Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed Our minds set up many traps for us. Unless we’re aware of them, these traps can seriously hinder our ability to think rationally, leading us to bad reasoning and making stupid decisions. Features of our minds that are meant to help us may, eventually, get us into trouble. Here are the first 5 of the most harmful of these traps and how to avoid each one of them. 1. “Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? Lesson: Your starting point can heavily bias your thinking: initial impressions, ideas, estimates or data “anchor” subsequent thoughts. This trap is particularly dangerous as it’s deliberately used in many occasions, such as by experienced salesmen, who will show you a higher-priced item first, “anchoring” that price in your mind, for example. What can you do about it? Always view a problem from different perspectives. 2. In one experiment a group of people were randomly given one of two gifts — half received a decorated mug, the other half a large Swiss chocolate bar. 3. 4.
12. How Your Greatest Insecurities Reveal Your Deepest Gifts In my decades of practice as a psychotherapist, this is the insight that has inspired me most: Our deepest wounds surround our greatest gifts. I've found that the very qualities we're most ashamed of, the ones we keep trying to reshape or hide, are in fact the key to finding real love. It's so easy to get lost in the quest for self-improvement. Over the years, I realized that the characteristics of my clients which I found most inspiring, most essentially them, were the ones which frequently caused them the most suffering. Some clients would complain of feeling like they were "too much"; too intense, too angry, or too demanding. Other clients said they felt that they felt like they were "not enough"; too weak, too quiet, too ineffective. Clients would describe lives devastated by codependency, and I would see an immense generosity with no healthy limits. Again and again, where my clients saw their greatest wounds, I also saw their most defining gifts! © 2011 Ken Page,LCSW.
The Benjamin Franklin Effect The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm. Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters. Born in 1706 as the eighth of 17 children to a Massachusetts soap and candlestick maker, the chances Benjamin would go on to become a gentleman, scholar, scientist, statesman, musician, author, publisher and all-around general bad-ass were astronomically low, yet he did just that and more because he was a master of the game of personal politics. Like many people full of drive and intelligence born into a low station, Franklin developed strong people skills and social powers. Franklin’s prospects were dim. At 17, Franklin left Boston and started his own printing business In Philadelphia. As clerk, he could step into a waterfall of data coming out of the nascent government. What exactly happened here? Let’s start with your attitudes. By Fernando Botero
Stockholm Syndrome “They weren’t bad people. They let me eat, they let me sleep, they gave me my life” — A hostage from Flight 847 One way of describing this site would be “strange beliefs people have and how they got them.” In the summer of 1973, four hostages were taken in a botched bank robbery at Kreditbanken in Stockholm, Sweden. This struck some folks as weird, and as a way of coping with this uneasiness, as they started seeing more examples they named this class of strange behavior the “Stockholm Syndrome.” Notorious in the United States is the case of Patty Hearst, who after being kidnapped and tortured by the Symbionese Liberation Army, took up arms and joined their cause, taking on the nom de guerre of “Tania” and helping the SLA rob banks. The Stockholm Syndrome comes into play when a captive cannot escape and is isolated and threatened with death, but is shown token acts of kindness by the captor. A reader responds...
1. Get Anyone to Like You, Instantly Get anyone to like you - Instantly - Guaranteed If you want people to like you, make them feel good about themselves. This golden rule of friendship works every time - guaranteed! The principle is straightforward. If I meet you and make you feel good about yourself, you will like me and seek every opportunity to see me again to reconstitute the same good feeling you felt the first time we met. The simple communication techniques that follow will help you keep the focus of the conversation on the person you are talking to and make them feel good about themselves. The Big Three Our brains continually scan the environment for friend or foe signals. Eyebrow Flash The eyebrow flash is a quick up and down movement of the eyebrows. Head Tilt The head tilt is a slight tilt of the head to one side or the other. Smile A smile sends the message "I like you." Empathic Statements Empathic statements keep the focus on the other person. Example 1 George : I've been really busy this week. Example 2 Flattery
The Mysterious Power of Small Talk - DYSKE.COM “Small talk” has been a bane of my existence all my life. I could never figure out why small talk has such a critical role in socializing with others. Why is it that trying to talk about particle physics at a party is looked down on? In fact, why are parties necessary in the first place? Why can’t we just meet with one another, sit down in a quiet place and exchange our knowledge and insights? As silly as it may sound, this question has baffled me all my life. The British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, has a possible answer: What we call “small talk” or even “gossip” is what our language was originally intended for. When we humans work as a team, the combined effect can be greater than the sum of its parts. This is an incredible theory. Assuming that Dunbar’s theory is correct, we can now answer my lifelong questions mentioned above. But what if your goal in life is to be as independent and self-sufficient as possible?
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature. Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals. Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something. 1. The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders. Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. 2. The prisoners rebelled on the second day, and the reaction of the guards was swift and brutal. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
13. Six Clues to Character Seconds after Tamara was ushered into his office, Michael knew she was right for the creative staff of the advertising team he ran. Within a year, they were not only a productive duo professionally, they were dating. She soon jumped to another agency largely so they could live together openly. A year later, they were married and enacting their plan to start a boutique agency together. The harder she worked, the more Michael's praise got under Tamara's skin; she grew to hate being viewed as indefatigable. It's taken over two rocky years for the shame , the anger , and the disappointment to subside. Does any one of us know who our lovers, our friends, our business partners, our children—and even we ourselves— will become, especially when tossed into a new set of circumstances? Even with children, development is not a mystery, says Susan Engel, a psychologist at Williams College. Some are traits, more or less wired into personality—such as basic level of interest in others.
8 Things Everybody Ought to Know About Concentrating “Music helps me concentrate,” Mike said to me glancing briefly over his shoulder. Mike was in his room writing a paper for his U.S. History class. On his desk next to his computer sat crunched Red Bulls, empty Gatorade bottles, some extra pocket change and scattered pieces of paper. Mike made a shift about every thirty seconds between all of the above. Do you know a person like this? The Science Behind Concentration In the above account, Mike’s obviously stuck in a routine that many of us may have found ourselves in, yet in the moment we feel it’s almost an impossible routine to get out of. When we constantly multitask to get things done, we’re not multitasking, we’re rapidly shifting our attention. Phase 1: Blood Rush Alert When Mike decides to start writing his History essay, blood rushes to his anterior prefrontal cortex. Phase 2: Find and Execute Phase 3: Disengagement While in this state, Mike then hears an email notification. The process repeats itself sequentially. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
How to Detect Lies - body language, reactions, speech patterns Interesting Info -> Lying Index -> How to Detect Lies Become a Human Lie Detector (Part 1) Warning: sometimes ignorance is bliss. Introduction to Detecting Lies: This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions. This is just a basic run down of physical (body language) gestures and verbal cues that may indicate someone is being untruthful. If you got here from somewhere else, be sure to check out our Lie Detection index page for more info including new research in the field of forensic psychology. Signs of Deception: Body Language of Lies: • Physical expression will be limited and stiff, with few arm and hand movements. • A person who is lying to you will avoid making eye contact. • Hands touching their face, throat & mouth. Emotional Gestures & Contradiction • Timing is off between emotions gestures/expressions and words. Bored?