Type 2 Fun

Anyone who has willed their body to cycle up a ridiculous gradient in the sweltering heat, yomp up an enormous tor in the pouring rain, subjected themselves to any other form of masochistic endurance endeavour or generally undertaken anything that pushes them out of their comfort zone, might know that it doesn't have to be fun to be fun. We recently met a Canadian who referred to that as ‘Type 2’ fun. To me, that sounds a lot more like a diagnosis, but then maybe it is.

Psychologist, Nobel Laureate and our hero, Daniel Kahneman (if you haven’t read Thinking Fast and Slow then you should) talks about the relationship between our “experiencing” selves and our “remembering” selves.  In the aforementioned book, he recounts some research with two groups of people and a painfully cold bucket of water (this is not the inexplicably popular ice bucket challenge of 2014). One group were asked to hold one hand in the bucket for 60 seconds; the other group were asked to keep their hand in for 90 seconds, but after the first 60, unbeknownst to the subject, a valve was released which slightly increased the temperature of the water, making it less punishing for the final 30 seconds.  When asked to rate the level of pain they had endured, those who had submerged their hand for slightly longer, but with a less painful experience at the end, rated the overall experience as less traumatic than those who had experienced the same 60 second torture but without a happier ending.

This, and a number of other simliarly tailored experiments, led Kahneman and his colleagues to deduce that our memories of a given experience represent a relationship between the peak/most intense emotion (in this instance pain) and our experience at the end/the final emotions we feel in the experience. He also points out the relative influence of the “experiencing” self versus the “remembering” self - the “experiencing” self is fleeting if highly raw and emotionally engaging. Once this subsides, all that is left is the “remembering” self to last until your senile dotage kicks in. It is therefore the memory you hold, your “remembering” self, that is far more important.

Ali's "Experiencing Self" on a brutal, steep and unpaved 5 hour slog

What does all this talk of pschyology have to do with our Type 2 “fun”? We think it very neatly explains why we enjoy trips like this, and endurance events in general. The peak emotion (generally pain in our case) is rarely too bad in a given instance, it is more the fact that it lasts for a while if the riding is miserable/hot/wet/sore etc. The final emotion is nearly always of elation - buzzing with endorphins, satisfaction and the excitement of a cold beer. Any pain of our “experiencing” selves is therefore swiftly rebalanced by the emotions of our “remembering” selves, which reconfigures the peak emotion with the enormous elation at the finish. This pleasure then lasts a lifetime.

The "Experiencing" Self

The "Remembering" Self

We’re probably all impicitly aware of this psychology in some form anyway, through the “rose tinted specs” adage, but Kahneman expresses it in a very engaging and accessible form (and thus should be read).

If the peak emotion is positive, then we really are quids in. A lot of this ride isn’t just Type 2 fun - we’re looking for plenty of straight up, good old fashioned Actual Fun too. Although plenty of people might wonder why we bother with all the Type 2 and don't just max out on Type 1. We've been pondering that during the miles and think we have some seed of an answer which speaks to the above. (This psychology malarkey is pretty straightforward and we could publish our findings without any robust analysis, control experiments or the like.) 

We reckon:

"the magnitude of the final emotion is significantly amplified if it is of the opposite polarity to the peak emotion experienced." (Doctors Insall and Insall, 2016).

In lay speak, we think that if the peak and final emotions are opposite (positive to negative or negating to positive) then the strength of the final emotion is amplified. As your memory of the event, which last for much longer, is a factor of the peak and final emotions, this means the "remembering" self has an unduly but enjoyably positive emotion towards the whole affair, perhaps more strongly and deeply felt with a negative peak and positive end than had both peak and final emotions been positive. To demonstrate the counter, we are sure you can think of an occasion when a thoroughly enjoyable experience has been ruined by a negative ending - a nice meal ruined by a foul up with the bill, going to a gig/theatre ruined by breaking down/delays on the way home, your team winning until the last moment when the opposition score an equaliser. The sour note is all the more so for the fact that the rest of the experience was positive - and how does your "remembering" self fair? When it's happened to us, generally the overall feeling is a negative one. 

And so we think this helps to explain why we love what we are doing - it's not always easy and it's not always fun in the moment that we are experiencing the pain. But in hindsight it's absolutely wonderful, felt in a truly deep and meaningful way, for as long as our memories last.

Disclaimer: no science was involved in this pontification from the road. 

Sources:
Insall & Insall, "Type 2 Fun", 2016
Insall & Insall, "Random Pontifications from the Road, 2016