Showing posts with label social psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social psychology. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Time Paradox The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd
The Time Paradox The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd
This book is about changing your perspective on time. It focuses on different views of the past, present, and future. The basic views discussed are Past-negative, Past-positive, Present-fatalistic, Present-hedonistic, Future, and Transcendental future. This is an organization schema which I find interesting, but a bit contrived.
The authors claim that having an overly present view of time can lead to hedonism and low impulse control, having a negative view of the past can create depression and stress, having an overly future orientation can limit your enjoyment of the present. Their goal is to help a person have a more balanced view of time. They claim that time is your most valuable asset because it cannot be recovered.
I liked the idea of a Transcendental future viewpoint, a view that there is more to this world than our current life time, either in the religious or philosophical sense leads to greater happiness. People who believe in god, religion, or have a clear positive philosophy tend to live better lives. This includes ideas like environmentalism, ethics, and a world view embracing hope.
This book does not tell you how to manage your time. It helps you think about and unveil what your own viewpoints on time are. The authors give several questionnaires and exercises to make you think about planning for the future, how you see your place in time, creating goals, and have an inventory on time to complete; the ZPTI (Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory).
This book is written for a general audience. It is a popular psychology title. There is an extensive bibliography and index. I enjoyed reading it. There was quite a bit to think about.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive-- Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini-- Review
Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive-- Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin, and Robert B. Cialdini-- Review
This short book is a collection of 50 techniques to be persuasive. Each technique is covered in about four pages of text and backed by citations from social psychology and consumer behavior studies in the back of book. In addition there is an appendix with testimonials from companies and people who have used the techniques effectively. Many of the suggested techniques appear counterintuitive.
My reason for reading this book is not to become more persuasive but to protect myself from consumerism. Understanding persuasion techniques and manipulative consumer advertising techniques ensures that you will buy less junk that you don't need and be able to make more informed purchases. It also increases the likelihood that you will not go into debt.
Some of the short entries were quite entertaining. One of my favorites was that you are more likely to be in a particular profession if your name sounds like the profession. If you are named Dennis you are more likely to become a dentist. I thought this was fairly ridiculous. Also you are more likely to move to a city or state that sounds like your name. If your name is Florence you might move to Florida.
There are many persuasion techniques described, groupthink, smiling, variety of products, giving small favors, labeling, and creating committments are just a few of them. Not all of them are intuitive. There is the example of offering jam as a sample in a supermarket. If you offer only a few varieties of jam, three or four, people are more likely to taste the jam than if you offer ten or twenty varieties.
Most of the persuasion techniques are fairly pedestrian and predictable. Offering mints as part of your bill instead of in a basket at the cash register increases tips, if you smile and are genuine you are likely to be rated as doing a better job of customer service, and if you start a bid low on ebay you are more likely to get more bids and a higher price on ebay.
The writing is rather flat and predictable. I would not call the editing job in this book to be wonderful. However, the writing is very clear and understandable. The book is not writing to entertain, it is writing to inform people about how to be more influential. It does a good job of being informative.
It also appears to be accurate and properly cited with reputable academic journal citations from periodicals with sound backgrounds; Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, and similar academic and professional publications. There is also an index at the back of the book.
Well worth reading if you want to be persuasive or protect yourself from being persuaded.
This short book is a collection of 50 techniques to be persuasive. Each technique is covered in about four pages of text and backed by citations from social psychology and consumer behavior studies in the back of book. In addition there is an appendix with testimonials from companies and people who have used the techniques effectively. Many of the suggested techniques appear counterintuitive.
My reason for reading this book is not to become more persuasive but to protect myself from consumerism. Understanding persuasion techniques and manipulative consumer advertising techniques ensures that you will buy less junk that you don't need and be able to make more informed purchases. It also increases the likelihood that you will not go into debt.
Some of the short entries were quite entertaining. One of my favorites was that you are more likely to be in a particular profession if your name sounds like the profession. If you are named Dennis you are more likely to become a dentist. I thought this was fairly ridiculous. Also you are more likely to move to a city or state that sounds like your name. If your name is Florence you might move to Florida.
There are many persuasion techniques described, groupthink, smiling, variety of products, giving small favors, labeling, and creating committments are just a few of them. Not all of them are intuitive. There is the example of offering jam as a sample in a supermarket. If you offer only a few varieties of jam, three or four, people are more likely to taste the jam than if you offer ten or twenty varieties.
Most of the persuasion techniques are fairly pedestrian and predictable. Offering mints as part of your bill instead of in a basket at the cash register increases tips, if you smile and are genuine you are likely to be rated as doing a better job of customer service, and if you start a bid low on ebay you are more likely to get more bids and a higher price on ebay.
The writing is rather flat and predictable. I would not call the editing job in this book to be wonderful. However, the writing is very clear and understandable. The book is not writing to entertain, it is writing to inform people about how to be more influential. It does a good job of being informative.
It also appears to be accurate and properly cited with reputable academic journal citations from periodicals with sound backgrounds; Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, and similar academic and professional publications. There is also an index at the back of the book.
Well worth reading if you want to be persuasive or protect yourself from being persuaded.
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