I wasn’t aware that Douglas Coupland (the author for whom the term “brain candy” was coined) did any studies. Nevertheless, this description of a Gen X employee seems to fit me to a tee.
Studies by Bruce Tulgan (Managing Generation X), Douglas Coupland (Generations X), and Australian company HCM Global Pty. Ltd., show the Generation X manger is typically mature beyond their years, very adaptable and flexible, and team oriented. They have high expectations of employees and don’t buy into power structures, rather they prefer the project-based approach to work. Generation X managers need positive validation for their work or they will not hesitate to quit their jobs. They hate being micro-managed and want independence in their work, which may explain why so many of this generation have turned to entrepreneurship.
Read: Gen X will change work culture
More on happinss from Martin Seligman. Spend more time with people, care about things less.
Now a burgeoning “positive psychology” movement that emphasizes people’s strengths and talents instead of their weaknesses is rapidly closing the gap, says University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman, author of the new book, Authentic Happiness. The work of Seligman and other experts in the field is in the early stages, but they are already starting to see why some people are happy while others are not:
The happiest people spend the least time alone. They pursue personal growth and intimacy; they judge themselves by their own yardsticks, never against what others do or have.
Read: USATODAY.com - Psychologists now know what makes people happy
You guessed, it, another map of happiness in the world, this time focusing on economic status. What’s interesting is that people in poor countries as often as not rated themselves as happy.
Read: The New York Times > Science > Image > A Plateau of Happiness
If you haven’t seen Quiet Rage about the Stanford Prison Experiment, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. The price tag may be step, but if you’re at all interested in the psychology of compliance and want to know how atrocities could be committed by ordinary people in the name of justice, this movie will leave a lasting impression.
This isn’t the first time Philip Zimbardo criticized the Bush Administration for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, but it’s significant because Philip Zimbardo is retiring this year. One of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, Philip Zimbardo will be missed.
The retiring psychology professor who ran the famed Stanford Prison Experiment savagely criticized the Bush administration’s War on Terror Wednesday and said senior government officials should be tried for crimes against humanity.
In his final lecture at Stanford University, Philip Zimbardo said abuses committed by Army reservists at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison weren’t isolated incidents by rogue soldiers. Rather, sadism was the inevitable result of U.S. government policies that condone brutality toward enemies, he said.
Read: cbs5.com - ‘Psychology Of Evil’ Prof’s Last Stanford Lecture
I’m frequently frustrated when I can’t easily find information like price, but it seems hiding the price can avoid an almost literal sensation of pain when it comes to pricing. While I’m aware of other research on pricing, such as the Disrupt and Reframe technique, and some work by Robert Cialdini on which to present first, the more expensive or the less expensive item (the less expensive item - since you “anchor” the higher price, the lower price seems even lower by comparison - infomercials exploit this all the time), this is the first time I’m seeing research into the neuroscience of pricing.
… research by Carnegie Mellon neuroscientist George Loewenstein and others showing that high pricing caused higher activation levels in a brain area associated with pain. High priced items which lit up the insula were less likely to be bought by the subjects in Loewenstein’s experiment.
In an interview with Loewenstein, he pointed out that techniques that disguise the price of an item, like “luxury packages” of automotive options that never identify how much you are paying for specific items like leather seats or the better stereo, effectively reduce the negative activation and increase the probability of purchase.
Read: Neuromarketing » Price Tag Psychology
Some people believe that dreams are the brain re-organizing memories during sleep.
“It’s quite surprising,” said Brown’s Mayank Mehta, an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience, who led the research. “We’ve known for a century that the hippocampus and the neocortex are anatomically connected. But this is the first time we’ve seen the effect of this connectivity in the brains of live animals. The dialogue is quite unexpected and complex, suggesting that this ’simple’ brain circuit is much more sophisticated than we imagined.”
Read: Neuroscientist Records Surprising Brain ‘Dialogue’ During Sleep
Subliminal messages - for years science has wondered whether or not we could pick up on messages below the level of consciousness, and whether or not those messages could influence our behavior. While I believe the answer to both of those questions is an affirmative ‘yes,’ science hasn’t done much to demonstrate that this is possible. But we’re making progress.
Using fMRI, the study looked at whether an image you aren’t aware of — but one that reaches the retina — has an impact on brain activity in the primary visual cortex, part of the occipital lobe. Subjects’ brains did respond to the object even when they were not conscious of having seen it.
Dr Bahador Bahrami, of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the UCL Department of Psychology, said: “What’s interesting here is that your brain does log things that you aren’t even aware of and can’t ever become aware of. We show that there is a brain response in the primary visual cortex to subliminal images that attract our attention — without us having the impression of having seen anything. These findings point to the sort of impact that subliminal advertising may have on the brain. What our study doesn’t address is whether this would then influence you to go out and buy a product. I believe that it’s likely that subliminal advertising may affect our decisions — but that is just speculation at this point.”
Read: ScienceDaily: Subliminal Advertising Leaves Its Mark On The Brain (via son of parnas)
If it’s not the lions, it’s lying around all day doing nothing.
“If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don’t mess with you much. What that means is you’ve got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop,” he explained. “They’re just like us: They’re not getting done in by predators and famines; they’re getting done in by each other.”
Read: LiveScience.com - Why Humans (and Baboons) Stress So Much
Ontario gaming officials pulled 87 slot machines that appeared to show subliminal messages. How the they figured out there were subliminal messages in the game is still a mystery.
The games flash winning jackpot symbols at players for a fifth of a second, long enough for the brain to detect even if the players are not aware of the message, some psychologists told CBC News.
It’s not clear if messages are influencing gamblers’ behaviour. That would take further testing, experts said.
Whether or not this affected the behavior of those playing the games remains to be seen, but I suspect the machine’s manufacturer’s and vendors have some very interesting data.
Read: Ontario removes video slot machines flashing winning images (via Mind Hacks)
People are capable of making rational decisions, but the moment you introduce stress, that ability goes out the window. It’s already been demonstrated that being around friends can impair your memory, and now research shows that people lose the ability to perform calculations in stressful situations.
“People tend to have a hard time evaluating numbers, even when the numbers are clear and right in front of them,” Arvai said. “In contrast, the emotional responses that are conjured up by problems like terrorism and crime are so strong that most people don’t factor in the empirical evidence when making decisions.”
So we can’t remember things when we’re with people, and we can’t think clearly under stress. What chance do we have to make good decisions? Pretty good, actually. Gary Klein in his book Sources of Power studied people who made decisions in high-stress situations - fire chiefs, nurses, etc. What he found was that when placed in a high-stress situation (and any deadline situation is a high stress situation, even if that deadline is 6 months away), rather than listing alternatives and weighing possibilities, we came up with a scenario, ran through it looking for flaws, and then acted on it. The best way to train for these situations is to live through them, or to listen to the stories of people who have. This allows us to build a mental model of how things should go & identify, however subconsciously, when it’s going wrong.
Read: Decision making isn’t always as rational as you think (or hope) (via Crazy on Tap)