Penguins, sea lions, killer whales and social perspectives

November 15th, 2011 Alex

Image By Simon Howden

Since sometimes, in my not so creative moments,I return to my childhood for inspiration on what to write, say or… gesture to people I don’t fancy very much, as I write this I find myself trying my best to put into words a very interesting experience I remember from when I was about 5 or 6 years old.

Back then I was quite an avid fan of The Discovery Channel since at such a young age most boys find themselves severely lacking in the “knowledge about the world” department, but also since Discovery was still running decent shows instead of the god-awful spoofs they run today.

I liked watching documentaries about surreal creatures, technology, different cultures, but most of all I liked those about animals.

One such documentary was about Alaskan wildlife, if I recall the area right, and it depicted the life of penguins as they nested, interacted with other penguins, hunted and ate fish. It was pretty fascinating and I found the small wobbly creatures quite adorable.

However, as most of us know, penguins aren’t exactly at the top of the food chain and soon enough a small pack of sea lions made their way onto the screen and started hunting the penguins.

I sat there and watched in awe and antipathy as the panicked penguins were trying fruitlessly to evade the faster and stronger sea lions, only to be bitten and killed by them.

After the show ended I clearly had a small amount of hate for the seals even if I knew that they were just doing their job.

However, the story doesn’t end here, seeing that, less than a month later I found myself watching a documentary about killer whales and, to my shock, these large mammals were chasing and preying upon sea lions.

Now, considering my antipathy for sea lions, you would expect me to start rooting for the killer whales and in fact, I was expecting myself to do the same, but as the whales became more and more cruel I couldn’t help but notice that my thoughts about the situation didn’t make  any sense.

You see, I did hate the sea lions and was hoping to be indifferent to their dismay, but something wasn’t letting me. Something was making me hate the killer whales and like the seals.

I could only think that I was a bit stupid back then, but now, as I look back on the situation it’s pretty interesting how a sort of pattern ingrained in my subconscious made me associate the killing of something cute with cruelty, immorality and sinfulness. After all, a month earlier when the penguins were killing fish I had no problem with it, but when they took the place of fish I became quite alarmed.

Now this is somehow a good thing since we do have a pattern in our collective consciousness helping us identify cruel persons, but it’s for the most part a bad thing as it can work as a treacherous filter.

What I mean is that, the sea lions, which I disliked 100% after the penguin incident, became much more likeable as soon as the whales started trying to bite their heads off, even though, had they survived, their penguin eating days clearly wouldn’t have been over.

Also, seeing that I really had no problem and still don’t have one when it comes to preying on fish I have to admit my shallowness when it comes to favoring creatures and, to make matters even worse, these traits I have just listed are not unique only to me, but, as experience have taught me, general to our species.

To see how this phenomenon affects society, just observe how we rip on people that receive a lot of praise and tend to favor the underdog, especially if someone is trying to put them down while we’re present.

Take for example a situation where a colleague of mine received plenty of praise for a history presentation delivered to the class, while my own was instantly put down.

Course, I was unaware it was happening because  he was the underdog in my class while I seemed quite smug in the eyes of my classmates and so became quite bitter and decided to criticize his style really bad right after the  judges were done with him.

However, as I was thinking how to do my worst, the judges , more objective than my colleagues, started putting down his presentation in the harshest way possible, almost breaking his spirits, and after they were done with that they started praising my delivery.

Naturally when my colleague asked me if I thought his delivery was as bad as the judges said I tried my best to convince him it wasn’t and started praising it myself.  After all, he was now a victim so my attitude about his presentation had changed, even though the structure and delivery were the same.

And I’m sure you can think of examples of your own when yours or someone’s attitude towards a person changes only because they are being put down.

These cases are really frequent which means that in order to win sometimes we must put ourselves in the position of the penguin, or sea lions if you prefer, but without actually getting eaten.

Things get even more complicated when you have to also compete in the “looking more appealing “ race, and you really don’t want to lose this race, cause if you do…you’re the fish.

 

Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part 4

August 31st, 2011 Alex

 

Image By photostock

Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part3

 

A projective test is a psychological test in which the patient is asked to carry out ambiguous tasks, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts. And, as you can probably notice the concept is a pretty clever one. With projective tests the conscious mind is supposedly bypassed allowing the subconscious to reveal its true self.

However, actually applying such a concept is a tough job, because the results will still have to be interpreted by humans and humans do make mistakes.

Our need to make sense will make us interpret the results in the way that is most consistent with our first impression of

the individual we are testing.

So with all these said, you are probably meaning to ask why so many people say that the results of certain tests were dea

d on, or maybe why the results of a test you took really reflected your personality.

Well, these questions have intrigued me as well for a long time and I might have some answers, because, you see, it

is possible for the results to be vague enough to give off the impression that they are a good match for your current psychological state.

It has also happened for me to administer personality tests (some of them projective tests) to a number of people and give them all the same neutral result.

All of the persons said the result was a perfect match for their personality , except for 2 men between the ages of 30 a

nd 40 who said that they were not “necessarily “ that way and that the result was too vague.

This can actually be considered alike to what the horoscope does. Even though I do not challenge the validity of

Astrology, as I simply don’t know much about it, I usually don’t like most horoscope sections in newspapers and sites.

I remember how I would read the newspaper in the 11th grade and various classmates asked me about their horoscope for that day. I would ask them their sign and after they answered with one sign I would proceed to read the horoscope for another one. Can you imagine how amusing it was for me when they told me how it matched perfectly?

I grew up a lot till then and have also had the chance to study personality tests in a more formal environment and I can say that they can prove to be pretty useful and reliable under certain circumstances. However, when the stakes are higher it’s best to try and learn more about others or yourself through different means.

Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part 3

August 1st, 2011 Alex

This is a continuation of Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part 2 

 

Image By Idea Go

Trying to tell what a person’s personality is from his/her conscious actions is like trying to tell an actor’s personality by watching the characters he/she is playing.

When we know we are watched or tested we tend to act differently, in an attempt to create and maintain a good image.

And whether we succeed or not personality tests fail.

Though, with that said, you’re probably asking yourself whether  you can use personality tests on your own to find out more about yourself.

After all, if you only answer truthfully to the questions, the results can’t come out faulty can they?

Well…I hate to let you down, but we’re bad when it comes to judging ourselves, our actions, and the way we will feel in the future or certain situations.

Because we have a better opinion of ourselves than others we tend to believe that we will not make so many mistakes in the future and react in more decent ways to certain situations.

It is because of this bias that we’re so much better at predicting the mistakes and stupid things do, especially when those people are people we don’t like.

In fact, I tend to frequently respond with “Told you!” whenever someone close to me mentions a mistake an acquaintance of ours made.

And so, with this in mind, most personality tests become rather useless.

And also with this in mind, a lot of psychologist have started advocating the use of projective tests considering them to be more objective.

What is a projective test and how does it fit up?

Continue to part 4

 

 

Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part 2

August 1st, 2011 Alex

This is a continuation of Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part1

Image By Idea Go

If you remember from psychology classes, we all have a conscious mind, a subconscious and an unconscious.

And if you ever tried to make a conscious effort to be more confident, more daring and more Dr. Gregory House-like and failed, congratulations! You found out that your personality is based mostly in your subconscious…

Now here’s my question, did you ever talk to your subconscious?

I’m not asking if it sends you messages, cuz we do know that it tries to and that we also try through hypnosis to talk back. I’m asking if you ever had heart-to-heart with it about what it likes and what your personality is like.

You didn’t? Guess what…me neither. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I don’t know a way to.

And what this means is that if you can’t interrogate the subconscious and see what it’s like you can’t exactly tell what someone’s nature is like.

Yet, most personality based tests rely on conscious reactions or asking the conscious mind to estimate what the subconscious is like.

Yes, because we don’t have a way to reach the subconscious directly we rely on the next best thing: Trying to judge it based on the reactions the conscious has .

So how reliable is that?

Continue to part 3

Changing your view of psychological tests/ typologies of human personality part 1

August 1st, 2011 Alex
The inner workings of the brain

Image By Salvatore Vuono

No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand… Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.” – Anton Chekhov

Now a lot of times it just so happens that people ask me if I can recommend them any  good psychological  tests for them to know themselves or others better, but to their disappointment my answer is something to the likes of “No and I don’t believe they’re that effective really”.

However, I can’t say that my conservative opinions are shared by most psychologists, especially psychodiagnosis experts.

You see, we live in the world of absolutes and we display this affinity for absolutes in almost any activity possible. For example, we always start work at nine o’clock or nine and a half but never at five minutes past nine, twelve minutes past nine or other such unusual times.

We also have the habit of stereotyping people and arranging them into neat categories in our minds, because there are few things more absolute than placing labels on everyone’s forehead.

Sadly, unlike a certain school of wizardry, we do not possess a magical hat to do the labeling for us so we have to do it ourselves. The majority of us just use our intuition. In fact, if you closely observe your group of friends you’ll clearly see that everyone believes that they’ve got everyone else all figured out.

The rest however, more professional in their efforts, gravitate towards using tools called psychological or personality tests. And since these tests are used in so many fields, including by corporate owners to determine whether you’d make a suitable employee or not these tests deserve some analyzing themselves.

 

 

Continue to part 2

 

Constructive criticism – not that constructive?

April 30th, 2011 Alex

As humans we love to criticize. Just pointing out flaws in something or someone makes us feel superior, perceptive and it gives us this overall feeling of wellness.

On the other hand, we all hate to be criticized, it’s painful and it makes us feel attacked. Unfortunately, escaping criticism in today’s world is close to impossible, so perhaps by understanding it better you can deal with it more effectively.

If you’ve been alive for the last decade you have probably been put into the situation of either having to offer “constructive criticism” to someone or to receive it.

But is constructive criticism really that constructive?

Destructive constructive criticism

Personally, I’ve seen a lot of teachers and trainers take someone to the front of the class, make them present their ideas and then ask the class to offer constructive criticism.

In appearance it all goes well and the criticized thanks the critics at the end in most cases, but this is mostly due to our need to preserve friendly relationships, or at least in appearance.

Truth is that criticism, even if we call it constructive and try to offer it with compassion, with a smile or combined with compliments, hurts!

However, we’ve been told by our teachers, trainers and a lot of self-help writers that we will be appreciated by people for criticizing them in a useful way, which sometimes is true, I, for example, do like my mistakes to be pointed out sometimes, but a lot of other times, being criticized hurts and makes me want to criticize the critic myself.

Clearly we’re almost all aware that we’re not perfect. So, why do we hate to be criticized?

 

Key point: While we humans were in our most primitive forms, living in tribes and hunting for a living, being criticized didn’t mean just having out your flaws pointed out without any further consequences, it constituted a real threat.

Because of your flaws being now visible your partner could have left you or you could have been excluded from the hunting party.

Even though things changed a lot since then, we humans still preserve our response to criticism even if it takes place in a training environment where severe consequences wouldn’t follow.

This is why you can really ruin relationships, business or personal, by criticizing someone.

But enough about why we shouldn’t criticize and on to how we should take criticism.

Surviving Criticism

 

 

If you take a trip down memory lane, all the way back to high school, you’ll remember that there was always this boy or girl who always dressed and acted like a rebel in an attempt to impress his peers and receive attention, however whenever he got made fun of he would say “I don’t care what they think!”

Clearly, if he didn’t care he would have just tried not to stand out like I did.

So, what was the point of this entire memory exercise?

I just wanted you to remember that pretending not to care won’t do you any good.

A lot of self-help trends simply tell you to ignore criticism whatsoever, but sometimes criticism is welcomed.

The most appropriate way one can take when it comes to being criticized is to first find out if they are being criticized on a valid point.

As I’ve said earlier, when they’re criticized, most people tend to criticize back when they get the opportunity. I remember, for example, being criticized in high school for criticism I delivered junior high.

Other times the person might simply not like you because of other factors and criticize you because of those.

In such cases you should simply acknowledge the criticism as nothing more than an attempt at getting back with you for something.

You might also be criticized just because the person needs that to boost his own self-esteem. Like I said, criticizing makes us feels good and I know at least a handful of such people who are addicted to criticizing.

 

Key point: If the person doesn’t have a valid point( something that it’s crucial) to criticize you for then they might just be doing it because of the above reasons. In such a case, it’s best to just brush it off.

If however the person has a valid point to criticize you on, take that into account and fix the problem. Thank them, but also take good care of your feelings. After all, we all make mistakes.

Plus, you should always remember that your goal is not to please everyone and get everything perfect, your goal is to do what is necessary.

Who I am

February 14th, 2011 Alex

Hey there!

My name is Sorin Alexandru Gheorghitanu and I really wish I knew myself well enough to tell you exactly who I am.

You see, I’m kind of sick of going to the “about me” section of people’s blogs only to see there how they claim to be most unique in creativity, ethics and intelligence, only to find out on closer inspection that they’re just oblivious to their own faulty traits.

Also, from an early age, I have learned that people who tell you what they are like, are most of the times artificial and are  trying to make you believe the illusion they have created.

Thus, in an attempt at being more objective, I will let you form you own opinion.

I will only do my best to make it a favorable one.

What is rapport?

January 2nd, 2011 Alex

Hello! Today I want to talk to you about  rapport.

In order to make you understand better what rapport is I have decided to tell you the Jewish marshal called “The Rooster Prince”.

In this story, a prince goes insane and believes that he is a rooster, so he takes off his clothes, goes under the table and starts pecking at the crumbs he finds there.  His father, the King, seeing his son in this condition, becomes terribly sad and enlists the help of all the doctors and sages he can find to cure the boy.
They doctors come to the castle and start explaining to the boy how he is not a rooster and how he is the heir of the kingdom and that he should stop behaving that way, but the boy becomes rather annoyed that they don’t see he’s a rooster and so they have no success.

Then, one day, a wise rabbi comes to the castle claiming that he can cure the prince. The king asks him what he needs and he says that all he needs is for no one to interfere with whatever he does. Being so desperate, the king agrees.
Then, the rabbi takes off his clothes, goes under the table next to the prince and starts pecking at the crumbs along him. When the prince asks him what he is doing, he says “I’m also a rooster”.
After some time, the rabbi called for a pair of pants and began putting them on. Upon seeing this, the prince asked him “What are you doing? roosters don’t wear pants!”, but the rabbi replied “Who says a rooster can’t wear pants? Why shouldn’t I be warm and comfortable, too? Why should the humans have all the good things?”.
The rooster-prince thought about it for a bit and he realized that, indeed the floor was a bit too cold and that he should wear a pair of pants and so he asked for one and put it on.


After some more time,the rabbi asked for a shirt, the rooster prince again objected “What are you doing? that’s a shirt, roosters don’t wear shirts!”, but the rabbi replied “Who says so? Why shouldn’t I have a fine shirt, too? Should I shiver in the cold, just because I’m a rooster?”
Again the rooster-prince thought about it for a while, and realized that he rabbi was indeed right and he also asked for a shirt.

Soon, the shirt was followed by socks, shoes and a hat, and so it went on, until the prince was once again acting human.

I think this story is a really powerful illustration of what rapport can do.
So what exactly is rapport?

Rapport is the ability to gain someone’s trust by appearing “in tune” or the same as them. This makes them see that you, unlike others, understand them.

Key point: Before you start giving commands, you must gain rapport with your subjects, and the following posts will tell you how to do just that.

Job interview techniques: What do you say if you have a criminal record?

January 2nd, 2011 Alex

Today I received an interesting question regarding my previous post about job interviews:

“What if you’ve made a small mistake in the past that got you a criminal record? Are you doomed to be unemployed forever, or are there any job interview techniques that you can use to land a  job?”

People change and a criminal record doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a bad person. However, almost all employers are biased when it comes to such delicate issues so, taking a dream job away from a highly qualified person without a criminal record is extremely hard.

What is not hard is getting a job. It surprises me that most people feel that having a criminal record has ruined their opportunities forever.

In general, employers won’t have that much of a negative reaction towards what you actually did.

What really puts them off is the wording for it: “criminal record”

This makes them react very emotional in a negative way. To show you what exactly I mean I have devised the next example:

Which of the following health conditions would you like to have:

A: Great health, except for some irregularity of  the metabolism that causes a variance in your blood sugar levels;

B: Diabetes.

If  my guess is correct, you picked A, even though they sort of are the same thing, only the wording being different. However this has a strong impact on the way we perceive things.

That’s why, when asked about your history, don’t say “I have a criminal record“.

Choose to say “Oh, everything’s been great with my past employers, except for this time when I *insert what you did here using the nicest words possible* , it actually got me a record”

Key Point: Also Remember Mehrabian’s rule: it’s 7% what you say, 38% the tone of voice you say it in,  55%  the body language you say it with.

Some short job interview techniques

January 2nd, 2011 Alex

Hello, dear reader. I hope you’re having a wonderful day!

 Today’s post has a bit to do with a friend of mine who is having a job  interview tomorrow  for a job as a social worker  and knows that, among other things, he will be  asked to name his top 3 good traits and one of his flaws.

First of all, whenever you go to a job interview, just be yourself and project an attitude that the  interviewer would like to have around.

My friend was really afraid that he’ll say something stupid that would ruin it for him. and went on and on about how he should maybe say something like(now remember I’m Romanian so the conversation took place in Romanian).

” During my internship years I had the chance to work with highly trained professionals, as a result of this I am qualified to…”
And I had to stop him. Nobody wants a robot to work with.
People spend a third of their time at their workplace and therefore, want to work with someone they enjoy spending time with. In fact, if you want to know something about the average person, I’ll tell you: They feel bored! And not only do they feel bored, but they have boring friends.

Key point: The average person always looks forward to any meeting with a new person, because that person might turn out to be fun and exciting ( I do this, you probably do too).

So, I know you can’t walk in juggling torches (that would probably be too exciting), but don’t be a robot.

Now, if I were to be asked my friend’s questions in a job interview, I’d first be careful to pick an appropriate filter.

To understand what a filter is you should do the next exercise:

You’re interviewing 2 candidates for a job and you have to pick the one you think has better qualities:

Candidate #1′s name is Alex and he is: Intelligent, hardworking, industrious, impulsive and jealous
Candidate #2′s name is Adrian and he is: Impulsive, jealous, intelligent, hardworking and industrious.
Which one did you pick?

You probably picked Alex, almost everyone does. But why? After all, they both have the exact same traits, only the order they are listed in differs.

The reason you picked Alex, is because the first trait listed acts as a filter through which you see the rest.

So since the first for Alex is “intelligent” you will see him as  hardworking in an intelligent way, industrious in an intelligent way, impulsive but in an intelligent way, and jealous but in an intelligent way.

The first one for Adrian is “impulsive”, so you will see him as jealous in an impulsive way, intelligent but really in your face about it, hardworking in an impulsive way and industrious in an impulsive way.

So make sure you don’t let out any flaws before you put in front the filter you want.

I usually go with: creative, hardworking and honest. I found that the association creative + hardworking makes the interviewer imagine me as this guy walking around finding creative solutions for every problem the company has. Honesty is also a quality you want to mention as people these days are fearing being lied to more and more and need safety.

As for the “Can you name a personal flaw?” question, I would simply say:
“Hmm…isn’t this question a bit too subjective? Either one of my qualities can be interpreted as flaws just as well by someone that doesn’t want me to be creative and honest… for example.”

If you say you’re creative, you always have to follow with a creative answer.

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