The abstract concept of importance is grounded in bodily experiences of weight.
What?
It turns out the weight of objects we interact with everyday actually affects how important we think that object might be. For example, let’s say you have two un-marked boxes with different objects hidden inside each box. One box weights 20 pounds, and other other box weights just 5 pounds, and you have to decide which box contains “more important” stuff. Naturally, you would probably think the heavier box is more important, but why?
Jostmann reasons that the link between weight and importance is rooted in our early childhood experiences, when we rapidly learn that heavy objects require more effort to deal with, not just in terms of strength but planning too. Our brain relies on these concrete physical experiences when it represents more abstract concepts, like importance. The two are then joined, so that physical experiences can affect abstract thought.
Have you ever smelled something, and been reminded of a person you knew or an event that happened years (even decades) ago? The same concept holds true here. Your brain has been associating heavier objects with “being important” for your entire life, whether you’re aware of it or not. This means as an adult, you might be subconsciously giving certain things preferential treatment based solely on the weight of that object.
A research team found that they could alter people’s judgement of importance just by getting them to answer questions using a heavier clipboard. In a series of short elegant experiments, a research team led by psychologist Nils Jostmann found that people holding a heavy clipboard would, for example, value foreign currencies more highly than those using a lighter clipboard.
What they are showing here is that, even though foreign money was the primary focus of this experiment, the clipboards were actually responsible for influencing their thoughts about the importance of foreign currency. Basically, the weight of a clipboard (object B) will change how they feel about about foreign money (object A).
Some people think apologizing is a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s the weak and the scared who are too insecure to apologize.
Did you know doctors who are willing to apologize to their patients for their mistakes are sued for malpractice about half as much as doctors who aren’t willing to apologize. And after the massacres in Rwanda, these murderers stood up and said “I’m sorry for killing your entire family”. And most of the time, simply saying “I’m sorry” was enough. That’s the power of an apology.
Arrogance, and the mindset of thinking you’re always right and you have nothing to apologize for is a dangerous place to be. An apology isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of respect and maturity, even among the most arrogant people in this world.
The same holds true for countries, not just people. No nation in the history of Earth has been perfect, not even America. But some Americans believe that apologizing for our history will make the USA look weak to the rest of the world, when really it only makes America look weak to THEM, because they’re scared.
“President X can apologize for himself, but don’t apologize for me or for America because I have nothing to be sorry for”. But you’re part of this country too, just like I am and just like President X is. While you and I weren’t personally involved in slavery or killing the Indians or putting Japanese-Americans into internment camps, it’s a part of our history because it’s a part of American’s history. We might have rationalized doing these things out of fear, but fear is not a valid excuse for refusing to apologize.
Apologies can do great things and they can enable great things. And if you don’t believe I have three words for you: Make-up sex
-Bill Maher
The way you think about and handle your emotions, specifically fear, says a lot about how you perceive time.
People with an angrier temperament are more likely to think of themselves as moving through time, than to think of time as moving towards them.
So what’s the difference. Think of it this way, pretend you have a meeting at work on Wednesday. Your boss calls you and says we’re moving the meeting forward 2 days, what day is the meeting happening on now? If you said Friday, you probably think of yourself as moving through time, if you said Monday, you think of time moving towards you.
62 student were given a version of [the work-meeting question] but they made it so the re-arranged event was either anger-provoking or neutral. On average, more students presented with the angry version said the event had been moved to Friday (as if they themselves were moving through time) than students presented with the neutral version. Moreover, the angry-version students were more likely (than the neutral students) to say that they felt as though they were approaching the event, rather than that the event was approaching them. In other words, it seems that angry thoughts can change the way we think about time.
Maybe the reverse is also true. Angry thoughts might shape the way we perceive time, but maybe our natural perception of time has a role in shaping how angry we are (or aren’t). Power and control also come into play. People who always feel the need to be in control of everything probably perceive themselves as moving through time, that way they’re in control. And yes, I do think as a result of this lifestyle, controlling people tend to be more angry.
Be careful to not be caught up bettering your own life, thinking you’re young and this is your chance to become the next best thing, and missing out on everything going on around you. Opportunities arise sometimes in not just bettering your life, but making part of your life understanding and bettering the lives of others.
Talk to people and understand industries you are not familiar with, maybe stuff you have never thought of being interested in could turn out to be an amazing untapped opportunity.
Why wait to be dragged out of the world you’ve put yourself into? There is absolutely no excuse for being too young and too busy to step out of your world to see opportunities to be rewarded outside of self achievement.
Stop narrowing your entire world to chasing your ideas and monetization plans, and observe the world outside of your own. Learn about the way some things are, help other people in even the smallest of ways be able to live in the first place, and you will quite possibly find the reward you’ve always wanted, maybe in a different form or context, but equally fulfilling.
Okay so it might not be painful being a redhead, but it does probably mean your body is more resistant to pain medications than people with other colors of hair.
A growing body of research shows that people with red hair need larger doses of anesthesia and often are resistant to local pain blockers like Novocaine. As a result, redheads tend to be particularly nervous about dental procedures and are twice as likely to avoid going to the dentist as people with other hair colors. Researchers believe redheads are more sensitive to pain because of a mutation in a gene that affects hair color.
That’s right. A simple gene mutation that is responsible for giving you red hair and (probably) freckles is also responsible for your body’s resistance to pain killers. Maybe “resistance” isn’t quite the right word, but redheads are more resistant to pain medication than the rest of us.
The MC1R gene belongs to a family of receptors that include pain receptors in the brain, and as a result, a mutation in the gene appears to influence the body’s sensitivity to pain. Red heads needed, on average, about 20 percent more general anesthesia than people with dark hair or blond coloring. Redheads are also more resistant to the effects of local anesthesia, such as the numbing drugs used by dentists. The study found this gene mutation in 65 of 67 redheads.
As a result, redheads are twice as likely to avoid going to the dentist or the doctor because of the pain that will result from that visit.
