How to Read and Write Simultaneously Classic attentional training study hints at our considerable potential to multitask. The mind has a remarkable ability to focus attention on just one voice from a chorus (see: the cocktail party effect). But what about spreading our attention across different types of tasks? A classic 1976 study which taught two people to read and write at the same time hints at our considerable potential to multitask. Professor Elizabeth Spelke and colleagues at Cornell University wanted to know whether we can really divide our conscious attention between two demanding tasks, like reading and writing. Before the training Diane and John’s normal reading and comprehension rates were measured, so it could be compared with post-training. Phase 1: Simultaneous reading and writing. The first step was to get Diane and John reading and writing at the same time. Naturally when Diane and John first tried to multitask their reading speed, comprehension and memory all deteriorated. What does this mean?
How To Become Superhuman Through Meditation What The Eyes Reveal: 10 Messages My Pupils are Sending You The dilation and constriction of the pupils reveals how hard we’re thinking, how excited or disgusted we are and more… Our pupils, the black holes which let light into the eyes, don’t just help us see, they also signal what’s going on in our minds. Here are 10 pieces of psychological research which show how changes in pupil size reveal many aspects of thought. 1. Look into my eyes and ask me to name the cigar-smoking founder of psychoanalysis and you won’t see much change in my pupil size. But ask me to explain the laws of cricket and watch my pupils expand. That’s because research has shown that the harder your brain works, the more your pupils dilate. 2. Keep watching my eyes closely and you’ll spot the point when explaining the laws of cricket gets too much. Poock (1973) reported that when participants’ minds were loaded to 125% of their capacity, their pupils constricted. It’ll be trying to explain a googly that will do it. 3. 4. Their pupils widened at first for all three. 5. 6. 7. 8.
How to Commit to a Goal Psychological experiments demonstrate the power of a simple technique for committing to goals. Here’s a brief story about why we all sometimes get distracted from the most important goals in our lives. Perhaps you recognise it? You are thinking about changing your job because your boss is a pain and you’re stagnating. Work is busy at the moment, the money is OK and your home-life is also packed. Apart from anything else you’ve been thinking about learning a musical instrument. A few months pass. Unfortunately everyday life intervenes again and you do little more than search online for the price of electric pianos. After six months you come back full circle to changing your job, still without having made a real start towards any of these goals. Written like this, with six months compressed into a few paragraphs, it’s obvious the problem is a lack of goal commitment; although in reality, with everyday life to cope with, the pattern can be more difficult to spot. Reality check Hearts and minds
Cialdini's Six Principles of Influence - Communication Skills Training from MindTools Convincing Others to Say "Yes" (Also known as the Six Weapons of Influence) How do you influence others? © iStockphoto/blackred You've come up with a fantastic idea for a new product. However, you haven't had much success with this in the past. Influencing others is challenging, which is why it's worth understanding the psychological principles behind the influencing process. This is where it's useful to know about Cialdini's Six Principles of Influence. In this article, we'll examine these principles, and we'll look at how you can apply them to influence others. About the Six Principles The Six Principles of Influence (also known as the Six Weapons of Influence) were created by Robert Cialdini, Regents' Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. The six principles are as follows: 1. As humans, we generally aim to return favors, pay back debts, and treat others as they treat us. 2. Cialdini says that we have a deep desire to be consistent. 3. 4. 5. 6. Warning:
The Impressive Power of a Stranger’s Advice Spend more wisely by learning to take other people’s surprisingly accurate advice. Most people are much better at giving advice than taking it. When it comes to spending our money, we like to think we know best what will make us happy. What does the guy next door or a colleague at work know about how we should spend our money? Well, a lot more, it turns out, than we might think. Imagine you are going on a 5 minute speed date with a stranger. Either: a photograph of them with an autobiography.Or: the rating of a previous speed dater (who is a stranger to you). Which one do you think will better predict how much you’ll enjoy the speed date? If you are like most of the participants in an experiment by Gilbert et al. (2010) then you’ll go for number 1. We’re all different, right? In the experiment, though, the ratings of a previous speed dater were the best predictor of how much people enjoyed their speed date. Here’s one that’s even weirder. Perhaps you’re a bit more wary now?
What’s The Best Time of Day to be Creative? New research finds circadian rhythms in our creativity. Do you feel at your most creative early or late in the day? Now psychological research is examining whether there’s a best time of day for creativity, depending on the type of creativity and your natural rhythms. To investigate Wieth and Zacks (2012) had participants take two different types of creativity test. One measured their insight ability: this is the kind of problem which requires a leap into the unknown. Like when you suddenly realise that a silk scarf would make a great sandwich parachute (hey, maybe you want to drop it undamaged from the fiftieth floor). The second measured their ability to solve analytic problems: these are the type of problems that require you to work steadily towards the answer, like doing your taxes. Both of these types of thinking are important in creativity, although at different points in the process. Image credit: Yau Hoong Tang
How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. Meeting new people can be awkward. What should you say? How can you make a good impression? How do you keep a conversation going? Research shows relationships are vital to happiness and networking is the key to getting jobs and building a fulfilling career. But what’s the best way to build rapport and create trust? Robin Dreeke can. Robin was head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program and has studied interpersonal relations for over 27 years. Robin is the author of the excellent book, It’s Not All About “Me”: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone. I gave him a call to get some answers. You’re going to learn: And a lot more. 1) The Most Important Thing To Do With Anyone You Meet Robin’s #1 piece of advice: “Seek someone else’s thoughts and opinions without judging them.” Ask questions. Here’s Robin: Sum Up
Why great ideas come when you aren’t trying History is rich with 'eureka' moments: scientists from Archimedes to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are said to have had flashes of inspiration while thinking about other things. But the mechanisms behind this psychological phenomenon have remained unclear. A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander. The discovery was made by a team led by Benjamin Baird and Jonathan Schooler, psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The researchers presented 145 undergraduate students with two 'unusual uses' tasks that gave them two minutes to list as many uses as possible for everyday objects such as toothpicks, clothes hangers and bricks. Jeremy Mayes / GETTY IMAGES Archimedes made his breakthrough discovery of displacement while relaxing in the bath. “We’ve traditionally found that rapid-eye-movement sleep grants creative insight.
Does The Weather Affect Your Mood? Do grey skies make you blue or is it summer that gets your goat? Here in the UK the weather feels depressing. We’re in the middle of winter in the northern hemisphere and it’s cold and we’re being battered by gales and torrential rain. The sun, even when it does show its face, is setting at 4pm. It’s no wonder people in the street look fed up. But according to most of the research on the connection between weather and mood, they shouldn’t be. When you tell people this, though, they don’t believe it. So why don’t we see this effect in the research? That’s the question a new study by Klimstra et al. (2011) tries to answer with a group of adolescents and their mothers. And it turns out this is true. Unaffected: about half the people in their study fell into this group. This helps explain why studies keep finding that weather doesn’t have much effect on mood: it’s because we’re different and these differences were mostly being averaged out. Image credit: Noukka Signe
It’s Time To Get Real About Political Correctness Typical anti political correctness meme from the PC Watch Blog It has become cool to act as if ‘political correctness’ is some kind of cultural oppression, and to elevate those who challenge it as subversive, radical, fresh-thinkers. This is part of the attractiveness of parties like UKIP, presenting themselves as a slap in the face to the mainstream. But it is actually the defense, not the dismantling of political correctness that is a radical act in modern Britain, and here is why. What is Political Correctness? Well, firstly, the term was actually coined by its detractors. So, there isn’t actually any such thing as political correctness. These people often have zero idea what actual oppression truly feels like, so in fairness, limits on their behaviour is about the closet thing they will ever experience to genuine oppression. Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? This post is inspired by a Stewart Lee segment from 2007, which I was reminded of thanks to the wonder of twitter.
The Psychology of Flow (in under 300 words) What is it like to be fully alive, right now, engaged with what you are doing? That’s the psychology of flow. When the happiness and creativity expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was studying how painters work, he noticed an odd thing. But when the painting was finished, they rapidly lost interest in it. What was this special state of mind that seemed to absorb the whole of your being? When you’re in a flow state: an hour can pass in the blink of an eye,you feel what you are doing is important,you’re not self-conscious,action and awareness merges,you feel in full control,and the experience is intrinsically rewarding. To create a flow experience, you need: The experience of flow has been studied amongst surgeons, writers, artists, scientists, athletes and people just socialising and playing games. Flow states require a balance, though, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in his book on the subject, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Image credit: Catherine Mullhaupt
What Does Your Body Language Say About You? Art by LaetitziaAs we all know, communication is essential in society. Advancements in technology have transformed the way that we correspond with others in the modern world. Because of the constant buzz in our technological world, it's easy to forget how important communicating face-to-face is. Body language is truly a language of its own. 10% from what the person actually says40% from the tone and speed of voice50% is from their body language. Lowering one's head can signal a lack of confidence. Pushing back one's shoulders can demonstrate power and courageOpen arms means one is comfortable with being approached and willing to talk/communicate The lowering of the eyes can convey fear, guilt or submissionLowered eyebrows and squinted eyes illustrate an attempt at understanding what is being said or going onA lack of confidence or apprehensiveness can be displayed when you don't look another person in the eyesOne tends to blink more often if nervous or trying to evaluate someone else
Culture Explanations > Culture Culture is what happens when people get together. It tells us how to behave and agree. Understanding the culture of a team, organization or country can make a lot of difference when you want to change minds. Articles on culture: What is Culture defines the term. Culture models: Competing Values Framework: In/out vs. stability/flexibility for another four-culture model. So take time to understand the culture of the person or people you are working with. If you can adopt their cultural approaches, you will appear to come from a similar culture and will more easily be accepted. Cultures also have blind spots where they are vulnerable and hot spots where you should fear to tread. Theories about belief, Theories about groups, Preferences, Social distances, Values, Diffusion