Psychology and the Biblical Worldview - Part 1

Happened to be delving into some of the psychological literature surrounding addictions lately and there is some interesting material coming out that dovetails well with David Brooks’ recent The Social Animal.

In chapter 8 Brooks talks about three aspects to human decision making and self control. The first is the perceiving of the situation. The second is the use of reason to calculate the value of, and means to achieve, any goal related activity. And the third is the power of the will to execute or refrain from executing the decision.

Most notable for me was the first. Brooks mentions that throughout the last couple of centuries the reason and will has been given almost exclusive attention. Personally, I’ve only ever been aware of the second two and it was a revelation to me reading about this third vital component especially given its close biblical parallels on temptation and sin. “The lust of the eyes” is, of course, talked about in 1 John 2:16 and in Genesis Satan tempts Eve with fruit that was “pleasing to the eye”.

Much of temptation starts with the way we look on some thing, or some person of the opposite sex, perhaps. The best way to combat addiction or sin in general is not to put oneself in a position where the will and reason come up against the temptation (this is why the Bible tells us to “flee sexual immorality” 1 Cor 6:18). More often than not the latter will win out. One can know that following a particular course of actions is wrong and will have negative consequences, you can resolve to resist with all your might but there is a reason this rarely works. Just look at the dieting success rates!

But there is more to it than just the physical act of looking. One also has to concentrate on where their attention is being focused. Brooks mentions a fascinating 1970 study by Walter Mischel where he tested the abilities of a group of four-year-olds to resist the temptation to eat a marshmallow by promising that after he returns, if they are successful, they will get two. What was found was that the children that were successful employed methods to divert their attention away from the marshmallows by either pretending it wasn’t there or that it was something other than a marshmallow. Later experiments performed by Mischel employed similar mental techniques by children to focus away from the marshmallow with much greater success than those who focused on the marshmallow and just used sheer will to resist the temptation.

So it isn’t just taking in the scene with one’s eyes that counts but one’s actual mental focus and attentional bias. What priorities and goals one sets determines the level of intensity of the addictive stimuli that is encountered. It is not enough therefore, just to resist in the face of temptation but one has to assess one’s mental state several steps before coming face to face with the temptation. A change in goals, ideals, and even identity is necessary so that the attention is focused away from the stimuli in the first place. As this paper on addiction points out:

"That is, becoming committed to a goal pursuit makes the individual responsive to cues associated with those goals in the sense of potentiating emotional and cognitive responses to them, thus giving those cues increased priority in cognitive processing and leading to “attentional biases” for them. During the past 15 years, a considerable body of evidence has accumulated to suggest that substance use and abuse are characterized by biases in the attentional processing of substance-related stimuli. That is, substance-related stimuli acquire the ability to grab the user’s attention." (Field & Cox, 2008)

This isn't just fascinating material and helpful for combating addictions but illustrates just how relevant and prescient the Bible is on the human condition.