How to Live With an Unknowable Mind We know surprisingly little about our own personalities, attitudes and even self-esteem. How do we live with that? How do you imagine your own mind? I sometimes picture mine as a difficult and contrary child; the kind that throws a stone at you for no reason and can’t explain itself. One reason minds can be frustrating is that we only have access to part of them, by definition the conscious part. Except we don’t know it’s doing things we haven’t asked it to, because we can’t interrogate it. This is quite a different view of the mind than Freud had. The idea that large parts of our minds can’t be accessed is fine for basic processes like movement, seeing or hearing. Other parts would be extremely interesting to know about. Here are three examples of areas in which our self-knowledge is relatively low: 1. You’d be pretty sure that you could describe your personality to someone else, right? Don’t be so sure. 2. 3. Perhaps this is the oddest one of all. Road to self-knowledge
Top 10 Self-Control Strategies The science of self-control: use rewards, commitments, self-affirmation, adjust values, fight the unconscious and more… Self-control is vital to our success. People who have good self-control tend to be both more popular and more successful in many areas of life. Those with low self-control, though, are at risk of overeating, addictions and underachievement. Unfortunately, as we all know to our cost, self-control frequently fails. Self-control can be built up, like a muscle (Baumeister et al., 2006). 1. Research has found that self-control is a limited resource (Vohs et al., 2000). At any one time we only have so much self-control in the tank. Recognise when your levels of self-control are low and make sure you find a way to avoid temptation during those times. 2. Make the decision before you’re in the tempting situation. Only take a limited amount of money with you to curtail spending, or only have healthy foods at home to avoid the temptation to go astray. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Perfect Persuasive Messages PsyBlog Craft messages that change minds using these 20 principles of persuasion, all based on established psychological research. Perfection is hard to achieve in any walk of life and persuasion is no different. It relies on many things going just right at the crucial moment; the perfect synchronisation of source, message and audience. To bring you the current series on the psychology of persuasion I’ve been reading lots of research, much more than is covered in recent posts. Here are the most important points for crafting the perfect persuasive message, all of which have scientific evidence to back them up. Multiple, strong arguments: the more arguments, the more persuasive, but overall persuasive messages should be balanced, as two-sided arguments fare better than their one-sided equivalents (as long as counter-arguments are shot down).Relevance: persuasive messages should be personally relevant to the audience. Change minds Argument strength is also critical. Image credit: Maigh
8 Ways to Sleep Better Steps Method 1 Getting to Sleep Quickly (Easy Methods) <img alt="Image titled Sleep Better Step 1" src=" width="728" height="546" class="whcdn">1Take a nice warm bath or shower in the evening. <img alt="Image titled Sleep Better Step 6" src=" width="728" height="546" class="whcdn">6Add gentle sounds. Method 2 Moderating your Diet <img alt="Image titled Sleep Better Step 13" src=" width="728" height="546" class="whcdn">1Eat dinner at least three hours before bedtime. Method 3 Making Your Bed and Bedroom Welcoming Method 4 Changing Your Daily Routine Method 5 Medication for Better Sleep Reader Questions and Answers Tips Warnings
50 Kick-Ass Websites You Need to Know About It's time to update the entries in your browser's links toolbar. But with recent estimates putting the size of the internet at well more than 100 million distinct websites, it's getting harder and harder to get a handle on all the great stuff that's out there. That's why we've compiled this list. And unlike some lists you may have seen, which try to name the very "best" websites, but end up just telling you a lot of stuff you already know, we've chosen instead to highlight 50 of our favorite sites that fly under most people's radar. Think of it as the Maximum PC blog roll (remember those?). You might have heard of some of these sites, but we'll bet you haven't heard of all them. Demoscene.tv See What Can Be Done with 4 Kilobytes If you’re any kind of nerd at all, you probably know about the demoscene, where talented programmers create complex videos rendered in real-time, stored in incredibly small files. lite.Facebook.com Clutter-Free Social Networking You can admit it. Soyouwanna.com
Revenge of the Introvert There are as many introverts as extraverts, but you'd never know it by looking around. Introverts would rather be entertained by what's going on in their heads than in seeking happiness. Their big challenge is not to feel like outsiders in their own culture. by Laurie Helgoe, Ph.D. After ten years as a psychologist practicing psychodynamic psychotherapy , I reclined on the couch of my own analyst feeling burdened by my chosen work. Then I heard myself say: "I don't like being a therapist." Suddenly I felt free, loosed from expectations that never fit. As a card-carrying introvert , I am one of the many people whose personality confers on them a preference for the inner world of their own mind rather than the outer world of sociability. Over the past two decades, scientists have whittled down to five those clusters of cognitions, emotions, motivations, and behaviors that we mean by "personality" factors. Although there is no precise dividing line, there are plenty of introverts around.
How to Live Life to the Fullest Russia: How the War on Terrorism Did Putin a Favor Ten years ago, on Sept. 20, 2001, President George W. Bush announced for the first time that in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the U.S. was starting a "war on terror," and he asked every nation to help. Four days later, against the advice of many of his generals, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed, creating a bond unlike any the U.S. and Russia had built since World War II. Even before Putin became Russia's President in early 2000, and long before the Twin Towers fell, he had invoked the idea of a war against global terrorism to justify Russia's war in Chechnya. There was scant evidence, however, that the Chechen rebels were part of some global Islamist terrorist network, as Putin and his government repeatedly claimed. In late 1999, when Bush was campaigning for the presidency, he vowed to start urging an end to the war. But when Bush announced his own war on terrorism, all this rhetoric quickly evaporated.
Sleeping Tricks - Effective Techniques For Falling Asleep 100 Websites You Should Know and Use In the spring of 2007, Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH, gave a legendary TED University talk: an ultra-fast-moving ride through the “100 websites you should know and use.” Six years later, it remains one of the most viewed TED blog posts ever. Time for an update? We think so. To see the original list, click here. And now, the original list from 2007, created by Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH. In the spring of 2007, Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH, gave a legendary TED University talk: an ultra-fast-moving ride through the “100 websites you should know and use.” To see the original list, click here. And now, the original list from 2007, created by Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH.
Blog : Test Your “Subitizing” Ability Recently I found myself reading about “subitizing”, which is the process of instinctively counting small sets of items in a fraction of second. For example, try quickly counting a few of these: The Wikipedia article indicates that you can nearly always correctly count four or fewer items in a small fraction of a second. If you have the free Computable Document Format (CDF) browser plugin (or Mathematica 8) installed, then you can play the game right here in your web browser (if you don’t have the plugin, you’ll just see a placeholder image): <div style="margin: 0 auto; background-color:#ddd; width:500px; height:275px;"><div style="padding:10px; text-align:center; ">To view the full content of this page, please enable JavaScript in your browser. The game keeps track of your successes and failures and plots them as a function of how many items were present and the time you were given to count them. Creating a game like this in Mathematica is surprisingly easy. Creating the Interactive Game
List of Values The following list of values will help you develop a clearer sense of what's most important to you in life, as explained in the article Living Your Values. Simply print out this page, mark the values which most resonate with you, and then sort your list in order of priority. As you scan the values list below, you may find that while most values have little or no significance to you (and some may even seem negative to you), there are those values that just jump out and call to you, and you feel, "Yes, this value is part of me." This values list is merely a guide. It is lengthy and contains many synonyms but is certainly not exhaustive, so feel free to add unlisted values to your own list as well. Steve RecommendsHere are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. Site Build It!
How to Get a Job in Technical Writing A 7-Step Guide for Students | I'd Rather Be Writing If you’re a college student looking to become a technical writer after you graduate, you face a formidable challenge: you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. Especially in a competitive job market, getting a job as a technical writer directly after you graduate — without a foundation of previous jobs, experience with a handful of tools, and an impressive portfolio — can be especially difficult. However, if you follow these seven steps, which are not easy, not something you can do overnight, you will find a job. Note: In a couple of weeks I’m giving a presentation to Brigham Young University Idaho students with this post’s topic (getting a job as a technical writer). Last week on Twitter I asked my followers what advice they would give to students on finding a job in technical writing. plaindocs: Show that you are interested in learning about everything! All good advice on how to get a job. inShare5
Sleep: The secret to a sound sleep lies inside the brain, researchers find - latimes.com I am frequently amazed by my husband's ability to sleep through all kinds of noises that cause me to wake in a flash -- car alarms, smoke detectors that are running low on batteries, and especially kids who have lost track of their favorite blankie in the middle of the night. Thanks to a new study being published in Tuesday's edition of the journal Current Biology, I now know that his brain probably produces more sleep spindles than mine. You see, while we're sleeping, the thalamus -- the part of the brain that receives sensory input like sounds -- tries to relay information to the cortex, where the sounds are actually perceived. Sleep experts can see these transmissions on an electroencephalography test, or EEG. But, scientists believe, sometimes the brain throws up roadblocks to prevent the cortex from being disturbed during crucial periods of sleep when memories are consolidated. The report is online here. -- Karen Kaplan