How predictable are humans?
According to conventional wisdom, very. Classic psychology explains human behavior with pleasure and pain; we choose the option that’s most pleasurable or the least painful. Human choices are as forecastable as the ticking of a clock.
But psychology professor Simon McCarthy-Jones thinks not. In his book Spite, he argues that there is something that supersedes a man’s instinctive pull towards pleasure and push against pain: freedom.
In Braveheart, William Wallace (played by Mel Gibson) declares to his fellow Scotsmen with full-blooded passion, “They may take our lives but they’ll never take our freedom!” He then charged headlong towards the English, determined to reclaim the freedom they had unjustly stripped from the Scots.
Braveheart is a movie, but men like William Wallace are real. Like Wallace, we sometimes choose to defy despite the pain that may follow. McCarthy-Jones calls this the Braveheart Effect.
The Braveheart Effect stems from resentment. We despise that our choices are robbed from us. We detest being forced into taking action from limited options. And so we rebel against our oppressor, even if our rebellion brings suffering or even death.
Bottom line: humans don’t simply react to pleasure or pain. We often will override our basic instincts to resist a restraining force.
The carrot or the stick approach to motivation is obsolete. To move a man to action, threaten to remove his freedom to choose.
§ Image: The Battle of Stirling Bridge. Grant, James (1873). British Battles on Land and Sea. Cassell Petter & Galpin. p. 31.
The Resolute Acceptance of Death.
My thinking becomes resolved because I accept that I am dead at some point in the future.My choices are no longer limited by the fear of Death. The “fear” of death , not death itself is the oppressor. We fear what we do not know. That is what limits our options