When Mental Algorithms Go Wrong...

Evolutionary psychologists tend to view the mind as a kind of computer that runs algorithms that help us make decisions based on sensory input from the environment and an internal assessment of our physiological condition.  These are called tradeoffs and we make them all the time.  For example, do you continue safely in a job you hate, even though it gives you security? Or do you quit and pursue your dream to be a Hollywood actor with a massive payoff if you succeed - but the poverty line if you don't.  I am being a bit facetious here, of course.  But time/resources/energy/risk tolerance are all factors in decisions that have been made by our ancestor's since human history began.

Hunter-gathers make tradeoffs in terms of how much time they will give to hunting, to spending time with family, to forming social alliances...(sound familiar) and the mind has evolved to allow us to compute these things.  In modern day life businessmen do the same, allocating company funds for investing in research and development, marketing etc.  Indeed, capitalism is all about employing algorithms to maximise financial surplus.

But what has all of this to do with psychology?  Well, if the human mind is a sort of computer that uses its own form of algorithms to make decisions then 'normal' behaviour can be defined by how well those calculations suit the circumstances in which they are employed.  'Stupid' behaviour fits within a normal range, and after a few glasses of wine we are often apt to make decision we regret because we do not properly take in all the information or consider all the angles or give equal weight to various considerations.  But even daft decisions can be intelligible in the context they are made, so that we might forgive someone who offers the excuse, 'But I was really drunk at the time!'

So, what about 'insane' behaviour?  Well, this would mean that a decision someone made or an act they performed would be hard to fathom.  No rational basis might be discerned for it.  Indeed, the action may be one that seems totally ill-suited to the context in which it occurs or is one where the algorithm used may be an inversion of one which would normally serve survival.  For example, what if someone was making business decisions that maximised expenditure and minimised profit margins as much as possible?  Or what if someone decided to use time as inefficiently as possible to achieve an objective that could be achieved much faster?  Well, you might argue these people were aiming for these purposes - perhaps trying to ruin the company or dragging their heels to procrastinate and put off doing something that they wished to avoid.  Fair enough.  But what if this algorithm of inefficiency were applied to all their actions?

It is interesting to view all behaviours, including ones which are in the realm of abnormal psychology, as algorithms gone wrong.  Hair pulling, for example, is a kind of hunting for lipid fat roots whereby the puller aims to maximise the fat gained by selecting the most profitable hairs.  Viewed this way hair pulling constitutes an algorithm normally applied to resource finding but which is being misapplied to the body.  One reason this might occur is because the individual finds itself in an unstable or unpredictable environment and to combat this the mind rechannels an algorithm that is normally directed towards the world towards the body instead.  And after this calm can be achieved because a reward can be reliably obtained from specific manipulations, i.e. control is restored.

 By viewing abnormal behaviours in terms of the reward versus time/energy consumed/context applied to, it may be possible to view abnormality in terms of mental calculations which have gone awry in some way.  This may mean they are compensating for environmental instability in which no clear and reliable optimal strategy for obtaining resources or social attachments can be identified. 

Unless someone intercedes and helps supply new environmental information that changes a person's perspective on their world, or provides cognitive support so that an adaptive application of the algorithm can be found, the problems may persist.

 

is hair texture a factor in hair pulling?

Are fine, straight hairs less pulled?

Before people pull out a hair it is common for them to go through a process of searching for the right one to extract. I call this 'the audition'. Auditioning for the right hair means locating one that 'feels right'. Hair pullers seek out a strand that is satisfyingly kinked, or wiry or curled. This preference means that there must be hairs that are clearly less attractive to them and which remain unextracted. These tend to be fine, straight hairs that do not pass the audition process.

The favourite area to pull from for people who pull out head hairs is a region of the scalp called the vertex, which is at the top of the head and where most men naturally manifest hair loss.  However, less common areas for pulling are at the very front or those areas close to the sides where the hairline meets the skin regions. Why is this?

One answer I would suggest is that straight, fine hairs on the border of where hair meets skin do not produce fatty roots. The oily sebum yielding roots come from more central areas of the scalp and this is a major reason for pulling from those areas. Indeed, Mansueto (1990) has noted that procurement of hair roots provides a strong incentive for pulling, with 43% of TTM subjects acknowledging that they manipulate the hair/hair root.

It is only my theory, but one experiment would be to use water or gel in order to smoothen the hair and give it a straighter, finer texture than usual. This might interfere with the auditioning process by removing the kinks and wiry texture from hairs which trigger the pulling. Maybe someone has tried this already. If so, get in touch and say how it went.

What the ancient Greeks teach us about hair pulling

Hair pulling behaviour features quite a lot in ancient Greek literature - as anyone checking out this blog will know - and it is interesting to note that two forms of hair pulling are revealed.

One form of hair pulling is ritualistic - hair pulling that would have been conducted at funerals or at times of intense grief as a consciously performed social act. Indeed, as the body of the deceased was paraded or displayed family and loved ones would have yanked and pulled out hairs as an expression of their grief and inner pain. In many respects such behaviour served as a sincerity signal, whereby the pain of yanking out hair would reveal the genuine nature of the grief being felt as it is not something you would do for the sake of someone you didn't feel strongly about.  

Of course, this raises the question as to why a public display of hair pulling would emerge as an expression of grief?   In my view there are two reasons.  Firstly, inflicting pain on oneself releases endorphins, the body's own natural pain killers.  So on some level the mourner is attempting to inflict intense pain on himself as a way of triggering endorphin release and reduce the pain of his grief.  Using hair to do this does not involve causing any real damage to the body, but does produce a dishevelled appearance that socially marks him as a mourner to onlookers.  The second reason is that hair pulling is a behaviour that humans have always manifested, and is recorded in Hippocrates writings (see this site for more information on Hippocrates' notes on hair pulling).  In this respect, the mourners can be viewed as enacting a behaviour that is associated with intense distress and psychological frustration.

These days people do not pull out their hair at funerals because hair pulling itself is very little known and has lost its cultural significance.  However, it remains far more common than the statistics of official reported cases would have us believe.  Indeed, it has always been part of the human repertoire of body-directed actions that the Greeks were the first to record.  I like the fact that what is so little known of today was once a common spectacle among the ancient Greeks.

Hair Pulling in Ancient Literature - Part 5: Aesop

In Aesop's The Miser (6^th Century B.C.) a money hoarder hides a lump of gold in a hole for safety.  Unfortunately for him someone has spied his digging and steals the treasure.  On discovering the theft the miser reacts by pulling his hair out.  

The Miser, on his next visit, found the hole empty and

began to tear his hair and to make loud lamentations...

The advice of his neighbour, to replace the gold with a stone and forget about the theft, is the offered solution to the problem and proffered remedy for the miser's hair pulling behaviour.  But this advice is insufficient to help the miser cope with his object loss.  Indeed, the hoarding behaviour is symptomatic of comfort seeking and suggests the miser  already has underlying psychological issues that cannot be so easily resolved.  With the gold gone, and with it the miser's artificial sense of security, he is now especially prone to manifesting self-directed comfort seeking behaviour.

Ongoing conflicts that a person can find no solution or resolution to is characteristic of people who pull hair.  The puller is unconscious of the conflict that underlies pulling because if s/he were conscious of it the pulling might be allayed.  So the advice for the miser to forget about the theft and negate the problem rather than to accept and live with the painful loss is not helpful at all.  Only by ending the conflict - by ceasing to long for the return of something that will never be replaced and finding a new means to emotional security will the problem be addressed.