Kevin Low

Been listening to the No Stupid Questions Podcast by Stephen Dubner (of Freakonomics fame) and Angela Duckworth (of ‘Grit’ fame); they make references to the ‘Fundamental Attribution Error’ first identified and studied by psychologist Lee Ross. Wikipedia’s entry uses the following description:

This effect has been described as “the tendency to believe that what people do reflects who they are”, that is, to overattribute their behaviors (what they do or say) to their personality and underattribute them to the situation or context. 

On reflection, a lot of us are actually aware of the problem not so much in ourselves but others; and so much so that we can become so conscious about curating ourselves, especially at work. We don’t want to appear stupid because we are actually aware that people over-attribute it to us; that we are stupid and ignorant not because of the circumstances because we fundamentally are so.

We could have chosen to respond differently; we could have opted to be gracious and kind towards others, to recognise that whatever happens could be just the individual in the situation rather than just that individual himself/herself. And in so doing, we also learn to be more forgiving of ourselves.

We could make choices that improves the world with our knowledge and awareness rather than the ones that makes us more self-conscious, and fearful.

It’s important to develop personal standards but these standards should probably not be about the outcome but about the process we want to subject ourselves to, even when there’s friction, inertia. It’s to cultivate commitment on the inputs side of things rather than the outcomes.

The challenge of an obsession with outcome, with things beyond our control, and wanting things to be perfect is that we use it as a form of procrastination. We adopt an all-or-nothing mindset.

The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

Schools often encourage that kind of thinking, and honestly, it pays to learn to embrace that friction – the rough edges of a challenge brushing against you, even breaking bits of your old self off. That’s the way we grow, and that’s the way we can even have a chance at being better.

Impact investing is really in vogue and moving more and more mainstream, even towards retail investors. There is a fundamental economic thesis in there: sustainability within the physical realm have to be honoured in order to sustain financially in long run.

Actually, for the longest time, capitalism did not force us into the dilemma of choosing between impact and returns. Development offers its returns, the uplift of millions out of poverty and creation of middle class did bring about greater prosperity overall.

But with greater concentration of wealth, and greater inequality, the interest of the overall society may not always align with the interest of those who holds the power to shape things. The emphasis on impact is welcomed; but I think that does not remove the occasional dichotomy that exists: that it might yield greater returns in the short run to keep the upper middle and middle class glued to their phones, sink into greater debts, than to offer clean water, and affordable power for those in the fringes.

So as we galvanise resources into this areas, let us not forget to deal with the other feedback loop that is still driving the world in the other direction.

Elitism is actually the belief that the society or a system should be led by an elite. It of course has some notions that a select group is superior to “the rest” and hence deserves and influence and authority they get. Now on what basis are they selected? There might be some prevailing perception and structures on what constitutes merit but ultimately, elitism can only go as far as the genuine contribution of the elite to society.

Genuine, consistent, generous, self-sacrificial contribution to the society should be the benchmark to ultimately determine if we should continue to someone to be considered an elite. Or whether we should continue to perpetuate elitism in our society.

Of course we can go on forever to argue what is good for the society and what constitutes contribution. But I think we should be clear about what we are all trying to serve and focus on that. When elitism just becomes snobbery, and when the class divide makes it difficult for leaders to truly listen, empathise and focus their attention on serving the needs of the masses, then we need a more nuanced approach to choosing leaders, and grooming elites.

Do you believe that the good days and bad days life throws at us is entirely your own doing? Do you have the story inside your head that if you do everything right, nothing bad will happen and your life will be great?

I think in our modern lives we are so much in control of everything that we naturally tell ourselves if anything at all goes wrong, it must be us or someone doing something wrong.

Time to review that. Time to think about the story you have in your head towards bad days. Especially when you’ve a lifetime of success with things (so far). Then you probably haven’t quite taken enough risks.

When I was back in school I usually spent most of my days “learning” – I sat in class and listened to the teacher give lecture, answered questions on a worksheet, read and try to remember things (mostly effective when you are able to make connections and associations with things you already know).

We grew up thinking learning is about studying; about reading a book, sitting in a class listening or having someone give you instructions for something. But for most important skills in life, we didn’t learn that way; we observed, we mimicked, we practise, we think, we test it out.

There was a part of my classroom which practised that. I did arts as well and for the 6-8 hours of class I had each week, I was painting, sculpting, sketching, fiddling with graphics on the computer, carrying canvas, squeezing paint, discussing projects and so on. So perhaps I have had a bit more chance compared to others in terms of learning in a different way.

My dream is for classrooms of the future to be more like science labs, art studios, technical workshops. It is for us to be able to carry on the kindergarten style of “teaching” into teenage because practising and doing is so much more important in life than sitting still, shutting up and “absorbing content”.

We don’t like studying hard as much as getting good grades. We may not like the climb up a mountain as much as the view on top. When things gets difficult in school, they sometimes tells us to try harder but more often, they come to the conclusion that there’s another mountain you can climb. So if you’re not so good at a sport, don’t bother; if you can’t make it for the auditions then just find something else instead. Maybe the exception is the most basic stuff in academics; though there are exceptions: if Chinese is too hard, do Chinese B instead.

We want things to go our way; if we can get to the outcome without the process, we rather have just the outcome. We dislike friction in relationships, in life. But we forget that just about everything is held together because of friction. We can raise a glass because of friction; every step we make on the ground is made possible by friction. We need to learn to embrace the friction and the process more than the outcome.

Don’t get me wrong; being outcome-oriented is not a bad thing. But if we forget it is the process that takes us to the outcome, then something is wrong. A culture that emphasises results at all cost compromises on the process for the outcome. This is why people desire to cheat, or to study only for the test. The fact an entire education industry blossomed on the back of grades and results testifies of the fact. If only we can create a culture that embraces the friction a bit more; if only we can say “If it ain’t easy, it’s changing me” rather than “If it ain’t easy, it isn’t for me”.

When was it ever helpful or useful to say ‘See I told you…’? Yet we use it all the time; even when we probably feel nothing positive about ourselves when others use it on us. That desire to be right is so strong we tend to momentarily forsake our important relationships just to feel good about being right.

Maybe, for some time, we can be more right by keeping silent. By giving the knowing nod, lending a shoulder, and showing grace.

There are different ways to grow a society; and also at different rates. We can take the longer path that is often messier, but potentially kinder, leaves less people behind; or we can take the shorter path that is forceful, that relies on clear boundaries and metrics, that might marginalise some groups. NEA announced that they will be enforcing penalties on those failing to clear their tables at hawker centers. They publicly announced that their extensive efforts at public education and awareness have not yielded results so they decided to take the harder stance.

And thanks to the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) restrictions on dine-in, Singaporeans haven’t quite have a chance to try getting slapped by a fine. Perhaps the Safe-Distancing Ambassador can get extra allowance from NEA by helping with enforcement of people who leave food and trays on the tables at hawker centers.

In any case, I think we are just continuing the story of Singapore, being a ‘fine city’ and using formal incentives and disincentives to govern its people. I think that these formal rules can be ways to pave the way towards better norms but it is important to recognise that the goal in these instances, is not really about having the clean table as an output. It is ultimately about normalising the return of trays, about a clear reallocation of responsibilities. We need to be more creative at thinking of pathways towards this normalisation beyond just setting of formal rules.

The case is the same for recycling – and this is taken care of by the same government agency, NEA. We need to normalise that amongst Singaporeans and if the decision is simply to use rules to normalise the behaviours, they could have done it long ago, but they were perhaps trying out other pathways. It might not be long before they default to their rule-making ways.

The question we want to ask is; whether this rule-making way is sustainable. Does it really become a norm culturally? Especially when the rules are lifted. Because clearing tables, recycling, like being polite, have positive social benefits and are virtues in themselves. Do we, as individuals, value that contribution to society more than the ability to avoid a penalty? If we don’t, then what are we building up in the society? Order, at the expense of mental health, culture of fear and compliance? Is this the way we want to move forward?

The closest thing that schools teaches us about risk and uncertainty is mainly within the Economics and Finance discipline where they are defined, quantified, treated so mathematically that somehow can be managed in a certain magical way. There’s also the behavioural economics side of things where our psychological relationship with risk as humans are being modelled, and that gave some insights to individuals’ biases and faulty heuristics that can be ‘corrected’ to good effect.

Yet risk is potentially the most important thing we have to contend with in our lives after school. In fact, an education itself involves risks, how we conduct our social lives involves risks. I don’t think we necessarily want to create a syllabus and make ‘risk’ part of formal education but I think parents, teachers, and the culture in general can do more about helping each generation appreciate risks better.

We need to better appreciate that our inability to control outcomes as something positive. We are imperfect creatures and if the world was more up to the control of humans, I think we would have ruined it already. So that lack of control can be a good thing, and is meant to be embraced without being disempowered.