The optometric specialist that can’t see right

Cornelia, my wife, goes to a H. A. Shop to get some new glasses and some contact lenses. The lady from the store tells her that since it is Saturday, they have no time in that day but that she should come next week and makes an appointment. 

We go next week and realize that there was no appointment for that day… after “digging” a little in the computer someone realizes that the appointment was made for the following week (two weeks from when she went the first time). 

Next week we go, they measure her eyes and say that in one week the lenses will be available and that in two weeks the glasses will arrive. She tries the lenses and feels really bad – dizziness, head aces etc. The people from the shop say that it’s because she is not used to wear contact lenses… Later the glasses arrive and she goes to pick them up from the shop. She realizes that she can’t see anything with them. 

Then someone makes some new measurements to her eyes and realizes that the first measurements were wrong… 

Last Saturday we go to the shop to check if the glasses are ready and she is told that they are not… then the third person offers to measure her eyes and in the end after another half an hour the results are that the first two measurements were wrong… at least the people at the shop were polite and we felt a bit less bad … in a few days the glasses will be ready… let’s hope this time she can see with them.

The unhandy “Handy-man”

When we moved to The Netherlands and moved in our apartment here, we had a problem with the cooking (electric) stove that broke down. We called the owners and they promised to send “The Handy-man” to replace it. 

Next day a man knocks on the door with a new stove in his hands. He starts taking the old one out its place and while doing so he tries to cut an electric cable without puling it out of the plug first. Good thing I was there and stopped him before actually cutting it, otherwise we would have had Fried Handy-man… 

After making a huge mess in the house he manages to place the new stove in its place, but not before breaking it a little in a corner. Then he realizes that he does not know how to connect the cables and the conclusion was that the stove worked with only 2 heaters instead of 4. 

Three days later another man came and managed to fix things.

The car mechanic that breaks the car

Earlier this year we realized one morning that the front suspension at our car broke and we had to repair it. We pay 120 euros to take it on a platform to the AUTHORIZED Citroen Repair shop. We are told that the repair work will cost 850 Euros (good bye holyday). We pay… the car gets fixed – suspensions replaced etc. 

A couple of days later I realize that when I steer straight the car goes left… I thought that I was wrong or that it was because of the uneven brick streets from the neighborhood. Several days later on the motorway the car was going left constantly… hmmm…   

The next week I take the car to the repair shop and complain. I am told that they will check it. A couple of hours later I am told that there was a problem with the balancing of the suspensions (I have honestly no idea what that means), that now it is fixed and that I don’t have to pay for the work (?!?!). 

On the way home I get the feeling that the car goes right when I’m steering straight, but I say to myself that I didn’t adjust my perception after the repairing. A few days later on the motorway I realize that I was right, that in fact the car goes right now if the steering weal is straight. 

The next day I go to the repair shop again… This time I said that I want to test drive it on the motorway after it is repaired…  3 hours later and several drive tests the problem still persisted… I am told to come back next week…. Finally the next week they managed to make it run “acceptable” as they put it…

The neighbor that sings but does not think

One of our next door neighbors is a music teacher. He is in his late 50s and lives with his wife. Sometimes they come to their attic (we life in the attic next door) and they sing on the piano and vocally. Till now I had no problem with them and said “good day” whenever we met. 

At the beginning of last week I started to feel a bad smell in the bedroom, but I said that it had to be something from outside. Two days later the smell became really bad and then I said that it’s the flowers that got bad and threw them. The smell got only worse. We couldn’t and still can’t sleep in our bedroom for the last week. We asked the neighbors if they used rat poison and the singing one says that he did…

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How CRETIN you have to be to use rat poison in an old house… especially at the higher floors??? I asked him why did he do that and I got the answer that he thought it was no problem and that he only used a small amount of poison (after all he didn’t try to kill an elephant). This problem is not yet solved since the Handy-man is on vacation and we need to take out the floor to search for the dead mouse… For sure the neighbor will pay for his stupidity. 

Is Modesty a Costly Signal?

As you may already know, costly signals are those costly behaviors that people engage in, in order to obtain status. They must be visible for others and, of course costly for the signaler. At the same time they either have to be desired by others or to signal a trait that is desired by others (others = potential friends and allies or potential mates). There are many costly signals ranging from conspicuous consumption to creativity and generosity.
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Recently I have been thinking if modesty is a particular case of costly signal? I mean modesty as a personal trait, not as an attribute of an object. For example a modest income is certainly not attractive while a modest IQ is for sure not desirable. I refer to modesty as the behavior of people who don’t brag, who don’t take too much credit for what they represent to others (i.e. personalities that don’t abuse their VIP status) or even modesty in the sense of allowing other (lower status) individuals to feel good about themselves – i.e. not patronizing them.
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If your neighbor is a high status person, but still goes to the supermarket by bike and drives a “normal” car, you will feel relatively better about yourself because he doesn't show how high status he is.
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Let’s see if modesty meets the criteria for being a costly signal
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First it is costly for the person exhibiting it. Now the costs of modesty are two-fold: on one hand modesty requires a certain amount of self-control which costs energy; on the other hand, there are opportunity costs for the signaler – he or she forgoes benefits that would have been obtained if modesty would have not been used.
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Second, is modesty desirable in itself or does it signal a desirable trait? For sure, modesty in itself is not desirable by others… I can’t imagine someone wishing to be more modest or having a modest partner… however the absence of modesty is undesirable… some people don’t want a partner who brags all day long how great he or she is. On the other hand, modesty implies, as previously stated, a lot of self-control, self-confidence and a sense of achievement or self-fulfillment… usually frustrated people are not modest at all, even the opposite is true. Now, self-control, confidence and self-fulfillment are desirable traits for long term mating partners. Thus, modesty meets the criterion of signaling a desirable trait, but only for long term mating.
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Third, is modesty visible? This is a tricky one. Being modest implies not showing what one has. At the same time, in order to be appreciated, modesty needs to be visible. This leads to the conclusion that there are two types of modesty: A. unobserved modesty which can be defined as not showing high status or deferring high status benefits due to the fact that high status is not exhibited in any way – it is not visible. B. observed modesty which can be defined as not abusing high status and deferring high status benefits done by persons who are known for having high status (i.e. football stars).
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If a well-known high status person exhibits modesty, it is for sure the second type of modesty – observed, thus visible. Moreover, exhibiting the first type of modesty is virtually impossible because, at least to a certain audience, the high status is known (e.g. Family, friends etc.). This makes even unobserved modesty visible, at least for some people.
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The conclusion is that at least in theory modesty meets the criteria of being a costly signal for attracting long term partners.

Mating Reality Check

At ERIM there are countless occasions when I am asked what my research interests are. When I say that it is “mating related behavior” or “the psychology of mating” I get the feeling that the audience has a hesitant reaction… something like “yeah, but is that important… is that actually an area of research, especially in business administration?”.
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Of course, mating, at least apparently, is not at the core of business activities and thus it might not be worthy of the attention of business researchers. During one class discussion I was even told that my research project does not have too many practical implications… Now here are some arguments why research in mating psychology and its implications in day to day life are important.
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First, every living human is the result of (successful) mating, even the ones that laugh at my interests. Is this important enough?
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Second, many research areas are important because of the fact that they investigate something that is related to a big market. One such example is research in finance and incentive schemes etc. Taking into account that the mating market is about 6 billion people (assuming that 1 billion are below mating age), I’d say it is a very large market. Moreover, mating exists (and has existed) even where financial markets and other forms of “modern” business don’t exist.
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Third, a huge number of behaviors are mating driven. Of course some prefer to say that there is no (direct) link between, let’s say, dancing or getting a Master degree and mating. I don’t think so… one would be amazed what the mating INSTINCT can make people do… Regarding the size of the market influenced by mating, just think about all the products and services that are bought to show the love for the significant other. Then add all the cosmetics markets, part of the car market, most of the fashion market and many more… is that big enough?
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Fourth, no other topic has received this much coverage in culture and no other topic accounts for a bigger chunk of well-being as mating does. Of course poems and songs don’t talk explicitly about mating, rather the pseudonyms of “love” and “romance” are used. Yes, in case anyone missed the point, romantic love is the more polite, more conventional way of saying “mating related behavior”.
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Fifth, mating is extremely practical. If anyone sees first the theoretical part of mating, then that person has lived in total isolation.

Honey I love you, but… - Part II Working restrictions

The countries from the “old guard” in the EU imposed restrictions on their national labor markets for the citizens of some of the newly entered countries (including mine) as a temporary measure to protect their work force, despite the fact that one of the main guiding principles of the EU is the free movement of labor. One exception from this was Spain, which now facing a record unemployment rate of 20% has imposed restrictions for the Romanians and Bulgarians. In spring The Netherlands government wanted to impose even more restrictions for the season laborers from Eastern Europe. Again, it’s a case of “honey I love you but….” Let’s see why.
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First, the argument that these restrictions actually protect the local population’s jobs is false because for any reasonable human being to fight unemployment by keeping away the people that want to work makes no sense. As long as the jobs that the non-natives get are legal, it means that they get at least the minimum salary according to the local legislation, meaning that no-one stopped a local from taking that job for the same salary as the non-local.
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Moreover, the fact that one is a foreigner in a country does not necessarily give an advantage. I don’t really imagine a job that has as requirements to not speak the local language (or speak it badly), to be at least 1500 km away from home, to be separated from your family and to live in poor conditions (as most migrant workers do).
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On the other hand the legal migrant workers bring a lot of advantages to the host country. For example they consume in that country, they pay taxes to the host country’s budget and, why not, they bring some cultural richness. Also because in many cases they get the jobs that the locals don’t want for some salaries that the locals consider to be offending, the migrant workers are a source for lower costs for companies in the host country which can translate in smaller prices for the local consumers or / and higher profits for the companies that employed them.
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But, of course, it’s easier to say “the foreigners are bad and they are the source of our problems… there is nothing wrong with us”. Well, when you get 20% unemployment rate and moreover there is a long history of high unemployment, then for sure there is something wrong with you.
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The truth is that no politician will say: “get off your asses, you’re out of the social welfare or unemployment aid” because they will lose votes, whereas the migrants that actually want to work don’t have the right to vote.