Why waiting is torture

The article I found, titled Why Waiting is Torture, discussed the distress people endure while simply waiting in a line. The author referred to many ways in which companies handle this. They deploy strategies to soften wait times like providing time estimations and informing customers of delays. Stores often place impulse buys around lines in order to get customers to pick them up to relieve the stress of waiting. Some companies like Disney over-estimate wait times in order to please their guests.

What makes line-waiting unpleasant according to the article is the boredom, stress and the sensation of life slipping away. I have found personally that when I am forced into an idle state I get annoyed. The annoyance can be dispersed; I found those psychological techniques to be interesting.

Why waiting is torture NYTimes.com

Charlie Brown and the Theory of Personality

There are those who say there is nothing to be learned in the comics section of the newspaper.

We don't talk about these people.

To everyone else - yes, of course the comics can teach us, but did you know they can teach us aboutpersonality psychology?

It's true. Rather than actually proving this in any kind of systematic, empirical, or scientific fashion, I will instead propose the Charlie Brown Theory of Personality - which quite closely mirrors the Five Factor Model. Developed and tested by such personality luminaries as Digman, Goldberg, Costa, and McCrae, the Five Factor Model has, curiously, fourteen factors. No, wait - it actually has five. (sorry).

This model reduces all of the different possible personality variables into five broad factors:neuroticism (now more politely called emotional stability), extraversion, openness to experience (sometimes just called openness), conscientiousness, and agreeableness. These factors are sometimes called the "Big Five," kind of like the Five Families in The Godfather but with more data and fewer button men. The names of these factors convey their meaning. Neuroticism measures an individual's emotional stability (or lack thereof). Extraversion is how outgoing and sociable someone is, whereas openness to experience conveys someone's intellectual and experiential curiosity. Conscientiousness taps into one's discipline, rule-orientation, and integrity, and agreeableness is friendliness and being good-natured.

The Charlie Brown Theory of Personality.
Charlie Brown = Neuroticism

Charlie Brown is a model neurotic. He is prone to depression and anxiety and paralyzing fits of over-analysis. Constantly worrying if he is liked or respected, he has a perpetual, usually dormant crush on the little redheaded girl, taking small joys in her foibles (like biting her pencil) that may make her more attainable. He is noted for his inability to fly a kite.



Snoopy = Extraversion

Snoopy is a typical extravert. Flamboyant, daring, and outgoing to a fault, he tries to join in every activity and conversation. He (perhaps fictitiously) flies gallant missions against the Red Baron and then brags about his exploits. For reasons potentially stemming from his long-ago abandonment of his mother, he aggressively pursues friendship and food (not in that order). Snoopy is Joe Cool, the life of the party.




Lucy = (Dis)agreeableness

Defined by a single word (crabby), Lucy revels in her disagreeableness. Typical portrayals of Lucy feature her bossing around her friends, dominating her little brother, mocking Charlie Brown's self consciousness, and generally being a pain in the ass. Her attempts at psychiatry generally involve misguided advice delivered loudly and angrily. One recurring interaction is Lucy pretending to hold a football out for Charlie Brown to kick, and then pulling it out at the last minute. Brown goes thump and Lucy preens.


Linus = Openness to experience

Linus is clearly the brightest of all of the Peanuts gang. Witty and knowledgeable, he is prone to passionate monologues. He has invented his own creation, the Great Pumpkin, and faithfully waits in the pumpkin patches for him every Halloween. Linus has his own idiosyncrasy, an ever-present blue security blanket - but he does not seem particularly sensitive about it; it's who he is. Too young to active try new things, he must instead use his intellect to mull over new and interesting ideas.



Schroeder = Conscientiousness

Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy, and even Lucy are fairly well-developed characters. Schroeder is equally (perhaps more) lovable, but most casual readers know him for one thing: his piano playing. Yes, Lucy has a crush on him, but that's about her - he will have none of it. He is always practicing. Disciplined and focused on his passion for classical music, one can imagine him setting his alarm clock for seven a.m. on weekends to try Autumn Sonata one more time. His one other preferred activity is playing catcher for the baseball team - again, the sturdy, reliable director of the action on the field. Schroeder would offer to help you move and show up ten minutes early.
I have always loved comic strips. When I was a kid, I wrote to all the greats and asked for artwork. I was amazed at who wrote back - legends such as Dik Browne (Hagar the Horrible), Bil Keane (Family Circus), Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace), Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey), Johnny Hart (B.C.), Brant Parker (Wizard of ID). Then-recent favorites like Bill Amend (Fox Trot), Greg Evans (Luann), Bill Holbrook (On the Fastrack), Tom Batiuk (Funky Winkerbean). I got to interview the lovely Brad Anderson (Marmaduke) in person. My sole professional contribution to the field of comics lies in my role as narrator of the Chris Brandt-directed documentary Independents (highly recommended, although I admit I'mbiased). Independents is more focused on graphic novels, my current comics interest. But I will always have a soft spot for the old fashioned funnies.
So it was my civic duty to write this post. The next time you're at a cocktail party (or rave, or whatever you young whippersnappers do these days) and someone start insults the daily comics, you have some new ammo. They're not just (sort of) funny - they're educational.

--

This article was written by Psychology Professor James C. Kaufman of California State University. This article and more information about him can be found here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/and-all-jazz/201003/the-charlie-brown-theory-personality

Why You Buy

I found this article explaining the behavior of consumers and the influences that may affect their decision. It is interesting to see how many factors affect consumer decisions. How designers play the role of persuasion, whether it is the shape of the packaging, material, weight, or color, everything is designed to draw the consumer to the product. Furthermore, it is even more interesting that the consumer are not conscious of the details, yet are more attracted to a well-designed product.

              

The article describes consumers who are not conscious of the minute decisions by the designers of the product. Even if the product is superior to the other, consumers have come to draw more attention to the design aspect of the packaging. The article points out a few factors that may influence the decision of the consumer. The article compares warm colors to cool colors, packaging material, graphic composition, product weight, and the geometry of the packaging. As this article points out, our conscious decisions are not all that conscious after all.  

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201212/why-you-buy

 

Psychology Perspectives

There are various different approaches in contemporary psychology.

An approach is a perspective (i.e. view) that involves certain assumptions (i.e. beliefs) about human behavior: the way they function, which aspects of them are worthy of study and what research methods are appropriate for undertaking this study. There may be several different theories within an approach, but they all share these common assumptions.

You may wonder why there are so many different psychology perspectives and whether one approach is correct and others wrong. Most psychologists would agree that no one perspective is correct, although in the past, in the early days of psychology, the behaviorist would have said their perspective was the only truly scientific one.

  

Each perspective has its strengths and weaknesses, and brings something different to our understanding of human behavior. For this reasons, it is important that psychology does have different perspectives to the understanding and study of human and animal behavior

For more on this article click here

Learning in your sleep: New facts about the brain

For a long time, scientists thought that the brain becomes passive and takes a break when it goes to sleep. However, they found out that the brain is still eager when asleep and can learn new things. Neuroscientist Anat Arzi who studies the sense of smell otherwise known as olfaction participated in this research. Arzi and his co-researchers did not try to teach the volunteers complex words or facts however, taught the volunteers the relationship of smell and sound togeher.
Since our sense of smell does not turn off as well, Arzi and his researchers took a repulsive smell and a very nice sweet smell. Everytime they would let the volunteer asleep smell these smells back and forth, the researchers played a particular note followed by that particular smell. This was repeated four times. Even when the smell after four times was abscent, the volunteers took a deep breath when the "good smell" note was played and held their breath when the "bad smell" note was played. This was also true even when the volunteers woke up which meant the volunteers learned by their sense of smell and the sense of sound.
Without knowing that the brain could learn something new by sound and smell, from reading the article, I thought that it was saying that we learn something new from the dreams we have at first. Then, when I learned it was from sound and smell I thought it was very interesting however I did not know where it would be helpful to use and apply since we dont necessarily connect with sound and smell when we are awake normally. I also began to think if this would work with animals' brains as well. I also wanted to learn which state brain becomes the most active in for example if it is during REM sleep period while conducting this experiment.

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/2012/09/sleeping-people-can-be-taught-to-make-connections-between-sounds-and-smells/

Why We Dream

The Article I chose to read gives a new theory as to why humans dream. Researchers did a very interesting test, where they figured out how to keep rats from dreaming, and then placed them into a field to see if the rats acted as they normally would; the rats did acted very differently. From the test, the scientists realized that the rats lost their ability to protect themselves. The scientists then gave the rats amphetamines. If the rats were acting differently just because of sleep deprivation, then the amphetamines would have made them act normally again. But the rats behavior didn't change. This caused the scientists to believe that dreams are like mini training sessions. Dreams allow us to practice behaviors that we may need in our waking life.

I thinks this theory is really interesting, but I don't know if I can necessarily believe it. I have always been fascinated by dreams, and whenever I remember any of my dreams I always make sure to look up the meaning of certain symbols within the dream. Of course there is no science to reading symbols in dreams. I am aware that when I am looking up the meaning of symbols,  the information I am finding is more someones guess than a fact. But I can't help but look back on the dreams that I actually do remember. I have reoccurring dreams about loosing teeth and not being in control of the car I am driving. Majority of the people writing about dreams have agreed that if you are dreaming about not being able to control a car that you are driving, it means you feel out of control of something in your waking life. Having these dreams does not help me control my car better when I am actually driving it. I have always felt like I was a safe and controlled driver. In my dreams I never get control of the car either, I usually wake up right before I am about to crash into something. So I don't think this dream is teaching me to take control of my life either.

Overall, this article was very interesting and definitely made some interesting points about dreaming.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/17Rms4/www.psychologytoday.com/collections/201201/why-we-dream/night-school/

Does a human sense of fairness exist in chimps?

In all societies around the world, it has been proven that humans have an understanding of fairness. The concept of sharing has been studied among all types of people and it has been found that a sense of justice exists and is realized (though not always acted upon) by our species. The article "Do Chimps Have a Fair Sense of Play? Study Adds to Evolutionary Debate"explores the potential of chimps sharing or expecting to be shared with when put in an unfair situation. 

The behavior of chimpanzees was studied and compared to that of children. The researchers aimed to learn if a sense of fairness developed before the species began to evolve differently millions of years ago. Even though this study concluded that the results of human children and chimps were very similar, proving that an identical sense of fairness exists in both species, it contradicts several studies done in the past. 

The experiment consisted of having two chimps (or children) split up a reward. In the chimp case, the researcher gave one chimp six slices of a banana but asked it to share with a partner. Then it was recorded if the chimp actually shared, how much it shared and how the other chimp reacted. 

The controversy revolving around the experiment consists of the lack of proof that the chimps understood all the rules and their possible options. For instance, the partner always accepted the split whether it was fair or unfair. This can be understood as the chimp settling for whatever was being offered without fairness being considered. 

In my opinion, this is a very intriguing study and certainly an excellent start. However, perhaps the experiment should be expanded to study more situations involving fairness. The nature of the chimps may be quite different from that of humans and that must be taken into account. It is difficult to communicate all of the rules to the chimps and make them understand all of their options. If more mini-experiments were added to this one, the final conclusion would probably be more agreed-upon. 

Read the full article here