KEY POINTS:
The grass is always greener
It is appropriate that green should play the leading role in this proverb about jealousy since this colour has long been associated with envy, "the green-eyed monster" (Othello, Act III, Scene 3).
As far as the way we perceive things is concerned, the proverb is unequivocally true. According to psychologist James Pomerantz, the illusion that the more distant grass is greener is optical. When you look at the grass under your feet, you view it at an angle that is more or less perpendicular to the ground below. This "de-saturates" the green, making it less intense. Meanwhile, the more acute the angle at which you view your neighbour's lawn, the less of the brown ground you can see. Green therefore dominates your perception and your neighbour's lawn does indeed appear greener than yours.
But proverbs aren't meant to be taken literally. This proverb makes a strong statement that signals dissatisfaction, envy and jealousy - and thereby acts as a universal warning against these emotions, which can be potentially harmful.
We are rarely happy with what we have. Psychologists describe a "greener grass" phenomenon whereby individuals constantly evaluate better alternatives for themselves and as a result are never satisfied with what they have. Like Pomerantz in his study of optics, they may realise that the vision they had been focusing on is not, in reality, true to life. We are often our own sternest critics and may judge too harshly all that we are and all that we have. From our distant perspective, everything in someone else's garden is lovely and we cannot see the dusty soil of our neighbours' problems.
Envy, however, can also be a source of motivation to try to achieve what our neighbour has achieved - and this could be something admirable, such as the ability to help and care for others, or the capacity for hard work. Freud, writing to Einstein, stated that "envy need not be something ugly. Envy can include admiration and is reconcilable with the friendliest feeling for the person envied." We envy most what we ourselves lack, so it helps us to identify our needs.
Sometimes the grass is greenest right under your feet. If it looks a bit jaded, get some fertiliser and work on it. While we are constantly on the lookout for something better, we often miss the value of who and where we are now. Comfort yourself with the thought that at least the grass you're standing on probably needs less mowing than the lush field on the other side of the fence.
Elephants never forget
All of us would like to have a better memory, but would it really be advantageous to have a memory like an elephant? And does an elephant really have a good memory?
Elephants certainly have large brains, which may increase their memory capacity and aid their complex patterns of communication. It is not easy to measure with precision the memory span of an elephant; many working elephants can learn and remember a large number of commands. They also appear to recognise many humans, as well as individuals of their own species - even when separated from them for decades.
In the wild, herds of elephants tend to follow similar paths over the years, suggesting that memories are passed down through the generations. It is said that elephant herds have specific burial places and that they help their sick and infirm to return there to die. Some elephants have better memories than others. In 2001, a research team studied 21 elephant families over a seven-year period in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. They found that the matriarchs leading the herds develop strong "social" memories that enable them to distinguish friends from foes by smell and by contact calls; the older the matriarch, the better her skills. The research confirmed that the better a matriarch is at recognising friends, the more time other family members have to feed and breed in safety. One animal whose memory might rival that of the elephant is the Clark's nutcracker bird of the high mountain regions of the American West, which hoards food for the winter. In the autumn, each bird stashes up to 100,000 pine seeds in thousands of different caches, with only five to 10 seeds in each to minimise squirrel theft. The hiding places are dotted around an area of 20sq km. Some six months later, the bird finds all these stockpiles, even if the sites are a metre deep in snow.
The term "birdbrain", implying limited intelligence, may not be such an insult after all. If your memory continues to let you down, rest assured that forgetting is an essential part of life; those who can't forget may suffer from as many problems as those who can't remember. Unfortunately, though, you may not remember that.
It's not what you know but who you know
The word nepotism comes from the Latin nepos, meaning "nephew". It's thought it was first used in the Middle Ages when Catholic popes had illegitimate sons whom they called "nephews" and to whom they granted special privileges.
Some researchers suggest that nepotism is instinctive and a form of kin selection that is seen elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Even worker ants, often held up as paragons of socialism, have been shown to favour their own kin when rearing young in colonies that have several queens.
However, it is not the bonds between close friends or family members that are the most important in the employment market; it is weaker ties, involving less frequent contact, that are of prime significance. That children sometimes follow the professions of their parents is not solely due to nepotism. Parents, friends and acquaintances are key agents in "socialisation", which is the process whereby individuals learn the behaviours that society expects of them. Therefore, well-connected parents may influence career choices as much as career chances.
The "old boy" network is another form of nepotism and one that is sometimes considered to exert undue influence, particularly in Britain. It usually refers to the links between people who have attended the same private school. Its equivalent in China, guanxi (meaning "network of influence"), does not necessarily refer to links through school but describes deep relationships and extremely influential connections at a personal level. Many Western companies are finding to their cost that the ability to participate in social networks is an essential requirement for doing business in China.
In 1967, the psychologist Stanley Milgram investigated the topic of social connectedness, and helped popularise the idea of "six degrees of separation". This is the idea that anyone in the world can be connected to any other person through a chain of contacts that involves no more than four intermediaries. Milgram tested this by randomly requesting 300 Americans to deliver a postcard to a named person in Massachusetts by sending it only to people they knew on a first-name basis, who they thought might know the target personally or would pass it on to someone else who did; 80 per cent of the cards were delivered in four or fewer steps. Milgram identified a "funnelling" effect, whereby certain people seemed particularly well connected and were "stars" at passing on cards. This study was repeated more recently using email forwarding, with the result that, on average, six intermediaries were required for the emails to reach their target - so inspiring the phrase "six degrees of separation".
This theory has now passed into the popular imagination, helped by a book by Duncan Watts in 2003, a play by John Guare in 1990 and a film adaptation of the play directed by Fred Schepisi in 1993, and by a trivia game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", which requires players to connect any film actor to Kevin Bacon in as few links as possible.
It's a small world and the theory shows we are all only a few steps away from each other. Next time you meet someone on holiday who hails from a place you once visited, ask them whether they know so-and-so. Don't worry if you don't know the right people yet - you're only four contacts away from knowing them all.
Like father, like son
Why is it that sons turn out like their fathers and daughters like their mothers, since a complementary proverb exists for them? According to social learning theory, it is because they learn through imitation and observation. Sons copy their fathers' behaviour and receive "reinforcers" if they are successful. Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura showed that children are far more likely to copy behaviour that is seen as appropriate for their gender: boys receive reinforcers when they show independence, self-reliance and emotional control; girls are reinforced for dependence, nurturing and emotional expression.
A study compared fathers' and sons' earnings when they were both aged 40 and discovered a strong positive relationship between the two. This was particularly true for very high and very low wage earners and it was most marked in the United States. Incidentally, although some Americans pride themselves as living in an open "meritocracy", family influence remains strong in the United States, and there have already been two pairs of father-and-son presidents (John and John Quincy Adams and George and George W. Bush). So desperate were these fathers for their sons to be like them that they even gave them the same first names.
Do sons turn out like their fathers in terms of their sexuality? What happens when a son is brought up in the absence of a father? Researchers in Belgium compared children who had been brought up by heterosexual couples with those brought up by lesbian couples. No differences were found between the two groups with regard to the psychological wellbeing or sexuality of the child. Research suggests that love and stability are the key factors in a child's upbringing, not gender or sexuality.
So in what ways do sons resemble their fathers? Generally, research has shown that the closer the genetic relationship between two people, the stronger the relationship between their intelligence quotient (IQ) scores. To what extent may this be the case with fathers and sons? This question is tricky to answer, since people who are genetically related also tend to share similar environments and thus the two influences are difficult to disentangle. One way of investigating the question is to focus on adopted children. Where a correlation of 1.0 would indicate that all fathers and sons have identical IQ scores, a researcher found an average correlation of 0.48 between adopted children and their biological parents and 0.19 between adopted children and their adoptive parents. This suggests that children's intelligence levels are more closely related to their biological parents.
Too many studies have confirmed the "like father, like son" finding with regard to criminality for it to be ignored. However, the results do not suggest that a father's wayward behaviour inevitably determines his son's future behaviour; many boys brought up in the most depressing parental circumstances do not become like their fathers. It is likely that other environmental factors play a significant part - for example, family size, socio-economic status and family income.
The influence of parents compared to that of peers is believed to be stronger than we might assume. In a study of university students, their drinking behaviour over the first two years was most dependent on parental influence, and peer influence became more important thereafter.
Given the results of all this research, it seems important that you choose your parents carefully. Select a father who is healthy, wealthy and wise, and it's likely that you will end up much the same.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
These days, many relationships have to endure separation: employers often expect their staff to travel long distances. Separation can be a worry, however, since long-distance relationships are notoriously difficult to maintain. Can we take comfort from the proverb "absence makes the heart grow fonder", or is it more a case of "out of sight, out of mind"?
The outlook appears to be mixed. Absence can make the heart grow fonder if the separation is short and the relationship strong and deep. "Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fires", wrote Francois de La Rochefoucauld in the 17th century. So before you agree on time away from your partner, decide whether your relationship is a candle or a fire.
Don't risk extinguishing it by living apart for an extended period of time. Instead of absence making the heart grow fonder, you may risk it going yonder.
Research has shown that communication by phone, email and video conferencing is less effective than face-to-face communication; visual contact is vital and misunderstandings may arise without it. However, if weekday communication in your relationship consists of a nightly 10-minute phone call, it's not all bad news. Couples who experience separation are more likely to discuss their relationship and their plans for the future than couples who spend all their time together. Long-distance communication also enables partners to present themselves to one another in the best possible light. This "idealisation" of your partner isn't so easy when you see them daily, sprawled untidily on the sofa.
The proverb is certainly true for men with regard to interest in sex. In 1999, a study of 2000 heterosexual men found that the longer a man's absence from his partner, the keener his sexual desire for her. This was the case whether or not the couple had sex when last they were together, indicating that a man's increased desire does not arise from sexual frustration but is a genuine product of the length of the separation.
Absence may also make the heart grow fonder for long-lost loves. Passionate relationships that began at or around the age of 17 can, when rekindled many years later, be undiminished by the length of the separation. In fact, first love may be a time bomb waiting to explode. Research involving 2000 long-lost and reunited loves found a 72 per cent "stay together" rate. Only 1.5 per cent of the resulting marriages failed.
First loves are often disapproved of by parents and/or peers and these threats to the relationship can increase the feelings of longing. Passionate love generates dopamine-producing neurons that persist and motivate people to seek out the object of their first love and it is now very easy to locate him or her simply by typing a name into Google. However, resurrecting the past in this way may be a dangerous game: the flames, once rekindled, may be difficult to extinguish.
First impressions count
Everyone knows the importance of making a good first impression - and the success of speed dating, where you chat to a prospective partner for three minutes before moving on to the next, is based on the assumption that this proverb is true. Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2006 book, Blink, writes about "rapid thinking" that occurs in the blink of an eye. He suggests that first impressions formed in the first two seconds of an encounter are incredibly powerful and accurate and recommends that we pay more attention to our first impressions.
These result from the evaluation of numerous clues. Factors that are thought to contribute to a good first impression include maintaining eye contact, smiling, showing appreciation of others, adopting appropriate levels of self-disclosure and maintaining fluency in conversation. A negative tone of voice, an unpleasant odour, untidy hair, weak handshake, stooped demeanour and creased clothes all contribute to an unfavourable overall impression that is far larger than the sum of its parts.
In 1968, a researcher called Jones asked volunteers to watch a student take a 30-question test. Half the observers saw the student get the first 15 questions right and the remainder wrong; the other half saw the student get the first 15 questions wrong and the remainder right. When asked to estimate how many questions the student answered correctly, those who saw him answer the first 15 questions correctly (favourable first impression) estimated that he had answered 20 of the 30 questions correctly; those who saw the student answer the last 15 questions correctly estimated that he had scored 12 out of 30. The initial impression that the student was clever had the greater impact.
Some psychologists believe that it's neither first nor last impressions but "weighted averaging" that counts: we assimilate all the information we have about a person, and then produce an average. Negative information is given slightly more weight than positive information, and a negative first impression is slightly more difficult to change than a positive one.
As you weigh up all this research evidence, it's worth remembering three points. First, you need to remember that many factors play a part in the relative accuracy of a first impression. For example, those who are in a good mood when the encounter takes place are more likely to be accurate than those who are not.
Second, all the studies mentioned above used group averages. Groups appear to be accurate at judging first appearances but of course that doesn't mean that all individuals are equally good.
Also, research has shown that people from similar cultures tend to interpret non-verbal cues more successfully than people from very different cultures.
Most of the evidence supports the maxim that first impressions count. The somewhat terrifying exception that proves the rule is the infamous US serial killer Ted Bundy who, it was claimed, made a favourable first impression on all his victims. So at your next speed dating session, trust to your first impressions - but don't forget Ted Bundy.
- INDEPENDENT
