Fritz Heider, a founding father of social psychology, taught some (and reminded others) that listening to everyday language had the potential to teach us about human consciousness: how we think and feel.
However, listening to what people actually say can be difficult for various reasons, including the speed of verbal exchanges. And, to the extent that this is true, imagine how difficult it is to listen to or for what people don't say.
Along these lines, consider that while I was listening to numerous pundits recently discuss New York City Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to outlaw super-sized drinks, among other issues related to health problems associated with being overweight and under exercised, I heard numerous references to "moderation" and "overindulgence", but no mention of the word "indulgence".
So, given that I am a social psychologist interested in linguistic subtleties, including distinctions between "indulgence" and "overindulgence", I simply could not help but notice the word "indulgence" was missing from these discussions.
I often teach my students that two popular psychologists, Sigmund Freud and Abraham Maslow, each discussed how overindulgence could be as detrimental and debilitating as deprivation (Freud relative to psychosexual development and Maslow relative to the "so-called hierarchy of needs").
Then I wondered whether this tendency to omit the word "indulgence" was commonplace and a significant component of our Zeitgeist and, if so, why that would be. That is: Why would a discussion about what sounds like an emerging health epidemic resulting from obesity not include the word "indulgence"?
First, maybe this apparent oversight is indulgence (currently) is, indeed, a major component of our cultural norm.
Consider the burgeoning popularity of buffets that seemed to explode in the 1980s. On Mother's Day when I picked up some food for my daughter and my mother-in -law, I read a proposition on a T-shirt worn by a restaurant employee that proclaimed (something like), 'If you are not full it is not our problem'.
Or the greed issues represented in the movie "Wall Street", the numbers 24-7-365 and the very recent financial debacles that emerged and reportedly threaten(ed) our financial well-being. Remember the first President Bush telling the American public "we needed to protect the American standard of living" when Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait. There was an abundance of real-world data representing a key linear belief underlying the so-called "American standard of living" that more is better.
And finally, we have Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to outlaw super-sized drinks.
Also, speaking more-or-less psychologically, maybe a reason why there is a tendency for people to overlook norms, unless and until someone brings it to our attention, is because it is the deviations from the norm that often are perceptually salient, distinctive, and attention-magnets. Thus, if one doesn't attend to and think about the norm, it stands to reason that the norm would neither require explanation or accountability.
Moreover, even if we wanted to evaluate our current norm(s), we have to allow for the fact that cultural norms are difficult to evaluate at the time for various reasons, including the question, What is a valid comparison/control group? Add to that a general tendency to think in linear terms that obfuscates the issues and inhibits our ability to think clearly, even for well-trained systematic thinkers like scientists (especially those who rely on correlation and statistical regression).
However, in the final analysis, if indulgence is part of our current Zeitgeist, especially as it is related to our national health and economic well-being, it probably is in our best interest question whether such-n-such is best for the American standard of living and to get a handle on it. Similarly, it may be in our best interest to systematically think in terms of satisfaction over the long-term as well as (apparent) satisfaction in the short-term.
Otherwise, if and when overindulgence becomes our norm, we will have to further modify our language to include the phrase "over-over indulgence".
Joe McGahan, Ph.D., is a professor of social psychology at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, co-director of the Social Science Research Lab at ULM and vice president of Polaris Marketing Research, Atlanta, Ga. Contact him a email@example.com.