It’s my untested belief that expertise in any technical field will result in a near-total loss of respect for journalism. I know it did for me. The more I learned about climate change, the biodiversity crisis, environmental regulations, and renewable energy, the more I realized that newspaper articles reflected reality only by chance, in passing.Continue reading “Group Think: When Two Heads are Worse than One (Science and Sewing, in one post at last!)”
Tag Archives: blog psychology
Don’t. Be. Nice.*
So this ancient article finally made its way through the blogosphere to roll across my FB feed this morning, and you’ve probably seen it already, but I’m going to share it with you anyway: Psychologists Find That Nice People are More Likely to Hurt You (from io9.com) People who are agreeable are also more likelyContinue reading “Don’t. Be. Nice.*”
My apologies for the apology
One thing I have learned from reading about SBC blogs (as opposed to the blogs themselves) is that some people get awfully annoyed when bloggers post excuses about why they haven’t been sewing lately. To the effect of: No one cares if you’re busy! Sew when you can, post when you can, forget the stupidContinue reading “My apologies for the apology”
Blog Psychology Pt 5: Susceptibility to Normative Influence
And at last the marketers enter the picture; or more specifically, what the marketers make out of this social psychology research, and their own research into social marketing. Here’s what we have so far: 1. People don’t know why they do what they do nor why they believe what they believe. Oh, sure, we allContinue reading “Blog Psychology Pt 5: Susceptibility to Normative Influence”
Blog Psychology Pt 4: Peer Pressure
So social psychologists have conducted a number of interesting experiments on the influence of groups on individuals. In one of my favourites, they had a group of people at a table and asked them a very simple question: which line on the right matches the line on the left? A number of groups were assembled,Continue reading “Blog Psychology Pt 4: Peer Pressure”
Blog Psychology Pt 3: The Mere Ownership Effect and the Endowment Effect
I love that name, don’t you? It makes it sound like it’s so insignificant–mere ownership, you know. I merely own this car, I merely own that book. But no. What the psychologists are getting at here is that the mere act of owning something appears to change people’s opinions towards whatever it is that theyContinue reading “Blog Psychology Pt 3: The Mere Ownership Effect and the Endowment Effect”
Zoopolis 