Kristen Gyles | Fifty shades of ‘badmind’

Recently I came across a social media post in which a woman shared an experience she had many years ago as a university student in an ‘Introduction to Psychology’ class.

She said it was the last class before final exams and at some point during the lecture, the professor paused and suggested that because the class seemed so stressed about the exam, he was willing to give each student a 95 per cent grade but that this would only work if all the students voted unanimously in favour of the blanket grading.

The professor did a poll to see how many students, if any, would object to the guaranteed 95 per cent. The woman said there were roughly 250 persons in the lecture and 20 voted against the guaranteed 95 per cent.

The professor did a second poll to solicit the reasons for the votes. The options were as follows:

A) I voted for the 95 per cent because I want the 95 per cent grade

B) I voted against the 95 per cent because I think I could do better

C) I voted against the 95 per cent because I don’t want a grade I don’t deserve

D) I voted against the 95 per cent because I don’t want those who didn’t study to get the same grade as me

The woman said all 20 of those who voted against the guaranteed 95 per cent chose option ‘D’.

UNANIMOUS RESPONSE

The professor then explained that he had been conducting this little social experiment every semester for several years and that he has never got a unanimous response. According to the professor, there had always been at least one student who voted against the guaranteed 95 per cent because they don’t want someone else to have what they have because they believe they don’t deserve it. This, the professor said, was the most important psychological lesson they would learn for the semester.

The professor also noted that, statistically, only 10 of the 250 students were likely to achieve a 95 per cent grade in the exam. The vast majority of students would have therefore fared out much better off with the guaranteed grade.

Obviously, I am in no position to classify this woman’s story either as fact or fiction. Either way, after browsing through the comments, I found it interesting that the proportion of individuals who ardently defended the decision to vote against the guaranteed grade held some congruence with the numbers cited in the story.

However, there were a handful of commentators who said that for them, it all depended on the nature of the course of study. Some said, for example, that if they were in medical school they would not have a clear conscience knowing that a class of largely incompetent people got a passing grade because it would eventually sully the population of doctors.

The majority of objectors, however, said it was just not fair for ‘timewasters’ who had not studied as much as 15 minutes throughout the semester to sail through with a 95 per cent while they had been studying for days in preparation for the exam.

What say you?

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

If nothing else, the two polls are an amazing thought experiment. We all have different values but we should probe into why our values are what they are. Some of us say we defend fairness and justice but is it just because we hate the thought of seeing others have what we have?

In Jamaica, we talk a lot about ‘badmind’ but seem not to realise that one can suffer from ‘badmind’ even in relation to things they already have. There are 50 shades of ‘badmind’ but they all conform to the same definition:

Badmind (noun): A mental plague that invokes in its sufferers’ feelings of disapproval and disgust for others’ achievements and advancements.

Notwithstanding its prevalence across Jamaica, so many of us still allow the badmind-ed to get to us. How comes? Maybe because we have very narrow thoughts and expectations about how ‘badmind’ manifests its ugly self. Contrary to popular belief, it is not only the poor and the destitute who suffer from ‘badmind’. The world perhaps has equally as many rich sufferers.

Some see themselves as being inherently more deserving of good things, because they see themselves as being better than others. But even more prevalent are those who have attained high levels of success through blood, sweat and tears. They had to work hard to achieve what they have and they get sick to their stomach at the thought of someone else accessing with minimal effort the things they had to work hard for. Is that not also ‘badmind’?

Some will say it is a matter of ethics or fairness, and that we don’t all deserve the same results. But who determines who deserves what? At the root of so much of our psychological misery is a belief that we know so much about each other or, at least enough to draw conclusions about how deserving others are of the things they have.

Take for example, the students in the professor’s social experiment who feel those who studied less are less deserving of a good grade. Would a student who studied less still be less deserving of a good grade if they just happened to be significantly smarter? Would they still be less deserving if it was their second time doing the course? Would they still be less deserving if their notes had gotten stolen halfway through the semester? Unfortunately, many times we just don’t have all the facts.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com