The Cognitive Wonders of Fireworks
Wow has our view of how minds work changed – even in my lifetime. We have gone from rational calculating machines that carefully consider alternative solutions and seek to maximize economic utility to metaphor-driven, evolutionary kludges of cognitive biases that blink our way through hard problems and seek to maximize our personal mental energy.
I especially like the emphasis on seeking to maximize personal mental energy. Mental energy is a fundamental resource so we should be naturally wired to seek objects, relationships and experiences that replenish rather than deplete it. Fireworks, setting them off or watching a professional delivered display, are great examples. They generate tons of excess mental energy in us.
Watching fireworks triggers meaning, emotion and a wide variety of specific mental states from expectation and surprise to awe. We anticipate the grand finale, we are pulled into “the now” by powerful sensory effects and we can reminisce and even socialize. Of course fireworks on the 4th of July are a public expression of our independence as a nation. The joy of freedom, the pride of accomplishment and the deep psychological power of solidarity release a river of mental energy.
We get this for very little mental effort – all we have to do is look up and watch. Fireworks are an explosion of mental energy. Millions flock to fireworks displays, like moths to a mental energy flame.
Setting off fireworks have very powerful cognitive effects as well. Take for example, time pressure. Something that normally zaps our energy is turned into a generator of excitement. Light the fuse and run away or you could get hurt! With firecrackers we get to blow things up. This lets us express, in a socially acceptable way, a fundamental craving for power. Some take this farther and make their own fireworks.
On the other hand, safely setting off fireworks requires considerable mental energy – you must be vigilant and follow specific procedures. At least that is the psychographics of the adult mind. Others, operating on the overconfidence cognitive bias may relax their vigilance under the assumption that nothing bad will happen to them. This likely helps to explain many of the 10,000 or so fireworks-related ER visits we can expect this year.
Risking taking, exercising power through destruction and the overconfidence bias are all powerful generators of mental energy for certain types of personalities or psychographic profiles in cognitive designer speak.
