Elevators, Etiquette, and Empathy

Hey all! I hope everyone's doing well with classes and what not! For quarter systems, we're just starting out and just getting familiar/prepped for midterms. I think semester schools might be past their first round of midterms right now... Good luck to everyone!

Anyways, today I did something that I don't do very often: I went to a professor's office hours. I decided to stop by Professor Lieberman's office and just talk to him about social psychology stuff, considering that is what he teaches haha. Usually I just go to a TA's office hours if I need to know something about the class or check up on grades, but even for course material it's rare for me to stop by a prof's office directly. Well, considering it's only 2nd week, I didn't actually have too much course material to ask about...

Instead, we ended up talking about random extensions from the stuff he was teaching in class. One of the things I found most curious was the idea of changing the way how we see other people's behavior. The example he gave was about elevator etiquette. It might be confusing to some, but for anyone that has lived on a high floor elevator wise, I'm sure you will at least get the gist of this... Anyways, one of Professor Lieberman's pet peeves is when people take the elevator one floor up. It can be quite aggravating after a long day to see the elevator stop at the very first floor when you're travelling four floors up or so. Also, it can be annoying to be going down four floors and have to stop at the last possible stop before the lobby...

So, according to Lieberman's elevator tier chart, taking the elevator one floor is lazy, two floors is understandable, and three floors is perfectly fine. Yet, Lieberman acknowledged that part of the reason why he views things this way is simply because he lives on the fourth floor. If he lived on the second or third floor, he said that he may have had to refine his elevator tier chart. Yet, since he lives on the fourth floor, his tier chart is biased to fit him. He even acknowledged that his tier chart had changed in the past due to having an illness that made him have to take the stairs one flight at a time. Thus, at that point, he viewed others taking the elevator only one floor alright, since that's what he had to do as well with his illness. Yet, when the illness stopped acting up, he immediately reverted back to his old elevator tier chart. Anyone who took the elevator for just one floor he again saw as lazy...

Hm... It's almost sad to see one's beliefs be able to change so quickly, especially in the sense of empathy. For those that have read To Kill a Mockingbird, hopefully you remember that empathy is one of the huge themes advocated by Atticus. He's always mentioning walking a mile in someone else's shoes in order to understand them. Yet, it seems even in this case, after walking a mile in someone else's shoes and changing back to your own, empathy was not something readily maintained...

But, Lieberman pointed out, it could be maintained if he so desired. To battle his automatic thoughts of seeing someone else as lazy, he could keep on his mind constantly that people that may take the elevator one floor may have other, legitimate reasons (such as medical reasons) for doing so. Thus, he would still be able to have a sense of empathy. But, the cost would be quite large... It would have to be something focused on rather constantly and something present in consciousness, otherwise it would not be able to combat his automatic thought of seeing others as lazy. Not only would this be something difficult to do, it would be highly inefficient and even impractical to do so he argued.

If we accept Lieberman's explanation, then it would seem nearly impossible to keep up a sense of empathy in a daily case... Yet, there was another way that he did mentioned. If you somehow were able to change your priming from viewing others taking the elevator one floor as lazy to viewing them as having other reasons, this new automatic thought would replace the old one. In other words, your first, automatic thought would be that the person taking the elevator one floor down has a good reason. In social psych terms, the automatic thought process that remains in the long-term for how you're primed to view others are known as being "chronically accessible". Thus, if you change the thought that's chronically accessible, maybe you can instill a sense of empathy rather than viewing the other as lazy. Thus, you would avoid the problem of having to constantly think otherwise since the initial thought you have would be the one of empathy.

Unfortunately, for those that have read my other posts, this goes back to the idea of invoking internal conformity. How can you make it so that some form of change is relatively permanent (thinking those taking the elevator one floor have a good reason in this case), with or without a stimulus invoking that behavior (In Lieberman's case, having a disease that made it hard for him to take the stairs)? Even after discussing with Professor Lieberman, he said that it was a hard question and something he didn't really have the answer for. Of course, neither do I, nor do I think that there exists some really clear answer for evoking this type of change. Thus, even if the possibility does exist, I don't think it's something that's easily attained on a generic basis...

Yet, the first process is still somewhat interesting to me. Even with its limitations, I think there can possibly be some merit. Instead of thinking specifically about viewing those that take the elevator one floor, maybe it would be possible to somehow a wider view... For example, anytime someone does something that you automatically think is lazy, stupid, bias, ignorant (all words Lieberman loves hahaha), or anything else that gets on your nerves, the automatic thought that you focus on is that maybe they have something else going on/some valid reason. Thus, you may have this initial moment of annoyance, yet that initial automatic thought is counteracted by this new thought you are focusing upon. In this case, it wouldn't apply for just elevator etiquette, but any other situation such as seeing people speeding by you on the freeway.

This, of course, is something I'm only postulating and not something I've actually researched/seen happen. Personally speaking, I've been trying to focus more on an empathetic approach recently, so it's somewhat the same idea. But, in that sense, it's also like a life devotion, so it could fit more into the brand of a "chronically accessible" thought and not a constantly focused on thought. Even though it sort of is something I constantly focus on... Oh bother... Even if it is chronically accessible, I don't know exactly how it became that way, which puts it at a standstill for helping others to get that point (assuming that it's a good point to be at, of course). Hum, at this point I'm not really saying anything, so I think it's a good sign I'm exhausted and should call it quits for tonight. Well, hopefully what I wrote made some form ofsense, and at the very least, I hope it gave you some food for thought...