PSYCHOLOGY

Date: 24.02.2014
1. Kubler-Ross Model
Commonly known as 'Five stages of grief'
You might have heard about it from numerous sources be it TV series, movies or books. The original
study says that when a person is faced with the reality of impending death or other extreme, awful
fate, he or she will experience a series of emotional stages:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Denial "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me."

Anger "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?"
Bargaining "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."
Depression "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon so what's the
point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"
5. Acceptance "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."
Kbler-Ross originally applied these stages to people suffering from terminal illness. However, it
was later expanded to apply to any form of catastrophic personal loss such as the death of a loved
one, major rejection, end of a relationship or divorce, drug addiction, incarceration, the onset of a
disease or chronic illness, an infertility diagnosis, as well as many tragedies and disasters.
It really amazes me how accurately it predicts human behavior and response when I compare it
with some of my personal experiences. One of my favorite applications of this model is 'Grieving a
Break Up'

Denial The person left behind is unable to admit that the relationship is really over. They may
continue to call the former partner when that entire person wants is to be left alone.
Anger When reality sets in that the relationship really is over, it is common to demand to know
why they are breaking up. The partner left behind may feel as though they are being treated
unfairly and it may cause them to become angry at people close to them who want only to help.
Bargaining After the anger stage, the one left behind may plead with their former partner by
promising that whatever caused the breakup will never happen again. Example: I can change.
Please give me a chance.
Depression Next the person might feel discouraged that his or her bargaining plea did not
convince the former partner to stay. This may send the person into depression causing disruption
to life functions such as sleeping, eating and even daily bowel movements.

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Acceptance Moving on from the situation and the person is the last stage. The partner left behind
accepts that the relationship is over and begins to move forward with his or her life. She or He may
not be completely over the situation but is weary of going back and forth, so much so that they can
accept the separation as reality.

2. The Stanford Prison Experiment

You can turn a normal person into a sadist torturer by simply giving them a position of
power.

3. Bystander Effect
You might want to believe that if you are in an accident or emergency, you would have a greater
chance of being rescued if you are in a crowded place. But countless experiments and incidents
have proven exactly the opposite. The greater the number of observers, the less likely it is that
one of them will help you. This is due to a phenomenon called Diffusion of responsibility
whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are
present.

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4. Pratfall Effect
With a few hazily remembered weekends already behind us this semester, weve all had plenty of
opportunities to make complete asses of ourselves. Whether it was waking up with a penis
scrawled in permanent marker across your forehead or a pile of vomit at the foot of your bed,
youve probably already made yourself look incredibly stupid.
Its shameful enough to screw up in front of friends, but its all the more embarrassing when your
blunders occur before a potential sexual partner. The accidental indulgence of idiocy in front of
someone attractive is a concern we all share. It may even keep us from flirting with that cutie across
the room, frozen with fear of a potential faux pas.

But what you have failed to realize is that looking like an idiot is totally sexy.
If youve ever taken Intro Psych, our formerly-mustachioed Provost has probably guest lectured to
you about the wonders of the Pratfall Effect that fantastical psychological phenomenon that
causes us to perceive someone whom we already consider competent as even more attractive if
they exhibit a gaffe. And to impress someone at a place like Yale, this trick is your best bet.
Weve all jumped through enough hoops just to get herethus, were all already convinced of one
anothers competence. So what nugget do you have to set yourself apart from the others? Little
snippets of ineptitude. Thats right, if someone already finds you fetching but cant quite decide
whether or not to take you home, a goof-up may be just the edge you need. So dont sweat the full
Keystone you spilled on his jeans or the accidental smack to the face you gave her with an
overzealous hand gesture. A number of your lovebird peers began on worse footing than you, only
to rebound with pride.
Perhaps the most successful love story at Yale that Im aware of began with a night of utter
embarrassment. Standard Yale party. Girl meets boy. Exchange of smiles, then tongues. The pair
falls romantically into each others arms for the night. That is, until her stomach turns and she barfs
in his bed. Hes flabbergasted, not having expected bodily fluids to make an appearance so soon, and
certainly not of this sort. Nonetheless, he endearingly handles the situation and accepts her for who
she is. Two years later, theyre still going strong.
Another steadfast campus couple started off with similarly awkward beginnings. Standard Yale
partybut held on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest. Adorably observant Jew meets girl. Exchange of
smiles. Then flirtatious remarks. When asked where they could venture next, boy attempts to
explain that he has neither keys to get home nor identification to go out, requesting maladroitly:
Put your hands in my pocketstrust me. (In observance of Jewish law, one carries nothing in his
pockets on Shabbat.) Confused and offended by such a forward demand, girl disappears for the
night. Despite this initial confrontation, she feels compelled to contact him later that week, leading
to a still-burgeoning romance today.

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If youre taking any notes from these mistake-laden love masters, realize that you dont always need
to make the best first impression. The Pratfall Effect explains why it was that these endearing
screw-upsnot the conceit of coolnessthat set these couples up for success. Sure, it may not be
as simple as spilling a few drinks on yourself the next time youre out, but the point is to stop taking
yourself so seriously when it comes to romantic encounters.
Turn your next slip-up into a situation that works for you. If youve tripped on your way to class,
laugh at yourself and strike up a conversation with an observant co-ed about what a klutz you can
be. If you mess up someones name, use it as an excuse to take them out, so you can learn more
about them and never repeat the error. If you fart in front of someone attractiveokay, in this case
Im out of ideas. But with enough practice taking advantage of your mistakes, you might never feel
awkward again. (Thank me later.)
Sure, we all aspire to feel suave and sexy and charming. Unfortunately, you forfeited those qualities
when you matriculated at Yale. Here, youve got a much better shot if you start employing the
Pratfall Effect. So go ahead. Put your worst foot forward and hope for the best.

Severity of pratfall
Research by Mettee and Wilkins reveals that severity of pratfall plays a major role on determining
attractiveness after a pratfall is committed. Experimentally, each condition was conveyed by
changing the response of the interviewer and blunderer:

Control condition: No blunder.

Minor pratfall condition: Sound of a cup spilling is heard and confederate reacts with anguish.
Major pratfall condition: Cup is spilled, and interviewer reacts with hostility toward the
confederate, who apologizes profusely.

A competent individual that commits a minor pratfall (2) will have an insignificant decrease in
average liking and small decrease in average respect, while the competent individual that commits
a major pratfall (3) receives a significant increase in liking and insignificant decrease in respect. An
incompetent individual that commits any pratfall (2, 3) will have a decrease in liking, which
increases with severity of blunder. Respect only decreases in the incompetent individual after a
minor mistake is committed.

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5. Your subconscious mind does not understand NO

Have you ever told yourself over and over not to do something, only to end up doing it? Have you
ever told somebody to stop smoking, only to have them smoke more? Have you ever tried not to
miss someone, ending up missing him or her more? Ever wondered why.
Its because your subconscious mind cannot understand the word NO.
Specifically, it cannot deal with negatives.

DONT FEED THE ANIMALS. YET MOST DO.

Here is the Problem

We only hear things like Fall in love with me. or Smoke. The word don't leaves our
subconscious and deep down we only think about the other part. This is one of the reasons children
often do the opposite of what we told them not to do. True, sometimes they are testing us, but often
it is just that the subconscious and the conscious have not connected the dots. We have to train
them correctly to fill in that blank.
Have you ever put your foot in your mouth and said something you KNEW would be stupid to say.
Something you told yourself over, and over again, not to say it, only for those words to flow from
your mouth later? This is again this is another example of your subconscious not understanding the
negative.
When you know you are entering an awkward situation so you tell yourself over and over not to do
a certain thing, and sure enough, you end up doing that thing. It is because deep down in your mind
you were actually telling yourself to do it, and because of the awkwardness, you ended up doing it.
Your conscious can understand negatives, if somebody says No you know what they mean,
however our subconscious mind is one based more on instinct and survival. Negatives do not exist
on that level.

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Avoiding this Problem

If you want to get around this problem you must think of new ways to phrase things. Remove any
negatives, change things into positive affirmations. Rather than saying Don't Smoke you can say
Be smoke free. Instead of saying to your child Don't throw that rock you should say Put the
rock down.
Instead of telling yourself what not to do in social situations, try focusing on what do to. It is very
hard for most people to say things without saying a negative, for some reason we are taught to
speak negatively unaware of how our subconscious perceives this information, but with some effort
you can turn things around so you can accomplish your goals.

EDIT :
Based on a new study, it appears there is some modification in the understanding of the chain of
thoughts that govern the way we perceive negatives.
In this study, participants read statements that were either pragmatically licensed or pragmatically
unlicensed. Pragmatically licensed statements are informative and sound natural. For example, "In
moderation, drinking red wine isn't bad for your health" is a pragmatically licensed statement.
Pragmatically unlicensed statements, on the other hand, are unnatural and not helpful. An example
of this type of statement would be, "Vitamins and proteins aren't very bad for your health." This
statement is unlicensed because including the negative word "aren't" implies that vitamins and
proteins may be bad for your health, which we know is not true. In this case, the negative word
makes the statement trivial and not very useful.
The results, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological
Science, reveal that the way negative statements are processed in the brain depends on the
structure of the sentence itself. Just as in true statements, false words elicited larger ERPs than true
words in pragmatically-licensed, negative sentences. That is, there was greater brain activity when
the participants came across a word which rendered the statement false. However, in the
pragmatically unlicensed sentences, true and false words elicited similar ERPs.

6. We constantly try to justify our experiences so that they make

sense to us.
Anyone who's taken a freshman Psych 101 class is familiar with cognitive dissonance, a
theory which dictates that human beings have a natural propensity to avoid psychological
conflict based on disharmonious or mutually exclusive beliefs.
In an often-cited 1959 experiment, psychologist Leon Festinger asked participants to
perform a series of dull tasks, like turning pegs in a wooden knob, for an hour. They were
then paid either $1 or $20 to tell a "waiting participant" (aka a researcher) that the task was
very interesting. Those who were paid $1 to lie rated the tasks as more enjoyable than those
who were paid $20.
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Their conclusion?
Those who were paid more felt that they had sufficient justification for having performed
the rote task for an hour, but those who were only paid $1 felt the need to justify the time
spent (and reduce the level of dissonance between their beliefs and their behavior) by
saying that the activity was fun. In other words, we commonly tell ourselves lies to make the
world appear a more logical, harmonious place.

Date: 13.03.2014
7. Consumer Behaviors

The chart above (from a study by Eric Johnson and Daniel Goldstein titled "Do defaults save
lives?") shows the percentage of people in each country who consent to donate their organs.
What is interesting is that many of the countries in yellow on the left (Denmark, UK, etc.)
are similar to many of the country in blue on the right (Belgium, Sweden, France, etc.) in
terms of economics, development, etc. So why the staggering difference in consent to donate
organs?
It turns out the difference is based on the framing of the options (opt-in versus opt-out) on
the government form. Here is essentially how it plays out:
Yellow Countries (Opt-In Form)
"Please check the box if you want to donate your organs."
Nobody checks the box. Nobody donates.

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Blue Countries (Opt-Out Form)

"Please check the box if you do not want to donate your organs."
Again, nobody checks the box...but (because of the form) everybody donates.
Takeaway
This study is a powerful example of how important the default option is in decision making.
Making a decision is difficult so often times people resort to the default option. Thus, the
manner in which the decision is framed has huge implications for the resulting behavior.

8. Terror Management theory

Try this: ask someone to think of their death. How will they die? When will they die? If the
person is open enough to converse on this topic, chances are without you leading them, they
will turn the topic on to something that they hold close to them and will endure beyond
their own mortality.

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