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psychologymajor

MA in Psychology-Masters Degree In Psychology - 0 views

psychologymajorpsychology.com/ma-in-psychology

education resources

shared by psychologymajor on 11 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • psychologymajor on 11 Feb 16
     
    In this article about MA in Psychology , I am going to cover some of the sub disciplines of psychology to give you a quick and brief overview of the subject so that you get an idea on it.
izz aty

Psychology Facts | Psychology and Handwriting Analysis: Margins - 0 views

neurolove.me/...d-handwriting-analysis-margins

psychology handwriting psychoanalysis people society social phenomenon social science culture commuity

shared by izz aty on 28 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • left represents the past
  • right represents the future
  • The ideal adult margins, based on graphology, would be to have the left margin a little wider than the right margin. This would be a healthy left/right balance, meaning you have a healthy relation to the past & future. 
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • A. Margins Even All Around
  • Someone who is controlling his/her right margin must write more slowly.
  • people who keep their margins even all around are most interested in the visual effect. They actually see the paper as almost like a work of art. They are extremely appearance-conscious and interested in beauty, design, symmetry, order, and balance.
  • very detailed-minded, and, of course, to give up spontaneity in the process. Such people plan everything ahead to a great degree.
  • B. Overly Wide Left Margin
  • the person who has a very wide left margin is subconsciously putting up an imaginary barrier between himself and the past. This trait is almost always an indication of someone who’s had a terrible past from which he is eager to flee.
  • C. Overly Wide Right Margin
  • When you are moving to the right, you’re moving towards your goals and the future. When you stop too soon at the end of your lines, somewhere in your subconscious is a little voice saying, “Uh-oh. I have to stop. I have to return to the left, to the past and the familiar. This is as far as I can go.”
  • D. Margins Too Wide All Around
  • Writing with margins that are too wide all around is abnormal
  • . This sort of person needs to be protected by four solid walls. He cannot make it on his own. He doesn’t relate to his environment in a normal manner or fit into society in an average way. 
  • E. Left Margin Widening as It Descends
  • rapid and spontaneous writing. If you’re writing quickly and spontaneously, you will leave wider and wider left margins as you descend (down) the page.
  • F. Left Margin Narrowing as It Descends
  • a tendency to start out brave, going towards the future, but eventually retreating to the past and what is familiar.
  • G. Narrow Margins on Left & Right Side
  • Some people write all the way to the side on both the left and right, leaving no side margin whatsoever. This trait indicates one who leaves no room for other people. Such a person doesn’t see things from other people’s point of view
  • He takes up all the space and doesn’t see himself properly in relation to his environment, leaving no room for the rights and opinions of others. 
  • H. Uneven Left Margin
  • . The left margin represents “the line of society.” Thus, each time we return to the left, it’s up to us whether we’re going to align the next word, or we’re going to get “out of line.” That small percentage who do not have a straight left margin are those people who cannot conform to society’s standards. These are also people who, quite expectedly, would not do well in a strict nine-to-five job
  • I. No Margins at All
  • With no margins, filling every inch of the paper, indicates someone who feels he must fill every waking moment of his life with an activity. It means compulsively busy, leaving no stone unturned. Very such people have miserly natures as well. This person also leaves no room for the rights or opinions of others
  • J. Wide Upper Margin
  • The lower you start, the more you tend to have formal, respectful feelings toward the person to whom you’re writing, such as a letters/papers to teachers, businesses…etc. You waste more paper to show respect, and you “lower” down on the paper. 
  • K. Narrow Upper Margin
  • a narrow upper margin means you are feeling more familiar than formal toward the person to whom you are writing. By starting high on the paper, you don’t “bow down” or “lower yourself” to show respect.
  • L. Narrow Lower Margin
  • writing until there was no room left - until the writing is crushed. This means someone who delays the inevitable. Such a person is so eager to express himself that he feels it would take too much time to turn the paper over or get another sheet. 
  • M. Crushed Right Margin
  • dangerous impulsiveness. People like this bash their heads into the wall and do it again and again - (They don’t learn from their mistakes.) They don’t have the sense to say it to themselves, “Hey, wait a minute. You know, the paper ends, and I have to accommodate.” They don’t say it because they don’t care or think about it
  • izz aty on 28 Mar 13
     
    A blank piece of paper represents life itself, and what you do on that blank paper represents how you interact with other people and with life around you. 
izz aty

FLEAS, FLEAS, FLEAS! - LIGHT'S HOUSE - 0 views

www.lightshouse.org/fleas-fleas-fleas.html

narcissism personality disorder psychology psychological abuse

shared by izz aty on 15 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Feedback was always to make you the bad one - the wrong one
  • people whose parents were not narcissistic - give their children positive reinforcement and supportive feedback. Those people have learned to associate feedback with assistance - with helpful kindness.
  • They won't go to "crazy-land" like you will when they get their performance review. They will feel helped. You will feel attacked. They will feel curious. You will feel inadequate. They will feel openness. You will feel fear. They will say, "Thank you, I'll work on that". You will go home and cry.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • you get defensive and criticize right back
  • that looks like narcissism, doesn't it? You're not accepting input from others about what you could do better. You feel deeply ashamed that you haven't been perfect - that's what you've been taught - if you're not perfect, you're a piece of trash who has to take all the blame for everything that's wrong, and all the blame for those who refuse responsibility.
  • What you have is the shadow  - “maladaptive behaviors"
  • "FLEAS". They're the bad behavior patterns and habits we picked up from living with a nutcase who had total and unhealthy control over us.
  • All human beings do narcissistic things, and when ACONs who aren't narcissists recognize and acknowledge their own self-centered behaviors, they sometimes worry that they're narcissists
  • They feel guilty about possibly having hurt someone's feelings, been self-centered, etc., and they panic. It can really be upsetting, even terrifying. And they beat themselves up mercilessly for it - because that's what they've been taught to do.
  • In order for someone to recognize, acknowledge and feel guilty about their own narcissistic behaviors, they first have to have a level of empathy and sense of emotional responsibility that narcissists, by definition, do not possess.
  • "If you're that worried about the impact of your behavior on others, and you're willing to publicly share your fear of being a narcissist, trust us, you're not one...you just have FLEAS."
izz aty

6 Signs of Narcissism You May Not Know About | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...cissism-you-may-not-know-about

narcissism psychology

shared by izz aty on 25 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 25 Aug 15
     
    Empathy Submitted by Mo on November 22, 2013 - 9:38pm t understand or keep track of long enough to really make changes) and with lots of therapy I have learned that I possess several narcissistic traits, probably due to how I was raised. It has taken a long time for me to accept this (lots and lots of fights and evidence of my behavior I could no longer deny) and I have a lot of therapy ahead of me to break these habitual behaviors that cause me and my loved ones much grief. I never knew thin
izz aty

Course Design | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University - 0 views

cft.vanderbilt.edu/...course-design

shared by izz aty on 04 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Tools for Teaching, by Barbara Gross Davis, offers a wealth of pragmatic and insightful tactics for designing, revising, and communicating with students about a course: Preparing or Revising a Course includes sections on defining and limiting course content, selecting textbooks and readings, setting course policies, and other administrative tasks. Creating a Syllabus lists twenty categories of information to consider including in a syllabus.
  • Radical Course Revision: A Case Study. In this article from the National Teaching and Learning Forum, Professor Julie Stout (Psychology, Indiana University) adapts principles from behavioral psychology in re-thinking course design, and includes sections on syllabus-building, linking grading to course goals, setting the right tone, and providing a safety net.
  • Course Planning and Teaching. This chapter, from Teaching at Carolina (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), offers two particularly useful templates: and Instructional Planning Chart (Figure 1), and a Taxonomy of Educated Objectives (Figure 2), based on Benjamin Bloom’s classic taxonomy. Additionally, the Focus of the Course section offers contrasting cases (Examples A and B) that distinguish between simply describing what will be covered in a course, and articulating specific learning outcomes.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Teaching Goals Inventory. This tool, originally created by Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo, contains 53 prompts to help instructors identify their goals for a particular course. This on-line version offers rapid self-scoring and data comparisons across goal areas and disciplines.
izz aty

Adult ADHD: 50 Tips of Management « Dr Hallowell ADHD and mental and cognitiv... - 0 views

www.drhallowell.com/ult-adhd-50-tips-of-management

health ADHD attention psychology 'mental health' brain society social science science medicine

shared by izz aty on 09 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • the single most powerful treatment for ADHD is understanding ADHD in the first place. Read books. Talk with professionals. Talk with other adults who have ADHD. You’ll be able to design your own treatment to fit your own version of ADHD.
  • It is useful for you to have a coach, for some person near you to keep after you, but always with humor. Your coach can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement or remind you to get back to work. Friend, colleague, or therapist (it is possible, but risky for your coach to be your spouse), a coach is someone to stay on you to get things done, exhort you as coaches do, keep tabs on you, and in general be in your corner. A coach can be tremendously helpful in treating ADHD.
  • ADHD adults need lots of encouragement. This is in part due to their having many self-doubts that have accumulated over the years. But it goes beyond that. More than the average person, the ADHD adult withers without encouragement and positively lights up like a Christmas tree when given it. They will often work for another person in a way they won’t work for themselves. This is not “bad”, it just is. It should be recognized and taken advantage of.
  • ...41 more annotations...
  • it equally if not more important for those around you to understand it–family, job, school, friends. Once they get the concept they will be able to understand you much better and to help you as well.
  • Try to get rid of the negativity that may have infested your system if you have lived for years without knowing what you had was ADHD
  • Listen to feedback from trusted others. Adults (and children, too) with ADHD are notoriously poor self-observers. They use a lot of what can appear to be denial.
  • Consider joining or starting a support group
  • Give up guilt over high-stimulus-seeking behavior. Understand that you are drawn to high stimuli. Try to choose them wisely, rather than brooding over the “bad” ones.
  • Don’t feel chained to conventional careers or conventional ways of coping. Give yourself permission to be yourself. Give up trying to be the person you always thought you should be–the model student or the organized executive, for example–and let yourself be who you are.
  • what you have is a neuropsychiatric condition. It is genetically transmitted. It is caused by biology, by how your brain is wired. It is NOT a disease of the will, nor a moral failing. It is NOT caused by a weakness in character, nor by a failure to mature. It’s cure is not to be found in the power of the will, nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain. ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS. Try as they might, many people with ADHD have great trouble accepting the syndrome as being rooted in biology rather than weakness of character.
  • External structure. Structure is the hallmark of the non-pharmacological treatment of the ADHD child. It can be equally useful with adults. Tedious to set up, once in place structure works like the walls of the bobsled slide, keeping the speedball sled from careening off the track.
  • Make frequent use of: ◦    lists ◦    color-coding ◦    reminders ◦    notes to self ◦    rituals ◦    files
  • Color coding. Mentioned above, color-coding deserves emphasis. Many people with ADHD are visually oriented. Take advantage of this by making things memorable with color: files, memoranda, texts, schedules, etc. Virtually anything in the black and white of type can be made more memorable, arresting, and therefore attention-getting with color.
  • try to make your environment as peppy as you want it to be without letting it boil over.
  • Now that you have the freedom of adulthood, try to set things up so that you will not constantly be reminded of your limitations.
  •  Make deadlines.
  •  Break down large tasks into small ones. Attach deadlines to the small parts. Then, like magic, the large task will get done. This is one of the simplest and most powerful of all structuring devices. Often a large task will feel overwhelming to the person with ADHD. The mere thought of trying to perform the task makes one turn away. On the other hand, if the large task is broken down into small parts, each component may feel quite manageable.
  • Prioritize. Avoid procrastination. When things get busy, the adult ADHD person loses perspective: paying an unpaid parking ticket can feel as pressing as putting out the fire that just got started in the wastebasket. Prioritize. Take a deep breath. Put first things first. Procrastination is one of the hallmarks of adult ADHD. You have to really discipline yourself to watch out for it and avoid it.
  • Accept fear of things going well. Accept edginess when things are too easy, when there’s no conflict. Don’t gum things up just to make them more stimulating.
  •  Notice how and where you work best: in a noisy room, on the train, wrapped in three blankets, listening to music, whatever. Children and adults with ADHD can do their best under rather odd conditions. Let yourself work under whatever conditions are best for you.
  • it is O.K. to do two things at once: carry on a conversation and knit, or take a shower and do your best thinking, or jog and plan a business meeting. Often people with ADHD need to be doing several things at once in order to get anything done at all.
  • Do what you’re good at. Again, if it seems easy, that is O.K. There is no rule that says you can only do what you’re bad at.
  •  Use “time-outs” as with children. When you are upset or overstimulated, take a time-out. Go away. Calm down.
  • Keep a notepad in your car, by your bed, and in your pocketbook or jacket. You never know when a good idea will hit you, or you’ll want to remember something else.
  • Read with a pen in hand, not only for marginal notes or underlining, but for the inevitable cascade of “other” thoughts that will occur to you.
  • Set aside some time in every week for just letting go
  • Recharge your batteries. Related to #30, most adults with ADHD need, on a daily basis, some time to waste without feeling guilty about it. One guilt-free way to conceptualize it is to call it time to recharge your batteries. Take a nap, watch T.V., meditate. Something calm, restful, at ease.
  • Many adults with ADHD have an addictive or compulsive personality such that they are always hooked on something. Try to make this something positive.
  • Understand mood changes and ways to manage these. Know that your moods will change willy-nilly, independent of what’s going on in the external world. Don’t waste your time ferreting out the reason why or looking for someone to blame. Focus rather on learning to tolerate a bad mood, knowing that it will pass, and learning strategies to make it pass sooner. Changing sets, i.e., getting involved with some new activity (preferably interactive) such as a conversation with a friend or a tennis game or reading a book will often help.
  • recognize the following cycle which is very common among adults with ADHD: Something “startles” your psychological system, a change or transition, a disappointment or even a success. The precipitant may be quite trivial. This “startle” is followed by a mini-panic with a sudden loss of perspective, the world being set topsy-turvy. You try to deal with this panic by falling into a mode of obsessing and ruminating over one or another aspect of the situation. This can last for hours, days, even months.
  • Plan scenarios to deal with the inevitable blahs. Have a list of friends to call. Have a few videos that always engross you and get your mind off things. Have ready access to exercise. Have a punching bag or pillow handy if there’s extra angry energy. Rehearse a few pep talks you can give yourself, like, “You’ve been here before. These are the ADHD blues. They will soon pass. You are O.K.”
  • Expect depression after success. People with ADHD commonly complain of feeling depressed, paradoxically, after a big success. This is because the high stimulus of the chase or the challenge or the preparation is over. The deed is done. Win or lose, the adult with ADHD misses the conflict, the high stimulus, and feels depressed.
  • Leave time between engagements to gather your thoughts. Transitions are difficult for ADHD’ers, and mini-breaks can help ease the transition.
  • Learn how to advocate for yourself. Adults with ADHD are so used to being criticized, they are often unnecessarily defensive in putting their own case forward. Learn to get off the defensive.
  • Avoid premature closure of a project, a conflict, a deal, or a conversation. Don’t “cut to the chase” too soon, even though you’re itching to.
  • Try to let the successful moment last and be remembered, become sustaining over time. You’ll have to consciously and deliberately train yourself to do this because you’ll just as soon forget.
  •  Remember that ADHD usually includes a tendency to overfocus or hyperfocus at times. This hyperfocusing can be used constructively or destructively. Be aware of its destructive use: a tendency to obsess or ruminate over some imagined problem without being able to let it go.
  •  Exercise vigorously and regularly. You should schedule this into your life and stick with it. Exercise is positively one of the best treatments for ADHD. It helps work off excess energy and aggression in a positive way, it allows for noise-reduction within the mind, it stimulates the hormonal and neurochemical system in a most therapeutic way, and it soothes and calms the body. When you add all that to the well-known health benefits of exercise, you can see how important exercise is. Make it something fun so you can stick with it over the long haul, i.e., the rest of your life.
  • Make a good choice in a significant other. Obviously this is good advice for anyone. But it is striking how the adult with ADHD can thrive or flounder depending on the choice of mate.
  • Learn to joke with yourself and others about your various symptoms, from forgetfulness, to getting lost all the time, to being tactless or impulsive, whatever. If you can be relaxed about it all to have a sense of humor, others will forgive you much more.
  • Schedule activities with friends. Adhere to these schedules faithfully. It is crucial for you to keep connected to other people.
  • Find and join groups where you are liked, appreciated, understood, enjoyed. Conversely, don’t stay too long where you aren’t understood or appreciated.
  • Pay compliments. Notice other people. In general, get social training, as from your coach.
  • Set social deadlines.
izz aty

RSA Animate - The Divided Brain - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

brain science bodies education learning health thinking society behaviour culture mcgilchrist psychiatry people psychology

shared by izz aty on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 17 Feb 12
     
    Renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our 'divided brain' has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. Taken from a lecture given by Iain McGilchrist as part of the RSA's free public events programme. To view the full lecture, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbUHxC4wiWk
izz aty

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story | Video on TED.com - 0 views

www.ted.com/..._danger_of_a_single_story.html

education literacy reading books literature writer stories storytelling writing perspective culture nigeria western society people community novel critical thinking children childhood psychology sociology race stereotypes english learning teaching referen

shared by izz aty on 18 Feb 12 - Cached
  • izz aty on 18 Feb 12
     
    Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.
izz aty

Double standards in sentencing - Story | The Star Online - 0 views

thestar.com.my/...story.asp

news malaysia politics sports discrimination crime rape court

shared by izz aty on 22 Aug 12 - Cached
  • even if one were to believe that the sanctity of the courts is so fragile that a punitively deterrent punishment is required for the flinging of footwear, it is impossible to ignore the incongruous disparity in the punishments meted out to these two men for crimes of such vastly different seriousness.
  • Much has been said about the judge’s unbelievable comment when sentencing Noor Afizal. Apparently being a national bowler with a bright future is enough to let you escape jail time for rape.
  • what is this “bright future” the judge is thinking about? The man is a child rapist; he confessed to it. He should not be allowed to represent the country in anything at all.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It does not matter in the slightest that children mature at different rates; what matters is that in general, this society believes that girls under the age of 16 are not yet ready to make decisions regarding their own sexual activity.
  • There are mental, psychological and also physiological elements to this need for protection.
  • The sexual act by itself could have implications for a child’s well-being, but a child from our society would surely be traumatised in the event that she got pregnant and had to face either childbirth or abortion. Furthermore in immature bodies, the experience can also be seriously harmful physically.
  • izz aty on 22 Aug 12
     
    HOSLAN Hussein gets one year in jail for inaccurately chucking (he missed) his slippers at a judge. Noor Afizal Azizan gets a fine and zero jail time for raping a 13-year-old girl. It boggles the mind. Hoslan's sentence, in my view, was very harsh and over the top.
izz aty

Muzakir Xynll - Google+ - 0 views

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literature poetry creative writing writing style writing ideas blog social phenomenon social issues social justice social science psychology people society outrospection empathy culture learning

shared by izz aty on 29 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 29 Jul 13
     
    "Introspection is out, and outrospection is in. Philosopher and author Roman Krznaric explains how we can help drive social change by stepping outside ourselves. "
izz aty

What Your Handwriting Says About You | Edudemic - 0 views

www.edudemic.com/...our-handwriting-says-about-you

handwriting research science psychology psychoanalysis writing personality people culture education learning reference

shared by izz aty on 30 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 30 Jul 13
     
    " Your penmanship says a lot about you. Through the study of it, you can learn a lot about yourself. From rounded letters to pointed letters, it's interesting to figure out what it means if you dot your i's a certain way or cross your t's a certain way."
izz aty

10 Tips berguna dari Child Psychiatrist (pakar mental kanak-kanak) | Adlil Rajiah - 0 views

saatakukaupilih.blogspot.com/...a-dari-child-psychiatrist.html

children family parenthood parenting society psychology sociology education learning

shared by izz aty on 12 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • 1. Biasakan dan kerapkan bawak anak main pasir, buih, rumput, dan plastesin. 
  • 2. Don't expose to too much things in a box. 
  • 3) Stimulate their imitation skills.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • 4) Banyakkan concept toys berbanding mainan superheroes, monsters, etc.
  • 5) Bila nak ajar anak bercakap, ajar word dulu, avoid sentence.
  • 6) Kalau budak takut strangers. Ask them to high-5. Avoid salam, hug or kiss.
  • 7) Bila anak buat salah. Explain instead of marah.
  • 8) Overly-attached to one person is not a good sign.
  • 9) Bila bermain, follow his interest. 
  • 10) Bagi pilihan jawapan untuk enhance communication skill anak.
izz aty

School Behavior Strategies: Helping ADHD Children with Impulse Control | ADDitude - Att... - 0 views

www.additudemag.com/...1037.html

ADHD mental health health psychology education school disability

shared by izz aty on 03 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • izz aty on 03 Apr 14
     
    "For children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder who are ruled by their impulses calling out in class or pushing to the front of the line comes naturally. These kids live in the moment, undeterred by rules or consequences. Lack of impulse control may be the most difficult ADHD symptom to change. Medication can help, but kids also need clear expectations, positive incentives, and predictable consequences if they are to learn to regulate their behavior."
izz aty

TheBananaKing comments on People with ADHD, what ADHD is like, how does medication affe... - 0 views

www.reddit.com/...c7wnp37

adhd mental health health psychology

shared by izz aty on 03 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Pomodoro technique for productivity
  • High-stimulation, reactive tasks (Quake 3 is perfect) to relax. What you need is not less input, as you just bounce off all your inner thoughts, but to stop trying to filter.
  • Personal whiteboard
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Don't overload the short-term memory of an ADDer. Give them a string of tasks, and they'll forget all but the last one. Give them a list, and ask for their full attention when they can give it, instead of asking them to pause for your request.
  • If we are managing to be productive, don't for god's sake interrupt us unless it's urgent. You can totally derail us for five times as long as the interruption/break itself.
  • izz aty on 03 Apr 14
     
    "ADHD is about having broken filters on your perception. Normal people have a sort of mental secretary that takes the 99% of irrelevant crap that crosses their mind, and simply deletes it before they become consciously aware of it. As such, their mental workspace is like a huge clean whiteboard, ready to hold and organize useful information. ADHD people... have no such luxury. Every single thing that comes in the front door gets written directly on the whiteboard in bold, underlined red letters, no matter what it is, and no matter what has to be erased in order for it to fit. As such, if we're in the middle of some particularly important mental task, and our eye should happen to light upon... a doorknob, for instance, it's like someone burst into the room, clad in pink feathers and heralded by trumpets, screaming HEY LOOK EVERYONE, IT'S A DOORKNOB! LOOK AT IT! LOOK! IT OPENS THE DOOR IF YOU TURN IT! ISN'T THAT NEAT? I WONDER HOW THAT ACTUALLY WORKS DO YOU SUPPOSE THERE'S A CAM OR WHAT? MAYBE ITS SOME KIND OF SPRING WINCH AFFAIR ALTHOUGH THAT SEEMS KIND OF UNWORKABLE. It's like living in a soft rain of post-it notes."
izz aty

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory | Talk Video | TED.com - 0 views

www.ted.com/...transcript

memory brain pain health suffering tedtalk experience remember psychology social science

shared by izz aty on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • cognitive traps. This applies to laypeople thinking about their own happiness, and it applies to scholars thinking about happiness, because it turns out we're just as messed up as anybody else is
  • cognitive traps. This applies to laypeople thinking about their own happiness, and it applies to scholars thinking about happiness, because it turns out we're just as messed up as anybody else is.
  • The first of these traps is a reluctance to admit complexity. It turns out that the word "happiness" is just not a useful word anymore, because we apply it to too many different things
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • The second trap is a confusion between experience and memory; basically, it's between being happy in your life, and being happy about your life or happy with your life. And those are two very different concepts, and they're both lumped in the notion of happiness.
  • he third is the focusing illusion, and it's the unfortunate fact that we can't think about any circumstance that affects well-being without distorting its importance. I mean, this is a real cognitive trap. There's just no way of getting it right.
  • They counted for nothing because he was left with a memory; the memory was ruined, and the memory was all that he had gotten to keep.
  • What this is telling us, really, is that we might be thinking of ourselves and of other people in terms of two selves.
  • There is an experiencing self, who lives in the present and knows the present, is capable of re-living the past, but basically it has only the present.
  • then there is a remembering self, and the remembering self is the one that keeps score, and maintains the story of our life, and it's the one that the doctor approaches in asking the question, "How have you been feeling lately?" or "How was your trip to Albania?" or something like that.
  • Those are two very different entities, the experiencing self and the remembering self, and getting confused between them is part of the mess about the notion of happiness.
  • the remembering self is a storyteller.
  • "How much did these patients think they suffered?" And here is a surprise. The surprise is that Patient A had a much worse memory of the colonoscopy than Patient B.
  • The stories of the colonoscopies were different, and because a very critical part of the story is how it ends. And neither of these stories is very inspiring or great -- but one of them is this distinct ... (Laughter) but one of them is distinctly worse than the other.
  • And the one that is worse is the one where pain was at its peak at the very end; it's a bad story. How do we know that? Because we asked these people after their colonoscopy, and much later, too, "How bad was the whole thing, in total?" And it was much worse for A than for B, in memory.
  • What defines a story? And that is true of the stories that memory delivers for us, and it's also true of the stories that we make up. What defines a story are changes, significant moments and endings. Endings are very, very important and, in this case, the ending dominated.
  • From the point of view of the experiencing self, if you have a vacation, and the second week is just as good as the first, then the two-week vacation is twice as good as the one-week vacation. That's not the way it works at all for the remembering self. For the remembering self, a two-week vacation is barely better than the one-week vacation because there are no new memories added. You have not changed the story. And in this way, time is actually the critical variable that distinguishes a remembering self from an experiencing self; time has very little impact on the story.
  • We actually don't choose between experiences, we choose between memories of experiences.
  • when we think about the future, we don't think of our future normally as experiences. We think of our future as anticipated memories.
  • basically you can look at this, you know, as a tyranny of the remembering self, and you can think of the remembering self sort of dragging the experiencing self through experiences that the experiencing self doesn't need.
  • we go on vacations, to a very large extent, in the service of our remembering self
  • Why do we put so much weight on memory relative to the weight that we put on experiences?
  • there is a conflict between your two selves, and you need to think about how to adjudicate that conflict, and it's actually not at all obvious, because if you think in terms of time, then you get one answer, and if you think in terms of memories, you might get another answer. Why do we pick the vacations we do is a problem that confronts us with a choice between the two selves.
  • The distinction between the happiness of the experiencing self and the satisfaction of the remembering self has been recognized in recent years, and there are now efforts to measure the two separately.
  • now we are capable of getting a pretty good idea of the happiness of the experiencing self over time. If you ask for the happiness of the remembering self, it's a completely different thing. This is not about how happily a person lives. It is about how satisfied or pleased the person is when that person thinks about her life. Very different notion. Anyone who doesn't distinguish those notions is going to mess up the study of happiness, and I belong to a crowd of students of well-being, who've been messing up the study of happiness for a long time in precisely this way.
  • You can know how satisfied somebody is with their life, and that really doesn't teach you much about how happily they're living their life, and vice versa.
  • What that means is if you met somebody, and you were told, "Oh his father is six feet tall," how much would you know about his height? Well, you would know something about his height, but there's a lot of uncertainty. You have that much uncertainty. If I tell you that somebody ranked their life eight on a scale of ten, you have a lot of uncertainty about how happy they are with their experiencing self. So the correlation is low.
  • if you want to maximize the happiness of the two selves, you are going to end up doing very different things.
  • it turns out that climate is not very important to the experiencing self and it's not even very important to the reflective self that decides how happy people are
  • their experiencing self is not going to get happier. We know that. But one thing will happen: They will think they are happier, because, when they think about it, they'll be reminded of how horrible the weather was in Ohio, and they will feel they made the right decision.
  • When we looked at how feelings, vary with income. And it turns out that, below an income of 60,000 dollars a year, for Americans
  • 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I've rarely seen lines so flat
  • money does not buy you experiential happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery, and we can measure that misery very, very clearly.
  • n terms of the other self, the remembering self, you get a different story. The more money you earn, the more satisfied you are. That does not hold for emotions.
  • people are going to debate whether they want to study experience happiness, or whether they want to study life evaluation, so we need to have that debate fairly soon.
  • How to enhance happiness goes very different ways depending on how you think, and whether you think of the remembering self or you think of the experiencing self.
  • CA: Well, it seems to me that this issue will -- or at least should be -- the most interesting policy discussion to track over the next few years. Thank you so much for inventing behavioral economics.
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