AA’s ‘Big Book’ Gains Diversity in Testimonials

In case anyone doubts that the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” is part of the Western canon, consider: The Big Book, as it’s known, has sold 22 million copies in English since 1939.

But one of the knocks on it has been that it’s full of dead white guys. Well, not anymore. The new edition now being shipped out to members, booksellers and counselors includes personal stories from an American Indian, a black woman and a couple of teenagers, among other additions.

Testimonials make up the second half of the book. The first half, detailing the principles of AA, will remain as written by the group’s co-founder, Bill Wilson. Wilson, a stockbroker, and Dr. Robert Smith, an Ohio surgeon, started AA in the late 1930s, and since then the group has grown from a few hundred members to a few million. Most of the country’s 11,000 drug and alcohol treatment centers now employ many AA principles, and counselors say the revised Big Book should help the philosophy appeal to a younger and more diverse population.

--Benedict Carey

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TELEVISION

Proposed Game Show to Test Smarts and Stress

Executives at ABC have apparently decided that it’s not torment enough for game show contestants to squirm under hot lights while attempting to answer absurdly trivial or personal questions. Borrowing a metaphor from the Texas State Correctional Facility, the network has just ordered 13 episodes of “The Chair” (working title) in which players field questions while seated--with electrodes connected to their body.

The object is to answer correctly without tipping the heart monitor dials. Heart monitors give a rough measure of stress because heart rate elevates the more you’re sweating the answer.

In the game, contestants answer general knowledge questions (so who was FDR’s second vice president?), and if his or her heart rate stays within a prescribed range--the money increases and the round continues. If the person “loses his cool and his heart races out of control, the money he’s already won will be lost, as his total goes backward,” an ABC news release says. Heart researchers are not sure how fair that system is; some people’s heart rates are simply more variable than others’, no matter what the questions or stresses are. But this is entertainment, not research.

-- Benedict Carey

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SPORTS

Psychologists Study ‘Choking Under Pressure’

We’ve seen it happen hundreds of times--the ice skater blowing a jump she’s nailed dozens of times in practice, the slugger striking out on an easy pitch with bases loaded.

Choking under pressure. Some experts believe people get distracted by the crowd, others blame performance anxiety. Now experiments conducted by two Michigan State University psychologists have yielded new insights.

A group of 54 novice golfers was split into three groups. One group putted under normal conditions, the second putted while distracted by another task, and the third putted in front of a video camera. This group was told to pay close attention to performance because golf pros would review the tapes.

Later on, when given an easy task, all three groups performed about the same. But when they were tested under pressure, where they were told their performance could result in monetary rewards, only the third group improved.

This suggests that initially facing pressure inoculates people from performance anxiety because they are accustomed to the stress. Researchers also concluded that choking was caused by paying too much attention to executing a well-learned skill.

-- Linda Marsa