SUMO

Sumo wrestling in Japan is exposing a serious problem. According to an article of the Seattle Times, police have found text messages to plan how to fix bouts on confiscated cell phones which implicate 13 wrestlers. And, the text messages indicate that the wrestlers routinely fixed matches and charged thousands dollars per match to do so, according to Japan's Kyodo news service. This is pathetic for me and sumo fans.

At the same time, this is interesting for me because this news reminds me of Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. In the book, Steven already showed evidence to fix bouts of sumo. His blog and comments for his article also pointed out the thing. It means that empirical research and a method based on data would be useful to reveal a part of reality.


Finally, the following is my reaction to the news:
I have been concerned about sumo wrestling since coming to the U.S. because it's typical of Japanese tradition and culture. For example, many people in a class of college know about, and are interested in sumo wrestling, so they asked me to explain about it more in details than they know. Also, as another instance, I saw a video about sumo wrestlers by National Geographic Channel a few months ago. In the video, American wrestlers were featured. I was very impressed with their attitude and effort toward sumo, and the fact that they purely love playing sumo. However, at the same time, I was ashamed at professional sumo wrestlers because they are losing a proper attitude, which means they look like more sticking to gain money.

My feeling and impression to sumo wrestling is getting worse throughout a series of scandals -- the baseball gambling, using marijuana among three Russian wrestlers, and so on. As the article by the Seattle Times pointed out, sumo is seen by most Japanese as not only a sport but a bastion of Japanese tradition and culture, and sumo wrestlers are expected to observe a high standard of public behavior. Is this too much expectation for them? I think no. We Japanese people are positively able to introduce sumo to other countries' people as a Japanese culture (as a result, sumo received positive reputation from the world, too. It is give-and-take) because it has kept depicting what is a respectable manner and behavior for Japanese people, which is deeply connected with Japanese image of tradition and culture. If sumo wrestling lost the image, we would never introduce it to others as a Japanese culture.

Spot-light Effect

One day, I went to college, wearing a T-shirt inside out. When coming back home, my mom pointed out the fact. I was so ashamed. However, I asked some friends about it next day. Although some of the friends noticed it, the others did not!

I guess that many people have a such experience. In Social Psychology, it is called as the spot-light effect. The Spot-light effect is a tendency to overestimate the extent to which others notice our behavior and appearance.


Article: The Seattle Times by Mort Walker

 The above comic strip is a good instance for the spot-light effect, I think. In this comic strip, a senior gentleman wears his military uniform in the morning despite no workday. He subsequently goes to check the mailbox, even though it is on Sunday. At the mailbox, he says "But if neighbors see me peeking in my mailbox, they'll think I'm looney." His comment and behavior imply that he cares about neighbors' eyes, and he thinks that he is always seen by neighbors. I think these behaviors and statements show the spot-light effect. What do you think about it? Is it a funny thing, isn't it?

In fact, an experiment by Thomas Gilovich and his associates shows us how much we are often greatly exaggerating such worries.

In the experiment, participants who are college students were worn an attention arousing T-shirt (one with a large picture of Barry Manilow on it) and then they were indicated to enter a room full of other student. After interacting with the students awhile, the participant was asked to estimate the number of students who had noticed the decidedly uncool T-shirt. The experimenter also asked everyone in the room if they had noticed the shirt. The participants thought that about 50% of the people in the room noticed their shirt. In reality, however, only about 20% had noticed!

So, you don't need to worry about your ashamed statement and behavior too much. We often overestimate that others are paying attention to us! Again, "Don't worry!"

Resolution

A happy new year! How was 2010 for you? For me, it was a wonderful year. A reason for that was that I stayed five countries: Austria, China, Japan, Canada, and U.S.. This was definitely a precious experience for me.

On other hand, I had a lot of regret and failure. But, it is fine because we are able to learn from our own failure and also others', and we will be able to do the better job next time. Jay-Z, who is a famous hip-hop singer, said the same kind of thing in the one of OWN programs. Moreover, he stated that he doesn't know how to learn from success. It is a very difficult problem for us, especially when we would like to sustain our success, although it is totally different between getting and sustaining success as he pointed out. Anyway, we at least want to avoid going on the following situation by learning from our own experience or others'.   

Article: The Seattle Times by Glenn McCoy

 I hope that the situation which is depicted in the above comic strip would never happen to me. So, what is your new year's resolution? A piece of advice from me is that there is no resolution in the toilet!

Enjoy 2011!

Availability Heuristic

I introduced some cognitive bias in the previous blog. In last month, I found a comic strip in the Seattle Times. It is not only funny, but it is also a good example to explain what availability heuristic is. 

Article: The Seattle Times

The availability heuristic refers to judgments based on how easy it is for us to bring specific examples to mind, according to The Social Animal.

In this comic strip, there is a conversation between an angel and a movie star. I focused on the angel's statements. For example, he (I guess the angel is Ernest, so he is male.) said "In Hollywood everybody gets plastic surgery... we all have eternal youth!" This is obviously related to the availability heuristic because as far as I know, many stars do not get plastic surgery. Only some stars get it. Also, he said "We don't have celebrity parties, but we are surrounded by stars." He added " And celebrities fly on private jets while up here we all have our own wings." These comments have the same problem. In short, being surrounded by stars and owning a private jet is not typical of the overall picture for Hollywood stars.

Finally, I am going to add typical quizzes which are often referred by textbooks:

1. Fortune magazine ranked the following 10 corporations as being among the 500 largest United States-based firms according to sales volume for 2008: Group A (Apple computer, Hershey Foods, Kellogg, McDonald's, U.S. Airways); Group B (Altria Group, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson, Valero Energy). Which group would you say (A or B) had the larger total sales volume?
2. Which of the following causes more deaths in the United States each year? a). Stomach cancer b). Motor vehicle accidents

So, what do you think that you have 100 percent confidence to answer the questions correctly? Sometimes our perception is distorted, but not every single time, even our perception of beauty. WE LIVE IN WHAT WE PERCEIVE. Watch out women who wear makeup.

Let's Learn about Cognitive Bias

I have read Freakonomics blog. In that blog, this video was introduced. How funny it is, but not only fun but also useful to learn various kind of cognitive bias.

We do not live a life without cognitive bias. When making decisions, perceiving, and behaving something, cognitive bias is always close with us. In my opinion, it's difficult to avoid those bias, so what we need to correspond to those bias is that we recognize them and then what we positively accept them is more important to enhance a quality of making decisions and so on.

Marathon Race

I completed the Honolulu marathon with six hours and five minutes last Sunday. It was good weather to run a marathon, which means moderate warm not too hot but not too cold. The start time was 5AM. Actually, I was sleepy. Anyway, This marathon was the first time for me to run a marathon and complete 42.195km (although I did not keep running throughout the race...). I felt like 26.2mile was too long. In fact, during the race I did want to give up from time to time.

So, how was I motivated? According to last my blog, hot joggers was supposed to make me enhance my motivation to run the race. However, unfortunately, this did not work well for me because during the race, especially in the second half, I was too exhausted not to be able to afford to look for hot joggers. Rather, my eyes stayed on looking at the road, of course though it was boring. I could not look up! Instead, I was encouraged by the runners who were the same situation as me which is too tired. When seeing them, my feeling was that I did not want to lose them because they were from younger than me to older such as they looked like 80 or something years old. They were amazing for me because they were much faster and tougher than me who is 24 years old. At that point, I realized that I should train for the race a lot, but it's too late to regret because I don't like something to lose.

Eventually, I completed the race as a result of maintaining my motivation to run. After the marathon, I wanted to appreciate everybody who participated in it including the volunteers. This accomplishment was by not only my effort, but by others' support such as cheering me up at the roads, distributing water on the aid stations, and running with me regardless of intentionality. Thanks everybody!

But, I would never try to run a marathon. Thanks again.

How to Motivate

Yesterday I was jogging around my house. I am supposed to run in Honolulu in this weekend. Is it possible for me to complete the race? I am not sure. Rather, It seems to be impossible. Anyway, I will challenge it!

Suppose we need a training and study to accomplish something. How do we keep doing it? An answer is motivation. There is a means to get motivation: identification.

Article: The Seattle Times

The term identification describes a response to social influence brought about by an individual's desire to be like the influencer, according to The Social Animal.

In this comic strip,  a guy wearing glasses tells his dog "I think I'm pushing myself too hard." And then, he explains that the motivation for him to run too hard is " I was watching some hot girl jogger and ran into a building." This is obviously an example of identification because his jogging results from an influence to watch or hopefully get along with girl joggers.

To run the whole distance (42.195km), I may need to find a hot girl jogger.