Published in 2013 by Penguin Books, Timothy Wilson‘s book Redirect: Changing The Stories We Live By offers practical advice on being happier and more successful, from parenting to PTSD to teen pregnancies to drug and alcohol abuse and more… Continue reading “221. Critical Thinking: How The Stories You Tell Yourself Determine Your Perspective”
Tag: sociology
128. Sex & Love: Interpreting Body Language & Non-Verbal Flirting Cues
10 important lessons from this video:
00:00:23 Everybody has that 6th sense, but some humans are masters of it while others have no idea it exists. You’d be amazed at what you can understand about other people by simply observing their actions. Poker players call these subtle non-verbal cues tells – unintentional changes in a poker player’s behavior which provides clues as to the true value of the player’s poker hand, contrary to what the player is attempting to communicate.
Without these ‘tells,’ flirting – as well as sex as we know it – would cease to exist.
Hone your 6th sense, and then go to any bar, any club, or any party and you’ll be able to see the following non-verbal flirtatious behavior in action.
During four hours 30 singles (50% men & 50% women, all apparently heterosexual and British) were invited to a make-shift bar and cameras were set up to record every person’s movement.
The following observations were gleaned from this social experiment:
00:02:47 Upon the entering of a male into a woman’s vicinity, women begin flicking their hair, a sort of preening which allows the woman to:
- Flaunt her soft, bouncy, youthful cranial features
- Communicate to the man she has noticed his presence
- Capture the man’s attention among all the other shiny objects in the room
Once one woman has begun flicking her hair, other women will also begin competitively flicking their respective hair, ensuring that they are looking their best.
00:04:25 Men typically believe that it is them who initiate conversations, however it is in fact the woman who has – using a barrage of non-verbal cues such as smiling, staring, subtle glances and the above hair-flicking
– shown interest in the man and given the man permission to approach her.
It is these ‘less-than-a-second’ behaviors given by the woman that decide the fate of men, thus making courtship almost always a female choice.
The typical man, however, is ridiculously poor at reading women’s behavior and usually doesn’t register a woman’s subtle non-verbal cues, and so approach a woman convinced that it is in fact him taking the lead.
Awkward and socally-inept men either lacking the ability to correctly identify and then react to an ‘approach tell,’ or completely misunderstanding a woman’s behavior as an ‘approach tell’ are destined to find themselves akwardly rejected to no avail.
00:06:44 In situations where multiple female friends may be competing for the attentions of the same man, they will flirtatiously use their repective hair, mouths, eyes, neck, shoulders, increased body animation and physical contact in an attempt to attract and keep his attention.
Respectfully, while one woman employs her cues, her friends may politely look away, withdrawing to give her the temporary spotlight.
Men, once aroused by a particular woman, will keep an eye out for her, keeping her has the center of his attention and exchanging glances with her often to demonstrate that he is still interested in her and that she is still interested in him.
If a woman feels she has begun losing the attention of a man she is flirting with, often times she will revert once again to preening herself in an attempt to recapture his attention.
00:08:23 People who are interested in a person specifically will orient themselves toward that person with their legs crossed and their faces, torso and feet directly facing each other. They may even lean themselves against a nearby object, visibly demonstrating that everything and everyone else is less important.
As the mood changes and one or more of the people involved in a conversation wish the encounter to end, their body language will shift, facial expressions will become more controlled and their feet will begin pointing away from the person they were originally oriented towards.
00:09:31 Performed prominently by women, ‘eye popping’ is the act of closing one’s eyes and then suddenly opening them and gazing directly at their target with a loving stare.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: In their book The Definitive Book of Body Language, Allan & Barbara Pease explain that the ‘eye pop’ is effective because closing the eyes dilates the pupils. Dilated pupils are synomomous with attraction and protection. Babies’ pupils are typically dilated in an evolutionary attempt to demonstrate to its caregivers that it should be protected and cared for.
In advertising, female and baby model’s eyes are almost always photoshopped so that they are dilated. Doing this naturally draws the potential consumer’s attention to the model, and then to the product being sold. For more on advertising tricks, browse through my interviews with advertising professionals.
Conversely, Allan & Barbara Pease explain, the opposite of dilated eyes are ‘beady, snake-like eyes’ which give the impression that you are shady, untrustworthy, and dangerous.]
00:11:49 When third parties approach a group, the physical arrangement of the group members demonstrates alliances, and sides are drawn as the people in the group subconsciously gravitate towards the person/people they feel most comfortable with.
00:12:25 Men who view the presence of another man in the vicinity as a threat tend to react by giving off distress signals such as a more controlled and expression-less face, attempting to appear relaxed and in control, cleaning his teeth (his primitive animalistic weapons) with his tongue, and tucking his chin in in an attempt to protect himself.
00:13:41 Women flirt with men even when they are not sexually interested in him, partly because women consider flirting as good manners.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Personally, I consider the above argument moot, as my experience and critical thinking skills research has taught me that men are typically prone to associate ANY attention given to them by a woman as flirting.]
00:13:46 Often times, the parties involved in the flirting process will not be aware that they were involved in a flirting process. Men, being naturally poor female behavior decoders and convinced they are making the first move, approach women and are rejected, confused as to why the woman rejected him.
90. Human Resources Management: Social-Engineering in the 20th Century
http://www.openfilm.com/v/27189?c1=0x54abd6&c2=0x006699
35 Important takeaways from this documentary:
00:00:45 “Give me a baby, and I can make any kind of man.” –John B. Watson, founder of Behaviorism
00:01:03 “Behavior is predictable, and therefore controllable.”
00:01:50 “Fear can be conditioned.”
00:02:36 “The driving force in society is not love, but fear.”
00:07:19 “the maze is adopted as a symbol of hope that people can be controlled in a very scientific manner; that social life could be remade on the basis of scientific principles.” -Rebecca Lemov, author of World as Laboratory
00:08:10 “The science of behavior is based on the principles of operant conditioning, i.e. Behavior modification.”
00:09:07 “Behaviorism is the whole idea of behavior modification where you can use various kinds of techniques to modify people’s behaviors so that they stop doing what you don’t want them to do and that they start doing what you want them to do.” -George Ritzer, author of The McDonaldization of Society
00:10:00 “Behavorism suggests that organisms can be viewed as flesh and blood machines. Like machines, we require fuel. Like machines, we can be put to work for a specific cause. Like machines, we can be repaired, or redesigned for new purposes. And like machines, we can be compelled into performing a certain action at the push of a button.”
00:11:50 “Civilization comes with a light side and a dark side. Every civilization believes in it’s own propaganda, so it tends to emphasize the light side.” -Morris Berman, author of The Reenchantement of the World
00:12:10 “Tropism – any directed response by an organism to a constant stimulus”
00:12:29 “Julius Sachs’ work with plants begat Jaques Loeb’s work with insects begat, who begat Ivan Pavlov’s work with animals, who begat John B. Watson’s work with human beings. Watson was always interested in control.”
00:15:15 “Alongside the rise of Jim Crow segregation…Corporations developed a much more elaborate way to justify the fact that the wealthy corporate elite to explain the reason why. That reason became the basics of the Eugenics movement, you were either born with good genes, or not good genes.” -Sharon Smith – Historian.
00:16:20 (elaborating on the Eugenics movement) “Those that have good genes should be encouraged to reproduce, and those who are ‘unfit’ should be discouraged from reproducing.” -Sharon Smith – Historian
00:16:45 “Eugenics was rooted in the idea that you can A) recognize pre-biological differences of people based on their ethnicity, and that B) you could construct a policy that favors some ethnic groups over others, both in terms of immigration policy and in terms of integration into the U.S. society based on this hierarchy of heredity… It took root in universities. It took root in the highest offices of government. We see that this belief is going to play an important role in shaping immigration policy after the passage of the immigration act of 1924 which essentially creates a national quota system that favors immigrants based on their ethnicity and based on their nationality.” -Justin Chacon, author of No One is Illegal
00:18:58 “The Eugenics movement was created and funded by the corporate elites that ruled America coming into the 20th century. They funded these ‘research programs’…As the eugenics movement developed it went in a really horrible direction…” -Sharon Smith – Historian
00:22:40 Adam Smith warned that division of labor would create a human catastrophe for human society. Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of Scientific Management, disagreed. Taylor believed that factories could run far more efficiently if tasks were mechanized and broken down even further. On the surface, increased effeciency allows more products to be manufactured in a shorter amount of time.”
00:23:30 Below the surface, factory work was a highly-skilled labor, which meant that the power lied in with the workers. And workers could go on strike when they felt they were being treated unfairly. For management, this was an unacceptable bargaining chip. For Frederick Taylor, it was simply inefficient.
00:24:30 “Taylorism was certainly about de-skillling. It was about studying about what skilled workers did to decompose those tasks into their basic elements and then teaching people to do specific aspects of it without learning the entire set of it, or array of activities that were involved, and are involved for a skilled person. In that sense it’s a mechanism of control because it lets you dectate to people ‘well, you do this part of the entire task and you don’t do anything else and you dictate to 8,10, or 12 people various specfic aspects of the whole task rather than allowing a skilled person to decide how the entire task should be done… This takes power away from the workers and the collectivity of workers makes them less likely to be rebellious and less likely to form various kinds of movements that would operate against, broadly, the capitalist system.” -George Ritzer, author of The McDonaldization of Society
00:27:00 ” So instead of a thinking creative skilled worker, you had a kind of mindless kind of worker who repetively did the same task over and over again. That kind of worker is robot-like.” -George Ritzer, author of The McDonaldization of Society
00:27:41 “In the study ‘Where have all the robots gone’ by Herald Shepard and Neil Harrick? confirmed that people trapped in an unrewarding work life were not only more likely to be dissatisfied, but were also more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, a feeling of helplesness, alienation, and to be plagued by a variety of mental disorders. The least satisified workers were the least likely to vote or meet in any organisations.”
00:29:00 “The corporate entity is pathological because it drives towards profit regardless of the broader implications. It doesn’t matter if your drive toward profit induces pain and suffering, pollutes the environment, or literally destroys the society. You’re forced by the nature of the social relations inside and among corporations to pursue and accumulate profit.
00:28:21 “If you work in an environment where you’re beaten up all the time, and if you work in an environment that is so fragmented and so robs you of dignity and so robs you of the expression of your own capacities, then they’ll be diminished and you’ll be bored and reduced in your potentials, and you’re not too likely to take initiative in other domains either. This is why fragmenting of work is pursued. It weakens the workers. Not just on the job, but in their communities too. Which is what you want them to do so that they don’t take more of the income for themselves thus reducing profits for the elites. So it’s perfectly sensible approach from those at the top who are trying to stay there. What you’d have to do is create a new kind of economy in which these situations and these conditions don’t restrict our options.” -Michael Albert, author of Parecon
00:35:20 “Researchers found that the very act of allowing workers to talk about their feelings reduced the possibility of aggitation and rebellion. It made workers feel as if they mattered. Even if the social relations remained fundamentally the same.”
00:35:37 “The Hawthorne Experiments found was that no matter what changes were made, everytime they had made a change after having discussed it with employees, production went up and employee satisfaction went up. So what came out of (the experiments from a hierarchal context) was a industrial public relations school, mostly taken as a way to control employees by trying to manipulate them ideologically. I would say the wrong lesson was learned: put out a suggestion box so employees can feel they are being asked, but you don’t necessarily pay any attention to it… and in real teamwork organisations employees get to take each other into account. They begin caring about each other… Employees say ‘if we’re treated better, we’ll work better’…Now the broader social impact of doing these kinds of things… is that they become more collaborative and care more about each other.” -Stephen M. Sachs, Political Scientist
00:39:27 “In participatory economics (‘in a good ecomomy’), instead of organising economic life to keep a small sector of people on top and to enrich them beyond any sensibility, and to utilize productive apparatus, even when it entails doing things that are a complete waste of time – building missiles that will never be used, or (incomprehensive garble), we produce and distribute, for purposes of human fulfillment and development”
00:40:50 “Taylorism, combined with Human Management, make up the cornerstones in the 21st century. In China, scientific management has taken on nightmare-ic proportions. So extensive is the division of labor that millions of people are forced to perform roughly the same motion thousands of times a day. In the US, workers in some assembly plants are required to be in continual motion for up to 57 seconds a minute. In Indonesia, sweatshops owned by corporations like Nike chart productivity down to a thousandth of a second. Corporations are increasingly resorting to surveilance monitoring and computerized monitoring.”
00:41:52 “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he has learned in school” -Albert Einstein
00:41:57 “A primary reason why the mass of the American population resisted compulsory schooling was a widespread belief that it’s purpose had little to do with public education, and everything to do with control. Their suspicions were well founded.”
00:48:12 ”With graduation, the community receives a new supply of young people who want a better life on the one hand, and to bear the ability to work for it on the other. Now the tax investment returns to the taxpayer.”
00:48:35 Taylorism meets public education by way of the Gary Plan?, whereby “different subjects would be taught by different departments. Students would be herded from classroom to classroom in order to digest a stream of standardized factual information. Like Pavlov’s dogs, they would do so at the ring of bell.”
00:50:02 “You will not find the doctor’s son, however ignorant he is, in a class with the marginalized kids.” – John Taylor Gatto, author of Dumbing Us Down
00:53:41 “(Students) tend to pick the easiest possible tasks. That’s not because their being lazy, its because their being rational. If we tell kids we want to see a better report card, that we want to see higher grades, naturally they’ll pick the shortest book or the easiest project because that maximizes the chance of achieving that goal.” -Alfie Kohn, Education theorist
00:58:30 “Corporations claim they want kinds that can thin outside of the box, but only so far as they’re caught within a larger box that works to the advantage of the free market; which means that the market economy, based on competition, based on economic rather than human considerations, ends up controlling the system.” -Alfie Kohn, Education theorist
00:59:22 The frustration-aggression hypothesis was an attempt by behaviorists at Yale to combine their own science of behavior with that of the Freudians – When people perceive that they are prevented from receiving just rewards, their frustration is likely to turn to aggression.
01:00:25 Human beings are not rats. Armed with the necessary information, humans can come to a logical conclusion about whose to blame for our frustrations in life. Rightly or wrongly, we often point the finger back at ourselves.
78. Human Resources Management: Recruitment From Application To Offer (Pt. 1)
17 important takeaways from this video: Continue reading “78. Human Resources Management: Recruitment From Application To Offer (Pt. 1)”
Advertising today seems less interested in psychology and the social sciences than it was in the era of the early Mad Men episodes.
This seems absurd to me.
