Repetition is funny

A Surprise TV Star Embraces His Geeky Side, NYT, by Susan Stewart, 12/04/2006

Technically, Mr. Oka, who has played a number of modest roles in television
sitcoms, said he had learned from the form how to create funny characters by
repeating particular gestures. “Repetition is funny because it’s a character
tag,” he said.

In Hiro’s case the tag is a stiff-armed victory salute, accompanied by an
exultant shout.

“Part of the comedy is he really believes in what he does, Mr. Oka said.
“As long as that point of view’s in there, you’ll always have that comedy,
grounded in truth.”

Sommelier's Social Intelligence

Help Wanted: Must Love Wine, Compassion a Plus

by Eric Asimov, 11/22/2006

“It’s not just really talented, well-educated, eloquent people who are passionate about wine,” said John Ragan, the wine director at Eleven Madison Park in New York, “but also warm, unpretentious people who can convey that passion without uncomfortability. They’re both really different skill sets.”

What separates a barely competent sommelier from a great sommelier, Mr. Johnnes said, is his intuition as much as his knowledge. “It’s connecting with people,” he said, “being a bit of a psychoanalyst, knowing what their budget is, what they like.”

But too many sommeliers try to educate the world about what they like, or recite all they know, like a rock guitar soloist who doesn’t know how to leave space between the notes.

It’s a fine line between offering just enough intrigue to build interest in a new and unusual wine, and becoming a crashing bore.

“How do you get people who just don’t spout off what they know, the bookish side of wine?” Ms. Singh said. “You can memorize the ‘Oxford Companion to Wine,’ but do you have the personal skills?”

Moral Grammar

Building on Noam Chomsky's universal language theory, Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has proposed that people are born with a neuralogically based moral grammar. Hauser says that this morality resulted from the survival edge that it provided. It is an example of "group selection and is thought to have emerged during the hunter-gatherer phase of human development.

Examples of innate moral grammar are the "trolley problems" identified by moral philosophers

Suppose you are standing by a railroad track. Ahead, in a deep cutting from which no escape is possible, five people are walking on the track. You hear a train approaching. Beside you is a lever with which you can switch the train to a sidetrack. One person is walking on the sidetrack. Is it O.K. to pull the lever and save the five people, though one will die?

Most people say it is.

Assume now you are on a bridge overlooking the track. Ahead, five people on the track are at risk. You can save them by throwing down a heavy object into the path of the approaching train. One is available beside you, in the form of a fat man. Is it O.K. to push him to save the five?

Most people say no, although lives saved and lost are the same as in the first problem.

The distinction is refered to as foreseen/intended. And it is thought to be innate and not learned because most people can't articulate it.

Other examples of moral grammar:

• It is more acceptable to kill animals than people.
• Events that happen close to us carry more weight than events that occur in a distant place.
• Altruism within the group.
• Fairness.

People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously.

Link: NYT

Bob Sutton: Brilliant But Cruel

Bob Sutton: Brilliant But Cruel: "if you look at the evidence on the kind of people that we see as powerful and intelligent, that –- independently of how smart a person actually is –- when they act like an asshole, they are seen as smarter. This “Brilliant but Cruel” effect was demonstrated in a study by Harvard Business School's Teresa Amabile. She did a controlled experiment with book reviews; some reviews were nasty and others were nice. Amabile found that negative and unkind reviewers were seen as less likeable but more intelligent, competent, and expert than those who expressed the same messages in kinder and gentler ways. She summarized her findings by noting, “Only pessimism sounds profound. Optimism sounds superficial.”"

"So, if you want people to think you are smart, apparently you can feed their stereotypes by demeaning others. In Barash’s case, the attack might have been justified, but there are other times when people turn cruel for no good reason, except perhaps for personal gain. I should also warn you that although unleashing your inner asshole may help persuade people of your intellectual superiority, we also show in The Knowing-Doing Gap and Hard Facts that the climate of fear created by such nastiness undermines team and organizational effectiveness. Potential victims become afraid to try (or even mention) new ideas and hesitate to report mistakes or problems out of fear that the resulting anger and humiliation will be aimed at them."

Is It Disease or Delusion? U.S. Takes on a Dilemma - New York Times

Is It Disease or Delusion? U.S. Takes on a Dilemma - New York Times: "Researchers have found that delusions like this can be passed from primary patients to secondary ones, usually susceptible family members or close associates. Psychiatrists call this phenomenon folie a deux.

In one remarkable case, a woman convinced her husband that neighbors were shooting at her with lasers. In another, an elderly woman convinced her live-in sister that they were both being attacked by bugs.

“Parasitosis is a classic form of shared delusion,” said Dr. Mary Seeman, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “Skin disease is perfect for it. A person gets a rash or something, then the ‘disease’ spreads through any shared space in which there is close contact.”

But the Internet may have greatly altered the dynamics of folie a deux. In the connected, always-on world, separation is no longer so easy, and delusions may be shared and supported far beyond the confines of the home or workplace."

Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You - New York Times

Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You - New York Times: "“To a person, people will swear they aren’t influenced by the size of a package or how much variety there is on a buffet or the fancy name on a can of beans, but they are,” Dr. Wansink said. “Every time.”

He has the data to prove it. Dr. Wansink, who holds a doctorate in marketing from Stanford University and directs the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, probably knows more about why we put things in our mouths than anybody else. His experiments examine the cues that make us eat the way we do. The size of an ice cream scoop, the way something is packaged and whom we sit next to all influence how much we eat. His research doesn’t pave a clear path out of the obesity epidemic, but it does show the significant effect one’s eating environment has on slow and steady weight gain."

How Carly Lost Her Gender Groove - New York Times

How Carly Lost Her Gender Groove - New York Times: "With several of the few high-profile women at the top tanking, it’s interesting to note that Columbia Business School has introduced a new program that teaches the importance of a more empathetic and sensitive leadership style in globalized business, as opposed to the command-and-control style that has dominated the White House and Pentagon for, lo, these many messed up years.

Students learn how to read facial expressions, body language and posture, and get coaching on their brain’s “mirror neurons” — how what they’re thinking and feeling can affect others.

“This less autocratic leadership style draws on capabilities in which women are as good as men,” says Michael Morris, a professor of psychology and management who is running the business school’s new program.

Daniel Goleman, whose new book “Social Intelligence” is being taught in the program, points out that “while women are, in general, better at reading emotions, men tend to be better at managing them during a crisis. Women tend to be more sophisticated in reading social interactions but also tend to ruminate more when things go wrong.”"

The Trials of the Century - New York Times

The Trials of the Century - New York Times: "Fortunately, there are still some members of the American intelligence community who are interested in the terrorist’s whereabouts. Not long ago one of them approached me — not because of my reporting on Al Qaeda but because of my experience as a Hollywood screenwriter, a talent pool the C.I.A. occasionally draws on for futurist thinking. The official asked me to envision what we would do with Mr. bin Laden if we caught him. I said that I didn’t feel comfortable, as a reporter, writing a script for the C.I.A.

"

Mr. Universe - New York Times

Mr. Universe - New York Times: "“Star Trek” painted a noble, heroic vision of the future, and that vision became my lodestar. "

The Greatest Story Ever Sold - By Frank Rich - Books - Review - New York Times

The Greatest Story Ever Sold - By Frank Rich - Books - Review - New York Times: "Show business has always been an essential part of ruling people, and so is the use of fiction, especially when going to war. What would Hitler have been without his vicious fantasies fed to a hungry public through grand spectacles, radio and film? Closer to home, in 1964, to justify American intervention in Vietnam, Lyndon B. Johnson used news of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin that never took place. What is fascinating about the era of George W. Bush, however, is that the spinmeisters, fake news reporters, photo-op creators, disinformation experts, intelligence manipulators, fictional heroes and public relations men posing as commentators operate in a world where virtual reality has already threatened to eclipse empirical investigation."

Into the Woods

Into the Woods: "This happens to be the specialty of one of the novel's more repellent characters, a Nazi named Professor Cheruski. Asked by Heinrich Himmler about the key to understanding a people -- 'to knowing how they think, why they choose to act or not to act in a given situation' -- Cheruski answers: 'It is their literature, Herr Reichsf�hrer. The stories they tell of themselves. . . . The tales that seem to have sprung from the depths of their folk-soul.' Nazism could never have found such a ready purchase had the Germans not become, as one character observes, 'drunk on their own mythology.'"

Dogs May Laugh, but Only Cats Get the Joke - New York Times

Dogs May Laugh, but Only Cats Get the Joke - New York Times: "Laughter is not always about what’s funny, as Robert R. Provine, a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has studied laughter, has noted in books and articles. It is frequently a social behavior unrelated to jokes or wit. It can serve different purposes. It can be friendly or submissive, hostile or dominant. Witness the old distinction between laughing with and laughing at someone."

This Can't Be Love: The Curious Case of Sexual Cannibalism by Carl Zimmer - Science - New York Times

This Can't Be Love: The Curious Case of Sexual Cannibalism by Carl Zimmer - Science - New York Times: "Across the eastern United States, a gruesome ritual is in full swing. The praying mantis and its relative, the Chinese mantis, are in their courtship season. A male mantis approaches a female, flapping his wings and swaying his abdomen. Leaping on her back, he begins to mate. And quite often, she tears off his head."

A very selfish gene...

On Austrian TV, a True Story of Captivity - New York Times

On Austrian TV, a True Story of Captivity - New York Times: "“I promised myself I would grow older, stronger and sturdier to be able to break free one day,” she said. “I made a pact with my older self that I would come back and free that little girl.”"

Long History of Vote Fraud Lingers in the Mexican Psyche - New York Times

Long History of Vote Fraud Lingers in the Mexican Psyche - New York Times: "What is sure is that Mr. López Obrador has defined himself for many voters as the candidate who lost the election, not through his own errors but because the entire apparatus of the state was against him. That is an old tune in Mexico, one that many know the words to."

Seeking Entry-Level Prophet: Burning Bush and Tablets Not Required - New York Times

Seeking Entry-Level Prophet: Burning Bush and Tablets Not Required - New York Times: "But the first service for the Church of Now, held recently at Mo Pitkin’s, an East Village bar, did not go too well. Mr. Boden rambled in his 15-minute sermon. Most in the small crowd, composed almost entirely of friends, indicated they would probably not come back. They wanted him to sell them more on his beliefs, which frustrated Mr. Boden.
“I was disappointed because what I heard coming back to me through others was that I wasn’t telling them, ‘Believe this.’ I wasn’t saying, ‘Here are the rules,’ ” he said. “I was saying, ‘Let’s figure this out together.’ ”
He has found that attracting followers to even come out to a service in the first place can be arduous. He has created a MySpace page, and a marketing consultant helped produce some fliers and postcards. But two hours spent camped out in Union Square this week with a big sign that said, “Talk to Me About Living in the Now” yielded just three substantive encounters."

Grigory Perelman - New York Times

Grigory Perelman - New York Times: "Until his death in 1996, the Hungarian number theorist Paul Erdos was content to live out of a suitcase, traveling from the home of one colleague to another, seeking theorems so sparse and true that they came, he said, “straight from The Book,” a platonic text where he envisioned all mathematics was prewritten."

Secrets of Endurance: Eating to Go (and Go and Go) - New York Times

Secrets of Endurance: Eating to Go (and Go and Go) - New York Times: "The need for calories is just as important during training. It wasn’t until she met with two nutritionists that Shelley Lawrence, a 40-year-old principal of a school in Westwood, Calif., realized she was asking her body to do the impossible: endure 30 miles a week of marathon training on a stingy amount of calories. “I live in L.A.,” she said. “The expectation is that women don’t eat that much.”

Nancy Clark, a registered dietitian and the author of a best-selling sports nutrition guide, persuaded her to eat more by using this logic: “If your little baby were crying, and you didn’t feed it, that would be called child abuse,” Ms. Clark said. “If you’re hungry, it’s called, ‘Oh, I’m on a diet.’ But it’s still abuse and it takes a toll.”"

The Fame Motive - New York Times

The Fame Motive - New York Times: "In recent experiments, psychologists have shown that, when reminded that they will one day die, people fixate on attributes they consider central to their self-worth.

Those who value strength squeeze a hand grip with more force; those who prize driving ability, cooking skills or physical appearance intensify their focus."

Einstein’s Man in Beijing: A Rebel With a Cause - New York Times

Einstein’s Man in Beijing: A Rebel With a Cause - New York Times: "Einstein was on the list courtesy of Andrei Zhdanov, an assistant to Stalin, who argued in 1947 that Einstein’s cosmological theories were reactionary and bourgeois. Marxist philosophy postulated an endless and unlimited universe, but according to general relativity, space-time could be curved around on itself like a sphere, and thus be finite even if it lacked boundaries. Moreover, it promoted theology by implying that the universe had a beginning.

Mr. Zhdanov’s argument resonated with Mao’s view that the universe should be in a state of eternal revolution. And for a brief while it resonated with Dr. Xu, who referred to the Soviet criticism as “a vibration on my mind.”"

On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach - New York Times

On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach - New York Times: "In that, Sonali was demonstrating what experts said is the most dangerous element of the pedophile Internet community: its justification of illegal acts. Experts described the pedophiles’ online worldview as reflective of “neutralization,” a psychological rationalization used by groups that deviate from societal norms.

In essence, the groups deem potentially injurious acts and beliefs harmless. That is accomplished in part by denying that a victim is injured, condemning critics and appealing to higher loyalties — in this case, an ostensible struggle for the sexual freedom of children."

A ‘Senior Moment’ or a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? - New York Times

A ‘Senior Moment’ or a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? - New York Times: "Researchers refer to this self-undermining as a stereotype effect, and they have documented it in many groups. In studies, women perform less well on math exams after reading that men tend to perform better on them. Similarly, white men perform less well when they are told that they are competing in math against Asian students.

People over 65 also slump on memory tests when they are reminded of the link between age and mental decline. The new study, financed by the National Institute on Aging, is the first to show the effect so clearly in a borderline group, experts say — middle age is certainly not young, but it is well short of “senior.”"

Pimps and the FBI sharing tactics...

Sex Ring Broken Up, Officials Say - New York Times: "Drivers carried the women from a point of entry to a brothel, and sometimes moved them between brothels within the network, officials said. Once the women were delivered to a brothel, officials said, managers would typically take away their identification and travel documents and threaten to turn them in to the authorities or hurt their relatives in Korea if they tried to leave. The women were forced to work to pay off tens of thousands of dollars of debt they had accumulated in their travel from Korea, officials said.


The Tyranny of Fear - New York Times: "As there was no evidence that he had committed a crime, it was considered important that Mr. Higazy confess to something. He said an F.B.I. agent, Michael Templeton, told him during an interview that if he didn’t cooperate, his family in Cairo would be put at the mercy of Egyptian security, which Mr. Templeton would later acknowledge has a reputation for torture. He said the agent also threatened to report that in his “expert opinion” Mr. Higazy was a terrorist."

Dolphins Not So Smart

World Crises | Reuters.com: "'Dolphins can actually chain up to 16 stimulus response events, but this is indicative of good trainers and not intelligent animals. Stimulus-response conditioning is thought to be a low level of intelligent behaviour,' Manger said.

Manger also points to the tuna industry, which under consumer pressure has gone to great lengths to prevent dolphins from being caught and killed by accident in nets.

'If they were really intelligent they would just jump over the net because it doesn't come out of the water,' he said."

New Lieberman Retooling Race as Independent - New York Times

New Lieberman Retooling Race as Independent - New York Times: "Meanwhile, Mr. Lamont, a Greenwich millionaire, now has to calibrate his own identity as self-described liberal."

American Journalism Review

American Journalism Review: "'She asked me: 'Don't you ever get bored doing the workshop over and over?'
'I get interviewed a lot, and I've been asked that question over and over, so I have a message track for it. I say, 'No, not at all,' then I go into spin: 'The methodology is not finished. I'm building it brick by brick. As long as I keep working on it, I'll never get bored,' et cetera, et cetera. She stopped me in the middle of my message track and blurted out: 'I just asked you a closed-ended question! You of all people! Let me start again, and do it properly: How do you feel about giving this workshop?'
'When she asked me, 'How do you feel?' I gave an answer I'd never given before. I told her: 'I'm always upgrading the methodology, and every time I try to put new stuff into it. Lately, though, the demand for the workshop has grown so much, I sometimes feel very frustrated, because I know I'm not doing the job I want to be doing.'
'My answer actually surprised me. I had never said 'frustrated' before. "

American Journalism Review

American Journalism Review: "After breaking down and rebuilding thousands of interviews, he saw patterns. 'Interviewing is about people. They're not chemical compounds, and they don't always act predictably. But there is a predictable part.' Ask a closed-ended question and sources 'will confirm or deny 98 percent of the time. That's the science.' The unpredictable part is what happens next. 'Socially, people are taught to add a postscript to a confirmation or a denial. As journalists, we hope the P.S. will describe or explain the issue we've raised. That's interviewing by accident. If you get somebody who doesn't want to play, you're in trouble.'
Most of the time, in friendly interviews, the source adds the P.S. 'out of charity. Because our social instincts tell us to be nice. Their charity--not the question--delivers the answer. We're relying on them to help us out. Relying on people's charity to get answers is not a good practice. The ones we need charity from the most are the least likely to give it--the people who stand to lose something.'
And certain people rarely give charity: 'People who go by the book--cops, bureaucrats, lawyers--people who take questions literally, people who are nervous. The last thing fearful people do is open up. They shut down.' Professional answer-givers, what Sawatsky calls sophisticated politicians and business executives, frequently defeat journalists by answering a closed-ended question with a curt 'No, not at all' or a disingenuous 'Gosh, I hope not!' before switching to a prepackaged 'message track,' their prepared response to uncomfortable questions. "

THE SCIENCE OF CREATING KILLERS / Human reluctance to take a life can be reversed through training in the method known as killology

THE SCIENCE OF CREATING KILLERS / Human reluctance to take a life can be reversed through training in the method known as killology: "'Once the bullets start flying, most combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (that portion of the brain that makes us human) and start thinking with the midbrain (the primitive portion of our brain, which is indistinguishable from that of an animal),' writes retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former U.S. Army ranger and West Point professor of military science who coined the term, on his Web site killology.com. 'In conflict situations, this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one's own kind. ... This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals.'

The only thing that has any hope of silencing the midbrain, he argues, is what influenced Pavlov's dogs: conditioning."

Come Wait With Me - New York Times

Come Wait With Me - New York Times: "Scott McHugh, who oversaw the Dulles program for the Transportation Security Administration, is confident this type of screening would have flagged the Sept. 11 terrorists or the latest plotters in London. “If you look at the videos of 9/11 terrorists and the interviews with people who talked to them,” he says, “they all exhibit symptoms of stress that would have been identified, like failure to make eye contact and failure to answer questions directly. They’re not exactly sophisticated. They’re under so much stress that anything out of the ordinary really throws them off their game.”"

Come Wait With Me - New York Times

Come Wait With Me - New York Times: "The screeners were looking for unusual behavior like sweating, rigid posture, clenched fists. A screener would engage a passenger in conversation and ask questions he wouldn’t have been trained to expect, like whether he’d seen a Redskins game the night before even though the Redskins hadn’t played."

Elusive Proof, Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery - New York Times

Elusive Proof, Elusive Prover: A New Mathematical Mystery - New York Times: "Quoting Poincar�himself, Dr.Yau said, “Thought is only a flash in the middle of a long night, but the flash that means everything.”"

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times: "Continuum has a reputation for unconventional research techniques, and it suggested that the best way to understand what consumers would value in a shower was not just to listen to them, through focus groups or surveys, but to watch them as well. That is, to film them taking real showers in their own homes and use the findings to design a new line of products."

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times: "“We look for the unique experiences, things that separate one institution from the other, whether for good or ill,” Mr. Brown said. “The biggest mistake companies make is managing to the averages. How long, on average, does it take to open a checking account? What’s the average level of customer satisfaction? Averages hide as much as they reveal.”"

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times

Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower - New York Times: "“The most thoughtful and articulate strategies tend to come from the big banks,” Mr. Brown explained. “But their actual results seldom bear that out. When you walk the streets and look at what’s happening, the gap between strategy and execution becomes obvious. We can’t just listen to what executives say. We have to see with our own eyes what customers are experiencing.”"

Where Do Babies Come From? In the 17th Century, Scientists Laid Myths to Rest - New York Times

Where Do Babies Come From? In the 17th Century, Scientists Laid Myths to Rest - New York Times: "As poets have long known, a persuasive metaphor can often be more powerful than a fact."

Entrez PubMed

Entrez PubMed: "Assessed the utility of the Velten mood induction procedure over two sessions and with a reduced number of self-statements. Ss (N = 72) read 25 or 50 statements that were elative, neutral (no change), or depressive and completed Multiple Affect Adjective Checklists on both days. On both days, statements were found to influence significantly mood ratings, although a slight reduction in change conditions was noted. Reading a full set of statements (50) was found to have the greatest impact on mood."

Cognitive therapy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive therapy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The four column technique

A major technique in cognitive therapy is the four column technique. The first three steps analyze the process by which a person has become depressed or distressed. The fourth step reframes the experience in the person's mind.

* A - Activating Event or objective situation. The first column records the objective situation, by which they mean an event that ultimately leads to some type of high emotional response or negative dysfunctional thinking.

* B - Beliefs. In the second column, the client writes down the negative thoughts which occurred to them.

* C - Consequence. The third column is for the negative feelings and dysfunctional behaviours that ensued. The negative thoughts of the second column are seen as a connecting bridge between the situation and the distressing feelings. The third column C is next explained by describing emotions or negative thoughts that the client thinks are caused by A. This could be anger, sorrow, anxiety, etc. The therapist at this point picks a sample situation like getting a 80 out of a 100 on an English test. Some would feel good at having that grade and others would be sad or angry or depressed not to have done better Therefore the A could not have caused C because all the C's would be the same. At that point B is introduced (B for Beliefs)and explained that our thinking, from column B, is our interpretation of what happened in column A. Our thinking about the event in column A causes C, not the event in column A.

* Reframing. Finally, the fourth column is used for challenging the negative thoughts on the basis of evidence from the client's experience by reframing it, meaning to re-interpret it in a positive light. The last column is where the client writes a more healthy way to interpret column A."

Concept map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Concept map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Concept mapping is a technique for visualizing the relationships between different concepts. A concept map is a diagram showing the relationships in between concepts. Concepts are connected with labelled arrows, in a downward-branching hierarchical structure. The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases, e.g., 'gives rise to', 'results in', 'is required by,' or 'contributes to'."

Mind map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mind map - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "It is an image-centered diagram that represents semantic or other connections between portions of information. By presenting these connections in a radial, non-linear graphical manner, it encourages a brainstorming approach to any given organizational task, eliminating the hurdle of initially establishing an intrinsically appropriate or relevant conceptual framework to work within."

Pattern language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pattern language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Pattern languages are used to formalize decision-making values whose effectiveness becomes obvious with experience but that are difficult to document and pass on to novices. They are also effective tools in structuring knowledge and understanding of fundamentally complex systems without forcing oversimplification -- including organizing people or groups involved in complex undertakings, revealing how their functions inter-relate as part of the larger whole."

Leveraging the Psychology of the Salesperson: A Conversation with Psychologist and Anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille

Leveraging the Psychology of the Salesperson: A Conversation with Psychologist and Anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille: "Typically, archetypes are so deeply embedded in a culture that people are unaware of them. Just as we can speak a language without understanding its grammar, so too we can function in a culture without a conscious awareness of its prevailing archetypes."

"Each culture has a pool of shared archetypes that guide the behaviors of its members—a collective unconscious, if you will. Companies consult me in an attempt to decipher the collective unconscious of their customers, employees, and stakeholders."
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"Salespeople are Happy Losers. Whether they know it or not, they are like addicted gamblers; they are after the thrill. On some level, addicted gamblers know that they are going to lose most of the time, but they are excited by the outside chance of winning. Salespeople share that temperament. They are pros at losing. They are rejected at least 90% of the time, I’d say. Why would anyone choose that job? For the chase."
*************************

"The mental imprint is the result of a learning process that takes place early in life and establishes an unconscious behavior pattern."

"Beyond a certain time period, it is difficult to imprint. First experiences are very powerful. Each one creates a mental highway in the nervous system, and afterward, we use this pathway or chain of neurons in the brain. The more we learn about trauma, for example, the more we see this pattern. People can’t forget a terrible experience; there is a compulsion to repeat it. The same is true for early experiences generally. On some level, what we learn in our early days stays with us forever."
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"It’s not just an impressive clientele that substantiates my work, and it’s not biologically based research. When I get a laugh, I know I’m onto something. I’ll often comment about salespeople as Happy Losers, and everyone chuckles spontaneously, reacting with gut feeling."

Trust You? What's in It for Me? - New York Times

Trust You? What's in It for Me? - New York Times: "Why does one person trust another? One reason may be that the two do good things for each other — the 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine' idea.

But often the reciprocity is not as direct. We trust people even though they have never done anything specifically for us. And people do good things even if they get no direct benefit.

There is a two-part explanation for this, scientists say. One is that we 'keep score' when we watch people, and if we see them acting in a cooperative way we are more likely to cooperate with them. The other is that we modify our behavior in response to being observed. If we think others are watching who may eventually cooperate with us, we are more likely to be cooperative ourselves."

A First Hand Account of Interrogation

The Journalist and the Murderer: "First of all, as a novelist I’ve written about what it’s like to be interrogated. I understood that it’s a psychologically daunting experience, but you really can’t have any conception of what it’s like to be strongly interrogated until you undergo it. It’s a humiliating experience. You have no power. And it’s especially difficult in a foreign language. In order to speak well and to be convincing you have to have tremendous command of the language. And when you don’t you sound like a liar even when you’re not. I remember in this interrogation thinking, “My God, I sound like a liar. If I were Mignini, I wouldn’t believe me, stumbling, stuttering, and sweating, and using the wrong words, and backtracking, and saying things two or three times, and trying to explain what I meant.” I was thinking, “They’re going to take me from this room and put me in jail, and I’m not going to see my wife and kids again, or at least for a while.” I was terrified that I was not going to see the outside world again. Because of course the crimes they were accusing me of were very serious."

Douglas Gordan - Poetry out of Randomness?

I went to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC this week. There is a retrospective exhibition of the work of Douglas Gordan. He is a conceptual artist who explores time-based medium, mostly film. For example, his 24 Hour Psycho is the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho projected onto a screen so slowly that it takes 24 hours to see the whole thing. I thought that particular piece was more interesting when I read about it in the NYT's review than when I saw it in person.

I did really like his Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake). In this piece Gordan has The exorcist projected on one side of a screen and The Song of Bernadette projected on the other side. The screen is transparent enough that you can see both films on either side. One film showing through in the shadows of the other. The soundtracks are also played together.

I sat and watched the two films for a while and really enjoyed the experience. There were some really interesting moments when the two films seemed to come together in meaningful ways. And I guess by meaningful I mean poetic.

But whose meaning was it? You see, the films aren't the same lengths and so they never sync up the same way. So perhaps this is just an example of the viewer's mind finding meaning where there is really just randomness. I'm not denigrating the art. I think it is brilliant to create such an environment.

It reminds me of dreams. I don't think that dreams have any intrinsic meaning, but they can catalyze us to find meaning within their randomness.

Re-framing Roles for Decision-making

The NYT's reports on new research that shows people make risk/benefit decisions differently depending on the role they are asked to assume.

The research was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. According to the Journal's abstract:

Survey participants imagined themselves in 1 of 4 roles: patient, physician treating a single patient, medical director creating treatment guidelines, or parent deciding for a child.

Preferences for risk-reducing active treatments were significantly stronger for participants imagining themselves as medical professionals than for those imagining themselves as patients.

CONCLUSIONS: Treatment preferences may be substantially influenced by a decision-making role. As certain roles appear to reinforce "big picture" thinking about difficult risk tradeoffs, physicians and patients should consider re-framing treatment decisions to gain new, and hopefully beneficial, perspectives.

Libertarian Paternalism and Motorcycle Helmets

Writer John Tierney uses Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's career threatening motorcycle accident as a springboard to discuss libertarian paternalism in his June 16, 2006 NYT's column.

Libertarian paternalism, also known as soft paternalism, brings behavioral economics to policy issues. It says that people should be able to make their own decisions (such as whether to wear a motorcycle helmet), but that government regulation can be used to present options in a way that encourages the better choice.

Law professor Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler at the University of Chicago coined the term. Edward Glaeser, a Harvard economist, is mentioned as being skeptical of the concept.

According to the column, this presentation of options should be informative of the risks and cost/benefits involved in the choice, and it may involve some incentives or disinsentives as well. For example, someone wishing to ride a motorcycle without a helmet would be required to attend a one-time class about the choice and could also be required to prove that he or she had a set amount of insurance.

Ben Roethlisberger's helmetless accident is cited to illustrate what is wrong with human decision making. Roethlisberger risked tens of millions of dollars by putting himself in a position where he could have a career ending accident.

Tierney's column provides the following general problems with decision making:

1) decisions are made haphazardly

2) we are overly influenced by a recent horror story

3) we ignore statistics

4) we ignore unlikely and far-off events

5) we make decisions based not on facts, but on how they are presented