I love understanding people.
I’ve had it in my head since early on that we’re all pretty much the same. I don’t believe that people are different. So in understanding how others think and behave, I understand more of how my own mind functions.
Here’s some interesting things that came up today:
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“Why everyone (else) is a hypocrite” by Robert Kruzan. I haven’t read it yet but it’s supposed to deal with the idea that there are many sides of ourself that are always operating at all times. It’s why we have contradicting desires. It’s why people will want something they know is bad for them. It’s two different people in there, one who thinks it’s good and one who thinks it’s bad. Actually, there are a whole lot of people in your brain, all wanting different things.
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“First Steps Toward a History of Reading,” by Robert Darnton. The switch from “intensive” reading to “extensive” reading. Before the printing press, humans read “intensively”. There were very few books which meant that if you read it once, you likely wouldn’t get the chance to read the book again. So you had to read it intensively and fully comprehend and remember it the first time around. Now we read “extensively” with light focus and most times only reading a book once.
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The Anchoring Effect. You place an anchor based on some information. Afterwards you make a decision based on that anchor, even if it was flawed to begin with.
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Having something be free can make you take or get something you don’t actually want. Like free tattoos. Easy way to fix this; ask yourself if you’d take it if it was cheap, like say RM 1.
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When you’re anonymous in a crowd, it can make you turn cruel. Hive mind mentality.
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We have a limited supply of self-control! I was surprised by this. Apparently this is why you might blow up at friends or family after a stressful day at work. You’ve already exhausted your self-control on your boss.
Anyway, that’s just what I got after a few hours of trolling lifehacker. What!? You don’t know lifehacker? You gotta check it out.
I mean, how can you not want to read about human behaviour when you can learn such things as “you can’t control your emotions”?
You Can’t Control Your Emotions
It sounds so logical, so common sense. But I’ve met so many people who feel guilty because their emotions are not what they would like. Or maybe they feel it’s not what society would think is acceptable. What your emotions are and how you feel are extremely hard to manipulate. It’s only your reactions that you can really control.
So I firmly believe that you can’t blame someone for how they feel. You can only blame them for how they act. After all, even if you can’t control how you feel, you can definitely control what you do about it.