The Power of Mindful Learning (14 page)

When re-membering is an active process, when we have
the general idea, but search for details and in a Sherlock
Holmes fashion figure out what we need to know, we feel
accomplished. When we remember something without any
constructive work, when we merely call up information in
exactly the same form in which we encoded it, there is less reason for feeling masterful. It is far more satisfying to master
something than to have mastered it. True, getting a high grade
on a test because we have given back to the teacher exactly
what we memorized the night before may be rewarding if it
works, but it is surely less rewarding than figuring out a problem in the present.

Remembered facts are likely to be considered true. Yet truth
often changes depending on context and over time. Forgetting allows us to arrive at better solutions because the new solutions
are based on more experience and take into consideration the
present context.

We become aware that we have forgotten something only at
the point when we want to remember it. Has the forgetting
benefited us up to that point? Think of a person walking into
her house trying to remember something important or trying
to solve a personal dilemma. Would this time be better spent
mindlessly memorizing where she places her keys? Perhaps
when we can't find our keys it is because we were thinking
about more important matters when we put them down. If
that were not the case, why would we forgive the geniuses
among us for their absentmindedness. For them we presume
it is really other mindedness that is occurring. Why should it
be different for the rest of us? Geniuses or not, once we recognize that we have forgotten something we need, we become
oriented to the present and reinvent or rediscover what we
need to know. In this sense, forgetting provokes mindfulness.
Memorizing keeps us in the past; forgetting forces us into the
present.

Most often, if we've learned something mindfully we needn't
worry about remembering it. The information is likely to be
there when we need it. A friend told me of a conversation with
her mother. When my friend couldn't remember her friend's
last name, she asked her mother what Susan's last name was. Her mother said, "Susan who?" to which she replied, "Susan
Goldman."

The people most plagued by a negative view of forgetting are
the elderly. A majority of Americans believe that their memory
will inevitably decline in old age.' We pick up this stereotype as
young children, and it is passed on from generation to generation, often with undesirable consequences. Information that is
mindlessly remembered may be better forgotten. Mindsets
about failures, be they about poor memory or any negative
expectations may unnecessarily limit us.

Those who have investigated memory in the elderly disagree about the inevitability of this decline. Some argue that
the cognitive deterioration that accompanies aging is wired
into the nervous system, that is, that it is biologically determined. Others argue that an expectation of memory decline
creates the reality and that if the expectation could be changed,
many aspects of memory decline could be reduced. Those who
consider the decline inevitable have conducted research to document trends of memory decline.' Those who believe, as I do,
that memory loss can be a self-fulfilling expectation have tested
whether changes in environmental factors can improve memory function among the elderly.' Although the results of this
latter research suggest that permanent memory loss does not
inevitably take place as part of the natural biology of aging, it
has not yet become the dominant view.

Such expectations about memory loss may be part of more
general expectations about aging. A meta-analysis of studies
that examined evaluations of old people, confirmed that Americans hold negative attitudes toward aging.' The expression of
negative stereotypes of aging tended to increase in the studies
in which the researchers asked the subjects to evaluate old people's physical attractiveness or mental competence, such as their
tendency to forget, rather than their general personality traits.

Charles Perdue and Michael Gurtman conducted a study
that confirmed these findings and demonstrated that such
views probably influence the thinking of many Americans at a
level below awareness.' Subjects were primed by the rapid
flashing (i.e., below awareness) on the computer screen of the
word old or young prior to the appearance of a trait name on
the screen. After reading the trait, the subjects indicated
whether the trait was positive or negative. All subjects were
then given a list of negative and positive traits randomly
matched with either the question, "Do you think this
describes a young person?" or the question, "Do you think this
describes an old person?" The subjects were much more likely
to recall positive traits that were randomly matched with the
question, "Do you think this describes a young person?" and
negative traits that were randomly matched with the question, "Do you think this describes an old person?" More
important, subjects made decisions more quickly about the
positivity of traits following the subliminal flashing of the
word young and about the negativity of traits following the
flashing of the word old.

The mechanism by which these negative stereotypes about
aging influence our thinking as we become old may be understood in terms of the effect called premature cognitive commitments.10 These are mindsets that we accept unconditionally,
without considering or being aware of alternative forms that
the information can take. As mentioned before, once a person
processes information unconditionally, these now-accepted
facts do not come up for reconsideration.

Unconditional acceptance of information occurs frequently
with information that initially seems irrelevant, such as information about old age that we encounter in childhood. A child
may hear about a forgetful, cranky, old person and allow this
image to become the foundation for everything learned about
old age.11

The Old Man and His Grandson

There was once an old man who was almost blind and deaf and
whose hands trembled. When he sat at the table, he could hardly hold
his spoon; he liked to talk and he took forever to eat his supper. His
son and his son's we lost their patience and finally made the old
man sit in a corner behind the stove. They brought his food in an
earthenware bowl. He looked sadly in the direction of the table, and
his eyes filled with tears. One day his hands trembled so much that
he dropped his bowl and it fell to the floor and broke. The young
woman scolded him, but he said nothing and only sighed. She
bought him a wooden bowl for a few kreuzers, and from then on he
had to eat out of it. As they were sitting there one day, the little four year-old grandson was on the floor playing with some pieces of
wood. "What are you doing?"his father asked. The child replied* 'I'm
making a trough for both of you to eat out of when I'm grown-up."
Husband and wife looked at each other for a while and burst into
tears. After that they brought the old grandfather back to the table.
He ate with them from then on, chatted merrily and took his time.

ADAPTED FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM

In this case, the father and mother had a chance to change
their ways and the son learned that things could change. More
often than not, however, such attitudes go quietly uncorrected.

Becca Levy and I conducted research on memory and on attitudes toward aging in two cultures in which we believed negative stereotypes of aging were not as widespread or as widely
accepted as they are in most of the United States.12 Because of
their independence from mainstream American culture and the
frequent observation that these cultures hold their aged members in high esteem, we looked at mainland Chinese and the
American Deaf.13

Our hypothesis was that if negative views contribute to
memory loss in old age and our selected groups hold more positive views of aging than do non-hearing-impaired Americans, then both the Deaf and the Chinese people would show less
memory loss with aging.

By selecting two cultures that share little besides their positive views toward aging and an independence from mainstream American culture, we tried to reduce the likelihood of
what psychologists call cohort effects, that is, other experiences
shared by members of the same age group that could account
for any possible enhanced memory findings among the elders
of these two cultures. In other words, if we looked only at
American cultures (hearing and deaf) and found the predicted
interaction, we would not know whether it was a result of the
different cultural stereotypes about aging or of another confounding factor. For example, studies suggest that a stigmatized
status can lead to the development of cognitive coping skills;
thus the members of the old, Deaf cohort might have preserved
their memory skills because when they grew up, there was more
prejudice against Deaf people than there was when the younger
cohort grew up.14 Fortunately, the two Chinese age cohorts are
not stigmatized. By studying diverse cultures we do not eliminate all possible cohort effects, but we reduce their likelihood.

The Chinese hearing and American Deaf cultures fit our
research specifications. Although they differ in such areas as
language, food, history, appearance, kin traditions, and societal
demographics, both cultures tend to be intergenerational and
to hold their elders in high esteem. An anthropological study of
Deaf elderly living in San Francisco found that adults of all
ages identified and interacted with one another at various social
events, including at Deaf clubs which meet several times a week.15 A similar phenomenon was found in east coast Deaf
clubs." Younger members of the Deaf community often treat
older Deaf adults as role models and wise leaders.17

Chinese culture also has a long tradition of honoring the
elderly. In the two thousand years preceding 1949, the practice
of ancestor worship and the Confucian values of filial piety and
respect for the old prevailed, endorsed by the government.18 In
1949, when the Communist Party took over leadership of the
state, official attitudes temporarily changed. The Communist
leaders banned Confucianism, religious practice, and ancestor
worship because they felt that these practices might threaten
the expansion of state and party power.19

One might have expected this change of policy to harm the
status of the elderly and the positive expectations about aging
in China; however, the Chinese people still speak of advanced
years with pride.20 Even though the original Communist leaders did not expect the position of elders to remain strong, "the
Communist Revolution has strengthened rather than weakened traditional views of old age."21

In the United States, from an early age deaf individuals are
not exposed to the conversation that is the background of ordinary hearing life, in part because 90 percent of deaf people are
born to hearing parents who usually do not communicate by
sign language." The deaf also cannot listen to the radio and
until the implementation of recent technological advances were
rarely able to understand the dialogue and narrative of television and movies. One advantage of such isolation may be
reduced exposure to negative stereotypes about aging.