How do minor set-backs affect self-reported happiness?

This post was triggered by, but is completely unrelated to, this Language Log post about self-reported happiness studies.

Last night my glasses broke (yes, again) in what is hopefully a minor and fixable way, yet one that requires immediate attention. So now my plans for things I have to get done this weekend all have to be shuffled around. I'm annoyed and inconvenienced and have looming over me the possibility that they might not be fixable and I might have to replace them immediately and then when I go to a wedding next weekend I'll look like an idiot with suboptimal glasses.

So if you had me do a self-reported happiness study right this minute, my happiness would come out lower than if my glasses hadn't broke. Yes, I know intellectually that they mean a broader, more long-term definition of happiness, but right at this moment the feeling of contentment seems like only a distant memory.

It would be interesting to study if things like this have an affect on happiness studies.

Do more people want to keep what they have, or do more people want more?

Disregarding the altruistic and social justice aspects, the purely selfish aspect of my politics can be reduced to "I have some good things. I don't want to lose them." I don't particularly care whether or not I gain more good things. The selfish part of me doesn't particularly care whether or not other people gain more good things (the altruistic part thinks everyone should have access to the good things I have if they're interested). The primary focus is just not losing what I have.

I think there are some people whose primary goal is not to keep what they have, but rather to gain more. There also seem to be people who are focused on what other people have, and seem not to want other people to have more than them, or to gain new things at a greater rate than they themselves are.

It would be interesting to study what percentage of society falls into which categories.

I don't intend this judgmentally - I realize it's very easy to say you don't need more once you have enough - I just think it would be interesting to take the pulse of society from this perspective.

Things They Should Study: do linguistic innovation and fashion trends diffuse along the same paths?

My only basis for this hypothesis is a very small sample of empirical evidence. If I pick up fashion ideas from someone, I also pick up word choices from them. I've also noticed that people who might be picking up fashion ideas from me (it sounds egotistical to assert definitively that they are, but there are one or two things I was definitely wearing first) also pick up word choices from me.

Of course, this is all complicated by multiple languages and genders and looks. I pick up all kinds of words and phrases from people whose clothes I'd never wear.

Things They Should Study: is there a correlation between childhood stuffed animals and materialism?

When I was in Grade 5, our teacher played John Lennon's Imagine for us. I listened to the song, following along the lyrics sheet, briefly scandalized by the use of the word "hell" but agreeing wholeheartedly with the sentiment. Until we got to the line "Imagine no possessions." Then I was scared: this man obviously wanted to take Smurfy away!

Smurfy is, as you might have guessed, a toy smurf. He has been with me my whole life, and for a good chunk of my life was my best friend - for a few dark years, my only friend. When the world gets too scary, Smurfy is there. After a long day being tormented by my bullies, I'd go to my room, cuddle up with Smurfy, and all would be right with the world. I still have him, and to this day there is a certain shade of comfort that only he can bring.

I'm sure only the most cold-hearted curmudgeon would characterize my relationship with Smurfy as materialistic. And yet, he is, strictly speaking, an object, a material possession, that I am emotionally attached to. The rest of my possessions I like for their function, perhaps combined with their aesthetics. With the exception of a few difficult-to-fit-and-discontinued pieces of clothing, I could do without them or replace them without blinking an eye. But Smurfy I need, and another stuffed animal can't do the job nearly as well. The emotional attachment to an object is there, developed at a very early age.

I know John Lennon didn't really want to take my Smurfy away. I know most people wouldn't characterize a child clutching a stuffed animal as materialistic. I know that whether people characterize me as materialistic will vary according to how much they like me and what point they're trying to prove. And I'm not suggesting or even hinting that parents should deny their children stuffed animals so they don't become materialistic - I would never deny another child the comfort that Smurfy has brought me.

But I can't help but wonder, does this emotional attachment to an object early on lead to materialism later in life? Or, conversely, does it reduce materialism because ordinary consumer goods will never be your best friend like that one stuffed animal is?

Things They Should Study: how does commercial sodium content compare with the amount of salt people use when left to their own devices?

Commercial canned soups tend to have an unhealthily high sodium content. Sodium-free or genuinely low-sodium soups tend to be rather bland and people are inclined to want to add salt.

Research idea: give the subjects sodium-free versions of high-sodium commercial soups, instruct them to add salt to taste, and see how the end result compares with the sodium content of commercial soups.

Things They Should Study: What percentage of expensive things actually are well-made? What percentage of cheap things are poorly made?

Conventional wisdom is that cheap things are poorly made and will wear out quickly and have to be thrown out, and that expensive things are made well and will last.

Empirical evidence collected to date is mixed. On one hand, my $2 necklaces keep breaking and the most expensive shoes I've ever bought are so truly awesome that I keep making people try them on. On the other hand, I'm listening to music from a pair of computer speakers that cost me $5 and are nearly 10 years old and wearing a bra that, while it is a fantastic piece of engineering, cost me more than I care to admit and is progressing towards needing to be worn on a tighter setting at a faster rate than I'm comfortable with.

My main qualm about buying expensive things is that I don't know how to tell if things are actually good quality. What's to stop people from making crappy things and putting expensive price tags on them? Someone once told me that some manufacturers of beauty products have a business model where they don't need repeat customers. They need X people to buy Acme Shampoo one time only for the company to turn a profit. Then six months later, they'll come out with a new product. If this is true (my source was not a neutral party), who's to stop someone from applying the same model to clothing or household goods? Make something cheaply, market and price it like it's well-made, then re-brand.

So I'd like to see some research on the how product quality actually correlates to price. Are there poorly-made expensive products out there? If so, how many? Are there well-made cheap products out there? If so, how many?

(Another point that people often neglect is that not everything needs to be made to last. I buy drinking glasses at the dollar store because I'm so clumsy that all my dishes are in for an early death anyway. If I need to replace a proprietary device-specific cable or charger, I buy a knockoff on ebay. Yes, the knock-offs wear out and die after three or four months, but they only cost $5, the real thing is $75 from the manufacturer, and no way is my cellphone going to last me long enough to make the real thing worth my while.)

Things They Should Study: why are there monsters under the bed and how did they get there?

When I was little, my furniture turned into monsters at night. Sure, it sat very very still, but I knew it was a monster and I knew it was going to get me. The cabinet in the downstairs bathroom also turned into a monster if I blurred my eyes a certain way, and ALL the furniture in my baby sister's room (where my parents would sometimes send me as a punishment because there were no interesting toys in there, unlike my room) was turned into monsters at all times, even during the day. (No, I never questioned why the baby was kept in a room with monsters. I was too young to see a baby as something that needed protecting.) When I started elementary school there was no respite from the monsters. Some of the toilets had monsters in them, and this wisdom was carefully handed down over the years. I'll bet you anything that if you asked a current student at my former elementary school which toilet the toilet monster lives in, she'll say the last one on the right-hand side.

When you're a kid, there are monsters everywhere. Under the bed, in the closet, we know this. When you were reading me describe my childhood monsters, you probably weren't thinking I was a completely delusional loony. You probably know that they aren't there now because I'm a grown-up, but there were very much real when I was a child. Sure, they didn't actually get me and I never actually saw them move, but they were real.

But why do children have monsters? How did this come about? Is it cultural or evolutionary? Do all children in all cultures have monsters? If so, what evolutionary purpose does it serve? If not all cultures have monsters, which ones don't and why not? Why do we have them?

Life should be scarier now than it was when I was a child. I know, in more specific detail than I've ever wanted to, about things like torture, rape, and war crimes. If there's a phobia trigger, no one is going to rescue me. My grownups can't solve all my problems - in fact, we're getting frighteningly close to the point where they can't solve any problems that I can't already solve for myself. I'm well aware that my financial resources are finite and competence and hard work aren't enough to earn a living. The number of people in the world who actively want me to be safe is so small I could probably type up a list of names, and the number of people in the world who directly or indirectly want to do harm to me seems to be bigger every time I turn around.

But I don't have any monsters, and generally live in less fear that I did back when my dresser turned into a monster. So why did we have that omnipresent but nonspecific fear back when we were kids, and why do very real and specific fears seem to chase it away?

Things They Should Study: newspaper comment thread agree/disagree rates

Some of the news media comments sections let you vote on whether you agree or disagree with the comments. I never give it much attention because I try to avoid comment threads in general, and the agree/disagree rates tend to sit there unobtrusively. Maybe if I am in the comment thread and you don't have to log in to click and I have a strong reaction either way I might vote, but generally I pay it no mind.

Today I noticed a comment thread on a Globe and Mail article where all the comments were the kind of asshattery that normally makes me avoid comments threads in the first place, and all the comments had received a wide margin of disagree votes. So that implies that the people posting comments are not representative of general public opinion.

I think this merits further study. What percentage of comments receive general agreement overall? How frequently does the consensus of the voters correspond with the consensus of the commenters? (For example, is a given article receiving a lot of pro-widget comments, but those comments are being voted down, suggesting that the broader audience is anti-widget?) Insofar as political affiliation can be determined, which political affiliations are most likely to comment? Which are most likely to vote?

Things They Should Study: economic demographics of people who are opposed to good wages for garbage men

I've been wondering why people who think the garbage collectors are overpaid don't look at the job as something they themselves could potentially do. After all, my personal inclination when I see a job I think is overpaid is to think that maybe that's the job I should be doing. (So far, whenever I've looked into things, I find that the job is either harder than I thought, or you have to pay your dues for longer than I thought, or it doesn't pay as much as I thought.)

But today it occurred to me that the people being most inconvenienced by this strike are mostly the rich. The garbage strike affects residential collection, but not highrise apartments. In other words, primarily the house people. Houses in Toronto are expensive - we're looking at $400,000 at the very least. This is a city where a million-dollar home can look perfectly unremarkable. If you own a house in Toronto, you make far more money than I ever will. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here in my apartment not noticing anything except that the bins on Yonge St. are rather full.

As a general trend, public sector salaries have a moderating effect. They tend to be higher than private sector at the low end of the pay scale (garbage collectors, daycare workers, receptionists) and lower than the private sector at the high end of the scale (investment bankers, senior executives, etc.) Anyone who can afford a house in Toronto would be at the high end of the scale, and therefore lives in a world where the natural order of things as demonstrated by empirical evidence is that public sector is paid lower than private sector.

So here they are, being inconvenienced by this garbage strike, not identifying with the garbage men because that work is so much more difficult and poorly-paid than what the house people themselves do. Then they find out, to their shock, that the garbage men are making so much more money than the rich house people pay, say, their cleaners.

Meanwhile, the people who can identify with the garbage men, who, if they learned the garbage men made more than they expected, would be inclined to think "Cool! I wonder how you get that job?", live in apartments and are hardly noticing anything is going on.

The mystery: how come so many newspaper columnists seem to have houses? Surely journalism can't pay that well.

Things They Should Study: the economic impact of rain on Pride

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'm sure as hell not going to the parade. And I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that.

Pride is one of the events that brings in the most tourism dollars, and some of those tourists are coming from day-trip distances and therefore can easily stay home if the weather sucks. Someone should study the economic impact of the rain tomorrow.

Labour relations

First two questions, then some worrying, and probably some other random stuff along the way because I'm not particularly organized today.

Question 1:

Price was uppermost in the mind of a woman who identified herself only as a bar owner on Ossington Ave.

"If I opened a bar in the United States, a bottle of vodka would cost me five bucks and I'd sell a cocktail for $4.25," she said hotly.

"Here a bottle of vodka costs $35.26 and I still have to sell a cocktail for $4.25, and I have to pay a 10 per cent liquor tax and GST, and I have to go through all these hoops for licensing."

Can any USians confirm that a bottle of vodka costs $5? I assume we're talking approximately 750 mL, which Google tells me is about 25 oz. I'm thinking if that was actually true, it would be far more common knowledge and it would be WAY more common to bring back your absolute maximum quota of booze every single time you cross the border. I've heard that it's cheaper in the states and people do bring back booze sometimes, but not to the extent that that price difference would result in. I blogged previously that media outlets should fact-check reader mail before printing it - maybe they should also fact-check statements like this in quotes that they run. It isn't right that a person should be able to get a statement like that printed as though it's fact, and decline to use their name in the process.

Also, I've noticed multiple times in the comments threads people pointing out that there are all kinds of great wineries in Niagara, and we Torontonians are probably just too snobby to come down and enjoy them. WTF? It's nothing against Niagara wine at all - I drink it all the time. It's just most people, most of the time, want buying wine to be a straightforward errand, not a day trip that you have to travel two hours each way for. Would you want to have to come up to TO every time you want alcohol?

Anyway, my question is: is it true that you can get a bottle of vodka for $5 in the US?

Question 2:

WTF is up with all the media reports of illegal dumping? This is the second day of the garbage strike. There is no scheduled garbage collection on Mondays. If they hadn't announced the garbage strike, people would be only just starting to notice that garbage has been collected. But on the front page of this morning's G&M, there's a picture of a pile of garbage bags described as an impromptu illegal dump. That picture must have been taken yesterday. If garbage collection had been going normally, that garbage wouldn't even have been collected until at least today. Someone here is overreacting - either people are going "OMG! Garbage strike! I must immediately illegally dump my garbage!" without even waiting to see if it resolves within the first couple of days, or the media is vastly overreporting/over-sensationalizing alleged illegal dumping.

***

Meanwhile, I'm terrified. Not by the strikes (although the prospect of a prolonged garbage strike with no alcohol available is kind of scary for someone with my phobias), but by the attitude of the public. There are so many loud people who seem so vehemently opposed to anyone making a decent living. They seem to genuinely and truly want all these people - LCBO workers, daycare workers, even garbage collectors - to be among the working poor, floating through contract hell. They seem to actively think that it's outright wrong for these workers to be making a decent working-class living, something where you can rent a small house in a safe neighbourhood, go to the dentist whenever necessary, buy your kid some skates for xmas and take them to Canada's Wonderland in the summer. This terrifies me, because if they want these people to be poor, they also want me to be poor. I'm far less important and have a far easier job than a garbage man! They just haven't noticed me yet because my job is to be invisible. (Yeah, I know, all this blogging doesn't help.)

When I was in university, I was earning under the LICO and living within that amount. I had scholarships, most of tuition was taken care of, but, like most students, I was really scrimping everywhere possible for living expenses. There were things crawling out of my walls and causing me panic attacks. For a couple of years I used now-defunct free dial-up internet services, living with constant uncertainty as to whether I'd be able to get online. I rationed my cheese intake, because cheese is expensive. If I'd ever had a dental emergency, I wouldn't have been able to afford to get it dealt with but for the fact that I was still on my parents' insurance.

I was happy then because I was living on my own for the first time, but I don't want to live like that again. I want the security of knowing nothing is going to crawl out of my wall. I want to turn on my computer and have the internet be there. Hell, I want to have a computer - like if mine dies, I want to be able to replace it! I want to be able to eat cheese whenever I feel like eating cheese. I want to be able to get regular dental care. I want air conditioning. I want to make birth control decisions without cost being a factor. I want to wear women's shoes and make-up and bras in my correct size. And, yes, I want all that for city and LCBO workers too.

I know many people in the world don't get to live at that level, but here in Toronto in the 21st century, it isn't really so much to ask. I'm not asking for diamond-encrusted platinum, I'm not even asking for a car, I just want to be able to continue to make a living that allows me these small comforts. But these loud angry people who begrudge the garbage men a paycheque that allows them to buy their kids skates will, as soon as they notice I exist, want to send me back to having things crawling out of my walls. I don't feel safe.

I'd like to see a study of the people who begrudge others a safe, steady living for a solid day's work. What do they do for a living? What's their financial situation and career history like? What are some examples of what they think are appropriately-compensated jobs?

Things They Should Study: queue strategy

At the grocery store, suppose at one register there's one person with 10 items, and at another register there's two people 5 five items each. Obviously the register with only one person in line will be faster because they only have to go through the paying dance once.

But what if the choice is one person with 12 items vs. two people with 5 items each? What if there's two people with 5 each vs. three people with 1 each? What about one with 12 vs. three with 2 each?

In calculating which line is moving fastest, each person who has to pay must create a delay equal to a certain number of items. Someone should do a study and work this out so we can all have efficient queue strategy.

Things They Should Study: does external racism hinder people's career paths?

Some of my co-workers and I have recently been dealing with an external individual who is less helpful and cooperative than we would like. My own personal interactions with this individual have been notably less unpleasant than those of my colleagues.

This seemed very odd to me. Normally, in life in general, if anyone is going to get an unpleasant response, it's going to be me. I'm not particularly charming or persuasive or authoritative or otherwise able convince people to do what I want them to. All the other people involved here have both better people skills and more authority than I do. And yet somehow I elicited the least unpleasant reaction, the reaction that was nearest to being cooperative.

So I was thinking about why this could be, and one theory that crossed my mind is that the individual in question might be racist. Of all the people involved, I am the only one with a name that sounds English.

Understand, I have no way of knowing if it actually is racism. There are a number of plausible explanations, I have no other hints of racism, and it would be a stupid way for this individual to be racist anyway. But that is an idea that occurred to me, so I started logicking the idea to its natural conclusion.

Let's suppose, for the purpose of this blog post, that this individual is in fact racist and is responding better to me for that reason. A pattern would develop, and people would start to notice that I can consistently get the best response from this individual. And suppose some other racist externals turned up, and also responded better to me for purely racist reasons. This would lead people to believe that I'm good at handling difficult externals. Co-workers might pass difficult externals off to me because I get better results. Racist externals might prefer to and in fact seek out to deal with me. And then if a promotion comes up for a position that involves dealing with externals, I'd end up being the natural choice. Not because I'm objectively better than my co-workers, but because of factors beyond anyone's control.

I wonder to what extent problems like this hinder people's career paths. Even if your employer is completely fair and equitable, if some of your customers or vendors or suppliers are biased against you, you're going to have a harder time doing your job well.

Someone should study this.

Things They Should Study: six degrees of separation strategy

The original six degrees of separation study was within the United States - the source people were in Kansas or somewhere conceptually similar, and the target person was in Boston or somewhere conceptually similar. This got me thinking that it would be interesting to do an international study involving people in completely different parts of the world. For example, I might be asked to get a letter to someone in Turkmenistan.

So then I got thinking about how I could get a letter to someone in Turkmenistan, and I came up with three separate strategies. The first would be to get it as close to Turkmenistan as possible. I would do this by sending it to Poland. However, people's connections tend not to be geographical beyond the very local level. (For example, I don't know anyone who lives in Barrie, so getting a letter to Barrie would be just as much of a crapshoot as getting it to Turkmenistan.)

The second strategy would be to try professional channels. If my target is a classical musician, I send it to someone I know who's a classical musician. However, your professional network doesn't necessarily reach your whole profession. (I couldn't reach a translator in Turkmenistan any more easily than I could reach a classical musician in Turkmenistan).

The third strategy would be to cast as wide a net as possible by sending it to the person I know who knows the most people. This seems like a better idea, but I'm still basically throwing darts blindfolded.

So thinking about all this, I think it would be interesting to do a study to see which strategy is most effective. All the source people would get three letters to send to one target person. They'd be instructed to send the first letter as close as geographically possible to the target (with all subsequent recipients instructed to do the same), the second as close as professionally possible (with all subsequent recipients instructed to do the same), and the third to the one person they know who knows the most people (with all subsequent recipients instructed to do the same until they can see in their network a direct path to the target.) I'm sure the results would be fascinating.

Things They Should Study: how incompetent can you be and still successfully run a business?

This train of thought started with Bill Hendrickson on Big Love. He's an idiot, but he owns his own successful business.

Then I started thinking about real life, and it occurs to me that I've encountered more than one person who is an idiot and runs their business poorly, but their business continues to exist for years and years and years.

How can this be? Someone should study the incompetence tolerance of enterpreneurship.

Then this got me thinking that maybe I'm grossly overestimating how difficult it is to run a business. It all seems impenetrable to me, but if these idiots are doing it, maybe it isn't that hard? But then if it were THAT easy, wouldn't way more people run their own businesses instead of working for someone else? Think about how hard it is to find a decent job. If any old idiot could just start a business, wouldn't everyone just do that rather than running around sending their resume everywhere?

Things They Should Study: next-of-kin overruling organ donor wishes

I blogged previously that they should change the rules of organ donation so they don't require next-of-kin consent when they already have clear consent from the prospective donor.

I think this would be interesting to study. In what percentage of cases does the next-of-kin not go along with the prospective donor's clearly-expressed wishes? In what percentage of cases does the next-of-kin block donation, and in what percentage do they consent to donation even though the prospective donor doesn't?

(I also wonder, purely as a matter of theoretical ethics, whether there's an ethical difference between consenting to donation against the donor's will (and thereby helping other people) and blocking donation (thereby preventing the donor from helping others). I can make arguments both ways.)

Things They Should Study: where did the idea that we all pay 50% income tax come from?

Conventional wisdom is that we pay 50% of our income in taxes. That idea has been mindlessly bandied about as fact for as long as I can remember.

I just did my taxes, and the computer very kindly told me how much tax I'm paying in income tax. I'm paying a total of 18% of my income in taxes (my marginal tax rate is 30%, but obviously not everything is taxed at the marginal rate). So even if I spent every single dollar I earn on stuff that's subject to both sales taxes, that would be a total of 31% of my income in taxes.

My income falls between the median Canadian household income and the mean Canadian household income.

I don't have children, I don't have medical deductions, I don't have employment-related tax writeoffs, I don't have educational deductions, I don't claim my charitable donations. Basically the only deductions I claim are my RRSP contributions and my Metropass.

This would all suggest that most people are paying significantly less than 50% of their income in taxes. So where did the ubiquitous 50% idea come from?

Edited to add:

It occurred to me while I was putting on my makeup that this 50% idea might be responsible for our weak social safety net. It is a common misconception that people don't pay tax on social assistance benefits (in reality, it counts as income and is taxed if your income is high enough).

Suppose, for example, your gross income is $50,000 a year. And suppose you're under the common misconceptions that a) you're paying 50% of that in taxes, and b) government benefits are not taxable.

So someone tells you that Employment Insurance pays a maximum of $447 a week. You do the math and see that this is $23,244. But because you're under the misconception that you pay 50% of your income in taxes, you think your take-home is $25,000. And because you're under the misconception that EI isn't taxable, you think their take-home is $23,224. So you look at the situation and thinking that living on EI is no sacrifice whatsoever. But in reality, their take-home is less than that and your take-home is more than that, so there's a significant difference.

Things They Should Study: bullies who tell their victims they should kill themselves

Today's Annie's Mailbox has a girl whose bully is leaving her MySpace messages saying "Why don't you just go and kill yourself already?"

I've heard of this bullying method before, although it was never done to me, and I really think someone should research it. We could use more information about the perps motives and what they're thinking, because this makes even less sense than most other bullying techniques.

My bullies bullied me when we were unwillingly all in the same place - at school or on the bus mostly. But in this technique, the bullies go out of their way contact the victim at home outside of school hours. If they really think the victim is so worthless they should commit suicide, why would they go out of their way to contact her during free time that isn't being marred by her presence?

Also, I don't know if this is broadly applicable, but within my own circle the victims who were being told to suicide were far cooler than me. (To me they looked like they were on par with their bullies in terms of coolness, but they were all several levels above me so it's possible I couldn't see the distinction.) In callously cold and objective terms, I was a far better candidate for suicide than these victims, but no one ever suggested that I should commit suicide. And now that I think about it, those particular bullies were never cruel to me. We certainly weren't friends and some of us didn't quite get along in a sort of cold and distant and avoiding each other way, but they never actually bullied me. Why would they do something so much more drastic to the cooler victim while leaving the uncool victim alone?

I'd love for someone to seek out adults who used to bully this way and find out about their motivations and how they chose their victims. Even moreso than regular bullying, it's a giant mystery to me.

Things They Should Study: universality of waving your hands around when talking

The source text was poorly written. Strictly speaking it did not say what the author actually intended, although realistically it was one of those "Meh, you know what I mean anyway" situations. So my co-worker and I were verbally hashing it out, lobbing it back and forth, waving our hands around, trying to clearly articulate the meaning that was intended but not said.

We were stuck on one particular concept that was entirely non-tangible. It was a purely abstract idea. There is no physical element to it. It did not involve shape or size or motion, not even symbolically or metaphorically.

But when we were trying to articulate this concept, we both waved our hands around in gestures that involved shape, size, and motion. And we both, independently and simultaneously, landed on exactly exactly the same hand gestures, with exactly the same shape, size, and motion. The gestures did nothing to actually clarify the concept. If we'd been trying to explain it to an onlooker who couldn't read the source text, they would have no more information with the gestures than without. And yet we landed on exactly the same gestures.

Someone needs to study this. Get people to explain intangible concepts that cannot be communicated more effectively with gesturs than without, and videotape them doing so, then see if there's any consistency in the hand gestures used.

Things They Should Study: are subway mice universally cute?

I think the little black mousies that live in the subway tracks are cute. So does everyone else I've ever discussed subway mice with.

Which is really weird if you think about it. They're mice. They live in the subway tracks. Technically they're an infestation, and they're probably covered in unspeakable filth. I've been living here for nearly nine years(!), someone should have expressed revulsion about subway mice in my presence before. But no one has, everyone thinks they're cute. I'd say a good half the time I see a mousie on the tracks, some random person on the platform goes "Oooh, look, mice!" (in an OMG CUTE! voice) or goes for a closer look or is otherwise watching them with pleasant interest. I've never seen anyone squick, although surely some people somewhere must.

It would be interesting to do a comprehensive survey and see what percentage of the population thinks the subway mice are cute, and how that compares with the population's feelings about mice in general.