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Creative people are more likely to cheat than less creative people, possibly because this talent increases their ability to rationalize their actions, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“Greater creativity helps individuals solve difficult tasks across many domains, but creative sparks may lead individuals to take unethical routes when searching for solutions to problems and tasks,” said lead researcher Francesca Gino, PhD, of Harvard University. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a scene about someone who cheats. What is the inner monologue that the person goes through to rationalize the cheating?
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time you cheated. How did you rationalize it to yourself?
Art Prompt: Cheat
Photo Credit: Casey Serin on Flickr
People who loved her always said Bessie’s face was better than a beautiful one, for it told nothing but the truth about itself. It did not say, “Come, admire me,” as some faces say, but, “Come, trust me if you can.” -Our Bessie, Rosa N. Carey
Writing Prompt: Describe a person’s face without using a physical description.
Journaling Prompt: Describe your own face as you would like people to see you.
Art Prompt: Honest face
Photo Credit: cinnamon_girl on Flickr.
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Have you ever been put into an extreme situation where you had to make a difficult decision in order to survive?
He was the man who ate his shoes, and had been for twenty-three years, ever since he returned to England in 1822 after his first, failed overland expedition across northern Canada to find the North-West Passage. He remembered the sniggers and jokes upon his return. Franklin had eaten his shoes — and he’d eaten worse on that botched three-year journey, including tripe-de-roche, a disgusting gruel made from lichen scraped from rocks. Two years out and starving, he and his men — Franklin had dazedly divided his troop into three groups and left the other two bands to survive or die on their own — had boiled the uppers on their boots and shoes to survive. Sir John — he was just John then, he was knighted for incompetency after a later overland voyage and botched polar expedition by sea — had spent days in 1821 chewing on nothing more than scraps of untanned leather. His men had eaten their buffalo sleeping robes. Then some of them had moved on to other things. But he had never eaten another man. -Dan Simmons, The Terror: A Novel
Writing Prompt: Write about a character in a life and death situation. What does he or she do to survive?
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever been in a life or death situation? What did you do to survive? If you’ve never been in this kind of situation, write about one that you know about, either about someone you know or something you’ve seen on the news.
Art Prompt: Arctic Survival
Photo Credit: Instant Vantage on Flickr
Some people are natural leaders, but it’s important to know whether their leadership derives from a motivation of service or narcissism.
“Narcissism can sometimes be useful in a leader, says Nevicka. In a crisis, for instance, people feel that a strong, dominant person will take control and do the right thing, ‘and that may reduce uncertainty and diminish stress.’
“But in the everyday life of an organization, ‘communication — sharing of information, perspectives, and knowledge — is essential to making good decisions. In brainstorming groups, project teams, government committees, each person brings something new. That’s the benefit of teams. That’s what creates a good outcome.’ Good leaders facilitate communication by asking questions and summarizing the conversation — something narcissists are too self-involved to do.
“Nevicka says the research has implications beyond the workplace — for instance, in politics. ‘Narcissists are very convincing. They do tend to be picked as leaders. There’s the danger: that people can be so wrong based on how others project themselves. You have to ask: Are the competencies they project valid, or are they merely in the eyes of the beholder?’” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Create a character sketch for both a servant leader and a narcissistic leader. How do they differ?
Journaling Prompt: Write about leaders you have worked with and their motivations.
Art Prompt: Narcissistic leader
Photo Credit: Beverly & Pack on Flickr
Sorry, the picture is completely unrelated. I just preferred to put up a geeky sci fi dog picture rather than one of John Stuart Mill. I’m sure John Stuart Mill is handsome, but, well, look at that poodle! How cool is that? OK, back to the word of the week:
avatar n. an incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea: he chose John Stuart Mill as the avatar of the liberal view. from Sanskrit avatara ‘descent’, from ava ‘down’ + tar- ‘to cross’.
Writing Prompt: Write an ode to your favorite avatar.
Journaling Prompt: Who has served as an avatar for you? Why?
Art Prompt: Avatar
Photo Credit: greg westfall. on Flickr
It’s not a surprise that people born into wealth think differently than than people born into a lower class background. I was surprised, however, at the conclusions the authors came to.
“People who come from a lower-class background have to depend more on other people. “If you don’t have resources and education, you really adapt to the environment, which is more threatening, by turning to other people,” Keltner says. “People who grow up in lower-class neighborhoods, as I did, will say,’ There’s always someone there who will take you somewhere, or watch your kid. You’ve just got to lean on people.’”
“Wealthier people don’t have to rely on each other as much. This causes differences that show up in psychological studies. People from lower-class backgrounds are better at reading other people’s emotions. They’re more likely to act altruistically. “They give more and help more. If someone’s in need, they’ll respond,” Keltner says. When poor people see someone else suffering, they have a physiological response that is missing in people with more resources. “What I think is really interesting about that is, it kind of shows there’s all this strength to the lower class identity: greater empathy, more altruism, and finer attunement to other people,” he says. Of course, there are also costs to being lower-class. Health studies have found that lower-class people have more anxiety and depression and are less physically healthy.
Upper-class people are different, Keltner says. “What wealth and education and prestige and a higher station in life gives you is the freedom to focus on the self.” In psychology experiments, wealthier people don’t read other people’s emotions as well. They hoard resources and are less generous than they could be.
“One implication of this, Keltner says, is that’s unreasonable to structure a society on the hope that rich people will help those less fortunate. “One clear policy implication is, the idea ofnobless oblige or trickle-down economics, certain versions of it, is bull,” Keltner says. “Our data say you cannot rely on the wealthy to give back. The ‘thousand points of light’ — this rise of compassion in the wealthy to fix all the problems of society — is improbable, psychologically.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Write a character sketch. What is your character’s background? How is this expressed in her strengths and weaknesses?
Journaling Prompt: What socioeconomic class did you grow up in? Do you agree or disagree with this research? Why or why not?
Art Prompt: Thousand Points of Light
Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon on Flickr
Have you ever wondered what people are getting out of playing video games? I always thought it was pure escapism, but it seems that it is much more than that.
“A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,” explained Dr. Przybylski. “The attraction to playing videogames and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.”
The research found that giving players the chance to adopt a new identity during the game and acting through that new identity — be it a different gender, hero, villain — made them feel better about themselves and less negative.
Looking at the players’ emotion after play as well their motivation to play, the study found the enjoyment element of the videogames seemed to be greater when there was the least overlap between someone’s actual self and their ideal self.
“When somebody wants to feel they are more outgoing and then plays with this personality it makes them feel better in themselves when they play,” explained Dr. Przybylski. -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: What video game would each of your characters want to play in order to experience being their ideal self? Write about what they are feeling as they play the game.
Journaling Prompt: What is your favorite game? How do you feel when you are playing it? What do you get out of the experience of playing it?
Art Prompt: Video game
Photo Credit: Sebastian Fritzon on Flickr
I have been accused of being anal retentive, an over-achiever, and a compulsive perfectionist, like those are bad things. -Lisa Yee, Millicent Min, Girl Genius
Writing Prompt: List your character’s weaknesses and strengths. How are her weaknesses actually strengths that will help her in your story? How are her strengths actually weaknesses that will create difficulties for her?
Journaling Prompt: How do people misjudge your strengths as weaknesses?
Art Prompt: Perfectionist
Photo Credit: babukadja on Flickr
People are very complicated, rather than all bad or all good. Even a “good” character may base their behavior on whether they think others will see the consequences of their actions.
…people tend to make decisions on the basis of their self-image. If they believe themselves to be “fair” or “generous,” for example, they avoid actions that are clearly egoistic in nature, so as to avoid contradicting their own self-image. However, if… they are able to ignore the consequences for other people, they find it easier to maintain a positive self-image, even if they their behaviour is selfish. “If the consequences are clearly visible, many participants decide to act fairly,” reports Astrid Matthey: “However, if it is possible to ignore the consequences, it is clearly more difficult to opt for a ‘generous’ decision, and many change their behaviour and select the egoistic alternative.” -Science Daily
Writing Prompt: Explore how your characters justify their actions and why.
Journaling Prompt: How do other people observing you affect your decisions?
Art Prompt: Self-image
Photo Credit: One Laptop per Child on Flickr
Sylvester Stallone created an entire career playing the Warrior archetype, first in the Rocky series and then more directly in the Rambo series. We are fascinated by stories about the warrior archetype, but what happens when you take the warrior out of the war zone?
“Teach a man to kill, as in war, and then you have to recondition him later.“But during these same wars we also develop another type. He is the born commando, the secret agent, the expendable man who lives on action. There are not many of this kind, and they are potent weapons. In peacetime that particular collection of emotions, nerve, and skills becomes a menace to the very society he has fought to preserve during a war. He is pressured by the peaceful environment into becoming a criminal or a misfit.”…History is sentimental about that type–when he is safely dead–but the present finds him difficult to live with. -Andre Norton, The Time Traders
Writing Prompt: Create a character based on the warrior archetype and place him into a peaceful setting.
Journaling Prompt: Write about someone you know with a strongly expressed warrior archetype.
Art Prompt: Warrior
Photo Credit: The U.S. Army on Flickr
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I believe that the most important thing about writing is to HAVE FUN! You can worry about things like commas, point of view, tenses, etc., later. Right now, just start writing!
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