Chris, Jane, and Heider's Balance Theory

Hey all! I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving and what not! I'm definitely enjoying the time off from school and figured it would be nice to be able to write something. I'm probably gonna disappear soon since finals will be rolling around for me soon enough. So, an entry before then sounds like a good idea!

Anyways, one of the theories that came up in my Psychology of Motivation class that I thought was rather interesting is called Balance Theory. This theory was developed by a man named Fritz Heider who was a rather big name in the field back in the mid 1900's. Anyways, to somewhat simplify his theory, Heider was interested in not only how two people view each other, but also some other object/person/idea. Balance Theory says when situations will be in balance, and thus there should be low motivation to change the situation itself, and when situations will not be in balance, or when there should be motivation to change the situation itself. Let's take a look at an example to make things a little more clear...

Let's say that we have two people named Chris and Jane. To fit with Balance Theory, we assume that Chris and Jane share the same feelings towards each other, which is positive in this case. For the object or idea of interest, let's say that we're going to look at their views towards something significant, such as Obama. Now, Chris loves Obama. Chris rallies, makes phone calls, and basically does everything he can to support Obama. Yet, Jane doesn't really like Obama. She thinks he hasn't done much as President and is planning on voting for someone else come election time (Note: Please remember these people are hypothetical! I am not trying to offend anyone. Thank you!). After considering these three factors, Heider would say that this is a situation not in balance, and that Jane and Chris should have motivation to change the situation. Let's break it down and take a closer look at why...

Heider proposed that the three factors that determine if a situation is in balance are:

1. How the two people feel towards each other.
2. How person A feels toward the object/person/idea.
3. How person B feels toward the object/person/idea.

Now, if person A and person B like each other (like Chris and Jane do), then that is assigned a positive value. For simplicity's sake, let's just give it a value of a positive one. If a person likes the object/person/idea of interest, like Chris, then we would also assign that a value of a positive one. But, if a person doesn't like the object/person/idea of interest, like Jane, then we would assign that a value of a negative one (this is one of the things that's easier seen visually in the form of a triangle, but I know better than try to impress you with my MS Paint skills since I'm not finding a fitting picture). Now, to see whether the situation is in balance or not, we simply multiply all three values together. If the result is positive, then the situation is in balance. If the result is negative, then the situation is not in balance. As you can see by multiplying our values together (1 x 1 x -1 = -1), our situation is one that Balance Theory would label as not being in balance.

So, what happens when an unbalanced situation arises? There is supposed to be a great deal of motivation to change, and the change can take place in usually three ways. If we look at this situation from the perspective of Chris and how he can change the situation to be in balance, his options are...

1. Get Jane to like Obama. If this is the case, then Jane will have a positive value assigned to her liking of Obama, resulting in three positive ones and getting a balanced situation.
2. Chris decides to stop liking Obama. If Chris does happen to change his view, then Jane and him will both share a negative view towards Obama, resulting in two negative ones and a positive one. When multiplied all together, the result is a positive one, showing that a new balance has arisen.
3. Chris decides to not be friends with Jane. Even though I think it would be rather extreme to stop liking a friend simply because they don't share the same view as you towards something, it is still a way to achieve a balanced situation. Not liking Jane gives a negative one for the feelings Chris and Jane have towards each other, resulting in two negative ones and a positive one. Again, when multiplied together, the result would be a positive one, resulting in a new balanced situation.

Thus, there are quite a few options available to Chris to change the situation. The strength of motivation to change the situation depends on how attached to the object/person/idea the people in the situation are, though. If it wasn't Obama, but rather Chris's like of apple sauce, then maybe he wouldn't care as much if Jane liked apple sauce or not. Yet, politics and what not are typically things viewed seriously, and thus a greater motivation to change the situation may arise for such an issue. It is important to note, though, that a balanced situation does not indicate a "good" situation. For example, if person A loved person C, person B loved person C as well, and person A and person B are best friends, the situation would be in balance, but it would more likely than not be a "good" situation...

So yes, this is essentially the basic idea of Balance Theory... Even though it may sound a bit abstract, it does provide an interesting way to look at some real-life situations, esp. in terms of advertising. Let's say that you like some celebrity (and we'll just assume that you think they like you back haha) and you find out the celebrity likes some product. In order to keep the situation balanced you may adapt a positive view towards the object. But, if you already knew about the product and disliked it, then your view towards the celebrity may be lessened (possibly to the point of no longer liking the celebrity) so that the situation could achieve balance. Of course, the latter is rather extreme and something I don't think would be that likely to happen, but it would depend on how significantly the person viewed the object. Hum... As is the case normally, I seem to have written a bit more than I would have initially intended by this point. Thus, I'll just call it quits for now and just write more of a continuation later. But for now, I think this is a good place to stop... Goodnight!

Bet You Can't Have Just One!

Hey all! Long time no write, but midterms were upon me... Thankfully, I have a rather light schedule this quarter, and I finished with all of my midterms in two weeks. So, now that those are out of the way, I've got a little bit of time to relax. Good luck to anyone and everyone that still has midterms!

Anyways, one of my friends suggested that I write on food for today's entry. Initially, I was kinda put off by the idea of it, for I just had a really dinner and dessert, so any mentioning of food made me feel somewhat nauseous... Yet, it has brought to mind an interesting point and a fitting anecdote to go with it...

Let's say that you just found a hit new restaurant. You decide to attend the grand opening with a friend. Upon looking at the menu, you see Dish A, which is a personal favorite of yours. Yet, you also see Dish B, which is a dish you like but not as much as Dish A. But, to spice things up, sometimes you go with Dish B when you've had too much of Dish A recently. Well, being the close friends that you are, with both of you being unable to make up your minds over Dish A and Dish B, you each decide to get one and then just share . Thus, you order Dish A, your friend orders Dish B, and you share each other's food.

Amazingly, as part of the promotion of coming on the grand opening day. you win a dinner every other month for the rest of the year. In other words, you get six dinners for free over the span of one year. Yet, as part of the promotion, you have to choose all your dinners right now. Seeing as how you sometimes get tired of Dish A, even though it is your favorite, the most natural choice is to switch it up so as not to wear it out. So, you decide to get Dish A every other time, while getting Dish B the times you don't get Dish A (Dish A -> Dish B -> Dish A ->and so on...).

This would be for the best and what not, right? You got tired at dinner of having Dish A, so it would make sense not to wear it out and switch it up with Dish B, since you like that as well. Hence, this would the seemingly logical choice to go with. Yet, as Daniel Gilbert points out in Stumbling on Happiness (which is where the anecdote and this point comes from), this would not be the best way to make us happy. Or, if we get all econy, this is not the best way to maximize utils. Let's take a look...

You see, assuming a very Hedonistic view towards life, one of our main goals is to maximize our happiness. In a very simplified and broad sense, the quantification of happiness is into the form of utility, or utils. Acts that we aren't forced or coerced to do are supposed to give us some form of utility. Yet, unfortunately, utility goes down over time for the same action, which is known as the law of diminishing marginal utility. For example, the first bite of Dish A may give you 10 utils initially, yet it only give you 9 utils on the second bite. Economists would say that you would keep on participating in the action (in this case, eating Dish A) until you would get 0 utils from taking that next bite. Hence, that's why it's good to have variety. By having Dish A and Dish B to eat, you alter what utils go down since they're different foods and actions. Thus, it's good to have variability at that moment in time!

Yet, humans are funny in the sense that we tend to think of the long-term in terms of the short-term. That sounds funny, but it makes sense I assure you. The law of diminishing marginal utility is something that holds true, but only in the short-term. You see, utility gained from an object is subject to recovery. In most situations, you don't eat something until marginal utility gets to 0, and then never eat it again. You could refuse to eat the same dish twice if you wanted to try a variety of foods, but most people end up eating something again later, especially if what something they liked in the first place. Thus, marginal utility is subject to recovery, meaning that you'll be able to get 10 utils from eating Dish A again. Yet, how does recovery occur? There may be a variety of ways, such as possibly eating different foods (a potential reason as to why people eat kimchi in between rolls when doing all-you-can-eat sushi haha), yet one of the most obvious factors is time. Over time, you may get hungry again, and thus you'll desire to eat that food again, or in this case, Dish A.

The main idea is that, yes, at the same time, having variety of Dish A with Dish B will maximize your utility since you'll be able to switch off. If we keep to the assumption that Dish A gives 10 utils, and we assume Dish B gives you 8 utils, and then you can eat enough of Dish A until your next amount of utils (marginal utility) is below how many utils you would get from Dish B. Thus, that night at the restaurant, you would trade off from eating Dish A and Dish B in order to maximize utils. So yes, this is the best strategy to take in the short-run. Yet, the long-run differs than the short-run, yet many of us choose not to acknowledge that.

Going back to what I previously said, recovering utility happens over time, and two months is quite a bit of time in terms of having food. So, if we assume that your utility would be able to recover in two months, the best way to maximize utils would be to order Dish A every single time. Even though it sounds like you would get tired of having it all the time, the thing is we would be ignoring the recovery of utility over time. Thus, in the short-run, it may sound like a bit much (or even nauseous...), but it is something that would make sense in the long-run. Of course, we have to assume that Dish A would always give you 10 utils at that first bite (and it wouldn't decrease at a faster rate than before) as compared to Dish B which would always give you 8 utils upon first bite. So, Dan Glibert states that sometimes it may be better go against our gut instinct for planning and what not if we truly want to make ourselves feel happy in the long-run. Alas, many people focus so much on the short-run over the long-run, it might be hard to break out of this cycle of thinking. But, knowledge is power, right? Just even becoming aware of this phenomena may be a good way to change it and help yourself out in the future. So yes, hopefully I've entertained you for a few minutes and what not.. Thanks, and see ya soon enough...