Notes from a Psychologist
Dr. Mel Whitehurst

                       YOU MAY WANT TO KNOW THIS   

                          A CHALLENGE TO OUR LEADERS

I believe that any political leader who steps up with a grand unifying proposal in the next year or two has a strong possibility to become our next American president.  To start the conversation about what a grand unifying proposal looks like, here’s mine.

Secure a patent on the sun.  If I owned rights to the sun, I would charge a small worldwide monthly sun use tax on anyone who goes outside.  Then I would take the money and buy every American a tuba.  Then I would offer them free tuba lessons.  Just imagine what it would be like if we all could play the tuba.

The tuba could become the grand unifying force that would bring us all together.  Every Friday night between 8:00 and 9:00 PM I would designate as the “tuba music hour” where we all played our preferred songs at the same time.  America would sound like one big happy foghorn or, more concisely, one enormous “ummmpa”.

Of course, I know my idea is completely ridiculous, but that is exactly my point.  As nonsensical as it is, I still have not heard a single proposal of any current or aspiring leaders that does a better job of unifying unify us.  At least not yet.  

                               SHOULD WE BE ASKING WHY?

Why did an estimated 88-90 million eligible voters choose not to vote in the last presidential election?

The reasons are undoubtedly multiple, complex, and interconnected.  However, understanding those reasons could provide the crucial information on how to prevent our great democracy from sliding into authoritarianism.

                               MY PRECARIOUS SUGGESTION

I am recommending we start a new political party:  the Againster Party, a blend of Republicans, Democrats and Independents.

The new party will oppose everything.  Whatever the issue, they will disagree.  If someone says yes, they say no.  If some says no, they say no louder.  Their most important strategy is to trash any person who opposes them.  Anyone disagreeing with the party will be branded as a loser and incompetent.

And with that commitment, we would finally be united and have nothing else to worry about—no compromising, and plenty of finger-pointing, pessimism, name-calling---always out there fighting against everything. 

Post Facto Note

Although I wrote this with sarcastic comical intent, there is an element of truth hiding in the joke.  In our contemporary world, the voices that define themselves by what they are against seem to be gaining far more ground than those who stand for something constructive.  Their efforts pull us apart, while sadly only a handful of hopeful voices keep urging cooperation, goodwill, and mutual support.

               “I DID WHAT I DID BECAUSE I LOVED PEOPLE.”
                ADOLF HITLER

​History's most infamous self-justifier.

We all have an impulse to justify ourselves and to avoid taking responsibility for any actions that turn out to be harmful, immoral, or stupid.  We’re all capable of believing things we know aren’t true.  And when the evidence finally proves us wrong, we often respond not with genuineness for the truth but with an audacious self-justification, restructuring the facts so we can claim we were right all along.  Logically, a person may keep this up for a long time.  However, sooner or later, a self-justified fabricated belief will more than likely collide with reality, leading to disastrous results.

Can you identify any well-known contemporary infamous self-justifiers?  I have a few in mind.

SOURCE

Mistakes Were Made (but not by Me) by Dr. Carol Tavris and Dr. Elliott Arnson.

         THE DREADFUL INCIDENT OF THE ELECTRIC PADDLE

When I was in the fourth grade, I became convinced that my teacher was horribly mean.  If you “acted up” in class, she would grab you by the arm, march you to the front of the classroom, order you to bend over, put your hands on your knees, and then delivered two sharp swats with her paddle.  I lived in constant fear of being humiliated, or maybe even being killed, in front of my classmates.

Then one day things changed dramatically.  Instead of administering a painful paddling in front of the class to a student, the teacher did something different.  My best friend Billy got caught talking out in class.  Instead of paddling him in front of everyone, my teacher escorted him to the principal’s office.  Billy never returned to class that day, but he showed up the next morning.  He told me the principal had instructed him to keep quiet about what had happened in the office.

Next the big rumor started on the playground.  The principal had an electric paddle in his office!  My fear level along with my classmates reached maximum capacity.  I could vividly imagine the horrors of an electric paddling.  

When I told my mother about the electric paddle, she smiled and said, “If you ever get sent to the principal’s office, unplug it when they’re not looking.”  At least I had a plan to survive.                          

                                      A GREAT IDEA

“If you can’t stop the lies, become less gullible.”

(Matthew McConaughey’s suggestion for disarming political lies.

Poems and Prayers)

Gullible:  Easily fooled or tricked into believing something that is not true; trusting, naïve and unsuspecting.

Antidote:  Be a little more skeptical, cautious, and analytical.

              WHO LIES THE MOST AND WHO LIES THE LEAST?

The most prolific liars tend to be young.  Lying peaks in late adolescence and then gradually declines over a lifetime. 

Congratulation to all senior friends.  We’re now the most honest among the U.S population.  I feel honest all over after reading this study.

SOURCE OF INFORMATION

K. B. Serota & T. R. Levine, (2015) A Few Prolific Liars:  Variation in the Prevalence of Lying, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 34(2), 138-157

IS IT BETTER TO BE OPTIMISTIC AND WRONG, OR PESSIMISTIC AND RIGHT?

Research shows that people feel significantly worse when their pessimistic expectations are confirmed than when their optimistic expectations are disproven by a negative outcome.

Intuitively, we might assume that having our pessimistic expectations confirmed would make us feel somewhat better because we were “right.” Yet, this is not how people typically respond.  In reality, the confirmation of pessimistic expectations does not produce positive feelings.

Answer to the headline question:  It’s better to be optimistic and wrong.

SOURCE

Inon Raz, Niv Reggev and Michael Gilead, Is It Better to Be Happy or Right?  Examining the relative role of the pragmatic and epistemic imperatives in momentary affective evaluations, Emotions, 2024, Vol. 24, No. 6, 1342-1377

      DO YOU WANT TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE?

Polls consistently show that character is the trait voters value most when choosing a political leader.  Political ideology usually ranks second.

University researchers found that people are far more willing to entrust power to leaders who demonstrate one core element of character:  consistently and genuinely following through on their commitments.  People tend to trust leaders more who practice what they preach. (See sources below.)

Regrettably, I have frequently misjudged the character---or more accurately, the absence character displayed by some of today’s political leaders.  Leaders who say one thing and do another seem to be thriving.

In my view, if we want our democracy to remain strong and viable, we must all become far more discerning in how we choose our leaders.  Be certain their actions match their words.

SOURCES

Annika School, Helen Rapp, Gerben van Kleef, and Kai Sassenbert, On the Road to Power:  Showing Benevolence and integrity Fuels Power Granting, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Applied, 2025, Vol. 31, No. 4, 243-259

Gleb Tsipursky and Tim Ward, Pro Truth:  A Practical Plan for Putting Truth Back into Politics, John Hunt Publishing, Hampshire, UK, 2020

                      DOES TRUTH MATTER IN POLITICS?

If political leaders can succeed by telling lies, then truth does not actually matter. 

                   A CASE FOR KINDNESS AND INTEGRITY?

When researchers asked people to evaluate others on the moral traits of kindness and integrity, they found that people high on kindness and integrity were also happier.

Source

Jessie Sun, Wen Wu, and Goeffrey Goodwin, Are Moral People Happier?  Answers from Reputation-Based Measures of Moral Character, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:  Personality Processes and Individual Differences, 2025, Vol. 128, No. 5, 1160-180

​

                  ARE SMILING PEOPLE MORE TRUSTWORTHY

​Predicting other people’s trustworthiness is an important aspect of everyday social life.  In a recent study, participants were shown three sets of faces, angry, sad, and smiling, and asked to rate each person’s trustworthiness.

Smiling faces earned the highest trust ratings, strongly suggesting that people who smile often are perceived as more trustworthy.

From now on, I’m turning over a new leaf.  I plan to smile more and to “try” to give up “some” of my cantankerous ways.  Also, I’m thinking it might be time to enroll in smiling lessons.

SOURCE

Michael Olszanowski, Aleksandra Tolopilo, and Ursula Hess, Smile and the World Smiles (and Trusts) With You:  Happiness mimicry Shapes First Impressions, Emotion, 2026, Vol. 26.  No. 2, 49​

                         ARE WE READY FOR A DICTATOR?

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” (Sir Walter Scott)

Numerous current political leaders attempt to mold our thinking by creating tangled webs of deception, confusing and disrupting those they lead.  Uninformed voters often fail to recognize these behaviors for what they are: the tactics of authoritarian, anti‑democratic leaders.

I believe that in our present political environment we are being psychologically prepared like Pavlovian classical conditioning to accept a future dictator!

POST-FACTO NOTE

I’m not certain, but we may already have an authoritarian leader to obediently follow.  It could just be my overactive imagination, however.  Would someone please check my thinking to make certain I’m on the right path?

Sources of Information

Ronald Miller, Analysis of Sequential Variables in Pavlovian conditioning:  A Simulation Reset Predicts Both Pavlovian and Instrumental Conditioning Outcomes

 Julia Lee, Ashley Hardin, Bidham Parmar, & Francesca Gino, The Interpersonal Costs of Dishonesty:  How Dishonest Behavior Reduces Individuals’ Ability to Read Others’ Emotions, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 2029, Vol. 148, No. 9, 1557-1574 

               THERE IS PERHAPS A MORAL TO THIS STORY

One day while growing up, my dad discovered a raccoon in the barn tearing into feed sacks.  He captured it and put it in a wire cage while deciding what to do with it.

In the meantime, relying on my 10-year-old-logic, I decided to teach the raccoon a few tricks---mainly how to stand up and roll over.  No one had ever told me that raccoons are not always friendly to humans.  I stuck my hand into the cage to give him a friendly pet, and he nearly chewed my hand off before I could pull it away.  I still carry a small scar on my left wrist where he bit me.

The moral of this story is simple:  there are many animals, including human animals, that will bite you, especially if you try to pet them.

For example, over the past year, I’ve come to believe there may be an unnamed chief executive in our government and his congressional accomplices located somewhere on the East Coast who consistently display strong “raccoon‑like behaviors.

So, stay on high alert.  We could be run down and nipped at any moment by a roaming pack of human racoons.  Try not to pet them, particularly if they are seen in the area of the Oval Office.