Applied Life Science

Most of us know the term "life science" to mean "the study of living things", biology, botany, and so on.

But what might we mean by Applied Life Science?

Let's consider another likely situation you might find yourself in. Let's say you DID call that person and you DID go out with her, and she DID have a good time, and so did you. Now you glimpse a possible future, and it looks pretty appealing. In the flash of a neuron, you see warm nights, long talks, shared joys and sorrows, maybe a walk down the aisle, a couple of kids.....whoa, wait a sec. Let's back up to the Here and Now for a bit.

You have a couple of choices here, whether you realize it or not.

You could take the more common path, the one many of us take without thinking, without realizing we have a choice, and fall heads over heels in love. Sounds great, right? While you practice walking with your head in the clouds, I'd like to talk a bit about some of what's going on in there, in your head.

You might think you fall in love with your heart, but that organ contributes little more to the process than to pump blood around to keep the brain humming. And hum it does when you are in the throes of a new relationship: hormones like oxytocin and vasopressin are bathing your memory banks with *significance*, new synapses are reaching out and building connections, areas of the brain that don't usually work together start making associations between your new lover and your "feels good" circuit.

The more time you spend together, the stronger these new brain connections get. You even put a little extra oomph into the process, usually without even noticing. Picture your lady love in your mind. She's a beauty, right? And she's smart, and cute, and she seems to like all the things you like. You might even go so far as to say she's "perfect", for you at least, right?

What do you notice about these thoughts, now that I've asked you to look? What *I* see, or rather, what I *don't* see, is anything negative. Well, sure, you say, she's perfect, why would I want to say anything negative? Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting you trash her, or your growing relationship. But if you stop to think about it--maybe step outside yourself for a moment and look at you, and her, from a little distance--can we really call anybody "perfect"? Did she hesitate for a second before declaring that she loves Death Cab for Cutie? Did she really reach out with her fork and take food off *your* plate, without even asking? Do you really like that vegan restaurant she drags you to, or have you just convinced yourself that the food's edible?

Do I mention these negative aspects of the relationship because I think they indicate that there's no hope for you? Not at all! It's okay and normal and inevitable that you won't actually find a truly *perfect* match, because no two people feel exactly the same about everything and have the same mix of tastes and interests. Indeed, some more poetic types think that the differences between lovers keeps the heat turned up--and I DON'T mean the fighting type heat, either...;-)

So, since we have no reason to think that anyone or any situation is perfect, really, it seems likely that you *do* have differences. Not important, you say. Love conquers all, you say. Maybe. But you can help love stay on the winning side simply by keeping your eyes open and your toes, if not your feet, on the ground.

Here's where the scientist makes a few hypotheses--that is, thinks about how things work--and tries to prediction about what he will discover when it looks into something. The more *accurately* you think about something, the better your predictions will be. So how do you make predictions about this new relationship?

You could take the head-on approach and look for evidence of places where you and she might not line-up on the same side. It will take a bit of determination to see these, with all the bonding stuff going on. Here are some suggestions for ways to brush the fog aside and clear up your vision just a bit, right out of the scientist's playbook:

1. Most direct: ask. Ask what she thinks about having kids, and make the questions specific. When and how many top the list of questions, followed by questions about things like schooling, religion, discipline and so on. These questions will help reveal now whether these very critical issues will bring you together or drive you apart. Better to get an idea about them now, before you have an actual kid to make decisions about.

Besides kids, ask about religion, politics, money, career, lifestyle, habits...in short, all those things they warn you not to talk about when dating. They warn you not to talk about them because people have strong opinions about at least some of these issues, and strong opinions don't always go well with romance. But not knowing how your lover thinks and feels about the fundamental aspects of living can lead to shocks later in life, after you've already made commitments and invested time. One of the most common complaints in divorces is "he's changed" or "she showed me a whole new side that wasn't there before" or "we aren't compatible anymore". Usually, what has really changed wasn't the other person, but our *perception* of them. Without the glow of budding romance clouding our vision, we start to realize that those little imperfections that seemed so inconsequential suddenly have uncomfortable, unacceptable consequences.

2. Observe. A scientist tries hard to see what "really" happens, without letting what they *want* to happen or what they *think* will happen get in the way. This takes practice, but you can learn a lot by observing yourself.

For example, when you spend time with your new love, what happens, before, during, after you are together? Do you worry? Do you share? Do you talk about your day and listen to her talk about hers? Do you change your habits of thinking and acting when she's around? Is that hard, or do you see it as a welcome change?

Ask the same questions about her--either directly, by asking her, or by observing her and noting her behavior with you. If you notice that she avoids a subject, passes off an incident you think differently about, seems uncomfortable in a situation, ask why.

You may learn something you don't want to know--that you don't share some important opinions, or that she doesn't value something to the same extent you do. But when a scientist observes something that contradicts his prediction, he doesn't wish it away. He accounts for it. You don't want to drive across a bridge built by somebody who just hopes he used the right kind of steel. In the same way, you don't want to head into your future with somebody you just hope will stick with you in the hard times. You need to have enough information to believe in your predictions for the future.

And you do that by applying science to life.

What Do You Mean?

When we say "Cognitive Accuracy", what do we mean?

Simply put, it refers to the relative difference between what we *suppose* will happen and what we actually observe. The smaller that difference, the more accurately we have evaluated events, and the less likely events will result in unexpected shocks.

For example, say it's Friday night and you don't have a date. You consider your possibilities. You could call the woman you went out with last week. Ask yourself: will she say yes? How do you decide whether to call or not?

Well, you could review your best features and skills and tell yourself that any woman would be lucky to spend time with you. You could recall the events of your last date with her--did she seem to enjoy herself? Did you? Did you part warmly?

Now, repeat that last set of questions and ask yourself whether you have *recalled* what happened accurately, or whether you have perhaps focused on favorable details and overlooked or "forgot" the negative moments. If you perhaps maybe did a bit of the latter, you are in good company, like, the whole human race.

Our brains have evolved to meet certain needs for survival--we base most of our decisions on two simple criteria--feels good, feels bad. To a large extent, our cultural upbringing largely defines for us which things we define as "good" and "bad", but we still have a basic bias towards things and actions that "feel good" and away from things and actions that "feel bad".

So what does this have to do with your dating decisions? Glad you asked.

You most probably grew up with certain cultural biases that deem mistakes as "bad". This can play out at least two ways. On one hand, when you recall last week's date, you might *automatically* overlook the things you might feel uncertain about, that you think might have been "mistakes"--did you laugh at the wrong moment, did you take her to the wrong restaurant, did you make the wrong move when you dropped her off? When you overlook these possible goofs, you feel a lot better about how the date went, right? This approach allows you to feel better about yourself despite your mistakes--in fact, you will tend to believe that you didn't really make any mistakes. If you discount your mistakes, or minimize them, you reduce the "feels bad" effect, which your brain *automatically* wants to do. However, you haven't really given yourself an accurate picture of what happened, have you?

On the other hand, when you recall last week's date, you might *automatically* overlook the things you might feel good about--sure you took her to a nice place, but it wasn't the *best* place, and yeah, she did seem interested in what you had to say about your work, but other people have more interesting jobs. And so on. In this scenario, your bias is still against what "feels bad", but paradoxically, it's your successes that you rate as potentially "bad". Psychologists generally view this as a fear of success, usually because you worry about being able to "keep it up" or that despite your best efforts, you "always" fail in the end. If you just assume you failed, you don't have to worry about the awful potential for it. But, if you overlook what you did right with this woman, you haven't really given yourself an accurate picture of what happened, have you?

Now imagine using either of these evaluations to decide whether to call her this week. In the first case, you might discover when you call that she really didn't enjoy your company and would rather stay home alone in the dark than go out with you again. What a shock! You didn't see THAT coming! You didn't think it went all that bad. In fact, you remember it being quite a fun time. What's her problem??

In the second case, you might simply decide not to call at all. You don't see any point in calling when you know the whole night must have disappointed her. But then suppose you see her a few days later, after not calling, and she makes it very clear that she would have liked to see you again, but some other guy called in the meantime. You missed out on a potentially great Friday night because you completely misread her experience of the last date.

Either way, what you *thought* would happen never did. In fact, what did happen didn't come close. Do you give up on dating because women are OBVIOUSLY impossible to understand? I hope not!

Consider this alternative. Imagine that you review that first date and say something like this to yourself: I enjoyed my time with her. We went to a pretty fair restaurant that met my finances, but still served decent food and had a nice atmosphere. I didn't expect her to be overly impressed by it, but I do recall her saying it reminded her of a good time she had with her folks when they went to Paris. That sounds like a positive thing. I might have laughed at the wrong moment when she was talking about her major, but when I apologized, she laughed it off and said she knew it was pretty odd for a girl to be studying sports psychology. We shared a nice quick kiss at her door. I would have liked more, but she didn't seem repulsed by it. So I think I'll give her a call and just see if she's busy.

See what you did this time? You kept your evaluations closer to the facts and farther from your biases--you considered possible negative aspects, but you granted yourself a few good moves too. You improved your chances for predicting what will happen if you call her, just like scientists improve their predictions by gathering facts ahead of time.

So that's what we mean by cognitive accuracy: gathering facts and trying to keep your "feels good/feels bad" sensors out of the picture.