Clipmarks | Newfman's clips

Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:54:44 GMT

clipped by: Newfman
clipper's remarks: Descriptions of all 10 experiments at the site

"I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?" --Philip Zimbardo

Like eminent social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo, I'm also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things. The answer quite often is because of other people - something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Over the past few months I've been describing 10 of the most influential social psychology studies. Each one tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

1. The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery

2. How and Why We Lie to Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance

3. War, Peace and the Role of Power in Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiment

4. Our Dark Hearts: The Stanford Prison Experiment

5. Just Following Orders? Stanley Milgram's Obedience Experiment

Tags: psychology

Lost baby whale thinks yacht is mom

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:40:58 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Lost humpback whale calf has bonded with a yacht it thinks is its mother

One- to 2-month-old calf tried to suckle from boat

Calf appears exhausted but rescuers hope it will continue out to sea

Two in a Million: Twins Born - One Black, One White

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:21:01 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Twins with different skin colors — one black and the other white — have been born in Berlin, Germany.

Doctors say it is an extremely rare occurrence, but it is possible if genes combine in a certain way.

The twin boys, named Ryan and Leo, are the offspring of a mixed-race couple.

The mother, Florence, hails from Ghana in western Africa, and dad, Stephan, is from Potsdam in Germany.

"Ryan came first, and everything was as usual," said the hospital's doctor, Birgit Weber. "But when Leo was born, I couldn't believe my eyes."

"Both kids have definitely the same father," the doctor added.

Man avoids planes on highway, 25 years apart!

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:26:14 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.cbc.ca

A pilot who ran into trouble north of Winnipeg Friday afternoon managed to bring his light plane down safely in an emergency landing on Highway 8

Kerry Seabrook said he was driving his vehicle north of Winnipeg on Highway 8 when he noticed a plane in trouble, heading towards him.

"I had to pull my truck off into the ditch and even by the time I did that, his wing passed about five feet from my truck," Seabrook said. "I could hear his landing gear touch down right beside me. I had my window open."

Ironically this was the second close call Seabrook has had with a plane. Twenty-five years ago, Seabrook, along with two of his friends, were almost hit by an Air Canada Boeing 767, later nicknamed the Gimli Glider.

The plane's engines conked out well short of Winnipeg, the nearest major airport, and the pilots had glide the plane onto a former airbase near Gimli. Seabrook and his friends watched as the plane scraped towards them along the runway and stopped just short of running them over.

Eight Ways to Spot Emotional Manipulation

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 21:06:12 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.cassiopaea.com

There is no use in trying to be honest with an emotional manipulator.

An emotional manipulator is the picture of a willing helper.

Crazy making - saying one thing and later assuring you they did not say it.

Guilt. Emotional manipulators are excellent guilt mongers.

Emotional manipulators fight dirty.

If you have a headache an emotional manipulator will have a brain tumor!

Emotional manipulators somehow have the ability to impact the emotional climate of those around them.

Emotional manipulators have no sense of accountability

Tags: pschology

Mother Loses Kids After Sending Daughter to School With Swastika Drawn on Arm

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:36:14 GMT

clipped by: Newfman
clipper's remarks: "I'm willing to jump through their hoops," the woman told the CBC. "If they want me to deny my beliefs, I'll tell them that, but at the same time, I'm not a traitor to my politics, my beliefs. I just want my kids back."

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

A Canadian woman who describes herself as a white nationalist lost custody of her children after sending her daughter to school twice with a swastika drawn on her arm, the CBC reported.

The Winnipeg mother told the CBC she regrets redrawing the Nazi symbol after a teacher scrubbed it off. She is fighting the child welfare system to regain custody of her daughter, 7, and son, 2, who were removed from her home four months ago.

"It was one of the stupidest things I've done in my life but it's no reason to take my kids," the unidentified woman told CBC News. She is currently allowed to see her kids for two hours a week.

Child and Family Services workers were alerted after the second swastika incident at school, the CBC reported. When they arrived at the family home they found neo-Nazi symbols and flags, and proceeded to seize the kids.

The case has sparked a debate over whether the police and child welfare authorities can take children away because of their parents’ beliefs.

Dogbook and Catbook...Facebook for pets

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 04:50:21 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.ctv.ca

The Internet is literally going to the dogs -- and cats -- thanks to a father and son team from Toronto who have created a social networking site for canines and felines.

Geoffrey Roche and his son, Alexandre, came up with the idea for cat and dog social networking sites in the wake of the success of Facebook, a similar site catering only to people.

Dogbook and Catbook are, as their website names suggest, exclusively the domain of pets. Pets can swap pictures and even messages -- with the help of their owners, of course. They can list their favourite treats and even arrange meetings at local parks.

Annabelle is a Toronto mutt whose mug has been unleashed on the Internet. Her web profile says she likes to run, jump, and eat steak.

She has 58 online friends, including Lou Lou, a Jack Russell terrier from Quebec, and a cat from California name Bootsy.

In just six months, Dogbook and Catbook have signed up more than 500,000 cats and more than one million dogs

10 things you didn't know about black holes

Sat, 19 May 2007 18:55:56 GMT

clipped by: Newfman
clipper's remarks: Follow link for more

Clip Source: www.nmg-uk.com

A black hole has a gravitational pull so strong that even light can not escape from it even though light has no mass! The boundary of this region in a black hole is called the event horizon.

A black hole bends space-time, also know as time dilation. This means that if a spaceship was to travel near to a black hole at the speed of light, a stationary observer would notice any clocks on the craft slowing down and people aging slower.

A black hole's mass is entirely compressed into a region with zero volume, which means its density and gravitational pull are infinite. This is also known as a singularity.

As objects fall closer to the singularity spaghettification increases in power at an incredible rate so you would literally be torn apart bit by bit

If you find yourself being sucked into a black hole, make sure it's a rotating black hole

If you were unlucky enough to fall into a black hole this is what would happen to you depending on what type of black hole it was

Tags: science

Child Genius at Oxford Becomes Prostitute

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:19:34 GMT

clipped by: Newfman
clipper's remarks: What a waste.

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

A child prodigy with a talent in mathematics that won her a spot at Oxford at the age of 13 somehow found her way into prostitution.

Sufiah Yusof, who calls herself Shilpa Lee, advertises her body on an Internet sex site, charging 130 pounds an hour or $258.

Yusof and two siblings won university places in their teens but she ran away at age 15 with claims of pressure from her parents.

"It is all desperately heartbreaking," a friend of Yusof said. "With her amazing brain she should be able to make money any way she wants. But instead, her life spiraled completely out of control."

Yusof describes herself as a "sexy, smart student" who prefers "older gentlemen" and offers services every day from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Yusof claims her father was "controlling and bullying," which led her to ending the relationship with her family.

Holy Crap! Protesters Beware!

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:11:12 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: elections.foxnews.com

Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon - known as the “crap cannon” - that might be unleashed against them.

Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.

Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.

“We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before,” he said.

Cohen, who described Brown Note as a “sonic weapon used to disrupt people’s equilibrium,” cited eyewitness accounts of its use during free-trade agreement protests in Miami in 2003.

Stopping Cow Farts...Silly Science or Major Breakthrough?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:56:22 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

It's a silent, but possibly deadly, problem.

Feeling guilty about their country's greenhouse-gas emissions, New Zealand scientists want to squelch the biggest source: livestock flatulence.

Methane pumped out the backsides of New Zealand's 45 million sheep and 10 million cattle helps make the tiny country a bigger per-capita climate culprit than notoriously polluted China, reports the Times of London.

So it was with great pride Wednesday that Phil Goff, the Kiwi trade minister, told a Paris meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development that the genome of the microbe responsible for all that methane had been isolated.

That would pave the way for a vaccine against bovine flatulence, he added, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Teacher Dies Minutes After Retiring From 36-Year Career

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:17:06 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

MOLINO, Fla. — An elementary school teacher retiring after a 36-year career died of a heart attack moments after saying goodbye to her final class for the summer.

Sharon Smith, 57, died Friday on the way to a hospital according to her niece, Doreatha Jackson. Smith was a fourth grade teacher at Molino Park Elementary School, where she had worked since 1972.

Principal Alice Woodward said students had not been gone more than five minutes before Smith complained of shortness of breath and an ambulance was called.

"Any child who had her would tell you Sharon was their favorite teacher," said Woodward in an interview with Pensacola News Journal. "She had a caring attitude and saw something good in every child and every teacher."

Wasn't that a party!!

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:29:32 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Teenage revelers trashed a Spanish mansion worth $8.6 million — after the student host posted an open invite on the online social networking site Facebook.

Over 400 teens crashed Jodie Hudson's 16th birthday bash in Marbella, Spain, then stole $11,800 worth of jewelry, swiped designer clothes and threw a TV in the pool.

Police had to be called to put an end to the wild party, but they did not arrive in time to stop the drunk teenagers wrecking the seven-bedroom luxury home.

"The place looked like a war zone,” one partygoer said. "All the banisters have been broken. The walls are ruined, the carpets are destroyed, furniture is broken and it is going to take months to sort out."

The wealthy family rents out the villa during the summer months to vacationers for almost $8,000 a week, but they say they will be unable to lease out the home this season, after the party crashers made the house "uninhabitable.”

Anything thong with this?

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:31:45 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.cbc.ca

ARVADA, Colorado - Police in a Colorado town are searching for two robbers whose masks showed plenty of fashion sense but little modesty: women's thong underwear.

A surveillance video released this week by police in Arvada, Colorado, shows two unarmed men inside the convenience store.

They stole an undisclosed amount of cash and cigarettes in the May 16 robbery.

One man wore a green thong and the other wore blue.

Each thong barely covered the man's nose, mouth and chin and left the rest of his face exposed. One also wore a pink backpack in which he stuffed the stolen items.

The suspects were described as being in their 20s. One had a left arm tattoo.

'God particle' expected to be found soon

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:08:06 GMT

clipped by: Newfman

Clip Source: www.ctv.ca

The father of a theoretical subatomic particle dubbed "the God particle'' says he's almost sure its existence will be confirmed in the next year.

British physicist Peter Higgs first postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom more than 40 years ago.

Higgs, speaking during a visit the site of a massive new atom smashing accelerator in Switzerland, says scientists in both Europe and North America are about to confirm his theory.

Nobel laureate Leon Lederman has dubbed the theoretical boson "the God particle'' because its discovery could unify understanding of particle physics and help humans "know the mind of God.'

Higgs predicted the existence of the boson while working at the University of Edinburgh to explain how atoms -- and the objects they make up -- have weight.

Without the particle, the basic physics theory -- the "standard model'' -- lacks a crucial element, because it fails to explain how other subatomic particles -- such as quarks and electrons -- have mass.