy of American women. It is indignantly asked, “Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than the 'lords of creation'?” Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? suppose we argue that this retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? it is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mosthers who are, under God, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women of the present were reared and attained this comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without purifying our politics. What shall save us then?⁹

But there is another reply to this retort. Political excitements will corrupt women tenfold more than men; and this, not because women are naturally inferior to men, but because they are naturally adapted to a wholly different sphere. When we point to the fact that they are naturally more emotional and less calculating, more impulsive and less self-contained, that they have a quicker tact but less logic, that their social nature makes them more liable to the contagion of epidemic passions, and that the duties of their sex make it physically impossible for them tto acquire the knowledge in a foreign sphere necessary for political duties, we do not depricate woman; we only say that nature has adapted her to one thing and disqualified her for the other. The violent would wither in that full glare of midsummer in which the sunflower thrives: this does not argue taht the violet is the meaner flower. The vine, left to stand alone, would be hurled prone in the mire by the first blasts of that wind which strengthens the grasp of the sturdy oak upon its bed: still the oak may yield no fruit so precious as the clusters of the vine. But the vine cannot be an oak; it must be itself, dependent, clinging, but more precious than that on which it leans or it must perish. When anything inmate or inanimate, is used for a function to which it is not adapted, that foreign use must endamage it, and the more the farther that function is from its own sphere. So it will be found (and it is no disparagement to woman to say) that the very traits which fit her to be the angel of a virtuous home unfit her to meet the agitations of political publicity and passion will speedily deflower her delicacy and sweetness¹⁰. Those temptations, which her Maker did not form her to bear, will debauch her heart, developing a character as much more repulsive than that of the debauched man as the fall has been greater. The politicating woman, unsexed and denaturalised, shorn of the true glory of her femininity, will appear to men as a feeble hybrid mannikin with all the defcts and none of the strength of the man. Instead of being the dear object of his chivalrous affection, she becomes his importunate rival, despised without being feared.

This suggests a third consequence, which some of the advocates of the movement even already are bold enough to foreshadow. “Women's Rights” mean the abolition of all permanent marriage ties. We are told that Mrs. Cady Stanton avowed this result, proclaming it at the invitation of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York. She holds that woman's bondage is not truly dissolved until the marriage bond is annulled. She is thoroughly consistent. Some hoodwinked advocates of her revolution may be blind to the sequence; but it is inevitable. It must follow by this cause, if for no other, that the unsexed politicating woman can never inspire in man the true affection on which marriage should be founded. Men will doutless be still sensual' but it is simply impossible that they can desire them for the pure and sacred sphere of the wife. Let every woman ask herself: will she choose for the lord of her affections an unsexed effeminate man? No more can man be drawn to the masculine woman. The mutual attraction of the two complementary halves is gone forever. The abolition of marriage would follow again by another cause. The divergent interests and the rival independence of the two equal wills would be irreconcilable with domestic government, or union, or peace. Shall the children of this monstrous no-union be held responsible to two variant coördinate and supreme wills at once? Heaven pity the children! Shall the two parties to this perpetual co-partnership have neither the power to secure the performance of the mutual duties nor to dissolve it? It is a self-contradiction, an impossible absurdity. Such a co-partnership of equals with independent interests must be separable at will, as all other such co-partnerships are. The only relation between the sexes which will remain will be cohabitation continuing so long as the convenience or caprice of both parties may suggest; and this, with most, will amount to a vagrant concubinage.

But now, what will be the character of children reared under such a domestic organisation as this? If human experience has established anything at all, it is the truth of the principle announced by the Hebrew prophet when he declared that the great aim of God in ordaining a permanent marriage tie between one man and one woman was “that He might seek a godly seed.” God's ordinance, the only effective human ordinance, for checking and curbing the first tendencies to evil, as domestic, parental government. When the family shall no longer have a head, and the great foundation for the subordination in children in the mother's example is gone; when the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone,--it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sons will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands of such a bastard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without God, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.

Last: it would not be hard to show, did space permit, that this movement on the part of these women is as suicidal as it is mischievous. Its certain result will be the re-enslavement of women, not under the Scriptural bonds of marriage, but under the yoke of literal corporeal force. The woman who will calmly review the condition of her sex in other ages and countries will feel that her wisdom is to “let well enough alone.” Physically, the female is the “weaker vessel.” This world is a hard and selfish scene where the weaker goes to the wall. Under all other civilisations and all other religions than ours woman has experienced this fate to the full; her condition has been that of a slave to the male--sometimes a petted slave, but yet a slave. In Christian and European society alone has she ever attained the place of man's social equal, and received the homage and honor due from magnanimity to her sex and her feebleness. And her enviable lot among us has resulted from two causes: the Christian religion and the legislation founded upon it by feudal chivalry. How insane then is it for her to spurn these her two bulwarks of defence, to defy and repudiate the divine authority of that Bible which has been her redemption, and to revolutionise the whole spirit of the English common law touching woman's sphere and rights? She is thus spurning the only protectors her sex has ever found, and provoking a contest in which she must inevitably be overwhelmed. Casting away that dependence and femininity which are her true strength, the “strong-minded woman” persists in thrusting herself into competition with man as his equal. But for contest, she is not his equal; the male is the stronger animal. As man's helper, woman is his equal, his superior, his glory. As man's rival, she is a pitiful inferior, a sorry she-mannikin. It is when she brings her wealth of afection, her self-devotion, her sympathy, her tact, her grace, her subtle intuition, her attractions, her appealing weakness, and place them in the scale with man's rugged strenth and plodding endurance, with his steady logic, his hardihood and muscle, and his exemption from the disabling infirmities of her sex, that he delights to admit her full equality and to do glad homage to her as the crown of his kind. All this vantage-ground the “Women's Rights women” madly throw away and provoke that collision for which nature itself has disqualified them. They insist upon taking precisely man's chances; well, they will meet precisely the fate of a weak man, among strong ones. A recent incident on a railroad train justly illustrates the result. A solitary female entered a car where every seat was occupied, and the conductor closed the door upon her and departed. She looked in vain for a seat, and at last appealed to an elderly man near her to know if he would not {”surrender his seat to a lady.” He, it seems, was somewhat a humorist, and answered, “I will surrender it cheerfully, Madam, as I always do, but will beg leave first to ask a civil question. Are you an advocate of the modern theory of women's rights?” Bridling up with intense energy, she replied, “yes, Sir, emphatically; I let you know that it is my glory to be devoted to that noble cause.” “Very well, Madam,” he said, “then the case is altered: you may stand up like the rest of us men, until you can get a seat for yourself.” This was exact poetic justice; and it foreshadows precisely the fate of their unnatural pretensions. Men will treat them as they treat each other; it will be “every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.” There will be of course a Semiramis or a Queen Bess here and there who will hold her own; but the general rule will be that the “weaker vessels” will succumb; and the society which will emerge from this experiment will present woman in the position which she has always held among savages, that of domestic drudge to the stronger animal. Instead of being what the Bible makes her, one with her husband, queen of his home, reigning with the gentle sceptre of love over her modest, secluded domain, and in its pure and sacred retirement performing the noblest work done on this earth, that of moulding infant minds to honor and piety, she will reäppear from this ill-starred competition defeated, and despised, tolerated only to satiate the passion, to amuse the idleness, to do the drudgery, and to receive the curses and blows of her barbarized masters.

Thus will be consummated that destiny to which so many gloomy prognostics point as the allotment of the North American continent to the accursed field for the final illustration of the harvest of perdition, grown from the seeding of the dragon's teeth of infidel Radicalism. God gave the people of this land great and magnificent blessings, and opportunities and responsibilities. They might and should have made it the glory of all lands. But they have betrayed their trust: they have abused every gift: above all they have insulted Him by flaunting in His face an impudent, atheistic, God-defying theory of pretend human rights and human perfectibility which attempts to deny man's subordination, his dependence, his fall and native depravity, his need of divine grace. It invites mankind to adopt material civilisation and sensual advantage as their divinity. It assumes to be able to perfect man's condition by its political, literary, and mechanical skill, despising the Gospel of Christ, which is man's only adequate remedy. It crowns its impiety by laying its defiling hnds upon the very forms of that Christinaity, while with the mock affection of a Judas, it attempts to make it a captive to the sordid ends of Mammon and sense. Must not God be avenged on such a nation as this? His vengance will be to give them the fruit of their own hands, and let them be filled with their own devices. he will set apart this fair land by a sort of dread consecration to the purpose of giving a lesson concerning this godless philosophy, so impressive as to instruct and warn all future generations. As the dull and pestilential waves of the Dead Sea have been to every subsequent age the memento of the sin of Sodom, so dreary tides of anarchy and barbarism which will overwhelm the boastful devices of infidel democracy will be the caution of all future legislation. And thus “women's rights” will assist America “to fulfil her great mission,” that of being the “scarecrow” of the nations¹¹.

¹Doesn't this look like the 1871 version of a charge of “postmodernism?” Apparently dismissing one's opponent's views like this is a time-honored tradition.
²I think this statement is particularly telling, both of the view of many southern conservatives in the 19th century, and many religious conservatives in the 20th and 21st centuries. It shows what they mean by “leave it to the states to decide.” In essence, they mean, “Leave it to the states to decide, so long as they decide in the way that I think they should.” In fact, you can still see this attitude towards women's rights today, particularly on the issue of abortion.
³This is but the first of Dabney's comparisons of abolitionism and women's rights, both of which he thinks are evil. Later, he blames the latter's increasing popularity on the former.
⁴This is a particularly interesting version of Originalism isn't it?
⁵Man, losing that war sucks!
⁶Notice the setting up of the straw man still commonly used today, that “Women's Rights,” or feminism, essentially stands on the premise (or premiss) that there are absolutely no differences between men and women.
⁷Ah, the slippery slope! That favorite fallacy of the cultural conservative for many centuries past, and many centuries to come.
⁸It's all about sex.
⁹This is just one instance of the deplorable, and still common argument that the limiting of women's rights (e.g., in the form of reproductive rights, today) is done in their best interests, because we men know what's best for them.
¹⁰I.e., if women can think for themselves, they'll be no fun for us men anymore. A common sentiment today, though it's rarely put so succinctly in contemporary discourse.
¹¹This paragraph could easily have been written today, perhaps by someone like Pat Robertson, and the blaming social and political progression on atheists and secularists is a hobby of many social conservatives.

Koufax

So I discovered a little while ago that Mixing Memory has been nominated for a Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog. I'm pretty sure I have Coturnix to thank for that, so thank you. Anyway, despite my huge ego, I don't feel like I could compete with, well, any of those other blogs. I know I, for one, will be voting for RealClimate, because those guys are seriously smart, and their posts are always informative. It's nice to know that someone (i.e. Coturnix) has a high opinion of this blog, though, and it's nice to be mentioned along with some of those other blogs.

What Framing Analysis Is

I've reached a point at which I cringe every time I see the words "framing" or "Lakoff" in the blogosphere or mainstream media, and when I see them together, I damn near have a seizure. Two things are clear to me now:

1. Most people don't really feel the need to actually read something about frame analysis, even if it's only Lakoff, before they develop opinions about its worth.
2. Lakoff himself hasn't done a very good job of explaining what frame analysis is, because even the people who do appear to have read him usually don't get it.
   

Three cases in point: The comments to this post by Amanda at Pandagon (I think Amanda actually has a pretty good grasp on the basics of framing, but many of her commenters do not), the comments to this post at Pharyngula, and this monstrosity (developments in GEM are widely followed by scienitists? huh? find me 20 scientists who even know what the hell that is!).

Several misconceptions reappear, again and again. For example, "Lakoff is a postmodernist." If we put aside for a moment the fact that I haven't the slightest idea what that means, I can't imagine that if we compared Lakoff to many of the thinkers who are labeled "postmodernists" in more serious circles, we'd find a whole hell of a lot in common. I mean, sure, Lakoff readily admits to being a "relativist," but the sort of relativism he's talking about is probably not all that common among analytic philosophers, and I know it's not uncommon among cognitive scientists, and I don't think we can count many in either of those crowds as members of "postmodernist" schools of thought. The "relativism" of Lakoff, and many other cognitive scientists, simply says that our background knowledge influences our understanding and interpretation of facts and language. And that, in a nutshell, is what frame analysis is about.

Another common misconception is that framing is just a marketing tool. To be fair, I don't think that Lakoff has done a particularly good job of dispelling that notion, as when he talks about who should be the spokesperson for evolutionary science. And it's certainly true that framing is often used for marketing purposes, both in advertising and in political rhetoric. But that's not all it is. Frame analysis is a tool for interpreting discourse, and a tool for more effective communication. The goal of framing doesn't have to be convincing, it can simply be understanding.

A related misconception is that the purpose of framing is to manipulate or trick people into taking your side. Again, it can be used for that purpose, but I've never gotten the impression that Lakoff is advocating that type of use, and that's certainly not what frame analysis is about.

So, since my frustration has peaked, I thought I'd attempt to provide a very brief explanation of frame analysis, with the hope that it will clear up those misconceptions and others. This is all ground I've covered before, but what the hell? I'll cover it again.

First, what is a frame? Frames are essentially schemas in the head, or words and phrases used to elicit schemas in the head (follow the last link for more technical definitions). When referring to frames that are in people's heads, we're talking about knowledge structures in long-term memory that are used to interpret incoming information, and to reason. An example of a mental frame might be the FANCY RESTAURANT frame. You have specific knowledge of the order of events to expect in a fancy restaurant (the order of the courses, when the check comes, and even how often the server should check up on you), how to behave in a fancy restaurant (you don't eat with your hands, for example), and so on. When you're actually in a fancy restaurant, the frame serves to highlight certain information and create expectations (which is why you get pissed off if the server leaves your drink near empty or watered down for too long), while it causes you to ignore other information (like, say, the color of the plates, unless you're just really into plates). Frames in language are designed to take advantage of those representations or change them, by highlighting certain parts of them or additional facts or associations, and perhaps ignoring others.

So frame analysis will consist of three stages (maybe only two, if you're a linguist... sorry, I couldn't resist that little jab):

1.) Discovering the mental frames that people already have. If you don't do this, you won't know what information you should highlight or add, or what information you should de-emphasize.

2.) Developing an understanding of what it is you want to communicate. What do you want to make more salient in people's mental frames, and what do you want to add to their knowledge?

3.) Framing your speech and writing in such a way that it accomplishes the goals from 2) given 1).

That's it, really. You're just developing an understanding of how people are representing something, deciding what you want to communicate, and choosing your wording based on the combination of those two things. There's nothing inherently postmodern or manipulative (I think that some people mean "manipulative" when they say "postmodern") about any of that, and the potential uses of it extend well beyond simple marketing. In fact, it's a good idea to do those three things anytime you want to communicate effectively. Of course, in practice, all three of those things can be very difficult, particularly when your audience is diverse and/or your message is complicated. And it's important that you go into the process with a good understanding of how people represent information in general, and how they reason. And that's a large part of Lakoff's point, even if he really has no clue how people actually represent information or reason. But at least he's trying.

Happy Darwin Day, Sort Of

So now we're celebrating Darwin's birthday as Dawrin Day, partly because his ideas have been so important, and partly to help us to educate people about evolution (though holding it on a Sunday probably doesn't serve to facilitate that purpose), but mostly, I think, to stick it to creationists (and holding it on Sunday definitely facilitates that purpose). And believe me, I'm all for sticking it to the creationists. I can even show you where on creationists I want to stick it, if you'd like.

Just ask me where on this diagram of a creationist I would like to stick it.

But is calling it Darwin Day really the ideal way to stick it to them, or to faciliate evolution education? I mean, haven't biologists and others who are pro-science and know anything whatsoever about contemporary biology been trying to shed the silly label "Darwinists?" Because let's face it, modern biologists aren't really Darwinists, in the same sense that modern physicists aren't Keplerians. Biology has actually produced some advancements in the last 150 years. Wouldn't it be better to call it something like Evolution Day, then? That way, we don't look like we're Darwinists worshipping at the alter of Darwin. We could still hold it on Darwin's birthday, or maybe the closest weekday (the Friday before or the Monday after, giving science teachers a chance to reiterate the importance of evolution to their students). But the name itself would help to convey the fact that we're not celebrating a 150 year old theory, because we're celebrating a very contemporary theory; one that continues to, for lack of a better word, evolve, just as any good scientific theory does.

So Happy Evolution Day,everyone, and may you have many more.