Understanding Mind, Society and Behavior Live Blog Understanding Mind, Behavior, and Society Date: Thursday, December 4, 2014Time: 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. ET (15:30 - 17:00 GMT or convert time)Location: World Bank HQ (JB1-080) & Online The underlying assumption for many economic policies is that human behavior arises from “rational “choice, with individuals carefully weighing their choices, considering all readily available information, and making decisions on their own. Tune in on Dec 4, 2014 at 10:30 (EST) as experts discuss the findings of the latest World Development Report 2015 and explore ways in which a richer understanding of the human factor and its behavior can improve policy design, implementation and evaluation. Follow the event via hashtag #WDRmind
There's a Word for That: 25 Expressions You Should Have in Your Vocabulary Recently I came across this amazing little Tumblr named ‘OtherWordly‘ – itself a play on words. It consists of a collection of strange and lovely words from different languages through different times. What I like most about this selection of consonants and vowels – little meaning-carrying packages of vibration – is that they all try to point to the unspeakable, the transient or the neglected. You can find my favourite words below – pick five that resonate most, write them down, yes seriously – go grab a pen -, make sure to learn them by heart, teach them to your inner voice and share them with others to guide our collective attention to what truly matters. 1 – Sophrosyne pronunciation | “so-frO-‘sU-nA Greek script | σωφροσύνη note | To everyone who is thinking “I want to get there” and also to everyone who is thinking “I’ll never get there”—you will. 2 – Vorfreude pronunciation | ‘for-froi-duh 3 – Numinous 4 – Nemophilist pronunciation | ne-‘mo-fe-list 5 – Sillage 6 – Erlebnisse 8 – Meliorism
Ceiling Height Can Affect How A Person Thinks, Feels And Acts -- ScienceDaily For years contractors, real estate agents and event planners have said that whether building, buying or planning an event, a higher or vaulted ceiling is always better. Are they right? Until now there has been no real evidence that ceiling height has any influence or advantage with consumers. But recent research by Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management, suggests that the way people think and act is affected by ceiling height. Meyers-Levy and co-author Rui (Juliet) Zhu, assistant professor of marketing at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia and a Carlson doctoral alum, found that, depending on the situation, ceiling height will benefit or impair consumer responses. The paper “The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use,” will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.
8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance | Activism & Vision Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination. Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. How exactly has American society subdued young Americans? 1. Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. These are not the only aspects of our culture that are subduing young Americans and crushing their resistance to domination.
Strategies Quick Learners Use To Pick Up Anything Starred Up: The greatest prison drama since Scum? READ: The 10 best films from the London Film Festival 2013 This plotline comes directly from Asser’s own experiences. He worked at Feltham Young Offender Institution before running his self-styled “encounter groups” for violent inmates at Wandsworth Prison. To this day, he fervently believes that segregating these prisoners does nothing to resolve the problems of anyone involved. Encounter groups, however, “give us an opportunity to deal with these very violent guys, and give them a whole range of skills so they can go back on the same wing and live safely together. “That has to be better than separating them, which means a dispute festers and gets passed further down the line – to other prisons, when these guys meet up again, or back out in the community. Asser’s methods may be radical, but the current system doesn’t seem to be working. Asser, of course, believes in doing the opposite. Ray Winstone and Mick Ford in a scene from Scum, 1978 (Rex) LOOK: Sundance 2014 in pictures
Mass psychosis in the US Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux. Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Not just for psychotics anymore Cost benefit analysis Making patients worse
Lucid dreams and metacognition: Awareness of thinking; awareness of dreaming -- ScienceDaily To control one's dreams and to live 'out there' what is impossible in real life -- a truly tempting idea. Some persons -- so-called lucid dreamers -- can do this. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have discovered that the brain area which enables self-reflection is larger in lucid dreamers. Thus, lucid dreamers are possibly also more self-reflecting when being awake. Lucid dreamers are aware of dreaming while dreaming. Sometimes, they can even play an active role in their dreams. Neuroscientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry have compared brain structures of frequent lucid dreamers and participants who never or only rarely have lucid dreams. The differences in volumes in the anterior prefrontal cortex between lucid dreamers and non-lucid dreamers suggest that lucid dreaming and metacognition are indeed closely connected.
Confronting Cognitive Dissonance Podcast: Play in new window | Download by James CorbettBoilingFrogsPost.com March 25, 2014 Have you or a loved one ever found yourself saying something like this? Or this? Or this? Then you might be suffering from cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance? The theory of cognitive dissonance was first posited by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957 to explain the discomfort and mental stress that we feel when our beliefs, ideals or values don’t match up to reality. Festinger’s theory states that when people are in a state of dissonance, that is, when their beliefs or values don’t match up with their behaviour or experiences, they will adjust those beliefs or values, or even adjust their perception of reality, in order to achieve consonance. This theory helps us to understand how someone can both deny and admit the existence of a conspiracy in the very same breath. Indeed, 9/11 represents one of the greatest examples of cognitive dissonance in our own era.
'Men want cuddles, kisses but women prefer sex' - Yahoo! Lifestyle London, July 11 (ANI): Researchers have found that acts of affection like hugs and kisses were more important to men than women. And for women, sex tends to get better over time - after a couple has been together about 15 years. Researchers surveyed over 1,000 couples from five different countries who had been in relationships for between one and 51 years. Men who reported frequent kissing and cuddling were three times as happy, on average, as those who had less snuggling with their wives or girlfriends. Women, meanwhile, said that such shows of affection had very little impact on their happiness. Both men and women reported their sex lives improving the longer their relationship had lasted. But men were more likely to say they were happy with their relationship while women were more likely to report being satisfied with the sex. The survey of couples from the US, Germany, Spain, Japan and Brazil was carried out by researchers from the Kinsey Institute at America's Indiana University.
Teaching Critical Thinking Whether or not you can teach something as subjective as critical thinking has been up for debate, but a fascinating new study shows that it’s actually quite possible. Experiments performed by Stanford's Department of Physics and Graduate School of Education demonstrate that students can be instructed to think more critically. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of critical-thinking skills in modern society. The ability to decipher information and interpret it, offering creative solutions, is in direct relation to our intellect.2 The study took two groups of students in an introductory physics laboratory course, with one group (known as the experimental group) given the instruction to use quantitative comparisons between datasets and the other group given no instruction (the control group). Comparing data in a scientific manner; that is, being able to measure one’s observations in a statistical or mathematical way, led to interesting results for the experimental group.
Teaching and Broken Trust - Reality Sandwich Here I was, a Caucasian female from the most northern part of the Midwest, born into a well off and supportive family, given all the advantages to jump into the conventional way of American life, and I had chosen the path of shamanism. Actually, it chose me. It started to slowly slink into my life like a jaguar stealthily approaching its prey right when I began my meditation practice. A couple months into my practice, the enormous beast that now dictates my every step gobbled me up whole, riding the waves of emotional extremes and touching every space in between, living a painfully blissful life full of gratitude. In the beginning, I was stepping into the void to embark on a journey that I knew I was meant to do, and yet I had no elders or mentors to guide me. It’s the beginner’s mind full of childlike curiosity that keeps us humble and fuels our evolution. This story is for the safety and awareness of other women out there stepping into their true calling.
Corporations are psychopaths - with zero degrees of empathy (NaturalNews) Corporations play a big role in our day-to-day activities and they are constantly making decisions that have a profound effect on our daily lives. For example: a corporation makes the decision to empty its chemical vats into a nearby river - the water supply is poisoned and residents of the adjacent town fall sick; or a corporation makes the decision to cut costs to increase profits and initiates a round of layoffs - the community that was formed around the corporation is decimated. We have often been appalled, angry, and go on rants about the evil of corporations but according to Simon Baron Cohen- evil is not the issue. Mr. Baron-Cohen, an expert in autism and developmental psychology, is also a psychology and psychiatry professor at Cambridge University. That a lack of empathy is the root cause of all evil deeds and that this lack of empathy can be measured and treated. True, there are those corporate bodies, who while making a profit, strive to do no harm to society.
10 facts you should know about Vincent van Gogh 10 facts (and a video) on the prolific genius who died a relatively unknown artist. 1. Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Groot-Zundert, Netherlands. He was named after his grandfather and his stillborn brother who died one year before Van Gogh was born. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Check out the full TED-Ed Lesson “The unexpected math behind Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” that these GIFs were pulled from: