The Wind Howls; The Mountain Remains Still

“There once was a boy so quiet and shy, he used to run home from school when the bell rang, to avoid socializing with his classmates. Like many shy people, this boy sided instinctively with the oppressed. As he grew older, he learned to speak out on their behalf—but remained a shy and quiet man, believing that these traits were his source of spiritual strength. The boy’s name was Mohandas Gandhi, and he later uttered, for me, the most important sentence in history: In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”

This excerpt from Susan Cain’s recent TED Talk, The Quiet Revolution (2014), recapitulates that the tendency to be reserved and reflective is associated with many people who bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world.

Our lives are shaped as much by our personalities as by culture, religion, or gender. How we interact with people, our choices in relationships or careers; how we bounce back and learn from our mistakes depends a great deal on where we fall on the introversion-extroversion continuum. In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Cain (2012) speaks about how Introversion is different from being shy. While shyness is the fear of social judgment, introversion is a preference for an environment with less stimulation.  

According to Jung (1971), introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling, while extroverts toward the external life of people and activities. Extroverts crave large amounts of stimulation but introverts feel their best when they are in quieter environments where they can concentrate, most of the time.

Nowadays, when being social and outgoing is prized above all else, being an introvert can be difficult. According to Cain (2012), “Introverts living under the ‘Extrovert Ideal’ are like women living in man’s world discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.” In India, a culture with strong family values and large social gatherings, people are often expected to socialize and open up to extended family members which can be very daunting. Many times, an introvert’s quietude is perceived as impolite or lacking respect. Others may mistake silence for ignorance or even insolence. Yoon (2014) says “Introverts listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and focus on relationships. Introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves.”

Research shows that extroverted leaders are better at leading passive employees because they are able to motivate and inspire them. Introverted leaders however are better at leading proactive employees as they tend to listen more carefully, making them more effective leaders of vocal teams. They are more open to suggestions which makes their employees feel valued, encouraging them to work harder (Grant, Gino & Hoffman, 2010).

Introverts have much to offer at the workplace, yet they are often uneasy in this gregarious and structured environment with a lack of privacy hampering their productivity. The dominant, assertive, and rarely speechless get ahead, while the pensive and inaudibly knowledgeable tend to not get a word in edgewise. In order to cope, many mask their introversion to blend in and circumvent the ‘shy’ or ‘antisocial’ labels (Ronson, 2012).

Introverts however are very valuable to organizations as they often provide a different perspective along with innovative and creative solutions. Unlike extroverts, they spend more time prudently thinking about and analyzing problems before deciphering them. Along with their attention to detail, they are also more persistent and give up less easily. Cain exemplified this in her book through Einstein’s words: “It’s not that I’m so smart. It’s that I stay with problems longer,” (Cain, 2012).

Introverts need to recognize their uniqueness and where they can shine. After all “the secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamp lit desk,” (Cain, 2012).

 Nikita D'Souza

On Language and Its Rules: History in Language

The Merriam–Webster dictionary defines language as “the words, their pronunciation and the methods of combining them, used and understood by a community.” The very definition of language implies that its primary function is to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings to our communities. An infant picks up this skill from the tender age of six months. It would just be incoherent babble at that time but in accordance with the definition given by Merriam–Webster, it could still be classified as language because the infant is trying to convey a certain message to his parents, even though the message might be as inane as “Change my diaper, Dad.”

Further, the history of mankind has been a witness to the fact that language is very dynamic. Whether it is English, French, Greek, or Zulu, all languages have evolved, adapted, and expanded to cater to the changing and ever increasing needs of mankind. Every year, around 1000 words are added to the English dictionary alone. Around 2000 slang words are also invented and added only in Oxford Dictionaries Online (Datoo, 2013). The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, never removes a single word even if it’s no longer in use (Datoo, 2013).  Slang words, as though in defiance, also become an integral part of the English language. This makes it almost impossible to define the scope of a language, begging the question “Who has the right to define or limit a language?” Is it the stodgy old men working for Merriam–Webster occasionally swearing (which is not considered to be a part of language) or is it the people who use these words to express themselves? I would like pose a third option that would render the above two choices obsolete. I believe that language should not be constrained or standardized because language is a culmination of experiences and a non-standard language can lead us to unexplored heights of creativity. This blog series will explore various reasons that support the non-standardization of language.

During British Imperialism, a young British judge called William Jones was stationed in India. He made an attempt to learn Sanskrit in order to effectively enforce British rules in India. While learning Sanskrit, he noticed certain similarities between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin which pointed to a possibility that many of the Indo-European languages emerged from a common source. Some historians further postulated that these Indo-European people were descendants of the same race and found archaeological evidence supporting their theory. This is a rather detailed example of how language contains history at the macro level. Similarly, language is repository of experience at the grass root level too. It is a well-known fact that the attitudes, behaviors, personality traits, and other psychological characteristics of a person are influenced by peers, parents, media, and other socializing agents like teachers and schools. Language, as established before, is also an integral part of an individual. Hence, it cannot be spared by the pervasive influence of the environment.

English is my second language. I did my high school education in India and pursued my college degree in the Unites States. My English accent is a mixture of Indian and American accent. However, since India was a British colony and British English is widely spoken here, some British accent also seamlessly slithers in. Therefore, a person’s language is like his memoir. It contains the much valuable history of his race, his gender and pivotal moments of his life. James Baldwin (1979) explores the above given claim in his essay “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is?” He writes, “Subsequently, the slave was given, under the eye, and the gun, of his master, Congo Square, and the Bible–or, in other words, and under those conditions, the slave began the formation of a black church, and it is within this unprecedented tabernacle that Black English began to be formed. This was not, merely, as in the European example, the adoption of a foreign tongue, but an alchemy that transformed ancient elements into a new language” (Baldwin, 1979, Para. 7). Baldwin further explains how Black English was a product of the cruel history of slavery and racial discrimination. Similarly, a person’s language is an embodiment of his past including all his toils and rewards. By dismissing his language, one callously dismisses his history.

 Coming up next in this series – On Language and it Rules: Why context matters?

Prachi Bhuptani

Altruistic Economics

Recent research in economics has unravelled a mountain of scientific evidence that has previously remained unexplored. Indeed, the methods in the field of economics are markedly changing, as well as the topics that economists are dealing with. A cursory glance at published articles dealing with experiments, psychology, sociology, and political science in top-ranked economics journals will suffice to grasp recent shifts in economic thinking: something that we often overlook when immersed in a full-time formal degree in economics. The purpose of this article is to understand how expanding our current economic perspective is only beneficial for achieving a better picture of everything that is economics.

First, it must be said that intertwining fields such as psychology and political science with economics is not exceptionally novel, in that it has been an active means of economic analysis under the aegis of behavioural economics and political economy. In fact, areas like mathematics (e.g., game theory) and statistics (e.g., econometrics) have contributed much more to our understanding of economic issues than others; so clearly economics as a social science has borrowed significantly from other sciences. For anyone who is thoroughly dissatisfied with learning the assumptions of any economic model (which, in their own right, are absolutely justified in theory) might immediately take a shine to modelling economic behaviour using psychology or evolutionary biology, since it partly consists of appealing to one’s sense of intuition in analysing economics. Recent studies in behavioural economics include studying the role of moral and religious codes in dishonest behaviour such as cheating on a test (Ariely, 2013), ‘nudging’ people to make choices that are optimal in their own right (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008), and how social norms and social preferences drive our selfish (and often altruistic) decisions (Binmore, 2010).

Second, we see that ‘sister’ fields such as experimental economics have assumed importance owing to their utility in testing behavioural economics theories, as well as falsifying existing, traditional economic theory (Kagel & Roth, 1995). Experiments have become particularly popular in playing out game theoretic-situations for human subjects (e.g., testing if the prisoner’s dilemma is indeed a dilemma for people). Some experiments in economics have gone far beyond the comforts of the laboratory (which gives a researcher the advantage of having complete control over how the decision is presented) to the field; this necessarily requires more resources to organize, but has higher external validity (Harrison & List, 2004). Natural (or field) experiments have become wildly popular in economics as they allow one to assess policy impacts (such as Banerjee & Duflo, 2011). Clearly, experiments (despite their complexities) indeed show the path to a new understanding of how we make decisions in real life.

In the Indian context of economics research (such as Hatekar & Kulkarni, 2013), it would be a grave error to say that there is a dearth of good research. Universities, think-tanks, and other research institutions have contributed vastly to the present research scenario in India. There are also extensive datasets that offer crucial insights into the state of the economy—both at the macro and micro level.

Finally, we can say that the state of flux for economics research (both in India, and world over) is a good indication of a belief in collaboration, scientific rigour, and a system designed to (mostly) ensure that the (usually) best research survives. The inter-and-multi-disciplinary approach to economics will only give us richer insights into the way we function, and ultimately how society (or an economy) runs itself. While many important issues are already the focus of mainstream economics research, there is treasure everywhere, waiting to be found.

Anirudh Tagat