The Next New Thing

Did you get the iPhone 5? If you did, you're certainly not alone: they've sold millions already, and many customers have to wait 3-4 more weeks for the phones they've ordered. In fact, the rumor was that Apple's stock of preorder phones available on the launch date sold out within 1 hour (even though the hour was 3am Eastern time)! And, as with every new device Apple produces, crowds camped out over night - sometimes for multiple nights - waiting in line to get their hands on the new product.

This craze sparks my curiosity...not about what makes the most recent new thing so much better technologically, but about the social psychology that makes people feel so much urgency to lay their hands on it. Why do people who already have fancy smartphones that work quite well wake up at 3am - or camp out for multiple nights - to get a better one?

Four explanations come to mind:

1) Boredom - Having relatively short attention spans, and being used to instant gratification (thanks, in part, to technology), we may become bored with our current gadgets even before the new one comes out (and before our 2 year contract ends!)

2) Jealousy - When someone else has better or fancier things, it detracts from our opinion of whatever we have. Something we may have liked suddenly loses its value to us, and we want to upgrade.

3) Competition - We may feel like we will be at a competitive disadvantage if we don't have the most advanced technology. We might get anxious and upgrade just to be on the safe side.

4) Insecurity: Those of us who feel like we are already at a disadvantage in life may try to compensate for it, or "prove" our value and place in the world, by acquiring the latest status symbols.

What do you think? What makes a new phone worth losing sleep and braving the elements to get?

Olympic Gymnastics: An Illustration of the Double-Bind

Olympic gymnastics has apparently had a rule change in recent years, about who qualifies for the individual all-around competition. You've probably heard all about it, because it caused no small amount of angst at this week's qualification rounds. The rule states that the top 24 scoring athletes qualify for finals BUT only two can qualify from each country.
This quota system caused heart-break when American women scored 2nd, 3rd, and 4th overall - but the 4th-place finisher, world champion Jordyn Wieber, did not qualify for the finals, because two of her teammates scored higher. And, while the US team was the highest scoring, and closest scoring group of teammates this happened to, it was by no means the only team who would had three of the top 24 scores: Russia's Anastasia Grishina, Great Britain's Jennifer Pinches, and China's Jinnan Yao were similarly disqualified.

Plenty of pundit are talking about the injustice of this rule, arguing that the top 24 scores should advance, regardless of country. I don't need to say what's already being said. What interests me more (as a therapist), is the position the social dynamics the rule creates for the women on a given team. Think about it: You're going through the qualifying round, and as a member of a 5-person team, you obviously want your teammates to do well - after all, qualification is based on total team score. However, as an individual with aspirations for the individual all-around competition, you can't want your teammates to do that well. You need them to do pretty well, but not better than you do (or, at least, have no more than one of them perform better than you!).

This is what psychological theorists might call a double bind: technically speaking, a situation in which someone faces two conflicting demands, such that, by meeting one demand, the person automatically fails at meeting the other.
Here's how I see it at work in women's gymnastics. Each country can choose only 5 women for its squad, to compete in the team all-around, the individual all-around, and the individual competitions for each apparatus (there are 4 for women). Since 4 of the 5 women have to compete for the team on each apparatus, the vast majority have to be all-around athletes, rather than "specialists" (e.g., the US has one specialist, a vaulter). As all of these all-around athletes are competing on each apparatus in the qualifying round, they are each trying to do their best (1) to get their team into the team finals, (2) to get into the individual all-around finals, and (3) to get into the event finals for each apparatus they're strong on. For the most part, these goals are consistent with one another: if every teammate does her best on each routine, both team and individual qualifying goals are met. The bind comes in when you pit teammates against each other for two slots in the individual all-around. Now gymnasts on strong teams are caught between wanting their teammates to do their best (to reach the team goal, and, well, because they're teammates and should want the best for each other), and needing their teammates to make mistakes, as a criterion for individual advancement. Doing your best may not matter unless your teammate messes up.

That's an icky situation to be in (and even worse when the "women" in question are really just teenage girls, thrown out onto a world stage and weighed down by the pressure and expectations of an entire country - not to mention their own drive and ambition, and the umpteen years they and their families have devoted to the dream of olympic victory). It has to create strain, intrapsychically, and interpersonally on the team. It takes great strength of character to weather that kind of strain and manage not to hate each other by the end. My heart goes out to all of them.
Let's do our best to do away with this kind of double-bind, wherever it appears. Life is hard enough. Let's try not to make it impossible.

The Olympic Opening Ceremonies Offer an Alternative to Competition

Ever since the last Summer Olympics opened in Beijing 4 years ago, people have been wondering how the next host city could possibly hope to top Beijing's spectacular Opening Ceremonies. Perhaps nobody wrestled with that question more than the Brits responsible for organizing the 2012 games in London, and most of all, the director of the Opening Ceremonies, Danny Boyle.

Boyle realized that he could not "outdo" China in size, scope, or spectacle. In some way, I imagine that may have been a relief: eliminating the option of competing with Beijing frees Boyle to focus on creating...he was chosen for his creativity, after all!

And what was Boyle focused on creating, if not something bigger, louder, flashier or otherwise more impressive? The only thing he had any hope of doing spectacularly: embodying what it means to be British. Indeed, nobody can be more British than the British. If he was able to somehow encapsulate what it means to be British, the production would be a success.

Personally, I think he succeeded at this goal. After all, where else could they have a Queen (alright, a stunt double) parachute out of a helicopter with a fictional secret agent (James Bond)? However, I'm more interested in what we can learn from this achievement, on the smaller scale of our own lives.

It seems like much suffering, insecurity, frustration, and conflict arise from our attempts to compete with one another - to outdo everyone else at whatever our society privileges (e.g., money, fame, status, influence, achievement). This kind of competition is problematic not because it's wrong to want these things, but because of three facts of competition: (1) nobody gets to be the best and stay the best - success is transient; (2) nobody is best at everything, so even when you outdo others in one area, you're sure to be able to find other areas where they outdo you; and (3) pursuing superiority in one, or even a handful of areas, means that you have to neglect other areas of life, which may not offer superiority, but perhaps offer more fulfillment.

It is entirely more successful in the end to strive to be the best in an area where we will always be best - being ourselves. Embracing who we are - our unique qualities and histories - is more fulfilling, fosters more security, and garners more respect than competition could ever bring. Living authentically is the only way we "win."