Clipmarks | wildcat's 'psychology' clips

How to Get People to Like You

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:23:50 GMT

clipped by: kankamuso
clipper's remarks: A little bit more detailed than the usual "just be yourself", heh.

Learn to remember names. A name is very important to someone. If you don’t take the time to learn someone’s name, it indicates that you’re not interested in him or her. When someone remembers your name, it gives you the feeling that you are interesting or important.

Be easy going and natural. When you are stiff, reserved or unresponsive, you unconsciously build up a barrier. But when you are easy going and natural it is easy for people to like you.

Be interesting. Have something to talk about that people find interesting or stimulating. This way people want to be with you.

Don’t have a big ego. If you give the impression that you know it all, that you are superior, you make it hard for people to like you. Be normally humble.

Do some self-study and get rid of negative attitudes. People can consciously or unconsciously pick those up and they might find it irritable to be around you.

Always look for the positive qualities in a person. Getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them.

Try to build up someone’s ego. Make compliments. Congratulate upon someone’s achievement, or express sympathy when they are in sorrow or if they feel disappointed. The ego is a sacred thing; every human being has the desire to feel important. When you deflate someone’s ego, you are wounding him deep inside.

Give strength to people, support them. Help them to be stronger and they will give you affection.

Whether you like to admit it or not, we want people to like us. If someone tells you that he does not really care if people like him or not, he simply is not being honest. The longing to be liked is one of our deepest desires. We want to be popular, we want people to speak nothing but good of us and we want to have affection of the people around us. It is in our human nature.

Tags: how to, lists, psychology, relationships

Critical Thinking On The Web

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:51:19 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.austhink.com

Top Ten

Argument Mapping Tutorials. Six online tutorials in argument mapping, a core requirement for advanced critical thinking.
The Skeptic's Dictionary - over 400 definitions and essays.
The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis. Best website on fallacies.
Butterflies and Wheels. Excellent reading - news, articles, and much more.
Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts by Peter Facione. Good overview of the nature of critical thinking. (pdf file)
Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion by John Stuart Mill. Classic chapter, densely packed with wisdom about thinking.
Chance - best resource for helping students think critically about issues involving probability and statistics
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, by Richards Heuer. A good overview of how to improve thinking in the light of insights from cognitive psychology.
A Handbook on Writing Argumentative and Interpretative Essays by Ian Johnston
Baloney Detection Part 1 and Part 2 - by Michael Shermer. 10 step guide.

Tags: critical thinking, bull-shit detection

Ten cognitive distortions that mess you up

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:45:26 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: David Burns is a pioneer in popularizing the cognitive-behavioral approach to mood therapy developed by Aaron Beck. As someone who has struggled on and off with crippling depression my whole life, I have found this list of "cognitive distortions" pretty useful in reframing certain elements of my thinking.

Clip Source: www.spiritsite.com

The Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking

All-or-nothing thinking

You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, "I’ve blown my diet completely." This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream!

Overgeneralization

You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as "always" or "never" when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the windshield of his car. He told himself, "Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!"

Mental filter

You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.

Discounting the positive

You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don’t count." If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positive takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.

Jumping to conclusions

Magnification

Emotional reasoning

You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reject the way things really are: "I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be dangerous to fly." Or "I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person." Or "I feel angry. This proves I’m being treated unfairly." Or "I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second-rate person." Or "I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless."

"Should statements"

Labeling

Personalization and blame

Tags: psychology, depression, personal

6 Key Social Skills

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:33:33 GMT

clipped by: firebird
clipper's remarks: Obvious? Perhaps not - judging by how people often respond in social situations - where 'me' is the most important subject

Clip Source: www.self-confidence.co.uk

6 Key Social Skills

Social skills are arguably the most important set of abilities a person can have. Human beings are social animals and a lack of good social skills can lead to a lonely life, contributing to anxiety and depression. Great social skills help you meet interesting people, get that job you want, progress further in your career and relationships.

Happily, like any skill, social strategies and techniques can be learned…

The main social skills are as follows:

1) The ability to remain relaxed, or at a tolerable level of anxiety while in social situations

Regardless of how skillful you are in social situations, if you are too anxious, your brain is functioning in way unsuited to speaking and listening. In addition, if your body and face give the unconscious message that you are nervous, it will be more difficult to build rapport with others.

2) Listening skills, including letting others know you are listening

3) Empathy with and interest in others' situations

A major part of social anxiety is self consciousness, which is greatly alleviated by focusing strongly on someone else. A fascination (even if forced at first) with another's conversation not only increases your comfort levels, it makes them feel interesting.

4) The ability to build rapport, whether natural or learned

Rapport is a state of understanding or connection that occurs in a good social interaction. It says basically "I am like you, we understand each other". Rapport occurs on an unconscious level, and when it happens, the language, speech patterns, body movement and posture and other aspects of communication can synchronise down to incredibly fine levels.

Rapport is an unconscious process, but it can be encouraged by conscious efforts.

5) Knowing how, when and how much to talk about yourself - 'self disclosure'

6) Appropriate eye contact

Tags: social skills, psychology, self-development

7 Thinking Errors You Probably Make

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:14:13 GMT

clipped by: gingembre
clipper's remarks: Common thinking errors explained, each backed by a scientific study. Food for thought!

Clip Source: www.lifehack.org

The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases. Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware, noticing these biases can clue you into possible mistakes

The entire domain of the scientific method has largely been an effort to overcome the natural inclination towards bias in reasoning

common thinking errors:

1) Confirmation Bias

tendency to seek information to prove, rather than disprove our theories

2) Hindsight Bias

see past results as appearing more probable than they did initially

3) Clustering Illusion

see patterns where none actually exist

4) Recency Effect

give more weight to recent data

5) Anchoring Bias

a well-known problem with negotiations

6) Overconfidence Effect

people tend to grossly overestimate their abilities

7) Fundamental Attribution Error

Mistaking personality and character traits for differences caused by situations

Tags: psychology, human nature, bias, thinking, reasoning, critical thinking

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

Clip Source: www.spring.org.uk

"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

Dalai Lama - Buddhist guide to life

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:32:25 GMT

clipped by: missmelq
clipper's remarks: Did't have quite enought room to get the last couple mentioned....

Clip Source: www.missico.com

Dalai Lama

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

Tags: buddhism, psychology, philosophy, religion, guide to happiness

Friendship: The Laws of Attraction

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:45:24 GMT

clipped by: Xeneri
clipper's remarks: Friendship: The Laws of Attraction
The conventional wisdom is that we choose friends because of who they are. But it turns out that we actually love them because of the way they support who we are.
By:Karen Karbo

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Built To Last: How To Stay Friends

From young adulthood onward, our notion of what makes a good friendship changes very little, but our capacity to maintain one does. It's a poignant reality; we know what it means to be and have friends, but after we graduate from college and go our separate ways—launching our careers, getting married, having children, getting divorced, caring for aging parents—we're often unable to muster the time and energy to maintain friendships we profess to value. Like anything else in life, if we want to remain friends with someone, it requires a little work. Simply put, we must show up.

According to Marquette University psychologist Debra Oswald, who has studied the nature and complexity of high school "best" friendships, there are four basic behaviors necessary to maintain the bond. And they hold true whether we're 17 or 70.

Communication facilitates the first two essential behaviors: self-disclosure and supportiveness, both necessary for intimacy. We must be willing to extend ourselves, to share our lives with our friends, to keep them abreast of what's going on with us. Likewise, we need to listen to them and offer support.

Interaction is the third essential in tending to a friendship. You've got to write, you've got to call, you've got to visit. Find the nearest Starbucks and take time to catch up. "The specific activity doesn't matter," says Oswald. "The important thing is to interact."

The last and most elusive behavior necessary for keeping friends is being positive. Social psychologists tout the necessity of self-disclosure, but that doesn't mean an unrestricted license to vent. At the end of the day, the intimacy that makes a friendship thrive must be an enjoyable one, for the more rewarding a friendship, the more we feel good about it, the more we're willing to expend the energy it takes to keep it alive.

Tags: friendship, friends, life, relationships, psychology, behavior, lifehacks, health, mind, advice

They did not give up

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:39:43 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on.

When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, "What use could this company make of an electrical toy."

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work

An expert said of Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation."

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because "he lacked imagination and had no good ideas."

After Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."

When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress, she was to"Try any other profes

Clip Source: www.des.emory.edu

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success.

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62.

Socrates was called "an immoral corrupter of youth" and continued to corrupt even after a sentence of death was imposed on him.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe.

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class.

Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive."

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded

Tags: success, motivation, career, failure

Ten common self defeating beliefs

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:57:48 GMT

clipped by: deanknows
clipper's remarks: I think I have pretty much all of these beliefs.

Clip Source: web.archive.org

Here are just a few of the self-defeating beliefs that lead to depression, anxiety or anger. Are any of them are similar to the way you sometimes think and feel?

Ten Common Self-Defeating Beliefs
emotional perfectionism	I should always feel happy, confident, and in control of my emotions.
emotophobia	I should never feel angry, anxious, inadequate, jealous or vulnerable.
conflict phobia	People who love each other shouldn't fight.
entitlement	People should be the way I expect them to be.
low frustration tolerance	I should never be frustrated. Life should be easy.
performance perfectionism	I must never fail or make a mistake.
perceived perfectionism	People will not love and accept me as a flawed and vulnerable human being.
fear of failure	My worthwhileness as a human being depends on my achievements (or my intelligence, status, or attractiveness).
fear of disapproval or criticism	I need everybody's approval to be worthwhile.
fear of rejection or being alone	If I'm alone, then I'm bound to feel miserable and unfulfilled. If I'm not loved, then life is not worth living.

Continue

Back to Question of the Day

Back to the Questions Table of Contents Page

Back to the Home Page

Tags: beliefs, psychology, depression

Repetition Makes False Beliefs Permanent

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 03:24:18 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Politicians and other unscrupulous types have long exploited what psychological studies are now confirming: due to the neurophysiology of the learning process, simple repetitive association between two concepts is enough to make false propositions "feel" true and well-supported.

Worse, after enough exposure to such associations, subsequent denials can strengthen the perception of the falsehood instead of weakening it. (This is a major reason why the stigma of a false accusation can persist even after innocence is proven.)

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind's bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Tags: politics, psychology, bias, manipulation, urban legends, beliefs, brain, cognitive science, myths, learning

Awesome research/ Homework resource

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:06:30 GMT

clipped by: cosmic_kitten1
clipper's remarks: I only found this the other day and mostly I'm clipping it for my own uses; however, it's a great resource and I thought I'd share. The site itself has pretty cool info too. 'Hope you guys like the clip.

Clip Source: www.crf-usa.org

Research Links

Subject Matter

Click for instructions on how to make CRF's Research Links your homepage.

CRF: Constitutional Rights Foundation

Programs

Publications

Free Lessons

Tags: resource, homework, research, info, links

Babies not as innocent as they pretend

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:45:17 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.

Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.

Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.

Following studies of more than 50 children and interviews with parents, Dr Vasudevi Reddy, of the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, says she has identified seven categories of deception used between six months and three-years-old.

"It demonstrates they're clearly able to distinguish that what they are doing will have an effect. This is essentially all adults do when they tell lies, except in adults it becomes more morally loaded."

Tags: science, research, babies, pretending, lying, evolution

Finding Your Passion

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 05:44:32 GMT

clipped by: Folly

Clip Source: www.mindtools.com

Step 1 - Define your passion:
What “fires you up”? For some people the answer to this question is very obvious. For others, it is a little more difficult.

If you are facing difficulty giving a definite answer set aside 30 minutes to answer three questions:

What would I want my life to be like when I am 60?
What do I want to have accomplished 5 years from now?
What are the three things I would want to do if I only had 6 months to live?

Each question will have several answers. Choose the top three answers for each question.

Now out of the nine goals you have identified, cull out the three that look most important to you. Obviously, these three goals are things that are very important to you. You should naturally be passionate about achieving them: If not, you may need to set goals that are on a grander or more beneficial scale!

Tags: self-help, career, goals, priorities, psychology, motivation

Complete List of PsychTests and quizzes

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:23:17 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: There are 4 categories, career,I.Q.,personality,and relationships. There are the free tests, and of course many more available to members. I'm not sure of the conditions behind the membership tests, but so far I'm having enough fun with the free ones.

Clip Source: www.psychtests.com

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