The Burden of Responsibility: cleaning up the messes?

 

     In every family, in every team, in every group there will be someone who is least tolerant of messes, unfinished tasks, and unaddressed problems. That does not mean that that person is a "neatnik" or even extremely responsible. Just as within companies who just don't think they can live without ranking their employees, it is always within a range. For employee ratings, the "low end" might be someone in the top 5% of the population while others are in the top 4%. In the case of responsibility, it may mean that, for that person, the "straw that breaks the camel's back" is when there are 34 unwashed socks scattered across the floor rather than 40 unwashed socks (or an infinite number of unwashed socks).

     In the above cases, the responsibility is self-assigned. It is self-assigned because the person's characteristics are such that leaving the tasks not done causes greater inner turmoil than any efforts needed to take care of the problem.

     It is all relative. But responsibility includes assuming the duties of resolution of a problem. Those that recognize, and cannot stand to continue, a problem first will be the first to try to resolve the problem. They scoop up all of the unwashed socks and put them into the clothes washer (hopefully they also add detergent and turn it on). They pick up that book left on the floor that everyone keeps carefully stepping (or not so carefully, sometimes tripping) over.

     Responsibility is also closely tied to reliability. Responsible implies that you have authority, and will be held accountable, for what you are supposed to do. Reliability says that if you say you will do something then, if at all possible, you will do such. A person can be reliable without being responsible because a person can do things for which they have no authority or accountability. It is difficult to imagine making someone responsible if they are not also reliable. It would be a scenario of planned failure -- giving authority and accountability to someone who is unreliable.

     As is true of almost all internal change -- it cannot be imposed from without. There has to be a desire, within a person, to change. Thus, someone who is not responsible is not likely to become responsible unless something occurs to make them want to become responsible. Although there are non-military situations that force individual improvement and responsibility within the group -- there are more examples of such, in our society, within the military.

     In the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman", the character played by Richard Gere -- Zack Mayo -- is used to floating along, grifting, taking the easier paths. But his goal of feeling self-worth and belonging is a sufficient motivation for him to choose to change. This is the purpose of "tough love" -- creating a situation within which a person can choose (or not choose) to change. In the movie, it is either change or eviction from the military. In a family, the penalty may be eviction from the family support network. Personally, I think the latter is the harder to execute as the military already is structured with its firm rules and required behaviors. But, in either case, the change may be pressured from without but it must be the choice of the person to change.

Malleable Memory : What you remember isn't necessarily what occurred

     Memories are that special something that make us who we are. Twins may have the same genetics but, even if raised in the same environment, they cannot have the same memories. You would think that, if this is the case, memory must be the most reliable of attributes of the human condition.

     But this is NOT the case. Memories can be formed in ways that they are inaccurate at the very beginning -- and change over the years to fit in better with other attitudes and stories concerning the subject matter.

     Jodeph Campbell related a local tale of a village that had a mischievous god who visited. There were two rice fields on different sides of a small dirt road. This god put on a big woven hat -- one side was bright red and the other side was bright blue. He put it on his head such that the people working in the field on the right saw the red and the people working in the field on the left saw the blue. He reached the end of the road and turned around -- but, while turning around, he also reversed his hat such that now (going the opposite direction) the people on the right saw the blue side and the people on the left saw the red. Thus, for both walks down the road, people in the field saw the same color.

     When the villagers finished their work for the day, they met in the village and talked about this strange man who walked through the fields wearing a bright red hat. "NO" said others he was wearing a bright blue hat. So, they argued and fought and the god laughed. This is one of the first ways that memory is shaky -- no one can observe everything that there is to be observed and different people will observe different things.

    A second area that changes the formation of memories is that of expectations. These expectations are based on personal histories, biases, and even current events.  During a classroom experiment, two people (without forewarning of the class) entered a classroom -- male and female and of different ethnic backgrounds. They loudly started to argue, fight, and then leave the room. After they left, within five minutes of their arrival and before the students could discuss among themselves, the instructor had the students write down an account of what happened.

     When the instructor read through the accounts, she found that there were not two accounts that read the same. Some of the things that the actors did were reversed -- things that the female did were recounted as things that the male did and so forth. The interpretation of who did what first and which one was justified in their reaction also changed. In general, if a history book was to be written from these first-person accounts there would have to be one per person.

     The third area of moving early memories is that of peer influence. Once a situation is discussed, many people will start changing their memories to that of what the most popular people remember -- or will allow for change based on arguments presented by others of more vocal temperament..

     Within a few days, the people no longer remember any different account. These are some of the many aspects of how initial memory can be altered. In the next blog, we will talk about longer-term memory and how it changes with time and can be altered.