Kick the bucket list

Bucket lists have a grim quality about them. Once they’re completed, what else is there to live for? They nag at you. Even if life gets in the way of completion, they sit impatiently to be done. They are potentially dangerous; things you always wanted in your youth might now be dangerous or foolhardy in later years. They represent delayed gratification; a future reward for living the right life now –a bit like heaven.

Cam, Ottawa Citizen

Retirement planers like bucket lists because they provide a reason why you to employ them. You’ve probably seen the ads. Buy that sailboat you always wanted and sail to Australia. Scale that mountain you only saw from a distance when young. You, too, can realize the dreams of your youthful-you in your new “mature” body.

There’s nothing wrong with lists. I make them all the time: things around the house that need fixing like the front door hinge. There’s nothing wrong with hopes and goals. The difference between those and a bucket list is that hopes and goals are a dynamic process, a direction, whereas bucket-list items are mere markers along that path.

Andrew Stark finds bucket lists a bit strange (Globe and Mail, December 30, 2016). “And so, as we spy the tip of the reaper’s cowl poking up over the horizon, we begin to write bucket lists. Lists full of concrete, vivid experiences that we hope to enjoy and savour for themselves, and vague status-oriented goals so empty of specificity that we couldn’t possibly value them for themselves.

“Bucket lists typically feature two kinds of items. First are desires, before the end comes, to experience the kinds of moments that bucket-listers tend to find valuable, pleasurable or enjoyable in and of themselves. Typical examples: ‘Swim naked in the Caribbean.’ ‘Be at Chichen Itza on December 12, 2020.’”

The trouble with concrete items is that we confuse specific tasks for the real goals we aim for. Climbing a mountain is part of a longing to enjoy the outdoors and remain fit. The things you might do to achieve those goals are a series, none of them worth listing. You no sooner finish one and the next becomes apparent.

“The second kind of item is the kind of thing that will bring success, status or money, such as ‘write a book,’ or “break or set a world record.’”

These things on a bucket list are more aspirational than concrete. We may want to “complete a great painting.” What we really long for is artistic expression. A friend of mine who calls himself a “tin-basher (heating and air conditioner contractor)” remarked with satisfaction on the completion duct work he completed; already realizing the art of a job creatively done.

Aspirational and concrete things on a bucket list are mere clues to a deeper understanding of what we long for.

“The bucket list is a recent innovation,” adds Stark. “The human psychology it lays bare –our tendency to conceive of things we value for themselves in concrete, particular terms. . .”

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Why drivers text and drive

Fines in B.C. for driving while using phones will double to $368 on June 1. But will it change phone use? Psychology provides some clues.

“At any moment in time,” explains psychology Professor Gerald Wilde, “people assess risks and compare them with the amount they are willing to take,” on CBC Radio’s Spark. While risk factors may change, the amount of risk for any individual remains constant. If the perceived risk goes down, for example, people will engage in more risky behaviour to keep their risk level constant. Professor Wilde calls this “risk homeostasis.”

Risk homeostasis is best demonstrated by a famous experiment called the Munich taxi experiment conducted in the 1980s. A taxi company had to reduce their accidents or pay more for insurance.

So they installed anti-lock braking systems on one-half their fleet. To their surprise, the accident rate didn’t drop. In fact, over the three-year period of the experiment accidents actually increased slightly in the cars with ABS brakes.

It seemed like the drivers in safer cars were taking more risks. To find out, they hired expert observers to monitor driver habits such as speed, lane changes and so on. The drivers didn’t know that their passengers were paid observers and the observers didn’t know which cars had ABS – a classic double-blind experiment.

Sure enough, the observers found that taxi drivers increased risky driving behaviour: they maintained a constant risk.

In frustration, the taxi company decided to try a different approach. They told drivers that they would be financially responsible for damaged cars. Then the number of accidents went down.

Risk homeostasis is not a conscious decision but rather an intuitive calculation involving costs and rewards, including the cost of car repairs due to accidents and fines from traffic violations. Think of the calculation this way, says Prof. Wilde: “You set your thermostat such that there is a balance between comfort and cost of energy.”

Based on this psychology, increased driver fines will reduce distracted driving. But since looking away from the road is pretty drastic, there must be something beyond risk homeostasis.

When air bags were introduced into cars, drivers drove faster as explained by risk homeostasis –safer cars, riskier driving. What doesn’t add up is that the death rate to pedestrians and bicyclists went up. Yet, knowing that, drivers didn’t slow down. It seems like the risk to others was not part of the calculation. If it were, drivers would have slowed down.

Drivers who text and drive do so because it doesn’t appreciably increase their risk. Air bags, ABS brakes, seat belts and impact-absorbent car bodies reduce the risk to drivers but not to vulnerable people outside the car.

Add to that sound-proofing, cruise control, comfortable seats, deluxe sound systems, and drivers are easily lulled into a false sense of the degree of attention required while hurtling down the road in a two-tonne iron shell. Driving becomes secondary to fiddling with the radio, texting on their phones, applying makeup or rummaging through the glovebox.