Self-Selected Data, Evolutionary Psych, and Born To Rebel

"Cell Phone" use is recently correlated with a 4% higher accident rate. Of course, the data are based on "self-selected" subjects. That is, no one randomly assigned 100 out of 200 people to have a car phone.

The 4% elevated accident risk is interesting because Russ Barkley and others derive the same increased accident risk for drivers with ADHD. Is it possible that ADHD drivers are more likely to be using a telephone in heavy traffic? Maybe.

Another option is that manics also may be more likely to be using a car phone. Manics are driven, competitive people and may not be safe drivers. Data associating mania with traffic accidents could also approximate or exceed the 4% mark.

Both manics and ADHD are characterized (in part) by talkativeness, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness (in some things). Thus, an antenna on the back window could mean:

(a) Don't cut them off, they will get even.

(b) Stay clear, they aren't watching the road. (1)

Either way, that antenna is diagnostic for something! The identical relationships likely apply to shavers, newspapers, coffee containers, hair combs, lipstick, tape or CD players, and all the other gadgets that we use in a car and interfere with safe driving.

The hopeful outcome is that once this information gets around, try some protective mimicry. Put an antenna on your own car so that other drivers give way. The negative outcome is that someone will mistake correlation for causation and ban car phones but have no impact on accident rate.

About Birth Order

The same issue dogs evolution theorists and much social/epidemiologic research. Frank Sulloway's "Born to Rebel," is a great book, all the more interesting because it is infested with seeming bipolars and manics . His work traces historically famous people, especially in the sciences, and concludes that scientific rebellion and prominence are inversely related to birth order. The Darwinian mechanisms are competition driving diversity. The first child usually establishes an alliance with the parents and makes first claim to the parents' territory. The next children must survive and compete by finding other territories. Sulloway's data, like the car phone, is self-selected and other interpretations must automatically be suspected.

Some possibilities include:

a) Prominence depends not only upon being a late arrival but also upon having a manic personality that thrives on power and success. "Rebellion" is a positive expression of oppositional behavior and often a trait of manic individuals. (Please see posting of this date on Manic Traits.)

b) Someone who is less "driven" for dominance would be less likely to achieve fame and also be less likely to react strongly to the intrafamilial battles that come with being born second or third, or Nth.

c) All of us are affected in qualitatively the same way by birth order; only the bright, manic kids, however, react with sufficient intensity to become noticeable.

d) Late arriving "enablers" derive power through becoming the social "glue" for the manics. They use a different psychological adaptation to exert leverage and control. (The Uriah Heep Effect but generally within more altruistic boundaries?!) This appears to be another variation on how the "Meek inherit the earth."

• Male adolescents and aggression: evolutionary issues. by Mark Waugh, 4/5/97
  • Adolescent Aggression: It's the Girls' Fault by James Brody, 4/9/97
  • Jeannie Lee Effect Confirmed by James Brody, 5/25/97
    • Jeannie Lee Again by James Brody, 6/20/97