Hi, I’m Dan Pouliot. You may remember me from such tweets as, “It was just a joke” and such personalized DMs as, “Hello. How are you?” Hey #WritingCommunity lurker. Do you want more followers? If you answered yes to any of these questions, do I have an opportunity for you? Hang on. (clears throat) Do… Continue reading #WritingCommunityOnlineMeetup Moderator’s Guide
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The Culpability of the No-Confidence Vote
Righteous smugness is such a nice feeling. No seriously. Who hasn’t enjoyed that feeling when witnessing someone else’s seeming incompetence? When your order gets botched, how eager are you to disparage the first customer service rep. who gets to handle your issue? But those feelings end up biting us back.
Are You Starting to See a Pattern?
Mirror neurons in the brain fire both when taking a specified action and perceiving the action. Repeatedly watching distressing images can cause acute stress symptoms.
Backwards Thinking
Once I’m happy, then I’ll be grateful is backwards thinking.
Expectations of Food, Excercise and Beneficial Effects
Dean Radin discusses his recent double-blind study of serving tea “treated” with good intentions. Radin: The bottom line is that if you believe/expect that you are consuming a specially treated substance, that belief alone will strongly influence your mood. But if the substance is also intentionally “treated,” then it will influence you even more. And… Continue reading Expectations of Food, Excercise and Beneficial Effects
Suppressing Immune Systems With Sweets
This is not a story about the evils of sweets— in this story sweets is an innocent pawn… Robert Ader is a psychologist who stumbled upon an amazing discovery in the 1970s while studying taste aversion along with Nicholas Cohen. They wanted to see if by making rats nauseous every time they were fed something… Continue reading Suppressing Immune Systems With Sweets