Does the comfort of conformity ease thoughts of death? - life - 25 February 2011 AS THE light at the end of the tunnel approaches, the need to belong to a group and be near loved ones may be among your final thoughts. So say Markus Quirin and his colleagues at the University of Osnabrück in Germany. The team prompted thoughts of death in 17 young men with an average age of 23 by asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements such as "I am afraid of dying a painful death". At the same time, the men's brain activity was monitored using a functional MRI scanner. To compare the brain activity associated with thoughts of death with that coupled to another unpleasant experience, the team also prompted thoughts of dental pain using statements like "I panic when I am sitting in the dentist's waiting room". Although the threat of dental pain is unpleasant, "it's not a threat of death", Quirin says. Quirin thinks the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger could explain the unexpected result. New Scientist Not just a website! Sentient robots?
Cognitive Dissonance and learning Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation. It therefore occurs when there is a need to accommodate new ideas, and it may be necessary for it to develop so that we become "open" to them. Neighbour (1992) makes the generation of appropriate dissonance into a major feature of tutorial (and other) teaching: he shows how to drive this kind of intellectual wedge between learners' current beliefs and "reality". Beyond this benign if uncomfortable aspect, however, dissonance can go "over the top", leading to two interesting side-effects for learning: if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. On cognitive dissonance and sour grapes
5 Ways To Hack Your Brain Into Awesomeness Much of the brain is still mysterious to modern science, possibly because modern science itself is using brains to analyze it. There are probably secrets the brain simply doesn't want us to know. But by no means should that stop us from tinkering around in there, using somewhat questionable and possibly dangerous techniques to make our brains do what we want. We can't vouch for any of these, either their effectiveness or safety. All we can say is that they sound awesome, since apparently you can make your brain... #5. So you just picked up the night shift at your local McDonald's, you have class every morning at 8am and you have no idea how you're going to make it through the day without looking like a guy straight out of Dawn of the Dead, minus the blood... hopefully. "SLEEEEEEEEEP... uh... What if we told you there was a way to sleep for little more than two hours a day, and still feel more refreshed than taking a 12-hour siesta on a bed made entirely out of baby kitten fur? Holy Shit!
New neurons help us to remember fear Fear burns memories into our brain, and new research by University of California, Berkeley, neuroscientists explains how. Scientists have long known that fear and other highly emotional experiences lead to incredibly strong memories. In a study appearing online today (Tuesday, June 14) in advance of publication in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, UC Berkeley’s Daniela Kaufer and colleagues report a new way for emotions to affect memory: The brain’s emotional center, the amygdala, induces the hippocampus, a relay hub for memory, to generate new neurons. The figure shows newly born nerve cells (green) colocalizing with a neuronal marker which indicates immature nerve cells (red). In a fearful situation, these newborn neurons get activated by the amygdala and may provide a “blank slate” on which the new fearful memory can be strongly imprinted, she said. “Many affective disorders involve disordered emotional memories like PTSD, depression and anxiety. For more information:
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.
The 14 Most Powerful and Effective Words in Marketing | 60 Second Marketer | Tips, Tools and Techniques for Marketers Around the Globe In Go Mobile, the book I’ve written with Jeanne Hopkins from HubSpot, we review a list of the 14 most powerful words in marketing so that readers can use them in their mobile marketing campaigns. This post gives you a sneak peak at the list that’s included in the book. Enjoy. Have you ever bought a product that you didn’t really need? Or, you may have been told about a deadline to buy concert tickets, join a health club or even buy a car for 0% interest. What’s up with that? This week, I’ll be posting blogs on this very topic. Below, you’ll find the 14 most powerful and effective words in marketing. I’ll cover this entire topic in depth when I speak at the SXSW conference. FreeNowYouSaveMoneyEasyGuaranteeHealthResultsNewLoveDiscoveryProvenSafety After decades of testing, these words have proven to be the ones that are the most persuasive at encouraging people to choose Brand A over Brand B. What do all these words have in common? How should you use these words in your marketing campaigns?
Hedgehog's dilemma Both Arthur Schopenhauer and Sigmund Freud have used this situation to describe what they feel is the state of individual in relation to others in society. The hedgehog's dilemma suggests that despite goodwill, human intimacy cannot occur without substantial mutual harm, and what results is cautious behavior and weak relationships. With the hedgehog's dilemma, one is recommended to use moderation in affairs with others both because of self-interest, as well as out of consideration for others. Schopenhauer[edit] The concept originates in the following parable from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's Parerga und Paralipomena, Volume II, Chapter XXXI, Section 396:[1] A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. Freud[edit] It entered the realm of psychology after the tale was discovered and adopted by Sigmund Freud. Social psychological research[edit]
13 Most Important Emotional Triggers for Marketers | 60 Second Marketer | Tips, Tools and Techniques for Marketers Around the Globe Not too long ago, a friend of mine named Ken Robbins who runs Response Mine Interactive told me there are only three things people are interested in paying money for — Love, Weight Loss and Getting Rich. He was simplifying things a bit. After all, Ken’s company sells plenty of things that don’t have to do with love, weight loss or getting rich. But his point was a good one — that humans function in very basic, very instinctive ways. And if you, as a marketer, can tap into those instincts, you can make a lot of money. "Love" is one of the 13 most important emotional triggers for marketers. How can you tap into human instincts and make a lot of money? It’s simple, really. Actually, it’s not all that simple. The starting point is to understand what motivates people. Here’s a list of the 13 most important emotional triggers for humans. Here goes: • Sex • Greed • Flattery • Fear • Self-improvement • Love • Better health • Weight loss • Longevity • Exclusivity • Fame • Uncertainty • Doubt
Madonna–whore complex In sexual politics the view of women as either Madonnas or whores limits women's sexual expression, offering two mutually exclusive ways to construct a sexual identity.[4] The term is also used popularly, often with subtly different meanings. Causes[edit] Freud argued that the Madonna–whore complex is caused by oedipal castration fears which arise when a man experiences the affection he once felt for his mother with women he now sexually desires. In order to manage this anxiety, the man categorizes women into two groups: women he can admire and women he finds sexually attractive. This earlier theory is based not on oedipal-based castration anxiety but on man's primary hatred of women, stimulated by the child’s sense that he had been made to experience intolerable frustration and/or narcissistic injury at the hands of his mother. According to Freudian psychology, this complex often develops when the sufferer is raised by a cold and distant mother. In popular culture[edit] See also[edit] Notes
Shepard-Risset Glissando What you’ll be hearing is a fluid audio loop that sounds as thought it is getting lower and lower—like a balloon slowly deflating but never becoming flat. How It Works If you’re anything like HighLab, you too were totally amazed by the Shepard Tone. For this reason, we’re going to hang out a bit with Shepard’s cohort, the famed French electric music composer Jean-Claude Risset, and have ourselves more mind-boggling good times listening to this related audio high, the Shepard-Risset Glissando. Come join us, won’t you? The Shepard-Risset Glissando is a constantly descending note-by-note configuration of the Shepard Tones woven into a continuous, fluid signal. Stockholm syndrome Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.[1][2] The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 8 percent of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.[3] Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes "strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other."[4] One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. History[edit] Extension to other scenarios[edit]
5 Mind Blowing Ways Your Memory Plays Tricks On You Everybody will tell you that memory can't be trusted. When they say that, of course, what they mean is other people's memories can't be trusted. We don't like to think that everything we know about the world is based on a deeply flawed and illogical storage system. We're not talking about being bad at matching faces with names here. Science has found that your memory is basically a pathological liar, just making it up as it goes along. Other People Can Manipulate Your Memory With Repetition There was quite a stir recently when it turned out that a growing number of people believe the President of the USA is a Muslim. But according to the Pew Research Center, for almost 20% of the people they polled, those memories have been trumped by the mere act of hearing commentators assert that Obama is a Muslim, over and over and over. Obama, posing with a statue of the famed Imam Ali bin Superman. You can laugh at them all you want, but that technique works on all of us, to various degrees.
5 Ways Stores Use Science to Trick You Into Buying Crap A big chunk of the world economy runs on human weakness. Peer pressure, vanity, insecurity, the fact that we just cannot resist the sight of melted cheese -- all of these will make us fork over our cash. And really, we're fine with that. But what you may not know is that there are some other, much weirder scientific principles that factor into what you buy. You might not know about them, but the people selling you things sure as hell do. You Move in Predictable Patterns You step in the front door of your nearest chain grocery store. This is the only sheep-based image we'll use this article. This is because, after years of analysis of how humans move in a store, they've found that we're as easy to predict as animal migrations. Grocery stores are laid out to lead you around a set path you didn't even know you were following. "Boy, those fresh carrots sure did help me forget that everything in this aisle has been dead for weeks." And sweet lady Boxed Wine. Why It Works: Freaking barbarians.