Posts Tagged ‘Psychology’
Why being easily embarrassed makes people like you more [Psychology]
29
Sep
Twitter-Mining Captures Global Mood Patterns
29
Sep
Hourly changes in average positive (top) and negative (bottom) affect, arrayed by time (X-axis) and day (color). (Golder et al./Science)
An analysis of mood patterns distilled from half a billion tweets has produced a civilization-scale picture of how moods rise and fall in tandem, over time and across the world.
The details seem intuitive: positive feelings peaking in the morning, dipping during work and rising at day’s end; negativity accumulated over the workweek dissipating late on Friday afternoon. But they’ve proved surprisingly tricky to measure.
“There’s a whole generation of lab work that’s been inconclusive,†said sociologist Scott Golder of Cornell University, co-author of the tweet analysis published Sept. 29 in Science. “Every study would have something different to say about what they saw in their subjects’ affective rhythms.â€
Many studies of how moods — or, more technically, positive and negative affect — change from minute to minute and day to day rely on self-reported surveys, which can be inconsistent if not misleading. The subjects of these studies also tend to be undergraduate students from western colleges, a group that’s not always representative of humanity at large.
'A systematic daily pattern of positive mood is a fundamental part of human existence.'
Twitter users, of course, don’t represent humanity either. But the culture- and globe-spanning size of the software platform’s community, and their constant generation of data that can be cross-referenced and correlated and otherwise computationally investigated, make them alluring to researchers.
“Twitter and Facebook, market transactions on eBay and Amazon: This is the stuff of everyday life†for much of the world, said Golder. “For a social scientist to have access to these records is a fantastic new opportunity.â€
Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, a text analysis program that quantifies the emotional content of statements, Golder and co-author Michael Macy analyzed a total of 509 million tweets generated over two years by 2.4 million people in 84 countries.
What Happens When
Before Scott Golder and Michael Macy decided to analyze tweets for mood, they were interested in analyzing tweets for patterns of behavior. Out of that work came a website, www.timeu.se, that allows people to see how often a particular word is used at different times of the day and week.
"My favorite example is that bacon is more popular than sausage," said Golder, "but I'm counting on the internet population to visit and tell us their favorite examples." Co-author Macy's favorite search term is "happy hour," and the database also shows that Saturday night really is alright for fighting.Though the proposition that mood is governed by circadian and sleep cycles is widely accepted, other studies of mood fluctuations have found varying patterns, especially for positivity: A single afternoon peak, a day-long plateau, dual peaks at noon and evening or afternoon and evening, a mid-afternoon dip. Those discrepancies may be based largely on factors eliminated by the new study.
“The findings are exciting, particularly the robustness of the daily patterns in positive affect across vastly different geographical areas and cultures,†said Brant Hasler, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “A systematic daily pattern of positive mood is a fundamental part of human existence.â€
However, said Hasler, “One must be very careful in extrapolating emotional state from a highly specific form of communication like Twitter.†People often present themselves strategically, and periods of especially intense emotion might be over- or under-represented.
The 140-character format itself might also be misleading, reducing the use of adjectives that would give more nuanced indicators of emotional tone, Hasler said.
According to Golder, analysis of crowd-generated datasets isn’t intended to replace other methodologies, but to complement them, providing yet one more way of investigating social patterns. Until recently, “there hasn’t been any practical way to observe large numbers of people in fine-grained detail,†he said.
“I applaud the creativity of the authors’ methods, and the ambitious scope of their sample,†said Hasler. “Now, we need to address two questions that follow from this: Why do these daily patterns exist? And how can we use this knowledge to improve our own lives and those of others?â€
Image: Golder et al./Science
Citation: “Diurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep, and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures.†By Scott A. Golder and Michael W. Macy. Science, Vol. 333, September 30, 2011.
See Also:
- Where Do Bad Moods Come From?
- Happy Words Trump Negativity in the English Language
- Honeybees Might Have Emotions
- Why Do Viral Videos Go Viral?
- Search Engines Change How Memory Works
How to see people, not just our reactions to them
13
Sep
When we encounter someone, usually the mind automatically slots the person into a category: man, woman, your friend Tom, the kid next door, etc. Watch this happen in your own mind as you meet or talk with a co-worker, salesclerk, or family member.
In effect, the mind summarizes and simplifies tons of details into a single thing – a human thing to be sure, but one with an umbrella label that makes it easy to know how to act. For example: “Oh, that’s my boss (or mother-in-law, or boyfriend, or traffic cop, or waiter) . . . and now I know what to do. Good.â€
This labeling process is fast, efficient, and gets to the essentials. As our ancestors evolved, rapid sorting of friend or foe was very useful. For example, if you’re a mouse, as soon as you smell something in the “cat†category, that’s all you need to know: freeze or run like crazy!
On the other hand, categorizing has lots of problems. It fixes attention on surface features of the person’s body, such as age, gender, attractiveness, or role. It leads to objectifying others (e.g., “pretty woman,†“authority figureâ€) rather than respecting their humanity. It tricks us into thinking that a person comprised of changing complexities is a static unified entity. It’s easier to feel threatened by someone you’ve labeled as this or that. And categorizing is the start of the slippery slope toward “us†and “them,†prejudice, and discrimination.
Flip it around, too: what’s it like for you when you can tell that another person has slotted you into some category? In effect, they’ve thingified you, turned you into a kind of “it†to be managed or used or dismissed, and lost sight of you as a “thou.†What’s this feel like? Personally, I don’t like it much. Of course, it’s a two-way street: if we don’t like it when it’s done to us, that’s a good reason not to do it to others.
The practice I’m about to describe can get abstract or intellectual, so try to bring it down to earth and close to your experience.
When you encounter or talk with someone, instead of reacting to what their body looks like or is doing or what category it falls into:
- Be aware of the many things they are, such as: son, brother, father, uncle, schoolteacher, agnostic, retired, American, fisherman, politically conservative, cancer survivor, friendly, smart, donor to the YMCA, reader of detective novels, etc. etc.
- Recognize some of the many thoughts, feelings, and reactions swirling around in the mind of the other person. Knowing the complexity of your own mind, try to imagine some of the many bubbling-up contents in their stream of consciousness.
- Being aware of your own changes – alert one moment and sleepy another, nervous now and calm later – see changes happening in the other person.
- Feeling how things land on you, tune into the sense of things landing on the other person. There is an experiencing of things over there – pleasure and pain, ease and stress, joy and sorrow – just like there is in you. This inherent subjectivity to experience, this quality of be-ing, underlies and transcends any particular attribute, identity, or role a person might have.
- Knowing that there is more to you than any label could ever encompass, and that there is a mystery at the heart of you – perhaps a sacred one at that – offer the other person the gift of knowing this about them as well.
At first, try this practice with someone who is neutral to you, that you don’t know well, like another driver in traffic or a person in line with you at the deli. Then try it both with people who are close to you – such as a friend, family member, or mate – and with people who are challenging for you, such as a critical relative, intimidating boss, or rebellious teenager.
The more significant the relationship, the more it helps to see beings, not bodies.
Related posts:
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- Guided Meditations for Busy People Bodhipaksa has recorded a CD (also available as a download)...
- Tips for busy people for a daily meditation practice Are you one of those people who would like to...
One in 25 business leaders may be a psychopath, study finds
01
Sep
Psychopaths use charm and manipulation to achieve success in the workplace, according to a US study
One out of every 25 business leaders could be psychopathic, a study claims.
The study, conducted by the New York psychologist Paul Babiak, suggests that they disguise the condition by hiding behind their high status, playing up their charm and by manipulating others.
Favourable environmental factors such as a happy childhood mean they can function in a workplace rather than channelling their energies in more violent or destructive ways. Revealing the results in a BBC Horizon documentary, Babiak said: "Psychopaths really aren't the kind of person you think they are.
"In fact, you could be living with or married to one for 20 years or more and not know that person is a psychopath.
"We have identified individuals that might be labelled 'the successful psychopath'.
"Part of the problem is that the very things we're looking for in our leaders, the psychopath can easily mimic.
"Their natural tendency is to be charming. Take that charm and couch it in the right business language and it sounds like charismatic leadership."
Babiak designed a 111-point questionnaire with Professor Bob Hare, of the University of British Columbia in Canada, a renowned expert in psychopathy. Hare believes about 1% of Americans can be described as psychopaths.
The survey suggests psychopaths are actually poor managerial performers but are adept at climbing the corporate ladder because they can cover up their weaknesses by subtly charming superiors and subordinates.
This makes it almost impossible to distinguish between a genuinely talented team leader and a psychopath, Babiak said. Hare told Horizon: "The higher the psychopathy, the better they looked – lots of charisma and they talk a good line.
"But if you look at their actual performance and ratings as a team player and productively, it's dismal. Looked good, performed badly.
"You have to think of psychopaths as having at their disposal a very large repertoire of behaviours. So they can use charm, manipulation, intimidation, whatever is required.
"A psychopath can actually put themselves in your skin, intellectually not emotionally.
"They can tell what you're thinking, they can look at your body language, they can listen to what you're saying, but what they don't really do is feel what you feel.
"What this allows them to do is use words to manipulate and con and to interact with you without the baggage of feeling your pain."
• Horizon: Are You Good Or Evil? is on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday 7 September
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
It’s official – most people can’t taste the difference
14
Apr
In a blind taste test, volunteers were unable to distinguish between expensive and cheap wine
An expensive wine may well have a full body, a delicate nose and good legs, but the odds are your brain will never know.
A survey of hundreds of drinkers found that on average people could tell good wine from plonk no more often than if they had simply guessed.
In the blind taste test, 578 people commented on a variety of red and white wines ranging from a £3.49 bottle of Claret to a £29.99 bottle of champagne. The researchers categorised inexpensive wines as costing £5 and less, while expensive bottles were £10 and more.
The study found that people correctly distinguished between cheap and expensive white wines only 53% of the time, and only 47% of the time for red wines. The overall result suggests a 50:50 chance of identifying a wine as expensive or cheap based on taste alone – the same odds as flipping a coin.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at Hertfordshire University, conducted the survey at the Edinburgh International Science Festival.
"People just could not tell the difference between cheap and expensive wine," he said. "When you know the answer, you fool yourself into thinking you would be able to tell the difference, but most people simply can't."
All of the drinkers who took part in the survey were attending the science festival, but Wiseman claims the group was unlikely to be any worse at wine tasting than a cross-section of the general public.
"The real surprise is that the more expensive wines were double or three times the price of the cheaper ones. Normally when a product is that much more expensive, you would expect to be able to tell the difference," Wiseman said.
People scored best when deciding between two bottles of Pinot Grigio, with 59% correctly deciding which was which. The Claret, which cost either £3.49 or £15.99, fooled most people with only 39% correctly identifying which they had tasted.
In 2008, a study led by Adrian North, a psychologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, claimed that music helped boost the flavour of certain wines. North, who was commissioned by a Chilean winemaker, reported that Cabernet Sauvignon was most affected by "powerful and heavy" music, while Chardonnay benefited from "zingy and refreshing" sounds.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
We can reverse the aging process in bees’ brains. Could humans be next? [Neuroscience]
21
Mar
If you want to force someone to do something, be sure to touch them first [Psychology]
17
Mar
Smelling bad actually makes you look uglier [Psychology]
06
Mar
Research proves online gaming at work is good for you – and for your boss [Mad Science]
04
Mar
Women’s tears might actually reduce men’s testosterone [Mad Science]
06
Jan
