Five personality dimensions and their influence on information behaviour Jannica Heinström Department of Social and Political Sciences/Information Studies Åbo Akademi University Tavastgatan 13 FIN-20500 Åbo Finland Abstract This article emphasize the importance of considering psychological mechanisms for a thorough understanding of users of information services. The focal point is the relation between personality and information seeking which is explored through a quantitative analysis of 305 university students' personality traits and information habits. It is shown that information behaviour could be connected to all the personality dimensions tested in the study - neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, competitiveness and conscientiousness. Introduction During the last decades we have seen a growing demand on the capacity to handle information. Information seeking has often been compared to a rational problem-solving process, where a gap in knowledge triggers a conscious search for information. Personality Personality theories
Freedom to Learn :: Unitierra in Oaxaca by Gustavo Esteva posted Nov 07, 2007 Years ago, we started to observe in villages and barrios, particularly among indigenous peoples, a radical reaction against education and schools. A few of them closed their schools and expelled their teachers. Most of them avoided this type of political confrontation and started instead to just bypass the school, while reclaiming and regenerating the conditions in which people traditionally learned in their own ways. The people in the villages know very well that school prevents their children from learning what they need to know to continue living in their communities, contributing to the common well-being and that of their soils, their places. They know by experience what usually happens to those who abandon their communities to get “higher education.” Life Without Teachers We once did a thought experiment in which we took a suggestion of author John McKnight—imagining a world without dentists—and applied it to the teaching profession. Discipline and freedom
Seed: The Shape of Music Zaha Hadid/Swarovski Crystal Palace Collection Roughly 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras observed that objects, such as the anvils he purportedly studied, produced harmonious sounds while vibrating at frequencies in simple whole-number ratios. More complex ratios gave rise to more dissonant sounds, which indicated that human beings were unconsciously sensitive to mathematical relationships inherent in nature. By showing that the world could be described mathematically, Pythagoras not only provided an important inspiration for physics, but he also discovered a particular affinity between mathematics and music—one that Gottfried Leibniz was to invoke centuries later when he described music as the “unknowing exercise of our mathematical faculties.” For a thousand years, Western musicians have endeavored to satisfy two fundamental constraints in their compositions. Together these constraints ensure a two-dimensional coherence in Western music analogous to that of a woven cloth.
Born to Learn ~ You are Born to Learn interactive webRadio Infographic of the Day: Is College Really Worth It? Is going to college really worth it? Probably so, but it's not that clear cut, and economics have been arguing the point for 30 years. Most studies tend to show that college-educated people end up making far more money in the course of their lifetimes. (The niggle: Usually, it's not worth paying for a private university.) Still, that evidence isn't totally cut and dry: What do you really learn in college? Is what you learned in college really what's producing the value? This graph makes a couple points in that debate: 1. But who in their right mind wouldn't recommend a college degree? If I had a guess, I think it's precisely that attitude that creates all the economic advantages--its the way our society is organized, rather than anything about college itself. [View more Infographics of the Day]
Secrets of Meeting, Attracting, and Dating Women - Tips, Advice, and Free Articles Internet Sacred Text Archive Home How Thinking Goes Wrong How Thinking Goes WrongTwenty-five Fallacies That Lead Us to Believe Weird Thingsby Michael Shermerfrom his 1997 book "Why People Believe Weird Things"(used by kind permission of the author; all rights reserved) In 1994 NBC began airing a New Age program called The Other Side that explored claims of the paranormal, various mysteries and miracles, and assorted "weird" things. I appeared numerous times as the token skeptic -- the "other side" of The Other Side, if you will. On most talk shows, a "balanced" program is a half-dozen to a dozen believers and one lone skeptic as the voice of reason or opposition. The Other Side was no different, even though the executive producer, many of the program producers, and even the host were skeptical of most of the beliefs they were covering. Another program was on astrology. In my opinion, most believers in miracles, monsters, and mysteries are not hoaxers, flimflam artists, or lunatics. Hume's Maxim Problems in Scientific Thinking 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief. This sort of misinformation isn't hypothetical; in 2003 a study found that viewers of Fox News were significantly more misinformed about the Iraq war, with far greater percentages of viewers erroneously believing that Iraq possessed WMDs or that there was a credible link between the 9/11 attack and Saddam Hussein than those who got their news from other outlets like NPR and PBS. Over half (56 percent) of Democratic subjects disapproved of Roberts before the misinformation. Further reading:
Podcast: The New Man - Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp In Part two of our discussion with Dr. sandor Gardos, we take a deeper look into everybody's favorite topic...sex. Unfortunately, the sex life of most men is not where it could be. We're not talking about how to pick up women here, we're talking about something deeper. What is behind our sex drive and what is our sexual energy really? Men tend to look at sexual energy as frustration, something to be fixed,,,and as soon as posible. Women tend to see this sexual energy differently, even using different words to describe sexual feelings. Sandor encourages us to see this energy not as something to avoid, but something we should honor as our very life essence. Why is Viagra the best selling drug in the country? Often we can be very dissociated during sex, perhaps fantasizing about someone else or generally checking out altogether. Most of us would rather take a pill than truly look inside ourselves to discover what may be getting in the way of our sexual desire. more.
The Lie of The Four Hour Work Week. The promise of a four hour workweek magically righting all wrongs in your life, is a lie. Not only is it highly implausible, but if you ever do achieve a four hour work week, you’ll probably want to get rid of it. Why is the Four Hour Workweek (4HWW for short) a lie? Well, there’s two reasons. So that’s the first reason. Since work is seen as such a must — something we must do to pay the bills and to survive — we don’t realize that it’s not required that we see work as something other than a chore. Work is sacred. Work is giving yourself. Seeing work as just something to do to get by is like slapping yourself in the face. Here’s why I just can’t slap myself anymore: And that’s really the biggest problem with seeing work as menial labor. Something different. When you expand your definition of what work is to a mutually beneficial exchange of value, it becomes more of a blessing and an opportunity. But when work becomes something reverent to you, you no longer to seek escape from it. Share: