خمس تجارب وأفلام وثائقية ستُغيّر مفهومك عن البشرية

خمس تجارب وأفلام وثائقية ستُغيّر مفهومك عن البشرية

بعض الأفلام الوثائقية فيها من الواقعية ما هو مُرعب لكل إنسان. وهناك تجارب شنيعة ولا إنسانية أجراها بعض الباحثين وعلماء النفس على متطوعيها ولكنّها برغم ما عرضت لنا من بشاعات فهي أعطتنا الفرصة لنُدرك أنه يصعُب الوثوق في الإنسان تحت ظروف معينه وضغط معين. وهناك أيضًا أفلام أدركنا من خلالها أن الجنس البشريّ ما هو إلا عنصر من عناصر هذه الحياة، فلِم التكبّر ؟

هذه القائمة، رغم صغرها، تحوي بعضًا من أقوى وأكثر الأفلام والتجارب تأثيرًا على البشرية.

5- تجربة سجن ستانفورد

لعّلها الأشهر  لدى كل من يدرس علم النفس الاجتماعي خاصة وكل من هو مُهتم بعلم النفس والأفلام الوثائقية المجنونة عامة. أراد عالم النفس الأمريكي فيليب زيمباردو محاكاة السجن ليعرف تفسيرًا للصراعات التي تحدث في السجون. قسّم زيمباردو المتطوعين لحرّاس ومساجين.

وقبل التجربة، قام زيمباردو بإعطاء الحرّاس بعض التوجيهات التي كان ملخصها عدم استخدام العنف الجسدي، ثم قال لهم ما يأتي:

« يمكنكم أن تولدوا إحساسًا بالخمول لدى السجناء، ودرجة ما من الخوف، من الممكن أن توحوا بشيء من التعسف يجعلهم يشعرون بأنكم وبأن النظام وبأننا جميعاً نسيطر على حياتهم، سوف لن تكون لهم خصوصيات ولا خلوات. سنسلبهم من شخصياتهم وفرديتهم بمختلف الطرق. بالنتيجة سيقود كل هذا إلى شعور بفقدان السيطرة من طرفهم. بهذا الشكل سوف تكون لنا السلطة المطلقة ولن تكون لهم أي سلطة».

اعتُقل المساجين بعدئذٍ عن طريق قسم شرطة حقيقي كان جزءًا من التجربة وأهينوا ونفذت جميع إجراءات الاعتقال عليهم. وبعد انتقالهم إلى السجن فُتّشوا عُراة ومُنحوا هويات جديدة.

في أول يومٍ للتجربة لم يحدث شيء يُذكر، كان كل شيءٍ شبه طبيعي. ثم ما أن بدأ اليوم الثاني حتى بدأ العصيان من قبل بعض المساجين، وبدأ الحراس في اتباع أساليبهم الخاصة في محاربة هذا العصيان.

بدأ الحرّاس اتباع أساليب قاسية على المساجين، كالزنازين وإجبارهم على النوم عراة على الأرض وحرمانهم من الطعام. وعلى الرغم من وجود حراس من النوع قاسي القلب، كان هناك من الحراس من كانوا متعاطفين مع المساجين.

توقّفت التجربة في اليوم السادس بعد أن كان من المقرر استمرارها مدة أسبوعين، لشدّة القسوة والاضطهاد التي عمّت المكان ولخروج الأمر عن السيطرة بعد أن نسي الجميع أن كل هذا ليس حقيقيًا.

فلنأمل ألا يفقد كل من يشاهد هذه التجربة إيمانه في البشرية.

4- تجربة حلوى الخطمي

وهي تجربة قصيرة جدًا وممتعة جدًا أُجريت على مجموعة من الأطفال لمعرفة مستوى تحكمهم في رغباتهم من خلال إعطائهم قطعة من حلوى الخطمي. وُضعت الحلوى أمام الأطفال وتُركوا وحدهم في غرفة وتم مراقبتهم عبر كاميرات، ومقابل الانتظار ذكرت  لهم معلمة أنه بإمكانهم تناول هذه الحلوى الآن أو الانتظار قليلًا حتى تأتي بواحدة أخرى. جميعنا يعلم بالطبع أن نسبة تحكم الأطفال في المُغريات من الحلوى ضعيفة جدًا، ولكن أغلب الأطفال لم يتناول الحلوى مباشرة، بل انتظروا فترة حتى فاض بهم، وهو ما يدلّ على أن الأمر ليس بمستحيل.

ومع هذا، فقد اتّضح من خلال الدراسات بعد ذلك أن الأطفال الذين استطاعوا ضبط النفس أثناء التجربة كانوا بعد التجربة وعلى مدار الأعوام أكثر مقاومة للمخدرات، عكس الأطفال الآخرين.

لذا فإن تعليم الأطفال من سنّ مبكرة هو أمر في غايةالأهمية وكثير من الآباء يجهلون أثر التربية المبكرة وزرع مبادئ وأخلاق وانضباطات نفسية معينة لدى الأطفال.

3- عوالم غير مرئية

هذا الفيلم الوثائقي مختلفٌ قليلًا عما قبله.، فهو يستخدم كاميرات عالية السرعة ليرينا الأشياء وهي تحدث بسرعة لم نعتدها من قبل. فيتيح لنا أن نُدرك أن الإنسان ما هو إلا كائنٌ من كائنات هذه الأرض وهناك ما هو حيوي لهذا الكوكب ولكننا لا نُدركه أبدًا بالعين المجردة.

ماذا لو قلت لكم أن هذا الفيلم سيريكم ما لن تروه بالعين المجردة مُكبّرًا عشرات المرات؟ وماذا لو تسنّى لنا أن نرى الأشياء بسرعة أقل أضعافًا مضاعفة عن سرعتها الطبيعية التي، أيضًا، لا تستوعبها أعيننا وتحدث في غمضة عين؟  

يستوعب الدماغ البشري الأشياء بعد حوالي 150 ميلي ثانية، وتحدث غمضة العين الواحدة في حوالي 50 ميلي ثانية، بينما تحدث مئات الأشياء في الميلي ثانية الواحدة.

يرينا هذا الفيلم الوثائقي مسار الصواعق وكيف تصل إلى الأرض كأنها شجرة جذورها مرئية لنا تحت الأرض. كما يرينا ظاهرة غريبة في صواعق تصعد لأعلى ويعطينا أسبابًا مدهشة لها. كل هذا بكاميرات تبطئ السرعة عشرات المرات حتى نتمكن من رؤية الأشياء بوضوح تام.

أعتقد أن الجزء المُفضّل بالنسبة لي في هذا الفيلم هو في التجربة الثانية، عندما يريك بعض الباحثين موجة الصدمة بالعين المُجردة وبكاميرا أبطأت لنا السرعة أكثر من مئة مرة. تُجهَز مادة متفجرة من البارود ويقوم الباحثون بتفجيرها ثم تصوير شكل الانفجار. هنا تريك الكاميرا موجة الصدمة بعد أن ينفجر البارود في ألف من الثانية ويتحول في مليون من الثانية من مادة صلبة إلى مادة غازية. يتّضح بعد ذلك كيف أن موجة الصدمات هي ما يُحدث الكوارث في أي انفجار، وليس الانفجار نفسه.

تأكد بنفسك حين ترى كيف تبدو.

2-تجربة العين الزرقاء-العين البنية

هذه التجربة من التجارب التي تُطبع في ذاكرة الأطفال ولا ينسوها أبدًا. حدثت بعد اغتيال الزعيم الأمريكي مارتن لوثر كينج عندما شعرت معلّمة لأطفال في الصف الثالت بأهمية إعطائهم درسًا لا ينسوه عن العنصرية.

أجرت المعلّمة لطلّابها اختبارًا أو لعبة قسّمت فيها الصف لمجموعتين: مجموعة أطفال ذوي عيون زرقاء ومجموعة ذوي عيون بنيّة. وعلى مدار اللعبة، أعطت المعلمة مميزات للأطفال ذوي العيون الزرقاء في يوم ثم للأطفال ذوي العيون البنية في يوم آخر ، كأن تسمح للمجموعة الأولى بأن تلعب خمس دقائق إضافية بعد وقت الاستراحة. كما أحضرت للمجموعة الأخرى ياقاتٍ باللون البنيّ وطلبت من ذوي العيون الزرقاء لفّها حول رقاب المجموعة الأخرى. ثم بدأت تزرع فيهم أفكاراً عن أن مجموعة ذوي العيون الزرقاء هي الأذكى والأفضل ولها مميزات أكثر.

بدأ بعض الأطفال في مقاومة هذا المبدأ ولكنهم سرعان ما رضخوا لأن المجموعة الأخرى هي الأفضل وتوقفوا عن الجدال. والمثير في الأمر أن الجميع ينسى أنها مجرد لعبة، حتى عندما طبّقت المعلمة بعد ذلك التجربة على راشدين كان ردّ الفعل مشابهًا.

أجمل ما في التجربة أنها كانت واقعية جدًا وأنها جعلت الجميع يُدرك حقًا كيف تشعر الأقليات في المجتمعات الأخرى. وما هو أجمل من هذا كيف أنه في نهاية الفيلم يعرض لنا انسجام الأطفال، وهم وقتئذٍ أصبحوا راشدين، مع بعضهم البعض بعد أكثر من 15 عامًا، وكيف كان لهذه التجربة أثر في صداقاتهم وفهمهم لأهمية هذه القضية في مجتمعاتهم.

 1-تجربة سولومان آش حول التوافقية الاجتماعية

قد يبدو  رأي من حولك غير مؤثرٍ عليك في البداية، ولكن عندما تصبح أنت الوحيد في مجموعة ما برأي مختلف عن الجميع فإنك قد تتراجع قليلًا أو ترضخ لرأي الآخرين لسبب ما. ما هو هذا السبب؟ وما هي نسبة تراجعك أو رضوخك لرأي المجموعة حتى وإن كنت تعلم داخليًا أن هذا الرأي خاطئٌ تمامًا؟ هذا هو ما حاول الباحث سولومان آش اكتشافه أثناء تجربته حول التوافقية الاجتماعية.

قام آش بعرض ثلاثة خطوط مستقيمة على جانب وخط واحد على جانب آخر، وطُلب من مجموعة أشخاص أن يختاروا من بين الثلاثة خطوط الخط الذي يساوي طوله طول الخط المنفرد. اختار آش مشاركًا وحيدًا حقيقيًا في التجربة، ولكنه تركه يعتقد أن الآخرون مثله تمامًا، إلا أنهم لم يكونوا كذلك. وطُلب من المشاركين غير الحقيقيين أن يجيبوا بنفس الإجابات (الخاطئة) على التوالي.

برغم وضوح الإجابة الصحيحة في كثير من الأسئلة وضوحًا شديدًا، إلا أن المشارك الحقيقي كان يترد جدًا عندما يتّفق جميع من قبله على إجابة واحد خاطئة، ثم يجيب هو بنفس الإجابة الخاطئة وإن كان على غير اقتناع تام، لماذا؟ ليتجنب شذوذه عن المجموعة وتفاديًا لشعور غير مريح بعدم التوافقية مع الآخرين.

استمرت التجربة ولكن بأشكال مختلفة، كأن يضع آش شخصًا يجيب بالإجابات الصحيحة مع المشارك الحقيق،فتزيد نسبة الإجابات الصحيحة للمشارك مع وجود شخص آخر. كما انخفضت أيضًا نسبة التوافق مع المجموعة عندما شارك بعض المشاركين الحقيقيين بالكتابة فقط (هبطت النسبة من 37% إلى 5% فقط!).

يجب علينا جميعًا أن نسأل أنفسنا ، ماذا لو كنا نعلم أن رأينا صحيحًا ولكنه سيجعلنا على غير توافق مع المجتمع؟

Some Things That Meant The World To Me [Full Review]

Some Things That Meant The World To Me [Full Review]

Some Things That Meant The World To Me is one of the weirdest novels I'd read and will ever read. I think. The plot is focused on Rhonda, a guy who suffers from depersonalization, which I found out to be some sort of a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Rhonda's past, full of abuse, sexual abuse, living with an abusive boyfriend of his Mom, and his alcoholic mother, seemed to haunt him all the way through the novel. Trying to find out the truth, he dug everywhere and could actually drive you a bit crazy with him.

The novel was a bit disturbing with all the self-loving, the sex life and the brutal beating. I could not bear to allow my imagination to swim that far, since I'm not a fan of such novels, though I don't mind them in movies. I guess this novel would make a good movie, too.

I liked the chapters' titles, some of them were catchy enough to get me into further reading. Especially with one entitled "Some Things That Meant The World To Me" and another one further entitled "Some Things That Bent The World For Me".

However, Mohr's prose is admirable. Not the style that would wow me, but it was actually pretty damn good. Fresh and sometimes music to the ears. I really liked it. I would buy another novel for him, only if it is not going to be that disturbing again.

His way of shifting between past, present and future did not confuse me like other novels. In fact it was very clear and subtle. I loved that.

Overall, I think Mohr's style is very interesting and inspiring!

There's something, though, that I still don't understand and still am trying to figure out. The Roschach tattoo Rhonda had, which is the one on the cover. I'm still trying to understand, from the point of view of someone who suffers depersonalization, what it meant.

Not to mention, it's one of the things that I really liked about the novel. Psychology always adds positivity to the novel for me.

Lastly, Quotes:

"Pigeons? They're so ugly"

"That's what I like about them"

"Their ugliness?"

"The fact that they can't hide it. The rest of us spend their whole lives trying to trick each other"

"I've been there"

"Where?"

"That place where life seems easy on everyone, except you"

"You won't know until you get older, baby, but it's awful to falter at something you used to be great at"

"Please, let him hurt me"

Questions That Might Kill You

Questions That Might Kill You

It's been over a year, since the Arab uprising started. There are still questions unanswered, there are questions that we might never actually find answers for. But we're still looking. And like we've always been told: It's not the answer that makes you smart but the question.

I'm not sure this post will make things look better nor will make me, personally, feel better. But the questions are a must and are glued in my mind. I'll first start with the 5 whys that will lead to this post

1. Why are there still people who believe that revolutionaries are a threat to the society? Because a happy slave doesn't know he's enslaved.
2. Why are there still slaves? Because the State Tv is still broadcasting the same old shit.
3. Why is the State Tv still broadcasting lies? Back to question one + Because it's easy to manipulate developing countries.
4. Why is it easy to manipulate these countries? Because their dictators are born and raised by the filthy minds of the sick world rulers, who are nothing but slaves of money. Which leads us to a point where we can say that we're all slaves, but to the wrong object/person.
5. Why are dictators raised by world rulers? Because as human beings, we need guidelines before we grow rich/successful. And to be that there must be a rule model. And role models never die. Which means evil will always exist as an element of life just like its opposite.

Now:

• Why do idiots/slaves/dictators never know they're that idiot/enslaved/stupid?
• Does the verb "dictate" have anything to do with the noun "dictator"?
• Why does the poor have to be handcuffed in jail while dictators walk like they're going on a field trip?
• Does Mubarak move in a helicopter because he's a pilot? If yes, then I wanna be a parachute woman!
• What's the point behind never having enough?
• Why haven't we attempted occupying Maspero until now? (State tv owned building)
• Why hasn't the economy recovered since the revolution but the couple of days when the internet connection and phone connections were blocked, the economy was perfect?
• Does the manipulated know he's being manipulated? If so, then does the manipulator also knows when he's manipulated? (Colorblind theory, I guess never)
• What's with procrastination? No no, I mean the filthy kind of procrastination. I guess governments too suffer from it, not just the average citizen.
• Why does the coward judge without being in the scene? Other than being a coward I mean.
• Why do we read the same questions but never the same answers?
• Where has "moderate" gone?
• Why do words never end, yet silence is stronger?
• Based on the previous question: If writers write because they want us to know we're stronger than that, why wouldn't writers not write?
• And, if silence works with everything, wouldn't the world be a beautiful place if everyone just shut up?

Cuase I'll do.

The Five [Egyptian] Stages of Grief

The Five [Egyptian] Stages of Grief

If you're familiar with psychology studies, those words are not new to you.

Briefly, Kubler-Ross model, or better known as the five stages of grief, is basically a model of coping with death, from the denial stage to the acceptance stage.

The five stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. And to be quite frank here, this model is applicable in our everyday life, though on different levels and scales.

For the past few days I have been meaning to dedicate this blog to some politics, basically to vent some thoughts and reflections and to apply what I know in psychology on the Egyptian society and what we have become in those past few months, or maybe the whole year since the overthrown dictator.

So, let's try to apply this model on the developments of the revolution and the consequences and so on. Let's take for example the ongoing and the never-ending, in my personal view, clashes that happened in the 25th of Feb, 9th of March, 8th of April, 15th of May, 28th of June, 23rd of July, 1st and 3rd of August, 9th of September, 5th and 9th of October, 19th of November and last but probably not least the 16th of December.

Let's start:

1. Denial: At first when the Police and CSF withdrew from the streets and the army took to the streets to (protect) people, everyone was happy; and you can't really blame people because everyone thought nothing would be worse than Hosni. So when the Army first attacked protesters on the 25th of Feb, everyone denied its happening and here was the first uses of the word thugs to justify any inhumane acts.
2. Anger: Moving to the 9th of March when the disastrous issue of the virginity tests took place and everyone was angry and furious. And later on when only one courageous lady decided to speak up and defend her rights and sue whoever gave orders and/or did this. Not to mention the ongoing detaining of civilians and throwing them in military prisons. Which never stopped to this day.
3. Bargaining: Now let's make a deal, we'll appoint Kamal El Ganzoury as a new Prime minister so you people can go home and we'd get this whole thing over with so everyone can sleep at night- despite the innocents' questions about the blood of the martyrs and the beating of the protesters and detainees. Ganzoury is appointed, old people are satisfied because they thought like Shafeek and Sharaf, Ganzoury too should take his chances and we shall wait for him to do an action. [But nothing new ever took place]
4. Depression: We're close; we've injected the nation with so much depression that hope is almost vanishing and everyone is starting to just whine about their personal experiences and sufferings since this revolution started, but no one is happy because at least now we have a voice. This seems to be coming to an end anyways. Let's just sit home and weep for the martyrs and the economical conditions of the country, and wait. I'm obliged to mention here that when the internet and phone services were cut off, the government made a huge move that caused it the loss of millions of dollars, if not billions. None of the ignorant ever remembers this.
5. Acceptance: We've made it, by the end of 2011 everyone at home, specifically those who never bothered to go out and join the sit-ins in Tahrir or even the protests, everyone accepted Ganzoury, Tanwaty, the army, SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces). I mean, what can we do? It's just 6 months and we'll have our own president finally, the one that we will vote for, the one that we will choose. Yeah right, because we're dreaming. Let's just accept this and go home.

You "read faster" with a longer line length but "prefer" shorter

You "read faster" with a longer line length but "prefer" shorter

Have you ever had to decide how wide a column of text you should use on a screen? Should you use a wide column with 100 characters per line? or a short column with 50 characters per line?
It turns out that the answer depends on whether you want people to read faster or whether you want them to like the page!

Research (see reference below) demonstrates that 100 characters per line is the optimal length for on-screen reading speed; but it’s not what people prefer. People read faster with longer line lengths (100 characters per line), but they prefer a short or medium line length (45 to 72 characters per line). In the example above from the New York Times Reader, the line length averages 39 characters per line.

The research also shows that people can read one single wide column faster than multiple columns, but they prefer multiple columns (like the New York Times Reader above).
So if you ask people which they prefer they will say multiple columns with short line lengths. Interestingly, if you ask them which they read faster, they will insist it is also the multiple columns with short line lengths, even though the data shows otherwise.

It’s a quandary: Do you give people what they prefer or go against their own preference and intuition, knowing that they will read faster if you use a longer line length and one column?

What would you do?

You Have “Inattention Blindness”

You Have “Inattention Blindness”

This is an example of what is called “inattention blindness” or “change blindness”. The idea is that people often miss large changes in their visual field. This has been shown in many experiments.

So what does this mean if you are designing a website or something on a computer screen? It means that you can’t assume that just because something is on the screen means that people see it. This is especially true when you refresh a screen and make one change on it. People may not realize they are even looking at a different screen. Remember, just because something happens in the visual field doesn’t mean that people are consciously aware of it.

Source HERE

The dream that consumed me!

The dream that consumed me!

Two days have passed and I still can't forget the death I dreamt about; was it really death that made me so persistent and made me hold on to life more, or was it just a metaphor in the dream, telling me to be stronger, in hard times? I don't know.
Of course I don't know how it started, but in the middle of the dream I was gun-shot three times in less than a moment of time; the first was straight at my heart, the second at my chest, the third at my chest from the right side a little bit. Thing is, I know that if you are dying in a dream and you don't wake up before you actually lose your last breath, you die in real life, which is a fact that I experienced before. I once was shot at my heart as well and was bleeding on a bathroom floor to death, and then I woke up with the most terrible heart and left arm pain ever.
Anyway, I didn't die in the dream, instead I kept walking and walking down the streets, and the best thing in the dream was that I uttered the Shahada even twice while walking. I tried to fix things, do things. I don't really remember dying in the dream (most probably I didn't, since I'm alive now and here), I remember, though, saying the Shahada for the third time before something critical happened.
My dreams are generally insignificant and without a meaning, but some dreams are really hard to forget - only because you feel like they tell something, rather than speculate something!
Ever since this dream, I don't know, I have one of the weirdest feelings ever; I do wanna die a decent death - and by that I mean martyrdom. But it was great, it was really great dying with bullets and uttering Shahada knowing that I was dying for a purpose.
Confession: Death dreams are consuming my sleep so much lately, and especially gunshot dreams, I don't know why. Does this have to do with anything related to the revolution? But I've had those dreams even before that, I remember pretty well. And Does this mean anything about death itself, or it's actually related to life?

ربنا يرزقنا حسن الخاتمة

10 Things You Didn't Know About Sleep

10 Things You Didn't Know About Sleep

1. We can only dream about faces we have already seen, whether we actively remember them or not.
2. Parasomnia is a type of sleep disorder that makes you do unnatural movements despite being asleep.
3. 12% of people dream only in black and white. This number used to be higher but since the advent of colored television, more people dream in color than before.
4. People who do not dream generally have personality disorder.
5. British soldiers were the first to develop a method in staying up 36 hours without sleep; when fatigued, they put on special visors that emulated the brightness of a sunrise and it woke them up.
6. It takes two weeks to starve to death, but 10 days without sleep will kill you.
7. Within 5 minute of waking up, 50% of your dream is forgotten, within 10 minutes, 90% is gone.
8. Men have dreams about other men 70% of the time. But women dream about men and women equally.
9. People who are born blind experience dreams involving emotion, sound, smell and touch instead of sight.
10. What goes on in your sleep is this: Your brain recharges, your cells repair themselves and your body releases important hormones.

Source HERE

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

This is a wheel for emotions created by the professor Robert Plutchik, where you can find 8 basic emotions and 8 advanced emotions composed of two basic ones.

Illusion of asymmetric insight

Illusion of asymmetric insight

The Misconception: You celebrate diversity and respect others’ points of view.

The Truth: You are driven to create and form groups and then believe others are wrong just because they are others.

The illusion of asymmetric insight is a cognitive bias that involves the fact that people perceive their knowledge of others to surpass other people's knowledge of them. The source for this bias seems to stem from the fact that observed behaviors of others are more revealing than one's own similar behaviors.
Relatedly, people seem to believe that they know themselves better than their peers know themselves and that their social group knows and understands other social groups better than other social groups know them.

Sources: YouAreNotSoSmart and Wiki.

Chemophobia

Chemophobia

Though it literally translates to “fear of chemicals,” this term is used by some psychologists, scientists and organizations to describe those concerned about the “industrial,” “synthetic,” “artificial,” and “man-made” particularly with regards to food and drink. An article by the American Enterprise Institute on chemophobia boldly states “The false idea that our bodies have become ‘toxic waste dumps’ is not just wrong but counterproductive.” Do they really think there’s no correlation between the skyrocketing rates of cancer and the increase of chemical additives in the food supply? It’s probably only a matter of time before psychiatrists use this word to describe people who resist chemotherapy for cancer (i.e. Daniel Hauser has “chemophobia”).

In the third world countries like us, what would we say about this?

Source: Listverse

Kübler-Ross model

Kübler-Ross model

In other words, the Five Stages of Grief. We all know them, but I just felt like they are important now, in this stage of our lives. Please consider.

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

Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death.

2. Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?"

Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.

3. Bargaining — "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..."

The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time..."

4. Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die... What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?"

During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.

5. Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it."

In this last stage, the individual begins to come to terms with her/his mortality or that of a loved one.

Source: Wiki

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia: is a phenomenon in which a person is unable to recognize faces of people or objects that they should know. People experiencing this disorder are usually able to use their other senses to recognize people – such as a person’s perfume, the shape or style of their hair, the sound of their voice, or even their gait. A classic case of this disorder was presented in the 1998 book (and later Opera by Michael Nyman) called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.


P.S sometimes I come very close to this point! :D

A Collective Post

A Collective Post

Misquotation:

"The ends justify the means." –Niccolò Machiavelli.
A more literal translation, according to Peter and Julia Bondanella of Indiana University, is "One must consider the final result."

Cognitive bias:

Fundamental attribution error: A tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.

Operation Wrath of God:

After the Terrorist group Black September kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad decided to seek revenge under Operation Wrath of God. During this time, covert Israeli assassination units killed dozens of suspected conspirators across Europe. The string of assassinations spurred retaliations and criticism of Israeli. The film Munich outlined these events.

Sources: Wikipedia and Listverse

Automatic Writing

Automatic Writing

Today I was reading a list of psychic abilities and I came across one that I really really like :D

Automatic writing:

Or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.

It would be a bit scary to write from a spiritual source. I guess there are always drawbacks.

15 Ways of Distorted Thinking

15 Ways of Distorted Thinking

So this basically talks about each and every one of us!

1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.

2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.

3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.

4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.

5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.

6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.

7. Control Fallacies: There are two ways you can distort your sense of power and control. If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you. Feeling externally controlled keeps you stuck. You don't believe you can really affect the basic shape of your life, let alone make any difference in the world. The truth of the matter is that we are constantly making decisions, and that every decision affects our lives. On the other hand, the fallacy of internal control leaves you exhausted as you attempt to fill the needs of everyone around you, and feel responsible in doing so (and guilty when you cannot).

8. Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what's fair, but other people won't agree with you. Fairness is so conveniently defined, so temptingly self-serving, that each person gets locked into his or her own point of view. It is tempting to make assumptions about how things would change if people were only fair or really valued you. But the other person hardly ever sees it that way, and you end up causing yourself a lot of pain and an ever-growing resentment.

9. Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem. Blaming often involves making someone else responsible for choices and decisions that are actually our own responsibility. In blame systems, you deny your right (and responsibility) to assert your needs, say no, or go elsewhere for what you want.

10. Shoulds: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you, and you feel guilty if you violate the rules. The rules are right and indisputable and, as a result, you are often in the position of judging and finding fault (in yourself and in others). Cue words indicating the presence of this distortion are should, ought, and must.

11. Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid or boring, then you must be stupid and boring. If you feel guilty, then you must have done something wrong. The problem with emotional reasoning is that our emotions interact and correlate with our thinking process. Therefore, if you have distorted thoughts and beliefs, your emotions will reflect these distortions.

12. Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them. The truth is the only person you can really control or have much hope of changing is yourself. The underlying assumption of this thinking style is that your happiness depends on the actions of others. Your happiness actually depends on the thousands of large and small choices you make in your life.

13. Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities (in yourself or others) into a negative global judgment. Global labeling ignores all contrary evidence, creating a view of the world that can be stereotyped and one-dimensional. Labeling yourself can have a negative and insidious impact upon your self-esteem; while labeling others can lead to snap-judgments, relationship problems, and prejudice.

14. Being Right: You feel continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness. Having to be 'right' often makes you hard of hearing. You aren't interested in the possible veracity of a differing opinion, only in defending your own. Being right becomes more important than an honest and caring relationship.

15. Heaven's Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You fell bitter when the reward doesn't come as expected. The problem is that while you are always doing the 'right thing,' if your heart really isn't in it, you are physically and emotionally depleting yourself.

Source: EWU

Just-World Fallacy

Just-World Fallacy

The Just-World Phenomenon is when witnesses of an injustice, in order to rationalize it, will search for things that the victim did to deserve it. This eases their anxiety and allows them to feel safe; if they avoid that behavior, injustice will not happen to them. This peace of mind comes at the expense of blaming the innocent victim. To illustrate this, a research study was done by L. Carli of Wellesley College. Participants were told two versions of a story about interactions between a man and a woman. In both versions, the couple’s interactions were exactly the same, at the very end, the stories differed; in one ending, the man raped the woman and in the other, he proposed marriage. In both groups, participants described the woman’s actions as inevitably leading up to the (different) results.

Interesting Fact: On the other end of the spectrum, The Mean World Theory is a phenomenon where, due to violent television and media, viewers perceive the world as more dangerous than it really is, prompting excessive fear and protective measures.

I'm reminding you of what usually happens here in Egypt =D

It's not JUST Déjà Vu!

It's not JUST Déjà Vu!

Dutch psychiatrist Hermon Sno proposed the idea that memories are like holograms, meaning that you can recreate the entire three-dimensional image from any fragment of the whole. The smaller the fragment, however, the fuzzier the ultimate picture. Déjà vu, he says, happens when some detail in the environment we are currently in (a sight, sound, smell, et cetera) is similar to some remnant of a memory of our past and our brain recreates an entire scene from that fragment.


Below are names for some of the many ways in which the déjà experience may manifest:

* déjà entendu - already heard
* déjà éprouvé - already experienced
* déjà fait - already done
* déjà pensé - already thought
* déjà raconté - already recounted
* déjà senti - already felt, smelt
* déjà su - already known (intellectually)
* déjà trouvé - already found (met)
* déjà vécu - already lived
* déjà voulu - already desired

Neppe (in conjunction with Prof. B. G. Rogers, Professor of French, University of the Witwatersrand) in 1981 suggested the following additional terms:

* déjà arrivé - already happened
* déjà connu - already known (personal knowing)
* déjà dit - already said/spoken (content of speech)
* déjà gouté - already tasted
* déjà lu - already read
* déjà parlé - already spoken (act of speech)
* déjà pressenti - already sensed
* déjà rencontré - already met
* déjà rêvé - already dreamt
* déjà visité - already visited

Déjà rencontré appears preferable to déjà trouvé for the already met experience because it specifically relates to interpersonal situations.


-Source: How Stuff Works.

Blogger note: I must say I don't pay attention to the type of the experience. Now I shall do!

Planning Fallacy

Planning Fallacy

The Planning fallacy is the tendency to underestimate the time needed to complete tasks. The planning fallacy actually stems from another error, The Optimism Bias, which is the tendency for individuals to be overly positive about the outcome of planned actions. People are more susceptible to the planning fallacy when the task is something they have never done before. The reason for this is because we estimate based on past experiences. For example, if I asked you how long it takes you to grocery shop, you will consider how long it has taken you in the past, and you will have a reasonable answer. If I ask you how long it will take you to do something you have never done before, like completing a thesis or climbing Mount Everest, you have no experience to reference, and because of your inherent optimism, you will guesstimate less time than you really need. To help you with this fallacy, remember Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Interesting Fact: “Realistic pessimism” is a phenomenon where depressed or overly pessimistic people more accurately predict task completion estimations.

Source: Listverse again!

On the True Self..

On the True Self..

"Even now I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books."
... Go Ask Alice, Anonymous


















"The hardest thing is facing yourself. It’s easier to shout ‘revolution’ and ‘power to the people’ than it is to look at yourself and try and find out what’s real inside you and what isn’t when you pull the wool over your own eyes. Your own hypocrisy, that’s the hardest thing, and that’s what I’m involved in."
... John Lennon





Source: I took a deep breath