All posts by Scott Allison

About Scott Allison

Scott Allison has authored numerous books, including 'Heroes' and 'Heroic Leadership'. He is Professor of Psychology at the University of Richmond where he has published extensively on heroism and leadership. His other books include Reel Heroes, Conceptions of Leadership, Frontiers in Spiritual Leadership, and the Handbook of Heroism. His work has appeared in USA Today, National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Slate Magazine, MSNBC, CBS, Psychology Today, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has received Richmond's Distinguished Educator Award and the Virginia Council of Higher Education's Outstanding Faculty Award.

We Needed Tiger Woods to Win The Masters

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott T. Allison

For years I’ve been telling my students that the reason why we watch movies and read novels is not to be entertained, but to be inspired and educated about life.

The main characters in our favorite stories are telling our story. It’s a story of being swept into painful circumstances, feeling helpless and lost, getting help from others, transforming into something new, and emerging on the other side better than before.

It’s the story of life, and the heroes of our favorite stories are showing us the way. No wonder we pay such rapt attention.

Tiger Woods’ victory in the recent Masters golf tournament illustrates just how the world of sports entertainment parallels the drama and theater of movies, television, novels, and plays.

Tiger, as you may know, burst onto the sport scene as a golf prodigy in the 1990s. He dominated the sport as almost no one ever had. He even won the 2008 US Open while playing with a broken leg. Tiger seemed invincible.

You probably know what happened next. Tiger’s marital infidelities were revealed, suggesting a sex addiction. He took a long sabbatical from golf to get well. When he came back, he was no longer a dominant golfer. Even worse, he began to suffer significant injuries to his ankle, knees, and back.

Every one of his comebacks stalled, with Tiger’s injuries mounting in number and severity. In 2017 he could hardly walk and was worried he might never lead a normal life, let alone play golf again. He underwent spinal fusion surgery as a last resort, a procedure that would impair his ability to swing a golf club but would allow him to live a relatively pain-free life.

Stories were swirling about Tiger’s broken, decrepit body. He was written-off as a player who was once great but who would never again reach the pinnacle of golf.

After recovering from this major back surgery, Tiger discovered he could still swing a golf club, although not in the same way or with the same flexibility and speed. He made adjustments to his swing and practiced as hard as he could, although his aging body would not permit him very much practice time.

In 2018, against all odds, Tiger not only returned to professional golf, he won the PGA Tour Championship. Still, there were doubters. Surely Tiger would never win a major championship, not at the age of 43 and not while competing against today’s younger, stronger players.

Tiger’s victory in the 2019 Masters tournament was a stunning accomplishment. It is being hailed as perhaps the greatest comeback in sports history.

Human beings need good comeback stories. All of us experience loss and failure of some type. It can be a divorce, a disease, a tragedy, an injury, or a transgression. Whatever it is, we all suffer through times in our lives when we’re trying to come back from pain and adversity.

In coming back, Tiger role-modeled many heroic virtues – hope, hard work, determination, resilience, and inspiration.

The sports world is a stage and we are drawn to heroic protagonists on that stage whose stories parallel our own struggles in life. Tiger went on the hero’s journey, suffered, and transcended that suffering.

We needed it to happen.

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The Romance of Heroism

Our latest books on HEROIC LEADERS

Goethals, G. R., & Allison, S. T. (2019). The romance of heroism and heroic leadership. West Yorkshire: Emerald.

In this book, heroism experts George R. Goethals and Scott T. Allison explore how the romantic conception of heroes is constructed, both in real life and in our heads.

Here is an excerpt from the Introductory chapter:

“We adopt an approach that we call the romance of heroes.  Merriam-Webster defines romance as an emotional attraction, or special quality or feeling that comes from a person, place, or thing.  The verb form of romance is to exaggerate or invent detail.  This book explores these processes as they operate in our human perception of heroism.  We assume that people are motivated to actively construct reality from incomplete information.  There is a long history of theory and research in social perception and social cognition to support this idea.” 

“We also assume, based on our own research, that people are motivated to have heroes (Allison & Goethals, 2011).  Our contention in this book is that our love of heroes is so strong that we could call it a romantic longing.  Merriam-Webster reminds us that this longing is a strong emotional attraction that may cause mental exaggeration or invention.  Our desire and drive to designate people as heroes may be subject to distortion and to motivated perception under conditions of uncertainty.  We’ll also explore how this tendency to exaggerate or invent in response to strong motives can contribute to our construction of villains as well as heroes.”

Looking at the dichotomy of heroism and villainy, the authors offer insights into Donald Trump’s ascension to the US presidency, particularly detailing the correspondence between the needs of the US public and the promises the former reality TV star made in reply.

Goethals and Allison also consider how three highly charismatic men dramatically and fundamentally changed American society in the mid-20th century — Martin Luther King, Jr., Elvis Presley, and Muhammad Ali, called here The Three Kings.

This exciting and innovative book explores how charisma and human needs create romantic images of individuals as heroes and villains. For researchers and students of psychology and leadership, this is a fundamental text on the creation of both genuine heroes and false idols.

This book is now available for purchase at Amazon.com.

Goethals, G. R., & Allison, S. T. (2019). The romance of heroism and heroic leadership. West Yorkshire: Emerald.

 

The Heroic Wisdom of Yuval Noah Harari

Unsung Heroes

By Scott T. Allison

The ancient Greeks referred to prophets as individuals with the capacity to foresee the future. Israeli scholar Yuval Noah Harari would deny being a prophet, as he admits to not knowing how the future will unfold. But perhaps no one alive today is more skilled at describing with intelligent detail several different possible outlooks for humanity.

Harari argues that the year 2050 can either look like a Utopia, with humans all around the globe enjoying unprecedented prosperity, or it can descend into a catastrophic “digital dictatorship”. The key centers on how we manage the potentially disruptive merging of information technologies and bio-technologies. This merging will produce revolutionary changes in our personal lives, reshape society as a whole, and may even mark the end of homo sapiens.

Some of these radical changes are already happening, and Harari implores us to develop ethical guidelines for the appropriate application of emerging technologies. These ethical guidelines must be developed and applied globally, as the reality of climate change, the threat of nuclear war, and impending technological revolutions affect our entire interdependent planet.

For details of Harari’s visions of the future, you’ll need to read one or more of his best-selling books: Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

What is the source of Harari’s visionary wisdom? Our research on heroism suggests that heroes are able to see the world through a deeper and broader lens. The ancient mystics and Buddhists called such viewing nondualistic thinking. This style of perceiving reality refers to the ability to go beyond seeing world in terms of simple binary categories. Nondualistic thinkers like Gandhi, Lincoln, and Harari all have the gift of going deeper and seeing nuance that goes beyond mere black-and-white dichotomies. Simple dualistic thinking contributes to a host of damaging “isms”: racism, sexism, and ageism, to name a few.

Nondualistic thinking refers to broader, more mature contemplation of perceived events. It resists the urge to feed one’s own ego or the collective ego. Nondual thinking is humble and patient with mystery and ambiguity. Abraham Heschel (1983) described it as the ability to let the world come at us rather than us coming at the world with preconceived categories skewing our perceptions. Rohr (2009) describes nondualistic thinking as “calm, ego-less seeing” and “the ability to keep you heart and mind spaces open long enough to see other hidden material.”

Asian spiritual philosophies describe it as the third eye, which is the enlightened ability to see the world with balance, wisdom, and clarity. In our writings of the hero’s journey, we have argued that heroes almost always descend into darkness before they achieve self-insight and acquire the wisdom of transformation (Allison & Goethals, 2016). Heroic experiences are rife with phenomena that can only be understood by seeing the world through a nondualistic lens.

An example of Harari’s nondualistic wisdom is seen in his view of nationalism, which has burgeoned around the world in recent years. One might think that Harari would condemn nationalism, given that he champions a globalized approach to dealing with current and future planetary problems. But Harari doesn’t believe that a nationalistic mindset is completely wrongheaded. Instead, he adopts a balanced, nondualistic perspective of nationalism.

Nationalism, he argues, is only bad if it involves viewing the lives of one’s own nation’s citizens as more important than the lives of people residing in other nations. Nationalism is good if it is defined as treasuring one’s own national culture as beautiful, distinctive, and special — not better or worse than those of any other nation. Harari believes it is possible to eliminate the bad aspects of nationalism (a belief in superiority) while retaining the good aspects (a love for one’s unique culture). In this way, all human life is equally precious regardless of national boundaries.

A healthy nationalism, adopted by many countries, can lead to a healthy globalized approach to the problems of climate change and the potentially disruptive effects of emerging technologies. Below is a Youtube video of Harari’s heroic vision for a world community that can effectively bring about the best possible future for us all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x3zaIYrHTs

References

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2016). Hero worship: The elevation of the human spirit. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 46, 187-210.

Allison, S. T., Goethals, G. R., & Spyrou, S. P. (2019). Donald Trump as the archetypal puer aeternus: The psychology of mature and immature leadership. In K. Bezio & G. R. Goethals (Eds.), Leadership and populism. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Heschel, A. J. (1983). I asked for wonder. New York: Crossroad Publishing.

Rohr, R. (2009). The naked now. New York: Crossroad Publishing.

Hero Stories Give Us Wisdom

Commentary and Analysis, ,

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

In Part 1 of this series, we introduced the concept of the Heroic Leadership Dynamic, which we define as a system of psychological forces that can explain how humans are drawn to hero stories, how they benefit from these stories, and how the stories help people become heroes themselves.

We suspect that early humans first told hero stories at the end of the day, in the darkness, huddled around fires. These narratives supplied meaning, hope, and a welcome escape from the miseries of life. The earliest known hero tales, such as Gilgamesh, Etana, Odysseus, and Hesiod, taught important values, offered role models, provided inspiration, and healed psychic wounds.

We propose that people benefit from hero stories in at least two essential ways. These stories serve epistemic and energizing functions. The epistemic function refers to the wisdom that hero stories impart to us. The energizing function refers to the ways that hero stories heal us, inspire us, and promote personal growth. Let’s look at these two functions in greater detail.

THE EPISTEMIC OR WISDOM FUNCTION

Theologian Richard Rohr argues that hero stories encourage people to think transrationally about ideas that seem to defy rational analysis. The word transrational means going beyond or surpassing human reason. Hero stories reveal truths and life patterns that our limited minds have trouble understanding using our best logic or rational thought. Transrational phenomena that commonly appear in hero stories include suffering, sacrifice, meaning, love, paradox, mystery, God, and eternity. These phenomena beg to be understood but cannot be fully known using conventional human reason.

Hero stories unlock the secrets of the transrational.

How do hero tales help us think transrationally? We believe that there at least three ways: Hero stories (a) reveal deep truths, (b) illuminate paradox, (c) develop emotional intelligence. Let’s examine each of these:

A. Hero Stories Reveal Deep Truths. According to Joseph Campbell, hero stories reveal life’s deepest psychological truths. They do this by sending us into deep time, meaning that they enjoy a timelessness that connects us with the past, the present, and the future. Richard Rohr notes that deep time is evident when stories contain phrases such as, “Once upon a time”, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, and “they lived happily ever after.” By grounding people in deep time, hero stories reinforce ageless truths about human existence.

Hero stories also reveal deep roles in our human social fabric. Norwegian psychologist Paul Moxnes believes that the deepest roles are archetypal family roles such as mother, child, maiden, and wise old man.  Family role archetypes abound in classic hero tales and myths, where there are an abundance of kings and queens, parents, stepparents, princesses, children, and stepchildren. Interestingly, Moxnes’ research shows that even if hero stories do not explicitly feature these deep role characters, we will project these roles onto the characters. His conclusion is that the family unit is an ancient device for understanding our social world.

B. Hero Stories Illuminate Paradox. Hero stories shed light on meaningful life paradoxes. As author G. K. Chesterton once observed, paradox is truth standing on her head to attract attention. Most people have trouble unpacking the value of paradoxes unless the contradictions contained within them are illustrated inside a good story. It turns out that hero stories are saturated with paradoxical truths, such as those mentioned by Joseph Campbell in the quote that began Part 1 of this series. Let’s look at each of them:

* Where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. Carl Jung is famous for saying, “what you resist persists.” Every human being encounters difficult people and challenging issues in life. Hero stories teach us that avoiding these people and issues is not the answer. Once we confront our dragons, they can become the seeds of our redemption.

* Where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. What Campbell means here is that when heroes face their greatest fears, they are entering the dragon’s lair. And when heroes slay the dragon, they are slaying their false selves or former selves, thereby allowing their true heroic selves to emerge.

* Where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. In the opening act of every hero story, the hero leaves her safe, familiar world and enters a dangerous, unfamiliar world. Going on a pilgrimage of some type is a necessary component of the hero journey. Hero stories teach us that we have to leave home in order to find ourselves.

* Where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world. The hero’s journey is far from over once the dragon has been slain. Campbell observes that the now-transformed hero in myth and legend will now return to his original familiar world and transform it in significant ways. The hero, once alone on his journey, becomes united and in communion with the world.

C. Hero Stories Develop Emotional Intelligence. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim believed that children’s fairy tales were useful in helping people, especially children, understand emotional experience. With their many dark, foreboding symbols and themes, such as witches, abandonment, neglect, abuse, and death, these heroic fairy tales allow people to experience and resolve their fears.

Bettelheim believed that even the darkest of fairy tales, such as those by the Brothers Grimm, add clarity to confusing emotions. The hero of the story emerges as a role model by demonstrating how one’s fears can be overcome. The darkness of fairy tales allows children to face their anxieties and grow emotionally, thus better preparing them for the challenges of adulthood.

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This series is based on a chapter in our book, Conceptions of Leadership, published by Palgrave Macmillan. The citation for this chapter:

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2014). “Now he belongs to the ages”: The heroic leadership dynamic and deep narratives of greatness. In Goethals, G. R., et al. (Eds.), Conceptions of leadership: Enduring ideas and emerging insights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137472038.0011

 

The Deal We Strike With Our Heroes

Commentary and Analysis, ,

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

“The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill

Recently we posted a blog entry that posed the question of whether we expect too much from our heroes.  With so many heroes falling from grace in the past few years, we suggested the possibility that we hold them to too high a standard.  We also offered some reasons why we might expect more virtuous behavior from heroes than we do from the average non-hero.

One framework for understanding heroism involves looking at heroes and recipients of heroism as though they were two parties honoring a contractual arrangement.  This mental contract we have with our heroes outlines an equitable “exchange” between the hero and their beneficiaries.

Thus, whenever we assign the “hero” label to someone, we mentally enter into an implicit exchange relationship with them.  The exchange relationship carries with it an unspoken agreement that we make with heroes, and it goes something like this:  We agree to give heroes our adulation and support, but in return they must maintain an idealized image of human greatness.

Our bargain with heroes can be described this way:  “You [the hero] reflect what we want to see in ourselves.  But if you reflect the reality of us as people and a society, then you’re just one of us after all.  And therefore, you’re no more special than we are and you have to come down from your pedestal and stand in the muck with the rest of us.”

If a hero misbehaves, we consider it a breech of contract and we withdraw our admiration and support.  We may also show considerable anger about the contract violation — witness the outrage directed toward Tiger Woods that still lingers to this day.  A broken agreement can turn a hero into a villain rather quickly and easily. Prominent examples, besides Tiger, include Kevin Spacey, Lance Armstrong, and Joe Paterno.

The idea that we enter into implicit agreements with the successful and powerful is not a new one.  In 2005, psychologist David Messick published an article in which he proposed that an implicit contract exists between leaders and followers.  The contract states that we’ll let leaders lead us if they provide us with a vision, a sense of pride in the group, and group security and protection.  In return, we’ll give leaders our loyalty, effort, and support.

We may have a similar implied agreement with celebrities and the rich.  The terms of the unspoken agreement may be that we’ll let famous celebrities have their fame and wealth, and we may even become their fans, but only as long as they earn their affluence honestly, pay a higher percentage of taxes, behave well, and don’t abuse their privileged status.

What’s most interesting about these implicit agreements is that highly successful people are either not aware of them, or they find it extremely difficult to honor them.  Those of us among the lowly masses seem to be much more sensitized to these informal contracts with heroes.  Maybe this is because we’d much rather be a hero than a hero would want to be us.  If we’re going to put them up on an enviable pedestal, the least they can do is follow basic rules of common decency.

Sometimes, after they’ve fallen, former heroes know they violated the contract.  Tiger Woods admitted as much.  “I knew my actions were wrong but I convinced myself that normal rules did not apply,” he said.  “I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by – I thought I could get away with everything I wanted to.  I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.  I felt I was entitled.”

Tiger’s confession is consistent with the results of several psychological studies showing that the more power and success that people enjoy, the more they believe they don’t need to play by the same rules as the rest of us.  And yet it is when someone becomes a hero that we most expect them to play by those rules.  For this reason, maintaining one’s heroic status may be just as challenging as becoming a hero in the first place.  Ironically, one of the most common ways to become a villain is to become a hero first.

All because of the deal we strike with our heroes.

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Heroic Transformation: How Heroes Change Themselves and The World

Our latest books on HEROIC LEADERS

The human journey is brimming with opportunities for growth and development. This volume, crafted superbly by a talented group of young student-scholars at the University of Richmond, explores the myriad ways that human beings have evolved to become extraordinary heroes.

There are two types of heroic transformation. The first type refers to the process by which people undergo the significant change and growth necessary to become heroes. This transformation is a personal metamorphosis that often results from setback, transgression, and suffering.

The second type of heroic transformation refers to the hero’s ability to transform society. Once personally transformed, the hero is in a position to make her mark on society. “Transformed people transform people,” as Richard Rohr has said.

Most hero journeys feature both of these types of transformations. The heroes profiled in this book who have undergone heroic transformations include Audrey Hepburn, Susan B. Anthony, Thurgood Marshall, Muhammad Ali, Eleanor Roosevelt, Daenerys Targaryen, Dexter Morgan, Frodo Baggins, Bruce Wayne, and many more.

This book is now available at Amazon.com.

“YOU’LL BE TRANSFORMED AFTER ABSORBING HOW THESE HEROES TRANSFORMED HUMANITY.” – Professor Robert A. Giacalone, John Carroll University

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Heroic Transformation: How Heroes Change Themselves and The World
Edited by Scott T. Allison

Foreword

Olivia Efthimiou

Introduction

The Metamorphosis of the Hero: What it is, How it Happens, Why it’s Important

Scott T. Allison

FICTIONAL HEROES

Film and Television Heroes

Chapter 1. From Little Princess to Mother of Dragons: Daenerys Targaryen’s Heroine’s Journey

Hallie M. Whiting

Chapter 2. Elle Woods and the Hero’s Journey: What, Like, It’s Hard?

Reghan J. Ruf

Chapter 3. James “Sawyer” Ford: The Man Who Had to Become Lost to Find the Hero Within

Leo S. Troik

Chapter 4. “Let’s Get Down to Business”: A Handbook of Heroic Transformation in Mulan

Yun-Oh Park

 Chapter 5. Jack Bauer: The Heroic Transformation of the Ultimate Moral Rebel

Ethan Libo

Chapter 6. The Heroic Transformation of Dexter Morgan, Killer of Killers

S. S. Diaz

Heroes in Epic Novels and Stories

Chapter 7. How Frodo Baggins Became a Hero: An Analysis of a Hobbit’s Heroic Transformation

Lee M. Tyler

Chapter 8. Bruce Wayne’s Heroic Journey: The Everlasting Quest for Justice

Michael D. Loughran

Chapter 9. Batman’s Remarkable Hero’s Journey: The Dark Knight Trilogy

Declan H. Scanlon

Chapter 10. Harry Potter and the Hero’s Journey: An Analysis of a Wizard’s Transformation

Andrew J. Graham

Chapter 11. The Quintessential Greek Hero: How Odysseus Fits the Campbellian Monomyth

Julia M. Feron

Chapter 12. Sectumsempra: An Analysis of the Heroic Transformation of Severus Snape

Jake C. Cardwell

Chapter 13. The Heroic Transformative Journey of Aeneas, Hero of the Trojan War

Antonio M. Balducci

NON-FICTIONAL HEROES

Civil Rights Heroes

Chapter 14. A Dream Becoming Reality: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Calling to Transform America

Daniel P. Golden

Chapter 15. Malala Yousafzai: How One Girl’s Heroic Transformation Forever Changed the World

Alexandra M. Maloney

Chapter 16. The Girl that Broke the Mold: Malala’s Inspired Heroic Transformation

William A. Delaney

Chapter 17. Thurgood Marshall: A Heroic Influence on The American Justice System

Jennifer L. Kramer

Chapter 18. A Catalyst for Change: How Susan B. Anthony’s Heroic Transformation Revolutionized Society

Megan G. Doran

Entertainment Heroes

Chapter 19. Muhammad Ali: Hands of Stone, Heart of Gold

Evan B. Shine

 Chapter 20. Alex Morgan: The Hero Who Changed the Soccer World

Emily R. Wigg

Chapter 21. The Heroic Transformation of an Entire Team: How the Swedish Women’s National Soccer Team Followed the Hero’s Journey

Olivia Sjoedin

Chapter 22. The Gates to Baseball: Jackie Robinson’s Courageous Transformation of an Entire Sport

Dustin J. Cook

Chapter 23. The Hat Trick Heard Round the World: Carli Lloyd’s Journey from Average to Best in the World

Cassidy N. Bennetti

 Chapter 24. Elisabeth Shue’s Heroic Transformation, as Told Through Gracie

Sydney R. Shah

Chapter 25. Audrey Hepburn: How a Misfortunate Girl Transformed into a Social Hero

Thomas J Michel

Legendary Heroes

 Chapter 26. The Heroism of Siddhartha: A Journey to Enlightenment

Isabel R. Nonemaker

Chapter 27. Desmond Doss: The Transformation of the Hero of Hacksaw Ridge

Mark D. White

Chapter 28. Sully Sullenberger: An Inspiring Tale of Two Heroic Transformations

Kara E. Cromwell

Chapter 29. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Heroic and Transcendent Role as First Lady

Joann Chongsaritsinsuk

Chapter 30. “This was a man”: Julius Caesar’s Sociocentric Transformation as a Hero

Jack R. Bergstrom

Chapter 31. The List That Saved a Thousand Lives: Oskar Schindler’s Heroic Transformation During World War II

Allyson S. Maner