The genius is on the left, the lunatic is on the right

Chapter 8 Nine Wonderful Events That Make You Scream

"Inconsistency" is considered to be one of the "bad deeds" that reduce a person's personality charm. However, many people don't know that "inconsistency" is the normal state of life for 99% of people. Sometimes, Our brains can deceive ourselves, let alone deceive others by saying things that don't match our hearts?

So how much do we know about ourselves, and to what extent do what we usually see and behave in conform to that "self"?

This world is very mysterious. When something is presented in front of you with the truth, it may make you "scream".Get ready, let's go and see some strange and chaotic human psychology and behavior!
NO.1: The biggest liar - time

If you don't have a watch, a clock, or a mobile phone... nothing that can tell the time, and just rely on your senses and physiological reactions to judge the passage of time, how much error do you think your judgment can make?

In 1962, a geologist named Michel Severy answered the above questions with his own "painful" experience in an experiment.

In addition to being a geologist, Michel is also a cave explorer. Those dark caves buried deep in dense forests or under rock formations have infinite fascination for him.That year, he went to a cave 375 feet underground to track the movement of glaciers in underground ice caves.

Michel's plan was to record in the cave for a period of two months, but he felt that such an opportunity was rare and more research should be done, so he designed a unique experiment of time psychology for himself.Michelle didn't bring any time-displaying instrument into the cave, but forced himself to work and rest based on physiological laws, while judging the passage of time.

In the deep cave, Michelle only has a small tent, necessary daily necessities, and the only telephone to communicate with the outside world.Whenever he was going to sleep and when he woke up, he would make a phone call to the outside team, and his colleagues would record the discrepancy between Michelle's self-perceived time and the real time.

For 60 days, Michelle has been in a dark environment. As time goes by, his contact with the outside world has become more frequent, and his perception of time has also been seriously distorted.For example, he called the outside world twice within a period of more than four hours, but he said with certainty that he only called the outside world an hour ago.When the experiment was over and his colleagues picked him up from the cave, he thought that his colleagues had disrupted his plan because the experiment was ended early. He felt that he only stayed in the cave for 34 days.

Michelle has proved by his own experience that the visual response to external light can help us maintain the normal operation of our biological clock.But if we shine light on our eyes, the brain can be "fooled" to speed up or slow down the operation of our biological clock.

NO.2: Lucky people are always lucky

The "Matthew Effect" is a classic effect of social psychology, which proves to us the truth that the strong will always be strong and the weak will become weaker.If a person is successful, all kinds of good things will happen to him.Similarly, if a person is very bad, he will encounter all kinds of bad things.

This effect can also be understood in this way. Those lucky people are like good friends of the god of luck. They are always favored. They will always appear in the right place at the right time.But unlucky people are just the opposite. Things like "drinking cold water can clog your teeth" always happen frequently.

In order to verify whether lucky people are really lucky, or have always been lucky, a psychologist in the United States did a small experiment.

He gathered 50 subjects and asked them to self-evaluate whether they belonged to the category favored by the god of luck or the category that was often unlucky in life.Then he distributed a newspaper to everyone and asked everyone to read it carefully and tell him how many photos appeared in it.

In fact, the main tester hid a "mystery" in the newspaper.In the middle of the second edition, he posted this sentence in large font: "If you see this line, please tell the staff, and you can receive a hundred dollars as a reward."

After the experiment, the main experimenter discovered an interesting phenomenon.Those subjects who claimed that they were often favored by the god of luck were favored again. They almost all found this line, and then happily went to the staff to accept the award.But those who reported that they were often unlucky, most of them did not see this line. They have been seriously and intently buried in the newspaper counting photos.

This psychologist believes that a person's luck or misfortune is not determined and arranged by God in the sky. In fact, a person's luck is determined by his behavior and thoughts.Lucky people are usually optimistic, positive and energetic. This mentality makes their fear of the unknown lower than the threshold, so it is easier to accept new challenges and seize new opportunities.

Those who are less fortunate, on the other hand, are mostly withdrawn and less responsive.Their emotional focus is more focused on themselves, so they are afraid of uncomfortable changes around them.For them, "unknown" is the greatest fear and anxiety. When they are in fear, they will pass by the great opportunities.

NO.3: Children's lies
"He is still a child, how could he lie?" Do lines like this seem familiar?In the movie "Hunting", because of a lie uttered by a four-year-old child casually, her kindergarten teacher was accused of being a super pervert who sexually abused children. The children in school all stood up and testified. They vividly described how their teacher violated them. Some told what the basement of the teacher's house looked like, and some even told the teacher's reproductive organs!
Although after investigation, the teacher was cleared of the suspicion of sexually abusing children, but in such a small town with a small population, once a certain idea invaded people's minds, it was difficult to adjust it. Human words almost drove him to death.

The ridiculous thing is that we usually think that children are the purest in their hearts and will not lie at all. Who would have thought that dozens of children would come to respond to a child's big lie. Their lies are ridiculous and full of imagination force.When they lie like this, they don't mean to be harmful, but they accidentally cause someone serious harm.

In order to explore children's lying behavior, many psychologists have done various experiments.Here is a well-known experiment in the industry.

The researcher recruited children of different ages to participate in the experiment. The whole experimental process was like this. He first brought a child into a small room, and then told the child that he had something to go out for 5 minutes now, and put it behind the child. A fun toy, but he asked the child not to turn around and look at the toy.If the child can wait here obediently for 5 minutes, the toy will be rewarded to the child.

The researchers left, and hidden cameras in the small room recorded the child's every move. Five minutes later, the researchers returned to the room and asked the child if they had turned to look at the toy.

The results of the experiment were that at the age of three, 80 percent of the children looked back at the toy, and about half of them denied this behavior and lied to the researchers.

By the age of five, all the children looked back at the toy, but all the children lied to the researchers and denied that they had looked at the toy.

This result clearly and unequivocally shows that lying is an innate ability!From the moment we learn to speak, we have learned to lie.The researchers conducted a further analysis on this. We usually think that "children don't lie because they are pure-hearted." Right and wrong, there is no independent judgment method from the individual in their minds. That is to say, the growth of children first comes from the education of their parents, and then they gradually accumulate experience from life, and they have their own judgment methods and methods. Judgment.

Since this is the case, children are actually more likely to lie.For example, in the experiment, children were asked not to turn to look at the toy, but their innocence and curiosity overcame their self-control, and they eagerly wanted to know what the toy was.However, when the researchers questioned them, they realized that if they admitted that they had seen it, they would not get the toy.Thus, the desire for toys motivates them to tell lies.In this series of behaviors, they don't have so much thinking space to consider whether it is wrong for them to lie. Their pure hearts only stay on the toys.

There is another result of this experiment that is also surprising. When the researchers let the parents of these children watch the video interviewing the children (the content of the experiment was not informed in advance), they were unable to distinguish the truth from the falsehood of the child's denial of peeking at the toy.That is to say, these people who think that they are no longer innocent, have experienced social baptism, and have experienced wind and rain, when they face their children, they can't judge what the child is saying from the child's expression and language. Is it true or false? Does this mean that innocent children are the real master liars?

NO.4: Adult lies
After telling children's lies, we should move on to discussing adult lies.If the previous theory is true, and we have learned to lie since we learned to speak, then by the time we reach adulthood, we should have already mastered the art of lying.

There is a study like this. The researchers selected different subjects and asked them to record in detail what they said every day for two weeks, and indicate whether it was the truth or a lie.The results showed that a third of most people's daily conversations took the form of deceit, and at least two of those were major lies.And 80% of the lies in the conversations that continue every day have not been exposed.We all know that when a lie is spoken, thousands of subsequent lies are needed to complete the lie.This may be the reason why the lies are piling up.

Moreover, behind these lies, there is no major thing. Among the people who participated in the survey, more than 80% of them would lie when they were looking for a job interview, because they thought that the interviewer did not like job applicants to confess their previous experiences. .It can be seen that most people are familiar with lies.

Here, the researcher introduces the concept of "self-monitoring ability". He believes that those who have strong self-monitoring ability tend to let the person facing themselves see themselves drawing a circle.In contrast, those with low self-monitoring skills tended to let themselves see that they were drawing a circle.

How should this concept be understood?

People with strong self-monitoring ability tend to behave according to their planned state, and their behavior tends to make others think what kind of person they are.This is like when a person visits a strange client and hopes that the other person will have a good first impression of him, he will try his best to play a gentle, generous, and enthusiastic role.The purpose is to let the other party see him like this.

As for people with weak self-monitoring ability, they don't strictly demand how they must behave, so the person they are is often just for themselves.

When we use "self-monitoring ability" to explain people's lying behavior, we can know that people with strong self-monitoring ability are obviously more likely to become master liars, while people with weaker self-monitoring ability seem to use lying to cover up their consciousness poor.

NO.5: It's a small world
The "Small World Phenomenon" was first proposed by a Hungarian writer in 1929. He believed that any two people on the earth can be connected by a network of six people on average.

In the 60s, Harvard University psychologist Stanley Milgram designed a chain letter experiment based on this theory.

He randomly selected 300 residents living in Omaha and sent them a letter with the same content. In the letter, Stanley expressed the hope that the recipient could help him and sent the letter to a real estate agent living in Boston. , and he described some characteristics of the real estate agent (in fact, the recipient is fictitious).

Stanley made a request that the 300 recipients should not send the letter directly to the real estate agent, but should forward it through relatives and friends who he thought had a good relationship and might know the real estate agent. You can ask other relatives and friends to forward the letter.

Because the target person is fictitious, it is impossible for the 300 selected subjects to know him. They must first forward the letter through their relatives and friends.Not to mention how far Omaha is from Boston, even in the same city, finding a complete stranger seems like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Three months later, Stanley collected the experimental results, which were very consistent with the theory proposed by the "small world phenomenon". Although the world is large and populated, these randomly selected subjects can contact strangers thousands of miles away. There are six "intermediaries".In this regard, he proposed the "six degrees of separation" hypothesis, which means that any two strangers in the world who want to get in touch can reach contact with at most six people apart.

This theory can explain why rumors always spread fast, why you can always hear some gossip things that have nothing to do with your life.Moreover, Stanley also found that the 300 subjects almost all spread letters through friends and familiar colleagues, customers, etc., rather than through family members.

Stanley's discovery can not only explain the interpersonal network of the whole society, but also can be applied to various fields such as power supply network and disease transmission. It can be said that he has made a lot of contributions.

NO.6: Names can also kill people?

Chinese people have been superstitious about names since ancient times, so many families, especially large ones, have genealogy, and all males are listed in it.Even if there is no genealogy, the baby born in the family may still be named by some "naming masters".When people are not going well, the first thing to investigate may not be the situation or the direction of their own efforts, but whether their name is inconsistent with their own horoscope or five elements.And some people will be accused of the name "Kefu" and "Kefu", or simply restrain themselves... When encountering such situations, the most common way people deal with it is to "rename and transfer".As for whether changing the name can really change the luck, no one seems to be delving into it.

But if you think that this kind of superstition only exists in China, you are very wrong.

In California, two psychological researchers also found some name-related problems in people's initials.

Using a computer, the researchers screened all three-letter English words and sorted them into two categories, one positive and one negative.They then retrieved all death certificates registered in California.

They then combined the two studies to analyze the age at death of those with positive initials and those with negative initials.

After all the results were screened out, they excluded factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and superstitious year of death. Finally, they found that men with more "positive" initials, such as JOY (happy), HUG (hug) ) and so on, lived an average of nearly five years longer than the average person.And those men with more "negative" initials, such as DIE (dead), PIG (pig), etc., lived an average of nearly three years less than the average person.But the data differed for women, with women with more "positive" initials living an average of three years longer than others, while women with more "negative" initials were less marked.

Why is there such a situation?

The researchers said that those with negative initials may have a low opinion of themselves because of their names, and people around them may falsify and ridicule their names, so they bear more negative emotions than those with negative initials. There are more "positive" people.And everyone knows that too many negative emotions will cause harm to the body, which is why they are "shorter-lived" than normal people.

So why is this phenomenon reflected in men, but not in women?The researchers believe that, in comparison, women do not care as much about their names as men, or that they care less about the success or failure of their roles in society than men.After women marry other women, they will follow their husband's surname. Since such a change is customary, they don't need to care so much about whether the name is "negative".

NO.7: The magic of music
Music is indeed magical, as can be seen from the ecstasy of so many well-known composers and musicians.However, the magic of music is not simply infatuating and relaxing.

In the 20s, several psychological researchers in Texas, USA conducted a series of studies specifically on music, and one of the experiments on music and marketing was quite intriguing.

They found a liquor store with a very good business in the urban area as a test site, and then designed the music played in the store in a planned way, so that half of the customers who entered the store every day heard classical music, while The other half heard pop music.During this period, the researchers will pretend to be shopping guides in the store and take turns on duty, in order to observe the behavior of the guests, as well as the choice of wine and so on.

After several weeks of observation and recording, the statistical results came out.

The music played didn't lengthen or shorten the time customers spent in the store; it didn't affect the amount of wine they bought; it didn't affect whether they read bottle labels carefully...but the different music It does affect a certain behavior of customers, that is, the price of the selected wine.

During the time when classical music was playing, the wine chosen by the customer was three times more expensive than the wine chosen by the customer during the time when the popular music was playing!
The researchers believe that the reason for this is that when people hear classical music, they will instantly have a feeling of "tallness" in their hearts, and this feeling will prompt them to buy expensive, Tasteful wines to pair with high end classical music.

When sociologist Rutgers Jimmy saw this survey, he naturally thought, does music have an important impact on people's behavior and mentality?

He found nearly 1500 country music songs from different eras for research, and found that more than 60% of the lyrics in these songs are full of negative emotions, depicting people's decadence, despair, self-defeating or blaming others.If you are often exposed to this type of music, will it have an impact on people's mind?
To answer this question, the researchers analyzed suicide rates in 49 regions across the United States, as well as the songs that were often played on the radio.When the researchers adjusted for factors such as poverty and gun ownership, there was still some link: The more negative country music played on radio stations, the higher the local suicide rate.

It is not difficult to explain why after the mysterious song "Black Sunday" came out, it caused a high suicide rate in a short period of time, so that it was banned one after another around the world.That low, gloomy and soul-torturing piece of music does have an air of despair.

NO.8: Suicide is also contagious
After talking about the magic of music, I believe everyone will have some strange curiosity about the word "suicide".The behavior of suicide obviously violates the normal laws of human existence, and ending one's own life will seem painful and unbearable to some extent.However, the effect of external forces, such as music, film and television or artificial stimulation, does make people full of the desire to "die" in an instant.

However, after excluding these reasons, there is another reason that can also trigger people's suicide desire, that is "other people's suicide".

In the novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther", it tells the story of a teenager named Werther who falls in love with a lady who has already put on an engagement ring.Due to many reasons, they couldn't really stay together forever. Werther's young heart couldn't stand such torture and waiting, and finally committed suicide by drinking a bullet.When Goethe's painstaking work was published, it quickly caused a world-class sensation.In addition to his proficient ability to control words and the precise analysis of hidden emotions in people's hearts, the most attractive thing about this book is that it set off a wave of "suicide fever".Within six months after the book was published, the suicide rate in Germany increased significantly, and most of those who chose to commit suicide imitated the suicide method of "Young Werther".This situation is named "Werther effect" by sociologists.And "The Sorrows of Young Werther", a book of considerable literary value, was also banned for a time.

In 1974, David, a professor at a university in California, wanted to find out if some suicides were reported through the media instead of novels, would it cause the modern version of the "Werther effect".

He found the suicide statistics of the registered population in the United States for more than 20 years from the early 40s to the end of the 60s. As a result, he found a very telling phenomenon. headline, then it will be followed by many suicides related to it, and the average data of this "many" is 20.

"Related" means that subsequent suicides tend to appear in a similar manner to that reported, or have similar backgrounds.As for the data of relevant events, it is closely related to the depth and breadth of media reports.

Moreover, the timing of subsequent events and reported events is very close. On average, the suicide rate in the area will increase by 30% in the two weeks after the media reports a suicide event.If the suicide is a celebrity, then this figure is even higher.

For example, after the well-known movie star Marilyn Monroe passed away, the national suicide rate rose by 12% in a period.And after Hemingway, the Nobel Prize winner, finally overwhelmed with illness and committed suicide by drinking a bomb, many celebrities who were familiar with him actually ended their lives in the same way.

Life is precious, and suicide is no joke.Once you are serious, you will never wake up again!After many researchers have published their research on "suicide is contagious", some countries have also issued corresponding guidelines, hoping that when reporting on suicide incidents, the media should try to avoid using horror, horror, or fate. Do not describe the way the client committed suicide in too much detail, it is best to be objective, plain, and concise.This may be one of the most effective ways to reduce suicide infection rates.

NO.9: Are you an honest person
Just imagine, when you are about to withdraw money in front of an ATM, you suddenly find a hundred-yuan bill coming out of the cash outlet, but you have not withdrawn the money on your card at this time (obviously, it is the extra bill due to a machine failure) ), would you put this money in your pocket, or take it and return it to the bank?

Perhaps, this question does reveal a little bit of privacy in your heart, and if you feel ashamed to admit it, don't worry too much, because you probably have the same choice as most people.

To test this question, some researchers specifically looked at the situation on the other side of the ATM's camera.It turns out that more than two-thirds of people will take the bill and continue to withdraw money as if nothing happened.And some of them seemed to be very "smart". When they turned back to the ATM again and found that a banknote would still be issued first, the expressions on their faces were ecstatic.Among them, the one who "can make money" turned back as many as [-] times.

In order to further study whether people's "dishonesty" is selective, the researchers designed other experiments.

First, they communicated with a chain of convenience stores and asked one of the researchers to act as a cashier in order to give customers more change.If the customer pays 10 yuan, the change will be given at the price of 20 yuan; if the customer paid 50 yuan, then the change will be given at the price of 100 yuan.

No.1 customer entered the store, he just bought a stick of chewing gum in a hurry, and handed the cashier 10 yuan, of course, he received more "change" than 10 yuan.According to the surveillance footage, the customer did not hesitate at all. He quickly put the money in his pocket and left the convenience store.

The second customer came in, the cashier was still confused and gave the wrong money, but the customer still didn't say anything.

The third, the fourth... For a whole morning, none of the customers who went into the convenience store to buy things reminded the cashier of the wrong money and returned the extra money.And when they leave the convenience store, most of them will have a sly smile of "taking advantage" on their faces.

In the afternoon, the researchers started the second program. The "cashier" not only had to give the wrong money, but also had to count out how much change there was in the process of finding the change.For example, when a customer gives 10 yuan to buy something worth 8 yuan, the cashier is looking for the money, saying "you give me 20, I should give you 12 yuan", and then counts it carefully and loudly This is 12 yuan.

However, the situation has not changed. All the customers silently accepted the extra money and left without any hesitation.

In the second half of the experiment, the researchers decided to strengthen the emphasis on mistakes. The cashier not only had to recite the change he found, but also pretended to be confused for a while, but asked the customer, "What did you hand me just now?" How much?"

The researchers guessed that the cashier had already asked the question and pushed the ball to the customer. Once the customer's lie was exposed, the consequences would be very unsightly. In this case, no one should lie anymore.

But the result exceeded the researchers' expectations. Although "the risk was great", only one person pointed out the cashier's mistake, and all the other customers did not tell the truth. They all took the extra change and smiled even more. sly.

In this part of the experiment, the customer usually does not immediately answer the cashier with certainty how much face value banknotes he has paid, but will tentatively ask the cashier "check it yourself" "check it in the drawer" and so on. If so, the purpose is to verify whether the cashier has a way to clearly determine how much they have paid. Once they are sure, the cashier has no way of judging, and when they are completely confused, they will take advantage of the opportunity.

This experiment easily proves that "selfishness" and "greedy" are almost the common characteristics of human beings.But the research didn't stop there. The researchers put the trick of changing the wrong change in a small self-employed shop on the street, and the change error was exactly the same as that in the convenience store chain.

This time, the results were quite different, with more than half of the customers promptly pointing out the shopkeeper's mistake and returning the extra money to the shopkeeper.

This interesting phenomenon shows that even though people are selfish and greedy, they are not without a bottom line.In most people's minds, convenience store chains belong to big companies and are very rich, so if they take advantage of them, they will not lose anything.But the small shops on the street are different. The profit or loss of the store has to be borne by the owner himself, and the small business can't make much money, so it seems unkind to take more money from others.As one of the customers said in an interview after the experiment: "I don't think it's right to 'earn' money from people who are in a similar situation to me with this kind of accident and dishonesty."

This series of experiments is completely consistent with the very important "similar psychology" in sociology.People usually have very similar psychology, such as "hatred of the rich", or sympathy for the poor to a certain extent, and so on.When people deal with problems with such a mentality, they often trigger similar behaviors, but no one makes an appointment in advance, which is just caused by the commonality of human beings.

(End of this chapter)