normalization for positioning, coping and filtering
Normalization is a statistical term used for adjusting your position with respect to the relevant population norm which can change across time or space. (For instance, curved grading used in academia employs this technique.)
Here I will use normalization as a unifying theme to make sense of some social, psychological and cognitive phenomena.
Spatial Normalization as a Social Positioning Mechanism
We generally think in relative terms when we compare ourselves to others. All status based social dynamics take place in this way. We are happy when we are richer than the person next door. It does not matter if we all get richer. Of course, this leads to absurd situations where people are constantly unhappy although everything is improving.
What is mathematically happening here is that we keep updating the norm (average) against which we make all comparisons. In social domains, this process takes place across space, not time. (i.e. You do not see people comparing themselves to historical norms. We all live more comfortable lives than the kings of the past, but no one gives a shit.)
Spatial normalization in sociology exhibits two interesting properties:
Two Dimensionality. People are curious about others’ lives for both vertical and horizontal reasons. They look (up and down) at the other castes and (around) at other individuals in their own caste. Precise social positioning requires both.
Locality. In both dimensions, practically unreachable positions get disregarded. (That is why greater social mobility actually brings unhappiness. Knowing that everything is possible but you are stuck with your current position hurts more.) In other words, social status is determined locally. This makes it actually easier for the poor to climb up in status. After all, due to the severely nonlinear nature of the wealth distribution, it is easier to reach the top of the bottom ten percent than to reach the top of the top ten percent. (That is why the rich is a miserable bunch.)
Temporal Normalization as a Psychological Coping Mechanism
Normalization occurs across time as well, in the form of adaptivity. After all, in order to survive, we have no choice but to adapt to new norms. It is pointless not to adapt to a change that you can not change. (This is usually given as an advice for achieving inner peace. Most of our frustrations come from our inability to discern what can not be changed and should therefore be adapted to.)
Due to one dimensionality of time, we do not have the first bullet point mentioned above for the temporal version of normalization. However, locality holds and is even more pronounced.
Example of Locality
[Cult leaders] deliberately induce distress - so that when they relieve it, they will also be the source of your pleasure. This leads to a powerful and, to outside observers, puzzling connection between cult leader and cult member. The same thing can be seen in abusive relationships and in ”Stockholm syndrome,” where crime victims fall in love with or become supportive of their captors.
Born for Love - Bruce D. Perry & Maia Szalavitz (Page 237)
Temporal locality of adaptation is actually what gets us stuck in abusive relations. We slowly get used to the bad treatment and normalize it. We forget that the world used to be much better before the relationship began. We become quite happy just because we are treated less badly.
Temporal Normalization as a Cognitive Filtering Mechanism
We focus on deviations from the norm while the norm itself gets pushed down to and tracked at an unconscious level. The effects of this focus become particularly stark when deviations become very small and we are essentially left with only the norm itself. Such constancy gets completely filtered away from our consciousness. (For interesting examples of this phenomena, check out this older blog post.)
Remember from our previous discussion that we do not compare ourselves to people who are too far away from us in social distance. (Thanks to the marketing people this is actually becoming increasingly more difficult.) Similarly, when we are cognitively keeping track of deviations, we do not go too far back in time. Our brains calculate the norm in a temporally local fashion, using only recent samplings. In other words, slow change is disregarded even if its accumulative effect may be quite large over time. (Think of the fable of the frog being slowly boiled alive.)
Example of Locality
We must forgive our memory for yet another reason. It finds it easier to determine what has changed than to tell what has stayed the same. The people we have around us every day change as quickly or slowly as everyone else, but thanks to our daily contacts with them their changes are played out on a scale that makes them seem to stand still. It is unfair to blame our memory for throwing away editions when, on the face of it, the latest imprint differs in no way from the preceding one.
Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older - Draaisma (Page 131)
In some sense, we are wired to ignore the slow passage of time. In fact, this tendency gets worse as our brain ages and accumulates more patterns against which new norms can be defined, explaining why time seems to flow faster as we grow older.
