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Currently viewing the tag: "psychology"
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“What a Fuller Man did was virtuosic. ‘The Fuller art of opening doors was regarded by connoisseurs of cold-turkey peddling in somewhat the same way that balletomanes esteem a performance of the Bolshoi — as pure poetry,’ American Heritage wrote. ‘In the hands of a deft Fuller dealer, brushes became not homely commodities but specialized tools obtainable nowhere else.’ Yet he was also virtuous, his constant presence in neighborhoods turning him neighborly. ‘Fuller Brush Men pulled teeth, massaged headaches, delivered babies, gave emetics for poison, prevented suicides, discovered murders, helped arrange funerals, and drove patients to hospitals.’ ” -Daniel H. Pink, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story, scene, poem, or haiku involving a door-to-door salesman.
Journaling Prompt: How do you react to sales tactics? What works and what doesn’t if someone is trying to sell you something? Why do you react the way you do?
Art Prompt: Fuller Brush Man
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Tell your audience how they can become better at sales through studying the example of the Fuller Brush Man.
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“Intense focusing on a task can make people effectively blind, even to stimuli that normally attract attention. The most dramatic demonstration was offered by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons in their book The Invisible Gorilla. They constructed a short film of two teams passing basketballs, one team wearing white shirts, the other wearing black. The viewers of the film are instructed to count the number of passes made by the white team, ignoring the black players. This task is difficult and completely absorbing. Halfway through the video, a woman wearing a gorilla suit appears, crosses the court, thumps her chest, and moves on. The gorilla is in view for 9 seconds.
“Many thousands of people have seen the video, and about half of them do not notice anything unusual. It is the counting task — and especially the instruction to ignore one of the teams — that causes the blindness. No one who watches the video without that task would miss the gorilla. Seeing and orienting are automatic functions of System 1, but they depend on the allocation of some attention to the relevant stimulus. The authors note that the most remarkable observation of their study is that people find its results very surprising. Indeed, the viewers who fail to see the gorilla are initially sure that it was not there — they cannot imagine missing such a striking event. The gorilla study illustrates two important facts about our minds: we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” -Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a scene where your protagonist misses an important detail because he or she is intensely focused on an absorbing task.
Journaling Prompt: Write about a time when you missed something obvious because you were distracted by something else.
Art Prompt: Invisible Gorilla
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the consequences of intense focus, then tell them what they might be missing.
Photo Credit: Abhinav Mishra on Flickr
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People seeking shelter during tornadoes and cyclones are often called back, or delayed, by people doing normal activities, who refuse to believe the emergency is happening. These people are displaying what’s known as normalcy bias. About 70% of people in a disaster do it. Although movies show crowds screaming and panicking, most people move dazedly through normal activities in a crisis. This can be a good thing; researchers find that people who are in this state are docile and can be directed without chaos. They even tend to quiet and calm the 10-15% of people who freak out.
The downside of the bias is the fact that they tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately. The main source of delay masquerades as the need to get more data. Scientists call this “milling.” People will usually get about four opinions on what’s going on and what they should do before taking any action — even in an obvious crisis. People in emergency situations report calling out to others, asking, “What’s going on?” When someone tells them to evacuate, or to take shelter, they fail to comply and move on, asking other people the same question. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story using normalcy bias to create conflict.
Journaling Prompt: When do you tend to deny danger, whether it’s a tornado or something more abstract, like overdue bills? How do you act?
Art Prompt: Normalcy Bias
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about normalcy bias and how it reveals information about our ability to deny what is in front of us. Give your audience strategies to break through denial.
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If you’ve found yourself wandering zombie-like through a mall or a grocery store, looking around and hoping that something will catch your eye, many would say that you’ve been the victim of a Gruen Transfer. The “transfer” is the moment when you stop shopping for something in particular, and start just shopping in general. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Take your character on a shopping trip.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever been the victim of the Gruen Transfer, or do you go window shopping on purpose?
Art Prompt: Gruen Transfer
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Inform your audience about the Gruen Transfer and give them some strategies to avoid it.
Photo Credit: rowens27 on Flickr
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Archie Sheridan slept with the light on. -Chelsea Cain, Kill You Twice
Fiction Writing Prompt: Use the first line of the week as the starting point or inspiration for a scene, story, poem, or haiku.
Journaling Prompt: Have you ever slept with a night light? Why or why not?
Art Prompt: Sleeping with the light on
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Give your audience information on how to establish healthy sleeping habits.
Photo Credit: creating in the dark on Flickr
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The things that really make people fuming mad tend to be things that we can rarely speak up about without blowing the problem out of proportion. This is why people are so glad to vent their anger when anyone brings up petty offenses. They’re finally in a situation when they can express the full frustration they feel. Everyone has had experience with these kind of minor irritations, so outrage over relatively minor stuff becomes huge. That outrage, of course, doesn’t solve the problem. -Esther Inglis-Arkell
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. What is your character really angry about? What are the minor annoyances that he or she talks about instead?
Journaling Prompt: What are you angry about that you can’t talk about?
Art Prompt: Outrage over Petty Offenses
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: How do you blow off the steam that builds up because you can’t effectively deal with your deepest issues? Give your audiences some strategies they can use.
Photo Credit: joshjanssen on Flickr
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“For people who already feel separate from the crowd, social rejection can be a form of validation,” says Johns Hopkins Carey Business School assistant professor Sharon Kim, the study’s lead author. “Rejection confirms for independent people what they already feel about themselves, that they’re not like others. For such people, that distinction is a positive one leading them to greater creativity.”
Social rejection has the opposite effect on people who value belonging to a group: It inhibits their cognitive ability. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write about a character who values being part of a group and their experience with rejection. Write the same story but this time with a character who already feels separate from the crowd.
Journaling Prompt: How do you react when you are rejected?
Art Prompt: Social Rejection and Creativity
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about your experiences with rejection and give your audience information on how to constructively handle rejection.
Photo Credit: Janet 59 on Flickr
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…parents from different social classes teach their children different lessons about interacting with institutions. …parents help to perpetuate inequalities not only through what they do for their children, such as equipping them with different resources or opportunities, but also through what they teach children to do for themselves. -Science Daily
Fiction Writing Prompt: Add to your character sketch. How did your protagonist’s parents teach social interaction and how does that affect your protagonist in your story? (Click through and read the entire article to learn how social class affects what parents teach children.)
Journaling Prompt: What is the most valuable lesson your parents taught you?
Art Prompt: Parent teaching Child
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the essential lessons that parents must teach their children.
Photo Credit: Nationaal Archief on Flickr
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The human mind can achieve fantastic things. One of them is ‘…our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance…’ – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Source: David Ropeik, Big Think)
Fiction Writing Prompt: What is your character ignoring about his or her ignorance? Add to your character sketch.
Journaling Prompt: What areas of ignorance do you prefer to ignore in your life?
Art Prompt: Denial of Ignorance
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the psychological phenomenon of denial.
Photo Credit: jungmoon on Flickr
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Do we lose our sense of moral responsibility in a crowd? This condition is called “the diffusion of responsibility” in social science, or “the bystander effect.” The idea is that you would help a stranger if you were alone, but you are less inclined to be a good samaritan when part of a crowd. -Daniel Honan
Fiction Writing Prompt: Write a story or scene utilizing the bystander effect.
Journaling Prompt: Would you help a stranger if you were in a crowd of people? Why or why not?
Art Prompt: Bystander Effect
Non-Fiction / Speechwriting Prompt: Write about the bystander effect and give your audience information about how they can choose to be different.
Photo Credit: ..c.m… on Flickr
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