Most of the books I read about will power,habits and other useful topics that involves how our mind works keep pointing to few specific experiments so I thought I will share 4 of them
1. Don't think about a white bear
Daniel Wegner and his fellow researchers told people not to think about white bear. Yes - a white bear. Did you think about a white bear now?
Ironic Process Theory as it is called is a way to induce a thought . Your mind has to first think and visualize what it should not think and you end up thinking about it.
It is like I am trying to pick up trash. You are either picking up thrash or not picking up thrash. Trying is our way of saying I am in the process of picking up - that means you are picking up and thus not doing the act of not picking up.
Sounds complex. What else did you think it should be? These people do research for ages and you think it is easy to understand their study?
Now don't think about pink elephant and do support breast cancer awareness.
2. Stale Popcorn study -
Large portions push people to overeat -- even to overeat foods they don't like.
This famous experiment proves that the container matters!
These movie goers were served stale popcorn and both medium and large containers with 5 days old popcorn were eaten by the participants without their knowledge (and it didn't matter which movie either - started with payback and they have tried this with lots of movies and in different cities - the results are always the same)
Next time in a movie theater if any one offers free popcorn be aware that it might be a case study!!
Read about this at -
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/11/big-portions-influence-overeating-much-taste-even-when-food-tastes-lousy-cornell
3. Roy Baumeister - The Chocolate-and-Radish Experiment That Birthed the Modern Conception of Willpower
One set of Participants were given freshly baked cookies and the other set was asked to just smell them and eat Radish. After this there were given hard unsolvable puzzles to solve and the participants who ate Radish performed poor. So Radish is bad for brain ? -no. These participants who wanted to eat and liked cookies who were also hungry were using their willpower to resist cookies and so when it came to hard puzzles after that they couldn't use these 'muscles'
His theory can be translated as - you have fixed will power for a day. When you use it for one task you don't have it for another task.
Example - Politicians who work hard and decide on hard issues and use tactics/other persuasion 'means' to meet their end have low will power at the end of the day that they end up as client 9(google for client 9 to read about Eliot Spitzer)
This details about this case study is available at
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/the-chocolate-and-radish-experiment-that-birthed-the-modern-conception-of-willpower/255544/
4. Basket ball game
Do you like basket ball?
Really?
Watch this video and make sure you count the passes between the team with white shirt only and not the black shirt.White only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
How many passes did they do? 13? 14?15?
So you counted the passes.
Were you close?
If you were close to the answer which is 15 you will be asking not be able to answer this question ' What did the Gorilla do in the video?'
Selective attentiveness is the subject of this study. When you zoom in you miss the big picture. When you zoom out you lose the details.
You count the passes and I will see the Gorilla!!! - is how one author referred to in a book called 'Now you see it"
Paying attention is a problem.
I know that is why you didn't pay attention when you were in your calculus class. Atleast did you see the Gorilla? Did I tell you about the monkey in my class when we were taught advanced calculus ?- If I did good for you , if I didn't good for you.
Now read about this study at
http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html
Keep Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
1. Don't think about a white bear
Daniel Wegner and his fellow researchers told people not to think about white bear. Yes - a white bear. Did you think about a white bear now?
Ironic Process Theory as it is called is a way to induce a thought . Your mind has to first think and visualize what it should not think and you end up thinking about it.
It is like I am trying to pick up trash. You are either picking up thrash or not picking up thrash. Trying is our way of saying I am in the process of picking up - that means you are picking up and thus not doing the act of not picking up.
Sounds complex. What else did you think it should be? These people do research for ages and you think it is easy to understand their study?
Now don't think about pink elephant and do support breast cancer awareness.
2. Stale Popcorn study -
Large portions push people to overeat -- even to overeat foods they don't like.
This famous experiment proves that the container matters!
These movie goers were served stale popcorn and both medium and large containers with 5 days old popcorn were eaten by the participants without their knowledge (and it didn't matter which movie either - started with payback and they have tried this with lots of movies and in different cities - the results are always the same)
Next time in a movie theater if any one offers free popcorn be aware that it might be a case study!!
Read about this at -
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/11/big-portions-influence-overeating-much-taste-even-when-food-tastes-lousy-cornell
3. Roy Baumeister - The Chocolate-and-Radish Experiment That Birthed the Modern Conception of Willpower
One set of Participants were given freshly baked cookies and the other set was asked to just smell them and eat Radish. After this there were given hard unsolvable puzzles to solve and the participants who ate Radish performed poor. So Radish is bad for brain ? -no. These participants who wanted to eat and liked cookies who were also hungry were using their willpower to resist cookies and so when it came to hard puzzles after that they couldn't use these 'muscles'
His theory can be translated as - you have fixed will power for a day. When you use it for one task you don't have it for another task.
Example - Politicians who work hard and decide on hard issues and use tactics/other persuasion 'means' to meet their end have low will power at the end of the day that they end up as client 9(google for client 9 to read about Eliot Spitzer)
This details about this case study is available at
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/the-chocolate-and-radish-experiment-that-birthed-the-modern-conception-of-willpower/255544/
4. Basket ball game
Do you like basket ball?
Really?
Watch this video and make sure you count the passes between the team with white shirt only and not the black shirt.White only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
How many passes did they do? 13? 14?15?
So you counted the passes.
Were you close?
If you were close to the answer which is 15 you will be asking not be able to answer this question ' What did the Gorilla do in the video?'
Selective attentiveness is the subject of this study. When you zoom in you miss the big picture. When you zoom out you lose the details.
You count the passes and I will see the Gorilla!!! - is how one author referred to in a book called 'Now you see it"
Paying attention is a problem.
I know that is why you didn't pay attention when you were in your calculus class. Atleast did you see the Gorilla? Did I tell you about the monkey in my class when we were taught advanced calculus ?- If I did good for you , if I didn't good for you.
Now read about this study at
http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html
Keep Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran
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