It’s a little recession, not a depression.

Browsing through the recent news on my computer, I came across an interesting article. What first caught my attention was the title, paired with the news category. The title, “See a Pattern on Wall Street,” seemed like a pretty common article title, especially these days, but it was not under the business or U.S. news category, but rather under science. Hmmm… Click, click.

The article began even more bizarrely. Two pictures of seemingly random marks. “Take a look at the two blurry images below. Can you see an object hidden in each one?”

And the article reads: “Before I give the answers, here’s another question: Do you feel a certain lack of control over events right now?”

Anyways, if you were like me you notice the image of Saturn in the image on the right immediately, and strained a little bit to discern something out of the image on the left. I eventually decided that it was a face. You see it? Well, if you were like me, you probably weren’t all to concerned about that, you were more interested in how on earth this had anything to do with Wall Street.

Anyways, after this intriguing introduction, the article begins to explain itself. Apparently a new scientific study shows that when people are primed to feel out of control, they are more likely to perceive patterns where they do not exist. So yes, it actually is Saturn on the right, but the left is just a random mess of lines. As the events of Wall Street have little to do with me (at least directly), the little prompt at the bottom of the images did not really affect my viewing of these images, but I would be very curious to see what a Wall Street investor might make of the image on the left.

Anyway, the study also showed that people are more prone to believing conspiracy theories and superstitions in times when they feel out of control. The article cites, for instance, that past studies have shown that deep-sea fishermen have more elaborate rituals and superstitions than fishermen who fish near the coast, where conditions are more predictable. Overall, I believe that the results of these studies make sense. The feeling of things being out of control that this article constantly refers to is almost synonymous with “Perilous Times,” our current theme in American Studies. Making this connection, I looked back at all the time periods we have covered thus far under this unit, searching for the same parallel. Salem Witch Trials. Wow, what a key example! The town would choose a crazed witch hunt over the admission that the events that were occurring were beyond their control.

In fact, the results of this study, reflecting countless eras throughout the world’s history, can perhaps explain early American Puritan society. According to Puritan belief, God alone chose who was to be among his elect, those who would be saved and taken to heaven. It did not matter how you behaved in life, for after all, according to Puritan belief, if you did good, it was because God granted you the capacity to do good; essentially you were not in control of yourself. Now, if you recall from the point of this entire article, people try to draw order or create the illusion or order amid an environment in which they feel out of control. Therefore, the great Puritan paradox was born. It was the idea that if you were among God’s elect, he would bring you great fortune in life, and consequently wealth and good fortune were sure signs that one must be among His chosen. In effect, therefore, Puritan society was not unlike most societies; wealth and fortune determined social standing. In fact, the Puritans, under the immense burden that lay upon their minds that they were not in control, took it one step further, with community rankings that decided how close to the front of church one sat.

The case of the Salem Witch Trials also reverberated in my head upon reading another example presented by the article, the bombing of London. According to the article, while the bombing of London during WWII was completely random, people spontaneously created that illusion that certain areas, certain blocks were chosen as targets while others were intentionally spared. People even went so far as to accuse residents of spared regions as being Nazi sympathizers to the point in which their safety and lives were at risk. The very idea that in both of these cases, people would more readily turn on others than face the reality that what was happening was beyond their control strikes me as scary, and yet dreadfully true. Thus, in this “perilous time” that we currently face with the stock market and the economy, it comes to me as no surprise that people seek out a simple, organized explanation. But the reality is much more complex, the stock market fell and banks failed not because of one person or one problem, but because of numerous issues that accumulated over years, going as deep as the very nature of your nation’s economy.

Upon looking at these times in history, it may appear these recent studies do little but scientifically prove the obvious. However, I found the end of the article quite interesting and thought provoking. The scientists noted that the delusion of order was in fact beneficial in some cases because it relieved depression and increased confidence. (My mind now jumps back to Wall Street. An entire economy based upon confidence. No wonder why the government keeps encouraging people to keep investing. Whether the market is under control or not, perhaps the best thing for it would at least be the illusion that everything is under control.)

Anyways, I would like to end with a quote from Dr. Whitson, one of the scientists who ran the experiment, from the article:

"Feeling in control might be one of the central animating forces for psychological and physical well-being. Not only are people who feel in control less likely to see things that aren’t there and end up chasing ghosts, as our research shows, but there are also a wide variety of health and societal benefits. When people are given information about a medical procedure – and thus feel less uncertain – they recover more quickly."

So perhaps deceiving ourselves in these times of peril isn’t the worse idea.

It’s a little recession, not a depression.
You have nothing to fear but fear itself.