Episode #34： The Stuff Heroes Are Made of With Frank Farley
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Summary
What makes a man a hero? What attributes do heroes share? What are the qualities that make a hero, and why do we need heroes? Dr. Frank Farley, a psychology professor at the University of Temple University, has been researching these questions for over twenty years.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and we are finally back with another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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well it's good to be back we took a little hiatus with the podcast with gus being born
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and the work on our second book the podcast got put on the back burner but we're back
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and we'll be returning to our regular schedule of new manly podcasts every other week so let's
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get started with this week's edition what makes a man a hero what attributes do heroes share
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are heroes made or born well our guest today has been researching these questions for 20 years
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his name is dr frank farley and he's a professor of psychology at the university of temple
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and dr farley has focused his research on how psychology affects risk-taking motivation and
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heroism well professor farley welcome to the show we appreciate your time delighted to be here okay
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so professor probably you have done a lot of work in the study of heroes or heroism or what makes a
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hero uh what has what inspired you to study that because it's it's kind of an interesting uh area
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of study it is and i really got into it back in the 1980s um the middle to late 1980s for many reasons
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one of which is that psychology this great field really wasn't doing much about heroes uh they were
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studying all sorts of things but heroes wasn't a major one and if you look around at society the very
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concept of hero is enormously important people often model their lives certainly some of their lives
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after heroes and the world of entertainment look at hollywood couldn't survive if it couldn't put
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you know heroes on the screen and so and history you know history is heavily influenced by
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this idea of heroes so i started studying it and you know other reasons are that
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we need more heroes you know both the great heroes you know the ones out there on the world stage the
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martin luther king jr or the gandhi people famous people are out there changing the world but we also
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need heroes up close and in our families and in our communities and in our lives uh where we need
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people to you know take a stand on issues uh help out a neighbor uh be kind loving and generous to other
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people all of that all of those are heroic qualities and we need them both you know up close and personal
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in our lives in our communities in our cities in our countries our nations we also need them out there
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on the world stage the people who literally change history so we need we need heroes but why is that
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i mean because i think a lot of people you know very jaded or cynical people in our post-modern world
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would say well we're beyond that heroes are something for a prior age a prior time uh we shouldn't be we
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should be beyond this hero worship uh and you know just see people for who they are and not you know
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attribute anything more to them that that's there and those are all great points uh i don't use the
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term hero worship i'm not interested in worshiping heroes i don't encourage it i don't think it it's
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important uh so i'm certainly not suggesting that but to me heroes are people who change the world
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uh in a positive way and so you know winston churchill was a hero he stepped up to the plate
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uh when you know in world war ii in england and uh was enormously influential in the outcome
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of the war martin luther king jr stepped up to the plate where civil rights were were under assault
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and and in in the southern united states and in another parts of the country gandhi stepped up to
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the plate and put his life on the line and in fact both he and king you know were assassinated
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for the heroic work they were doing so we need heroes we don't need hero worship we need heroes to inspire
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us to sort of help us get direction in our lives and we also need heroes up close we need people in our
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communities our families who will do it will inspire us will encourage us will um but we can learn from
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and people who will do right in our lives both up close and at a distance and those what heroes are
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and uh so i have no problem whatsoever with the concept of heroes by the way it has a long history
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in the human race you know you can go back to mythology of of thousands of years ago and we had heroes
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and we still have them and we have them for a reason basically the heroes inspire us to be the
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better angels of our better selves the angels of our better selves right yes yes they have many
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qualities and we could talk about that yeah let's get to that what are some of the qualities that
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heroes share that you found in your study you know there's by the way there's so many approaches to
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studying heroes into understanding heroes and often heroes will differ one to the next that is they
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may all be doing good works uh and and inspiring activities but they may differ in all sorts of
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other ways differ in their background their race their their gender their ethnicity their education level
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and so on but some of the things that i think are important courage and strength i think that's one of
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the defining qualities of heroes they are courageous they don't uh shrink from challenge
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and they rise to the occasion when good deeds are are needed another aspect i think that's important
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for heroes generosity kind compassionate generous heroes tend to be giving people they're generous and in
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some cases they give their lives as in martin luther king and gandhi uh for what they were doing and you
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know that's the ultimate act and uh to give up your life for a great and noble cause they tend to be uh
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heroes tend to be pretty accomplished people you know they tend to be uh skilled intelligent accomplished
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in some way they're good at something and uh they may be gandhi was a lawyer for example and uh churchill was
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a very accomplished person and you can go on through all the lists of heroes but they tend to be
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good at something honesty and integrity is another feature uh many people who we might think might
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be heroes are sort of knocked off the pedestal because they're shown to be dishonest so integrity and
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honesty are key features another aspect of heroes that i think is important is our feelings about them
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that is do we feel affection for them or something positive or good directed from us the people
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to the hero it could be if it's up close it could be our feeling toward our parents or somebody else in
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our lives uh who is is doing heroic things or it could be how we feel about a national figure and a kind of
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emotional or or affectional quality that we feel toward that person another feature uh something i've studied a lot
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is risk taking by and large i think that we want our heroes to be willing to take risks um we don't
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really want our heroes to be you know wallflowers you know people who sort of uh wimp out and
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aren't willing to take on the big challenge um or even a relatively small challenge they're just
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risk averse and so much of heroism requires a dose of risk taking um you know if you're going to run
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into the building and save the the baby the burning building and save the baby or jump into the river and
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save a life you gotta you can't it's very hard to do that if you are seriously risk averse you know
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you gotta you gotta be have that risk taking quality in there somewhere if you're going to stand up to
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uh a tyrant maybe in the workplace or maybe a government tyrant a leader you know uh the kind
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of thing that's going on uh this spring in egypt if you're going to stand up to what you believe to
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be a tyrant that's risky and so the people who i happen to believe the people who will tend to do that
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tend to have this risk taking quality in a significant way and then finally i think another thing
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uh aspect that we look for often in our heroes is motivation you know they're motivated people
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uh they they've got drive they're determined they're motivated and you'll see that gandhi is
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one of my favorite examples and despite you know being in a different culture from us and some time
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ago he still resonates you know if you see the movie gandhi it's just an inspiration he was so
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determined and so motivated to get the british out of india and to and to create home rule
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in his own land and i mean his determination was just amazing so those are some of the qualities
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a question came to me then that as you were speaking um that i was hoping maybe you might know
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is whether the circumstances make the hero what i mean by that are there some individuals that you've
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studied that would would have just led you know uh you know pretty normal average life mediocre life
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if it weren't for some grave challenge they had to step up to um and they were able to flourish and you
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know they needed that to become heroic or is it something that you know you're just born with and
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it doesn't matter the circumstance and you're going to be heroic no matter what honestly brett we
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don't know for sure but we do know that there's um in many psychological qualities and you know psychology
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is at the center of heroism you know and the only way we can really understand heroism thoroughly is
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is basically through psychology in my view but one of the things we found in the world of psychology as
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is that many many psychological qualities have some genetic factor uh we don't know how much it can vary
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from psychological quality to psychological quality and so on but so my take on it is something like
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this i think that heroism is a mixture it's it's due to your upbringing your family your community the
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influences in your life your peer group the people who've had an impact on you it's also due to who
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you are and i think it's both it's the person and it's the environment and the experiences the person has
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had so for example i was talking about risk taking if you are very risk averse you just don't take risks
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you stick to the safe the secure the tried and the true you probably won't do the great heroic things
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you may not jump into the river to save the person you make just quickly phone 911 you know yeah and so
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you'll do something but it may not place you yourself at risk and um some people just really have trouble
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with dealing with risk and so my guess is that the truly risk averse probably won't do some of those
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those uh heroic deeds on the other hand there are the risk takers and the people who sort of thrive
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on risk you know and uh the kind of more fearless people among us and they'll do that job so it's
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again it's a mixture of the person and the situation of their lives how they were raised you know their
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parental influence the influence of all sorts of other people uh even you know what they've been reading
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you know and um and their peer group and what goes on at school all of those things can impact them
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and that together with their personality who they are are they risk averse or not and the outcome will
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tell the story do you think people could become more heroic if they wanted to say they looked at their
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lives and said well i just i don't i want to acquire more of these attributes i know you know i have a
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tendency to be like this but can they strive to be more heroic if they want i think so we're gonna
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take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show i i do think so uh i don't
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know if somebody who is just totally risk averse you know can move very far in the in the risk-taking
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direction but i think that many people can become more heroic and a lot of it in my opinion depends on
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the institutions that really have an impact on us family community schools education the people
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you surround yourself with so i think people can become somewhat more heroic one of the key
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ingredients for me is what i call you know factor g generosity i mentioned some of the traits of heroes
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and some of the qualities uh generosity and risk-taking are are very important ones the
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generosity piece that's something you can teach you can encourage in children you know and helping
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them to help others and there's nothing new about that you know the boy scouts and the girl scouts you
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know they all have those kind of ideas to be to help others most great religions have that as well
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you know do on to others as you would have them do on to you etc the g factor to me is a very important
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one and it's also one that you can do something about you can you can raise children to be helpful
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giving generous kids and that's a key factor in heroism it's not the only factor but it's an important
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factor the risk-taking factor is another one that you can work on you can get you can get children to
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be a little bit more risk-taking if they're kind of risk-averse you can encourage them to try a new
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thing try a new experience instead of just always doing the same thing and sticking to the tried and
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true try this experience or that experience you know try out that little roller coaster at the local
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you know community fair move them along a little step at a time so that they begin to
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be capable of facing change and facing challenge and that's the essence in my opinion the survival
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skill of the 21st century is dealing with change and risk and uncertainty we are in an uncertain
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century and look at what's happening in the middle east right now who knows where that will go who would
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have thought that america could be invaded you know and the two largest buildings in the country brought
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to the to the ground and so this is going to be a century of change and uncertainty and risk and
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challenge and so i think it's very important you know to get kids who are very risk-averse to work
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with them if your children are like that work with them to get them to be willing to go out a little bit
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on the limb you know and pretty soon they'll get better at it and better at it and that's a survival
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skill so that when some really horrendous challenges come into their lives they will be able to deal
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with it okay so one of the things you mentioned in the attributes of a hero is how society feels
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about them how we feel about heroes and it seems like just in even my own lifetime you know i'm 28 years
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old it seems there's been an apprehension by individuals to take on the mantle of heroes
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and even by society at large to look at individuals as heroes i i think it was um uh i remember i i grew
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up you know admiring baseball players and football players and but there came a kind of a time when i
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i stopped doing that and i noticed a lot of my other friends stopped admiring but you know and for
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you know over a century in this country athletes were uh a source of heroes for a lot of kids i
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remember you know charles barkley i think he's the one that said i'm not a hero i'm not supposed to be
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a hero for kids i'm just an athlete uh what what do you think happened in our society in our culture
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where being a hero or looking to people as heroes was has sort of been on the decline well i don't know for
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sure but we still have heroes and i think that post 9 11 you know 9 11 showed us what heroism was
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the police the firefighters and so on they did not have to go back into that building to save lives
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they could have just walked away and you know said you can take this job and shove it but what was it
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over 300 of the firefighters and police and and the emergency medical there you know and we and america
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really saw what heroism was and i agree prior to that we just didn't seem to have a lot of
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the the real goods you know the real heroes and along comes 9 11 and all of a sudden you know it jerks
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us back to to heroism and there it is that's what it is you know look kids that's heroism and you know
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this nation has been so influenced by heroes throughout our history but you know it did seem
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that we're going through a period when we didn't see a lot of heroes uh you know in in government in
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washington dc you know we have presidents who just didn't seem to be great heroes and so on but i think we
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are getting back to a an appreciation of what heroism is and um it's interesting about sports figures by
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the way uh they in in most surveys that get done of american heroes they tend not to do very well
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anyway so and maybe it's sports commentators who sort of make them out to be heroes but i think
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barclay probably is on to something yeah they they're not really perceived that much as heroes even by
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kids now kids will you know sometimes have sports heroes sure but uh here's an interesting thing for
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you parents away out pull sports figures as heroes yes in fact that was one of the first things we
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discovered when we started doing heroes research in the 19th late 1980s was all of a sudden we found
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when we asked people who their heroes were parents topped the list and that's it was the same
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for kids you know like seven eight year olds young kids and adults that mother and father were the
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most frequently cited heroes with kids you after the parents you then got a you know some other relatives
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sometimes like grandmother grandfather uh and so on and you also got a lot of superheroes you know
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superman yeah that sort of thing those tended to drop out you know with older kids and with older
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kids high school and so on and in college you begin to get you know real world heroes martin luther king
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for example but parents top it sports figures tend not to be big on the heroes list i thought a lot about
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that and you know i i've sort of come to the conclusion that there's too many sports figures
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how can you we have so many leagues and so many sports and so many stars you know how's a kid to
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pick out one over the other you know back when michael jordan was active i mean he's he sort of so
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dominated the sport for a period of time and was so elegant and graceful and had all these positive
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characteristics that you know he was often seen as as a hero but by and large it's hard for anyone
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anymore to stand out truly stand out and be the babe roof you know of our time and so i think that
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we won't see sports figures very much in the heroes list we haven't you know recently and i don't
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i think we'll probably see even less going forward but parents but by the way i think the most consistent
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american hero public hero you know the person out there in the world stage is martin luther king he
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occurs in survey after survey which is pretty interesting you know it's like people realized
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he was doing something profound and it's the same with gandhi now we don't know gandhi the way we know
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martin luther king you know we don't have streets named after gandhi but um gandhi led the way and it was a
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heavy influence over martin luther king of course non-violent protest etc and uh tends to outpull just
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about everybody other than parents uh he outpulls polls most presidents the presidents by the way
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in the last um hundred years typically and polls that get conducted it tends to be jfk
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and fdr those somehow or other tend to outpull most of most of the other presidents if you're going
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back earlier than than a hundred years uh lincoln tends to be and so you've got lincoln fdr and jfk
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typically the most frequently cited uh in many polls uh if where the oval office is concerned
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and outside the oval office but in the world of politics and and civic life uh martin luther king
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uh so professor farley you mentioned a little bit earlier uh some of the things that you know parents
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can do to have their children uh you know have an appreciation for heroes is there anything else we
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can do to you continue this trend of bringing back the hero in our society i think um education has got
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to be a major area kids today 2011 in america spend more time for sure at school than they do in with
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their parents each week with the one parent family almost half of american families are now headed by one
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person that one person can't do it all you know i mean the old nuclear family back in the 50s mom dad
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two and a half kids you know that's the nuclear family has exploded it's gone and back in those
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days both parents could be involved and helping sharing the duties and helping each other and so on
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that's gone at least for almost half of american families so families can't be the only institution
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of change uh they're an important institution uh and the media by the way is also very important
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in getting messages heroic messages heroic role models heroic ideas out there but education is the
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is the biggest institution i think that we can influence in this area kids spend all these several
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hours a day in school here's an interesting uh thing back in a hundred years ago uh they often talked
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about heroes they often taught the life of heroes heroic behavior in the schools we tend not to do that
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anymore now we talk about theories and isms you know there's capitalism there's socialism etc but
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take an idea like non-violent protest and try to teach it to kids today using isms you know using
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theories and all that kind of stuff and the kids you know will probably stare at you you had to show you
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this blank stare when they see in the media that it seems that problems are solved through violence
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through revolutions through marching in the streets through war i mean here's america we got we got two
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wars going on right now basically and what's a kid to believe and so they will assume that non-violent
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protest is some absurd theory you know marginal kind of idea however if you then talk about the life of two
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heroes of that idea gandhi and king and talk about what they were able to accomplish through non-violent
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protest the light bulbs come on and the kids can see how it works because it's embedded in the life
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and times of a real hero you're not talking fancy dancy theories you know from psychology or sociology or
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something you're looking at a person who did it and it worked and it changed the world forever
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and so to me that's we need more discussion of heroic behavior in the schools in the classrooms
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heroism up close that you can do yourself in your home and family and neighborhood as well as the
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heroes out there in the world stage both of those can be taught and can inspire kids i think to be
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themselves more heroic professor farley well we're coming to the end of our interview here is there any
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place our listeners can go to find out more about your work well they can email me frank dot farley
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at comcast dot net and i'll uh i'll respond to them okay and then they can just look up my name you
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know google me see what they come up with there's a lot of stuff there all right and but if they have
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specific questions and so on they can just shoot me an email and i'd be delighted well excellent well
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professor farley we really appreciate your time it's been a pleasure it has for me too thanks brett
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well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
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make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and until next time stay