I have been since the 10th grade. My school offered a psychology class. I took it and was blown away. I was shocked that something so valuable was an elective. It was like someone gave me a cheat code for my mind (and for figuring out other people’s weird-ass behaviors).
Years later, I returned to that school as a teacher and the class was no longer available. I offered to teach it (I have a Bachelor’s in the field) and did so for several years.
Anyway, here’s a thread to drop any info about psychology, human behavior, and mental machinery. Post studies, interesting articles, or your own observations or questions.
I don’t recall the source for this, but it’s fascinating:
A couple wanted to get rid of an old piece of furniture. It cost too much to have it hauled away, so they put it out on the curb with a “free” sign.
Days passed. No one wanted it. So, the clever couple changed the sign to “$15.”
What do you think happened?
Nope, they didn’t sell it – someone immediately stole it! But that solved their problem: they paid nothing to get rid of an unwanted item.
Lots of fun psychology going on there. (I’ll let you extrapolate it.)
I saw an article recently about Christian men and porn addiction. The gist was: “They’re super addicted!” But this was a gen-pop article and something seemed off, so I looked into the actual research.
• Statistics show that Christian and non-Christian men are about the same when it comes to viewership, with 55% of Christian men viewing porn once per week on average, while non-Christian men = 56%.
• However, the article saying that Christian men are “very addicted” is misleading. “Addiction” in that case is self-reported. A study by Grubbs et al. found that people with strong religious commitments often perceive their pornography use as an “addiction” even when usage is infrequent. This has lead to the coining of a new term: Perceived Addiction to Pornography. In short, Christian men are more likely to use the term addiction because of their moral/ethical conflicts.
I do think that porn can be destructive for many men for many reasons, but the article attempting to bash Christians as the “worst offenders” was in error.
There’s a lesson here for journalists assigned to write about mental health: read several studies, not just the abstract of one study.
So true. I think most online news sources are pushing their writers to produce more content, so journalists with no background in fitness/health are just churning out content based on quick skims of the research.
I remember a series of articles years ago about “The Worst Foods at ____.” Airports, schools, certain restaurants, stadiums, etc. I checked the source – who was rating these foods? Turns out it was a vegan group. They did the “research” and put out a lot of press releases which were quickly gobbled up and reused by content-hungry journalists. Obviously, the worst foods were meat and eggs. Wonder why?
A lot of the « classic psychology » studies have been difficult to replicate or disproven. But I agree some of it is interesting. And much has been shown time and time again.
I was reading about music played outside convenience stores to discourage loiterers. There is a strip mall here that plays classical music over loudspeakers. You rarely see people hanging outside, though the stores are filled with young’uns. But one morning they weren’t playing any music. A big bunch of graybeards were hanging outside at length chatting, so I gently made fun of them, pointing out how no music was playing.
More to the book, it talks about the acoustics of crying babies. Loud enough to be grating and demand attention. But not high pitched enough to cause aggression. The loud parts are at frequencies that don’t travel far, thought to minimize attracting unwanted attention from animals or rival troublemakers. Both men and women brains light up on fMRI when hearing a crying baby, more so women. (Surprised? No you are not).
It also mentions that older hearing has a smaller audible spectrum than younger ears. To discourage British teenage hoodlums, a company supposedly made a sound annoying to those under 30 but not noticeable to those over 30. To me, this sounds like marketing; surely spectra overlap and results vary. But it was claimed to be effective and popular. Similar claims have been made for ringtones teenagers can hear but teachers can’t, (which seems equally dicey), or things used to dissuade mice or wandering dogs. (The sound thing did not reduce the occasional mouse in my house.)
Would be curious to know if anyone has encountered these « age sensitive » sounds and whether they work very well or are just marketing BS (my suspicion).
I was just showing these to my son. He has a music program on his computer with frequency generator and visual display. To demonstrate to him the differences in hearing ranges of me, a 52 year old man with a lifetime of heavy industrial work experience, my wife, and his.
Mine clipped out first at lowest frequency, like 14, 15 Khz.
Wifes second, his third, at like dog whistle, ultra sound freq. Like 17Khz+ where the computers speakers probably failed before his hearing did.
So thats the non kid friendly frequency. Above like 15Khz or so.
Also @Chris_Shugart , I’m super interested in people watching and behavior in general. My own, others, pets, all kinds.
From the documentary, Irresistible: Why We Can’t Stop Eating:
Everyone recognizes the unique Pringles tube. Years ago, Pringles had decreasing sales. One idea was the make the tube bigger so the chips were easier to grab and consume.
But one guy who worked for Pringles, a Sensory Food Consultant Professor, nixed the idea. He pointed out that “…the tubes are designed to be too small for our hands to mimic the feeling of foraging. And that searching out, that’s increasing your desire.” We eat more because they’re kinda hard to reach.
Funny how many ways we’re being psychologically manipulated. Well, not us, but ya know, normies.
Almost related: My dad once had a guy working for him who’d bring a tube of Pringles and a bottle of chocolate syrup with him every day to work. He’d transfer the Pringles into a big plastic bag, crush them up, cover them in chocolate syrup, and eat them with a spoon. He’s dead now. (Probably.)
Back when I was getting a teaching degree (before that study above was conducted), the profs liked to point to the studies where students are told they’re gifted based on a fake IQ test. It was actually randomized: some kids were “gifted” and other weren’t. The kids who were told they were gifted DID start performing better academically. But, the later study above shows how this can backfire.
Also, when everyone is “gifted” you start to run into the same problems that DEI causes.
Oh, absolutely. Jim Morrison was right! People are strange! And fascinating.
My one cat, who I believed was the smartest of all of our other cats for other reasons, cracked our dogs code.
My dog was kind of averse to other animals when eating or sleeping. But smart kitty really wanted to cuddle up with her. She was always rebuffed with a low growl.
So smart kitty, who loved rabbits, started bringing them back from her hunting forays and giving them to doggy. Before long, doggy became less grumpy with smart kitty and began letting her cuddle up and sleep with her. After that, they became inseparable.
I do this with my kiddo. Fortunately I had you & PP to coach me early on.
So he was tested for the gifted program last year. He was a few points short, so that was a no go. But he was moved into the AP math & ELA.
Prior to testing he was finishing each grading period in the 102-105% range for each of those classes.
Now into the AP instead of gifted- hes finishing in the 105-107% range. So he’s actually maxing out the scores and extra credit by a slightly better margin than he was in the regular classes.
When I compliment him its always “Good work” or “Great effort kiddo!” or “Hey! That studying really paid off!”.
I attended the Indiana Academy for Science, Math and Humanities, a public high school for “gifted and talented” students. It is located on Ball State University campus. The only thing my parents had to pay was book rental. Room and board was taxpayer funded. 150 students were accepted from the entire state per class.
I’m not sure what it is like today, but in those first few years I don’t think it was achieving anything special. I’m sure a lot of psychologists got plenty to study out of the whole situation.
A lot of kids left that institution on some bad personal paths, even though our teachers were all fantastic with no limits on the curriculum. I think most of us would have done just as well if not better staying at home with our parents, attending our normal schools.
My book says that nowadays, someone tries to manipulate you more than 400 times a day. (Thought about adding Blade Runner quote about turtles but decided against it.)
People like messy foods, and apparently on many levels love the orange crud that builds up on your fingers from Cheezy Poofs.
One of the things I learned by first attending that school and then going on to survive for the next 27 years is that high intelligence is (or was, at the time) overrated. High aptitude was a primary requirement for entry and we had to take the SAT’s as sophomores as part of the application process.
Small sample size, but the most brilliant among my class have been some of the most troubled people I’ve known, but that’s no shocker. The Unabomber was an incredible genius.
Whether or not it is a good idea to pull 16 year-olds out of their homes and stick them into dorms, make them all feel like they are extra special compared to other kids, and then get the best professors you can find to teach them all of their wild ideas is probably an impossible question to answer.
Beavis and Butthead give us all the insight that is really needed into gifted and talented kids. Mike Judge just has a way of summing things up succinctly.
