Do We Care About Future Generations?

We are said to care about our children and the world they’ll inherit. And we care about their children. But when it comes to the generations we won’t be around to know, the ties seem to be less strong — at least when it comes to dealing with how our current behavior might impact future generations.

But researchers have found that reminders of our own mortality may motivate us to make inter-generational trade-offs that benefit future communities.

Volunteers were asked to read an article about a fatal airline accident. Then they had to play the role of the head of a company that discovered a new source of cheap, efficient energy. They had to decide how much of that energy should be used by the company today versus saving it for use by others in the future. Turns out, those who were primed to think of mortality were much more likely to save the resource for future use by others. The study is in the journal Psychological Science.

The researchers say that by making a difference for future generations we gain a sense of purpose that combats the feeling of finality when we face our inevitable mortality.

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Confusion Helps Us Learn

When we’re confused by something — say with a movie plot or calculus — we are considered to feel uncomfortable, frustrated. But maybe we should embrace the confusion. Because a new study finds that confusion can lead to better learning.

Scientists set up a situation where they purposely confused subjects during a pretend learning session.

The subjects watched an animated tutor and student discuss possible flaws in a scientific study. The researchers had the animated tutor and student disagree with each other on specific flaws.  But to set up a really confusing situation for one group of subjects they also had the pretend tutor and student make incorrect or contradictory statements about the study. Then the subjects had to decide which of the two opinions had more scientific merit.

Subjects who were forced to deal with the incorrect and contradictory statements did significantly better on later tests where they had to spot flaws in studies, as opposed to those subjects who only faced the disagreements between the animated tutor and student. Researchers note that confusion motivates us to work harder to understand, and so we gain a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge of a subject.