WS on Hot States and Cold States (V)

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, 
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition my violent love 
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan, 
His silver skin laced with his golden blood; 
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature  
For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,  
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers 
Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain, 
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make's love known?

(Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3, lines 896-906)

See also:

WS on Hot States and Cold States (I)

WS on Hot States and Cold States (II)

WS on Hot States and Cold States (III)

WS on Hot States and Cold States (IV)

Shakespeare on Fighting Visceral Factors With Visceral Factors

O Helicanus, strike me, honour'd sir;

Give me a gash, put me to present pain;

Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me

O'erbear the shores of my mortality,

And drown me with their sweetness.

(Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 2406-2410)

Shakespeare on Visceral Factors and Their Underestimation

For every man with his affects is born,

Not by might master'd but by special grace

(Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 1, Scene 1, lines 155-156)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

'tis all men's office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow,

But no man's virtue nor sufficiency

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself.

(Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 2095-2099)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently

(Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 1, Lines 2103-2104)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as

well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why

they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so

ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

(As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 1476-1479)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I may be negligent, foolish and fearful; 
In every one of these no man is free, 
But that his negligence, his folly, fear, 
Among the infinite doings of the world, 
Sometime puts forth.

(The Winter's Tale, Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 351-355)

Shakespeare on Women Who Suspect that it is in their Long-Term Interest to Play Coy, But…

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,

Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek

For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night

Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny

What I have spoke: but farewell compliment!

(Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 934-938)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At mine unworthiness that dare not offer

What I desire to give, and much less take

What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;

And all the more it seeks to hide itself,

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!

I am your wife, if you will marry me;

(The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 1370-1376)

Shakespeare on Cue Management

I am fain to dine and sup with water and bran; I dare not for

my head fill my belly; one fruitful meal would set me to 't.

(Fornication is a capital crime. The speaker is saying that he must avoid eating a good meal, as that might put him in a hot state, where he will become lustful, leading, perhaps, to his execution; Measure For Measure, Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 2281-2284)

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See also WS on Hot States and Cold States (IV)

Alemanno (2015) on “Nudging Healthier Lifestyles”

Alberto Alemanno, “Nudging Healthier Lifestyles: Informing the Non-communicable Diseases Agenda with Behavioural Insights.” Chapter 14 in A. Alemanno and A. Garde, eds., Regulating Lifestyle Risks: The EU, Alcohol, Tobacco and Unhealthy Diets, Cambridge University Press, 2015.

• The European section of the World Health Organization has begun an initiative to combat “lifestyle” non-communicable diseases: those associated with tobacco, alcohol, and goods high in salt, sugar, and fat. 

• Regulations that commonly are applied to lifestyle goods include mandatory information disclosure; marketing limitations; taxes and other devices to reduce availability. 

• Behavioral economics-style nudges fit well with lifestyle issues. They tend to be low cost and preserve individual choice. Lifestyle nudges might include disclosure rules; default settings; and, simplification. For instance, the extremely graphic photos required on cigarette packs, and nutrition fact panels, are nudges of a sort. 

• The European Union (oddly) is requiring that cigarette packs not disclose tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide content. The rationale is that such information might lead smokers to think that some cigarettes are less harmful than others. (There is some evidence that consumers smoke low tar and nicotine cigarettes more intensely, undoing any relative health benefits.) 

• Thaler and Sunstein’s “publicity principle” (borrowed from John Rawls, building on Kant) is that governmental nudges must be supportable if everyone is informed about them. If people will be upset if they were misled, even if the misleading resulted in better choices for them, then the misleading is wrong. 

• Much of the evidence for nudges comes from the laboratory, and might not work in the real world. Or, a nudge might work at first, but then become less effective over time. Notice that marketing experts think that nudges work, however.

Sayette et al. (2008), “Exploring the Cold-to-Hot Empathy Gap in Smokers.”

Michael A. Sayette, George Loewenstein, Kasey M. Griffin, and Jessica J. Black, “Exploring the Cold-to-Hot Empathy Gap in Smokers.” Psychological Science 19: 926-932, 2008.

• The cold-to-hot empathy gap is the notion that people (when in the cold state) underestimate the extent to which visceral factors will impact their future decisions (made in the hot state). 

• The experimental set-up: smokers know that at the next gathering they will be in a craving state. They are asked to precommit to a willingness to pay (wtp) to accept craving (in the form of delayed access to a smoke). Some participants are asked for this wtp when they are craving, and others are asked when they aren’t. 

• In session 2, now with everyone in the hot state (craving), they are given a chance to revise their wtp. 

• Results: people in the cold state in the first session revise upward their wtp in the second session: they seem to suffer from a cold-to-hot empathy gap. The cold group also seems to underpredict the depth of their future cravings.

Bernheim and Rangel (2004) on Cues and Addiction

B. Douglas Bernheim and Antonio Rangel, “Addiction and Cue-Triggered Decision Processes [pdf].” American Economic Review 94(5): 1558–1590, 2004.

• Three premises: (1) use among addicts is frequently a mistake; (2) experience sensitizes users to environmental cues that trigger mistaken usage; (3) addicts understand their susceptibility to cue-triggered mistakes. 

• Addictive substances interfere with how the brain forecasts near-term hedonic rewards, leading to the cue-conditioned problems. 

• Upon exposure to cues, you might enter a “hot” mode, in which you consume the substance irrespective of preferences. Sensitivity to cues depends on past consumption. “Wanting” a drug is not the same as “liking” the drug; see Robinson and Berridge (1993, 2001).

• Some patterns of addictive behavior that the model is consistent with: (1) unsuccessful attempts to quit and recidivism even though the short-term, painful withdrawal costs have already been incurred; (2) cue-triggered recidivism; (3) self-described mistakes, even in the act of consuming; (4) precommitment strategies; and (5) the use of behavioral and cognitive therapy. 

• The model involves a consumer who enters each period in a cold state, but who can choose among different lifestyles for that period; each lifestyle has a different prospect of presenting cues, and hence of being forced to mistakenly consume the drug.

Loewenstein (1996) is “Out of Control”

George Loewenstein, “Out of Control: Visceral Influences on Behavior [pdf].” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65: 272-292, March 1996.

• People can make choices that are mistaken, and make them in full knowledge, at the time of choosing, that they are making a mistake. This disjunction between perceived self-interest and behavior is caused by intense visceral factors such as cravings, “drive states” (hunger, thirst, sexual desire), moods and emotions, and pain. 

• While rational choices require that visceral states be taken into account, many types of self-destructive behavior seem to involve an excessive influence of visceral factors on choices. Indeed, some intense visceral factors seem to preclude “decision making” – no one chooses to fall asleep while driving. 

• Sales people, con men, cults: all take advantage of visceral factors. They tend to apply pressure for immediate action – visceral factors fade over time. 

• People under the sway of intense visceral factors tend to narrow their focus. Addicted people narrow their focus to the addictive good; people become more self-centered. 

• Loewenstein’s seven propositions amount to: “visceral factors operating on us in the here and now have a disproportionate impact on our behavior [p. 276].” Alternatively, the same factors, past or future, or experienced by someone else, are underweighted, despite substantial experience with visceral factors.

• Quasi-hyperbolic or other non-exponential discounting approaches have two significant limitations: (1) people seem to have such preferences only with respect to certain kinds of choices; and, (2) time delay is not the only feature of a choice situation that seems to involve impulsivity. Physical proximity and sensory contact, for instance – the smell of cookies! – also play a role. 

• Almost any cue associated with a reward can produce an appetitive response – especially a priming dose. 

• Vividness (such as terrorist attacks) affects decisions. Does vividness alter subjective probabilities, or does it intensify the emotions associated with thinking about the outcome? 

• Though visceral states have an undue influence on behavior, people are not fully sophisticated about the extent to which their own future (or past!) behavior will respond to visceral forces. A recovering alcoholic might underestimate how difficult abstaining will be if he goes to the office Christmas party. 

• Rational addiction is wrong because it doesn’t fit the facts – e.g., addicts should buy in bulk to save money on their long term habit; further, the “rapid downward hedonic spiral” is “difficult to understand” as a rational choice. So why do people become addicted? In part, because they underestimate the influence of craving and withdrawal on their future behavior. They wrongly believe they will be able to quit. 

• People blame themselves for a lack of past effort because they discount the effect of fatigue. 

• The visceral model suggests a multiple-selves interpretation. The farsighted self is the one relatively immune from visceral factors, and is much more consistent over time than the selves who are influenced by fluctuating visceral factors.