Mixing sails and wheels

Some of you will know that in my day job I work in the technical and measurement side of yacht racing and have done for nearly 29 years; over the years sailing has inevitably been a part of my life, which really only changed after the crash. Now that Mr H and I are involved in motorsport I have a whole new set of friends and the two areas of my life are totally separate; there is an overlap of interest between the two sports but I would never see any of my sailing friends at a hill climb, and vice versa. In conversation there are often cross-overs between the two and I'll sometimes allude to an equivalent situation in boats, levels of the sport, grand prix owners etc., but that's as far as it goes.

At one recent hill climb at Wiscombe Park, in conversation with a few of our hill climb friends about kids doing karting with pushy parents, I said something about it being the same in dinghies. Another chap on the edge of the conversation immediately picked up on this, and it transpired that he had done quite a bit of yacht racing down in Devon so we ended up talking about that a bit. After a couple of minutes it was clear that our hill climb friends were totally out of the loop, and I was thinking "Actually I really don't want to talk about boats and my work when I'm here enjoying car stuff".

The situation hadn't come up before, the closest I'd got to talking about work was a vague explanation to driving friends about what I did, mainly because the event commentary form asks for your day job! I keep changing what it says and have just about simplified it down to 'yacht racing admin' which is close enough for the purpose.

At the last event we were at, somebody mentioned boats and said that they sailed and I kept my mouth shut; Mr H commented on it later, having realised that I wanted to keep the two things completely separate he hadn't blurted out 'Oh, J works in yacht racing!'.

It's not that I don't love my job, it's just that I deal with sailors all week, day in day out, and at weekends I'd rather be discussing horse-power and the best line round the hairpin...

Different shoes

Having raided the social science section at the library, I am reading a book called "Dis/connected. Why our kids are turning their backs one everything we thought we knew" by Nick Barham .

The author travels around talking to teens and trying to find out 'what makes them tick', have a look at the reviews in the link above for more description.

One of the things that I noticed reading it was my reaction to some of the activities described in the book, such as groups of 150 souped up cars gathering in a public car park with music blaring, or large groups of teens hanging around with Death message t-shirts on, drinking Vodka RedBulls.  He talks about how some city centres have become no-go areas at night, and I'm thinking 'too bloody right, I don't want to be beaten up or vomited on thanks!'.

I realised how ingrained my middle-class-ness is by my automatic response, namely that many of the described situations would make me anxious or disapproving.  At some points I felt anger towards the author for generalisations and suggesting that kids behaviour should never be threatening, when clearly sometimes it is. Then again, is that me jumping to my own defense, because does he actually suggest that?   The book doesn't suggest everything these kids do is fine, and that we should all accept their behaviours as unproblematic, but it is trying to explain the reasoning behind it and does a good job of that.

Maybe it's not just that some of us have inbuilt prejudices caused by a) our upbringing and b) the media, though this is undoubtedly the case.  Maybe some of it is fear of people who enjoy themselves in a different way to us, who get a kick out of doing things that are illegal (or borderline legal), who make people like me seem 'boring'.

Recently I seem to keep reminding myself of that phrase about "walking a mile in another man's* shoes", I guess we should all try to do that when we start judging others on their behaviours or attitudes, it's a good start at least.  


*I refuse to change it to "person's" for the sake of political correctness!

A challenge..

We all know, or have heard at some point in our lives, the Serenity prayer or some version of it:


"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."


This evening I sat outside in the garden, thinking how incredibly calm and fulfilling life would be if we lived by that. I have read before about how a simple acceptance of things we cannot change can bring peace into uptight lives. 

But why do we find it so difficult?

There is always something to complain about - our jobs, our friends and family, the weather, 'the nights drawing in', the pile of ironing, bad drivers... I bet there are none of us immune to it.

Often when I am ranting, inwardly or outwardly about something, I realise the futility of it. And I don't often feel that much better afterwards either.

I challenge each and every one of us, next time we are about to open our mouths (or have thoughts which put more frown lines on our faces) and whine or rant about something, to remember the Serenity prayer and decide whether there is a better way of handling whatever it is winding us up...

It's elementary, my dear Watson

Learning about learning - it's a bit like being in a vortex of ever decreasing circles (or is that mixing metaphors?).

The behavourists had a nice simple idea about learning: cause and effect.    Watson (no relation to he of Sherlock Holmes fame, as far as I know), said that all the fluffy, cognitive and social psychological research was meaningless, and that one should only study things that can be counted or measured scientifically.   He was the pioneer of behavioural research, and famously created in a child called Little Albert a phobia of his white rat, by associating it with a loud noise - all in the name of psychological research.  The ethics of this are undeniably dodgy, and in a less controversial but just as well known study, Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell.   He did this by creating an association between the bell and food, so that the dog eventually came to expect food when the bell was rung. In Django's case, the words "Are you hungry?" have the same effect!

These two studies concentrated on the learning or 'conditioning' of involuntary behaviour.  BF Skinner went a step further and did studies on how to change voluntary behaviour.  Using pigeons or rats in a box, he had a set up such that when they pecked a particular spot, or pressed a lever, they received a reward of food, thus reinforcing the behaviour. This type of learning is known as operant conditioning, because the association is between an action and a reward.  Operant conditioning introduced the theory of positive and negative reinforcement, which has been very influential in behaviour modification efforts.

Positive reinforcement is simple - if the behaviour is correct, there is a reward, while negative reinforcement means that if the behaviour is correct, then something unpleasant (such a loud noise or pain) is stopped. Over time, the behaviour is reinforced and gradually developed - a process known as shaping.   Skinner believed that these were the best ways to change people's behaviour, and was totally against punishment. He said that it doesn't work long term, and that it can lead to other unwanted behaviour.

In the above studies, the animals involved were reacting automatically to stimuli, known as 'stimulus-response' learning.  They took no account of conscious thought being involved - unlike cognitive psychologists, the behaviourists did not consider that anything went on between the ears.

However, one researcher following on from Skinner did find that there may be more to animals' behaviour than simple stimulus-response. Tolman did experiments with different routes and mazes, which suggested that rats were using knowledge flexibly to make inferences about where the food was, rather than reacting automatically.

Behavourists work on the premise that research on animals can be extended to humans, and indeed some of their studies have proved very useful in human applications, particularly in classroom situations, treating phobias and aversion therapy.

However, it's hard to say that animal learning as a whole can be generalised to humans, partly because animals learn some things better than others - ie. where food is involved.   Can you see a pigeon getting enthusiastic about pecking a button on the promise of a new pair of football boots...?