Folk Wisdom

Materials

Psychologist Robert Epstein examines how proverbs and folk wisdom measure up against decades of research—and folk wisdom isn’t always as wise as it seems.

The table next to me at Fillipi’s restaurant was a noisy one. Two men and two women in their 20s and 30s were arguing about a relationship issue. One of the men—Male #1—would soon be leaving the country for six months. Would the passion he shared with his beloved survive? The exchange went something like this:

Female #1 (probably the girlfriend): “When you really love someone, being apart makes you care even more. If someone is good to you, you sometimes take that for granted when the person is around every day. But when he’s gone, all that good treatment is gone, too, and you realize just how much you had. You really start to yearn for him.”

Male #2 (looking lustfully at Female #1, even though he seemed to be with the other woman): “That’s right. The same thing happens when your parents die. You really start to miss and appreciate them. You even rewrite the past, forgetting the bad things and focusing on the good times and the kindness they showed you.”

Female #1 (starting to look lovingly at Male #2): “Everyone knows that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Then Male #1, the one probably on his way to Thailand, spoke up. “Well, but…” He faltered, thinking hard about continuing. All eyes were on him. He took a deep breath.

And then he said, slowly and deliberately, “But don’t we also say, ‘Out of sight, out of mind?'”

This was not good for anyone’s digestion. Female #1’s face fumed the color of marinara sauce. Male #2 smiled mischievously, presumably imagining himself in bed with Female #1. Female #2 looked back and forth between her date and Female #1, also apparently imagining them in bed together. And Male #1, not wanting to face the carnage, lowered his eyes and tapped a strange rhythm on the table top with his fork. Was he thinking about the classy Thai brothels he had read about on the Internet?

Truth or Poppycock?

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Out of sight, out of mind” are examples of folk wisdom—folk psychology, you might say. All cultures pass along wisdom of this sort—sometimes in the form of proverbs; sometimes through songs (remember Paul Simon’s “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”?), rhymes (Mother Goose), or stories (Aesop’s fables); sometimes through laws and public information campaigns (“Stay alive, don’t drink and drive”); and always through religion (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”).

But folk wisdom is an unreliable, inconsistent kind of wisdom. For one thing, most proverbs coexist with their exact opposites, or at least with proverbs that give somewhat different advice. Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder, or are loved ones out of mind when they’re out of sight? And isn’t variety the spice of life? (If Male #1 had come up with that one, he might have been murdered on the spot.)

Do opposites attract, or do birds of a feather flock together? Should you love the one you’re with, or would that be like changing horses in midstream? We all know that he who hesitates is lost, but doesn’t haste make waste, and isn’t patience a virtue, and don’t fools rush in, and aren’t you supposed to look before you leap?

And, sure, money is power, but aren’t the best things in life supposed to be free? And since time is money, and money is power, and power corrupts, does that mean time also corrupts? Well, maybe so. After all, the Devil finds work for idle hands.

I’ve only covered a few well-known proverbs from the English-speaking world. Each culture passes along its own wisdom, which is not always meaningful to outsiders. In India, for example, people say, “Call on God, but row away from the docks,” and Romanians advise, “Do not put your spoon into the pot that does not boil for you.” In Bali they say, “Goodness shouts and evil whispers,” while in Tibet the message is, “Goodness speaks in a whisper, but evil shouts.”

You get the idea. Proverbs that relay wisdom about how we’re supposed to live do not necessarily supply useful or reliable advice. In fact, proverbs are sometimes used merely to justify what we already do or believe, rather than as guidelines for action. What’s more, we tend to switch proverbs to suit our current values and ideals. A young man might rationalize risky action by pointing out that “You only live once.” Later in life—if he’s still around—he’ll probably tell you, “Better safe than sorry.”

Is the situation hopeless? Can we glean any truths at all from the wisdom of the ages?

The behavioral sciences can help. Science is a set of methods for testing the validity of statements about the world—methods for getting as close to “truth” as we currently know how to get. Psychologists and other scientists have spent more than a century testing the validity of statements about human behavior, thinking, and emotions. How well does folk psychology stand up to scientific inquiry? What do we find when we test a statement like “Absence make the heart grow fonder”? If, as I do, you sometimes rely on folk wisdom to guide your actions or teach your children, this is a question well worth considering.

Here’s how five common proverbs measure up to behavioral
research.

Confession Is Good for the Soul

Psychologists don’t study the soul, of course. But, says James W. Pennebaker, “If we define ‘soul’ loosely as who you are, how you feel about yourself, and how healthy you are, then confession is good for the soul.” Pennebaker, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, is one of several behavioral scientists who have looked carefully at the results of “self-disclosure”—talking or writing about private feelings and concerns. His research suggests that for about two-thirds of us, self-disclosure has enormous emotional and physical benefits. Pennebaker’s book, Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotion, summarizes 15 years of compelling research on this subject.

Self-disclosure, as you might expect, can greatly reduce shame or guilt. Studies of suspected criminals showed that they acted far more relaxed after confessing their crimes—despite the fact that punishment now awaited them. Self disclosure may also provide the power behind talk therapy. “The fact that self-disclosure is beneficial,” says Pennebaker, “may explain why all forms of psychotherapy seem to be helpful. Whether the therapy is behavioral or psychoanalytic, in the beginning the clients tell their stories.”

Perhaps most intriguing are the physical effects of “confession.” Pennebaker has found that self-disclosure may actually boost the immune system, spurring production of white blood cells that attack invading microorganisms, increasing production of antibodies, and heightening the body’s response to vaccination.

But what about those other proverbs that advise us to keep our mouths shut? “Let sleeping dogs lie.” “Least said is soonest mended.” “Many have suffered by talking, few by silence.” Can self-disclosure do harm? According to Pennebaker, self-disclosure is not likely to be beneficial when it’s forced. University of Notre Dame psychologist Anita Kelly, has suggested, moreover, that revealing secrets may be harmful if the confidante is likely to be judgmental. And a study conducted by Maria Sauzier, of Harvard Medical School, showed that people often regret disclosures of child abuse. Sauzier found that nearly half of the parents whose children had disclosed sexual abuse (usually to the other parent or a therapist) felt that both the children and the families were harmed by the disclosures. And 19 percent of the adolescents who confessed that they had been abused regretted making the disclosures. In general, however, confession seems to be a surprisingly beneficial act.

All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy

To me, the most frightening scene in the movie The Shining was the one in which actress Shelley Duvall, concerned that her husband (Jack Nicholson) was going crazy, approached the desk at which he had spent several months supposedly writing a novel. There she found hundreds of pages containing nothing but the sentence, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” typed thousands of times on a manual typewriter. I’ve always wondered who did all that typing! And I’ve also wondered about the truth of the proverb. Once again, we’re also faced with contradictory bits of folk wisdom that urge us to work until we drop: “Rest makes rusty.” “Labor warms, sloth harms.” “Labor is itself a pleasure.”

Is too much work, without the balance of leisure activity, actually harmful? Research suggests that the answer is yes, with one possible exception: if you love your work—in other words, if you’ve been able to make your avocation your vocation—then work may provide you with some of the benefits of play.

In the 1940s, anthropologist Adam Curle pointed out that the distinction between work and leisure seems to be an unfortunate product of modern society. In many traditional cultures, he wrote, “there is not even a word for work.” Work and play “are all of a piece,” part of the integrated structure of daily living. But modern society has created the need for people to earn a living, an endeavor that can be difficult and can easily get out of hand. Hence, the modern pursuit of “leisure time” and “balance”—correctives for the desperate measures people take to pay their bills.

Study after study confirms the dangers of overwork. It may or may not make you a dull person, but it clearly dulls your mind. For example, research on fire fighters by Peter Knauth shows that long work shifts increase reaction time and lower alertness. And studies with emergency room physicians show that overwork increases errors and impedes judgment. Indeed, a Hollywood cameraman, coming off an 18-hour work shift, made news when he lost control of his car and died in a crash.

Conversely, leisure activities have been shown in numerous studies by researchers Howard and Diane Tinsley, Virginia Lewis, and others, to relieve stress, improve mood, increase life satisfaction, and even boost the immune system.

Curiously, the hard-driven “type A” personalities among us are not necessarily Dull Jacks. According to a study of more than 300 college students by Robert A. Hicks and his colleagues, type-A students claim to engage in considerably more leisure activities than their relaxed, type-B counterparts. Type As may simply live “more intensely” than type Bs, whether they’re on the job or goofing off.

The distinction between work and play is, to some extent, arbitrary. But it’s clear that if you spend too much time doing things you don’t want to do, your performance, health, and sense of well-being will suffer.

Boys Will Be Boys

The widely held (though politically incorrect) belief that boys are predisposed from birth to feel, learn, and perform differently from girls is strongly supported by research. For example, boys are, on average, considerably more aggressive than girls. They are left-handed more frequently than girls and tend to be better at math and at spatial rotation tasks. Girls, meanwhile, may perform certain kinds of memory tasks better. They also start talking earlier than boys, and, at the playground, they’re more likely to imitate boys than boys are to imitate girls. And boys tend to listen more with their right ear, while girls tend to listen with both ears equally These findings generally hold up cross culturally, which suggests that they are at least somewhat independent of environmental influences. Upbringing plays an important role in gender differences, of course—even in the first days after birth, parents treat boy babies differently from girls—but converging evidence from psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology suggests that many gender differences are actually programmed from birth, if not from conception.

Since the brain is the mechanism that generates behavior, where we find behavioral differences, we should also find neurological differences. Indeed, research suggests a host of differences between male and female brains. For example, although, on average, male brains are larger than female brains, the hemispheres of the brain seem to be better connected in females, which may help explain why females are more sensitive and emotional than males.

Behavior is also driven by hormones. Here, too, there are significant gender differences. From birth, testosterone levels are higher in males, which helps to account for males’ aggressiveness. June Reinisch, Ph.D., then at Indiana University, studied boys and girls whose mothers has been exposed to antimiscarriage drugs that mimic testosterone. Not surprisingly, she found that these children of both sexes were considerably more aggressive than their counterparts with normal testosterone levels. But even among the exposed children, the boys were more aggressive than the girls.

So boys will indeed be boys (and by implication, girls will be girls). But this is only true “on average.” Male and female traits overlap considerably, which means that a particular male could be more emotional than most females and a particular female could be better at math than most males. To be fair, you have to go case by case.

Early to Bed, and Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

This proverb, often attributed to Ben Franklin, actually seems to have originated in the late 1400s, and Franklin may have lifted it from a collection of adages published in 1656. Historical trivia aside, research on sleep suggests that the proverb gives sound advice—but only because our culture is out-of-synch with the biology of nearly half the population.

Here’s how it works: it’s long been know that the body has natural rhythms. Those that occur on a 24-hour cycle are called “circadian” and include cycles of temperature change, wakefulness, and eating. There are two distinctly different circadian rhythm patterns. “Larks”—who show what researchers call “morningness” (honest!)—are people whose peak early in the day. Not surprisingly, larks awaken early and start the day strong. “Owls”—people inclined toward “eveningness”—peak late in the day. In both cases, the peaks are associated with better performance on memory tasks, quicker reaction times, heightened alertness, and cheerful moods. Some people are extreme larks or owls, others are moderates, and a few fit neither category.

There’s a problem here, especially if, like me, you’re an extreme owl. The trouble is that many important human activities—business meetings, job interviews, weddings, classes, and so on—are conducted during daylight hours, when larks have a distinct advantage. Not surprisingly, owls spend much of their time griping about how out-of-synch they seem to be.

A study of college students by Wilse B. Webb and Michael H. Bonnet, of the University of Florida, paints a grim picture for people like me: “Larks reported waking up when they expected to, waking up feeling more rested, and waking up more easily than the owls.” Larks also reported having “fewer worries” and getting “more adequate sleep,” and they awakened feeling physically better than owls. The differences were even greater, moreover, when owls tried to adapt to the lark sleep pattern. What’s more, these problems can impair not only owl’s sense of restedness but also their bank account; a study of Navy personnel suggests that people who sleep well make considerably more money than people who sleep poorly.

The long and short of it is that if your biorhythms allow you easily to “go to bed with the lamb and rise with the lark” (another old proverb), you may indeed end up with more money, better health, and more life satisfaction—but only because your internal clock is more in-synch with the stock exchange.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

A headline in my local newspaper proclaimed, “Sparking Backfires, Latest Study Says.” I cringe when I see stories like this, because I believe they ultimately harm many children. People have come to confuse discipline with “abuse,” which is quite a different beast. “Discipline”—whether in the form of “time outs,” reprimands, or spankings—is absolutely necessary for parenting. Extensive research by psychologist Diana Baumrind, and others, has shown that permissive parenting produces children who can’t handle independence and are unable to behave in a socially responsible manner. A great many social problems that we face today may be the inadvertent product of a generation of well-meaning, misinformed, overly permissive parents.

However, if all you provide is discipline, without affection and emotional support—the “authoritarian” parenting style—you can damage your children. Offspring of authoritarian parents tend to be hostile and defiant, and, like the victims of permissive parents, they too have trouble with independence.

The most effective parenting style involves both a high level of discipline and ample affection and support. That’s the best approach for producing children who are self-reliant, socially responsible, and successful in their own relationships.

In the latest anti-spanking study, published by University of New Hampshire sociologist Murray Straus, children between the ages of 6 to 9 who were spanked more than three times a week displayed more misbehavior two years later. Doesn’t this show that spanking causes misbehavior? Not at all. Correlational studies are difficult to interpret. Perhaps without those spankings, the kids would have been even worse off. It’s also possible that many of these spankings were unnecessary or excessive, and that it was this inappropriate discipline that sparked the later misbehavior.

Conversely, at least eight studies with younger kids show that spanking can indeed improve behavior. The age of the child, in fact, is probably important. Children under the age of six seem to regard spanking as a parent’s right. But older kids may view it as an act of aggression, and in such cases spanking’s effects may not be so benign.

Punishment, verbal or physical, applied in moderation and with the right timing, is a powerful teaching tool. It should not be the first or the only tool that a parent uses, but it has its place.

Truth a La Carte

But what about the restaurant debate? Does absence make the heart grow fonder or not? Alas, not enough research has been conducted to shed much light on this question. We do know that “out of sight, out of mind” is true when we’re fresh from the womb; young babies will behave as if a toy has vanished into thin air when the toy is moved out of sight. But our memories quickly improve. Research conducted by Julia Vormbrock, and others, shows that children grow more fond of their caregivers when they’re separated from them—at least for a few days. After two weeks of separation, however, most children become “detached,” reports Vormbrock.

Psychologist Robert Pelligrini, once asked 720 young adults about separation, and two-thirds said that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” seemed more true than “out of sight, out of mind.” A poll, however, doesn’t tell us much about the truth of the matter. To settle things, we’ll need an experiment. Hmmm. First we’ll need 100 couples, whom we’ll give various tests of “fondness.” Then we’ll assign, at random, half of the couples to a control group and half to an absence group. Next we’ll separate the partners in each couple in our absence group by, say, 1,000 miles for six months—somehow providing jobs, housing, and social support for every person we relocate. Finally, we’ll read minister our fondness tests to all 100 couples. If we find significantly greater levels of fondness in the separated couples than in the unseparated couples, we’ll have strong support for the idea that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Any volunteers? What? You would never subject yourself to such an absurd procedure? Well, fortunately, no one would ever conduct such research, either.

And that’s the bottom line: the behavioral sciences can provide useful insights about how we should lead our lives, but there are limits to the kind of research that can be conducted with people. Folk wisdom may be flawed, but, in some instances, it’s all we’ve got or will ever have. So don’t put all your eggs in one basket.